K-PAX

Session Seven

BECAUSE of what had happened at the end of our previous encounter I asked Mr. Jensen and Mr. Kowalski to stand by during session seven. However, prot seemed in unusually good spirits as he chomped on a pineapple. "How was your meeting?" he said with his familiar grin.

It took me a moment to figure out what this meant, but I finally remembered the "important meeting" I had dismissed him with at the end of session six. I told him it had gone well. He seemed pleased to hear this. Or was it a smirk? In any case the clock was moving and I turned on the tape recorder. I also switched on my backup machine, this one to play back a Schubert song I had recorded earlier. When it was finished, I asked him to sing it back to me. He couldn't even hum the first phrase. Obviously music wasn't one of his talents. Nor was sculpture. I asked him to create a human head with a piece of clay the result looked more like Mr. Peanut. He couldn't even draw a house or a tree. Everything came out looking like the work of a third-grader.

All of this, however, took up half our session. "Okay," I said, somewhat disappointedly, "last time we talked about medicine on K-PAX, or the lack of it. Tell me about your science in general."

"What would you like to know?"

"Who does it and how is it is done? Are there, in fact, any scientists?"

"We are all scientists on K-PAX."

"I knew you were going to say that."

"Most human beings I've met have a rather negative opinion of science. They think it is dull and abstruse, possibly even dangerous. But everyone, even on EARTH, is a scientist, really, whether he realizes it or not. Anyone who has ever watched and wondered how a bird flies, or a leaf unfurls, or concluded anything on the basis of his own observations, is a scientist. Science is a part of life."

"Well, are there any formal laboratories on K-PAX?"

"They are part of the libraries. Of course the whole UNIVERSE is a laboratory. Anyone can observe."

"What sorts of scientific observations do K-PAXians usually carry out?"

"Every species now living on our PLANET, or that ever lived there, or on several other PLANETS, is catalogued and thoroughly described. The same for the rocks, geological formations, for the STARS and other ASTRONOMICAL OBJECTS. Every medicinal herb and what it can do is indexed. All this from millions and millions of years of observing and recording."

"And what goes on in the laboratories?"

"Oh, identifying the odd new compound that might turn up in a novel plant variant, for example."

"You mean its chemistry?"

"Yes."

"I assume your chemists can produce all these natural products synthetically. Why do you still get them from plants?"

"No one ever 'synthesizes' anything on K-PAX."

"Why not?"

"What's the point?"

"Well, you might find a useful new drug, for example. Or a better floor wax."

"We have a herbal preparation for every known disease. And we don't have floors to wax. Why should we make red grass or blue trees?"

"You're saying that everything is already known."

"Not everything. That's why I'm here."

"Aside from the occasional interstellar trip, though, it sounds pretty dull living on your planet."

He snapped back with: "Is it any duller than on EARTH?

Whose inhabitants spend most of their lives trying to get laid, watching sitcoms on television, and grunting for money?"

I noted down this sudden outburst and remarked, casually: "I mean it seems pretty dull with nothing much left to discover."

"Gene, gene, gene." It sounded like a bell tolling. "No single individual knows very much. No matter how much one learns, there is always more to know."

"But someone already knows it."

"Have you ever listened to a mozart symphony?"

"Once or twice."

"Is it dull the second time, or the third, or the twentieth?"

"No, if anything..."

"Exactly."

"What about physics?"

"What about it?"

"Are all the laws of physics known?"

"Have you ever heard of heisenberg?"

"Yes, I've heard of him."

"He was wrong."

"With that in mind, what can you tell us about the fundamental laws of the universe? Light travel, for example."His customary smile became even broader than usual.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Why not?"

"If I told you, you'd blow yourselves up. Or worse, someone else."

"Perhaps you could tell me one thing, at least. What do you use for power on K-PAX?"

"That I can tell you because you have it already, or soon will. We use type one and type two solar energies. Except for traveling, and certain other processes, when we use that of light. You'd be surprised how much energy there is in a beam of light."

"What are type one and type two solar energies?"

"Type one is the energy of the stars: nuclear fusion. The other is the type of radiation that warms your planet."

