The Most Singular Case of Mr.JamesPhebes

The Most Singular Case of Mr. James Phebes.


"This is hardly indicative of psychiatric dysfunction, Mr. Phebes!” exclaimed Dr. Fleming, trying to sound reassuring, but none too convinced himself. What his most recent patient had just told him had hit a nerve, or to be more precise, hit him like a sledgehammer. For nearly two weeks now, Phebes had attended regular sessions with Dr. Fleming and had, since the first visit, struck Fleming as a rather singular case. It had all started fairly normally - with one or two exceptions - but Fleming soon came to realize that James Phebes was far from being a “textbook lunatic.”



Session One


At 38, Jack Fleming had been a psychiatrist for some twelve years, and business, though at first somewhat slow for an energetic, straight-out-of-Harvard postgraduate, had been steady enough to pay the bills, and even to keep up the payments on his ’67 Camaro (Viper Red, of course.) New York was not short of fruitcakes, but making a name for himself as a shrink was tough going. As the years went by, things picked up and he moved to a larger apartment where he set up practice, and one might even say that times were good.

Now, however, times were far from good, and the debts were piling up. Patients were few and far between, and Fleming was lucky to make the end of the month without going overdrawn. The Chevy, needless to say, was long gone.

A knock at the door, and with a start Jack looked up from his electric bill which, incidentally, he had spent the last twenty minutes staring blankly at. Again a knock, this time a little louder, and Jack stood up and went to the door. Peering through the peephole, he saw a man of middling height, around his own age, with shoulder-length black hair. He was shifting slightly from side to side as if apprehensive, but did not appear distressed or unstable. Jack opened the door on the chain and looked out at his visitor.

“Dr. Fleming?” enquired the man.

“The same.” replied Jack.

“I came for… therapy.”

“Practice opens at ten a.m.” replied the doctor. “And it’s only…“

“Five past.” came the retort.

Fleming glanced hurriedly at his wristwatch, uttered a slight laugh as if to say “Heh, so it is, oops!” and assented that the stranger was indeed correct. He closed the door, removed the chain and opened it again, beckoning the man to come in. Stepping inside, the man pulled his dark trench coat more tightly around him as if he were cold, but out of politeness Jack offered to take it. The visitor seemed glad of the offer, and handed over his coat.

“I hope I’m not imposing too much,” he said in a calm, well-educated voice, and glanced at the doctor’s feet with a knowing smile. Again a muffled laugh as Fleming realized he was still wearing his slippers.

“Please, take a seat, Mr…”

“Phebes,” said the man, hardly giving Fleming time to finish his sentence. “Thank you.”

As the visitor made himself comfortable in one of the malt brown leather armchairs, Jack nipped into his living quarters and slipped on some slip-ons, making the most of these few moments to compose himself and not appear quite so flustered and taken-unawares.

“Well, Mr. Phebes, I always like to start off on a relaxed note. My name's Jack. May I ask yours?" He extended his hand.

“James.” Replied Phebes, but otherwise remained motionless. Jack was wholly unperturbed by this, and sat back into his armchair. It was quite normal for patients to appear unfriendly or unsociable at first - breaking the ice was part of the job – but what was unusual was the fact that Phebes had not been referred to him by any other doctor or hospital, but had rather come of his own accord, and this was what now lingered momentarily on Jack’s mind. Of course, it was not unheard of for patients to seek help for themselves – the old adage that “if you know you need help then you can’t be that ill” was of course the biggest load of crap since Trial by Fire. But the fact remained that most patients were referrals, and for one reason or another it was rare for them to actively seek help.

