by Gene Brewer
I wondered what it looked like to him—vision tests had shown that prot could see well into the ultraviolet range, much like certain insects. “Glad you’re enjoying it—it’s organic. While you’re eating, I’m going to go ahead and ask you a few questions, okay?”
“And if I refuse?”
“No more fruit.”
“Ask away.”
“How is Robert doing?”
“How should I know?”
“You mean you haven’t found him yet?”
“Nope. I looked all over Ward Two and he’s nowhere to be found. Besides, I’ve been pretty busy....”
“Busy? Doing what?”
“Oh, reading my mail, chatting with the other residents, thinking. You remember thinking? You used to do it when you were a boy.”
“And Rob hasn’t made an appearance since you’ve been in Ward Two?”
“Nossirree. Maybe he’s in one of the other wards.”
“It’s very important that I speak with him, prot.”
“Why? Are you writing another book?”
I pretended not to hear that. “Just let me know right away if you find him, will you? Or tell Giselle.”
“W’tever,” he grunted, sucking the pulp off the big pit. His beard dripped with mango sludge.
“Good.” Unable to stand it any longer, I retrieved a box of facial tissues and handed him one. He wiped off his face, as a courtesy to me, I suppose. Then, annoyingly, he flung the tissue to the floor and settled back in his chair. Frustrated, I exclaimed, “Prot, you’re no more from ‘K-PAX’ than I am. How did you come up with a ridiculous story like that?”
He shook his head. “What does it take to get you humans to see the truth?”
“For one thing, it has to be believable.”
“Ah. I remember. If you believe something, it’s true, correct?”
“You could put it that way.”
“My knowledge of the GALAXY doesn’t convince you.”
“We have computers that know everything you do.”
“Not everything.” Suddenly he leaned forward and popped, “What would convince you that I come from K-PAX?” He was obviously eager to play his little game, like a kid with a new chess set.
I thought about the light-travel experiment, but decided to hold it in reserve for the time being. For one thing, I hadn’t had a chance to set it up with a partner yet. Instead, I tried another tack. “Do you have any photographs of your home planet?”
“Do you have any photographs of George Washington?”
“No, but we have paintings of him, letters, eyewitness testimony. Do you have any such evidence?”
He looked at me sideways. “I’ve seen paintings of dragons and unicorns, haven’t you? Letters can be forged. And we all know how reliable ‘eyewitness testimony’ is, don’t we, gene?”
“We also have his uniforms, his wigs, even his teeth. What tangible evidence do you have that K-PAX exists, or ever did exist?” I sat back with a smug, prot-like grin.
“What evidence do you have that your gods exist, or ever did exist?”
Exasperated, I shouted, “That’s entirely different!”
“Really, gene?”
“Well, there’s the Bible, but you probably wouldn’t accept that as evidence.”
“Who would? Your bibles weren’t written by gods, gino. They were written by human beings. You live by rules that were proposed thousands of years ago. At the very least you should revise them every century or so. And what if they got it wrong in the first place?”
“All right. I’m willing to stipulate that maybe God didn’t write the Bible, and even that maybe there are no gods at all, if you’ll agree that maybe K-PAX never existed either.”
“One problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve been there!”
“So you’re asking me to take K-PAX on faith?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Not at all. You can come with me if you want. See for yourself. I’ve still got room for one or two more.”
There was no good response to this preposterous suggestion. But, I wondered, could religion be a more important part of Rob’s dilemma than I had thought? I decided to pursue this. “Most of our religions tell us that if we have enough faith, we’ll end up in heaven.”
“Religions aren’t a question of ‘faith.’ They’re a matter of indoctrination.”
“That doesn’t prove they’re wrong. Anyway, right or wrong, if religions do us good, make us feel better—”
“They do seem rather benign, don’t they, my illogical friend? The fact is, they are one of your most dangerous aberrations.”
“Aberrations?”
“Religions are a cop-out. They free you from taking the responsibility for your own actions.”
“But surely we need to have an ethical foundation of some kind. Without moral laws, what motive would we have to behave?”
He chuckled a little, obviously enjoying himself. “You don’t behave anyway, despite your thousands of religions!”
“How easy for you ‘K-PAXians’ not to need any help with your lives. There’s no cruelty, no injustice, no evil of any kind on your planet, is there?”
“‘Evil’ is a purely human concept. It exists only on EARTH. And a few other class B PLANETS.”
This session, like yesterday’s lecture, wasn’t going quite as planned. Instead of me putting him on the spot, it was prot who had taken charge, as usual. Furthermore, I was distracted by the soiled tissue he had thrown on the floor. “Let me think about that.”
“You won’t regret it, believe me. And as for your gods,” he added cheerfully, “maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s a heaven and maybe there’s a hell. Anything’s possible in this crazy UNIVERSE.”