"Isn't there enough of the fusion type? Why do you need the other?"

"Spoken like a true homo sapiens."

"Meaning?"

"You humans just can't seem to learn from your mistakes. You finally discover that burning all that coal and oil and wood destroys your air and your climate. Then what do you do but go hell-bent after solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy without any thought whatsoever about the consequences. People!" He sighed and wagged his head.

"You haven't answered my question."

"Isn't it obvious? The use of one produces heat; the other consumes it. The net effect is that we neither warm nor cool our planet. And there is no waste or pollution."

"Have you always been able to tap these energy sources?"

"Of course not. Only for the last few billion years."

"What about before that?"

"Well, we fooled around with magnetic fields for a while, and bacterial decay and the like. But we soon realized that no matter what we tried, there was some effect or other on our air, or our temperature, or our climate. Gravitation energy is even worse. So we made do with our muscles until someone figured out how to fuse atoms safely."

"Who figured that out?"

"You mean his name?"

"Yes."

"I have no idea. We don't worship heroes on K-PAX."

"What about nuclear fission?"

"Impossible. Our beings rejected it immediately."

"Why? Because of the danger, of an accident?"

"That is a small matter compared to the waste that's produced."

"You never found anything to contain it?"

"Where would we find something that lasts forever?"

"Let's turn to astronomy. Or better yet, cosmology."

"One of my favorite subjects."

"Tell me: What is the fate of the universe?"

"Fate?"

"Is it going to collapse back on itself, or will it go on expanding forever?"

"You'll love this: both."

"Both?"

"It will collapse, then expand again, then repeat and repeat and repeat."

"I don't know whether to take any comfort in that or not."

"Before you decide-there's more."

"More?"

He guffawed, the first time I had ever heard him laugh. "When the UNIVERSE expands again, everything will be as it was before!"

"You mean-"

"Exactly. Whatever mistakes you made this time around you will live through again on the next pass, over and over and over, forever and ever, amen!" His demeanor had suddenly changed. For a second I thought he was going to break into tears. But he quickly became himself again, smiling and confident.

"How do you know that? It's not possible to know that, is it?"

"It's not possible to test that hypothesis, no."

"Then how can you be sure your hypothesis is right? Or any of your other theories?"

"I'm here, ain't I?"

An idea suddenly occurred to me. "I'm glad you brought that up. There's one thing you could do for me that would erase any doubts I might have about your story. Do you know what I'm suggesting?"

"I was wondering when that would occur to you." He scribbled something in his notebook.

"When could you give me a little demonstration?"

"How about right now?"

"That would be quite acceptable."

"Shalom," he said. "Aloha." But of course he just sat there grinning at me like a Cheshire cat.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"When are you going?"

"I'm already back."

I'd been taken in by the old "fastest gun in the West" routine. "I was hoping you would stay away long enough that I might notice your absence."

"You will next week when I leave for canada, iceland, and greenland."

"Next week? I see. And how long will you be gone?"

"A few days." While I was jotting down the suggestion that we increase the surveillance on him, he exclaimed, "Well, I see our time is up, and gunnar and roman are waiting!"

I was still writing, but I vaguely recalled that the clock was positioned in such a way that prot couldn't possibly have seen it. And who told him that Jensen and Kowalski were standing by? I mumbled, "Shouldn't I decide that?" But when I looked up he was already gone.

I rewound the last part of the tape and switched it on. His assertion, in a thick, choked voice, that he was going to have to repeat his mistakes over and over for all time suddenly seemed very moving, and I wondered again: What in God's name had he done? Unless I could find some way to break through his amnesia armor it was going to be very difficult to find out. In the absence of some clue to his background I was literally working in the dark. Given enough time I might have been able to come up with such a lead, and I dearly wished I could increase the number of sessions to twice a week or even more, but I simply had no extra time. There just wasn't enough time.

A couple of days later, after returning from my Friday morning radio talk show where I answer general questions about mental health called in by the listening audience, I discovered that prot had assigned a second task to Howie. The assignment: to cure Ernie of his fear of death.

