K-PAX

Session Eleven

I had been gazing out my office window at a croquet match on the lawn below just before prot came in for his next interview. I nodded toward the fruit basket and asked him what sorts of games he had played as a boy. "We don't have games on K-PAX," he replied. "We don't need them. Nor what you call 'jokes,' " he added, scrutinizing a dried fig. "I've noticed that human beings laugh a lot, even at things that aren't funny. I was puzzled by this at first until I understood how sad your lives really are."

I was sorry I had asked.

"By the way, this fig has a pesticide residue on it."

"How do you know that?"

"I can see it."

"See it? Oh." I had forgotten about his ultraviolet vision. With time at a premium, I nonetheless could not resist the opportunity to ask him what our world looked like from his perspective. In response, he spent nearly fifteen minutes trying to describe an incredibly beautiful visage of vibrantly colored flowers, birds, and even ordinary rocks, which lit up like gems for him. The sky itself took on a shimmering, bright, violet aura through his eyes. It appeared that prot's vista was tantamount to being permanently high on one or another psychedelic drug. I wondered whether van Gogh had not enjoyed a similar experience.

He had put down the offensive fig while he expounded on his exceptional faculty, and found one more to his liking. While he masticated I carefully proceeded: "Last time, under hypnosis, you told me about a friend of yours, an Earth being, and his father's death, and his butterfly collection, and some other things. Do you remember any of that now?"

"No."

"Well, did you have such a friend?"

"Yes."

"Is he still a friend of yours?"

"Of course."

"Why didn't you tell me about him before?"

"You never asked."

"I see. Where is he now, do you know?"

"He is waiting. I am going to take him back to K-PAX with me. That is, if he still wants to go. He vacillates a lot."

"And where is your friend waiting?"

"He is in a safe place."

"Do you know where that is?"

"Certainly."

"Can you tell me?"

"Nay, nay."

"Why not?"

"Because he asked me not to tell anyone."

"Can you at least tell me his name?"

"Sorry."

Given the circumstances, I decided to take a chance. "Prot, I'm going to tell you something you may find hard to believe."

"Nothing you humans come up with surprises me anymore."

"You and your friend are the same person. That is, you and he are separate and distinct identities of the same person."

He seemed genuinely shocked. "That is patently absurd."

"It's true."

Annoyed now, but under control: "Is that another of those 'beliefs' that passes for truth with your species?"

It had been a long shot, and it had missed. There was no way to prove the contention and no point in wasting any more time. When he had finished his snack I asked if he was ready to be hypnotized again. He nodded suspiciously, but by the time I had counted to three he was already "gone."

I began: "Last time you told me about your Earth friend, beginning with his father's death. Do you remember?"

"Yes." Prot was trance anamnestic - he could remember previous hypnotic sessions, but only while in the hypnotic state.

"Good. Now I want you to think back once again, but not so far back as last time. You and your friend are high school seniors. Twelfth-graders. What do you see?"

At this point prot slouched down in his chair, fiddled with his nails, and began to chew on an imaginary piece of gum. "I was never a high school senior," he said. "I never went to school"

"Why not?"

"We don't have schools on K-PAX."

"What about your friend? Does he go to school?"

"Yes, he does, the dope. I couldn't talk him out of it."

"Why would you want to talk him out of it?"

"Are you kidding? Schools are a total waste of time.

They try to teach you a bunch of crap."

"Like what?"

"Like how great america is, better than any other country, how you have to have wars to protect your 'freedoms,' all kinds of junk like that."

"Does your friend feel the same way you do about that?"

"Nah. He believes all that garbage. They all do."

"Is your friend there with you now?"

"Yes."

"Can he hear us?"

"Of course. He's right here."

"May I speak with him?"

Again the momentary hesitation. "He doesn't want to."

"If he changes his mind, will you let me know?"

"I guess."

"Will he tell me his name, at least?"

"No way."

"Well, we have to call him something. How about Pete?"

"That's not his name, but okay."

"All right. Is he a senior now?"

Yep.

"What year is it?"

