K-PAX IV: A New Visitor From The Constellation Lyra

CHAPTER FIVE

It was such a nice day when I left the house for MPI on Monday morning that I remembered again why I had retired. But for now I put the weather out of my mind—I had work to do.

As soon as I entered the building I ran into Laura Chang. It was almost as if she had been waiting for me. When she joined us a few years ago Laura was just out of her residency. Now in her mid-thirties, she’s an old hand, and one of the best psychiatrists in the business. Not only because of her intelligence and insight, but because, like Virginia Goldfarb, nothing fazes her. I could well imagine that, in a few years, she would be running the hospital. At this moment, however, she seemed a tad perturbed. But it sometimes takes her awhile to get to the point.

“How are you getting along with your new patient, Gene?”

“Well, she’s not really a patient, but—not so good. This time I think Virginia’s bitten off more than I can chew. How about you? All your patients behaving themselves?”

“Hard to tell. They’re all so focused on fled that it’s interfering with their protocols.”

“Really? I thought they were trying to ignore her as much as possible.”

“They try to, but they can’t. When she’s here she seems to occupy all the space around her.”

“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“What makes you think I wanted to talk to you about something?”

“I felt as if I were being ambushed when I came in.”

“You haven’t completely lost your, touch, doctor. It’s Claire.”

“What about her?”

“She’s become interested in fled. She wants to examine and analyze her.”

“You mean—”

“That’s right. She wants to set up a regular time every week for interview sessions with fled. She seems to think our alien visitor is delusional.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her that fled already has a doctor.”

“What did she think about that?”

I thought I detected a faint hint of a smile. “She wants to replace you. She thinks you’re over the hill and shouldn’t be seeing patients anymore.”

“She’s probably right about that, though she’s no spring chicken herself. Did you remind her that fled isn’t actually a patient of mine? So I probably can’t do her too much damage.”

“Well, no. But that isn’t the point, is it? I don’t want to encourage Claire to believe she’s competing with anyone on the staff here. She’s already convinced most of the patients that she’s a real doctor.”

“Sometimes even I forget that she’s a patient. She’s very sensitive about it, though. The problem is, she might take serious offense if she’s denied the opportunity to ‘practice.’”

“Exactly. She already has. She’s threatening to quit her ‘job’ here and go elsewhere.”

At that moment Cliff Roberts hurried by. “Maybe we ought to encourage her to do that!” he suggested before disappearing up the stairs. As Karen is fond of reminding me, life gets sillier every day. But then it occurred to me that Cliff could be right for once. Maybe a pink slip would snap her out of her delirium. But perhaps he was only joking. “So what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you might have a suggestion.”

I tried to come up with one, but the best I could do was: “Status aside, why not encourage Claire to speak with fled on an informal basis? It probably can’t do either of them any harm, and it might even be beneficial for Claire. Maybe fled can spot something in her behavior that we’ve missed.”

“That’s what I thought, too, but I thought you might want to tell fled what to expect. Thanks, Dr. B! Got to run—time for the Monday meeting. You coming to that?”

“Not unless I get an invitation from someone. Until I hear otherwise, I’m here on an informal basis, too.”

“You could have fooled me!”

* * *

This time fled had left the door unlocked for me. I remember feeling, as I turned the knob, that she must have at least a tiny appreciation of human courtesy. That notion went directly to hell when I stepped inside and found her ‘surprise’ waiting for me. Fled had brought a visitor. I shouted involuntarily, “Jesus Christ!”

“Nah. His name is ‘okeemon’. Accent on the ‘o.’ He’s a bonobo.”

I started to repeat, “A bonobo?” but caught myself in time and swallowed, instead. “Uh—hello, Okeemon.”

“They’re also called pygmy chimpanzees, or hippie chimps—they tend to settle their disputes through sex, rather than violence. Not very human of them, is it?” I was wondering whether I should offer a handshake, but of course fled intercepted this. “Just come closer so he can see and smell you better.”

I hesitated.

“C’mon, gino, trust me. He won’t bite you. Not unless I ask him to, anyway.”

Reluctantly I took a little step toward him.

“C’mon, c’mon.”

