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

CHAPTER NINE

Tewks and Filbert were waiting for me in the lounge when I arrived on Tuesday morning. I didn’t think there was much more to be learned about Naraba’s or the Rwanda chimp’s backgrounds, especially in the short time we had left, but I hoped they would be able to help me with the related question: how many other alters were lurking in fled’s brain, and were they all chimpanzees?

Filbert, of course, was having a fine time swinging from the central chandelier, and generally galloping around among the patients, to their unending delight. Old Mrs. Weathers was enjoying the playtime as much as anyone, chuckling toothlessly at the silliness around her, even though she could see and hear very little of it. Even a couple of the faculty members, Cliff Roberts and Hannah Rudqvist, were taking everything in with childish grins on their faces.

I sidled up to Hannah and asked her what she thought of the proceedings. She observed that “If more people swung from chandeliers once in a while, I think we’d have far fewer mental problems.”

“But far more broken limbs,” Cliff pointed out.

“A good trade, don’t you think?” she countered.

Roberts turned to me. “Come to visit us again so soon, Dr. B? Afraid you won’t wear out your welcome?”

I could never think of a good comeback for a stupid comment like that. “Not really. How are you, Cliff? Enjoying the show?”

“Up until now.” He turned back to Hannah. “See you later, sugar. How about lunch somewhere quiet?”

Blushing deeply, she answered, “Maybe,” and quickly departed. For some reason this annoyed me. Was he coming on to her? Was she too shy to say no? “Been meaning to ask you, Cliff—how did you get into psychiatry?”

“You know the answer to that better than I do, Gene: it beats working for a living.”

While I was trying to think of a good comeback for that, fled appeared. When Filbert spotted her he ran and jumped into her arms. She flipped him around to her back and headed for the stairs, to the disappointment of everyone in the lounge. “Can’t he live here, Dr. B?” Rocky pleaded.

“Sorry, Rock,” I said apologetically, “he has to go home tomorrow.”

“He’s not an asshole like everyone else here. Can’t we get another chimp?”

“You’ll have to speak to Dr. Goldfarb about that,” I called back as Tewks and I headed for the elevator, only to see the door close with Roberts inside. Reluctantly we followed fled and Filbert to the stairs.

They were already waiting for us in Room 520. Both seemed quietly serious, as if they, too, realized that the foolishness was over for the time being. Filbert nibbled on a tomato, though “he likes fruit better,” Tewks informed me. I apologized for the oversight. Fled, on the other hand, had no trouble enjoying the cornucopia, stuffing her huge mouth with a variety of tubers while she had the chance. When she was finally finished, she picked at her teeth and sighed happily.

“Ready?” I asked her.

“Always.”

She cooperated fully when I coaxed her into hypnosis. It didn’t take long: even before I could ask anyone to come forward another alter appeared, screaming. Immediately I shouted for fled. The squealing stopped and I found her gazing at me stoically.

“All right,” I said, “let’s try it again. Filbert, would you come over here, please?” He complied immediately. With him standing close to fled, I invited her to close her eyes once more, and asked Naraba to come forth. Before she could shrivel into a ball and try to slither under the desk, Filbert began to groom her.

Through the two translators I determined that she was indeed the former roadside zoo attraction, and I asked her immediately whether she knew of any other beings in the immediate vicinity besides fled and us. It seemed to take her awhile to understand the question, but finally she answered, “Yes.”

“How many?”

Tewks reminded me that chimpanzees don’t do well with counting, but she forwarded the question. The answer came back: “Many.”

“Do you know all of them?”

Again there was a pause while Naraba apparently tried to make sense of the question. “Some.”

“Can you tell us who they are?”

She became confused again and couldn’t answer.

I asked her whether they were like, or different from, her.

Answer: “They are like me.”

“How long have you known the others?”

“Long time.”

“Since you were a baby?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know them when your mother was with you?”

“No.”

“Did you know them after your mother was taken away, but before you were put in a cage?”

“Yes.”

“Are all of them here with you now?”

“Don’t know.”

“Is the first one you knew here with you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know her name?”

At this point, Filbert jumped up and screeched. He pointed to Naraba, but I was pretty sure it was fled he meant. I asked her, “Is it fled?”

