by Gene Brewer
Prot’s reaction varied from ecstasy at seeing so many different animals, to depression in finding all of them “incarcerated without benefit of trial.” He proceeded from cage to cage, compound to compound, stopping at each to visit the inhabitants, and wherever he went, the elephants or zebras or swans ran trumpeting and honking to congregate as close to him as possible. He, in turn, seemed to “reassure” them, uttering various peculiar sounds and making subtle gestures. According to Giselle, the animals seemed, for all the world, to be listening to what he had to say, and he to them.
But the loudest supplicants were the chimpanzees and gorillas, who whined and screeched like so many pleading children. Prot, in turn, caused further commotion among the security people and zoo volunteers by leaping over the retaining wall and poking his fingers through the wire screens for a touch, which immediately quieted the apes, if not his hosts.
Whether any information was conveyed by this means is not certain, but we have had reports from zoo officials that many of their charges have changed their behavior patterns significantly following prot’s visit. For example, the bears and tigers have ceased their endless pacing, and the incidence of bizarre conduct and self-mutilation among the primates has decreased substantially. When Giselle asked him what the animals were “telling” him, he replied, “They’re saying: ‘Help! Let us out!’” And how did he respond to that? “I encouraged them all to hang in there—the way things are going, the humans won’t be around much longer.”
Of course none of this proves that anything was communicated between prot and the zoo’s inhabitants. In order to test this possibility, Giselle asked him to write down any information he had obtained from them (e.g., their personal histories, which neither she nor prot would have had in their possession). When she gets his account, she plans to meet with zoo officials to determine whether there is anything of value in all this.
The only negative aspect of the outing was that some of the other patients managed to reach a conclusion similar to that of prot’s, demanding to know why the zoo’s inhabitants had been locked up, what crimes they had committed. Perhaps this concern had less to do with the animals themselves than with their own virtual imprisonment, which, in many cases, they see as unwarranted. Prot, for his part, has often reminded me that it’s the people outside the mental institutions who should be in here, and vice versa.
I still don’t know whether prot can talk to animals, but all that pales in comparison to what happened later that morning. As usual, I missed the whole thing, but those who saw it made sure I was filled in.
I was looking for Lou to see if he was still gaining weight when a contingent of manics, delusionals, and compulsives came running toward me, raving and shouting. I was beginning to feel some trepidation—were they upset that prot was disappearing on occasion and leaving Robert behind?—when one of them yelled that it was time to send Manuel home.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he just flew across the lawn!”
“Where is he?”
“He’s still out there!”
A cadre of patients trailing behind me, I headed down the stairs and out the front door, where I found Manuel sitting on the steps, his head in his hands. He was unashamedly crying.
“I’ve wanted to do that for so long...” he sobbed. “Now I can die.”
“Do you want to die, Manny?”
“No, no, no, it’s not that. It’s just that, I was so afraid I would die before I flew, and my life would be for nothing. Now that I can die, it’s all right to live. I’m not afraid anymore.”
That made some sense, I suppose, at least to Manuel. “How did you do it, Manny? How did you get off the ground?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed, with just a hint of Hispanic accent. “Prot said I needed to imagine exactly what it would be like to fly, down to the last tiny detail. I tried so much. I concentrated so hard....” He closed his dark, shining eyes and his head tilted left, then right, as if he were reliving his imagined flight. “All of a sudden I knew how to do it!”
“I’m going to ask Dr. Thorstein to meet with you as soon as he can, all right? I think you’ll be moving down to Ward One before long.”
Sniffling quietly, he said, matter-of-factly, “Everything is okay now.”
By this time some of the staff were also gathered around him. I asked one of the nurses whether any of them had seen Manuel lift off. No one had. Only the patients had witnessed this incredible feat.
Did they all lie? Not likely. Did Manuel fly? Also unlikely, though they claim he soared like an eagle. The important thing is that he believes it. From that day on he never flapped his arms again. His lifelong dream accomplished, he was happy, self-confident, at peace with the world.
I forgot all about Lou.
As soon as he came into my examining room I asked Rob whether he had read all the material I had given him, and listened to the tapes.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “It’s hard to believe, but I think everything you told me is true.” I gazed into his eyes for signs of uncertainty or even duplicity, and found none. Nor did he look away.
“I do, too. And I think we have nearly the whole story. There’s just one missing piece of the puzzle. Will you help me fit it in?”
“I’ll try.”
“It has to do with your wife and daughter.”
He sighed loudly. “I wondered when you were going to get to that.”
“It’s time, Rob. And I think you can handle it now.”
“I’m not so sure of that, but I want to try.”
“Good. I think we can do this without hypnosis. I just want you to tell me whatever you can about the day you came home from the slaughterhouse and found a man coming out your front door.”
Rob stared straight ahead and said nothing.
“You chased him back into the house,” I prodded, “through the kitchen and out the rear door. The sprinkler was still going. Do you remember any of that?”
Tears welled up in his eyes.
“Do you remember what happened next, Rob? This is very important.”
