by Gene Brewer
“Steve? Steve?”
I called back a few seconds later but the line was busy.
On Saturday night, while Karen and I were decorating the tree (less than two weeks to Christmas and I hadn’t done any shopping yet), a middle-aged man came to the door. He was unshaven, his eyes bloodshot, but his clothes were clean, if threadbare and patched. I thought he was looking for work or a handout, though he didn’t seem to be drunk or schizophrenic, as many homeless people are. “Got a match?” he squeaked in a hoarse, high-pitched voice. I didn’t, but I hesitated to let him in. His face, however, was drawn, and he seemed to be in pain. His breath was raspy. I told him to wait and I would see if I could find one.
As I turned toward the living room I heard him say, “Aren’t you going to let me in?” The voice had dropped an octave and had become much stronger. “Remember the Robert Frost poem you read to us when we were kids? Home is where—”
“Fred!”
He grinned. “Well, were you convinced?”
“I certainly was! That’s exactly how I imagined Robert’s father would be like!”
“Let’s hope that’s the way Robert remembers him!” He took off his coat and headed for the living room. “If I know you guys, you’re decorating the Christmas tree tonight.”
Session Forty-four
No staff meeting on the fifteenth; this was the day of the outing to the Met Museum, one of four seasonal “getaways” we provide for all the patients who can, and want to, go. As luck would have it, I decided not to take part, opting instead to speak to the building contractor and get some other nagging work done.
It was a sunny day, and nearly all the patients in Wards One and Two (with a smattering of Threes) gathered on the front lawn, some of them toting a cat. Prot, of course, took this opportunity to address the crowd outside the gate, reiterating his regret that he could take none of them with him to K-PAX, reminding them that there wasn’t much time left to change things here (on Earth), and all the rest. None of the visitors seemed to want to leave, however, until he departed for the museum.
While waiting for the bus to arrive, prot, like some two-legged sheepdog, herded everyone tightly together in the center of the front lawn. Without a word he produced a small flashlight, placed it on his shoulder, aimed it at a little mirror he pulled out from somewhere, and suddenly (according to both the hospital staff and eyewitnesses outside the gate) everyone disappeared.
“It was unbelievable,” Betty told me later (they came back on the bus). “One minute we were standing on the lawn, the next we were on the steps of the Met. But there wasn’t any sensation of movement at all, or of time passing. In fact, nobody felt a thing.”
I should point out here that the integrity of Betty McAllister is beyond reproach. Moreover, Drs Beamish and Chang breathlessly confirmed everything she told me. Not having witnessed the event myself, however, I was still dubious, to put it mildly. “Are you sure you weren’t the victim of some sort of hypnotic trick?” I asked her.
“I thought of that, too. But how do you explain the accounts of all the people outside the fence who saw us disappear?”
“Maybe they were fooled, too.”
“What about the surveillance cameras? Did you see the tapes?”
“I saw them.”
“Well? Can’t you admit, finally, that he’s who he says he is?”
“Maybe and maybe not,” I said, thoroughly confused. “It still could be some kind of trick.”
I had known Betty for twenty-five years, and we had always gotten along extremely well. But what she said next stung me to the quick. “Gene,” she exclaimed, “you’re blind as a bat!”
“You could be right about that. But my responsibility is still to my patient, Robert Porter. What do you suggest I do about him?”
Unfortunately, she, like prot and everyone else, had no easy answer for that.
I left Fred in my office with Giselle and stepped into the examining room. Two weeks left, and I was so damn tired I didn’t know whether I could keep up with prot for even that long. In fact, when he came in he caught me dozing. I awoke with a jolt and stared blankly at him, wondering who he was. “Did you really take forty people to the Met yesterday?” I demanded when I realized where we were.
He took a huge bite out of a pineapple and nodded matter-of-factly.
“Then why did you ride the bus back?”
“Thought I’d take one last look at the city.”
“I see. And what did you think of it?”
“I thought: At the rate you’re going, the whole EARTH will look like this some day.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“It is if you’re a giraffe.”
We had already wasted enough time. “All right. Let’s get down to business.”
He wagged his head and blurted out a chuckle.
“Giselle got us a copy of the death certificate. You were right—it’s somewhat vague on the cause of death. Would you like to elaborate on that?”
“Not particularly.”
“Okay, damn it, would you please tell me what you know, even if you wouldn’t like to?”
“He fell and hit his head.”
“Was he pushed, or was it an accident?”
Prot shrugged. “How should I know?”
“You won’t help me at all on this?”
“I am helping you. You just don’t realize it yet.”
“All right, fine. I’d like to speak to Robert now.”
“No hypnotic tricks?”
“I don’t think we’re going to need that anymore.” He swallowed the last chunk of pineapple, murmured, “He’s all yours,” and his head sank to his chest.
“Rob?”
Of course there was no response.
“Rob, I have a surprise for you today. How would you like to see your father again?”
His head jerked, as if it had been tapped with a sledgehammer. But he said nothing.