The young chimpanzee raised her head and looked directly at me for the first time. She made a whimpering noise, which Filbert translated as “Yes.”

Through Tewksbury I asked Filbert to instruct Naraba to rest for a while and not talk while I tried to speak to the others. When he had done so, she closed her eyes and her head fell to her chest. I requested that he try to speak to Naraba/fled as though she were someone else. Change his tone, for example. Though it might have been worth the try, it failed. After several minutes I discontinued the fishing expedition and recalled fled. It might have been my last best chance to determine how many alters were involved, but I knew there were many. And we had established that another species besides human beings could somehow call up an alter from a faraway planet to help them out in time of need. Did this apply to all the animals? Were all K-PAXians alter egos for someone living on the Earth, human or otherwise? Were there other planets harboring such personalities as well? Worm after worm was slithering out of the can.

Just then the door opened. It was Goldfarb. Not knowing we were there, she had apparently come to get something from her examining room. “God’s teeth!” she muttered when she saw us all huddled around her desk. Nevertheless, she came on in to retrieve whatever it was she was looking for. Was it Naraba or someone else who was freaked by the hospital director in her white coat? Whoever it was began to scream, and scurried off into a corner. “I’ll come back,” Goldfarb wisely decided, and exited as quickly as she had come in. The chimpanzee, however, continued to cry and refused to come out of her “hiding” place, even with Filbert’s gentle cajoling. I reluctantly decided to end the session, and recalled fled. Upon seeing where she was, the latter stood up and returned, quite calmly, to her chair. I brought her out of her trance. She remembered nothing of what had transpired, of course, but nevertheless seemed more subdued than usual, as if she felt, in some unconscious way, the suffering hidden deep in her alien mind. As a former psychiatrist, I wanted to get at that pain, but for that I no longer needed Filbert or Tewks.

Before we said our good-byes, I passed around the vegetables again, even taking a stalk of celery for myself, as did Tewksbury.

“I wish we could stay longer,” she confided with a crunch. “I’d like to talk to fled about K-PAX and what it’s like.” Then she signed a question to Filbert. He immediately became very excited and conveyed his enthusiasm to fled, who quickly signed something back. The chimpanzee immediately became calm, almost reverential, I thought, and the two of them sat down beside the desk and groomed each other for a while.

Tewks and I chatted a little more about chimpanzees in the wild, in research labs, in zoos. I was shocked and saddened to learn that the last of these held more of them than did the forests. There are a few environmental and animal rights groups working to reverse this obnoxious trend, but the handwriting already seems to be on the wall: with the growth of human populations and the poaching for bushmeat of the few remaining wild apes, it won’t be long before there won’t be a single chimpanzee left in his/her natural habitat. It sounded like the initial dire warnings about global warming, which very few paid attention to, and many still don’t, to the detriment of all of us.

“And that’s only the beginning,” she added. “Soon there won’t be any rhinos, hippos, giraffes, tigers—you name it—in the wild. Unless there’s a radical change in mindset among the human populations of the world, there will be more and more of us, and fewer and fewer of them, until someday there won’t be anything left on Earth except Homo sapiens and a few token animals—their cats and dogs and horses—all in captivity. Would you like to live in a world filled with people, and no tigers or polar bears?” she asked rhetorically, and then answered her own question: “I wouldn’t. If you ever write a book about this, Gene, I hope you’ll stress this point to your readers.”

“If I do that,” I patiently explained to her, “there might not be any readers. But tell me something: isn’t Filbert living in captivity, too?”

She looked at me sadly. “He was a pet. Some rich bastard in Montana brought him back from Congo when he was a baby. Same guy has a bunch of cheetahs living on his ranch. They’d never seen snow before they got there. Anyway, when this jerk got tired of Filbert’s shenanigans, he advertised him for sale. Then he tried to give him away. But no one wants an adult chimpanzee who hasn’t learned human manners. They’re strong, and they can be dangerous. But they’re too tame to go back to what little forest is left. They can’t survive there after living a couple of years in captivity.”

I asked her what fled had told Filbert to calm him down a little while earlier.

