On a Beam of Light (7 page)

“Nope. “

“But prot—Robert’s life is at stake. Which is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“I told you before: I’ll give you some warning. It won’t come as a complete surprise. “

“I’m happy to hear that, ” I said glumly. “All right. Well, as long as you’re here, I’d like to ask you one more thing about Rob. “

“Is that a promise?”

“Not exactly. Now—is there some other reason he’s suddenly speaking to me? Anything I don’t know?”

“There doesn’t seem to be any limit to what you don’t know, my human friend. But I will tell you this: Don’t be fooled by his cheery disposition. It was all he could do to come forward today. He still has a long way to go and he could retreat at a moment’s notice. Be gentle with him. “

“I’ll do my very best, prot. “

“In spite of your primitive methods? Lotsa luck. ” He picked up the fragment of orange and stuffed it into his mouth.

“How are you doing with the letters, by the way?”

Through orange teeth: “I’ve read most of them. “

“Any decisions yet?”

“Too soon for that. “

“Will you tell me when you’ve decided who’s going back with you?”

“I might. Or maybe I’ll save it for the tv show. “

“What? Who told you about that?”

“Everyone knows about that. “

“I see. And I suppose everyone knows about the trip to the zoo? And about all the people who want to talk to you?”

“Of course. “

“Prot?”

“Yeah, coach?”

“You’re driving me crazy. “

“Tell me about it, ” he sighed.

Thinking he was joking, I chuckled a little. But he seemed to be quite serious. I glanced at the clock on the wall behind him—we still had a few minutes left. I stood up. “All right. You take my place and I’ll take yours. “

Without a moment’s hesitation he jumped up and ran over to my chair. He plopped into it, squeezed the vinyl arms several times, and whirled around in a complete circle. Obviously enjoying himself, he grabbed a yellow pad and began to scribble furiously as he stroked an imaginary beard.

I took his chair. “You’re supposed to ask me some questions, ” I prodded.

“That won’t be necessary, ” he mumbled.

“Why not?”

“Because I already know what’s bugging you. “

“I’d love to hear what it is. “

“Alimentary, my dear canal. You were born on a mean, cruel PLANET from which you see no way to escape. You’re trapped here at the mercy of your fellow humans. That would drive any being crazy. ” Suddenly he banged his fist on the arm of my chair. “Time’s up!” He scooted over, grabbed another orange, and bit into it. Then he whirled again and flung his feet onto my desk. “And I’ve got work to do,” he concluded with a dismissive wave. “Pay the cashier on your way out. “

I gave him a poor imitation of a Cheshire-cat grin. He screeched and bolted for the door.

It wasn’t until later that I happened to glance at the yellow pad he had scribbled on. In a messy but legible scrawl he had written, over and over again, 17:18/9/20. It took me a moment to figure it out, but finally I realized: He’s leaving on the twentieth at 5:18 P.M.!

Not having been in Ward Three since before my “vacation, ” I decided to take a brief tour. I found Michael in 3A perusing a book called The Right to Die, a work he has read dozens of times, as Russell reads and rereads the New Testament.

A naked woman streaked by. Michael ignored her. He wanted to know when he was going to get to talk with prot. Unforgivably, his request had slipped my mind, but I told him I would see to it immediately. He said, jokingly, I hoped, “I could be dead by the time he gets here. ” I slapped him on the shoulder and continued my rounds, stopping to chat with various social and sexual deviates, tortured souls preoccupied with specific bodily functions. I watched in never-ending amazement as one of them, a Japanese-American male, undressed himself, smelled the crotch of his underwear, then dressed again, and undressed, over and over again. Another man kept trying to kiss my hand. Others performed their own endless rituals and compulsions. Yet none of these miserable creatures were more tragic than the inhabitants of 3B, the severely autistic ward.

Autism was once blamed principally on unfeeling and uncaring parents, especially the mother. It is now known that autists suffer some sort of brain defect, whether genetic or induced by organic disease, and no amount of nurturing will alter the progress of this debilitating affliction.

