I had to admit it sounded pretty amazin’. “What did she say about superstring theory?”
“According to fled, the whole thing is a piece of shit. There are dozens of string theories. She said they’re either all right or they’re all wrong.”
“Makes sense, I guess.”
“Ah want to go to K-PAX!”
“Now?”
“Well, no. First Ah need to write a buncha papers….”
* * *
I left the house early to beat the traffic, and was still in a fog when I got to the hospital. But I had been invited to the Monday morning staff meeting for the first time since my “retirement,” and I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity. For one thing, I wanted to discuss an idea I had had about fled and the patients.
I wasn’t the first to arrive. Goldfarb, as always, was already there, going through some notes, editing her agenda. She nodded when I came in, but went back to her business as if I weren’t there.
The perfect copy of van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” painted by a former patient, was still hanging on the side wall, a clear reminder that when I finally stop coming to MPI the place would go on perfectly well without me. At times like this one wonders what impact, if any, his life on Earth really has. In another hundred years who would know I had even been here?
The rest of the staff dribbled in: Hannah Rudqvist, who blushed darkly when she saw me, followed by Ron Menninger, Laura Chang, Cliff Roberts, and finally Will (Rothstein was absent—for personal reasons, Goldfarb said). I couldn’t help wonder whether Laura and Will had separated their entrances for appearance’s sake.
There were several topics on the table. Ron reported that Ed, a murderous psychopath who had become a lamb after a brief talk with prot, had paid us a return visit over the weekend and ran into Charlotte, another of his ilk. It was love at first sight, Ron disclosed incredulously, a storybook romance of the movie variety. Whether it was their common violent background or simply the kind of unpredictable chemistry that results in a passionate love affair between more ordinary individuals Menninger didn’t know (who would?), but they were inseparable for the entire two days. Now Charlotte has announced that she is “ready” to leave the hospital. If MPI and the courts won’t allow that, Ed wants to move back in!
The consensus was that Ron should prepare an assessment of Charlotte’s progress over the last few years and, in the meantime, we should allow Ed full visitation rights and see what developed. The vote was 5-1 in favor (Menninger, the lone dissenter, had, himself, once been a victim of Charlotte’s sadistic nature), and one abstention (mine).
Next up was Jerry. Laura reported that he had sunk into a severe depression, and had even talked about possibility of ending it all. “He’s bored out of his mind,” she lamented. Although she didn’t think suicide was likely, it was nonetheless a serious concern: one doesn’t take such threats by a mental patient lightly. She compared him to Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver, who, after returning home from his visits to various other lands and their inhabitants, found human beings so repugnant that he wanted nothing more to do with them. In Jerry’s case, everything about the “real” world seemed stupid and faintly repugnant.
“How can we convince him that his new—i.e., normal—existence isn’t so terrible?” she asked us. Unfortunately, no one could provide a good answer to that.
“Different things make different people happy,” Will offered. “It depends on the individual. The usual factors are love, religion, an interesting career, money—things like that.”
Cliff, as usual, came up with a smart-ass remark. “We could hook him up with a rich, beautiful lady preacher who’s always wanted to live in a house of matchsticks.”
I reminded him that Jerry couldn’t remember how to build matchstick houses anymore. He demanded to know if I had a better idea. I didn’t, but Goldfarb contended that fled was smart enough to have foreseen what might happen to Jerry when she “re-wired” him. Maybe, she suggested, our alien visitor had something else in mind….
The rest of the hour was taken up by brief case reviews of a number of the other patients, including Darryl. I mentioned that my son Fred was planning to bring in an actress who resembled Meg Ryan, to see if an unpleasant encounter with her might snap him out of his impossible dream. There were no objections to giving it a try—what was there to lose? Most of the other issues were routine administrative matters, which droned on and on, but I just enjoyed being there, probably for the last time, gazing at the pictures, taking in the sounds of concerned people trying to come to terms with difficult mental patients, trying not to remember how short life really is. But, being human, I also glanced at Hannah and Will, sitting together in apparent innocence, pretending all was well at home. I hoped my scowl didn’t show. But I realized that Karen, as always, was right. They were consenting adults who knew what they were getting into, and I had no right to interfere, regardless of who might be hurt.
I was awakened from my reverie by Goldfarb, who brought up fled. “Do we know yet when she’s leaving?”
“It’s still not firm, but I think it might be in a couple of days. She was in Princeton early this morning, but I don’t know where she went after that. If she shows up here today, I was hoping we could set up a group meeting between her and the patients. She promised to talk to everyone at some point, and has already spoken with some of them” (I didn’t mention the ‘cone-shaped thing,’ not knowing what it meant myself—was she making holograms for their relatives?), “but I don’t think there’s enough time for her to interact with everyone else individually.”
“Any objections?” Goldfarb inquired. There were none. “See what you can do,” she said.
Finally, our hard-working director mentioned that she had received a call from the producer of the TV program. (Actually, it turned out to be a committee of producers). They were very enthusiastic about the show, suggesting that it was on the “fast track” and the telecast would be moved up to September. But it wasn’t fled’s announcement—that the Bullocks were coming if we didn’t change our collective habits—or even her pregnancy, which had already been scooped by the British magazine article, but the daily lives and concerns of the patients at the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute that had triggered their enthusiasm. “This is the last untapped source of human emotion that hasn’t yet been explored by television,” he informed her. “Until now, we’ve been afraid to approach it. But we were wrong. Everyone can empathize with the problems of the mentally ill,” he enthused. “Certainly everyone here at the network.”
Yes! I thought. If nothing else came of fled’s visit, a better understanding of this serious medical (and social) problem would have made her trip worthwhile.
* * *
Fled wasn’t in Room 520 so, as usual, I went looking for her. I didn’t find her on the lawn or in the lounge, but I did run across Darryl speaking with—Meg Ryan. They seemed to be deeply engaged in a heated conversation, so I left them alone.
After searching everywhere else, I returned to our regular meeting place; by then fled had returned from wherever she had been. She was chewing on a potato, and there was a pile of peelings on the desk next to the basket. She took another one and began to strip it slowly with her teeth. I took the opportunity to mention something that had been bothering me all along. “Prot never peeled his vegetables. Or his fruit.”
“Yes, I know. Dremers are very primitive in some ways.”
“They can’t even read minds!” I joked. She stared at me and continued to munch. “Before we get started,” I began, “I want to thank you for visiting Abby and Steve and the boys.”