James Phebes, although - as has been stated - visibly somewhat apprehensive (which was perfectly normal for anyone visiting a "nut doctor") seemed very lucid and quick-witted. His dark eyes gleamed with an inherent alertness and intelligence that could not fail to inspire interest, and even respect. His pale complexion and scruffy hair had no doubt been exaggerated by the windy New York November morning; his dark brows were perhaps a little prominent, thus enhancing the blackness of his eyes, but on the whole he appeared quite normal. This “Visual Once-Over” as Jack unofficially termed it, could sometimes reveal clues as to a patient’s condition. Some had wild, darting eyes; others hunched shoulders or backs in varying degrees, or disproportionately short legs or torso; sometimes speech impediments, nervous tics or other peculiarities were evident which, while not denotive of mental illness per se, in Fleming’s experience could occasionally point in one direction or another as far as preliminary diagnosis was concerned. Phebes, however, was far less of an open book, as Jack Fleming was later to discover.

“So tell me, James,” began Jack amiably. “Why do you say you need therapy?”

“I say, Dr, Fleming --”

“Jack, please.”

“Jack. I say that I came for therapy, not that I need it. Nor that I particularly want it. Rather that I came to get to the bottom of an issue that has been weighing on my mind now for some time; one that, if my fears are not unfounded, only you can help me with. No, thank you.” he said, before Jack could put his offer of coffee into words. “Bad for the nerves.”

“Very well, James. In your own time, at your own pace.” Jack again relaxed back into his armchair. James followed suit, and proceeded to relate the motives for his visit.

“Bear with me, Doctor Fleming. Hear me out, and you will without doubt form a professional opinion that will help you unravel the mysteries of my mind. Only then will I be free of my torment; I am convinced of it."

During the conversation that ensued, and the subsequent thrice-weekly sessions, Jack Fleming was to realize that James Phebes was the undisputedly most singular and extraordinary case that he had ever had the misfortune to investigate.



Session 2

“I was lost during my childhood. All I remember of my early school life was thinking that none of it was really happening. I recall being made to stand facing the wall in the playground for doing something wrong, and thinking that I shouldn’t really be there – that I wasn’t really there, and I kept going to walk away, half knowing that nothing would happen if I did, because I wasn’t really there. But something held me there, kept drawing me back to face the wall. It sounds strange, but I remember so clearly that everything was so hazy, like a white mist that surrounded me a few meters away on all sides.

“When I was about seven or eight, I realized – or at least thought then – that everyone but me had an identity, a personality carved in stone. I knew I too had to have one, but didn’t know where to begin. I spent the next few years of my life in a whirl of confusion, an absolute social misfit, but nevertheless breezed through the academic side of school. I got a scholarship to another school, but that was probably the beginning of the end. I became more and more socially isolated, and began to think that it was me who was at fault, even though I had done nothing to provoke the blatant shunning by my peers, and their constant psychological – and sometimes physical – attacks. ‘Feeble Phebes’ they called me. I ended up hating my own name. I knew that they were the evil ones, and that I didn't deserve my lot, but could not for the life of me see where I had gone wrong. Perhaps I should have been evil, like them?

“At high school I fell in with the ‘wrong crowd’ as my folks used to say. They were the only ones who didn’t seem to reject me. Didn’t seem to like me either, but this watered-down sensation of half-belonging was all I was going to get. ‘Course, they were all dropouts too, but no-one ever picked on them ‘cos they were the ones who did most of the picking. We’d go out, get drunk, smoke weed and generally act like assholes. But I was always the one who’d be on the butt-end of their sick practical jokes – and sometimes worse. They were the sort of kids who, in the absence of anyone else to pick fights with, would take out their Neanderthal instincts on the ‘runt of the litter’. At least three of them laid into me on at least one occasion, and still I came back for more.


“I remember once we ripped out a streetlight in the park,” continued James. “And all the lights in the street behind us went out!" He chortled briefly, paused, sipped his tea and continued: "Another time, the plan was to break open the wishing well near the lake, but there I got really spooked. The fact of actually stealing something was just too much. It wasn’t the ‘stealing people’s dreams’ thing, rather the loathing of what it all entailed, not to mention fear of being caught – something that those idiots never felt. I half wanted to be like them, but at the same time despised them and everything they did. I was a good kid, not some two-bit white trash petty criminal! So I said fuck ‘em! And I gradually closed myself off from them and clawed my way slowly down into my hole. I was never entirely rid of them, and now and again they would still pick on me, but after a while even they seemed to think me weird and would steer clear of me like the Plague. Fine by me, assholes.”

