On a Beam of Light (22 page)

[The hostess stared at him and said nothing for a moment. ]

P: I told you you wouldn’t want to hear it. H: Life will just end on Earth?

P: There will still be life, but human beings will never return to this PLANET. Similar species might evolve, but the likelihood that one of them will be homo sapiens is very small. You are a rare breed in the UNIVERSE, you know. A freak of nature, so to speak.

H: And there’s no way to stop this?

P: Sure. All you have to do is start over with a different set of assumptions.

H: You mean the business of eliminating money, families, religion, countries—things like that?

P: It’s not really so difficult. You just have to decide whether these things are more important to you than your survival. For example— you gave up smoking, right?

[Yet another soft musical hint: “Two different . worlds…. “]

H: Uh—yes, I did. But—

P; Was it easy?

H: It was hell.

P: But now you never miss it, do you?

[The music came up, more persistently than before. ]

P: Look—why not try living without wars, religions, specieside, and all the rest for a decade or two? If you don’t like it you can always go back to the hatred and killing and endless growth…. H: Back after these messages.

[When the show returned, the starlet decided to get into the act. The facade of dumbness had fallen off. ]

S: You forgot to factor the human spirit into your equations.

P: That’s a meaningless term concocted, no doubt, by some homo sapiens or other.

S: What about Shakespeare? Mozart? Picasso? The human race has accomplished some great things, even by your standards. In fact, we humans have made this a pretty wonderful world!

[A smattering of applause. ]

P [gazing at the camera with his familiar look of exasperation mixed with mild contempt]: What kind of world is it where violence and war are not only accepted, but your youth are encouraged to practice them? Where your leaders must be constantly guarded against assassination, and airline travelers frisked for weapons? Where every vial of aspirin must be protected against poisoning? Where some of your beings make fortunes to play games while others are starving? Where no one believes a single word your governments or your corporations say? Where your stockbrokers and film stars are more valued than your teachers? Where the numbers of human beings increase and increase while other species are driven to extinction? Where—

[“Two different worlds…. “]

H: Don’t go ‘way. We’ll be right back!

No one in the little room said anything. We all watched the commercials, thought our divergent thoughts. In a little while our hostess returned with: “We’ve been talking with prot, a visitor from the planet K-PAX, where things are a lot simpler than they are here on Earth. Prot, our time is up. Will you come back and visit us again?”

“Why—weren’t you listening?” He was still wearing the funny hat and the suit and I didn’t know which looked sillier on him.

“Good night, folks, good night! Good night!”

There was no applause. The audience, apparently, was still confused by what they had seen and heard. Or perhaps they merely figured his were the words of a crazy man. * Just before the show went off the air there was another extreme slow-motion shot of prot disappearing abruptly from view, and the 800 number flashed one final time on the screen.

*Some of prot’s other comments, which space did not permit including here, are listed in “The Wisdom (or Craziness) of prot, ” at the end of this book.

When they brought him back to our little room he was grinning broadly. I stuck out my hand, as proud of him as if he were my own son. Not for what he had said, but because he had kept his word and done the show without allowing Robert to make an appearance.

“See you later, doc, ” he said. He turned to Giselle and whispered, “Bye, kid. ” She hugged him. When he stepped back it was Rob, still wearing prot’s sunglasses and Milton’s hat, who faced us.

I was puzzled. I hadn’t expected this. Had prot decided to throw Rob into the water, to force him to sink or swim? I quickly explained the situation to him—where he was, what had happened. He looked at me with a hint of amusement, just as prot might have done. When we left the little waiting room he was happy and relaxed, which was more than could be said for me.

On the way back to the hospital he played with the gizmos, waved at the staring passersby, seemed to soak up the excitement of the city, which he had never seen. “From now on, the whole world is your safe haven, ” I told him, though it was obviously unnecessary. By the time we got “home” he was sound asleep, his head resting on Giselle’s shoulder.

The morning after the televised interview a pair of CIA agents were in my (Villers’s) office waiting for me. They demanded to speak with prot.

