On a Beam of Light (3 page)

Michael, for example, holds himself responsible for the death of his identical twin brother, and desperately wants to “even the score. ” Although it’s true that he was instrumental in initiating the events that led to his twin’s demise, it was an accident that could have befallen anyone. I have not been able to convince him of this, however, nor to absolve him of his deep feelings of responsibility and guilt (“Why him, not me?”).

But Mike takes this logic one step farther than most. He feels himself responsible for the fate of everybody whose path he has ever crossed, afraid he might have started a chain reaction of catastrophic events. Ordinarily he keeps his distance from me and everyone else, avoiding eye contact, saying little.

Not this time. Though unkempt and sloppily dressed, as usual, he came into the room in good spirits (for him). He even tried to smile. I remarked upon this, hoping there had been a genuine change in his attitude toward life. And there was. He had heard about prot, and was eagerly waiting to meet him. “Don’t worry, ” he added, looking me right in the eye, “I’m not going to make another attempt until I talk to the guy from K-PAX. ” When I looked dubious he actually grinned and raised a scarred arm in salute. “Scout’s honor. “

There’s an old axiom in psychiatry: “Beware of the cheerful suicidal. ” I knew he was serious and probably would wait to hear what prot’s solution to his problems might be. But I certainly wouldn’t decrease his surveillance, nor move him down from Three.

As I mused about what prot could possibly do for Michael, and perhaps some of the others, I suddenly realized that his return presented us with another dilemma. All the inmates had heard about prot’s earlier visit and hopes were running high, perhaps much too high, that he would be able to chase away all the dragons breathing fire down their necks, as he had done with many of our former patients. I couldn’t help wondering: What would happen to a patient like Michael, whose last hopes would be dashed if prot failed to meet those rosy expectations?

That afternoon I cleaned off my desk, or tried to—when I was finished it looked as crowded as before—and found a paper awaiting my review, which had been due two weeks earlier. I started to read it but all I could think of was my next session with prot. Although he had only just returned, I already felt exhausted. It’s at times like this that I contemplate with great seriousness an early retirement, a bug my wife keeps nicking into my ear.

Many people have the following idea about psychiatrists, and perhaps about physicians in general: We work whenever we wish, take long weekends, spend a lot of time on vacation. And even when we do come to the office we don’t do any real work and for this we command enormous fees. It isn’t like that, believe me. It’s a twenty-four-hour-a-day job. Even when we aren’t attending to our patients or on call we’re running case histories through our minds, trying to think of something we might have forgotten that would help a suffering individual. And the stress of making a mistake takes its toll as well. We often sleep poorly, eat too much, don’t get enough exercise—all the things we preach against.

I ended up reviewing prot’s entire file again, unfortunately without any new ideas coming to mind. And I knew I wouldn’t get much sleep that night or any other until Robert came forth and, together, we exorcised the demons roaring thunderously in the recesses of his tormented mind.

On the morning of prot’s next session I got a call from Charlie Flynn, the astronomer from Princeton and my son-in-law Steve’s colleague, who was studying the planetary system prot claimed to have come from. His voice reminded me of a squeaky wheel. “Why didn’t you tell me he was back?” he demanded, without even a “Hello. “

“I-”

“Whoa. You have to understand that prot is a patient of mine. He’s not here for your benefit, nor anyone else’s. “

“I disagree. “

“That’s not for you to decide!” I snapped. I hadn’t slept well the night before.

“Who does decide such matters? There is a great deal he can tell us. The things we’ve learned from him already have changed our way of thinking about certain astronomical problems, and I’m sure we’ve only scratched the surface. We need him. “

“My first responsibility is to my patient, not the world of astronomy. “

There was a brief pause while he reconsidered his approach. “Of course. Of course. Look. I’m not asking you to sacrifice him on the altar of science. All I’m asking is that you let us talk with him when he’s not undergoing therapy or whatever. “

I could understand his position and, indeed, the refrain was beginning to sound familiar. “I’ll offer you a compromise, ” I told him.