I had an odd feeling I had been checkmated again. I tried the more direct approach. “You know Robert pretty well. Tell me: do you think religion might have had some kind of deleterious effect on his mind?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. It has that effect on most of you. Wracked by doubt if you believe there’s a god, torn by fear if you don’t.” He shook his head. “Horrible! But you’ll have to ask him that for yourself. We never talked about it. Except for his wife’s being a catholic.”
“Did that bother him a lot?”
“No, but it bothered a lot of his so-called friends, most of whom he’d known since childhood. Go figure.”
Ordinarily I would have pursued the matter of Robert’s childhood friends. But this was no ordinary case, and there wasn’t enough time to peer into every dark corner. “Tell me something about your own childhood on K-PAX.”
He quickly produced his trademark grin and asked me what I’d like to know.
I went for the jugular. “Why don’t we start at the beginning? What’s the earliest thing you can remember?”
“I can remember the womb,” he mused.
“What?” I sat up a little straighter. “What was it like?”
“It was nice and warm.”
“About like K-PAX on a nice, sunny day?”
“It’s always sunny on K-PAX.”
“Of course. I had forgotten. What else do you remember about the womb?”
“There wasn’t much room to move around.”
“So I’ve heard. But it was comfortable, otherwise?”
“I suppose so. Noisy, though. A lot of pounding and gurgling.”
“Your mother’s heart. Stomach. Intestines.”
“I could hear her lungs, too. Wheeze, wheeze, wheeze.”
“You realized even before you were born what was causing all that racket?”
“Not really. Not in words, anyway.”
“Okay, you remember the womb. Does this mean you remember being born?”
“Yep. What a hassle.”
“In what way?”
“It’s a pretty tight squeeze, coach.”
“Did it hurt?”
“I had a headache for days. Your days, I mean.”
�
�Of course. So you didn’t much like being in the womb, and being born wasn’t too agreeable an experience, either. What about when you found yourself out in the world—was that as unpleasant as all the rest?”
“Some of the smells weren’t too savory.”
“Like what?”
“Now, gene, are you telling me you haven’t noticed that poo-poo happens?”
“Now that you mention it, I have on occasion. Do babies wear diapers on K-PAX, or what?”
“It’s not cold there. They don’t wear anything.”
“Babies run around naked on your planet?”
“Naturally. They do on this PLANET, too. In the summer, anyway.”
“So you were exposed to the elements, and to your relatives and anyone else who happened to be around. Is that right?”
“None of my relatives were there, as far as I know.”
“Not even your mother?”
“Only for a little while.”
“How about one of your uncles?”
“Huh?”
“Did you have any uncles hanging around?”
“I already answered that.”
“Meaning you don’t know for sure.”
“Nope.”
“Okay—you say your father abandoned your mother after you were born?”
“No, he left before I was born. Where I come from, no father hovers around waiting for a child to show up. It’s no big deal.”
“If I remember correctly, you said you’ve never even met your father, is that right?”
“No, I said that if we have met, our biological connection wasn’t pointed out to me.”
“K-PAXian fathers leave their children to fend for themselves, is that it?”
“Of course. Mothers do, too. We don’t have parents to brainwash us, like you do on EARTH.”
“Who does brainwash you?”
“No one does. Children are free to learn what they want, pursue whatever interests them.”
“Without any kind of supervision whatever?”
“Only enough to make sure they don’t harm themselves in some way.”
“Who does the supervising?”
“Gene, gene, gene. We went over this years ago!”
“Refresh my memory. Who makes sure your children don’t get themselves into trouble?”
“Whoever happens to be around.”
“What if no one is around?”
“There is always someone around to do what needs to be done.”
“An uncle, for example?”
Prot was becoming a trifle annoyed. “I wouldn’t know my uncle from a lorgon” (a goatlike creature found on K-PAX).
“Well, did anyone bother you in any way after you were born?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Would you remember if someone did?”
“Of course.”
“Are you sure?”
“You should get your hearing aid checked, gino.”
Another feeble attempt at K-PAXian humor, I suppose. But it also meant that prot was becoming testier, which was exactly what I wanted. “All right. Who bathed you when you were a baby?”
He slapped his forehead. “In the first place, babies don’t take baths on K-PAX—there’s no water, remember? In the second place, we’re not obsessed with every speck of dust on our skins, as you humans seem to be. And in the third place, if I needed to be cleaned, someone would do it.”
“How were you cleaned when you were a baby?”
“I was wiped off with fallid leaves. They’re soft and moist.”
“Who did that for you?”
“Whoever was around.”
“Your mother?”
“If she was around.”
“In other words, a baby is at the mercy of ‘whoever is around’?”
“Spoken like a true homo sapiens.”
“That’s because no one would ever harm another being on K-PAX, right?”
“Now you’re getting it.”
“Did one of your uncles hang around the house a lot?”
He whacked his forehead again. “We don’t have houses on K-PAX.”
“Well, did one of them hang around your neighborhood, or wherever it was you lived?”
“What is this obsession you have with uncles?” he screeched. “We don’t have uncles! We don’t know anything about uncles! Do you understand?”
“Do you resent the question?”
