From: "Elizabeth Hensley"
Subject:
Date: Thursday, January 10, 2002 9:15 PM
K-PAX April wisdom is a K-PAX fan story, written with love for both gene brewers, the real and the unreal, for imitation is the sincerest and deepest form of flattery.
We would appreciate people pointing out spelling errors. Please keep mine the lack of capitalization when prot is talking is deliberate.
APRIL WISDOM
By Madam Foogie
and Elizabeth Hensley
This is an alternate Universe story. According to the "sacred text" prot was not in the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute until May. He would have arrived late April if Dr. Brewer had got to his file quick enough! Oh well! It was a fun story to write and I know it will be a hoot to read! This is a lighter hearted story than our other one, zaire .
Explanations for story if you are not familiar with K-PAX
Robert Porter is a mental patient who is either a multiple personality with a "secondary dominant persona" who thinks he is from the Planet K-PAX, (and keeps proving it to his compassionate but flustered psychiatrist) or else he is the willing but seriously disturbed host to a real symbiotic alien named, "prot," (rhymes with boat.) The author Gene Brewer, (same name as the psychiatrist in the story), and the Universal Picture's movie, cleverly never make it quite clear what "Prot," is a real alien, or an intelligent but delusional savant with a mysterious and touching ability to communicate heart to heart with animals, children and individuals so disturbed no one else can reach them. He can also see ultraviolet light and can diagram what night sky looks like from 64 extra-solar planets including his own claimed origin planet K-PAX (which no one knew about except Dr. Brewer's brother in law who is an astronomer and a few others like himself who had just discovered it). Because of his over sensitivity to light prot must wear dark glasses at all times unless in really dusky conditions. In fact that is what gets him committed. A cop asks him to take his glasses off, and he says, "if you don't mind I'd rather not, because I had forgotten, but WOW your planet is really bright!"
Prot can also use a little flashlight and a hand mirror to mirror beam anywhere he wants to on Earth, or at least he claims to be able to do this, "but interstellar travel must be co-ordinated for safety reasons just like your air planes."
Fan opinion leads in favor of prot deliberately acting just crazy enough to get committed so he could get help for his seriously disturbed friend. For prot is Robert's friend, not a body snatcher. They both think the world of each other.
The lack of capitulation when prot is speaking is deliberate. Prot capitalizes only the names of PLANETS, GALAXIES and the UNIVERSE. Everything else is always lower case letters.
This story is set early first book. Gene knows nothing of Robert yet, so it is just prot and dr brewer in that office this time. Of course we can be sure the still catatonic robert is listening and maybe starting to smile just a little bit at his symbiont's shenanigans. I know he makes me smile!
Note the term narr is a pet name of prot's for Dr. Gene Brewer. It means in pax-o, "one who doubts."
APRIL WISDOM
It has long been known in the mental health field that a lot can be learned about a patient by measuring their ability to comprehend and respond with appropriate affect to a humorous situation or story. In laymens terms this means we can learn something about how sick or well a patient is by their ability to laugh at a joke.
I hadn't been prot's psychiatrist long. And I was truly puzzled by him. I wondered, just how uninhibited would my, "alien patient" be if exposed to a humorous situation? He had demonstrated to me that he would grin, even smirk. And he could feel pleasure obviously. In fact I never saw anyone enjoy eating more than he did. But would he laugh? Would he be a good sport about being the butt of a joke?
So when our weekly therapy session just happened to fall on the first of April I decided to explore this area with my "alien patient" further.
Sometimes I feel like Jane Goodall! Prot is the most oral patient I have ever had. A fact he acknowledges cheerfully, but explains away as, "being a special characteristic of my species, intensified by my personal inability to be expressive artistically. I can't paint, draw, or carry a tune but I sure can eat!" The last part of this self analysis I consider to be insightful and accurate. Overcompensation, I suppose, is universal!
So I always have fruit waiting for prot. I am not sure that we are keeping him in the hospital by normal security measures. He has demonstrated his ability to leave and return at will. We haven't figured out how he is doing it, but when I once asked, "why do you stay?" he replied, "you feed me every day, this is as good a place as any to finish my report, the fruit you bring me is wonderful, and besides, (grinning impishly, ) I like you."
Well prot, the feeling is mutual. If it takes fruit to keep you cooperating with therapy, I'll bring you a whole orchard!
But this was April 1st. I placed an unopened coconut in my basket.
Prot's social skills were good. He always chatted away with the orderlies on the way to my office, and they enjoyed one another's company.
Once he arrived he would always make eye contact with me, smile, and since I had started taking steps to reduce the lighting to a more comfortable level for his photophobic eyes, he would take his glasses off. Then he would gaze at the fruit basket, often with his tongue on his lip, hungry as usual and eager to see what I had brought him this time.
The coconut did cause him to do a double take. "Ah! A custom of your species! A joke played on the first of april. You KNOW I will have trouble getting into this! He grinned. It wasn't the laugh I was hoping to hear, but it was, at least very near normal affect.
I, of course, had an opened coconut for prot hidden under my desk, but prot didn't know this, at least I didn't think he knew it! I waited a few more moments just to see what he would do. I knew the fellow had a temper. Just how would he do handling a minor stress?
He stared thoughtfully at the unopenable sphere. Then he stared at the ceiling, as he always did when he was trying to puzzle something out.
Then he did something completely unexpected. "I have an april joke for you too, gene. I shall eat coconut today. Only I will not let you see quite how I get to do it."
He reached into the pocket of his sky blue corduroy pants and took out that ever-with-him little flashlight and hand mirror he carried. As far as I know they were ordinary little dollar store items. I knew he had the delusion that he could use these to mirror beam himself from place to place. In fact after his "Newfoundland. Labrador. Greenland. Iceland." escape my colleagues had discussed the possible benefits of taking them away from him. Since his delusion of how he escaped included these items, taking these little security objects away from him would have, in his mind, stranded him at the hospital. I had spoken passionately against the idea, feeling my patient needed the delusion he could escape at any time, in order to feel free, despite his confinement at our hospital. These items gave him a sense of control. Not a bad thing in a patient as cooperative but as delusional as prot. I wanted him always to know we were on his side.
He placed the coconut on my desk, leaned the hand mirror against a couple of books I had there, and then "borrowed" my little sparkling glass paper weight that had always fascinated prot. He explained, "I am going to use this to diffuse the beam. Otherwise the coconut would just explode and there would be pieces of it all over this office. Well I don't feel like picking that all up." He grinned again, his dark eyes glinting with mischief, He was practically drooling with eager anticipation of playing a joke on me!
My heart was pounding. I knew of course prot couldn't mirror beam anything. Apparently this time he wasn't going to give me a fastest gun in the west routine. Prot planned to demonstrate his "superior alien technology" right in front of me! When, of course, he would fail to be able to do it, I would have him! Proof he was delusional that even he couldn't deny! A break-through at last!
The best laid plans of mice and earthlings go astray.
With obvious delight he set about planning his April fool joke, with the same careful thoroughness that I have no doubt went into his demented mind's creation of K-PAX. He gazed about my office and apparently didn't like what he saw. He frowned. Then he put his glasses back on and left my office, and approached Joyce Trexler, our tried and true secretary who we all know really runs the place. He asked, "Hiya Joyce, got any hand mirrors in that purse of yours?