“I don’t know where he is, ” I responded truthfully.

“You mean he’s gone?”

“Looks that way. “

They seemed dubious, but one of them suddenly came up with a notebook and scribbled something into it. He ripped out a page and handed it to me. It was a beeper number. “If he shows up again, let us know right away. ” I almost expected them to insist that I eat the message, but they whirled around simultaneously and rushed out the door, as if all hell were breaking loose somewhere.

After they had gone I went to look for Rob. I found him in his room with Giselle. Both were reading or, perhaps, studying. They looked exactly Like a couple of college students preparing for exams in a co-ed dorm.

I took a look at the stack of dusty books resting on Rob’s little table Like old treasure chests about to be opened: Birds of the Northeast, Moby Dick, and several others. In his hands rested a recent tome by Oliver Sacks. As normal as apple pie, I thought, with no little satisfaction.

Giselle was taking notes from a book called Unexplained Mysteries. On the floor next to her chair was a typed manuscript, the first draft of her article about UFO’s.

“How are you feeling, Rob?”

“Never felt better, doc, ” he assured me.

“I just stopped in to give you this, ” I said, handing him the tape Karen had made of the talk show. “And to ask you whether you would be willing to submit to a few simple tests during your regular session tomorrow. “

“Anything you say, ” he replied, without even asking what kind of tests they were.

I hurried out, late for a meeting, which dragged on and on. Though it was supposed to be a discussion about plans for the new wing, no one wanted to talk about anything other than prot’s TV appearance the previous evening. Having been through all of it before, I finally excused myself and returned to my office, where I called Robert’s mother. Confident that Rob would be around for a while, I told her of my guarded optimism about his prognosis and invited her to visit him and see for herself. She was somewhat hesitant about traveling alone, but said she would come if “that nice young girl” (Giselle, whom she had met on her previous visit to the hospital) would go with her.

I told her I didn’t think that would be a problem.

With that pleasant chore taken care of, I took a call from Betty. “Dr. Villers phoned yesterday while you were gone. He wanted to speak with prot. He said it was urgent. He called again later, but I couldn’t find prot—only Robert. I suggested he talk to Cassandra. He said it was too late for that. “

“It may be too late for prot, too. “

“That’s too bad. He sounded desperate. “

All the rest of that week we were inundated with calls to the 800 number. A few of the callers pledged money to the hospital. Some had a relative or friend they wanted admitted. Several producers from other talk shows wanted prot to come on their programs “and do that trick. ” Most of those who telephoned, however, did not apply for admission of a loved one or contribute funds toward the new wing or make prot a job offer. Instead, they wanted to know where to call or write to him, when they would see him again, how to get to K-PAX.

A few reporters called as well, asking for prot’s life story and all the rest. Unable to convince them that prot had no “life story, ” and perhaps no longer existed, I finally referred them to Giselle.

Then the letters started to pour in, thousands of them, most addressed to “prot, c/o Manhattan Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY. ” I didn’t open any of these, but I did take a look at some of the ones addressed to “prot’s keepers, ” or the like. Some of these called him “the devil” (as Russell had at one time), and some even threatened him with bodily harm. Others thought he was a kind of Christ-like figure, “a messiah for our time, ” who had come to “save us from ourselves. ” Oddly, not one person saw him for what he really was—part of a mentally ill person who seemed to be on the road to recovery.

But prot made no appearance that week (much to Villers’s great dismay). I felt somehow betrayed. If he had, in fact, “departed” this world for good, he had done so without giving us any notice, something he had assured me he would not do. Still, I couldn’t help think of the last time he had “returned” to K-PAX, and the Robert he had left behind. Rob was a very different person this time, smiling and confident. Maybe that was all anyone could expect.

One of the things I would never forget about prot was his ability to communicate with the autistic patients. Perhaps that explains the dream I had the night after the talk show. I was in what appeared to be a space capsule. I could see out some tiny windows into a shimmering blue sky. The cabin was further lit by some sort of instrument panel. It was dazzling. There were dozens of dials and computer screens, all aglow with green and amber lights.