I could see what he was getting at with his "program" for Howie, and perhaps I, as his staff doctor, should have thought of it myself. By encouraging him to focus on a single project, his attention was drawn away from the awesome multiplicity of life's possibilities. I still had mixed feelings about prot's assigning "tasks" to his fellow patients, but as long as no harm came from these endeavors, I continued to allow it.

Howie approached the problem in a typically methodical manner. After scrutinizing his roommate for hours on end, to the point that Ernie finally ran screaming from the room, he asked me for texts on human anatomy and physiology, specifically on the subject of respiration. I assumed he was going to try to prove to him how unusual it is for someone to choke to death, or perhaps construct some sort of breathing apparatus for Ernie's use in case the worst happened. I could see no reason to refuse him on this and I allowed him access to the fourth-floor library. In retrospect I should have realized that these solutions would have been too simplistic for someone as brilliant as Howie. Perhaps my judgment was clouded by the unconscious hope that he might somehow succeed where I had failed, and that both might find a little peace at long last.

Ernie, in the meantime, was doing much the same thing for some of the other patients; that is, he was beginning to take an interest in their problems as well as his own. For example, he was reading poetry to blind old Mrs. Weathers, who cocked her snowy head with every word like a rapt chicken. He had always spent quite a bit of time with Russell, seeking solace primarily, but now he was chatting with the latter about a variety of secular matters-suggesting he get some exercise, for example.

He was spending a lot of time with prot also, as were most of his fellow patients, asking him about K-PAX and other supposedly inhabited regions of the galaxy. These talks seemed to raise their spirits enormously, or so I was informed by several of the nurses. I finally asked Ernie point-blank what it was about his discussions with prot that seemed to cheer him up so dramatically. His eyebrows lifted a mile high behind his surgical mask and he told me exactly what Whacky had said earlier, "I'm hoping he'll take me with him when he goes back!" I realized then what was drawing the others to our "alien" visitor: the promise of salvation. Not just in the hereafter, but in this life, and in the relatively near future. I made a note to talk to prot about this as soon as possible. It was one thing to make a sick person feel better. It was quite another to prop him up temporarily with false hopes, as he himself had asserted. But for the next few days I was unable to ask him anything. He had disappeared!

A search of the building and grounds was initiated immediately upon learning that prot had not shown up for lunch on Sunday, but no trace of him was found. No one had seen him leave the hospital, and none of the security tapes showed him passing through any locked doors or gates.

His room provided no clue as to where he might have gone. As always the bed was made and his desk and dresser were uncluttered. There wasn't even a scrap of paper in his wastebasket.

None of the patients would admit to having any knowledge of prot's whereabouts, yet none was particularly surprised that he was gone. When I asked Chuck about it he replied, "Don't worry-he'll be back."

"How do you know that?"

"Because he took his dark glasses with him."

"What has that got to do with it?"

"When he returns to K-PAX he won't need them."

Some days later a maintenance worker reported that some of the items in the storage tunnel had been shifted around. Whether prot had been hiding there, however, was never determined.

FOR his first twenty-seven years Russell never saw another human being except for his mother and father. His schooling consisted exclusively of Bible reading, four hours every morning and evening. There was no radio, and no one ever came up the long driveway because of the mud and the Doberman pinschers. In the afternoons he was expected to work in the garden or help with the chores. This isolated existence continued until a determined census worker, who also bred Dobermans, stumbled upon him accidentally while his father was at the hardware store and his mother in the back yard hanging out the wash. After he chased the astonished woman down the driveway shouting, "Mary Magdelene, I forgive you!" she reported the matter to the authorities.

Psychotherapy was completely ineffective in Russell's case, and Metrazole shock therapy barely less so. Nevertheless, he was returned to his parents. The young delusional soon escaped from the farm, however, only to be arrested as a "public nuisance." After that he was in and out of jails and hospitals for several years until he was finally brought to MPI, where he has remained to this day.

Neither Howie, who is Jewish, nor Mrs. Archer ("I'm Episcopalian," she would sniff) have ever had much use for Russell. But with his retinue shrinking rapidly-only Maria, and a few of her alters, seemed to be paying any attention to him-he began to preach the gospel to Howie and to the Duchess, who had begun to emerge from her room on occasion to speak with prot.

