On a Beam of Light (21 page)

I found a chair and pulled it up to watch the construction project. Jackie was as involved, carefree, and happy as any nine-year-old, while Bert played the role of father, praising the laying of every new brick, not interfering unless something went awry.

“I know about your daughter, ” I told him.

He continued to help Jackie with her new house.

“You must miss her very much. “

He pretended not to hear me.

“I have an idea you might like. “

He glanced briefly in my direction, then helped Jackie figure out how to position a double window.

“Jackie needs a father. You need a daughter. How would you like to ‘adopt’ her? Not legally, of course—there are certain problems with that. Unofficially. “

He looked at me with a pathetic appeal. But he didn’t, or was unable to, say anything. Jackie added another brick to the little house. Bert’s chin began to flutter.

I patted him on the shoulder and left him to contemplate the possibilities while I ambled over to talk with Frankie. She, too, was preoccupied with other matters and seemed not even to notice that I had taken a seat beside her on the sill, where Howie had once planted himself to search for the “bluebird of happiness. “

“I’ve been talking to prot, ” I told her.

“Where is he?” she demanded, without looking at me. “What have you bastards done with him?”

“He isn’t far away. He explained everything to me. “

Frankie fixed a steely gaze on me. “Have you ever thought about doing something about your obnoxious voice?”

“You’re unable to love anyone for the same reason he is. You find it irrelevant. It seems stupid to focus your feelings on one single person and forget about everyone else. Am I getting warm?”

She stared at me for another long moment. “I may puke, ” she said.

“Go ahead and puke, but hear me out first. No one you have ever met has any concept of how you feel, and even when you explain it they still don’t get it. In fact, they think you’re crazy. And worse, heartless. Am I right?”

“Did you know your nose would choke a horse?”

“I’ll be perfectly honest with you. I find it hard to understand how you can be indifferent toward other people. It seems unnatural to me. But I’m beginning to see how you can feel that way, thanks to prot. Can we work together? Maybe we can learn something from each other. “

She threw back her head and brayed like a donkey.

I was extremely pleased to see how confident Rob had become. He was at ease with Giselle, the patients, the staff. Indeed, when he came into my examining room he grabbed my hand and shook it.

At the same time, I wondered whether he had made such good progress that he might suddenly find himself facing the TV cameras during prot’s talk-show appearance. I didn’t want to think about the consequences that might result from such a situation.

Thus, I spent a good part of the morning trying to reverse what I had worked so hard to accomplish over the past few weeks and years, i. e., explain to Robert why he should stay in the background while prot was doing the television interview. He reminded me that he was quite content to remain in the hospital, his safe haven, and leave the rest of the world to prot, at least for the time being.

The other problem was getting prot, who was showing up less and less often, to come out and do the show. But he had said he would do the “gig” (as he called it), and with prot, a promise is a promise.

“You want to see some more tapes, Rob? Or are you bored with them?”

“Not exactly, but—”

“I’ve asked Giselle if she would like to see them, too. Would you be interested in having some company while you watch?”

His smile was faintly reminiscent of prot’s, though the latter wouldn’t have had the slightest interest in the films. “I’m willing if she is, ” he replied.

I called her out of my office, where she had been waiting. (I should mention here that Giselle and I had discussed the desirability of using condoms, should the need arise. In response she had pulled a couple from her pocket and waved them at me. ) Now, I was surprised to find, she was actually blushing. Rob took her hand and led her to the sofa I had brought in.

I went back to my office and locked the door with a loud click, leaving them to their own devices, nature to take its course.

Prot seemed rather pensive during the limo ride to the television studio. He didn’t even remark on all the noise and trash along the way or the state-of-the-art gizmos he found in the back of the car—the bar, the quad stereo system, the refrigerator stocked with food. Perhaps he was thinking about what he might say to the cameras. Or maybe he was uncomfortable with the new suit we had bought for him. Giselle and the security guards were quiet, too, all three of them staring blankly out the one-way windows at the passersby trying to peer in.

“Prot?”

‘ Hmmmmm?”

