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

CHAPTER SEVEN

Karen and I had planned to do some gardening on Thursday, but the rain was still coming down so I spent most of the day (after the hangover wore off) trying to track down the primatologists I had found. Two of them worked for state universities, another at a primate sanctuary for retired chimpanzees. (For those who don’t know what a chimpanzee can be “retired” from, many have spent most of their lives living in research institutions, the subject of various stressful medical experiments.) The others were retired or deceased. I didn’t reach any of them at first—they were all teaching classes or out in the field—but one of them, Dr. Ellen Tewksbury, an ethologist from Texas, returned my call within the hour. As luck would have it she had read the K-PAX trilogy, and she proclaimed that she would give a “limb” to speak with fled.

I explained the situation: our visitor apparently harbored at least one alter ego, who appeared to be a chimpanzee, and we needed a primate who could both speak with another ape and use sign language to communicate any messages to Dr. Tewksbury, who would then relay the information to me.

She seemed barely able to contain her anticipation, so I asked her if she could get to New York by Monday.

“Filbert and I will be on our way tomorrow!” Though she seemed older, the enthusiasm in her voice reminded me of Giselle Griffin, the former reporter who was now on K-PAX with prot and the others.

“Good! You can stay with my wife and me if you like. We need to preview the session you’ll be participating in, as well as discuss your expenses and so forth.”

“Well…”

“Yes?”

“I’m not sure you want to accomodate a chimpanzee in your home, Dr. Brewer.”

“Oh. Yes, I see what you mean.”

“But that’s not a problem! I have a friend in Jersey who would be happy to put us up. He’s quite familiar with chimpanzee behavior. I’ll have to drive the van, though, so it will take us a couple of days. I’ll call you when we get in, okay?”

“Are you sure this isn’t too much trouble for you?”

“Are you kidding? This is my job. If I passed up an opportunity like this, I’d never forgive myself!”

How I wish the people down at Wal-Mart felt that way about theirs.

* * *

The government-appointed neurobiologist came early, and was considerably annoyed when Officer Wilson at the gate wouldn’t grant him entrée until I could get to the hospital. As a symbol of protest, I suppose, he stood in the drizzle like a statue until I arrived. He was bald as an egg, the man, and wore a soaking wet knee-length lab coat as he waited in the rainy street clutching an ancient medical bag as if he were planning to do a few house calls after seeing fled. Presumably it contained whatever equipment he needed for her neurological exam. He was still fidgeting and seething as I escorted him into the building. Though I had been told he was ‘nameless,’ he nevertheless glumly introduced himself as “Dr. Sauer,” which, he hastened to inform me, was an alias. “I find that people are more comfortable when they can call someone by a name,” he noted, by way of official explanation. “Even a fictitious one. Like your bogus construction barricade,” he added approvingly.

Judging by the speed with which he crossed the foyer and took the stairs (I took the elevator), it is probably safe to safe to say that he enjoyed his job. But, of course, so did the people who did medical experiments on humans in Nazi Germany, I suppose. When I got to the fifth floor I found him taking pictures of the empty corridor. As soon as he saw me he stuffed the camera (disguised as a toy giraffe) back into his “medical” bag.

Fortunately, fled was waiting for us in her usual place in 520. Though he had undoubtedly been apprised of the subject he was going to examine, Sauer was noticeably shaken by her appearance. In contrast to Smythe’s interview, I wasn’t permitted to stay and observe—if I had, I suppose I might possibly have learned some secrets that were certain to become classified. I didn’t mind; he gave me the creeps. Anyway, I was confident that fled could take care of herself in this, or any other, situation, and would probably be only too happy later on to share them with me.

I left them alone and returned to the first-floor lounge, where I discovered Phyllis invisibly sitting by herself. When I spoke to her she pretended, as always, that she hadn’t heard me. In fact, though she was looking directly at me, she didn’t move a muscle.

Whenever I come upon Phyllis, or any other difficult and perplexing patient, I am reminded of how tenuous is the line between sanity and mental illness. A seemingly minor insult to the brain, particularly to the frontal lobes, can result in all kinds of bizarre consequences for the rest of one’s life. A mild viral illness, an encounter with a doorknob, a subtle age-related deterioration—virtually anything can cause the structural or chemical damage that changes the way a person perceives and deals with his surroundings. In the extreme, a woman might seem perfectly normal one minute and become Joan of Arc the next. Sometimes these metamorphoses can be reversed with treatment, or even disappear on their own, but usually they are intractable. And such afflictions, like the various forms of cancer, can happen to anyone, regardless of social standing, intelligence, or anything else.