She smiled, "Two, prot, but why do you ask? He grinned, "I'm setting dr b up for an elaborate april fools joke."
His merriment was contagious. She grinned, "But you do know, prot, that he's standing right behind you and is overhearing this."
"That doesn't matter."
But prot, how can it be an April Fools joke if he knows you are going to pull it on him?"
Cheshire cat grin, "It will be."
Joyce giggled, "Can I watch?"
Prot grinned. "Sure. I'll let YOU see the whole thing, but doctor b doesn't get to watch. Geno you will have to close your eyes and make a wish."
"Why?"
"Well it wouldn't be an april fool joke if you saw how I did it, now would it?"
He had me there.
He added, "besides you are not quite ready to see the actual procedure."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you are not ready yet to see me do what I am about to do."
I was a little hurt, "Prot don't you trust me?"
He nodded, "Implicitly my good doctor, with my life, and mind, but you don't quite trust me, yet."
"That isn't true, prot. I do trust you. You are a person, er being, of high integrity."
"Ah, gene you trust me as a mental patient! You know I'm harmless and cooperative with therapy, and so forth. That's why I'm on ward 2 and not ward 4 despite the violent tendencies you think I'm harboring."
Now how the hell did he know I thought that?
"But you don't trust me as an alien from the planet K-PAX.
Well gene, relationships grow. Maybe you will, in time. Right now I only wish to dent your narrism, not kill it. So you will have to close your eyes."
"But why do you trust Joyce to watch?"
"Because she doesn't care WHERE I'm from, and I don't need to establish a professional therapist-mental patient relationship with her. She can think I'm from hell for all I care!"
Joyce said gently, "prot I'd believe you were an Angel from Heaven before I would believe you were a devil from Hell!"
Prot shuttered, "Please don't call me an Angel! Those religious fanatics! Shish! I'm just a harmless lunatic from the planet K-PAX."
It is one of my deepest regrets I never got a chance to ask prot what his confabulations were about the angelic "religious fanatics." I am quite sure his irreverent take on the subject would have confounded a few of EARTH'S!
Prot took the two mirrors and then gazed around the reception area looking for more shiny things. Joyce had been eating yogurt. Prot grabbed the spoon and stated in a low menacing voice: "Stand back! I have a spoon! And I KNOW how to use it!"
I'm thinking to myself, "Ah prot, you may be more human than I thought!"
After appropriating Joyce's earrings, which were also shiny, prot pranced back into my office. He spent several minutes setting up his gag. He carefully positioned mirrors and other shiny things all over my office. He glanced at a picture on my desk. Apparently the frame was shiny enough to meet his purposes. "Oh! This is a very nice picture, Dr. B. Do you mind if I use it?" he said, tapping the spoon against the frame. I frowned. "I don't think so, prot. That's the best picture I've ever taken."
"Really? With Oxeye digging up Karen's roses in the background?"
"That only adds to its charm."
"Okey dookey Doc. I'll use it but I'll guard it with my life."
Then he glanced out my side window, squinting painfully because he had forgot to put his glasses back on, and spotted a sports car with a very shiny chrome bumper. His eyes closed against the sunlight, he smiled that cocky grin of his.
Then realizing he "needed" to fasten one of the mirrors to one of my walls, he held out his brawny hand to Joyce, and Joyce, somehow reading his mind, popped out the gum she had been chewing. Up on the wall the mirror went, fastened with her gum. I was glad Ernie was not there to see this!
Then prot added, ok geno I am willing to demonstrate my su-PEER-re-or alien powers! But every body must take precautions. Joyce you stand by the doorway where you will be perfectly safe. But gene you are going to be in the path of the beam, so you need to get down, yes duck down behind your desk, because this could get a little dang -GER-ous. If my calculations are off by a tiny fraction of a yarn you could need a new interior dec-OR- rator."
I seriously doubted if prot was serious, with it being April Fools Day, but with him it was hard to tell. I ducked down behind my desk right by the opened coconut, which, at this time, I know for certain was there."
"Now close your eyes and make a wish!"
I humored him. I knew that whatever he was planning he wouldn't hurt me. I closed my eyes.
"Gene you are not cooperating!"
"My eyes are closed, prot."
"But you haven't made a wish!"
Now how could he know that?
"All right, prot, I'm wishing I could figure out what it is that is really bothering you so I could help you. And I am also wishing I knew how to encourage you to spend all that incredible mental energy of yours, that you spend on confabulating K-PAX into coping with reality. I'd like to get you well!"
"K-PAX is real, Gene. It really is. Someday maybe I will succeed in communicating this fact successfully to you and you will finally 'get it'. Now then, what kind of magical incantation shall I recite to make my magic trick work?"
With my eyes still closed I smiled, "You are actually admitting to us that this is just going to be a magic trick?"
"Oh yes! The very best kind: clarkian, as in, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,' a quote by arthur c clarke. Ah I've got it. He started chanting in a high pitched voice, "Wal e ht sti a e di doog a t suj ton sti, d no ces rep se lim d na su oht x is yhthgie derd nuh e no!"
I wondered what this meant. It didn't sound like pax-o. I felt something brush past me, or did it? Then I sensed an intense flash of light through my closed eyelids, and Joyce went, "WOW! You really are from K-PAX!"
Then prot said "Ok narr open up those peepers and will the two of you join me in my little snack?"
I opened them up. The coconut was in pieces! I was flabbergasted until I realized prot had just switched coconuts. The unopened one was now the one under my desk!
But how did he know it was there?
And what did Joyce go "wow" about?
I glanced at her, question marks in my eyes.
Her eyes were big as saucers!
She glanced a little leerily at prot.
He smiled reassuringly and nodded, "It's ok joyce, you can tell him."
She glanced at me and said rather shakily, "At first all he did was bend down and switch the coconuts but then he stood up and pointed that little flashlight at your paper weight, and light just EXPLODED from it in all directions! They flashed all over your office with lazar like brilliance, bouncing off all those mirrors and shiny things we put up. It was like that scene from Star Wars in the garbage pool, only it was even brighter, and there was more than one beam. Then one beam bounced off the mirror we stuck up on the wall with my gum, and it went out the window!"
I learned later that this one must have mirror beamed off the shiny chrome bumper that prot had picked out. Everyone in all the wards, patients and staff alike who just happened to be looking out the windows at the right moment saw a powerful lazar like beam zap upwards into the sky like a straight beam of lightning. Over two dozen people across the streets from the MPI also saw it, as well as many others around the New York area.
It seemed everyone got to see it, but me. I was a little jealous!
I stared at my problem patient.
He was nonchalantly stuffing coconut crumbs into his already overfull mouth.
I was shaken, but prot's mischievous grin was quite disarming. How could you fear a person, (sorry prot; I know you don't, but I think of you as a PERSON), that takes the same joy out of eating a coconut as a little kid with an ice cream cone, (and has about as good table manners)? Whatever it is prot is, alien being or delusional savant, he's a good one."
Then to add to prot's merriment, he farted. He did this a lot. After all his diet was high in fruit and grain fiber, so it was a rather unavoidable side effect of his very healthy diet.
He grinned again. "Sorry geno, just doing my bit to keep gaia balanced." I asked him what he meant. "Gaia?"