I stepped closer. The bonobo’s eyes swept slowly over my vulnerable body, and his nostrils twitched a bit. I tried to remember whether I’d ever seen one of these creatures in a zoo. In any case, I had never been this close to one, or any other zoo animal for that matter. I began to sweat. But before I could make a sound, he reached out and grabbed me firmly by the cojones. I finally managed to squeak, “What’s— What’s he doing here?”

Okeemon released his grip and stepped back. I started to breathe again. Fled, for her part, grinned broadly. “I thought you might want to talk to him.”

“He talks?”

“Not in English, doc. Nor any of your other human languages. I’ll translate for you.”

“Uh—what should I talk to him about?”

Fled gave me what could only be interpreted, in any language, as a look of disgust. “You’re a human being, doc. Can’t you think of anything you want to know about him and all the others of his species?”

“Oh. Yes, I see what you mean. All right, Okeemon. Uh, do you want to sit down?”

After mumbling something unintelligible to him, fled immediately answered, “No.” Evidently she was saving me (and him) some time by reading his answers directly from his head.

I, however, needed to sit, and I dropped into the desk chair. “Where are you from, Okeemon?”

After a couple more guttural noises: “The forest.” Fled elaborated, “The Congolese rain forest.”

“Do you have a family?” Fled rolled her eyes. I rephrased the question. “How many children do you have?”

“Twelve.” Okeemon’s eyes showed an undeniable sadness.

“Are they all living in—uh—the forest with you?”

“No. Some of them are dead, and others have been taken away.”

“Where have they been taken?”

Fled scrunched up her brow again. “Mostly to zoos and labs and restaurants,” she replied drily. Apparently she was answering that one for herself. “Go ahead—ask him about his life in the forest.”

I decided to cooperate; I just wanted to get the interview over with. “What is life in the forest like for you?”

“It is beautiful. I take deep breaths all the time.” Fled added, “That means he is very happy living there.” She mumbled something else to Okeemon, and then said, for him, “Until the humans come.”

“What do the humans do?”

“They end us. They take our children.”

“I see…. Interesting….” It was hard to concentrate under the circumstances. “Fled, I really don’t know what you’re expecting me to ask him.”

“All right, my slow-witted friend, I’ll save you the trouble of trying to think. Okeemon is literally your nearest relative. Genetically, I mean. Take a good look at him. You’re not likely to get this close to a bonobo again in your lifetime. Or anyone else’s lifetime. There are only about 5,000 of them left in the wild. You’re looking at a being with 99% of the same DNA strands as you yourself have. Even by your own chauvinistic reckoning, he has the intelligence of a five-year-old human child. You’re looking at yourself! Or the way you could have been—should have been—had you not, through an evolutionary accident, evolved into a monster. Look at him!”

I looked. Okeemon gazed back at me. When our eyes met, I could tell, or thought I could tell, that he was thinking the same thing I was: we’re not so different really. Not in any important way.

Fled interrupted our silence. “Why in the WORLD would you want to kill him?”

“I don’t want to kill him!”

She stared at me coldly. “Does the word ‘naïve’ mean anything to you, doctor b? Get serious—you regularly go to war and kill eachother! And everyone else is fair game, too.” She spat on the floor. “One thing I’ve learned about homo sapiens, doc. You’re all responsible for the actions of the few. You all choose the leaders who decide the policies of your governments. You all interact in whatever ways are the most beneficial financially to yourselves and to others who are already rich. You could do something about the killing of your nearest relatives on EARTH. In fact, you could stop it if you wanted to. You just have to give a fuck.”

I stared at her. “Goddamn it, fled, I give a fuck!”

“Really, gino? When was the last time you put pressure on your congressman or your president, or anyone else, to do something to stop the bushmeat trade?”

“The— Oh, you mean the bonobo— All right! I haven’t done that. The fact is, I didn’t know about it. Not specifically, anyway.”

“Not many humans do. Or want to. You’re all too busy with more ‘important’ things. Like what’s on the boob tube tonight.”

“Okay, okay! I’ll write to my congressman! Happy?”

“I’ve got a better idea: start electing congressmen who give a fuck!”