Stated simply, autists are missing the part of brain function that makes a person a soulful human being, someone who can relate to other people. Although often able to perform extraordinary feats, they appear to do so entirely mechanically without any “feel” for what they have accomplished. The ability of the autist to concentrate on whatever it is that occupies his or her thoughts is astonishing, and typically to the exclusion of everything else. There are exceptions, of course, and some are able to hold jobs and learn to function to some extent in society. Most, however, live in worlds of their own.

I found our twenty-one-year-old engineering wizard, whom I’ll call Jerry, working on a matchstick re-creation of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was almost finished. On display nearby were replicas of the Capitol Building, the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal. I watched him for a while. He worked deftly and rapidly, yet seemed to pay little attention to his project. His eyes darted all over the room, his mind apparently somewhere else. He used no notes or models, but worked from memory of photographs he had glanced at only briefly.

To Jerry, who may not even have noticed me, I said, “That’s beautiful. How long before it’s finished?”

“Before it’s finished, ” he replied, without changing his pace.

“What’s next on the agenda?”

“Agenda. Agenda. Agenda. Agenda. Agenda. Agenda—”

“Well, I’ve got to go now. “

“Go now. Go now. Go now. “

“Bye, Jer. “

“Bye, Jer. “

And so it was with the others, most of whom were wandering around or staring intently at their fingertips or studying the blemishes on the walls. Sometimes someone would let out a bark or start clapping his hands, but not one of them paid the slightest attention to me or glanced in my direction. It is as if autists actively practice a kind of desperate avoidance. Nevertheless, we continue to try to find some way to relate to them, to enter their worlds, to bring them into ours.

One feels sorry for such individuals, to pity their lack of contact with other human beings. Yet, for all we know, they may be quite happy within the confines of their private realms, which might, in fact, encompass gigantic universes filled with an incredible variety of shapes and relationships, with interesting and satisfying visions, and tastes and sounds and smells that the rest of us cannot even imagine. It would be fascinating to enter such a world for one glorious moment. Whether we would choose to stay there, however, is another matter.

Still trying to come to grips with what I suspected was prot’s upcoming “departure” date, I took a stroll on the grounds, where a spirited game of croquet was in progress, though what rules were in force was impossible to determine. Behind this circus I spotted Klaus over by the sunflowers talking animatedly with Cassandra, a woman in her mid-forties who has the ability to forecast certain events with uncanny accuracy. How she does this is anybody’s guess, including her own. The problem with Cassandra is that she has no interest in anything else. By the time she was brought to us she had nearly starved to death. Her first words, after she had seen the lawn with its plethora of chairs and benches from which she could contemplate the heavens, were, “I think I’m going to like it here. ” One of the areas in which she excels is that of weather. Perhaps this is because she’s outdoors so much, winter and summer. If you’ve ever heard the five-day forecasts of the shameless TV weather people, you know that their predictions are very often wrong. Cassie, on the other hand, is usually right for periods of up to two weeks from the date of her prognostication. I had heard, in fact, that Villers, her staff physician, had consulted her about conditions for the proposed outing to the zoo before he would allow a date to be set. (When Milton heard that fair weather was expected for the trip, he remarked, “Only fair? Surely we should wait until it gets better. “)

Animals also seem to know when changes in the weather are coming, possibly because of some unknown sensitivity to subtle variations in air pressure or humidity, though not so far in advance, probably. But how can we explain her uncanny ability to predict, with more than ninety-percent accuracy, who will become the next president or the winner of the Super Bowl, weeks or even months beforehand, something no animal can do. (It is rumored that Villers has reaped a small fortune from her desultory pronouncements, which he usually keeps to himself, claiming doctor-patient privilege. ) What does she see in the sun and stars that the rest of us are missing?

I also saw Frankie waddling around the lawn under her usual black cloud. Her inability to form human relationships seems to be related in some way to autism—perhaps a similar part of the brain is involved. Unlike the true autists, however, she has no problem communicating with the staff and her fellow patients, though what she conveys is likely to be a caustic comment or jarring insult. Whether these jabs are intentional I can’t say, but she was one patient I hoped prot might be able to help, despite his own misgivings about human love.