“He’s waiting outside, Rob.”
I heard him swallow, as though he were choking back a sob.
“Shall I ask him to come in?”
He made a few more guttural noises.
“Well, if you don’t want to see him, I’ll just ask him to go.” I stood up and moved toward the door. There was a definite strangled whine. “Maybe he can come back in a week or two.” I added, reaching for the knob.
“Noooooooooooo!” he gurgled. “Please! I want to see my daddy!”
I motioned for Fred to come in. He went straight to my patient and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hi, Robbie,” he rasped. “I’ve missed you.”
Rob fell to his knees, weeping much like Linus had earlier. He thrust his arms around Fred’s legs and repeated, over and over again, “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry. Oh, God, I’m so sorry....”
I began to gurgle a little myself. It was exactly what I had been waiting to hear. What I didn’t expect, however, was what happened next. Robert gasped, rolled over, and passed out.
While I ran to examine him, Fred, taken aback, apologized for what had happened. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to—”
“Not your fault, Freddy. You were perfect.” Rob, however, had gone back to his familiar catatonic state. He had finally unloaded the thing he had wanted to get off his chest. Now it was simply a matter of pulling him out of the catatonia. Unfortunately, that could take years.
Only then did it occur to me that this was exactly the state Rob had been left in seven years ago. Had prot gone somewhere else? “Prot? Prot?”
He sat up. “How did I get down on the floor, coach? Howdy, Fred.”
“You left us for a while.”
“I didn’t get very far, did I?”
“I’d say it was a giant step.”
“But of course you want two giant steps.”
“I’ll settle for your delaying your trip to K-PAX for another five years.”
“Sorry.”
“In that case, that’s all for today. And prot?”
&
nbsp; “Narr?”
“Please don’t take any more of the patients or staff from the hospital grounds without permission, okay?”
He held up three fingers, as if giving the Boy Scout oath, and said, solemnly, “I hereby promise not to take any of the patients or staff from the hospital grounds. Until the thirty-first of December, of course.” He saluted and left.
After he had gone Fred confided, “I used to think you just sat around gabbing all day, Dad. I had no idea what you really did. Now I see it’s a lot of work and a big responsibility. And I think you’re probably very good at your job.”
All I could think of in reply was, “Your work isn’t nearly as easy as I thought either, son.”
He hugged me. “I’ve always wanted to hear you say that.” Neither of us wanted to let go. Of each other, of moments like this, of sweet life.
We finally went to my inner office, where Giselle was waiting. Freddy asked her if he might be able to talk to prot that morning (I had told him she was acting as prot’s “Chief of Staff’). She said she thought that could be arranged. I wondered whether something was bothering him that he wanted to discuss with our “alien” friend, but I didn’t want to bring up personal or family matters in front of Giselle. She may have been like a daughter to me, but she had only seen Fred once or twice.
Inasmuch as he had been instrumental in getting through to Rob, on the other hand, it seemed perfectly reasonable to report to her, with Fred present, on the progress we had made that morning.
“Rob was there?” she exclaimed. “He spoke to you?”
“Of course he was there!” I exclaimed in return. “Don’t you understand that wherever prot is, Rob is there, too?”
“Not necessarily,” Fred interposed.
I was wondering whether I should have left him outside. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, his father was there a little while ago, but his father wasn’t there.”
“But MPD is a far different thing from playacting, Fred.”
“Maybe. But how do you know it wasn’t just prot pretending to be Rob? Or maybe it’s been Rob all along pretending to be prot. Or someone else altogether pretending to be all of them. For that matter, how do you know that multiple personality disorder isn’t really just a matter of playacting?”
My son, the shrink. I didn’t have time to give him a lecture on the principles of psychiatry, but I did point out that the various personalities originating from a single individual exhibit a number of differences in physical characteristics.
“Anybody ever do any tests like that with actors playing different roles?” he wondered.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have an opportunity to pursue the matter. Fred had an audition coming up, and Giselle escorted him to Ward Two and his “consultation” with prot. Nor had I had the chance to tell her that her husband had slipped into a state of catatonia once again.
I sat there trying to make sense of what had happened. But I couldn’t get Fred’s questions out of my mind. It did, in fact, seem that Paul had been impersonating Rob at least part of the time in 1995. Did he come out that morning, pretending to be Robert, to apologize to his father for him? Was it possible he could have been playing the role of Harry as well? Or, for that matter, prot? Or was I making too much of all this? Wasn’t it more likely that what had transpired in my examining room was exactly what it seemed to be: The grief and guilt underlying Rob’s illness was born of something he had done to his father? Was it, in fact, a mercy killing, rather than an assisted suicide, an attempt to end his father’s suffering, something that neither Harry nor Paul participated in?
Maybe it was time to admit that this case was too much for me. To admit that I might never find out what was behind Robert Porter’s problems. To call in someone else. But the only person who seemed to be able to help with such a tangled case was prot himself, whoever he was.
