by Gene Brewer
For his part, Rob was overjoyed to see Oxie again, and he hugged him for several minutes. “I’ve missed you!” he exclaimed. The dog wagged his tail from ear to ear before running joyfully all over the yard, making several close passes at Rob, as happy dalmatians will do. Later, Rob asked me whether we would keep his dog for him “a little longer.” I assured him that we would be happy to do so, pleased that his outlook had become so positive.
Out of the confines of the hospital and prot’s influence, Robert showed a side of himself I had not seen before. He was a courteous, kind, soft-spoken man who loved children, and he demonstrated for the boys a number of wrestling holds before joining in on a rip-roaring Frisbee chase with all five, and the dogs as well. If he had not been a mental patient, one would never have suspected there were demons gnawing and scratching just beneath his placid exterior.
Steve tried to engage him in a conversation about the heavens at one point, but gave up when it became apparent that Robert had only a cursory knowledge of the skies— the names of the planets and a few constellations. On the other hand, they both enjoyed comparing notes on their favorite college and professional football teams, though Robert was virtually unaware of developments in that sport since the mid-eighties.
But it was Giselle who occupied most of his time. Though she seemed to resent his presence at first, she was soon chatting quietly with him about her background and his (both came from small towns), and I certainly didn’t discourage this. The more comfortable Rob became with these new and unfamiliar surroundings, the more he was likely to trust us and the better the prognosis. As I watched them I wondered whether it would be Robert or prot who would be returning to the hospital with Betty and her family.
But Rob didn’t last out the afternoon. When he went into the house to use the bathroom it was prot who came out, dark glasses and all. Whether the interior had reminded him of that fateful day in 1985 I wasn’t sure, but I made no attempt to recall his alter ego. I was delighted he had made an appearance at all.
When Will discovered that prot had returned he immediately pressed him about Dustin’s “secret code.”
“You mean you haven’t worked that out yet? About the carrot and all? Ehhhh”—chomp, chomp, chomp—“what’s up, doc?”
“Carrot?” Will stammered. “I thought it was a cigar.”
“Why would he be munching a cigar?”
“Well—okay—what does the carrot mean?”
“You’re smarter than your father. You figure it out.”
Some of the others wanted to talk to prot as well. Steve pumped him about his own specialty, the formation of stars, and Giselle tried to get him to “speak” with Shasta, to find out whether he could learn anything about her background. Abby wanted to know how to get more people to sympathize with the plight of animals the world over. “Don’t stifle your children’s natural feelings toward them,” he advised her. And even they were grilling him, wanting to know more about what life was like on K-PAX. Star, for example, wondered whether K-PAX was as pretty as the Earth.
Prot’s eyes seemed to glaze over. “You can’t imagine how beautiful it is,” he murmured. “The sky changes from deep red to bright blue and back again, depending on which sun the illuminated side is facing. Rocks, fields of grains, faces—everything—glow in the radiant energy of the suns. And it’s so quiet you can hear korms flying and other beings breathing far off in the distance....”
I never did get a chance to ask him any of the host of questions I had been saving for him myself. That, like so many other matters, would have to wait for another time.
* * *
Although I had already brought Robert forth after hypnotizing prot, for certain technical reasons I wanted to bypass the latter and deal directly with Rob. I had scheduled Robert’s hypnosis-susceptibility (Stanford) test for early Tuesday morning, but was not surprised that it was prot who showed up. I took the opportunity to ask him, with no little trepidation, about my family and how they were doing (it was prot who put me on to Will’s drug problem five years earlier).
“Your wife makes a great fruit salad,” he said, stuffing his mouth to the brim with raspberries.
As patiently as I could manage, “Anything else?”
He squished the berries around in his mouth; a little stream of bloodred juice ran down his chin. “Abby seems to be one of the few human beings who understand what it will take to save the EARTH from yourselves. Of course she has some rough edges....” He grinned wryly and a masticated berry tumbled from his mouth. “I like that.”
“Dammit, prot, what about Will?”
“What about him?”
“Is he taking any drugs?”
“Only sex and caffeine. You humans never cease trying to find something to fulfill your boring lives, do you?”
“It may surprise you to learn, my friend, that there’s no one on Earth more human than yourself.”
“No need for insults, gino.”
I laughed at that, perhaps out of relief. “So you think Will is doing all right, then?”
“He’ll be a great doctor, mon ami”
“Thank you. I’m very happy to hear that.”
“Anytime.”
I could see from the lopsided grin that he still wasn’t going to tell me when he would be leaving or who he planned to take with him. However, something else had occurred to me as I was driving in that morning. “Prot?”
“Yeth thir?” in his Daffy Duck voice. I thought: He’s been hanging around Milton too long.
“Betty told me she saw you in the quiet room reading K-PAX.”
“I was curious.”
“Did you find any inaccuracies in it?”
“Only your absurd speculation that I am merely a figment of robert’s imagination.”
“That brings up an interesting question I’ve been meaning to ask you. How come I’ve never seen you and Robert at the same time?”
