While waiting for him to make an appearance I reviewed what I knew, exactly, about the moment before prot started running from the man he was bathing. All I really knew was that suddenly young prot was running away. What in God’s name had happened at that seminal moment? Had something equally devastating happened to six-year-old Robert? And what was the connection between the two?
I had rescued a whole bowl of elderly bananas from the hospital kitchens. Prot went for them immediately, gobbling them down like a man starving. When he was finished and had sat back licking his fingers, I turned on the tape recorder and we went over the crucial events again without hypnosis. But he was unable to add a thing to fill in the brief gap in his memory. I uncovered the white dot and asked him to hypnotize himself. When he was in his usual deep trance I took him back to age sixty-eight and asked him to recall the details surrounding his bathing the broken, middle-aged dremer. He could barely remember the episode, and the only thing new I could get out of him was that the man started to rise from the hollow log (bath tub) just before prot departed the scene.
“Try to remember, prot! Was he reaching out to touch you? To grab you?”
“I— I don’t— He was trying to—”
“Yes? What was he trying to do?”
“He was trying to hit me!”
“Why? Do you know why he was trying to hit you?”
“I— I— I—”
“Yes? Yes?”
“I can’t remember. I can’t remember! I CAN’T REMEMBER! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
“All right, prot, calm down. Just relax. That’s right. Relax. Good. Good....”
He took several deep breaths. I brought him out of hypnosis and he was immediately in complete control again, as if nothing had happened.
I decided to try a different approach. “Space travel is somewhat risky, isn’t it?” I ventured.
A familiar look of exasperation mixed with condescension crept over his face. “Gene, gene, gene. Didn’t you have a bicycle when you were young?”
I suddenly remembered my father running alongside my new bike, finally pushing me off, my feeling of pride when I wiggled my way down the driveway by myself. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Space travel to us is like riding a bicycle would be to you. Did you worry about falling down every time you jumped onto it?”
“Not after the first few tries.”
“Tell me—what’s it like flying through empty space at several times the speed of light?”
“Like nothing.”
“You mean there’s nothing like it.”
“No, I mean there’s no sensation at all.”
“Is it like being unconscious? Or asleep? Something like that?”
“Something like that. It may be akin to what you call ‘hypnosis’.”
I didn’t miss the irony here, but there was no time to dwell on it. “No feeling of hunger or thirst, of getting any older. No sensation of any kind.”
“Nope.”
“Why don’t you burn up in the atmosphere, like a meteor?”
“Same reason light doesn’t burn up in the atmosphere.”
“When you ‘landed,’ didn’t you stop with a bit of a jolt?”
“No.”
“How do you stop?”
“Simple, if you have the right program.”
“You mean it’s done by computer?”
“Of course.”
“You bring a computer along wherever you go?”
“Sure. So do you. We’re all basically computers with legs, haven’t you noticed?”
“Are you saying the whole thing is programmed into your brain and you have no control over it?”
“Once the matrix is in place, it’s a done deal.”
“It overrides your own will power, is that it?”
“There’s no such thing as ‘will power,’ my friend.” He sounded rather wistful about this, I thought.
“We’re all just a bag of chemicals, is that what you mean? No one has any control over his actions.”
“Can hydrogen and oxygen stop themselves from making water?”
“You’re talking about predestination.”
“No, but you can call it that if it helps you to understand. I’m not saying your life is predetermined from beginning to end, only that in any given situation you will act in a predictable way, which is determined by the chemistry of your brain. You dig?”
“So if, say, a person killed his father, it’s not his fault, right?”
“Of course not.”
“Have you discussed this with Rob?”
“Many times.”
“Then why does he feel guilty about his father’s death?”
“He’s a human being, ain’t he?”
I stared at him for a moment. “Prot, something just occurred to me.”
“Bully for you, doctor brewer.”
“Did your whole body make the journey from K-PAX? Or just your ‘spirit’ or some sort of ‘essence’?”
“Do I look like a ghost to you, doc?”
The tape indicates someone tapping furiously on a notepad with a ballpoint pen. “Then why—oh, the hell with it. Just a few more questions about your first trip to Earth, okay?”
“I’ll save you some time. Though there was no sensation of growing older during the journey, I aged about seven of your months. The trip was uneventful, I didn’t run into anything, I landed safely, took a look at the beings in china, attended a funeral in montana, commiserated with robert, the details of which you have ample notes and recordings, and made it back to K-PAX in one piece. Anything else?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 Beamish.
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.