“I just wanted you to know that I had nothing to do with this. “

“Sure, coach. I understand perfectly. “

“But now that you’re going through with it, I’d like to give you some advice. “

“Give away. “

“If I were you I wouldn’t tell the audience they’re a bunch of fools and a cancer on the Earth. “

“Yes—you humans do have a difficult time with the truth. “

“You could put it that way. “

“You worry too much, dr. b. “

“The other thing is: Please don’t let Robert appear before the cameras. It could be devastating for him. “

“I won’t encourage him to do that, but he has a mind of his own, you know. “

We were taken through a side door into the studio, where we were met by the show’s producer. I’d never seen such a huge grin or more perfectly capped teeth. After some small talk, Giselle and I were shown to a little green room furnished with a couple of chairs, a table with a pot of coffee, and a great big monitor, where we were left with a very young production assistant. Prot was led away to makeup, “Good luck!” I bellowed after him. I was as nervous as the Ward Two patient we call “Don Knotts. “

While we waited I asked Giselle about Rob’s reaction to the sex tapes. Her smile was about as wide as that of the producer’s. “We didn’t watch any tapes. “

“You’re sure it wasn’t Paul you were dealing with?”

“Positive. I could tell by his voice, for one thing. Not at all like the Paul on the tape you let me hear. It was Rob, all right. He was like a kid in a candy store. “

Prot was brought on last, after the movie starlet, who appeared to have an IQ of about ten, and the male model/ stripper. He was warmly welcomed when he finally came out to face the audience and the cameras, and the show’s hostess, a possible manic, if not amphetamine-dependent, seemed genuinely taken with him, as are most of us who know him.

She began innocuously enough, if perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek, by asking him about life on K-PAX, why he had come to Earth, what space travel was like, and so on. (At one point the director flashed on the screen a computerized juxtaposition of one of prot’s star charts, which he had drawn for me much earlier when I was trying to determine the extent of his astronomical knowledge, with a picture of the real thing. ) Most of it I had heard before. But she also

asked him one or two things I should have thought of and hadn’t. For example, how does one stop after traveling through interplanetary space at superlight speed? (As near as I could figure out, it’s sort of programmed in. ) Prot answered all the questions politely, if matter-of-factly, from behind his dark glasses. I waited for the interviewer to get to something more controversial and try to put him on the spot. At that point the band struck up a jazzy rendition of “Two Different Worlds” and there was a pause for some commercials.

I asked the production assistant whether the hoobah was decaffeinated. She gave me a strange look.

When the program returned, the hostess, winking at the camera, asked prot whether he would mind giving us a little demonstration of light-travel.

“Why not?” prot answered. Giselle and I and the assistant leaned forward in our chaks as, I assume, did most of the audience. Someone brought out a flashlight and mirror. Prot grinned. Apparently he had been expecting something like this.

In any case, he placed the light on his right shoulder and pointed it toward the mirror, which he held in his outstretched left hand. The room we were in was so quiet I could hear everyone breathing. Suddenly there was a very brief flash of light and prot disappeared from the screen! The audience gasped. The camera jostled around until it found prot on the other side of the stage standing behind the microphone reserved for singers and stand-up comics. He was wearing a funny little hat. I recognized it at once: It was Milton’s. He tweaked an imaginary mustache and chirped, “Bear walks into a bar, see? Takes out a pistol and plugs everyone in the place. The cops come and take him away. ‘What’s wrong?’ the bear protests. ‘Humans ain’t on the endangered species list!’ “

No one laughed.

“Am I going too slow for you guys? All right—how about this one: Who are the first to line up for wars, to pull the executioner’s switch, to murder all their fellow beings because they taste good? Give up? The pro-lifers!”

No one laughed.

“You’re not trying, folks—who is your leader? One more tune: Two Christians get married. What religion will their children adopt? I’ll give you a hint. It works for Muslims and Jews and Hindus alike…. Nothing? Okay. See, it has to do with where people get their so-called ideas…. “

The audience, shaken by what they had seen, still didn’t laugh. The hostess, her tongue no longer in her cheek, asked prot to return to his seat. “How—how did you do that?” she demanded.