"Nineteen seventy-four."

"How old are you?"

"A hunnert and seventy-three."

"And how old is Pete?"

"Seventeen."

"Does he know you come from K-PAX?"

"Yes. "

"How does he know that?"

"I told him."

"What was his reaction to that?"

"He thinks it's cool."

"Incidentally, how did you learn to speak English so well? Did he teach you?"

"Nah. It's not very difficult. You should try speaking w:xljgzs/k..mns"pt. "

"Where did you land when you came to Earth?"

"You mean this trip?"

"Yes."

"China."

"Not Zaire?"

"Why should I land in zaire when china was pointing toward K-PAX?"

"Do you have any other Earth friends? Is there anyone else there with you?"

"Nobody here but us chickens."

"How many chickens are you?"

"Just me and him."

"Tell me more about Pete. What's he like?"

"What's he like? He's all right. Kinda quiet. Keeps to himself. He's not as smart as I am, but that doesn't matter on EARTH."

"No? And what does matter?"

"All that matters is that you're a 'nice guy,' and not too bad looking."

"And is he?"

"I suppose."

"Can you describe him?"

"Yes."

"Please do."

"He's beginning to wear his hair long. He has brown eyes, medium complexion, and twenty-eight pimples, which he puts clearasil on all the time."

"Are his eyes sensitive to bright light?"

"Not particularly. Why should they be?"

"What makes him a nice guy?"

"He smiles a lot, he helps the dumber kids with their assignments, he volunteers to set up the bleachers for the home games, stuff like that. He's vice-president of the class. Everybody likes him."

"You sound as though you're not so sure they should."

"I know him better than anybody else."

"And you think he's not as nice as everybody thinks."

"He's not as nice as he makes out."

"In what way?"

"He has a temper. It gets out of hand sometimes."

"What happens when it gets out of hand?"

"He gets mad. Throws things around, kicks inanimate objects."

"What makes him mad?"

"Things that seem unfair, that he can't do anything about. You know."

I was pretty sure I did know. It had something to do with the helplessness and anger he felt at the time of his father's death. "Can you give me an example?"

"One time he found a kid beating up on a smaller kid. The older guy was a big redheaded bully and everybody hated him. He had broken the other kid's glasses, and his nose, too, I think. My friend beat the shit out of him. I tried to stop him but he wouldn't listen."

"What happened then? Was the bully badly hurt? Did he try to get even later on?"

"He lost a couple teeth is all. He was mostly afraid my friend would tell everybody what happened. When he didn't, and asked the little kid not to either, they became the best of buddies. All three of them."

"What do these other guys think about you?"

"They don't know about me."

"Does anyone besides your friend know about you?"

"Nary a soul."

"All right. Back to your friend. Does this anger of his show itself often?"

"Not very. Hardly ever at school."

"Does he ever get mad at his mother and sisters?"

"Never. He doesn't see his sisters much. They're already married and gone. One of them moved away."

"Tell me about his mother."

"She's nice. She works at the school. At the cafeteria. She doesn't make much money, but she does a lot of gardening and canning. They have enough to eat, but not much else. And she's still trying to pay back all of his dad's doctor bills."

"Where do they live? I mean is it a house? What kind of neighborhood is it in?"

"It's a small three-bedroom house. It looks like all the others on the street."

"What sorts of things does your friend do for entertainment? Movies? Books? Television?"

"There's only one movie theater in town. They have an old tv set that doesn't work half the time. My friend reads a lot, and he also likes to walk around in the woods."

"Why?"

"He wants to be a biologist."

"What about his grades?"

"What about them?"

"Does he get good grades?"

"A's and b's. He should do better. He sleeps too much."

"What are his best subjects?"

"He's pretty good in latin and science. Not so hot in english and math."

"Is he a good athlete?"

"He's on the wrestling team."

"Is he planning to go to college?"

"He was until a few days ago."

"What happened? Is there a problem?"

"Yes."

"Is that why he called you?"

"Yes."

"Does he call you often now?"

"Once in a while."

"And what is the problem? Money? There are scholarships available, or-"

"It's more complicated than that."