Cotan’s is one of the oddest and rarest syndromes in the annals of psychiatry. A patient with this condition believes that nothing exists. In a bizarre variation on this theme, called Cotard’s Syndrome, a person might think that some of his body parts are missing. In a kind of worst-case scenario, Phyllis believes that all of them are missing, i.e., that she is totally invisible. Thus, she thinks she can get by with stealing others’ food, clothing, or the like without being detected. Never mind that the clothing would be recognized on her “nonexistent” frame; with disorders of this sort, logic takes a back seat. But why in the world would a minor incident produce such a fantastic aberration, especially when none of the thousand other functions are in any way impaired? Or perhaps in Phyllis’s case it has nothing to do with brain damage. There may have been other events in her background that we don’t know about. It’s quite possible that she only feels safe if she can’t be seen by anyone.

She got up to go somewhere, at which time she farted quite noticeably. Any normal person would be embarrassed by this, or would smile sheepishly or apologize in embarrassment. Not Phyllis. In fact she gave her fernad a good scratching before shuffling off. Obviously there are certain advantages to being invisible.

I wondered again whether fled might somehow be able to help this unhappy woman and all the other patients, and I reminded myself to ask her whether she could, in fact, read their otherwise inscrutable minds. But I was getting the feeling that it had better be soon.

At this point several of the inmates came barging in, chatting animatedly in small groups and nearly knocking over poor Phyllis, who was still making her way across the lounge. Even some of the antisocial patients were participating. They were so engrossed in their conversations that they didn’t seem to notice my being in their midst. The subject of their discussions was fled. A few days ago they were leery of her; now they were excited and happy—all because of her pregnancy.

It’s rare that a mental patient conceives while confined to a hospital, though it does happen occasionally. Sometimes, too, a patient who is already pregnant arrives. Our most recent such case was Lou, now the “mother” (thanks to a sex-change operation) of a ten-year-old girl and living in another city. It’s amazing how solicitous the other inmates can be of a new “Mona Lisa,” giving her extra food or helping her with certain tasks and so on. Suddenly it appeared that fled would be reaping the benefits of everyone’s care and concern and—yes—love. For all we knew, in fact, she might have been planning this from the beginning as a way of gaining the patients’ sympathy and trust.

Or, as Bill Siegel had suggested, she might be faking it, perhaps for the same reason.

* * *

I had allowed an hour for Dr. “Sauer” to examine fled. Since we already had her EEG on file, I presumed he wanted to check her ability to identify playing cards or to describe certain pictures he held in his head, or maybe even to photograph any “auras” or the like encircling her own, in order to determine how she might be able to read his mind.

The subject of paranormal phenomena is likely to raise the hackles of any respected scientist. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not that they are biased about such matters. It’s that science is based on evidence (and nothing else), and there is very little that supports the occurrence of paranormal events of any kind—UFOs, ghosts, feelings in plants, and, yes, auras—and what little there is is shaky at best. Yet, belief in such phenomena, like that of religion, is often strong, and unsettling claims sometimes arise. Are all these reports merely manifestations of wishful thinking, or are the scientists missing something? My personal opinion is that the subject is not yet closed, but until I see (or feel) the evidence for any of these events myself, I will remain unconvinced. (I would be happy to take part in any legitimate study of paranormal events but, to date, no one has asked me, including “Sauer” upstairs at this very moment with fled.)

Because it was still raining outside, Darryl and Georgie began to toss the latter’s worn football back and forth in the lounge. I started to tell them they couldn’t play inside, then I thought: what the hell—I don’t work here anymore. I was heading for the dining room to get a cup of coffee when Rothstein came by. Kathy is one of the most intense, and certainly the most reserved, of the MPI staff, tending to keep her thoughts and opinions to herself. I have no problem with that; she performs her duties conscientiously and well, and her methods and her personal life are her own. So I was quite surprised when she sought me out to discuss a couple of things that were bothering her. I thought: here’s someone who doesn’t think I’m over the hill! “Sure,” I told her. “What’s on your mind?”

One of her patients was Mrs. Weathers, now over a hundred years old and barely able to see or hear. Both of those conditions are treatable in her case, yet she refuses to have anything done about them. “I’m more than a century old,” she once told Dr. Rothstein. “I should be blind and deaf!”

