by Gene Brewer
“Yes. Do all K-PAXians have this ability to pursue someone clear across the galaxy at a moment’s notice?”
“Of course.”
“Quite a talent.”
“Not at all. Bear in mind that our species is several billion years ahead of yours. You’d be surprised at what you can learn just by sticking around long enough. Besides that, information is coming in all the time on every wavelength. The UNIVERSE is full of interesting vibes if you know how to listen.”
“And without a moment’s hesitation you vibed right across the galaxy to him.”
“Right into the mortuary. Ugly word, don’t you think?”
“What happened after the funeral?”
“We went to his house.”
“What did he do after you got there?”
“He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling.”
“Could you talk to him?”
“I could, but he didn’t feel much like talking back.”
“You came all the way from K-PAX and he wouldn’t talk to you?”
“Nope. But it didn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“After watching him for a while, I knew exactly how he was feeling.”
“How? Had the same thing happened to you?”
His eyes rolled up and his fingers came together. At last he said, “K-PAXians can sense what’s bothering another being.”
“You can read minds?”
“Not exactly. It’s difficult to explain....”
“Try me.”
He paused for another moment. “You could call it advanced semiotics. It’s a combination of things—facial expression, subtle changes of color, especially in the UV range, tone of voice, body language, eye movements, frequency of swallowing, breathing pattern, smell, and—uh—a few other things.”
“What things?”
“Oh, taste, smoothness of skin, pH, the kinds of radiation being given off, stuff like that. You feel exactly what the other being is feeling.”
“You’re an empath?”
“That’s awfully Star Trek, coach, but—yes, all K-PAXians are what you call ‘empaths.’ It’s easy when you don’t consider yourself the center of the UNIVERSE.”
“You think ‘aps’ are empathic, prot?”
“Sure. Just like most other beings. Have you ever tried to put anything over on a dog?”
He was right about that. Our Dalmatians somehow sensed what we were up to even before we did.
“And that’s why you seem to understand the patients’ problems better than their own doctors do.”
“You could too if you could get outside your prison.”
“Prison?”
“You know—the confines of your assumptions and beliefs.”
Once again we seemed to have detoured. But suddenly I had another inspiration, a great one this time. “With all your marvelous insight into human nature, do you know what’s bothering Robert right now?”
My excitement evidently came through loud and clear, because he chuckled before replying, “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know where he is!”
“Well, can’t you communicate with him somehow? Send out a signal on his ‘wavelength’ or something? Isn’t he sending out some ‘vibes’?”
“Nope. He doesn’t seem to want any help.”
“Damn it, prot, he’s right there with you somewhere!”
“If he is, I don’t see him. Do you?”
Of course I did, but he would never believe it. “All right. Let’s go back to when you were sixty-eight point six. Somehow you helped young Robert get over his loss. How did you do that?”
“I told him the facts of life.”
“You mean—”
“Nah, not that. About how the UNIVERSE works.”
“What good did that do?”
“It seemed to make him feel better.”
“How?”
“I explained to him that death is nothing to fear, that time will eventually reverse itself and that his father will live again.”
“I see. And did he believe that?”
“Why shouldn’t he? It’s as true as my sitting here.”
“So if you wanted to help Robert now, you’d just remind him that his father is not really dead, that he will live again in a few billion years—something like that?”
“He already knows that. But he’s probably figured out the corollary.”
“What corollary?”
He shook his head. “Hel-LO-o! That everything else that’s happened to him would repeat itself as well.”
Another brainstorm (which turned out to be another puny sprinkle) rumbled through my head. “Then do you have any suggestion as to what might help him? If we can find him, that is?”
“A trip to K-PAX would do him a WORLD of good.”
“Would that help him forget—”
“No, but he would soon realize that nothing that happened to him here could ever happen there. Besides, he could actually see and talk to his father whenever he wanted to.”
The hair on the back of my neck was tingling again. “What? How?”
“Now, gene, I told you about the—uh—what you call ‘holograms’ a long time ago.”
“Oh. That.” Tap, tap, tap. “So you would be willing to take Rob back with you when you go?”
“He got the first invitation—remember?”
“Why didn’t he go with you the last time, do you suppose?” I asked him smugly. “Didn’t he believe you?”
“There’s something he wants to get off his chest first.”
Unforgivably, I was becoming frustrated and annoyed. “Why doesn’t he do it, then?” I shouted.
“Do what?”
“Get it off his chest, goddamn it!”
“Calm down, doc. Just relax. Good. Good.... He can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too terrible.”
“Do you know what it is that’s so terrible?”
“Haven’t got a clue.”
“I have! I’ve got a clue! I just need him to fill in a few details! Will you tell him that?”
“If I see him.”
“I’m going to need your help on this, prot.”
“If you can find him I’ll speak to him.”