“I caught up with the man and wrestled him to the ground.”
“What happened then?”
The tears were rolling down his face. But I could tell he was thinking hard, trying to remember what he had done to the intruder who had killed his wife and daughter. His eyes darted back and forth along the wall, to my chair, to the ceiling. Finally, he said, “I don’t really know. The next thing I remember is coming into the house and carrying Sally and Becky to their beds.”
“And then you mopped the kitchen, said your goodbyes, and headed for the river.”
“I wanted to die, too.”
“All right, Rob. That’s enough. I’m proud of you. That must have been very difficult.”
He wiped his eyes on a shirtsleeve but said nothing.
“Now I want you to relax for a minute. Close your eyes and just relax. Let your body unwind, all your fingers and toes. Good. I’d like to speak with Harry for a minute. Harry?”
No response.
“Harry, it’s no use hiding. I could put Robin under hypnosis and find you that way.” I wasn’t so sure of this, but I hoped Harry would believe me. “Come on out. I just want to talk to you for a minute. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”
“You won’t punish me?”
“Harry?”
His face was that of a bitter, scowling five-year-old. “I wouldn’t care if you did punish me. I’d do it all over again.”
“What would you do, Harry?”
“I’d kill Uncle Dave again if I got the chance.” He looked mean enough to do it.
“You killed Uncle Dave?”
“Yes. Isn’t that what you wanted to ask me about?”
“Well—yes. How did you kill him?”
“I broke his big fat neck.”
“Where did this happen?”
“In the backyard. It was wet.”
“Uncle Dave had done something to Sally an
d Rebecca?”
“Yes,” he snarled. “The same thing he did to Robin.”
“So you killed him.”
“I told you I would and I did.”
“Now this is very important, Harry. Did you ever kill anyone else?”
“No. Just the big fat pig.”
“All right. Thank you for coming out, Harry. You can go back now. If we need you again I’ll let you know.”
The scowl slowly disappeared.
I waited a moment. “Rob?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear any of that?”
“Any of what?”
“Harry was just here. He told me what happened. He told me who killed the man that murdered your wife and daughter.”
“I killed him.”
“No, Rob, you never killed anyone. It was Harry who killed the intruder.”
“Harry?”
“Yes.”
“But Harry is only five years old, isn’t he?”
“That’s true, but he occupies a very strong body. Yours.”
I could almost see a pair of lights come on in Robert’s eyes. “You mean after all those years, I’ve been running from something that never happened?”
“It happened, Rob, and Sally and Rebecca are gone. But you didn’t kill the man. Harry did.”
“But Harry is me!”
“Yes, he’s a part of you. But you are not responsible for his actions, not until he is integrated into your own personality. Do you understand?”
“I—I guess so.” He looked puzzled.
“And there’s another problem. You blamed yourself for their deaths because you had gone to work that Saturday instead of staying home with them.”
“It was a nice day. They wanted me to take the day off.”
“Yes.”
“But I didn’t because we needed the overtime pay.”
“Yes, Rob. You went in that Saturday like all the rest of your fellow workers. Do you understand? Nothing that happened that day was your fault. None of it.”
“But Sally and Becky died because I wasn’t there.”
“That’s true, Rob, and we can’t bring them back. But I think you’re ready to face that now, don’t you?”
His chest rose and fell, rose and fell. “I guess it’s time to go on with things.”
“It’s time to begin the final phase of your treatment.”
“The integration.”
“Yes.”
He thought about this, collected himself. “How do we do that?” He absentmindedly grabbed a banana and began peeling it.
“The first thing we do is get you to stay around as much as possible. I want you to be Robert from now on unless I specifically ask one of the others to come out.”
“I don’t know if I can keep prot in.”
“We’ll take it a day at a time. Just do your best.”
“I’ll try.”
“From now on the entire hospital is your safe haven. Understand?”
“I understand,” he said.
“C’mon—I’ll go back to Ward Two with you.”
It was with a profound sense of sadness that I learned that Emma Villers had been diagnosed with an untreatable and rapidly progressing form of pancreatic cancer.
I knew something must have gone terribly wrong when Klaus appeared in my office after the session with Robert, staring and ashen. I thought it was he who was ill, and I asked him to sit down. He shook his head and blurted out the whole story. “She vas afraid of doctors,” he said. “She neffer vent and I neffer made her.” Pulling himself together, he added, “I am taking a leaf of absence. Vile I am gone you vill be acting director.”
I started to protest—I had thought all that minutiae was behind me—but how could I? He looked so forlorn that I pounded him on the shoulder (a first for both of us) and told him not to worry about the hospital. He gave me the keys to his office, I expressed some feeble condolences and encouragement about his wife’s condition, and he went away, his rounded shoulders drooping more than ever. Suddenly I remembered Russell’s preaching the rapidly approaching apocalypse, and I realized, finally, what he meant: For him, for anyone, dying meant the end of the world.