“I suggested he ask her if he could go with her to her forest in the sky. Her answer was that she had already reserved a place for him. “When I get home,” she said, “I’m going to check fled’s website to see if there might be a place for me as well!” She laughed. “Maybe Fil will put in a good word for me!”

At this point it occurred to me that fled had come to Earth to take the apes with her to K-PAX before it was too late. But then I remembered she had said it would be 100,000 people who would be making the trip. When I finally looked around to see what fled and Filbert were up to, I couldn’t find them. Had they sneaked out when Tewks and I were engaged in conversation? We finally found them under the desk, asleep. God knows what they had been doing before that.

When they woke up I asked fled whether she was going to stick around for a while.

“For a while,” she echoed dreamily.

I escorted Tewks and Filbert down the stairs and out of the hospital to the front gate, Fil waving to everyone as he exited. They all wistfully returned it.

I profusely thanked Dr. Tewksbury, of course, and assured her that her expenses would be promptly reimbursed. After our final hugs, Filbert kissed me firmly and very wetly on the lips, and I could swear that he winked at me as he skipped down the sidewalk toward the waiting van.

* * *

Though it seemed rather anticlimactic, I followed my usual habit and took a turn around the lawn, where I found Barney surrounded by several other patients, all unsuccessfully making silly faces at him. Darryl’s shirttail sticking out of his fly had no better success. From the back forty I heard Rocky shouting epithets at Rick, and I hurried over to try to calm them down.

As with most mental patients, the truth is quite simply what each of them believes it to be, and absolutely nothing will convince them otherwise. Same for Darryl, of course, who is certain that Meg Ryan will eventually come to her senses, and that they will live happily ever after, just like in the movies. And for “Dr.” Claire Smith, who is perfectly willing to share with you anything you might want to know about her experiences treating the residents of MPI, which are as real to her as so many brick walls.

Yet, how different, really, are any of them from you and me? We all believe certain things to be true or false regardless of ample evidence to the contrary. That other people like or dislike us, for instance, or find us more or less attractive than we think we are, that our religious beliefs are the only true ones. Perhaps this is part of being human. Since we can never know the absolute truth about anything (quantum mechanics emphasizes this uncertainty), we all need to fill in the gaps in order to interact with other people, get through our days with a minimum of confusion and doubt. The only thing different about the patients here is the degree of self-deception, which precludes their functioning in the “normal” world.

Consider Rick, for example, who not only holds on tightly to his bald-faced lies, but tries to foist them on everyone else. He works very hard at this because, without his private beliefs, his world would collapse and he would find it impossible to cope with his surroundings at all.

But how did he get to this state in the first place? It would be simplistic to note that his childhood was a hell on Earth, but that pretty well describes it. He was one of those unfortunates who was kept locked in a dark, damp basement almost from birth by his mother (his father disappeared early on), and fed almost nothing. To keep him confined, he was vaguely warned about the vicious monsters lurking upstairs and prowling around outside. It’s hard to imagine what grotesque beasts and ogres he conjured up in his mind. He nearly starved to death until, at nine, his survival instincts (and considerable bravery) drove him out of the house, where he was discovered pawing through the trash cans in the back alley. He ran back inside when the neighbor called out to him (who knows what kind of monster he thought she was), but she correctly concluded that something was seriously wrong and had the good sense to call the police.

This situation, and others like it, occurs more often than you might imagine. Some parents, having been badly treated as children themselves, attempt to “get even” with the world by mistreating their own children. If they were physically or mentally abused, they are often equally abusive themselves. Some even hand their son or daughter over to molesters or pornographers in an attempt to “make up” for their own abuses, acting as pimps for their own children.

You might think that Rick would be unable to see the reality of food on the table, and would refuse to eat. Fortunately, it doesn’t work that way, not in his case, at least. It’s true that after years of eating dirt or peelings to stay alive, a slice of warm bread or an orange are as unreal as a unicorn. But whatever they are to him he accepts implicitly because they have to fit the bigger picture already painted on the canvas of his life. He might believe he’s eating rubber balls, for instance, or wooden pegs. So when he tells Barney that the sky is green, he probably believes it himself. To think otherwise would mean starting down the slippery slope toward the realization that the world is as horrible as his childhood experience suggested it was. Who knows what would happen to him if he were to begin that slide?