That isn’t quite true, of course. There are some 15,000 centenarians living in the U.S. today, and many are healthy enough to experience a considerable measure of enjoyment of their lives. A few even continue to work. Their effectiveness might be open to question, but the point is they are still able to get to the office and perform whatever functions they are capable of. And, of course, the numbers are increasing all the time. But a hundred-year-old woman was almost unheard of when Mrs. Weathers was growing up, so she’s certain she’s going to keel over at any moment. In a real sense, though, it’s her mindset that’s old, more than her body. Indeed, she could well live another decade or more.

Kathy wanted me to speak to Mrs. W about her defeatist attitude, which included conserving her energy by barely moving all day. I demurred. Who knows—perhaps the old bat’s right: whatever her program, it’s worked for more than a century. And what if we encouraged her to start running laps around the back forty and she dropped dead on us? I suggested we let nature take its course. Her only comment was: “I hope I never get that old….”

The other matter she wanted to discuss was more problematical. She had just had a session with Rick, and felt she might be on to something. She had asked him whether he wanted to go to K-PAX with fled. It was a variation on the old conundrum, “I am lying.” If this statement were true, it would also be false, and vice versa. This created a dilemma for him. If he lied and said he didn’t want to go with fled, he would have to stay on Earth. She had hoped he would become flustered and confused, and see, perhaps for the first time, the difference between the truth and fiction. But Rick, who’s no dummy, replied, “Please tell fled that I want to go to K-PAX.” In fact, Kathy had been trying to catch Rick in the truth for some time, only to be thwarted again and again. She confessed that she was at her wit’s end.

I commiserated. No one knows better than I that it’s not easy to outsmart a mental patient. But before I could say another word, she pleaded with me to speak to fled about Rick—not to ask her to cure him, or even read his mind, but to take him to K-PAX! Then she scurried away, perhaps embarrassed to have finally given up on a very difficult patient. Was she shirking her responsibility? Or was there a different motive? Did she simply think Rick would be genuinely happier there and, as a good doctor, badly wanted that for him? Or was she suggesting that anyone who was having a hard time coping with his life might be happier on K-PAX, including, perhaps, herself? Was she one of the staff members who was thinking of applying for a spot on the roster? Did she fit any of the criteria outlined by fled for passenger status? I was surprised to discover that I knew absolutely nothing about this young psychiatrist, and really very little about what made most of my former colleagues, especially the newer ones, tick.

At this point Dr. Sauer came running down the staircase, his tie askew, his wet lab coat hanging limply out of his bag. When he spotted me he lurched to a stop and laughed crazily before taking off again through the lounge and out the front door, back into the endless rain. The patients and I watched him go without comment, though some of them emitted an uncertain chuckle or two.

A moment later fled came roaring into the lounge. If this was laughter, it was far different from the neurologist’s, and it produced a few genuine guffaws among the inmates. “You humans are hilarious!” she exclaimed.

“Why?” I asked her. “What happened?”

“Your government agents had told him that I might be able to read minds. But of course he wanted to experience that for himself.”

“And?”

“He didn’t waste any time. As soon as he got there, he asked me tell him what he was thinking about.”

“Well?”

“What a mess his head was! There was breakfast, his mother, a teenage daughter, his ex-wife, a few girlfriends, Jesus Christ, something about flaying, shooting rabbits with a BB gun, and a hundred other things—you name it. But those were only the surface thoughts. Underneath all that he was masturbating like a teenager, visiting whorehouses, undressing his sister, screwing a nun, and all kinds of other weird fantasies. If that’s what they were. Someone should write a book about him!”

“So you told him all this?”

“When I described, in intimate detail, what his deepest desires amounted to, he freaked out and tried to rape me!”

“Did he succeed?”

“Not exactly!”

“You mean—”

“Let’s say I offered no resistance.”

I was pretty sure I was going to hear about this from Dartmouth and Wang. “What about the examination?”

“He said I passed….” She threw back her head and emitted a loud “Harrrrruppp!” Everyone roared with her, except for Barney, unfortunately. Whether they all knew what they were laughing about was another matter.

Before fled could disappear again I took her aside and asked her point blank whether she could find the time to read the minds of each of our patients while she was still here, try to find anything we didn’t yet know that might uncover the deeply-buried roots of their problems.

“You mean their sexual fantasies?”

I couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not. “Not just that. I mean everything that’s in there. To find out what the fundamental causes of their mental problems might be.”