“Oh, no. Submitting a list of questions like last time just won’t do it. “

“If I let you talk to him directly, then every astronomer in the country is going to be banging on the door. “

“But I banged first. “

“No you didn’t. Someone got here before you did. “

“What? Who?”

“The reporter who helped us fill in his background five years ago. Giselle Griffin. “

“Oh. Her. But what has she got to do with this? She’s not a scientist, is she?”

“Nevertheless, here’s my proposal. You and everyone else can talk to him through her. Is that acceptable?”

Another pause. “I’ll make you a counteroffer. I’ll agree to your proposition if I can speak directly with him just once. We were in on this thing five years ago, too, and we helped identify him as a true savant, remember?”

“Okay, but you’ll have to work it out with her. She has him for an hour a day. “

“How do I reach her?”

“I’ll ask her to contact you. “

After grumbling something about reporters, he hung up. I immediately called the head of our secretarial pool to request that she direct all requests for information about prot to Giselle.

“Does that include the stack of mail we’ve gotten over the past few years?”

“Everything, ” I told her, eager to get this can of worms out of my hair.

When Giselle’s article featuring prot came out in 1992, it precipitated a flurry of calls and letters to the hospital. Most were requests for information about prot’s home planet and directions on how to get there. When K-PAX appeared three years later, several thousand more queries came in from all over the world. A lot of people, it seemed, wanted to find some way, short of suicide, to get off the planet. Since we had no answers to these questions, most of the correspondence was filed away without response.

On the other hand, all the requests for copies of his “report, ” an assessment of life on Earth and his dim prognosis for the future of Homo sapiens, have been honored. This treatise, “Preliminary Observations on B-TIK (RX 4987165. 233), ” has generated a certain amount of controversy among scientists, many of whom believe that his prediction of our imminent demise is greatly exaggerated, that only a crazy person would call for an end to established social customs, which, in prot’s eyes, fuel the fire of our self-immolation.

As for myself, I take prot’s report, and all his other observations and pronouncements, for what they are—the utterances of a remarkable man who may be able to utilize part(s) of his brain unavailable to the rest of us, except, perhaps, for those suffering from other forms of savant syndrome. In prot’s case, however, a substantial portion of his brain belonged to someone else: his alter ego, Robert Porter. It was Robert, a desperately ill patient, whom I so badly needed and wanted to help, even if it came at prot’s expense.

“Peaches!” prot exclaimed as he strode into my examining room. He was wearing his favorite attire: sky-blue denim shirt and matching corduroy pants. “I haven’t had one of these in years! Your years, that is. ” He offered me a taste and then opened wide to bite into a ripe one himself. A jet of saliva squirted halfway across the room.

This was one of the few fruits whose seeds he did not consume. I asked him why.

“Hard on the teeth, ” he explained, clanking one of the pits back into the bowl. “Dentist fodder. “

“You have dentists on K-PAX?”

“Heaven forbid. “

“Lucky you. “

“Luck has nothing to do with it. “

“While you’re eating, let me just ask you: Are you planning to write another report on us?”

“Nope, ” he replied with a great slurp. “Not unless there have been some major changes since my last visit. ” He paused and gave me his sincere, innocent, look. “There haven’t been, have there?”

“You mean on Earth. “

“That’s where we are, ain’t it?”

“Not that you would call major, I suppose. “

“I was afraid of that. “

“No world wars, though, ” I said brightly.

“Just the usual dozens of regional ones. “

“But that’s progress, don’t you think?”

He grinned at this, though it looked more like an animal baring its teeth. “That’s one of the funniest things about this place. You kill millions and millions of beings every day, and if you murder a few less on the next one, you nearly break your arms patting yourselves on the back. On K-PAX you humans are a riot. “

“Cmon, prot, we don’t kill ‘millions and millions’ of people every day. “

“I didn’t say ‘people. ‘ ” Another pit rang into the bowl like the peal of a cheerful bell.

I had forgotten that he considered all animals equally important, even insects. I decided to change the subject. “Have you spoken with any of the other patients since I last saw you?”