A similar fate might have befallen Phyllis, but it’s impossible to get any information from her. Whatever her background, she is unable to face up to it or anything else, even her very existence. Her early life must have been quite horrible indeed, maybe even worse than Rick’s or any of the other patients’.

Thus, with Phyllis, as for many of our residents, there is little meaning in the concept of a cure, which could actually be far worse than the affliction. How do we restore these Humpty Dumpties of the mind that were crushed and broken years earlier? Even fled, I suspected, wouldn’t be able to put them back together again, to rearrange all the synapses in their brains to make them whole and functional once more.

Suddenly I had a brainstorm. Would it be possible somehow, through surgery or medication, to create a kind of amnesia in patients like these and start them over with clean slates? Perhaps fled couldn’t fix them, but maybe she could do this much, give them a new lease on their miserable lives.

* * *

I wanted to touch base with Will, but he wasn’t in his office. His desk, I was pleased to note, was piled high with books and papers just like mine used to be. On the wall hung a photo of him and Dawn and their daughter Jennifer. As I gazed at my granddaughter’s pretty face, I suddenly found myself feeling very sorry for her. What if Tewksbury and others were right: in a century or so, by the time Jennifer left this planet, would the Earth be stuffed with human beings, devoid of most other life forms, and, as if that weren’t enough, a veritable hothouse? Or worse—would we survive even that long without making some hard choices, as prot and fled have suggested. I didn’t like to think about that.

On Will’s calendar I spotted a scribbled note: coffee with Hannah, 11:00. I headed dismally for the doctors’ dining room, where I found them huddled closely together at a table in the corner. My first thought was that if it had been anyone else but my son, I might have suspected they were having an affair. My second thought was about the same. When they saw me they quickly straightened up and Will (unenthusiastically, I thought) waved me over. Hannah’s face was so red that I wondered whether she, in fact, suffered from a serious circulation, rather than an emotional, problem. I brushed off my unwelcome suspicions as the paranoia of a concerned parent.

They said they had been discussing Jerry, who was neither Will’s nor Hannah’s patient. Apparently Laura Chang had told the latter that, although there was no reason to keep him in the hospital any longer, the former autist didn’t seem to be in any hurry to go anywhere. Feeling a bit out of place, I took a seat and asked them why they thought Jerry was suddenly so reluctant to get on with his life. “If it were me,” I remarked fatuously, “I’d be eager to get out of here and see what I’ve been missing.”

Hanna, still blushing noticeably, related that “He spends most of his time studying his matchstick sculptures, trying to understand why he doesn’t know how to do them anymore.”

“In fact,” Will added, carefully studying his empty cup, “he took some of the matches away from his Eiffel Tower, and when he tried to put them back in, the whole thing collapsed. Now all he has is a pile of sticks.”

“What is Laura doing about this?”

“Just as you might expect,” said Hannah. “She wants to give him more time. It’s like a blind man who is suddenly able to see. You would think it should be easy, but it takes him awhile to adjust.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“She’s going to present his case at the staff meeting on Monday. You want to come?”

“I’ll try to be there.”

Will stood up. “Maybe we should invite fled, too. Right now, I’ve got to run. Patient time!”

“Me, too!” said Hannah, who quickly jumped up and followed him out. The hospital equivalent of Dartmouth and Wang.

* * *

It was already approaching noon, and I had planned to be home for lunch. But I wanted to speak with fled before I left, particularly since the television people would be at the hospital the next day with all their cameras and other paraphernalia, which might make a simple discourse with her, or anyone else, more difficult than it already was. If, in fact, she showed up for the taping.

I searched for half an hour and was beginning to think she had left the premises. She had promised to stay around “for a while,” but to an alien that could mean anything. The last place I looked was Room 520, where I had left her. Surprisingly, she was still there. She seemed a bit morose. “Is something wrong?” I asked her.

“Prot was right,” she said. “But I had to come and see for myself.”

“Right about what?”

“If anything characterizes your species, besides your greed and your violent nature, it’s your amazing indifference to damn near everything outside your immediate experience. For someone from another PLANET it takes some getting used to.”