She hooted again. “Prot warned me you’d try to trick me into doing your job for you.”

“I don’t have a job. I’m retired, remember?”

“Relax, dr. b. I just have a few more places to visit and I’ll be finished with my study of your life forms.”

“What about your list of travel companions?”

“That, too. And I need to check out a few possible departure sites. After that, I’ll see what I can do for your patients.”

* * *

On the way home I got to thinking about Mrs. Weathers, and aging in general. It’s tough to get old. You tire more easily, and when you rest it doesn’t help as much as it used to. Everything is more difficult except for losing your balance, and things you could once eat with impunity now give you heartburn. You don’t even think as well as you should. And it all comes on so gradually that it’s barely noticeable at first. But eventually there comes a time when you ask yourself: what’s wrong with me? And there inevitably comes another time when it finally hits you: you’re old! Your only consolation is that you’ve lived long enough to get to this state.

At this point you get philosophical. You’re lucky. You have a nice home and family, you’ve got enough money to be reasonably comfortable, you’ll probably live several more years. You can’t do everything you used to, but there are plenty of things you still enjoy. Life is good. Then you remember: in another twenty years or so (an instant!) you’ll be in a nursing home with a batch of feeble old farts like yourself, and this goes on for another few years, until finally you will get sick and die. It makes you wonder what was the point. Then you realize that there is actually one good thing about growing old—you finally know the answer to that question: there isn’t any! There’s only one secret worth knowing: have fun while you can!

At that moment the sun came out and, as always, I forgot about my morbid ruminations.

Later that evening, while I was enjoying myself with a sudoku puzzle (the damn addictive things), Fred called. After his mother got through with him we had a good talk. At last he was taking the plunge! A date hadn’t been set, but this time it was definite. “Which one is it?”

“The ballerina.”

“But you’ve been with her off and on for as long as I can remember….”

“That’s just it—I finally realized that I always come back to her. And we’re not getting any younger, you know.”

“Tell me about it!” I said, and proceeded to unload on him my current thoughts on aging.

After I had gone through it all, his only comment was, “Enjoy myself? Well ‘duh,’ Dad. I’ve known that all my life.” So much for the wisdom of one’s elders.

Our perceptive son went on to tell me about his latest film role in which he would be playing, ironically, an old man, with flashbacks to his past dissolute life. But the main reason he had called, besides announcing his pending engagement, was that I had mentioned Darryl to him at some point, and evidently it stuck with him (I think he’s a little in love with Meg Ryan himself). In any case he had run across someone who looked a lot like Ms. Ryan, and he wondered whether he should send her over to the hospital to meet Darryl. She was a good extemporaneous actress, he said, and could make herself so unpleasant that it might turn him away from the object of his affections forever.

“How soon could she get there?” I asked him.

“Probably sometime next week.”

I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this myself. “That’s a great idea, Freddie. But it may be too late.”

“Why?”

“Fled is going to read all the patients’ minds. Try to find out what’s really bugging them. Maybe we’ll already know what’s wrong with Darryl before your friend gets there!”

“That’s terrific, Dad. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you can cure them, does it?”

That hadn’t occurred to me, either.

* * *

Goldfarb called me at home on Saturday (I’m beginning to consider having the phone disconnected). So did Will and Laura Chang, Jerry’s staff physician. They all had the same message for me, though they expressed their concern in different ways.

Laura, the first to call, actually sounded angry. “Please tell your patients to leave mine in the hospital where they belong.”

“What patients? I don’t have any patients.”

“Fled. She’s disappeared again, only this time she took Jerry with her.”

“What? Where’d they go?”

“I have no idea, Gene. I thought maybe you could tell me.”

“Try to calm down,” was my unasked advice. “Tell me what happened. Did anyone see them leave?”

“No, but several people saw her come to visit Jerry. Next thing we knew, they were gone.”

“Are you saying she kidnapped him? Or did he leave of his own accord?”

“Who knows?” I could see her frowing in that disarming manner she has. “Don’t get me wrong,” she quickly added. “I don’t mind her talking with Jerry. It’s taking him on a joyride that concerns me. Who knows what it might do to an autistic patient. It might be too much for him. Or maybe he won’t want to come back….”

“All right, I see your point. In the first place, fled isn’t really a patient. In the second, she’s left the hospital several times before, and she always comes back. I think we should just play it cool until Monday. She’s supposed to be meeting me and a translator who can speak with chimpanzees through sign language. I predict she’ll show up right on time.”