“They have spoken to me, mostly. “

“I suppose they all want to go back with you. “

“Not all of them. “

“Tell me: Are you able to communicate with everyone in Ward Two?”

“Of course. So could you if you tried. “

“Even the ones who don’t speak?”

“They all speak. You just have to learn how to listen. “

I have long believed that if we could understand what certain unintelligible patients were saying, i. e., how their thoughts differed from normal, we could learn a lot about the nature of their afflictions. “What about the schizophrenics? I mean the ones whose words seem garbled—can you understand what they’re saying?”

“Certainly. “

“How do you do that?”

Prot threw up his hands. “You remember the tape you played for me five years ago? The one of the whale songs?”

“Yes. “

“What a memory! Well, there you are. “

“I don’t—”

“You’ve got to stop treating your patients as if they were carbon copies of yourself. If you were to treat them as beings from whom you might learn something, you would. “

“Can you help me do that?”

“I could, but I won’t. “

“Why not?”

“You have to learn it for yourself. You’d be surprised how easy it is if you forget everything you’ve been taught and start over. “

“Are you talking about my patients, or the Earth again?”

“It’s the same thing, wouldn’t you say?” He pushed the bowl of pits away and sat gazing contentedly toward the ceiling, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“What about Robert?” I asked.

“What about him?”

“Have you spoken to him in the last day or so?”

“He’s still not saying much. But… “

“But—what?”

“I have the feeling he’s ready to cooperate with you. “

I sat up straighten “He is? How do you know? What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. It’s just a feeling I have. He seems—I don’t know—a little tired of hiding. Of everything. “

“Everything? He’s not planning to—”

“Nah. He’s just tired of being tired, I think. “

“I’m very glad to hear that. “

“I suppose that’s what you would call ‘progress. ‘ “

I stared at him for a moment, wondering whether Robert might be willing to come out even without hypnosis.

“He’s not that tired, gene, ” prot remarked.

I could feel my shoulders slumping. “In that case, we’ll begin now. If you’re ready. “

“Whenever you are. “

“Good. Do you remember the little spot on the wall behind me?”

“Of course. One-two-three-four-five. ” And he was out like a light.

“Prot?”

“Yes, dr. b?”

“How do you feel?”

“A little spacey. “

“Very funny. Now—do you remember what happened the last time I spoke with you in this setting?”

“Certainly. It was a hot day and you were sweating a lot. “

“That’s right. And Robert wouldn’t speak to me—remember?”

“Of course. “

“Will he speak to me now?”

There was a pause before prot abruptly slouched down in his chair.

“Robert?”

No response.

“Robert, the last time I spoke with you was under very different circumstances. I didn’t know much about you then. Since that tune I have learned why you are suffering so much, and I want to try to help you cope with that. I’m not going to make any promises this time. It won’t be easy, and you’ll have to help me. For now, I only want to chat with you, get to know you better. Do you understand? Let’s just talk about the happy times in your life or anything else you’d like to discuss. Will you talk to me now?”

He made no response.

“I want you to consider this room a safe haven. This is a place where you can say anything that’s on your mind without fear or guilt or shame, and nothing will happen to you or to anyone else. Please remember that. “

No response.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ve got some information here on your background. I’m going to read it to you, and you stop me if I say anything that’s incorrect. Will you do that?”

Again there was no response, but I thought I detected a slight tilt of Robert’s head, as if he wanted to hear what I had to say.

“All right. You were a star wrestler in high school with an overall record of 26-8. You were captain of the team and finished second in the state tournament your senior year. “

Robert said nothing.

“You were a good student and won a scholarship to the state university. You were also awarded a community-service medal by the Guelph Rotary Club in 1974. You were vice president of your class for three years running. All right so far?”

Still no response.

“You and your wife Sarah and your daughter Rebecca lived in a trailer for the first seven years of your marriage, and then you built a house in the country near a forest with a stream. It sounds like a beautiful place. The kind of place I’d like to retire to someday…. “