He frowned at me. "Its a terrible thing when I, the alien, have to explain your culture to you! Some of your EARTH scientists, carl sagan included, have this idea that all the life on your PLANET cooperates as one being, to keep the atmosphere's oxygen, carbon dioxide and methane levels balanced so that your PLANET can perpetrate life. They call this the gaia hypothesis after the greek EARTH god. That's a crazy theory. I know, but don't blame ME. I didn't make it up. A homo-sapien did."
I did not doubt him. Prot was a voracious reader and other than firmly thinking he was from K-PAX, everything he had ever said to me, however bizarre sounding, had proved to be rooted soundly in reality.
"So what do you think about it?"
Prot gazed at me, grinning, but there was a little puzzlement to his grin. He shrugged. "How could I know, geno? Sometimes you expect too much of me. Sounds to me like you'll are just starting a new religion."
"Is that such a bad thing, prot? Religion gives a lot of people a lot of hope. Not all religious people are sick like Russell. Many devoutly religious people are quite healthy and do much good for this PLANET. "
Prot shrugged, "It depends on, will you get it right this time? Will Its followers treat ALL beings right, and not just its fellow followers?" He swallowed a piece of his snack. "russell's not as bad as you think. He is just so very socially inept. Ever just think of just giving him some pills for his depression and doing interpersonal therapy on him? Russell actually has a good quote about this kind of situation. He says, "by their fruits you shall know them."
"Prot, Russell thinks Jesus lives inside of him!" Prot shrugged, "So does billy graham, and millions of other christians but billy graham knows how to win an audience, and he doesn't spit on people when he talks. So what?"
I changed the subject.. "So, prot, how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?"
He stared at me like I was the crazy one. "Huh?"
"Its a joke, prot. There are a whole bunch of light bulb jokes."
He grinned, "Ah yes, another joke. I would expect one geno. It is not a very difficult procedure. I've never done it but I expect even I could learn."
"That's right prot, only one, (and in my best Viennese accent), 'but ze light bulb has got to really vant to be changed.'"
Prot grinned politely. I couldn't tell if he thought it was funny or not.
Suddenly what he had just said to me sunk in. I stared at him, "You've never changed a light bulb?"
"No gene, not in my entire life."
"How could that happen?"
"We don't use light bulbs on K-PAX"
"But how do you mirror beam?"
He put his fingers together and stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out words to explain what he meant, "Ah well, gene, I guess you are right, we did finally have to invent light bulbs for that purpose, but they are perpetual so I've never had to change one. What I meant to say is we do not use them for illumination. Our PLANET is dusky by your standards, but it never gets completely dark, due to our two SUNS, and we see quite well in it. We have never felt the need for artificial illumination. We never even invented candles, or for a long time, learned to control fire, other than to figure out how to put the darn stuff out without a whole lotta water. We had no need. We had no carnivores to chase away and we don't cook things. To make up one of your light bulb jokes, 'how many dremers does it take to change a light bulb?' We don't know. It's never had to be done."
"But you told me, you do have huts to store stuff in, and you have libraries, and medical clinics. How do you light them?"
Prot gave me his famous Cheshire cat grin. (I should have realized I was, 'walking myself right into something.')
"We have a marvelous invention that lets us see right through walls and roofs."
I sighed, "What is it called, prot?"
"In pax-o it is called a pringle. I think that's a lovely word don't you gene? Say it. It flows trippingly off the tongue. Pringle! Pringle! Pringle! I think it came from the sound it makes when they break."
"Light waves just go right through 'em."
I was beginning to get the picture, "Ah prot, we wouldn't happen to have this invention on EARTH already would we?"
Prot grinned impishly, "Yep. You call em windows."
I had to admit it. This was funny. It was my turn to give my patient a loopy grin. And to think I had thought my, "space case," didn't have a sense of humor!
"But you mean to tell you never invented light bulbs for any other purpose than to mirror beam?"
"Yep. We happily did without light bulbs for more billions of years than mammals have existed on B-TIK," (pax-o for EARTH), "and not only during primitive times either. In some ways homo sapiens are progressing much more rapidly than we did. And that's what SCARES me, gene. You are going to destroy yourselves if your social progress doesn't catch up with your clever chimpanzee tool making."
"What about TV?"
He gave me a wide eyed look of mock horror. "geno, my beings are SANE! They never invented TV!"
"But you said our tv waves are being monitored."
"I said MY beings are sane. I can't speak for the whole GALAXY. I wasn't on K-PAX when I learned about EARTH.
I knew there was no therapeutic benefit in doing so, but I couldn't resist asking, "So what PLANET were you one when you found out about EARTH?"
"On FLORIN. Those florins are just as crazy as you'll are. A lot less violent, but just AS crazy! In fact they even like star trek. Well can't say as I blame them there, but like most trekkers they take it to extremes. The are working very hard to invent star ships."
I thought for a minute I had caught prot in a flaw with his confabulations. "Ah ha prot you told me the florins already had star travel!"
Prot burped, and then shrugged, "They have mirror beaming type star travel. They don't have star ships. No one does."
"So why do they want to build star ships?"
"I told you they were crazy. They want to build the star ship enterprise!"
I couldn't help it. I started laughing. Prot grinned broadly. "Oh it's worse gene, much worse! They want to make the federation real too. Now they've never had a government. They've never needed a government. But now they think they need one to make star trek come true!"
I roared!
Prot said a little less cheerfully, "Well homo sapiens, you have fans. If you actually do manage to survive, and I doubt it, though I'm crazy enough to root for you, but if you do survive, you've got wild eyed fans and friends waiting for you! So I'm assigning YOU a task. Quit trying to kill yourselves and all the other beings on B-TIK. Survive!"
And I was folie a deuced enough by prot to be warmed and comforted by this. It was nice to know I could go outside at night and look up at the stars, and all I would see up there would be friends.
I regressed to an earlier stage in our conversation.
"What about computer monitors? Didn't you need to invent the tube for that?"
"Nope. Went right to full color LCD screens and talking computers. We skipped that stage."
"What about radios? Did you at least have them?"
"We had mirror beaming before we had radios, and when we did invent them, we went right to what you are going to replace transistors with. We have never to this day invented the vacuum tube. Also, though some lunatic dremer finally did take the trouble to invent radio, now that we have it we haven't quite figured out yet what it is we can actually do with it."
"No radios for most of your civilization's development? How did you communicate long distance?"
He made the same signal to me Joyce makes when she wants to alert me to a phone call. "By telephone, which we did have very long ago, and still have and," prot suddenly sang off key, to the tune of Mr. Sandman. "mr postman please drop me a line...."
I sighed. There seemed to be no end to prot's confabulations. He could talk about K-PAX for hours it seemed, and enjoyed doing it. Betty had told me she even overheard prot bragging about how good a psychiatrist I was because I was helping him, "so much with his 'home sickness.'" I suppose I should count my blessings. Prot was satisfied with the progress of his therapy even if I was not!