I sat down and tried to get a fix on these unwelcome developments. But all I could think of was gratitude and relief that it wasn’t my own wife or one of my children, and I vowed to spend more time with Karen and to call my sons and daughters more often. Then I remembered that as acting director I would have even less time than before, and I reluctantly headed for Villers’s office hoping to find his desk cleaned off as, indeed, it usually is. Instead, it was much like my own, covered with unanswered letters, unreviewed papers, unattended messages and memos. His calendar was filled from eight-thirty to four-thirty or later every day for weeks ahead. And I thought, with mixed emotions: Retirement will have to wait.
On the train home that evening I pondered Rob’s rapid progress and where to go from here. It had all happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that I hadn’t thought much about his treatment once he was out of his protective shell. On top of that, I had to do Klaus’s job as well as my own. I knew I was in for another sleepless night.
I struck up a conversation with a fellow traveler, who had spent the afternoon with his father, a recent heart-attack victim. I told him that a coworker of mine had taken some time off to be with his dying wife. He sympathized completely, relating all the good things about his marriage of six years, how much he would miss his wife if anything happened to her. Turned out he had been married three times already and was on his way to spend the weekend with his mistress, whom, he claimed, he also loved dearly.
I thought: Not for me. In thirty-six years of marriage I have never been unfaithful to Karen. Not even before we were married (we were childhood sweethearts). It’s not that I possess an unusual degree of loyalty, nor am I any kind of saint. The fact is, I’d be a damn fool to do anything to lose her. At that moment I fervently hoped she would get her wish and we could retire soon to some wonderful place in the country.
Then I remembered Frankie, who would never know the bliss of love and marriage. I felt as sorry for her as I did for Klaus and Emma Villers. Frankie had been Klaus’s patient, and now she was my responsibility. I vowed right then to do whatever I could to get to the bottom of her problem, to put a little joy into her sad, loveless life.
Over the weekend Will broke the code. To be certain he was right, he had run through several of Dustin’s recorded “statements,” and they all checked out. Will was now the only person in the world (except for prot, presumably) who could figure out what Dustin was saying.
He called me from the hospital on Sunday afternoon, as excited as I had ever heard him. “Prot was right—it was the carrot!”
“What do carrots have to do with Dustin’s gibberish?”
“It’s not gibberish. It’s like a game with him. He sees everything in terms of roots—square roots, cube roots, and so on. There’s no limit. He’s a kind of savant!”
Looking back on it, I suppose I should have been more thrilled about Will’s discovery. When I didn’t reply, he exclaimed, “Remember that thing we worked on a few weeks ago—’Your life sure is fun...’ and so on? The carrot is a root, see, and the four chomps on it make it a quadruple root thing: the second, fourth, eighth, and sixteenth word of the sentence, and the cycle repeats itself four times. All of his other statements are variations on that theme, depending on how many repeats and how many bites of the carrot. Get it?”
“I’m very proud of you, son. That was quite an accomplishment.”
“Thanks, Pop. I’ll come in some time soon and we’ll talk about whether anything can be done for Dustin. I have some ideas on that.”
“Really? I’d like to hear them.”
“It’s his parents.”
“How so?”
“I think they’re the problem. His father, anyway. I came in several evenings and watched them when they were together. Did you ever notice how he tries to compete wit
h Dustin all the time? It’s the only way they can communicate. At home all they did was play games. All his life Dustin has been smothered by trying to compete with his father, a game he couldn’t possibly win. Don’t you see? He had to devise something his old man couldn’t beat him at. I’ve got to run, Pop. I’ll come to see you in a couple of days and we’ll talk about it—okay?”
“Okay, but we’re not going out for lunch!”
“Whatever you say.”
“Will—did you see prot today?”
“Nope. I ran into Robert once. He remembered me. But I haven’t seen prot at all. Is he gone, Dad?”
“Not yet. But soon, I think.”
Twenty-nine
“I almost called you at home yesterday,” Giselle blustered as she paced around my office.
I was trying to find the paper I still hadn’t reviewed, to send it back with apologies. “What’s the matter now?” I asked irritably, wondering what had stopped her.
“Where’s prot? What have you done with him?”
“What—he’s disappeared again?”
“Nobody has seen him since Friday.”
“Robert, too?”
“No, he’s around, but prot’s gone.”
“Oh. I don’t think he’s gone back to K-PAX, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“He might as well have.”
“Giselle, you knew he wouldn’t be here forever. He must have told you that.”
“But he told me he wouldn’t go without letting me know.”
“Me, too. That’s why I don’t think he’s gone.”
“But it’s more than that. When I saw him on Friday he seemed—I don’t know—different. Preoccupied or something. He just wasn’t his old self.”
“It doesn’t always happen that way, but I’m not surprised to hear it.”
She plopped down in the vinyl chair. “He’s dying, isn’t he?”
Her disconsolation softened my irritability. “It isn’t like that, Giselle. What’s happening, I think, is that he’s slowly becoming integrated into Robert’s personality. In other words, you still have him. You’ll have both of them.”