At the far corner I noticed several of the other inmates grouped under the big oak tree, shading themselves like a bunch of sheep from the heat of the August sun, except that they were all facing inward. I wondered whether something had happened. But when I started in their direction I saw prot in their midst. He was holding forth on some subject or other, commanding their complete attention. Even Russell was silent. As I approached them my beeper squealed.

I hurried to a phone and punched the number of the departmental office. “It’s Robert Porter’s mother, ” the operator said. “Can you take the call?” I asked him to transfer it.

Mrs. Porter had received my letter and understandably wanted to know how Robert was doing. Unfortunately, I could only tell her that I was pleased with his progress so far, but that much more work remained to be done. She asked when she could come to see him. I told her I would let her know the moment her son was well enough for that. She seemed disappointed, of course, but agreed to wait for further progress. (I didn’t mention the possibility that she might instead find him in the same state he was in when she was here five years ago. )

I returned to the lawn. Villers had departed, leaving Cassandra to gaze once more at the heavens. Prot was gone, too, and the others were milling around under the oak tree, directionless without their magnetic leader. Frankie was still off by herself, cursing the wind.

“Dr. Flynn was here yesterday with another astronomer and a physicist, ” Giselle told me over lunch in the staff dining room. “I gave him an hour with prot. I’ve never seen anybody so eager to meet someone. He actually ran down the corridor to prot’s room. “

“Well, did he learn anything he didn’t know before?”

“He didn’t get everything he wanted, but he seemed to think it was worth the trip. “

“Why didn’t he get everything he wanted?”

“Prot’s afraid he’ll use the information to his own selfish ends. “

“I figured as much. Of course it’s also possible that prot doesn’t know all the answers. “

“I wouldn’t count on it. “

“What sorts of things did Flynn ask him about?”

She took an enormous bite of a sandwich and continued, her jaw the size of an apple, “For one thing, he wanted to know how old the universe is. “

“How old is it?”

“Infinitely. “

“What?”

“You remember—it keeps expanding and contracting, forever and ever. “

“Oh. Right. “

“Flynn wasn’t satisfied with that. He asked him how long the present expansion has been going on. “

“What did prot tell him?”

“He said, ‘How do you know it’s expanding?’ Flynn started to explain the Doppler effect but prot cut him short with: ‘When the UNIVERSE is in the contraction phase you’ll still have the same Doppler shift. ‘ Flynn said, ‘That’s ridiculous. ‘ Prot said, ‘Spoken like a true homo sapiens. ’”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. He wanted to know how many planets there are in our galaxy, and how many of them are inhabited. “

“What did prot say?”

She swallowed some of the food bulging in her cheek. “He said there are a trillion planets in our galaxy alone, and a proportionate number in all the others. And guess what percentage of these are inhabited. “

“Half of them?”

“Not that many. Point two percent. “

“Is that all?”

“All? That means there are several billion planets and moons in the Milky Way teeming with life. “

“How many of these creatures are like us?”

“That’s the interesting thing. According to prot, a lot of the beings around the universe resemble us. ‘Us’ being mammals, birds, fish, and so on. “

“What about humans?”

“He says that humanoid beings have arisen or are evolving on some of these, but that they usually don’t last very long. About a hundred thousand of our years, on the average. “

“Not a very pleasant prospect. “

“Not for us. “

“What else?”

“Dr. Flynn wanted to know how we can accomplish hydrogen fusion as an energy source. “

“And prot wouldn’t tell him, right?”

“Oh, he told him, all right. “

“Really? What’s the secret?”

“You won’t believe it. “

“Probably not. “

“It only works with a certain substance as catalyst. “

“What substance?”

“Something found on Earth only in spider excrement. “

“You’re kidding. “

“But it’s not just any old spider poop. “

“It’s not?”

“Nope. Only that from a particular species indigenous to Libya. The stuff comes in little gold pellets the size of poppy seeds!” She started to giggle.

“Is this prot’s idea of a joke?”