“And that’s why you brought Okeemon in today? To help you lobby for the next election?”

“Not entirely. You could call it a sociology lesson.”

“What about our session? We were going to continue the hypnosis—”

“We’ll do that on Wednesday.”

“Will Okeemon be here then?”

“I doubt it. He doesn’t like cities much, for some reason. He tells me the vibes are all wrong. Too bad you can’t feel them.”

“So you’re taking him home?”

“Any minute now. You want to go with us? See why he loves the forest so much?”

“Uh—maybe next time….”

She murmured something to her guest, who briefly bared his teeth, which looked formidable. He stepped toward me. I flinched. He reached out again, and I thought he was going to give my genitalia another squeeze. Instead, he felt my face, my shirt, checked my hair for insects. I could smell him. It was a not an altogether unpleasant aroma.

“Go ahead,” fled coached. “He wants you to get to know him, too.”

Cautiously I laid a hand on his shoulder. His hair felt rough. I moved it down to his shoulder blades. He bent over.

“Go on—he wants you to scratch his back. This may be your only chance to do that!”

He inched closer. I thought: no more mushrooms—ever—for me! But I complied. He seemed to enjoy it, twitching a muscle here and there, though he made no sound at all. Just relaxed, with his head down.

Fled said something to him and he ambled back to where she was standing. She wrapped her own hairy arm around his shoulders. “See you later, doc,” she chirped. Before I could respond, she pulled a tiny mirror from somewhere and stepped toward the window with Okeemon. In another moment they were gone.

“Wait!” I called out. “We need to talk about—”

I plopped down and sat without moving for perhaps another twenty minutes trying to digest what had happened. I hadn’t even had a chance to ask her about videotaping our next meeting so she could see her alter ego for herself. The interview with the reporter for the British magazine was scheduled for that day as well. Never mind—she probably read the back of my mind and knew all about it anyway.

* * *

I was passing through the game room when I heard someone call my name. Howard came puffing over and asked whether I had a minute. I told him I was in no hurry. “I’m going to K-PAX!” he declared happily. I had never seen him like this before.

I didn’t want to burst his bubble, but I didn’t want him to be disappointed later on, either. “How do you know you’re going to K-PAX, Howard?”

“Cassie told me. Isn’t it wonderful? No one there cares that I am ugly.”

“Yes it is. But bear in mind that Cassandra could be wrong in her prediction.”

“She’s never wrong, Doctor Brewer—you know that.”

“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. She may be absolutely certain about it, but maybe the plan will fall through. Maybe fled will decide to take someone else at the last minute, or there might be a technical problem and she won’t be able to take anyone at all.” I didn’t want to mention my prime concern—that the government might find a way to stop her.

“I’m not worried.”

“Did Cassie say who else might be going?”

“Only that there will be a lot of others.”

“A lot of the patients, you mean?”

“That’s what she said. And a few from the staff.”

“Staff?? You mean the nurses?”

“She didn’t say.”

I made a note to ask her—or fled herself—as soon as possible. But something else came to mind: Cassie’s predictions were usually only good for a couple of weeks. Did that mean fled would be leaving within that time frame?

“Jerry’s not going, though.”

“What?”

“Jerry’s not going.”

“Why not?”

“Fled is going to cure him,” he whispered. “He won’t need to go.”

“Who told you that?”

“Fled.”

“I see. And when is this miraculous cure going to take place?”

“As soon as she gets back.”

“Okay, Howard. Thanks for the information. And I sincerely hope you get your wish.”

“It can’t be any worse than it is here.” He meant the Earth, of course, not the hospital. He turned to go. “I can’t wait to tell everyone!”

“Just a second, Howard. You seem to have a pretty good idea about what’s going on around here. Tell me (I glanced around to make sure no one could hear us): do you know if any of the patients have had—uh—an intimate relationship with fled?”

“Only one that I know of.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

“You mean… she seduced you?”

“She didn’t have to work very hard at it. I’ve never had sex before. I was beginning to think I never would.” He chortled happily. “Now I know what all the fuss is about.”

Though vaguely disgusted by this revelation, I wasn’t really surprised. “Thanks, Howard. We’ll talk again later.”

