by Gene Brewer
We got to the dining room before seven, but prot and his “family” were already there, gorging themselves on cereal (with rice milk) and fruit. It was a quiet breakfast, most of the patients having decided to let them enjoy their last meal on Earth in private.
Prot, wearing his usual blue corduroys and denim shirt, seemed his normal self—unconcerned, confident. He lapped up at least a quart of orange juice, several dishes of prunes, and one last bunch of overripe bananas. I noticed that his ear was still bandaged. K-PAXians, it appeared, were as slow to heal as the rest of us.
“Well, it’s time,” he said, when all the fruit was gone except for the dried ones, which he was taking with him.
There was a last piney hug from Giselle, and even a quick one from Frankie. “Get that nose fixed,” she admonished. Prot thanked me for “your patience” (patients?), and hoped that “all your mental problems will be little ones.”
A few of the inmates and staff said their final farewells and wandered over to the lounge, where many of the others had already assembled, as had the CIA, with their sensors, recorders, and cameras. The press photographers waited impatiently on the other side of the room. Apparently there was little time left. Prot immediately gathered the three of them together, brought out his little mirror and flashlight, and gave one last wave (each of us was sure he was waving to him or her). Frankie, blowing kisses, shouted, “Good-bye, you bastards! Fuck you all! Fuck you . . . ! Fuck you . . . !”
I yelled at prot, “Say hello to Bess for me!” He winked, but whether this meant “I will” or he was complimenting me on my sense of humor, I’ll never know. In any case he clearly mouthed, “Don’t eat anyone I know!”, held out his little mirror, propped the flashlight on his shoulder, switched it on, and in an instant he was gone.
I didn’t know what Giselle and the others’ reaction would be when it was over, but I expected Robert to collapse on the spot where prot had stood, as he had done the last time prot departed. Instead, he disappeared too, as did Frankie, Giselle, and the boy. All of them had simply vanished.
A few minutes later I got a call from my wife. “Oxie is gone,” she chirped, without the slightest hint of disappointment.
Somehow I wasn’t surprised.
Epilogue
Shortly after prot and the others had “disappeared,” there was a call from the Bronx zoo. Several of the primates had somehow gotten out and hadn’t been found. To this day none of them has turned up anywhere, but whether they accompanied prot on his final “journey” to K-PAX, no one knows.
But this we do know: About a dozen humans from around the world were also reported missing shortly after our group of five (counting Oxeye) departed. Many of these declared, on the morning of December 31, that they were waiting for someone to pick them up. Some even left notes giving a forwarding address: K-PAX. The only former patients who disappeared at about the same time as the others were Ed (and his cat LaBelle)—prot, apparently, had fulfilled a long-standing promise to them—and Mr. Magoo, the man who couldn’t recognize faces, which would be of little consequence on K-PAX.
So far as we can determine, however, none of the children who wanted to go with prot were chosen. Indeed, there have been several reports that prot visited some of the juvenile applicants at one time or another over the past two years to explain why he wouldn’t be taking them with him. In every case he told them the same thing he had told all the young people hanging around the gate for the past month: They could have K-PAX right here if they wanted it badly enough, it was up to them, etc.
As for the seventy or so remaining “seats,” we can only guess that they were filled by various beings from giraffes to bugs. The only thing we can be fairly certain about is that there were probably no sea creatures included in the passenger list.
So where are prot and all the others? Maybe they’re hiding out in some cave in Antarctica or under the canopy of a dense South American jungle. Or perhaps they are all on K-PAX. Wherever they went, they disappeared without a trace and haven’t been seen since, except for a number of reports of his abducting a few more rural Midwest couples for sexual purposes, and flying over large cities like some latter-day Superman. Prot, of course, would have dismissed these as “background noise.”