Howie simply ignored him, but it was different for Mrs. Archer. It would be a bad joke to state that he was driving her crazy, but that was the net effect. Conversing with Russell requires a certain amount of forbearance under the best of circumstances. He tends to preach right into your face, releasing prodigious amounts of spittle with almost every word. And when she was able to escape his fervent hectoring she found herself being assaulted by Chuck's observations, expressed in no uncertain terms, that she stunk.

Mrs. Archer, who used nearly a pint of expensive perfumes weekly, was both mortified and irate. "I most certainly do not stink!" she screeched, impatiently lighting a cigarette.

"Those goddamn things reek," Chuck would badger. She was finally reduced to tears. "Please," she implored, when I happened by. "Let him come back."

"He wouldn't take a stinker like you with him. He's going to take me!" Chuck proclaimed.

But Russell warned, "For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and they shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect!"

"You stink, too!" Chuck reminded him.

DURING a quick lunch in the doctors' dining room Dr. Goldfarb told me more about Chuck. He had been a middle-level government employee at one time, she said, but blew the whistle on the waste and corruption in his division at the Pentagon. For his efforts he was fired and, for all practical purposes, blackballed, both from government and corporate employment. That alone might be cause enough for disillusionment, but the straw that broke his back was his wife's divorcing him after thirty-five years of marriage. "I couldn't have been happier," he muttered to Goldfarb. "I had to kiss that malodorous maw every day. P.U.! Stinkeroonie!" But the truth was that he loved his wife passionately and it was more than he could bear. Indeed, he had tried to commit suicide shortly after she left him by blowing his brains out with a shotgun. It must seem incredible to the reader to learn that he missed, but the fact is that many attempted suicides end in "failure" for the simple reason that they are actually desperate attempts to draw attention to the sufferer's terrible, and often silent, unhappiness. Most victims don't actually want to die; they want to communicate.

Of course, not all those who feel rootless or valueless resort to this futile measure. A manic-depressive once assured me that he would never try to kill himself. I asked him how he could be so sure. "Because," he told me, "I still haven't read Moby Dick. " .

As good a reason for living as any, I suppose, and perhaps it explains why so few people have ever finished that book.

IN the midst of all the furor surrounding prot's disappearance, the reporter who had called me the previous week arrived, half an hour early, for her appointment. She was older than she appeared, thirty three, she said, though she looked more like sixteen. She wore faded jeans, an old checked shirt, and running shoes with no socks. My first impression was that freelance writing must be a poorly paid profession, but I eventually came to realize that she dressed this way for effect-to induce people to feel at ease. To that end she also wore little makeup, and only a hint of perfume that somehow brought to mind our summer place in the Adirondacks. "Pine woods," I would have called it. She was short, about five-two, and her teeth were tiny, like a little girl's. Disarmingly, she curled up into the chair I offered. She asked me to call her Giselle.

She came from a little town in northern Ohio. After graduating with a degree in journalism from the local college she came directly to New York, where she got a job on the now-defunct Weekly Gazette. She stayed there nearly eight years before writing an article on drugs and AIDS in Harlem, which won her the Cassady prize. I asked her about the dangers she must have faced researching that story. A friend had accompanied her, she explained, an ex-football player whom everyone in the area knew. "He was huge," she added with a coy smile.

She later quit the Gazette to research and write pieces on a variety of subjects-abortion, oil spills, s, and homelessness-for various periodicals, including several major newspapers and national magazines. She had also written scripts for a number of TV documentaries. She had gotten the idea to do something on mental illness after trying to find background material on Alzheimer's disease and failing to find a good generalized account of the subject "in layperson's language." Her credentials were certainly impressive, and I gave her the go-ahead to "cruise the corridors," as she put it, provided that she was accompanied by a staff member at all times, and that she enter the psycho-pathic ward for no more than three one hour visits and only in the presence of a security officer. She cheerfully agreed to abide by these conditions. Nevertheless I asked Betty to keep an eye on her.