Jack glanced sidelong at James, with a look of genuine compassion on his face. He felt within him a murmur of sorrow - an urge to console the boy who James spoke of and somehow set him on the right track, to ward off the disaster before it befell him. If only he had…

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Session 3


“I always had this ability to just learn things." Said James, sipping his chamomile tea. “It all just went in, you know, without having to study or revise much for exams. That really pissed most other kids off. Small-town smart-ass troublemaker proves that blue blood isn’t everything! Heh.” He laughed bitterly.

A smile came to the corner of Jack’s mouth. “Sounds like someone I know.” He echoed James’s laugh.

“Sure, I wasn't the number one either,” continued James, “but as I said, I didn't have to try very hard. My folks called it uncanny, but the way I see it, if something interests you then it just kind of stays, you know what I mean? Math, science, languages, all that stuff was a piece of cake. Humanities was the only thing I couldn’t handle. Religion, or ‘Scripture’ as they called it, Geography, History - all crap, useless crap. Sure, some of it might have been OK if it hadn’t been for the asshole teachers. The history guy used to take us for P.T. too, and he would whack us with tennis rackets and throw basketballs at us to make us run faster. So, as you will no doubt agree, he could go fuck himself in History class. Then in the next grade there was another History guy who was screwing Mr. Hussey the Biology teacher.” His teacup was halfway to his mouth again, but he paused to laugh momentarily. His face dropped and he resumed: “Both those fat queer bastards had it in for me. Hussey used to lay his hand on my shoulder in an amiable manner.” He paused again and seemed to drift for a moment, then snapped back into full swing.

Jack, however, at this juncture felt his concentration slightly disrupted as he momentarily entertained the vague memory that he, too, had had some similar experience at high school, though evidently it had not been of such great import as it had for James.

“I aced high school despite most of the teachers’ sincerest doubts – and disappointment - and got a scholarship to Harvard.”

“You were at Harvard?” interrupted Jack, his curiosity piqued. “What major?”

Phebes replied only with a look as if to say, “All in good time, now if you don’t mind I was talking.”

“Please, continue.” Said Jack, and settled back into his chair.

He was beginning to form a general impression of James Phebes and his possible condition. How many times had he seen people who, embittered during their childhood, had shut themselves off from the outside world to a greater or lesser extent, or spent their life running from certain situations? Paranoid Personality Disorder. But it was of course far too early to jump to any conclusions, and there remained the fact that Phebes had come of his own volition - something that paranoiacs rarely tended to do. And besides, James Phebes was hardly backward in coming forward with his life story, and showed no sign of the sociological impairment so common among these patients. Either way, Jack felt sure that everything would come to light in good time, and that psychotherapy was almost certainly the key - a cup of tea and a chat, as opposed to antipsychotic drug treatment. Just the way he liked it: Jack Fleming had always been unwaveringly convinced that the first step towards recovery was for the patient to become aware of their own condition, or at least partially conscious of it. This had been the key to some of his most significant successes: the patient had to want to be cured; just as a drug addict or pathological gambler must have the desire to rid themselves of their Nemesis, so did the mentally infirm need to actively strive for their own recovery. The obvious complication was that in the vast majority of cases the illness itself was also the veil that blinded the victims to their very own plight. Neuroleptic medication was certainly an aid in the process, but Jack fervently believed that in most cases the answer, as did the question, lay within the patient himself. All the doctor had to do was to get inside the patient’s mind — like the criminal psychologist who ‘becomes’ the serial killer in order to think like him, discover his modus operandi and weed him out. Jack had to find out James’s modus operandi and weed out his illness from the inside.
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Session 4