He slapped his forehead. “Gene, gene, gene. Have you ever seen me and the world trade center at the same time?”
“No.”
“Then I presume you think the world trade center doesn’t exist?”
“You know, there’s a better way to conclusively prove or disprove that you and Robert are the same person. Will you give us a blood sample?”
“You already sampled it when I was here the first time, remember?”
“Unfortunately, it was accidentally discarded. May we have a little more?”
“There are no accidents, my friend. But why not? I’ve got plenty.”
“I’ll set it up with Dr. Chakraborty for later this week, okay?”
“Hokay, joe.”
“Now—I need to speak to Robert for a while. Will you tell him, please?”
“Tell him what, Dr. Brewer?”
“Oh, hello, Robert. How are you feeling?”
“All right, I guess.”
“Good. I brought you here to see how good a candidate you would be for hypnosis, remember?”
“I remember.”
“All right. Just relax for a moment.” I explained the procedure to him. He listened carefully, nodded at the appropriate times, and we began.
The procedure took almost an hour. Robert was tested for a number of simple responses to hypnotic suggestion, such as arm immobilization, verbal inhibition, etc. Whereas prot had obtained a perfect score of twelve on the same test, I was surprised to find that Robert did very poorly with a four, considerably below average. I wondered whether this represented a genuine lack of aptitude or he was fighting it. Having no good alternative, I decided to go ahead with the next session as planned, though with less confidence than I would have liked.
If Robert was going to get well there would have to be better reasons for him to stay out of his protective shell than to retreat into it. Thus, I wanted and needed Giselle’s help in his treatment, despite her stronger feelings for prot. She was strategically placed to act as a sort of liaison between Rob and the world. I asked her, over lunch, what sh
e thought of him.
“He’s okay. A nice enough guy. In fact, I like him.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Giselle, I have to ask you a favor. Robert is struggling to maintain his identity, even in my examining room. He made a brief appearance yesterday at my home, but that’s about it. As far as I know he’s never shown up in the wards. Have you ever seen him in Two?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Here’s the thing. Somehow fate has placed you in a unique position to help him. Will you try to do that? As a favor to me as well as him? I’ll give you free access to him—no more time limits.”
“Why not just whistle him out like you did before?”
“That was a special occasion. I don’t want to shock him by bringing him out in the wards before he’s ready.”
“What can I do?”
“What I don’t want you to do is to try to entice Rob to come forward. What I’d like you to do is to make him feel comfortable so he’ll stay out when he does show up.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “How do I do that?”
“Just be nice to him. As nice as possible. Talk to him. Find out what he’s interested in. Play games with him. Read to him. Anything you can think of to keep him around. I want him to like you. I want him to depend on you. I want you to be there for him.” I almost said, “Try to love him”—but that was asking a bit too much. “Are you up to such a challenge?”
She smiled, I think, though it was hard to tell with her mouth stuffed with food. “It’s the least I can do,” she mumbled, “for letting me be with prot so much of the time.”
“Good.” I scraped my plate, wishing as usual that there were more cottage cheese. “Now—what else is happening?”
“Well, there’s an anthropologist and a chemist coming later this week. To talk to prot, I mean.”
“What do they want?”
“I think the anthropologist wants to know about the progenitors of the ‘dremer’ species on K-PAX, maybe get some idea of what our own forefathers might have been like. The chemist wants to ask him about the flora of the Amazonian rain forest, which he’s been studying for twenty years or so. He wants to know where to look for drugs to treat AIDS and various forms of cancer and so on.”
“Let me know what he tells them, if anything. Anybody else lined up?”
“A cetologist is coming next week. He wants prot to talk to a dolphin he knows.”
“He’s bringing a dolphin?”
“He’s got a big tank that he pulls around to fairs and shopping malls. He’s going to bring it and the dolphin to the front of the hospital so that prot can talk to him.”
“Good grief—what next?”
“As prot might say, ‘Anything’s possible.’”
That afternoon I met with several of the faculty in Ward Four, where the psychopathic patients are housed. The reason for this gathering was that a new inmate had been brought in, someone who had planned and carried out a series of murders in all five boroughs of the city. Such patients are usually assigned to Ron Menninger, who specializes in psychopathy, with Carl Thorstein taking the overload.
The entire faculty, except for those unable to make it owing to other commitments, usually shows up for the first “session” with a new resident of Four—not only to help his psychiatrist evaluate his condition and possible course of treatment, but also to assess the potential danger to the rest of the staff and patients.
The new inmate, wearing bright orange-plastic shackles, was brought in by two of the security guards and asked to sit at the end of the long table. Ordinarily I’m not surprised by the general appearance of a psychopathic patient because there is no mold into which such a person fits. A “path” can be young or old, hardened or timid. He can look like a derelict or the boy next door. But I winced when this cold-blooded killer was brought in. I had been informed, of course, that she was a female Caucasian, but it was hard to imagine, even with decades of experience, that such a beautiful woman could be guilty of committing the crimes alleged to her. Yet she had been tried, found not responsible by reason of insanity, and sent to MPI for killing seven young men in various parts of the city.