Prot reminded me in some ways of another patient I had successfully helped. This fellow could not hold down a job because his employers continually fired him for "being weird." His wife made him come to us. He seemed very disturbed at times because we could not understand him and because he could not support his family. But he seemed cheerful most of the time when he was thinking about his favorite things, which was nearly all the time. My attempts to psychoanalyze him were hopeless. It was impossible to get a handle on his psyche. In analysis the patient is supposed to ramble on and say the first thing that pops into his head, and my patient cooperated fully, but he was obsessed with role playing games, and science fiction stories of both the written and filmed variety. And no wonder, for so had been his father and grandfather before him. As he put it, "I'm a third generation sci fi fan." He could talk for hours about these subjects, and it was almost impossible to steer him for any length of time away from these fantasies to discuss what was really bothering him! And since I wasn't into the science fiction culture I had no way of knowing whether he was delusional or just obsessed with the subject! Everything he said might have made sense to another science fiction fan but they might as well have been schizophrenic word salads as far as I could comprehend him.
I finally figured out that the only way to determine just how sick or well my sci fi patient was, was to observe him in his "own environment." I went with him to a science fiction convention to see how he would act in his "own world." To my delight he not only fit in socially among his fellow fans, but had high social status. He was considered a real expert on some of the things that he had tried to talk about with me. And his peers understood him. Plus he had a great sense of humor. Some of the weird things he had talked about were inside jokes. I could not understand them but his peers roared at them! One diagnosis achieved! His emotional disturbance had to do with his inability to relate to anyone outside the "sci fi" culture he had grown up in. All I had to do was give him some interpersonal therapy. I had to teach him how to pass for what he called a, "Mundane," a Non Science Fiction Fan! I couldn't cure him of being a, "Sci Fi Fan." He wouldn't have sat still for that and I wouldn't have had the heart! He enjoyed it too much! Plus considering his upbringing, I would have been taking his heritage away from him! But I could teach him how to pass for, "a Mundane," long enough to hold down a job! I felt more like Henry Higgins than a psychiatrist!
But in that case, I could go with that patient to his, "world," that is, a science fiction convention, and observe his ability to cope in his own environment. I couldn't do that with prot. If K-PAX was real, (oops it IS real; remember my brother-in-law the Astronomer). But if prot had ever actually been there, I couldn't tell, nor could I observe him functioning there.
But I took inspiration from that experience. I could observe how prot reacted in our world. I got up from my chair and went over to one of the lights we had brought up from the storage tunnel. "Freud never did this with a patient, but there is one thing I can do for you today, prot, that will help you function better in society. I can teach you how to change a light bulb. Pretend this one is out, and (I unscrewed another one), pretend this is the new one we wish to use."
Prot learned quickly, but it was obvious that in his mind, he really never had changed a light bulb before. How can a person be so amnesiac that his traumatized mind forgets a simple harmless skill like that?
He tried to unscrew the old bulb in the wrong direction.
"Lefty loosey, righty tighty, prot. That goes for light bulbs, screws, and tire nuts.
Then he touched the metal part, and got shocked. He yelped and said something in pax- o, that I am quite sure was a colorful metaphor. He glared at me and sucked his hurt fingers, "You are giving me shock therapy now, geno?
"Electroconvulsive therapy can be therapeutic when used correctly on the right patient. It is NOT how it was portrayed in Cuckolds Nest, but oh, darn you, prot, you know that!"
He was grinning at me again. Confound it. Prot did have a sense of humor at least on an intellectual level even if his glands seldom laughed! His humor seemed to be so disconnected from whatever emotion he happened to be feeling, he could be telling a joke when he was happy, or angry. Thus it was so dry I had difficulty sometimes telling if he was joking or not!
He finally got the new bulb screwed in place and told me with obvious real gratitude in his voice, "Thank you gene. I have always wanted to do that."
"Why didn't you?"
"Primitive electrical devices can be dangerous without the proper training. And I know little of it. And I Never had ANY one to show me how to do it safely before." He seemed wishful like a lonely little boy.
Then I asked what I thought was an absolutely brilliant question, and it was. It lead to me learning that prot had more insight into his condition than I'd suspected, "prot, you have spent much time on EARTH. During all that time that little dollar store flashlight never had its bulb burn out?"
"Of course it did."
"And you didn't have to change it?"
"I got scotty to do that for me."
I stared at him in exasperated disbelief. Come on prot! Even I know you know scotty isn't real."
"Well Jimmy Montgomery Doohan is real and he's called scotty on camera, and off, but what I mean gene, (no you are not mean), I did what I always do when I'm in trouble, I sought professional help. Sometimes you've gotta go pretty far for it. 7000 light years! That's gotta be a record! And you are good! So when I report back to K-PAX don't be surprised if more troubled aliens don't turn up at your doorstep!"
I put my hands on my head and shuddered. I suddenly had a delirious vision in my mind of aliens lining up outside our gates waiting to come in; all kinds of aliens, big purple ones with obsessive compulsive disorder, little green men who were afraid of little green women, Roswellian little grays with schizophrenia, huge furry things ten feet tall with six arms that were terrified of being in the dark! Since Giselle published a little article about prot, I was already getting letters from people claiming they were troubled ET's too, and would I please PLEASE help them too! What if some of them were legit? Was I going to end up being a Doctor Dolittle to Aliens?
I thought to myself, "Gene, he is folie de deucing you AGAIN! Get a grip on yourself! Your really really REALLY need to take a vacation, or to at least see a movie, ANYTHING but a science fiction movie!"
I realized then that I needed to see my friend and colleague, Bill Siegal, professionally. It would serve him right. He is the one that stuck me with prot in the first place!
I shook off my fantasies and asked, Just what kind of professional help does it take to get a flashlight fixed?
Prot, for once, actually had a rational answer. His dark eyes were glinting with mischief, "I went to a Radio Shack and told them the truth."
"That you were an alien from the planet K- PAX and your transporter beam was malfunctioning?"
"No, silly! That my flashlight needed a new bulb."
And they gave you one, without paying for it?
"No. I could get away with that with the natives in Africa. They are more civilized than you so called high tech Humans. But in your savage corner of this PLANET it takes money. But you would be surprised how many aluminum cans I can collect and recycle when I'm desperate!"
A chill went up my spine. This gave me more insight in how wretchedly prot had been managing on EARTH for those four years and five months before the police rescued him. We REALLY need to do more to help the mentally ill homeless. Such a brilliant mind as prot's, who could have been contributing to society enormously if he had just gotten help sooner, had almost five years of his life wasted, living like an homeless outcast on the fringes of society! How many other savants were out there, starving, when we could be learning so much from them! And it also got me to wondering if prot realized the police arresting him had been a kind of rescue.
Prot continued, "Of course they wanted to just sell me a new flashlight. Of course. They always do, but I was insistent. I told them truthfully I couldn't afford a new one and knew full well I just needed a new bulb."
I smiled. My patient had actually managed to get the best of Radio Shack. Now that did take some doing!
"Prot, if you had enough awareness of how weird it would sound to admit to those folks at Radio Shack that you were using your flashlight for a kind of space and time travel, why did you just blurt out to those police that you were from another planet? Why didn't you just say something like, "Would you mind if I don't take my glasses off because my eyes are painfully over-sensitive to light?"
He smiled at me, "I was kind of running out of time for help wasn't I? He actually winked at me!
Our time was up, and as usual without looking at the clock, prot knew it. With his usual cheerful dignity, he stood up, gave me a little smile, put his glasses back on and left my soothingly dark office, and me with a lot to think about.
Ah prot! When we first met you promised me you, "wouldn't leap out of my chest." And you never did.