“Thank you so much.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
I tried to stay calm. “One last question: if everything is predestined, what’s the point of living?”
“What’s the point if it’s not?”
Drained dry again, I watched him saunter out. Maybe, I thought, I should just ask him directly to tell me everything he knows about Rob that I don’t. At least he couldn’t come up later with some revelation and claim I never asked him about it. What the hell happened to prot’s/Robert’s father in that log/bathtub? Whatever it was, it was predestined, in prot’s mind. The best way I know to alleviate a major guilt complex.
I ran into Carl Beamish in the restroom. Standing there side by side we heard a distant noise that sounded like a crowd at a basketball game. Memories of sweat and locker rooms and shiny gymnasium floors popped into my head. Karen never missed a game those four years I played on the high-school team. How I wished my father could have been there, even once. Might there be some sort of parallel universe, I mused, where different outcomes and missed opportunities come to be?
“Too much coffee?” Beamish opined, apparently noting that I was still standing at the urinal long after he had finished. Before I could reply another roar came from outside. I asked him what he made of it. “Maybe,” he suggested, “prot has gone out to talk to the people at the front gate.”
I was already late for my session with Linus, but I made a mental note to press Goldfarb on the preposterous situation in front of the hospital as soon as I found time. If I did, of course, she would probably appoint me chair of a committee of one to look into it.
“Doesn’t that circus out there bother you at all?” I asked Beam
ish.
He looked at me as if I were crazy. “I only hope he has room to take me along, too!”
I had invited Giselle to lunch. When she finally arrived in the dining room I demanded that she tell me what was going on at the front gate.
“You should come and see for yourself, Dr. B!”
“Why won’t they leave?”
“Most of them do go away after he talks to them, but more keep coming. There must be a couple thousand people out there right now. Some are bringing their dogs and cats to get a look at prot. And when he starts to speak there isn’t a single bark or meow. It’s absolutely quiet.”
“I thought I heard cheers this morning.”
“He always gets that when he tells them the Earth can be a K-PAX if we want it to be.”
“That’s it?”
“What more can he say?”
“I heard two cheers.”
“The last one was when he was finished and went back inside.”
“Go get your lunch.”
By the time she got back I had already eaten my cottage cheese and crackers. Now I had to watch as she ate her mound of food. Fortunately, I had a one o’clock meeting.
“Giselle, I don’t have much time. What did you learn from Rob’s mother?”
She opened a manila envelope, which contained a set of snapshots, mainly of Rob’s father, a few with the whole family. Most were taken when little Robin was only a baby. Gerald Porter was a big, robust man then. There was one of him in the slaughterhouse where he worked, wearing a bloody rubber apron. The later pictures were quite different. By the end of his life he had lost most of his muscle tissue. His face was drawn, there were dark circles around his eyes, his expression was that of someone trying to pretend he wasn’t in pain, at least for the photos. His clothes were several sizes too big, mostly corduroy trousers and blue denim shirts. His thick black hair was parted on the right, I noted. “No home movies,” she said, “but these are pretty revealing.”
“I’ll pass them on to Fred. What about his voice?”
“His mother said he used to be a deep baritone. Sang in the church choir. Toward the end it became rather squeaky, tired, high-pitched. He almost never slept, she told me. Couldn’t eat much, either.”
“The pain?”
“Terrible.”
“What about Rob’s relationship with his father? Did she notice anything unusual about it? Did she see any changes in him after his father came back from the hospital?”
“We didn’t get into all that. Maybe you should talk to her yourself.”
I stopped by my actor son’s East Village apartment that evening to deliver the folder and discuss a timeframe for his visit to the hospital. The buzzer at the stoop elicited no response but the lock was broken so I went on up and tapped on the door. No answer. Disappointed, I searched my pockets for a pen. While I was writing Fred a note, a wiry man with a long gray ponytail showed up. I considered giving the package to him, but decided against it. He sidled into an apartment across the barely-lit hall, where he was greeted with a hug by another man wearing only shorts and an undershirt. The wall was cracked even worse than the one on Fred’s side. I slid the folder under the door, along with a request to call me, and grabbed a taxi to Grand Central.
The following day, Thursday, I happened to glance into the quiet room and spotted Ophelia. There was something noticeably different about her, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Alex was there too, busily consulting an encyclopedia, an atlas, and a gazetteer. Ophelia waved. Usually she pretends not to see me, fearing I might judge her too harshly about something or another, I suppose. I motioned for her to step outside so we wouldn’t bother Alex.
“How are you today, Ophie?”
“I think I’m cured. How are you?”
“Ophelia! What happened?”
“I’m not afraid anymore.”
“That’s right!” I heard Alex shout.
“Why not?”
“Prot ordered me not to think of a rabbit.”
I had to smile. “And you did.”
She giggled. “I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it.”