Serial killings, indeed most murders, are usually committed by men. Whether this has anything to do with the male (or female) psyche, or is merely a matter of opportunity, is not at all clear. Psychopathy itself is a difficult affliction to understand. As with many mental illnesses, there seems to be a genetic defect often leading to an under-arousal of the autonomic nervous system. Persons harboring this defect, for example, exhibit little anxiety when confronted with a potentially dangerous situation. In fact, they seem to enjoy it.
In addition, psychopaths are often quite impulsive, acting mainly on feelings of the moment, seeking shortlived thrills without regard to the long-term consequences. They are usually sociopathic as well, caring little for the feelings of others and evincing little regard for what other people may think of them.
On the other hand, they are often superficially charming, making it very difficult for potential victims to spot danger in ordinary interactions with them. How does one recognize that “the nice boy (or girl) next door” can be as deadly as an anaconda?
But back to our patient. The woman, only twenty-three, was thought to have murdered seven young men, perhaps as many as nine, all from outlying towns, who had come to the big city for a good time on a Saturday night. All seven were found in deserted areas, unclad from the waist down, and penectomized. She was apprehended only when she picked up a police decoy, who barely escaped with his life, not to mention his genitalia.
But charming she was, and lovely as well. She smiled as she gazed into the eyes of every doctor in the room. Her answers to routine questions were frank, sometimes humorous, not the slightest bit antisocial. And I thought: Can we ever really know a person, even one who is perfectly sane? I knew that Ron was in for a very interesting experience. Nevertheless, I didn’t envy him in the slightest, even when she wet her lips and winked at me as if to say, “Let’s have some fun.”
When I got back to my office I perused the “poop sheet” on our newest patient, whom I will call Charlotte. One by one her victims had disappeared and were never heard from again. The reason it took the police so long to find her was that young men come to town every weekend to pick up girls, and even under the best of circumstances it is virtually impossible to find an unknown killer in a city full of people. Probably no one would even take notice of a young couple leaving the bar or restaurant where they met, perhaps arm in arm, smiling warmly, Mr. Fly eagerly accompanying Ms. Spider to her web.
Perhaps that’s why I have trouble sympathizing with spiders, even when they get trapped in a sink.
Before leaving for the day I sought out Cassandra. I found her sitting on the weathered bench under “Adonis in the Garden of Eden,” her raven-black hair shining in the sun, gazing at the cloudless sky from which she gets her inspiration, or so she claims. Knowing she ignores any attempt to interrupt her, I waited.
When she finally turned her attention away from the heavens I cautiously approached her. She seemed in a pleasant enough mood, and we chatted for a while about the hot weather. She predicted more of the same. I said, “That’s not what I wanted to ask you about.”
“Why not? Everyone else does.”
“Cassandra, I wonder if you could help me with something.”
“It won’t be the Mets.”
“No, not that. I need to know how long prot is going to be around. Can you tell me anything about when he’ll be leaving us?”
“If you’re planning a trip to K-PAX, don’t pack your bags yet.”
“You mean it will be a while before he goes?”
“When he’s finished what he came to do, he’ll leave. That will take some time.”
“May I ask you—did you get this information from prot himself?”
She looked annoyed, but admitted she had talked with him.
“Anything else you can tell me about your conversation wi
th prot?”
With a hint of amusement now: “I asked if he would take me with him.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me I was one of those being considered.”
“Really? Do you know who else is on the list?”
She tapped her head with a forefinger. “He said you would ask me that.”
“Do you know the answer?”
“Yes.”
“Who are they?”
“Anyone who wants to go.”
But not everyone on the list will be selected, I thought dismally. A lot of them are going to be very disappointed. “All right. Thank you, Cassie.”
“Don’t you want to know who’s going to win the World Series?”
“Who?”
“The Braves.”
I almost blurted out, “You’re crazy!”
Session Twenty-four
Whenever I experience a difficult patient making a first appearance in Ward Four, I always pay a visit to Ward One to try to recapture my optimism, and I did so the morning after meeting Charlotte. I encountered Rudolph in the exercise room practicing what appeared to be very novel ballet stances and moves. It reminded me of the contortionists who used to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. I asked him how he was doing. To my surprise he confessed that he had a long way to go. I wasn’t sure whether he meant his treatment program or his perfection of ballet technique, but I could see that he wouldn’t be with us much longer.
I found Michael in the quiet room behind a book of poetry. I asked him what he was reading.
“Oh, just some Keats and Shelley and Wordsworth and those guys. An anthology. I’ve missed out on so much of my life. When I was in high school I wanted to be an English teacher.”
“Still can be.”
“Maybe. Right now I just want to balance the ledger.”
“Have you looked into any EMS training programs?”
“I’ve already signed up for one. Starts October third.” He glanced at me hopefully.
“I think you’ll make it. I’ll take a look at my schedule and see if we can work in a wrap-up session sometime soon.”