He waddled off and I headed upstairs for a brief visit with Jerry. He was working as usual. Indeed, the matchsticks were flying. But when I spoke to him he seemed unable to respond. He was grinning, and I heard some sounds coming out of him—little sighs and squeaks—but no words of any kind. Had she already told him about his imminent “cure”? His manner reminded me somehow of Stevie Wonder at the piano. He seemed to be beside himself with happiness. I only hoped his joy wouldn’t be dashed by false promises from a certain alien visitor.

* * *

I had lunch in the Ward Two dining room. Charlotte was in attendance, and I asked for permission to join her. Though still routinely sedated, her drug regimen was more effective than even a few months earlier (it sometimes takes a while to determine the best medication and to optimize the dosage). As a result, she was under far less surveillance than she had been when she moved down to the second floor, monitored only by the security cameras like everyone else. Nevertheless, she would probably never leave the hospital. The difficulty with mental patients is that they can often be temporarily “cured,” but sometimes revert to their former state even if they faithfully take their meds (and they often don’t). In Charlotte’s case we couldn’t take a chance on her being set free—at least not until she had proven herself to be stable for a considerable length of time—and perhaps ending up a dangerous psychopath again.

Her gray, wolflike eyes were absolutely compelling, as they undoubtedly had been for her seven unfortunate victims in 1996-7, though they had lost much of their sparkle. But, despite her apparent malaise, I still found her to be the most beautiful patient in the hospital. I asked her how she was feeling.

“It’s very tiring when no one loves you.”

I was frankly stunned. It had never occurred to me that someone who found the sexual apparatus of the human male so disgusting would want someone to love her. Or perhaps her new medication had counteracted the repression of her instinct to love someone. Or was she looking for a lesbian relationship? I was reminded once again that we are all much more complex than we might seem, our wants and needs often contradictory, our totality far more than the sum of our parts.

Before I could express any thoughts about this, however, she confided to me that she “would really like to leave this place.”

A perfectly normal response to being locked away for nearly a decade. But even if she were no longer deemed to be a menace to society, the courts would have to thoroughly review her case, a process that could take many more months or even years. If the victims’ relatives were consulted, as they undoubtedly would be in a case like hers, she would probably remain here forever regardless of her mental state. And besides all these considerations, who knew if she was faking her improvement, a not uncommon occurrence among the mentally ill? It occurred to me that if fled were able to read minds, and I was pretty certain she could, she might be able to tell us what was going on inside Charlotte’s. But suddenly I realized that fled might be even more helpful than that. If she could read everyone’s mind, what could she tell us about the thoughts and fears of all the other inmates of the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute? If we knew this, it could be a godsend to both patients and staff! But—would she be willing to do this? And, if so, could she “analyze” everyone at the hospital within the next couple of weeks while, at the same time, scouting for 100,000 people to accompany her on a voyage to the stars?

I cursed myself for not thinking of this earlier; I might even have brought it up at the regular Monday morning staff meeting, and it would be another week before the next one. On the other hand, maybe I should ascertain fled’s reaction to this notion before bringing it to everyone’s attention. And maybe it was a dumb idea anyway. My wife likes to remind me that my brain isn’t what it used to be, and I’m not all that sure it was so brilliant in the first place.

I left a message with Will reminding him to set up the videotape equipment for Wednesday. It had only been a week and half, and I was already beginning to get that dragged-out feeling I associated with entertaining visitors from other planets.

* * *

When I got out of the car that afternoon I heard what seemed to be a hissing sound. I circled around it looking for a flat tire, and it was only when I heard my name being whispered that I realized what it was. I stepped into the wooded area behind the driveway, where I found Dartmouth and Wang hiding behind an oak tree.

“We’d appreciate it, sir, if you didn’t look our way,” Wang admonished as I stepped toward them. I stopped and pretended to scan the sky for whatever interesting phenomena might have been up there. Two shiny ID badges protruded from either side of the trunk. “We won’t keep you long, doctor,” Dartmouth whined. Added Wang: “We just need to know what time we should send over our neurobiologist on Wednesday.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him, “but something unexpected came up today and I wasn’t able to discuss the matter with fled. I’m not sure she will even be available on Wednesday.”