“And Jerry?”

“Jerry, too. And he’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

“So until then he’s your responsibility?”

“Well—okay, yes. He’s my responsibility.”

Virginia and Will were also concerned, as was most of the other staff. Again, all I could do was try to maintain calm. Privately, I, too, was as concerned as hell. I wasn’t particularly worried about the outcome of fled’s latest escapade, but I hadn’t a clue what she had in mind for Jerry (who was my own patient for a brief period several years earlier). I didn’t even know where they had gone! Goldfarb invited me to the Monday morning staff meeting to further discuss the problem of fled and her “patientnapping.”

I consoled myself with the thought that, even though he had rarely even left Ward Three, Jerry might actually enjoy getting out of the hospital for a while. After all, who knows what goes on in the mind of a severely autistic patient? Perhaps all those inward thoughts are of marvelous adventures, incredible sights, and he might finally get a chance to actually experience some of those for the first time.

But soon enough (I sincerely hoped), we could all ask him this ourselves.

* * *

Dr. Tewksbury, the chimpanzee whisperer, called me on Sunday afternoon while I was watching a Mets game. She and “Filbert” had arrived in Jersey and were safely ensconced in the home of the friend she had mentioned earlier. Both were well, she informed me, and “rarin’ to go.” I summarized what she should expect from her visit with fled, and instructed her on the best way to get to the Institute, which would involve a drive across the GW Bridge and a short hop over to Amsterdam Avenue. If she found this to be an imposing journey, I offered to meet her somewhere and drive in with her.

“No problem,” she assured me. “I’ve been here before.”

“To MPI??”

“No. To Jersey and the Big Apple. In fact, I was born here.”

“Where?”

“Hoboken.”

“Do you know a Joyce Trexler, who—”

“The world isn’t that small, Dr. Brewer.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t,” I replied wistfully. I assured Dr. Tewksbury that the security people had been informed and would be waiting for her at the gate, see that her van was parked, and she and Filbert would be escorted into the hospital. “You won’t need an ID,” I told her. “Filbert will probably be the only chimpanzee at the gate all day.”

“I can’t wait!” she gushed.

“Great,” I replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I almost included Dartmouth and Wang in my farewell.

By the time I got back to the game the Mets were six runs behind.

* * *

They phoned later that evening from God knows where. Karen and I were in the kitchen putting away the dishes and discussing a possible Christmas trip to visit Jenny and Anne in California. Karen took the call, rolled her eyes, and handed me the mobile phone. “Hi guys,” I said cheerfully. There was a pause, perhaps because they didn’t know what to make of the unaccustomed familiarity. Wang patiently explained who he was, and apologized for disturbing me at home on a Sunday. But they had learned somehow of fled’s website, and weren’t too happy about it. In fact, they tried to shut it down, but every time they did, it popped back up again. I asked him how they discovered it. “That’s classified,” he snarled. “The point is, we can’t let her suggest that only vegans are welcome on a trip to K-PAX, can we, Dr. Brewer?”

“What’s wrong with vegans?” I asked weakly (as a result of prot’s visit, I was a vegetarian myself, at least most of the time).

“Everything. Do you realize what this would do to the nation’s economy?”

I reminded him that I was a doctor, not an economist.

“Sir, we’d like you to inform your friend that we cannot, and will not, tolerate an alien coming down here and telling us what to eat. Do you understand my meaning?”

“I’ll pass along your message.”

“Thank you. Now about our neurobiologist—do you recall his visit to your hospital?”

It had only been two days before. “Yes, I do. Dr. Sauer.”

I could hear muffled laughter. “Is that what he called himself? Har, har, har. That’s rich…. Anyway, he tells us that the results of his study are inconclusive. He’ll need several more visits to reach any definite conclusions about her mindreading capabilities.”

“I see.”

“And Dr. Brewer?”

“Yes?”

“Based on his preliminary observations, he’d like to line up several colleagues to join him in performing further tests. Do you think that can be arranged?”

“I’ll ask her.”

“Thank you, sir. And according to Dr. ‘Sauer,’ the sooner the better.”

The dial tone came before I could say “You’re welcome” or “Good-bye.” I thought I heard a noise from above. “I think they were on the roof,” I told my wife.

“Maybe it was Santa Claus,” she said.

If the “boys” knew anything about the upcoming visit from Ellen Tewksbury and Filbert, they didn’t mention it.