“Dammit, fled, I told you I’m worried about the Earth, too. But right now there are more pressing matters to discuss.”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“Please listen to me. The television cameras are coming the day after tomorrow. You gave me your word that you would be here for that. I expect you to honor that commitment, and I need to know: are you going to keep your promise?”

“No one taught me to lie, my dubious friend. We don’t even have a word for it on K-PAX. That’s a human thing.”

“Maybe you could be lying and you don’t even know it.”

“Maybe this is all fiction, and I don’t really exist.”

“We’ll have to discuss that some other time. So you’re sure you’re not going off to Africa or Asia or anywhere tomorrow?”

“And miss my chance at television stardom? Don’t make me laugh.”

We stared at each other for a while. “Here’s an idea: why don’t you tell the people of Earth about our indifference during your TV interview?”

“Will there be editors? Sponsors?”

“Of course.”

“There’s your answer.”

“All right. Have it your way. Right now I need to ask you about some of the patients.”

“I’m listening.”

“You somehow rewired Jerry. He’s having a hard time coping with that.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“Perhaps he’d like a free trip to K-PAX.”

“That the best you can do?”

“Do you have a better suggestion?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“The point is, you turned him into a ‘normal’ human being. For that we are all grateful, even though it might take him some time to adjust to the idea. What I want to know is whether you can do the same for the other patients.”

“I might be able to fix some of the other autists. The rest are a little more tricky.”

“Why is that?”

“You know why. Their problems aren’t about wiring. They’re like a chess game that went wrong on the first move. You’d have to turn back the clock and start them all over again. With different parents, preferably.”

“That’s precisely what I wanted to know: can you somehow erase their memories and start the games over?”

“No one can do that, doctor b. If you erased everything, there’d be nothing left to build new memories on. The brain isn’t like a videotape. Memories are an integral part of the structure itself. If I erased everything they’d be zombies.” She must have noticed my dejection, because she quickly added, “But I’ll talk to them if you like, see if I can find out if there’s something you missed.”

“Thank you. Now about your alters…”

“What ‘alters’?”

“You’ve got several. Maybe hundreds. It’s impossible to know.”

“Is this your first attempt at humor?”

“I wouldn’t joke about this.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t. Let me further enlighten you, doc. You may think you have evidence for a thousand of me, but forget it. I’m it.”

“Do you mean that after reading my books about prot—”

“He doesn’t buy it, either.”

“But what about Naraba? You admit that she’s—”

“She’s a friend and a travel companion.”

“But you saw the first alter, remember? Rwanda or Cameroon? And you didn’t even recognize her!”

“She must have been hiding somewhere when we got here.”

“All right, I give up. You win. Uh—”

“Oh no, please don’t ask me again whether the travel list is finished yet.”

“Well—”

“Or whether I’ve found a football stadium to leave from.”

“You’re reading my mind again, aren’t you?”

“Yes, and may I say you’re as sick as the rest of the sapiens.”

“What—”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You’ve got Margie half-undressed, and who’s that you’ve got tied to the bed—why it looks like Dr. Rudqvist! And Meg Ryan is with her! What’s your wife going to say about all of this, mister hyde?”

“All right! I’m human! Surprised?”

She wagged her head and grinned/grimaced. “You poor sapien,” she said as she headed for the window.

“When will I see you again?”

“Never fear, dear gene, I’ll be here in time for makeup call.” From somewhere she pulled out a flashlight.

“Wait! I wasn’t finished.”

“Finished with what? Your obscene daydream?”

“Dr. Sauer and a few of his colleagues want to see you again. As a group.”

“Sounds like fun, but I’m pretty booked.”

“And the government wants you to come to Washington for an interview with an unnamed high-ranking official. Maybe the highest one of all. Would you be willing to do that?”

“Please convey my apologies for passing up this great honor. And I hope you’ll tell your boys not to try to stop us from leaving. That could be bad for everyone concerned. Especially the boys.”

“If there’s anything I’ve learned from you, dear fled, it’s that no one can stop you from doing whatever you want.”

“Should I take that as a compliment?” She got up and headed for the window, where she gave her tush a good scratch.