Wang’s head poked around the tree, like a turtle with a wooden shell. “Can’t you put a lid on her?” he politely snarled. “We may not have much time.”

I wasn’t about to ask why the rush, perhaps because I didn’t want to hear the answer. “I need to wrap up some things with her on Wednesday, and if she shows up I’ll definitely schedule your guy for Friday morning unless there’s an unavoidable conflict. Fair enough?”

Dartmouth whined again. Wang just stared at me. Somehow he brought to mind a vicious dog a neighbor once had. Dartmouth, on the other hand, reminded me of Goofy.

“Can you tell me his name? I’ll need to clear him with security.”

Both of them jumped toward me as if they had been goosed. “He doesn’t have a name,” whispered Wang.

“Huh?”

He snarled again. “It’s classified. But don’t worry—we’ll take care of your security people. And he’ll have a photo ID.”

I forgot myself for a moment and turned to face him. “Without a name on it.”

“That’s correct, sir. And may I say that our military people are very interested in what our man learns about her. Now, doctor, would you mind turning around again?”

I presumed they wanted to slip silently away. Instead, I heard the government boys crunching through last autumn’s leaves, Dartmouth grunting and crashing as he fell and got up again. Finally, after several noisy minutes, they were gone.

Neither had mentioned the upcoming magazine interview or television show. I wondered whether their sources knew about them.

* * *

I had planned to spend the rest of the afternoon catching up on e-mail, but when I signed on I was surprised to find more than a hundred messages asking for further information about fled—in particular, what brought her to Earth, when she was going back to K-PAX, and did she have room for a couple of passengers. That’s the price you pay for having a website, I reminded myself.

I chose to answer only a token few, those that posed unique or interesting questions for me or fled. For example, one correspondent, who identified himself as a fourteen-year-old boy who wanted to be an animal trainer, asked, CouldIhavefledforapet? A teenage girl said, Imadeadressforfled.WherecanIsendit? An older man: Iwouldliketodancewithfled. An unidentified person: Idon’thavemanyfriends.Couldfledbemyfriend? But the ones that got to me most were from a Palestinian boy and an Israeli girl. Both asked exactly the same question: Canfledtellushowwecanlearntogetalongwitheachother? I forwarded both of these messages to the other correspondent. Perhaps nothing would come of it, but what was there to lose?

Another, an American, requested that I ask fled to stop global warming. I already knew what she would say to that: get a new government, one that gives a fuck.

* * *

That evening we watched the first half of the 2005 version of KingKong, and the rest on the following night. It could’ve been cut by an hour or so, I thought, but it was beautifully photographed, the performances were good (especially that of Kong), and the special effects were outstanding. The thing that made it a truly great film, however, was that it illustrated remarkably well the emotional life of the gorilla, which, if accurate, isn’t much different from our own, really. Even Flower seemed to enjoy it, whining like Dartmouth when Kong was captured by the money-grubbing humans, just as they used to kidnap human slaves. I wondered whether the government boys were somewhere nearby watching it, too.

We had to pause it during the second half to take a call from Will. He reported that the video camera had been set up and all I had to do was turn it on. He even told me where the “hold” button was. “I’d help you get it going, Dad, but I’ve got a group session tomorrow morning.”

I thanked him and assured him that I wouldn’t start the hypnosis unless I was sure I had the camera rolling. “Besides, I’ve got fled to help me if I run into any problems.”

“That reminds me,” he said. “She’s back again. But no bonobos came with her this time.”

I was suspicious. “Anyone else come with her?”

“No, Dad, not as far as I know.”

After I turned him over to Karen, a ridiculous thought occurred to me: couldfled’salteregobethebonobochimpanzeeOkeemon? But I realized, of course, that this was impossible. For one thing, both of them were present in my office at the same time, something that had never happened in the case of prot and Robert (or any other multiple personality patient). Still, where aliens were concerned…

I didn’t much enjoy the movie’s final reel. When Kong was shot down by the military, I wondered whether we might not have seen a preview of fled’s departure from this world.