It all boils down to this: There are two possible explanations for what happened to them, equally plausible in my view. The first is that prot was no more and no less than a secondary personality of a deeply disturbed young man devastated by the terrible events of his boyhood. Like certain autists he was somehow able to reach into recesses of his brain that the rest of us, for whatever reasons, can’t get to. This would account for his ability to trick us into believing he could travel faster than light, come up with complex cosmological theories, and so on.
Moreover, he somehow managed to change not only the spectral acuity of his eyesight but the structure of the DNA within the very cells of his body. (Only prot’s DNA differed from Robert’s. That of Paul and Harry did not.) He may also have been able to read minds, though there isn’t much clear evidence for that. And certainly bodies, thank God. He correctly diagnosed not only former patient Russell’s bowel tumor in 1990, but my wife’s breast cancer seven years later. (Karen had a tiny malignancy removed early in 1998 and the prognosis is excellent.) Not to mention all the psychiatric patients he set on the road to recovery with his uncanny intuition. The little boxes he gave us all for Christmas, incidentally, turned out to be infinite regressions. No matter how powerful the microscope, there was always another box inside.
The only other possible explanation is that prot can see UV light and travel at tachyon speeds, and that he is on K-PAX right now introducing a hundred of our fellow beings to his Garden of Eden in the sky. Fantastic, yes, but little more so than the former hypothesis, I have come to believe.
Let’s examine the latter explanation for a moment. Does it fit the data? How can we account for the fact that prot and Robert seemed to occupy the same body, at least at times? Is it possible that only prot’s spirit or essence came to Earth, something that he himself denied? More to the point, if only the essences of the hundred space travelers left the planet, where are their bodies? Alternatively, did prot’s entire being make the trip to Earth and, for reasons beyond our understanding, could somehow replace Robert at a moment’s notice? But if he really was a space traveler, how do we account for the apparent similarities in the lives of prot on his ideal planet and Robert here on Earth?
I have thought about these possibilities long and hard, believe me, and the only conclusion I have been able to reach is that the truth is “all of the above.” Or to put it another way, the answer is a combination of both explanations. Isn’t it possible, for instance, that planet K-PAX is a kind of alternate world to our own, a parallel universe, so to speak, one of the roads not taken on Earth? Do we all have alter egos floating somewhere among the stars?
Whatever the answer, there are a great many questions still lying in the folder labeled “Robert Porter.” For example, how did Rob manage to fool us in 1995 with his apparent “pseudorecovery,” and who else was in on the deception? And was it Harry who did away with the intruder who murdered Rob’s wife and daughter, and what would have happened if that vicious killer hadn’t appeared that fateful day in August, 1985—would Robert and his family have lived a relatively normal life? What if six-year-old Rob had never bathed his father? Or little Gene? Or if his father had never been injured in the first place? Or Giselle had wheels? Will prot and the others ever return? Wherever they are, have they found, at last, a measure of the peace they all so desperately sought?
In brief, I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. All I know is that I have hung up my yellow pad and moved to an old farmhouse in the Adirondacks (courtesy of the film version of K-PAX), where Karen and I, and our mixed-breed dog Flower, plan to sit and watch the sun go down till the end of our days. I leave the world in the hands of the next generations, who, I dearly hope, and choose to believe, are up to the
job.
In one case, at least, I have absolute faith in the future. My son Will, now doing his residency at Bellevue, is going to be a fine psychiatrist, of that I am certain. He has an ability I never had, that of empathizing with his patients and getting things out of them that no one else can. He claims he learned this trick from prot, but I think it was something he was born with. He and Dawn are now the parents of a beautiful baby boy who resembles his grandfather in many ways (you should compare our baby pictures!), and they come up to see us whenever they get a chance, though Will claims that taking care of the old house, in addition to his professional duties, takes most of his time.
Freddy visits less often, usually for a brief “weekend” (following his Sunday matinee). Now living with a new soulmate in the West Village (the real thing this time, he tells us), he is still a regular cast member of the popular Broadway show Les Misérables.