"How so?"

"He has a girlfriend."

"And she doesn't want him to go?"

"It's more complicated than that."

"Can you tell me about it?"

After a brief pause, possibly for consultation with his "friend": "She's pregnant."

"Oh, I see."

"Happens all the time."

"And he feels he has to marry her?"

"Unfortunately." He shrugged.

" 'Unfortunately' because he won't be able to go to college?"

"That and the religion problem."

"What's the religion problem?"

"She's a catholic."

"You don't like Catholics?"

"It's not that I dislike catholics, or any other group defined by its superstitious beliefs. It's that I know what's going to happen."

"What's going to happen?"

"He's going to settle down in this company town that killed his father and he's going to have a bunch of kids that nobody will associate with because their mother is a catholic."

"Where is this town?"

"I told you-he doesn't want me to tell you that."

"I thought he might have changed his mind."

"When he makes up his mind about something, nobody can change it."

"He sounds pretty strong-willed."

"About some things."

"What, for example?"

"About her."

"Who-his girlfriend?"

"Yep.

"I may be dense, but I still don't see why her being a Catholic is such a serious problem."

"That's because you don't live here. Her family lives on the wrong side of the tracks. Literally."

"Maybe they will be able to overcome the problem."

"How?"

"She could change her faith. They could move away."

"Not a chance. She's too attached to her family."

"Do you hate her?"

"Me? I don't hate anyone. I hate the chains people shackle themselves with."

"Like religion."

"Religion, family responsibilities, having to make a living, all that stuff. It's so stifling, don't you think?"

"Sometimes. But they're things we have to learn to live with, aren't they?"

"Not me!"

"Why not?"

"We don't have all that crap on K-PAX."

"Will you be going back there soon?"

"Any time now."

"How long do you usually stay on Earth?"

"Depends. A few days, usually. Just long enough to help him over the rough spots."

"All right. Now listen carefully. I'm going to ask you to come forward in time several days. Let's say two weeks. Where are you now?"

"On K-PAX."

"Good. What do you see?"

"A forest with lots of soft places to lie down on, and fruit trees, and all kinds of other beings wandering around... .

"Much like the kind of forest your friend enjoys hiking in?"

"Something like that, but nobody is bulldozing it down to build a shopping center."

"Tell me about some of the plants and animals in the woods there on K-PAX." I was curious to find out whether the young prot had a fully developed concept of his home planet, or whether that came later. While he was describing the flora and fauna I retrieved his file and pulled out the information that prot had divulged to me in sessions five through eight. I quizzed him on the names of grains, fruits and vegetables, the various animal "beings," even about light travel and the K-PAXian calendar. L won't repeat the questions and answers here, but they confirmed my suspicion that the creation of his alien world was developed over many years. For example, he could tell me the names of only six grains at this stage.

Our time ran out just as prot decided to make a trip to one of the K-PAXian libraries. He asked me whether I would like to join him. I said I was sorry, I had some appointments. "It's your loss," he said.

After I had awakened him, and before he left my examining room, I asked prot whether he could, in fact, talk to animals, as Giselle and I suspected.

"Of course," he replied.

"Can you communicate with all our beings?"

"I have a little difficulty with homo sapiens."

"Can you talk to dolphins and whales?"

"They're beings, aren't they?"

"How do you do that?"

He wagged his head in abject frustration. "You humans consider yourselves the smartest of the EARTHS beings. Am I right?"

"Yes."

"Then obviously the other beings speak much simpler languages than yours, right?"

"Well-"

Out came the notebook, pencil poised. "So if you're so smart, and their languages are so simple, how come you can't communicate with them?" He waited for an answer. Unfortunately, I didn't have one.

JUST before I left for the day Giselle gave me another discouraging report from the police. Her contact had come up with a list of all disappearances of white males born between 1950 and 1965 from the entire United States and Canada. There had been thousands during this period, of course, but not a single one even came close to matching prot's profile. Some were too tall, some were bald, some were blue-eyed, some were dead, some had been found and were accounted for. Unless prot were a female in disguise, was much older or younger than he seemed, or someone whose disappearance had not been noticed, our patient, for all practical purposes, did not exist.