Session Forty-five
After the alleged flight to the Met, many of the staff, as well as virtually all of the patients, of course, were now firmly convinced that prot was who he said he was. Not long after that unbelievable journey I got a call from the research ophthalmologist who had wanted to examine prot’s visual capabilities in 1995 (after learning that he was able to see ultraviolet light, much as certain insects and a few other earthly creatures can do).
“You’ll have to talk to Giselle Griffin about that.”
“I already did. She told me to call you.”
“All I can do is ask him.”
Since it would have been difficult to truck all of the necessary equipment up to MPI, I sent prot, who was perfectly willing to cooperate in this venture—perhaps he had finalized his list of fellow travelers—to Dr. Sternik’s office and laboratory at NYU, along with a security officer. They left on Wednesday morning and didn’t return until late afternoon.
Sternik called me at six o’clock, just as I was packing my briefcase to leave. When I had talked to him earlier his voice was steady, confident. Now he spoke uncertainly in quavery tones, obviously shaken. He confirmed that prot could see light down to around 400 Å and added, “I’ve examined every part of his eyes and they are quite normal in all other respects. Unusually healthy eyes, in fact. Except for his retinas. Besides the usual rods and cones, there seem to be little hexagonal crystals scattered around the fovea. Whether they have anything to do with his ultraviolet vision or not, I haven’t a clue. But I’ve never seen anything like it....”
I waited for him to go on. There wasn’t much I could offer, anyway.
“I was wondering,” he said finally, “whether prot would be willing to donate one of his eyes to us.”
“Well, I don’t—”
“In the event of his death, of course. I think we might learn some very interesting things from those retinas.”
I promised him I would speak to prot about it. “But he’s leaving us on the thirty-first.”
“Leaving? Where’s he going?”
“Says he’s going back to the planet he came from.”
Without a moment’s hesitation he cried out, “I’ll give him a hundred thousand dollars for an eye!”
I promised to pass on the offer, but advised him not to hold his breath.
The next day I was swamped with patients, meetings (one in mid-town), and my regular lecture at Columbia, the last of the semester, during which I had to cram in all the material I hadn’t gotten to earlier. On top of everything else I had suffered through another restless night, with thoughts of recent events racing around in my head at tachyon speed. But all of them kept circling round and round the central question: Who was prot? Suppose he was an alien from halfway across the galaxy, or Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy, or God Himself. How would this help my patient, Robert Porter? I pondered the alternative—that he was merely an alter ego, a human being from Guelph, Montana. Whatever he was, Robert remained catatonic. When I finally got up I felt a bit more achy than usual and a little lightheaded, and I wondered whether I was coming down with something. It couldn’t be the flu, I told myself; I had been vaccinated in October along with the rest of the staff.
Somehow I got through the morning (though I fell asleep during a session with one of my patients, the first time I had ever done so). I was tempted to cancel the lecture, but how could I? It was the last one, and I still had enough material for three more classes.
But the students had heard about the lightning-quick trip to the museum, and already knew about the results of prot’s retinal exam. Bleary-eyed, I threw my notebook on the desk, gave them a huge reading assignment, assured them that everything I hadn’t discussed in class would be on the final exam, and told them exactly where the case of Robert Porter stood. What the hell, I rationalized, maybe they could come up with something I hadn’t.
The discussion was led, of course, by “Doctor Sacks,” who declared: “It’s as plain as the nose on your face. The father asked his son to help him commit suicide. It probably took many discussions out on the lawn at night, in the gu
ise of watching the stars, but finally, as his dad got worse and worse, the boy became convinced. Now imagine his dilemma—here he was, six years old, and his beloved father was in enormous pain. Wouldn’t you want to help him end the misery? At the same time he knew it was wrong to kill his father. He was caught between a rock and a hard place. One night his father said he couldn’t stand it any longer. He begged Rob to help him do it. Maybe the boy held him down in the tub, or tied him down so he couldn’t get out, something like that. Of course when it was all over and he realized what he had done, he ran out of the bathroom and kept on running, trying to get away from it all. But no matter how far or how fast he ran, he couldn’t get away from himself. Not in a million years. It would be enough to drive anyone crazy!”
“And how does prot fit into all this?”
“He called out for help. Prot was the only one who heard him.”
“You think he came from K-PAX to help someone he didn’t even know?”
“He’s here, ain’t he?”
I dismissed the class early and went home.
The next day I had a low-grade fever, pain in every joint. I’ve always thought that people who are sick should stay home and not spread their illness to everyone they might come into contact with. But there was no choice—I had to keep my appointment with prot. So, feeling like a Typhoid Mary, I forced myself to get up and go to the hospital.
I shuffled in a few minutes late for our session. He was already in his usual place, gorging on tangerines. “Prot, I’d like to talk to you.”
“Talk away.”
“But first I’d like to speak to Rob.”
He gawked around. “Where is he?”
“Never mind that for now. Please—-just sit back and relax.”
He sighed and rolled his UV-sensitive eyes, but his head finally drooped down.