With prot’s help, our son-in-law Steve is now chair of the astronomy department at Princeton. Consequently, he has little time for research or anything else, including us (his predecessor, Charlie Flynn, incidentally, is now a student at a Midwestern theology school). But his and Abby’s kids, now approaching adulthood (too soon!), are our most frequent visitors, especially in the summer, when they usually stay for several weeks, claiming they don’t miss their computers a bit. Abby herself survived turning forty, and is more active than ever in various “rights” causes.
Jennifer, the “real doctor” in the family, doesn’t visit us as much as we’d like (though we have been to see her once or twice), but she keeps us informed on the progress of her AIDS practice and research. She tells us, in fact, that she is participating in a program to test a new vaccine against HIV and it looks as though it is going to be a godsend.
Do I miss the grind? Not much. Retirement is every bit as good as it’s supposed to be. I do keep up with some of the psychiatric literature and visit the hospital once in a while, where Jerry and I usually have a heart-to-heart, his head against my chest, or vice versa. And I have met the woman who took the pot-shot at prot, now a patient at MPI. She claims she was acting “under orders from God.” Whenever I see her I remember prot’s telling me that wherever there are religions there will always be fanatics.
Thorstein is still there, as are Goldfarb and all the rest; they were kind enough to rename the lecture hall between the first and second floors the “E.N. Brewer Auditorium” (the new wing is still under construction), probably hoping for a large donation from me. Although that expectation hasn’t yet been realized, I am nevertheless deeply grateful for the honor.
But I’m beginning to feel like an outsider there, especially since most of the old, pre-prot patients are gone. Just as well. Let Will be the next Brewer beating his brains against the prots and Christs and the other unfortunate people who end up within those walls.
Not that we aren’t keeping busy (I still haven’t found time to read Moby Dick, or try the unicycle Milton presented to me on the eve of his departure). Karen is firmly in charge of our travel schedule and all our social and cultural engagements, including an occasional performance at the Met, and keeps us pretty busy. But now I see opera (and a number of other things) in a rather different light since prot’s visits. It is, after all, limited to the joys and tragedies of people. If there’s one thing I learned from him, it’s that we humans seem to be concerned with only a tiny part of some larger whole. According to prot, every being has just as much right to its life as we do, a view I have finally come to share, though I still have a slice of pizza or a hot fudge sundae once in a while. But no more cottage cheese!
And I spend more time now looking at the sky. In fact, Karen bought me a four-inch reflecting telescope for my retirement present, and most clear evenings, summer and winter, will find me outside contemplating the stars. Sometimes I look toward the constellation Lyra and wonder whether our hundred beings are up there and what they are doing (part of me will always regret not accepting prot’s offer of a free trip to K-PAX when I had the chance). I sincerely hope they have found peace and contentment, and that there is another world out there where my father is still alive and I became a singer instead of a psychiatrist. Whether that is true or only a dream, there’s one thing I’m absolutely sure of: There are millions of planets we don’t yet know about, worlds we can hope to visit or communicate with some day, and the Earth and the beings on it aren’t at the center of the universe. Rather, I see us, the galaxy, and even the universe itself as a tiny part of the wisdom, beauty, and mystery of God.
Suggested Additional Reading
Abbey, Lloyd, The Last Whales (Grove Weidenfeld, New York, 1989).
Amory, Cleveland, Mankind? (Harper and Row, New York, 1974).
Bliss, E.L., Multiple Personality, Allied Disorders, and Hypnosis (Oxford Press, New York and Oxford, 1986).
Buell, R., and Zimmer, N., Aspects of Love: The Doctor/Patient Relationship (Cityscape Press, Buffalo, NY, 1991).
Calder, Nigel, Einstein’s Universe (Viking Press, New York, 1979).
Carson, Rachel, Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1962).
Cavalieri, Paola, and Singer, Peter, The Great Ape Project (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1993).