She was also waiting for the names and locations of all the slaughterhouses operating anywhere in North America between 1974 and 1985.

"You can eliminate the ones in or near large cities," I told her. "There's only one movie theater."

She nodded her acknowledgment. She looked tired. "I'm going to go home and sleep for about two days," she said, yawning. How I wished I could have done the same!

I was lying awake that night trying to make some sense of the day's events-why, I wondered hazily, was there no record of Pete's disappearance? And what good, I tried to reason, was a list of slaughterhouses without further information as to where our abattoir might be located?-when I got a call from Dr. Chakraborty. Ernie was in the clinic. Someone had tried to kill him!

"What? Who?" I barked.

"Howie!" came the chilling reply.

All I could think of as I sped down the expressway was: Jesus Christ! What have I done? Whatever happened to Ernie was my fault, my responsibility, just as I was responsible for everything else that happened at the hospital. It was one of the worst moments of my life. But even at that blackest of hours I was heartened by the glow of the city, her throbbing lights bright against the steel-gray background of the dawning sky, as full of defiant life as the night, some forty years earlier, that we futilely rushed my father to the hospital. Same glowing sky, same darkening guilt.

Ernie was still in the emergency room when I got to MPI. Dr. Chakraborty met me in the corridor with: "You are not to worry. He is very fine." And indeed he was sitting up in bed, sans mask, smiling, his hands behind his head.

"How are you feeling, Ernie?"

"Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful." I had never seen a smile quite like his. It was positively beatific. "What happened, for God's sake?"

"My good friend Howie just about strangled me to death." When he threw his head back to laugh, I could see a red abrasion where something had been wrapped around his neck. "That old son-of-a-bitch. I love him."

"Love him? He tried to kill you!"

"No he didn't. He made me think he tried to kill me. Oh, it was fantastic. I was asleep. You know, with my hands tied and everything? He wrapped something around my neck-a handkerchief or something and tightened it up, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it."

"Go on."

"When I stopped breathing and became unconscious, he somehow lifted me onto a gurney and ran me up here to the infirmary. They got me going again in a hurry, and when I woke up I realized immediately what he had done."

"What do you think he did?" I remember saying to myself as I asked him this: I must be a psychiatrist! It was all I could do not to laugh.

"He taught me a lesson I'll never forget."

"Which was?"

"Mat dying is nothing to fear. In fact, it's quite pleasant."

"How so?"

"Well, you've heard that old adage-when you die your life passes before your eyes? Well, it does! But only the good parts! In my case, I was a child again. It was wonderful! My mother was there, and my dog, and I had all my old toys and games and my catcher's mitt.... It was just like living my whole childhood over again! But it was no dream. It was really happening! All those memories-I never realized what a wonderful thing childhood is until I got the chance to relive it like that. And then, when I was nine, it started all over again! And again! Over and over again! It was the best thing that ever happened to me!" There he was, his skin pale as a scallop, laughing about the event whose prospect had terrified him all his life. "I can hardly wait for the real thing!"

They had taken Howie to Ward Four. I let him stew there the rest of that day and most of the next before I found time to talk to him. I was angry with him and let him know it, but he just sat there beaming at me, his grin a perfect copy of prot's know-it-all smirk. As he was heading back to his room on Ward Two he turned and proclaimed, "Prot says one more task and I'll be cured, too."

"I'll decide that, goddamn it!" I shouted after him.

ONE of the night nurses told me later that the Duchess had begun to take some of her meals in the dining room with the other patients. She was shocked and offended by all the belching and farting (courtesy, primarily, of Chuck), but, to her great credit, she usually stuck it out.

At her first appearance Bess tried to get up and serve her. One glance from prot and she returned to her place.

As usual, however, she wouldn't eat anything until everyone else had finished."How did he get her to come to the table?" I asked the nurse.

"She wants to be the one who gets to go with him," came the obvious reply. She sounded envious.