“I resent stupidity!”
“All right. I think that’s enough for one session, don’t you?”
“Plenty!” he said, jumping up and heading for the door. He still had an orange ring around his mouth.
“See you Tuesday!” I called out.
The only reply was the door being slammed.
After disposing of the soiled facial tissue I listened to the tape of our conversation. It was curiously satisfying to hear him become agitated at the mention of nudity, of bathing, of putative uncles. Was baby Robin harmed in some way by someone “who happened to be around”? There was a definite sore spot being touched here, and I was pretty sure we were on the right track. The only question was, did it lead to a brick wall?
Then there was prot’s abhorrence of religions, or perhaps the concept of ‘faith’ in general. Was Robert betrayed by someone he had faith in? Perhaps even a clergyman? I made a note to ask Giselle what she knew about his religious background.
In my office I found a message from the head of security—the people gathered on the sidewalk outside the front gate were demanding to speak with prot. I had forgotten all about them. Perhaps I subconsciously hoped they would just go away. I got the guy on the phone. “Find Giselle,” I told him, “and get her to take care of it.”
Early that afternoon I received a call from a colleague now living in Germany, though he is an American and went to medical school in the United States. In fact, we interned together at Bellevue. Though an incorrigible practical joker, he is a brilliant psychoanalyst and extremely personable as well. After chatting for a bit about our respective families he told me he had a patient in his hospital claiming to be from the planet K-PAX. “You’ve opened a can of worms,” he cheerfully informed me. “Now there are going to be ‘prots’ popping up all over the place. As a matter of fact, there’s another one I’ve heard about in China, and one in Congo, of all places.”
“This isn’t like your horse joke, is it?”
“Gene! Would I do that to you?”
“Yes! You did, in fact!”
“Well, maybe I did. But this involves a patient.”
“All right, what’s your guy like?” I asked him.
“Much like the man you’ve described in your books. But he calls himself ‘char,’ pronounced ‘care.’”
“Does he like fruit?”
“Can’t get enough of it.”
“Can he draw star maps from various places around the galaxy?”
“No, he has another talent.”
“What’s that?”
“He claims he has a direct pipeline to God.”
“Did you test him on that?”
“I asked him if there’s really a heaven.”
“And is there?”
“Yes. But there’s a catch.”
“What’s that?”
“There aren’t any people there.”
“Sounds like a genuine K-PAXian to me.”
“Who knows?”
“That reminds me, George. I wonder if you’d do me a favor.”
“Sure.”
“Do you have a camera?”
“Is the Pope Catholic? Is grass green? Do skunks—”
“Okay, okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to send our K-PAXian to see you. I mean, don’t hold your breath, but just in case he shows up, would you get a picture of him and fax it to me right away?”
“When’s he coming?”
“How about next Tuesday? At 9:15 a.m., say, which would be—what—3:15 there?”
“I’ll be out front waiting for
him. Does he have the address?”
“No, but I’ll give it to him. Got to run. Thanks for calling, Herr Doktor. And take care of your K-PAXian.”
“Any suggestions as to how?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me!”
As soon as I hung up, I realized I was already a few minutes late for my next patient, an obsessive-compulsive who must go through one or another endless ritual before he can perform the simplest act. For example, he can’t eat until he has washed his hands and face exactly thirty-two times. If he loses count he has to start over. And if he touches anything on the way to the dining room he must find a washroom and go through the whole procedure again.
But Linus’s difficulties go well beyond this. A biochemist with two doctoral degrees, he was part of a team trying to map the human genome, the complete chemical sequence of the DNA strands comprising each of our forty-six chromosomes, a formidable task requiring hundreds of scientists and all the latest technology.
His problems began to surface almost as soon as he was assigned to work on the project. In his first paper (with about fifteen co-authors), one of the referees noticed some peculiarities in the sequencing of the gene which governs how we taste sourness. On careful examination, it seemed that the section of DNA Linus had worked on was identical to part of another gene, except the forty or so components had been reversed. Someone was asked to check his data, but his notebooks had somehow been misplaced or stolen, and the experiments could not be repeated by other members of the laboratory.
At this point his thesis work came under closer scrutiny and it was discovered that none of that was verifiable either, and those original notes and data had disappeared also. To make a long and gruesome story short, our Linus knew nothing about biochemistry whatever, or much of anything else. How had he obtained his Ph.D.’s? No one knows, but it must have been a remarkable con job. (It was reported that his graduate-school seminars were so complex that no one could understand them, which presumably only enhanced his reputation as a brilliant researcher.)
A mild form of compulsive behavior was noted during his student days, but it was during the genome studies that he began to suffer from obsessive compulsions of a very serious nature. He sharpened dozens of pencils every morning before he could start to work. From this he rapidly progressed to a daily cleaning of the office he shared with a fellow biochemist. But it was when he began tidying up his partner’s desk, and, finally, shining every piece of glassware in the laboratory before he could get going, that he was put on temporary leave and encouraged to find help.