The visitation

Ereck and I have been watching loads of old-school "Star Trek" on tapes we get from the public library. And while I would not go so far as to say I'm a Trekkie, now that I have 20 or so episodes under my belt, I can see why people are so gaga for this show. Those characters get in your brain.

Like all my preoccupations, this one is multimedia, and my inquisitive eyes have managed to rip themselves away from the tube long enough to read a book or two about "Star Trek." At the moment I'm perusing Star Trek Memories (New York: HarperCollins, 1993) by William Shatner with Chris Kreski. It's Shatner's idiosyncratic memoir of making the TV series, and it's the kind of book a pop-culture obsessive like me loves: breezy, funny, revealing.

(A few months ago I read another book by Shatner and Kreski, Get A Life! (New York: Atria Books, 1999), Shatner's first-person history of the Trekkie movement. Get A Life! has one of the most moving stories I've ever read: Shatner writes of sitting in on the therapy of a woman with multiple personalities, many of which are "Star Trek" characters. As Mr. Spock would say, fascinating.)

Much of Star Trek Memories is Shatner's interviews with actors and crew members, and I want to share this anecdote from wonderful Nichelle Nichols, otherwise known as Lt. Uhura. Nichols, it seems, was bugged that so many of her lines were getting cut, so she told series creator and producer Gene Roddenberry she was quitting. That evening, she tells Shatner, she went to an NAACP function (and thank you, OCR feature on my scanner, for actually working, mostly):

I was sitting at my table and I was chatting and saying hello to people when all of a sudden a man comes up to me and says, "Miss Nichols, I'm sorry to bother you, but there's someone over here who would really like to meet you." And I said, "Well . . . uh, I guess that's okay," at which point he leads me across the floor and up to a table that's surrounded by a lot of people, and he says to me, "I must tell you, the man that wants to meet you is a big fan, a really great fan."

And now I'm thinking to myself, "Well, that's nice," and suddenly the man that's led me through the crowd sort of squeezes in through the people around the table, and the next thing I know, the crowd sort of parts down the middle, and sitting there smiling at me is Dr. Martin Luther King.

So now I'm immediately thrilled. I mean, Dr. King is a fan? Of MINE? And we exchanged greetings, and he told me how much he enjoyed "Star Trek," and about how happy he was that I was part of the cast.

And so I told him about what had been happening in regard to our scripts, and about my meeting with Gene, and that I had actually decided to leave the series.

And he looked at me and said, "Don't do this. Nichelle, you can't do this. Don't you know that the world, for the first time, is beginning to see us as equals? Your character has gone into space on a five-year mission. She's intelligent, strong, capable and a wonderful role model, not just for black people, but for all people. What you're doing is very, very important, and I'd hate to see you just walk away from such a noble task."

That just floored me, and I realized that there was a real responsibility attached to what I represented each week. So I came back into Gene's office Monday morning, told him the whole story about me and Dr. King and I told him that I was absolutely, positively staying. And from that point on, Uhura's importance became a little more clearly defined, and the scripts featured her a little more prominently . . . not always, but at least on a more consistent basis [213-214].

I really like this story. I like the idea of someone like Dr. King--a modern American deity, if there is one--appearing in my life, listening to what I have to say, and dispensing advice and support. We all could use a little divine intervention. I'm glad Nichelle Nichols got hers, and so, I'd hazard, are legions of "Trek" fans.

I also like to picture Dr. King watching "Star Trek." While wearing Spock ears.