You just wormed your way into my heart.
Subject:
Date: Thursday, January 10, 2002 9:15 PM
K-PAX April wisdom is a K-PAX fan story, written with love for both gene brewers, the real and the unreal, for imitation is the sincerest and deepest form of flattery.
We would appreciate people pointing out spelling errors. Please keep mine the lack of capitalization when prot is talking is deliberate.
APRIL WISDOM
By Madam Foogie
and Elizabeth Hensley
This is an alternate Universe story. According to the "sacred text" prot was not in the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute until May. He would have arrived late April if Dr. Brewer had got to his file quick enough! Oh well! It was a fun story to write and I know it will be a hoot to read! This is a lighter hearted story than our other one, zaire .
Explanations for story if you are not familiar with K-PAX
Robert Porter is a mental patient who is either a multiple personality with a "secondary dominant persona" who thinks he is from the Planet K-PAX, (and keeps proving it to his compassionate but flustered psychiatrist) or else he is the willing but seriously disturbed host to a real symbiotic alien named, "prot," (rhymes with boat.) The author Gene Brewer, (same name as the psychiatrist in the story), and the Universal Picture's movie, cleverly never make it quite clear what "Prot," is a real alien, or an intelligent but delusional savant with a mysterious and touching ability to communicate heart to heart with animals, children and individuals so disturbed no one else can reach them. He can also see ultraviolet light and can diagram what night sky looks like from 64 extra-solar planets including his own claimed origin planet K-PAX (which no one knew about except Dr. Brewer's brother in law who is an astronomer and a few others like himself who had just discovered it). Because of his over sensitivity to light prot must wear dark glasses at all times unless in really dusky conditions. In fact that is what gets him committed. A cop asks him to take his glasses off, and he says, "if you don't mind I'd rather not, because I had forgotten, but WOW your planet is really bright!"
Prot can also use a little flashlight and a hand mirror to mirror beam anywhere he wants to on Earth, or at least he claims to be able to do this, "but interstellar travel must be co-ordinated for safety reasons just like your air planes."
Fan opinion leads in favor of prot deliberately acting just crazy enough to get committed so he could get help for his seriously disturbed friend. For prot is Robert's friend, not a body snatcher. They both think the world of each other.
The lack of capitulation when prot is speaking is deliberate. Prot capitalizes only the names of PLANETS, GALAXIES and the UNIVERSE. Everything else is always lower case letters.
This story is set early first book. Gene knows nothing of Robert yet, so it is just prot and dr brewer in that office this time. Of course we can be sure the still catatonic robert is listening and maybe starting to smile just a little bit at his symbiont's shenanigans. I know he makes me smile!
Note the term narr is a pet name of prot's for Dr. Gene Brewer. It means in pax-o, "one who doubts."
APRIL WISDOM
It has long been known in the mental health field that a lot can be learned about a patient by measuring their ability to comprehend and respond with appropriate affect to a humorous situation or story. In laymens terms this means we can learn something about how sick or well a patient is by their ability to laugh at a joke.
I hadn't been prot's psychiatrist long. And I was truly puzzled by him. I wondered, just how uninhibited would my, "alien patient" be if exposed to a humorous situation? He had demonstrated to me that he would grin, even smirk. And he could feel pleasure obviously. In fact I never saw anyone enjoy eating more than he did. But would he laugh? Would he be a good sport about being the butt of a joke?
So when our weekly therapy session just happened to fall on the first of April I decided to explore this area with my "alien patient" further.
Sometimes I feel like Jane Goodall! Prot is the most oral patient I have ever had. A fact he acknowledges cheerfully, but explains away as, "being a special characteristic of my species, intensified by my personal inability to be expressive artistically. I can't paint, draw, or carry a tune but I sure can eat!" The last part of this self analysis I consider to be insightful and accurate. Overcompensation, I suppose, is universal!
So I always have fruit waiting for prot. I am not sure that we are keeping him in the hospital by normal security measures. He has demonstrated his ability to leave and return at will. We haven't figured out how he is doing it, but when I once asked, "why do you stay?" he replied, "you feed me every day, this is as good a place as any to finish my report, the fruit you bring me is wonderful, and besides, (grinning impishly, ) I like you."
Well prot, the feeling is mutual. If it takes fruit to keep you cooperating with therapy, I'll bring you a whole orchard!
But this was April 1st. I placed an unopened coconut in my basket.
Prot's social skills were good. He always chatted away with the orderlies on the way to my office, and they enjoyed one another's company.
Once he arrived he would always make eye contact with me, smile, and since I had started taking steps to reduce the lighting to a more comfortable level for his photophobic eyes, he would take his glasses off. Then he would gaze at the fruit basket, often with his tongue on his lip, hungry as usual and eager to see what I had brought him this time.
The coconut did cause him to do a double take. "Ah! A custom of your species! A joke played on the first of april. You KNOW I will have trouble getting into this! He grinned. It wasn't the laugh I was hoping to hear, but it was, at least very near normal affect.
I, of course, had an opened coconut for prot hidden under my desk, but prot didn't know this, at least I didn't think he knew it! I waited a few more moments just to see what he would do. I knew the fellow had a temper. Just how would he do handling a minor stress?
He stared thoughtfully at the unopenable sphere. Then he stared at the ceiling, as he always did when he was trying to puzzle something out.
Then he did something completely unexpected. "I have an april joke for you too, gene. I shall eat coconut today. Only I will not let you see quite how I get to do it."
He reached into the pocket of his sky blue corduroy pants and took out that ever-with-him little flashlight and hand mirror he carried. As far as I know they were ordinary little dollar store items. I knew he had the delusion that he could use these to mirror beam himself from place to place. In fact after his "Newfoundland. Labrador. Greenland. Iceland." escape my colleagues had discussed the possible benefits of taking them away from him. Since his delusion of how he escaped included these items, taking these little security objects away from him would have, in his mind, stranded him at the hospital. I had spoken passionately against the idea, feeling my patient needed the delusion he could escape at any time, in order to feel free, despite his confinement at our hospital. These items gave him a sense of control. Not a bad thing in a patient as cooperative but as delusional as prot. I wanted him always to know we were on his side.
He placed the coconut on my desk, leaned the hand mirror against a couple of books I had there, and then "borrowed" my little sparkling glass paper weight that had always fascinated prot. He explained, "I am going to use this to diffuse the beam. Otherwise the coconut would just explode and there would be pieces of it all over this office. Well I don't feel like picking that all up." He grinned again, his dark eyes glinting with mischief, He was practically drooling with eager anticipation of playing a joke on me!
My heart was pounding. I knew of course prot couldn't mirror beam anything. Apparently this time he wasn't going to give me a fastest gun in the west routine. Prot planned to demonstrate his "superior alien technology" right in front of me! When, of course, he would fail to be able to do it, I would have him! Proof he was delusional that even he couldn't deny! A break-through at last!
The best laid plans of mice and earthlings go astray.
With obvious delight he set about planning his April fool joke, with the same careful thoroughness that I have no doubt went into his demented mind's creation of K-PAX. He gazed about my office and apparently didn't like what he saw. He frowned. Then he put his glasses back on and left my office, and approached Joyce Trexler, our tried and true secretary who we all know really runs the place. He asked, "Hiya Joyce, got any hand mirrors in that purse of yours?