“I learned the routine from one of my fellow inmates. “

“No—I mean how did you get to the other side of the room?”

“I told you earlier—remember?”

She requested an instant replay of what she called prot’s “light-and-mirrors trick” in super slow motion. But no matter how slow the motion, prot always disappeared from the screen. In our little room Giselle laughed and clapped her hands. The production assistant gaped at the monitor and said nothing. The band started up, the 800 number flashed onto the screen, and there was another pause for commercial messages.

When the show began again, the hostess, much more serious now, brought out a prepared list of questions for prot. What follows is a verbatim transcription:

HOSTESS: You have written [she was referring to prot’s “report”] that there are certain things we humans must give up in order to survive as a species. One of these is religion. Can you elaborate on that?

PROT: Certainly. Have you ever noticed that a great many of your present difficulties are based on the intolerance of one set of believers for the beliefs of others?

H: Too many, probably, and we all see your point. What I’d like you to tell us is how we give up something that’s such an intrinsic part of our human nature?

P: That’s entirely up to you. The evidence I’ve seen so far suggests you don’t have the guts.

H: What do you mean by “guts”?

P: Religion is based primarily on fear. It started that way and it continues to this day.

H: Fear of what?

P: You name it.

H: You mean death.

P: That’s one thing.

H: What about money?

P: What about it?

H: How can we give up money? What would we use instead?

P: For what?

H: To buy a washing machine, for example.

P: Why do you need washing machines?

H: Because they save time and energy.

P: In other words, you’ve flooded your planet with washing machines and cars and plastic soda bottles and tv sets so you’ll have more time and energy?

H: Yes.

P: And in order to keep the economy going you need more and more human beings in order to buy more and more of your products. Am I right so far?

H: Well, growth is good for everyone.

P: Not for the several million other species on your PLANET. And what happens when your WORLD is full of people and cars and washing machines and there isn’t room for any more?

[The music started up. ]

Giselle and I looked at each other and shrugged. I went to the little adjoining rest room. In a moment or two I heard her yell: “Dr. B! He’s back!” I hurried in to find the program’s hostess holding up a small dog. It was yapping frantically.

“What’s he saying?” she demanded of prot.

“He wants to take a [bleep], ” prot responded. The audience, now on more familiar ground, roared. They howled even more when the dog defecated, as if on cue, on top of the big desk. The merriment went on for several minutes as the hostess mugged for the cameras, got rid of the dog, and someone came out to clean up the mess. They were still laughing when it was time for the next series of commercials.

The show returned to a smattering of titters, but this ended abruptly when the dialogue resumed.

H: You seem to find a lot wrong with us humans. But you have to admit we have our good points, too. If you were to use one word to characterize our species, what would it be?

[Prot’s eyes rolled up for a moment—he was thinking. Like everyone else who was watching, probably, a number of things came to my mind: “generosity, ” “perseverance, ” “a sense of humor…. “]

P: I haven’t decided whether it’s ignorance or just plain stupidity.

H: And that’s why you think that mankind won’t make what you call the necessary decisions to survive as a species.

P: Or womankind either.

H: Yet there are many who think we can overcome these difficulties and win this war. Why do you think that’s not possible?

P: It’s not impossible. Beings on other WORLDS have done it. But it’s pretty much too late for that here. You’ve already begun to destroy your home. That’s the beginning of the end.

H: So what’s going to happen to us, in your view?

P: You don’t want to hear it. H: I’d really like to know. How about it, audience?

[A smattering of applause. ]

P: It’s your funeral. All right—it will be a gradual decline at first, like cancer or aids. You won’t notice much except for the disappearance of a few more nonhuman beings and the usual little wars everywhere. Fuel and mineral resources will begin to run out. Emergency meetings of nations will be held, but self-interests will prevail, as they always have, and the more desperate or greedy among you will make demands and ultimatums. These will not be met, and larger wars will break out. In the meantime your entire environmental support system will begin to collapse. There will be enormous suffering among all the inhabitants of the EARTH, even those who still possess relative wealth and power. After that, it’s only a question of time. Death could come in any number of ways, but it is as certain as taxes.