“If you like.”

“Will that be all for now?”

“They aren’t happy that you’re promoting veganism, either.”

She wagged her hairy head. “Bad for the economy, right? Are all you people mere corporate puppets?”

I declined to answer that. “There’s one more thing.”

“There always is.”

“Are you taking any of our staff members with you when you return to K-PAX?”

“A few.”

“Which—”

Before I could say another word, she produced a mirror. I shouted, “Don’t forget about Steve!” But she was no longer in the room. Nor, quite probably, in the hemisphere.

* * *

I was exhausted again, and almost fell asleep on the drive home. The thought of Will having a fling with our newest staff member didn’t relax my tired brain in the slightest. Should I tell his mother about my suspicions? I decided to hold off on that until I had talked with some of the staff, see if anyone else had taken notice of this absurdity.

On top of everything else there was another traffic delay—an accident this time, with the inevitable gawker’s block—and I almost ran out of gas on the highway. The idea of never seeing MPI again was beginning to sound very attractive.

But by the time I got home I was wide awake, revived, no doubt, by unwelcome visions of government agents hiding in the rhododendrons. I discovered that I was actually sweating. It really dampens your spirit not knowing who might be watching every move you make. 1984 was a couple of decades late, perhaps, but it seemed to me that it had finally arrived.

Before I got out of the car I listened carefully, and my eyes probed every tree and bush. But nobody jumped out from anything. Of course that didn’t mean they weren’t in there, along with half the neighbors.

Karen, who had kept a pot of hot soup on the stove, was way ahead of me. “When are you going to get out of the psychiatry business?” was the way she put it. “It’s turning into a full-time job again.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I was thinking of hanging up my yellow pad for good when fled leaves. Permanently. Irreversibly. My old noodle isn’t up to it anymore.”

“It’s still up to a lot of things. But a complete change of perspective might do it some good. Summer’s almost here. What are we going to do about it?”

I took a spoonful of soup. “No doubt you’ve already got something in mind.”

“I was thinking of sitting on a lake somewhere and watching the fish jump.”

“Where?”

“Canada, maybe.”

“Flower would like that. But can we afford the gas?”

“Maybe we can get fled to drop us off before she goes.”

“How would we get back?”

“Maybe we won’t want to come back.”

You see why I love my wife? Forget Margie. Forget Hannah, and even Meg Ryan. I don’t know what fled and Filbert had been doing under that desk, but I suspected what it was, and was getting similar ideas myself. I may be getting old, but I’m still not too old for that.

Then I remembered Dartmouth and Wang. Who knew what sort of devices they had set up in the bedroom? And were they looking in on Will and Hannah as well? “By the way,” I said. “I think Will may be having an affair.”

“With fled?”

I couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not. “No. With Hannah Rudqvist.”

She gave me the look that said: did you get off the mushroom wagon again? Then, to my great amazement, she asked, “Did you ever have an affair?”

“Yes,” I answered immediately. “A lifelong one. With you….”

She came over and kissed me. To hell with Dartmouth and Wang, I thought, as we headed for the bedroom.

* * *

Later that afternoon I took another look at fled’s website. HURRY, HURRY, HURRY! ONLY ONE MORE WEEK! it proclaimed. There were no other changes.

There was plenty of new mail as well. Many people asked: is this a joke? Others begged me to put in a good word for them—they had been waiting ten years to go to K-PAX and were afraid this might be their last chance.

Two letters came from scientists. I don’t know why they didn’t just call the hospital; perhaps they thought that communicating through my website would be more expedient. In any case, one of them, an otolaryngologist, wanted to examine fled’s vocal cords to compare them with those of both humans and chimpanzees. Doyourealizewhatitwouldmeanifwecouldfindawaytogetapestospeak? I forwarded it without comment to Tewksbury.

The other came from a biologist who wanted to teach fled sign language so she could communicate with the great apes. That one I deleted.

Karen came in to remind me that we had a bridge date with the Siegels. “I hope you aren’t going to spend the rest of your retirement sitting at that thing,” she said with an amused frown.

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “After fled is gone, the mail will stop coming.” As usual where alien matters are concerned, however, I was wrong about that.