She smiled, "Two, prot, but why do you ask? He grinned, "I'm setting dr b up for an elaborate april fools joke."
His merriment was contagious. She grinned, "But you do know, prot, that he's standing right behind you and is overhearing this."
"That doesn't matter."
But prot, how can it be an April Fools joke if he knows you are going to pull it on him?"
Cheshire cat grin, "It will be."
Joyce giggled, "Can I watch?"
Prot grinned. "Sure. I'll let YOU see the whole thing, but doctor b doesn't get to watch. Geno you will have to close your eyes and make a wish."
"Why?"
"Well it wouldn't be an april fool joke if you saw how I did it, now would it?"
He had me there.
He added, "besides you are not quite ready to see the actual procedure."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you are not ready yet to see me do what I am about to do."
I was a little hurt, "Prot don't you trust me?"
He nodded, "Implicitly my good doctor, with my life, and mind, but you don't quite trust me, yet."
"That isn't true, prot. I do trust you. You are a person, er being, of high integrity."
"Ah, gene you trust me as a mental patient! You know I'm harmless and cooperative with therapy, and so forth. That's why I'm on ward 2 and not ward 4 despite the violent tendencies you think I'm harboring."
Now how the hell did he know I thought that?
"But you don't trust me as an alien from the planet K-PAX.
Well gene, relationships grow. Maybe you will, in time. Right now I only wish to dent your narrism, not kill it. So you will have to close your eyes."
"But why do you trust Joyce to watch?"
"Because she doesn't care WHERE I'm from, and I don't need to establish a professional therapist-mental patient relationship with her. She can think I'm from hell for all I care!"
Joyce said gently, "prot I'd believe you were an Angel from Heaven before I would believe you were a devil from Hell!"
Prot shuttered, "Please don't call me an Angel! Those religious fanatics! Shish! I'm just a harmless lunatic from the planet K-PAX."
It is one of my deepest regrets I never got a chance to ask prot what his confabulations were about the angelic "religious fanatics." I am quite sure his irreverent take on the subject would have confounded a few of EARTH'S!
Prot took the two mirrors and then gazed around the reception area looking for more shiny things. Joyce had been eating yogurt. Prot grabbed the spoon and stated in a low menacing voice: "Stand back! I have a spoon! And I KNOW how to use it!"
I'm thinking to myself, "Ah prot, you may be more human than I thought!"
After appropriating Joyce's earrings, which were also shiny, prot pranced back into my office. He spent several minutes setting up his gag. He carefully positioned mirrors and other shiny things all over my office. He glanced at a picture on my desk. Apparently the frame was shiny enough to meet his purposes. "Oh! This is a very nice picture, Dr. B. Do you mind if I use it?" he said, tapping the spoon against the frame. I frowned. "I don't think so, prot. That's the best picture I've ever taken."
"Really? With Oxeye digging up Karen's roses in the background?"
"That only adds to its charm."
"Okey dookey Doc. I'll use it but I'll guard it with my life."
Then he glanced out my side window, squinting painfully because he had forgot to put his glasses back on, and spotted a sports car with a very shiny chrome bumper. His eyes closed against the sunlight, he smiled that cocky grin of his.
Then realizing he "needed" to fasten one of the mirrors to one of my walls, he held out his brawny hand to Joyce, and Joyce, somehow reading his mind, popped out the gum she had been chewing. Up on the wall the mirror went, fastened with her gum. I was glad Ernie was not there to see this!
Then prot added, ok geno I am willing to demonstrate my su-PEER-re-or alien powers! But every body must take precautions. Joyce you stand by the doorway where you will be perfectly safe. But gene you are going to be in the path of the beam, so you need to get down, yes duck down behind your desk, because this could get a little dang -GER-ous. If my calculations are off by a tiny fraction of a yarn you could need a new interior dec-OR- rator."
I seriously doubted if prot was serious, with it being April Fools Day, but with him it was hard to tell. I ducked down behind my desk right by the opened coconut, which, at this time, I know for certain was there."
"Now close your eyes and make a wish!"
I humored him. I knew that whatever he was planning he wouldn't hurt me. I closed my eyes.
"Gene you are not cooperating!"
"My eyes are closed, prot."
"But you haven't made a wish!"
Now how could he know that?
"All right, prot, I'm wishing I could figure out what it is that is really bothering you so I could help you. And I am also wishing I knew how to encourage you to spend all that incredible mental energy of yours, that you spend on confabulating K-PAX into coping with reality. I'd like to get you well!"
"K-PAX is real, Gene. It really is. Someday maybe I will succeed in communicating this fact successfully to you and you will finally 'get it'. Now then, what kind of magical incantation shall I recite to make my magic trick work?"
With my eyes still closed I smiled, "You are actually admitting to us that this is just going to be a magic trick?"
"Oh yes! The very best kind: clarkian, as in, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,' a quote by arthur c clarke. Ah I've got it. He started chanting in a high pitched voice, "Wal e ht sti a e di doog a t suj ton sti, d no ces rep se lim d na su oht x is yhthgie derd nuh e no!"
I wondered what this meant. It didn't sound like pax-o. I felt something brush past me, or did it? Then I sensed an intense flash of light through my closed eyelids, and Joyce went, "WOW! You really are from K-PAX!"
Then prot said "Ok narr open up those peepers and will the two of you join me in my little snack?"
I opened them up. The coconut was in pieces! I was flabbergasted until I realized prot had just switched coconuts. The unopened one was now the one under my desk!
But how did he know it was there?
And what did Joyce go "wow" about?
I glanced at her, question marks in my eyes.
Her eyes were big as saucers!
She glanced a little leerily at prot.
He smiled reassuringly and nodded, "It's ok joyce, you can tell him."
She glanced at me and said rather shakily, "At first all he did was bend down and switch the coconuts but then he stood up and pointed that little flashlight at your paper weight, and light just EXPLODED from it in all directions! They flashed all over your office with lazar like brilliance, bouncing off all those mirrors and shiny things we put up. It was like that scene from Star Wars in the garbage pool, only it was even brighter, and there was more than one beam. Then one beam bounced off the mirror we stuck up on the wall with my gum, and it went out the window!"
I learned later that this one must have mirror beamed off the shiny chrome bumper that prot had picked out. Everyone in all the wards, patients and staff alike who just happened to be looking out the windows at the right moment saw a powerful lazar like beam zap upwards into the sky like a straight beam of lightning. Over two dozen people across the streets from the MPI also saw it, as well as many others around the New York area.
It seemed everyone got to see it, but me. I was a little jealous!
I stared at my problem patient.
He was nonchalantly stuffing coconut crumbs into his already overfull mouth.
I was shaken, but prot's mischievous grin was quite disarming. How could you fear a person, (sorry prot; I know you don't, but I think of you as a PERSON), that takes the same joy out of eating a coconut as a little kid with an ice cream cone, (and has about as good table manners)? Whatever it is prot is, alien being or delusional savant, he's a good one."
Then to add to prot's merriment, he farted. He did this a lot. After all his diet was high in fruit and grain fiber, so it was a rather unavoidable side effect of his very healthy diet.
He grinned again. "Sorry geno, just doing my bit to keep gaia balanced." I asked him what he meant. "Gaia?"