“I was - or at least thought I was - deeply religious. When I was a kid I attended mass every Sunday, and even sang in the school choir. I was sure, as all Bible-bashers are, that God was good and would always lead me on the right path; that faith in Him would save me from myself and all other evils and cure all ills. God is everywhere and everything, whether you see Him or not. Faith…” he trailed again slightly. “Well, to this day I couldn’t tell you if He exists, but I can confirm that if He does, He is by far and away the most selfish, sick-minded fuck the world has ever seen. ‘Faith’ they say! ‘Have faith, and the path to glory will be revealed to you.’ FUCKING BULLSHIT. Does He honestly think that anyone in their right mind could unconditionally devote himself to something that shows not the least sign of even existing? Of course,” he interpolated, “I wasn’t in my right mind, was I?” He trailed off for a few more seconds. “At the time of my direst need and deepest hope He left me floundering like a grounded fish on the isolated jetty of life.” James’s face had taken on a reddish hew, as if flushed with an inner loathing. His brows seemed even more prominent – his eyes more deeply set beneath them.

Jack looked unflinchingly at him. His suspicions of paranoia were now more firmly rooted than ever, now with inklings of schizophrenic undertones and very likely Borderline Personality Disorder. His sudden outbursts of bad language and apparent mood changes could be indicative of this. What still puzzled him, however, was the patient’s apparently acute self-knowledge. With every new session, each new account of Phebes’ past became more and more vivid, expressive and even violent. It was as though he was verbally reliving the events conducive to his final breakdown. Yet in spite of all this he always seemed so very lucid – so much in control – and would always leave Dr. Fleming’s practice in a state of absolute normality, as if in recounting so vehemently the story of his suffering, he had spent all of the pent-up anger and woe that had led to it. At the end of each session, he would pay in cash, leaving it in an unsealed envelope on Jack’s desk. So what was it that he wanted Jack to ‘get to the bottom of’? If James Phebes knew so much about his own illness and its triggers, why come to him? After a few moments' thought he put it down to fear of rejection - or even previous rejection - from a sanitary institution. 'If you know you need help...' James no doubt needed to convince Jack of his illness, so that he would then file an official psychological report that would grant James the help he needed.

“So what do you do when God forsakes you? You still believe in Him but He’s left you out to dry? Evil, that’s what. Satan. You know he exists too, and maybe, just maybe he will listen to you. You know it’s wrong, but no other fucker wants to know, so you start talking to him, lying awake at night, alone in your bed - alone in the world - trying to find out if he’s been watching all this time. And sure enough, there he is, just waiting for you to say the word – waiting to pounce on your godforsaken soul and suck you down into the pit.”

Phebes’ complexion darkened, and Jack felt a kind of shiver as if of some latent fear that had been aroused by these chilling words, but James’s voice suddenly took on a lighter note:

“Hell, I don’t know if it was really him or not. All I know is that something compelled me to do away with it all - to end my suffering by the only means left to me. And I damned near did. Only fear stayed my hand – a very rational, lucid fear of eternal damnation and suffering – the very thing that I had fought so long to escape. So why play straight into Satan’s little trap? Why give the fucker the satisfaction? No, not me! I would find my own way out and show the fucking lot of them!” He seemed a little out of breath, and after a few moments that seemed like whole minutes, he gulped down the last of his now cold tea, staring blankly at the floor.



Interlude


Jack had been constantly preoccupied with the mysterious case of James Phebes, even in his own spare time. Another, perhaps petty, niggle had come to bother him: he was working on the assumption that James did indeed need psychiatric help, because he himself had said so. Well, at least implied it. What if his problem was more similar to that of Ganser Syndrome, or so-called ‘Prison Psychosis’? In these cases, the patient ‘faked’ the symptoms of psychosis in order to achieve some ulterior end, and although the condition they were ‘faking’ did not actually exist, the fact that they were doing it could indeed be demonstrative of some form of pathological or psychological disorder. Another explanation for this was mere ‘malingering’ with a view to a reduction of a sentence or other leniencies, but what possible motive could James have for this, especially when he was paying Jack such good money? “I don’t know how or why it started,” he had said during the first session, “But I just wanted it to stop.” “Everything and everyone around me had it in for me." He had stated during the second. "Nothing went right in my life, and everything that went wrong was my fault. Teachers, parents, classmates – above all classmates – everything they said was an attack on me or something I had done.” These were clearly the statements of a paranoid delusional, but whatever James had suffered as a youth, he seemed to have totally recovered save the brief ejaculations of rancor while recounting his tale.