Confer, W.N., and Abies, B.S., Multiple Personality (Human Sciences Press, Inc., New York, 1983).
Croswell, Ken, The Universe at Midnight (The Free Prees, New York, 2001).
Davison, Gerald C, and Neale, John M., Abnormal Psychology (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1994).
Dressler, Alan, Voyage to the Great Attractor (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1994).
Ehrlich, Paul, The Population Bomb (Ballantine Books, New York, 1968).
Eisenberg, Evan, The Ecology of Eden (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1998).
Ferris, Timothy, The Whole Shebang (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997).
Friedman, C.T.H., and Gaguet, R.A. (eds.), Extraordinary Disorders of Human Behavior (Plenum Press, New York, 1982).
Garrett, Laura, The Coming Plague (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1994).
Griffin, Giselle, An Alien among Us? (Scientific Publications, Inc., Montpelier, VT, 1996).
Havens, L., A Safe Place (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989).
Hawking, Stephen, A Brief History of Time (Bantam Books, New York, 1988).
Jamison, K.R., Touched With Fire (The Free Press, New York, 1992).
Lear, Jonathan, The Fifty Minute Hour (The Other Press, New York, 1982).
Mason, Jim, An Unnatural Order (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1993).
Masson, Jeffrey M., & McCarthy, S., When Elephants Weep (Delacorte Press, New York, 1995).
McKibben, Bill, The End of Nature (Random House, New York, 1989).
Melville, Herman, Moby Dick (Harper & Bros., New York, 1851).
Neale, J.M. et al, Case Studies of Abnormal Psychology (J. Wiley, New York, 1982).
Payne, K., Silent Thunder (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998).
Putnam, F., Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder (Guildford Press, New York, 1989).
Quammen, David, The Song of the Dodo (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996).
Rapoport, J.L., The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing (E. P. Dutton, New York, 1989).
Rees, Martin, Our Final Hour (Basic Books, New York, 2003).
Restak, R.M., The Mind (Bantam Books, New York, 1988).
Robbins, J., Diet for a New America (Stillpoint Publications, Walpole, NH, 1987).
Sacks, Oliver, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1985).
Sacks, Oliver, An Anthropologist on Mars (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1995).
Sagan, Carl, The Dragons of Eden (Random House, New York, 1977).
Sagan, Carl, Cosmos (Random House, New York, 1980).
Sagan, Carl, The Demon-Haunted World (Random House, New York, 1995).
Schell, Jonathan, The Fate of the Earth (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1982).
Scully, Matthew, Dominion (St. Martin’s Press,
New York, 2002).
Singer, P., Animal Liberation (Avon Books, New York, 1975).
Sizemore, C.C., A Mind of My Own (W. Morrow, New York, 1989).
Stone, I., The Passions of the Mind (Doubleday, New York, 1971).
Taylor, Gordon R., The Biological Time Bomb (New American Library, Cleveland, 1968).
Treen, A., and Treen, S., The Dalmatian (Howell Book House, New York, 1980).
Treffert, D.A., Extraordinary People (Harper & Row, New York, 1989).
Wise, S., Rattling the Cage (Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA, 2000).
Wolman, B. (ed.), The Therapist’s Handbook (van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1983).
Yalom, Irvin D., Love’s Executioner (Basic Books, New York, 1989).
Acknowledgments
I thank Lois Weinstein for climbing this mountain with me, and my editors Mike Jones and Isabella Pereira for being both efficient and co-operative.
Prot’s Report
Foreword
I remember my first encounter with prot as if it were yesterday (he would probably say it was yesterday). His demeanor annoyed me considerably until I connected his lopsided grin with that of my late father, for whom I held a deep-seated resentment. Perhaps I was also a bit frustrated by the case itself. Prot was an apparent delusional with no obvious background. Identifying him was like trying to crack open a billiard ball with a feather, and came at a time when I, as interim director of the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute, was covered up with numerous other duties.