He frowned at me. "Its a terrible thing when I, the alien, have to explain your culture to you! Some of your EARTH scientists, carl sagan included, have this idea that all the life on your PLANET cooperates as one being, to keep the atmosphere's oxygen, carbon dioxide and methane levels balanced so that your PLANET can perpetrate life. They call this the gaia hypothesis after the greek EARTH god. That's a crazy theory. I know, but don't blame ME. I didn't make it up. A homo-sapien did."
I did not doubt him. Prot was a voracious reader and other than firmly thinking he was from K-PAX, everything he had ever said to me, however bizarre sounding, had proved to be rooted soundly in reality.
"So what do you think about it?"
Prot gazed at me, grinning, but there was a little puzzlement to his grin. He shrugged. "How could I know, geno? Sometimes you expect too much of me. Sounds to me like you'll are just starting a new religion."
"Is that such a bad thing, prot? Religion gives a lot of people a lot of hope. Not all religious people are sick like Russell. Many devoutly religious people are quite healthy and do much good for this PLANET. "
Prot shrugged, "It depends on, will you get it right this time? Will Its followers treat ALL beings right, and not just its fellow followers?" He swallowed a piece of his snack. "russell's not as bad as you think. He is just so very socially inept. Ever just think of just giving him some pills for his depression and doing interpersonal therapy on him? Russell actually has a good quote about this kind of situation. He says, "by their fruits you shall know them."
"Prot, Russell thinks Jesus lives inside of him!" Prot shrugged, "So does billy graham, and millions of other christians but billy graham knows how to win an audience, and he doesn't spit on people when he talks. So what?"
I changed the subject.. "So, prot, how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?"
He stared at me like I was the crazy one. "Huh?"
"Its a joke, prot. There are a whole bunch of light bulb jokes."
He grinned, "Ah yes, another joke. I would expect one geno. It is not a very difficult procedure. I've never done it but I expect even I could learn."
"That's right prot, only one, (and in my best Viennese accent), 'but ze light bulb has got to really vant to be changed.'"
Prot grinned politely. I couldn't tell if he thought it was funny or not.
Suddenly what he had just said to me sunk in. I stared at him, "You've never changed a light bulb?"
"No gene, not in my entire life."
"How could that happen?"
"We don't use light bulbs on K-PAX"
"But how do you mirror beam?"
He put his fingers together and stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out words to explain what he meant, "Ah well, gene, I guess you are right, we did finally have to invent light bulbs for that purpose, but they are perpetual so I've never had to change one. What I meant to say is we do not use them for illumination. Our PLANET is dusky by your standards, but it never gets completely dark, due to our two SUNS, and we see quite well in it. We have never felt the need for artificial illumination. We never even invented candles, or for a long time, learned to control fire, other than to figure out how to put the darn stuff out without a whole lotta water. We had no need. We had no carnivores to chase away and we don't cook things. To make up one of your light bulb jokes, 'how many dremers does it take to change a light bulb?' We don't know. It's never had to be done."
"But you told me, you do have huts to store stuff in, and you have libraries, and medical clinics. How do you light them?"
Prot gave me his famous Cheshire cat grin. (I should have realized I was, 'walking myself right into something.')
"We have a marvelous invention that lets us see right through walls and roofs."
I sighed, "What is it called, prot?"
"In pax-o it is called a pringle. I think that's a lovely word don't you gene? Say it. It flows trippingly off the tongue. Pringle! Pringle! Pringle! I think it came from the sound it makes when they break."
"Light waves just go right through 'em."
I was beginning to get the picture, "Ah prot, we wouldn't happen to have this invention on EARTH already would we?"
Prot grinned impishly, "Yep. You call em windows."
I had to admit it. This was funny. It was my turn to give my patient a loopy grin. And to think I had thought my, "space case," didn't have a sense of humor!
"But you mean to tell you never invented light bulbs for any other purpose than to mirror beam?"
"Yep. We happily did without light bulbs for more billions of years than mammals have existed on B-TIK," (pax-o for EARTH), "and not only during primitive times either. In some ways homo sapiens are progressing much more rapidly than we did. And that's what SCARES me, gene. You are going to destroy yourselves if your social progress doesn't catch up with your clever chimpanzee tool making."
"What about TV?"
He gave me a wide eyed look of mock horror. "geno, my beings are SANE! They never invented TV!"
"But you said our tv waves are being monitored."
"I said MY beings are sane. I can't speak for the whole GALAXY. I wasn't on K-PAX when I learned about EARTH.
I knew there was no therapeutic benefit in doing so, but I couldn't resist asking, "So what PLANET were you one when you found out about EARTH?"
"On FLORIN. Those florins are just as crazy as you'll are. A lot less violent, but just AS crazy! In fact they even like star trek. Well can't say as I blame them there, but like most trekkers they take it to extremes. The are working very hard to invent star ships."
I thought for a minute I had caught prot in a flaw with his confabulations. "Ah ha prot you told me the florins already had star travel!"
Prot burped, and then shrugged, "They have mirror beaming type star travel. They don't have star ships. No one does."
"So why do they want to build star ships?"
"I told you they were crazy. They want to build the star ship enterprise!"
I couldn't help it. I started laughing. Prot grinned broadly. "Oh it's worse gene, much worse! They want to make the federation real too. Now they've never had a government. They've never needed a government. But now they think they need one to make star trek come true!"
I roared!
Prot said a little less cheerfully, "Well homo sapiens, you have fans. If you actually do manage to survive, and I doubt it, though I'm crazy enough to root for you, but if you do survive, you've got wild eyed fans and friends waiting for you! So I'm assigning YOU a task. Quit trying to kill yourselves and all the other beings on B-TIK. Survive!"
And I was folie a deuced enough by prot to be warmed and comforted by this. It was nice to know I could go outside at night and look up at the stars, and all I would see up there would be friends.
I regressed to an earlier stage in our conversation.
"What about computer monitors? Didn't you need to invent the tube for that?"
"Nope. Went right to full color LCD screens and talking computers. We skipped that stage."
"What about radios? Did you at least have them?"
"We had mirror beaming before we had radios, and when we did invent them, we went right to what you are going to replace transistors with. We have never to this day invented the vacuum tube. Also, though some lunatic dremer finally did take the trouble to invent radio, now that we have it we haven't quite figured out yet what it is we can actually do with it."
"No radios for most of your civilization's development? How did you communicate long distance?"
He made the same signal to me Joyce makes when she wants to alert me to a phone call. "By telephone, which we did have very long ago, and still have and," prot suddenly sang off key, to the tune of Mr. Sandman. "mr postman please drop me a line...."
I sighed. There seemed to be no end to prot's confabulations. He could talk about K-PAX for hours it seemed, and enjoyed doing it. Betty had told me she even overheard prot bragging about how good a psychiatrist I was because I was helping him, "so much with his 'home sickness.'" I suppose I should count my blessings. Prot was satisfied with the progress of his therapy even if I was not!