And all the while, Jack had been trying – to date in vain – to get inside James’s mind. He felt a great empathy for his patient, seeing much in him that reminded him of himself, and thus his lack of tangible progress was all the more upsetting to him. He felt a distant pang of something that seemed to connect the two, as if at times James was relating Jack’s own life experiences, and yet he could not quite put his finger on it. He also prevented his mind from wandering too far in that direction, as his attention needed to be unerringly focused on his patient if he was to 'get to the bottom' of his condition.





Session 5


“When I was twenty–five I was referred to the university counselor, and he just seemed helpless, like he was out of his depth with me. He got me an appointment with some psychologist who just riled me up more than anything. The first session was a farce, and in the second I nearly ended up punching him. I didn’t even bother going to the third. I knew I needed help, but what could I do when everyone who was supposed to know what to do just made things worse? All the so-called experts, and they didn’t know shit. They only knew what they'd learned in their fucking text books. They didn't know about me! How the fuck could they know what I was thinking? What was happening inside my mind? I knew I was ill, but they were the ones whose job it was to find out what, and how to deal with it, but they were all fucking losers. So I lost hope. I resigned myself to the fact that I was an angry, paranoid little prick who everyone was out to get. I already told you I'd tried religion, drugs, petty crime, and even ‘black magic’ but inside me I knew it was useless to hide behind ‘third parties’ and that I had to face my demons. But the demons were too many and too strong. They smothered me day and night with their mockery and hate. I was defenseless against them, and the world had abandoned me to my own private hell. And then I guess came the turning point in my life - the moment when I finally submerged myself in my own waking nightmare. I guess it is the brain’s built-in defense mechanism that went too far, and became a self-destruct system. Paranoid delusions are a prime example of the mind’s ability to create a whole new world to ‘shield’ its owner from reality.”

At this Jack was aghast. As James's narration reached fever pitch, his standpoint became more that of a psychiatrist that that of a patient. Was he actually diagnosing his own condition? More shockingly still, he was quoting almost word for word one of Jack’s most firmly held theories on the metaphysical causes of paranoid schizophrenia. His heart thumped audibly in his head, but he strove to focus on James.

“Then came meltdown. Blackout. FUBAR. All the things that ever went wrong were put right. All my dreams were suddenly realized – my prayers answered. I graduated from Harvard, started a career in my chosen profession, worked hard and achieved success. I had never aspired to fame and fortune – merely to lead a normal life, to be accepted as a person and as a professional. In an instant was fulfilled my very own, perfectly mundane American dream: my home, my own practice… my Viper Red 1967 Chevrolet Camaro.”

James was panting, and Jack was sweating and reeling in a dizzy fever. He felt his world was coming down around him. “This is hardly indicative of psychiatric dysfunction, Mr. Phebes!” he thought he had said, but his voice had failed him utterly.

“What major, you asked me? Well you’ve guessed it, Jack. Psychiatry! Just before my twenty-sixth birthday I passed out of reality, not of university! Sure, I studied the major and wrote the thesis, but the rest of my life is a lie, a trick played on me by my own twisted psyche to protect me from myself. The job, that apartment, the Chevy – all the designs of an alternate personality that would inherit my mind and body, and be what I believed I could never be – normal, respected, accepted. A parasite that would live in perfect symbiosis within me, yet gnaw gradually away at me and my will to fight it. And that parasite is you, Jack. You are a figment of my imagination, just like everything else that has happened for the last twelve years! I have come to save you from yourself, to show you who you really are. Who better to pull you out than your own self? There is hope, Jack. James. I am that hope – the part of you that remains in touch with reality; the piece of the puzzle that remains firmly in place while all the others lie scattered around you. The rest is up to you, James. Build on this small block which I have revealed to you – reconstruct the jigsaw of your life. Get inside. Make the patient aware of his condition. The first step has been taken; the road lies ahead, and only you can walk it. Get up and walk, James! Don’t look back, for Jack has hit the road!”