Alice appeared from behind a sofa, spotted us, and dashed from the room squeaking like a mouse.
“So you disobeyed his command.”
“Yes.”
“And now you think you’re cured.”
“Yes. No, I take that back. I know I am.”
She still wasn’t well, of course. She couldn’t have made that much progress in several months of analysis, let alone a few minutes with prot. “That’s great, Ophie. I guess we’ll have to take up your case in the staff meeting next Monday.”
“No need to do that. I’ve already been assigned to Ward One.”
“Ward One? Who assigned you to Ward One?”
“Prot did.”
“Correct!” Alex called out.
“Ophelia! You know prot doesn’t run the hospital!”
“Of course I know that. But the order was countersigned by Dr. Goldfarb!”
The afternoon lecture was another bust. I had long ago given up following the syllabus I had drawn up at the beginning of the year (actually more like twenty years ago) and, as had become my habit, I began by briefing the students on my lack of progress in finding Robert, adding something about Ophelia and the other patients prot had managed to help in one way or another. “Oliver Sacks,” naturally, turned the discussion back to prot. “Maybe you could get him to speak to us,” he suggested. “You know—tell us what he’s learned about the patients and how we can better deal with them ourselves.”
I might have reminded him that he didn’t have any patients yet. Instead, I barked, “He’s not here to teach a bunch of medical students how to become psychiatrists. In any case, I don’t think the world is ready to be treated by a clone of prot ‘disciples,’ do you?”
“I don’t know. All I’m suggesting is that we could listen to what he has to say and see if we can learn anything from it. Draw our own conclusions.”
“Sorry.”
From around the room came roars and mutterings.
“All right, all right! I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll get him to jot down a few of his thoughts about the patients, and I’ll bring them next time. Assuming he agrees to do so. Fair enough?”
Oliver wasn’t finished. Oliver is never finished. “Ask him also what he doesn’t understand about them. I think that would tell us a lot about him.”
“That is correct!” someone piped up.
Reluctandy I agreed, and abruptly changed the subject. “We’re going to end the hour by talking a little bit about sexual deviation.”
For once I had their full attention—even prot seemed forgotten for the moment.
Session Forty-one
Prot fell into a trance immediately. “Okay, prot, please unhypnotize yourself.”
“What—” He stared bug-eyed around the room. “Where am I?”
“All right, we’ll dispense with the comedy today.”
“My dear sir, I don’t think you’d know comedy if it rose up and bit you on the hiney.” He reached for a cluster of red grapes and stuffed them into his maw, stems and all, along with a hunk of ripe peach.
“I’m willing to agree with that if you’ll tell me something I don’t know about Rob.”
Prot laughed heartily, like a little boy who’s discovered something silly. His mouth was a rainbow of color. “I was wrong, doctor b. You do have a sense of humor.”
“You mean you’re not going to divulge even one of his little secrets?”
“No, I mean there are a million things you don’t know about rob. Or anyone else, including yourself.”
“Then it should be easy for you. Fill me in. What are some things I don’t know about Rob?”
“Well, for example, you don’t even know that he tried to commit suicide on at least two occasions.”
“He what? When?”
“After his wife and daughter were killed—remember?”
“Of course I do. He tried to drown himself in the river behind his house.”
“Very good! But what about the first time—do you know about that?”
“What first time?”
“When he was six and a half. He tried to hang himself in his room.”
“At six?”
“Actually, he was closer to seven. To be precise, he was six years, ten months, nine days—”
“And that’s when he first called you? After the suicide attempt?”
“By george, I think you’ve finally got it.”
“He called you because he didn’t want to die.”
Prot pushed another bunch of grapes into his mouth. “No, my human friend, he called me because he failed to die.”
“You knew this and never told me? There are a few things you don’t understand about human beings yourself, my alien friend.”
“I already know more than I want to.”
“Please,” I implored (it came out more like a whine), “let’s not debate that issue today. Just tell me why Rob wanted to kill himself.”
“Because his father died.”
“But there wasn’t anything he could do about it, was there?”
“He thought it was his fault.”
“Why was it his fault?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”
“Goddammit, prot, he won’t talk to me!”
“Maybe you’ve been asking him the wrong questions.”
“I haven’t asked him anything,” I shot back. “He’s not here, remember?”
“If you had asked the right things in the first place, maybe he would be!”
It was all I could do not to explode. Instead, I tapped my yellow pad rather vigorously with my pen. “Do you have any suggestions about what the right questions might be?”
Prot gazed at me as if I were a complete idiot. “Well, you might try to find out how his father died, for example.”
“But—he died of natural causes, didn’t he? Resulting from a work-related injury suffered months earlier, as I remember.”
“Did you read the death certificate?”
“No. Did you?”
“Nope.”
“Then how do you know how he died?”