Prot reminded me in some ways of another patient I had successfully helped. This fellow could not hold down a job because his employers continually fired him for "being weird." His wife made him come to us. He seemed very disturbed at times because we could not understand him and because he could not support his family. But he seemed cheerful most of the time when he was thinking about his favorite things, which was nearly all the time. My attempts to psychoanalyze him were hopeless. It was impossible to get a handle on his psyche. In analysis the patient is supposed to ramble on and say the first thing that pops into his head, and my patient cooperated fully, but he was obsessed with role playing games, and science fiction stories of both the written and filmed variety. And no wonder, for so had been his father and grandfather before him. As he put it, "I'm a third generation sci fi fan." He could talk for hours about these subjects, and it was almost impossible to steer him for any length of time away from these fantasies to discuss what was really bothering him! And since I wasn't into the science fiction culture I had no way of knowing whether he was delusional or just obsessed with the subject! Everything he said might have made sense to another science fiction fan but they might as well have been schizophrenic word salads as far as I could comprehend him.
I finally figured out that the only way to determine just how sick or well my sci fi patient was, was to observe him in his "own environment." I went with him to a science fiction convention to see how he would act in his "own world." To my delight he not only fit in socially among his fellow fans, but had high social status. He was considered a real expert on some of the things that he had tried to talk about with me. And his peers understood him. Plus he had a great sense of humor. Some of the weird things he had talked about were inside jokes. I could not understand them but his peers roared at them! One diagnosis achieved! His emotional disturbance had to do with his inability to relate to anyone outside the "sci fi" culture he had grown up in. All I had to do was give him some interpersonal therapy. I had to teach him how to pass for what he called a, "Mundane," a Non Science Fiction Fan! I couldn't cure him of being a, "Sci Fi Fan." He wouldn't have sat still for that and I wouldn't have had the heart! He enjoyed it too much! Plus considering his upbringing, I would have been taking his heritage away from him! But I could teach him how to pass for, "a Mundane," long enough to hold down a job! I felt more like Henry Higgins than a psychiatrist!
But in that case, I could go with that patient to his, "world," that is, a science fiction convention, and observe his ability to cope in his own environment. I couldn't do that with prot. If K-PAX was real, (oops it IS real; remember my brother-in-law the Astronomer). But if prot had ever actually been there, I couldn't tell, nor could I observe him functioning there.
But I took inspiration from that experience. I could observe how prot reacted in our world. I got up from my chair and went over to one of the lights we had brought up from the storage tunnel. "Freud never did this with a patient, but there is one thing I can do for you today, prot, that will help you function better in society. I can teach you how to change a light bulb. Pretend this one is out, and (I unscrewed another one), pretend this is the new one we wish to use."
Prot learned quickly, but it was obvious that in his mind, he really never had changed a light bulb before. How can a person be so amnesiac that his traumatized mind forgets a simple harmless skill like that?
He tried to unscrew the old bulb in the wrong direction.
"Lefty loosey, righty tighty, prot. That goes for light bulbs, screws, and tire nuts.
Then he touched the metal part, and got shocked. He yelped and said something in pax- o, that I am quite sure was a colorful metaphor. He glared at me and sucked his hurt fingers, "You are giving me shock therapy now, geno?
"Electroconvulsive therapy can be therapeutic when used correctly on the right patient. It is NOT how it was portrayed in Cuckolds Nest, but oh, darn you, prot, you know that!"
He was grinning at me again. Confound it. Prot did have a sense of humor at least on an intellectual level even if his glands seldom laughed! His humor seemed to be so disconnected from whatever emotion he happened to be feeling, he could be telling a joke when he was happy, or angry. Thus it was so dry I had difficulty sometimes telling if he was joking or not!
He finally got the new bulb screwed in place and told me with obvious real gratitude in his voice, "Thank you gene. I have always wanted to do that."
"Why didn't you?"
"Primitive electrical devices can be dangerous without the proper training. And I know little of it. And I Never had ANY one to show me how to do it safely before." He seemed wishful like a lonely little boy.
Then I asked what I thought was an absolutely brilliant question, and it was. It lead to me learning that prot had more insight into his condition than I'd suspected, "prot, you have spent much time on EARTH. During all that time that little dollar store flashlight never had its bulb burn out?"
"Of course it did."
"And you didn't have to change it?"
"I got scotty to do that for me."
I stared at him in exasperated disbelief. Come on prot! Even I know you know scotty isn't real."
"Well Jimmy Montgomery Doohan is real and he's called scotty on camera, and off, but what I mean gene, (no you are not mean), I did what I always do when I'm in trouble, I sought professional help. Sometimes you've gotta go pretty far for it. 7000 light years! That's gotta be a record! And you are good! So when I report back to K-PAX don't be surprised if more troubled aliens don't turn up at your doorstep!"
I put my hands on my head and shuddered. I suddenly had a delirious vision in my mind of aliens lining up outside our gates waiting to come in; all kinds of aliens, big purple ones with obsessive compulsive disorder, little green men who were afraid of little green women, Roswellian little grays with schizophrenia, huge furry things ten feet tall with six arms that were terrified of being in the dark! Since Giselle published a little article about prot, I was already getting letters from people claiming they were troubled ET's too, and would I please PLEASE help them too! What if some of them were legit? Was I going to end up being a Doctor Dolittle to Aliens?
I thought to myself, "Gene, he is folie de deucing you AGAIN! Get a grip on yourself! Your really really REALLY need to take a vacation, or to at least see a movie, ANYTHING but a science fiction movie!"
I realized then that I needed to see my friend and colleague, Bill Siegal, professionally. It would serve him right. He is the one that stuck me with prot in the first place!
I shook off my fantasies and asked, Just what kind of professional help does it take to get a flashlight fixed?
Prot, for once, actually had a rational answer. His dark eyes were glinting with mischief, "I went to a Radio Shack and told them the truth."
"That you were an alien from the planet K- PAX and your transporter beam was malfunctioning?"
"No, silly! That my flashlight needed a new bulb."
And they gave you one, without paying for it?
"No. I could get away with that with the natives in Africa. They are more civilized than you so called high tech Humans. But in your savage corner of this PLANET it takes money. But you would be surprised how many aluminum cans I can collect and recycle when I'm desperate!"
A chill went up my spine. This gave me more insight in how wretchedly prot had been managing on EARTH for those four years and five months before the police rescued him. We REALLY need to do more to help the mentally ill homeless. Such a brilliant mind as prot's, who could have been contributing to society enormously if he had just gotten help sooner, had almost five years of his life wasted, living like an homeless outcast on the fringes of society! How many other savants were out there, starving, when we could be learning so much from them! And it also got me to wondering if prot realized the police arresting him had been a kind of rescue.
Prot continued, "Of course they wanted to just sell me a new flashlight. Of course. They always do, but I was insistent. I told them truthfully I couldn't afford a new one and knew full well I just needed a new bulb."
I smiled. My patient had actually managed to get the best of Radio Shack. Now that did take some doing!
"Prot, if you had enough awareness of how weird it would sound to admit to those folks at Radio Shack that you were using your flashlight for a kind of space and time travel, why did you just blurt out to those police that you were from another planet? Why didn't you just say something like, "Would you mind if I don't take my glasses off because my eyes are painfully over-sensitive to light?"
He smiled at me, "I was kind of running out of time for help wasn't I? He actually winked at me!
Our time was up, and as usual without looking at the clock, prot knew it. With his usual cheerful dignity, he stood up, gave me a little smile, put his glasses back on and left my soothingly dark office, and me with a lot to think about.
Ah prot! When we first met you promised me you, "wouldn't leap out of my chest." And you never did.
You just wormed your way into my heart.