With that he stood up, placed an empty envelope on the desk, took his trench coat from the stand and left, closing the door behind him.

Jack felt he would pass out. His head was spinning, his vision a kaleidoscope of images past and present, real and imagined? Try as he might to fight it, something within him knew it was all true. He grasped at nothing, his world fell black…

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In his tormented reverie, Jack hovered high above himself in a room a mile high, peering down through monochrome mists into a small room where sat himself. Not his alter-ego nor his eidolon, but himself. James Phebes. He, Jack Fleming was the alter-ego – he was the impostor that had outstayed his welcome. He zoomed quickly down through a tunnel of black-and-white blur and came to a halt before his host. He sat staring blankly up to one side, his body twisted horribly, his left arm gripping the armchair as if his very soul depended on it. His mouth moved as if conversing with an invisible interlocutor. He nodded and smiled and gesticulated spasmodically with his right hand, and three men dressed in white stood watching him, specters half-faded into the surrounding brume. It was a baleful sight. The mists swirled around them both and rose above them like white noise, and as they rose Jack felt a dark veil being lifted from his eyes and from his mind. The fog soared upward, whisking Jack with it, and left James to himself and to his world.


The End
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Epilogue


“Well, Jack,” said Dr. Willard as Dr. Fleming entered the observation room. “Looks like your ‘studying’ paid off!”

Fleming hung up his trench coat, took his white coat from its hook and donned it with an air of solemnity. His dark frown overshadowed his even darker eyes, giving him a decidedly distressed appearance.

“Who’d have thought it?” exclaimed Willard. “Twelve years of Catatonic Schizophrenoid Delirium without so much as a hint of improvement, and in five easy installments you manage to smoke him out! I’m glad I found you! Oh, and I liked the envelope. Nice touch!"

Jack Fleming was not feeling quite so jocular. After all, it was on his masterclass and best-selling reference book “Inside Out: A Proactive Approach to Psychiatrics” that Phebes had based his entire thesis. From that thesis, Phebes’ private memoirs and psychiatric casebook, Willard had drawn up his plan of action: to track down Jack Fleming - the man who James Phebes’ brain thought he was - that he might get inside James’s mind and ‘smoke him out’. Indeed, Fleming had done just that, but he now felt inexorably tied to James Phebes, and even somehow responsible for his plight.

“Look on the bright side, Jack," said Willard, seemingly reading his thoughts, “If it hadn’t been for you, we may never have got him back. Get inside. Make him aware. That was your theory, and you pulled it off!”

“He would have been a good psychiatrist,” said Fleming detachedly. “Not the best, perhaps, but good nonetheless.”

“He had an exemplary beau ideal.” Replied Willard warmly. “Your contributions to our profession are unparagoned. I gleaned from his memoirs that you were quite a deity in his eyes before..." He fell silent. Phebes had idolized Jack Fleming as the kind of successful physician that he desired to be, and his tormented brain had done the rest. And little wonder that a budding young student should want to take after such a pioneer in his field! Willard felt Fleming was more than aware of this, and that he need not dwell on the matter.

Peering in at Phebes through the one-way observation glass, Willard saw him now less contorted, his expression less intense. He had loosened his grasp on the armchair for the first time in twelve years, and a glimmer of lucidity had returned to his eyes. “There’s still one thing bugging me though, Doctor Fleming,” he said pensively, still looking through the glass. “If it hadn’t been for that one tiny detail, I could have found you years ago and put an end to all this. What on earth made you change your name to Jack Fleming?”