Suddenly there was a tremendous noise and everything began to vibrate. I felt the force of gravity pulling me down and down and then, after a few minutes, the noise and vibration ceased and I was floating free, miles above the Earth, looking down at the most beautiful planet in the universe.

I was jolted by something, thrown far off course, blinded by a shadow blocking my view. The next thing I knew I was back on the launch pad, and the darkness was gone from the window. A giant head appeared. It was Jerry. He had given me a ride in his perfect model. A huge eye peered in at me, and his mouth opened in a toothy grin. It was wonderful—for a moment I understood him, understood everything!

But then I woke up and, as always, I understood nothing.

The visit from the nation’s most popular psychologist was scheduled for Friday. His books, Folk Psychiatry and Clean Up Your Mess, have been on the best-seller lists for years. I was on the lawn waiting for Cassandra to notice me when word came that, unfortunately, some “urgent business” had come up and our guest was forced to cancel at the last minute.

For some reason this annoyed me a great deal. I blurted out to the nurse, “What an ass—well, the medical term is ‘anal orifice. ’”

On the positive side, this gave me some unexpected free time to catch up on a lot of paperwork. But as soon as I sat down there was a call from a Dr. Sternik, the ophthalmologist Giselle had mentioned earlier, who badly wanted to examine prot’s eyes.

“Sure, ” I said, “go ahead. If you can find him. “

The first thing I asked Rob after he sat down was what he thought of the tape of the television show starring his alter ego, prot.

He took a peach from the fruit bowl. “Weird. Very weird. “

“How so?”

“It was like watching myself, only it wasn’t me at all. “

“As I’ve told you before, prot is a part of you. “

“I understand that, but it’s still hard to believe it. “

“Have you seen him in the last couple of days?”

“Not since we left the TV studio. “

“Do you know where he is?”

“Nope. Does that mean I’m ready to go home?”

“We’ll see. “

Someone tapped lightly on the door. “Come in, Betty! All right, Rob, I’m going to ask Betty to give you a few simple tests. For your information, these are the same ones that we gave prot five years ago. I want to compare the results, see if there are any differences, okay?”

“Sure. “

“Good. And after you’re through here, Betty will take you to the clinic so you can give us a blood sample. That will only take a minute. And Dr. Chakraborty wants to get an EEG, which is a simple, painless recording of your brain waves.”

“Fine. “

Both were smiling broadly when I left them alone. Betty loves to administer tests of any kind; Rob was happy just to be in control of himself. She and Rob would miss Russell’s funeral, but Betty said she didn’t like funerals—she would rather remember the decedent as he was—and Rob barely knew him, if at all.

It was raining and the service was held in the lounge. A bunch of folding chairs had been brought in and everyone was facing the open casket, which was lying on the magazine table. It was a simple pine box, which is not only the usual choice for indigent patients, but had long been Russ’s own wish as well, after we declined to find him a cave with a big rock for a door.

Chaplain Green made a beautiful speech about Russell and his eternal life in heaven, filled with golden streets and singing angels, and yes, hamburgers on Saturday nights. It almost made me wish I were joining him. Then it was the turn of those who knew him best.

Some of the long-term staff stood up to say how much they would miss him, and a few of the patients paid their final respects. Even former residents Chuck and Mrs. Archer had come to add a story or two, as did Howie and Ernie, who had spent years in this institution and knew him well. For my part, what I remembered best about Russ was his in-your-face style of preaching, spouting prodigious amounts of spittle along with the Scriptures. I reminded the gathering about his early days at MPI, the days of fire and brimstone. He was something to see then, with his sandy hair blowing in the wind and his gray eyes all ablaze, and you could always depend on Russell to be around to give us God’s opinion of the tiniest event. In later years he had mellowed somewhat, but he never rested in his quest for lost souls. And now, for the first time in his life, he was at peace. I stopped there, stunned for a moment by a sudden understanding of the attractiveness of suicide for some people. I only hoped that none of the patients followed the same line of thought.