The Short Life
Page 3
IV
By Timmy's sixth birthday, only his parents' adamant attitude hadsaved him from becoming a side show. Once the initial household uproarhad died down and some degree of general sanity been restored, Helenand Jerry had another bad fright. They had grudgingly allowed Clancey,the family sawbones, to call in a psychologist friend, Philip Warwick.The combined efforts of these two to find an explanation for Timmyresulted in complete chaos, with Timmy suffering violent and erraticlapses into complete idiocy for varying lengths of time. Standard testsmeant nothing, unless mutually exclusive results could be accepted asmeaningful in themselves. At length, Timmy suffered a relapse of suchduration that the parents became panic-stricken and quietly rebelled.It was obvious that he needed an atmosphere of peace and quiet.Confusion, excitement, or the concentrated attention of several adultssimply threw him into a relapse.
The break came when Clancey called at the house and found it empty,deserted. He traced them to a new neighborhood where they had rented ahouse with a peaceful, walled garden. They were not pleased to see him,but Clancey was a psychologist of sorts himself and a working agreementwas arrived at whereby he and Warwick could drop in frequently asfriends and quietly observe Timmy, chatting with him when they couldwin his confidence and submitting him to whatever tests they couldadequately disguise. But under pain of permanent excommunication fromthe Douglas menage they were not to discuss him with outsiders in sucha way as to either identify him or draw attention to him. Timmy was tobe allowed to set his own pace under their obliquely-watching eyes.He was not to become a subject for newspaper comment, for the speculationof strangers, or for the heated discussion of learned gentlemen callingeach other liars in six syllables. For Timmy was something new underthe sun.
Two years of observation gave Clancey and Warwick an impressive file ofnotes on him, and they were prone to sit after office hours with it onthe desk between them, giving it morose glances. They were not happy.Sometimes, as now, they concluded an evening visit by sitting inClancey's or Warwick's car parked outside the Douglas fence, holding animpromptu post-mortem on an intellectual corpse that had come to lifein complete defiance of all the rules. They didn't notice the stealthymovement of one of the fence-boards, nor the small form that snakedthrough the shadows of concealing shrubbery until it was near the openwindow of the car.
"Take word-association, Clancey. I had a few minutes with him thisevening before you got here, so I started him on a 'game' where we tookturns in saying a word and trying to guess what the other would reply.I believe he thought I was rather a simpleton and needed humoring.Anyway, I tried him with 'home' and got a delayed response. It'shappened before. Apparently the concept of home is tied to some deeperdisturbance." There was a slight, uneasy movement from the listeningfigure. "Well, linking home and family, on my next turn I shot 'mother'at him. There was an immediate flash of confusion in his eyes and againa delayed response before he blurted 'Mom.' Something else had been onthe tip of his tongue, but he choked it back and selected what seemedto him a more suitable reply.
"Now, we both know from two years' systematic observation that Helen isas well-balanced a mother as you're likely to find. I'm quite sure shehas no unsuspected bad habits or traits that are leaving sensitive spotsin Timmy's mind, making him flinch at the association, nor is there somelong-standing or unresolved conflict in their relations. Yet 'home' and'mother' both invoke blocks that inhibit response until consciouslyovercome, or invoke images that he wishes to conceal lest they betray asecret. I doubt very much whether anything that happened in his firstfour years could have left a deep impression on the completely imbecilicmind he is _assumed_ to have had then. That leaves the past two years--"
* * * * *
_(Confirmation) Game/not game.... Should data have predicted test? (Indecision) Possibly ... review later. So much to learn ... confusion inevitable. Next time respond "mother--three" (laughter) Invalid frame of reference--impossible work with/discard._
* * * * *
"Something else interests me there, Phil. You suggest he selected,deliberately, what seemed an appropriate response to 'mother.' Did youtake the next logical step and try 'father?'"
"Yes."
"And did he anticipate it?"
"I'm sure he did. I see what you mean ... fairly sharp reasoning for asix-year-old supposed to be mentally retarded. When I shot 'father' athim he came back promptly with 'male-Douglas' almost like one word."
"Got the sex and identity right. What's wrong with that?"
"There's nothing 'wrong' or 'right' about it. I was hoping for some clueas to how his mind works. Maybe I got it, but I don't know what to dowith it. I didn't expect a calmly objective cataloguing of the old manas a 'male-Douglas.'"
* * * * *
_(Surprise) Where is error? Semantics? Sociology? Colloquial nuance? (Decision) Reject further word-games._
* * * * *
"If that's a clue, Phil, you can have it." Clancey hauled a notebookfrom his pocket and held it up. "Open this thing anywhere--anywhere atall. It'll open at an unanswered question. At the age of roughly threeand one-half, a congenital idiot suddenly displays flashes of alertintelligence. For forty-two months that child was content to sit on hisfanny and vegetate. Never crawled, never spoke, never played, seldomeven focused his eyes. Then one day his mother sees him study somealphabet blocks with every appearance of curiosity. Awareness! For thefirst time!
"Later, he suddenly reaches out his hand and piles the blocks ina neat stack. Purposeful activity and perfect muscular control! Notrial-and-error, no baby hesitation with hand poised--just a suddenassured, controlled action. Mama leaps for joy, junior relapses intoidiocy, and no one--including me--really believes mama when she says ithappened. This sort of thing goes on for several months--brief, erraticflashes of extraordinary intelligence, considering the subject. Then, achild who has never spoken a single word says clearly and politely,'I want that one, Helen,' and a child who has never crawled puts hisfeet under him and stands up steady as a rock. You tell me, Phil--howdid he do it?"
"Don't look to me for an answer. I'm only a lousy fifth-rate psychologyteacher, as of the day you brought Timmy into my life. And the curse ofFreud be on you for _that_ kindly act of professional assassination. Theanswer is obvious, of course ... Timmy didn't and couldn't do what we'veseen him do with our own wide-open, innocent eyes. We are the victims ofa cunning hoax."
* * * * *
_(Amusement) Difficult to experiment unobserved. Action too precipitate/no choice. (Affection/laughter) "The world is so people." (Chill) Danger! Madness!_
* * * * *
"How does any child learn to speak?"
"Mainly by hearing others. Maybe Timmy learned the same way. Maybe helistened, absorbing the meaning and sound of words, trying them outin the silence of his otherwise vacant little noggin. Maybe his mindawakened gradually to the realization that it was a prisoner in aparalyzed organ, strait-jacketed by blocks or short circuits. Maybe hespent his forty-two months of vegetating driving against those blocksuntil he partially broke them down and could speak. Maybe."
"And without ever having shaped his lips or tongue to intelligentsounds, he speaks fluently at the first try?"
"Why not? Any kid that will start out by addressing its parents chummilyas 'Helen' and 'Jerry' and act naively surprised at the reaction,obviously has rules of its own."
They ruminated in silence for a moment.
"It's too easy to talk vaguely about blocks and short circuits, Clancey.How do you account for his completely erratic progress? Totallyunpredictable, with alternating periods of complete idiocy and highintelligence?"
"Not totally unpredictable."
"Oh?"
"At least three things suggest a pattern. One is that his relapses,though erratic, are becoming ever shorter in d
uration and more widelyseparated."
"Yes, they are infrequent now and quickly ended."
"The second is that his grasp of the social pattern in which helives--his environment, in all its subtleties--is constantly improving."
"Right again. At the age of six he can in many ways match a bright ladtwice his age. Not in the subtleties, though--I disagree there. You cangive him a simple or even a not-so-simple explanation of something hehears on the radio, dealing with it as a general theme in sociology,and he seems to grasp the broad outline with little difficulty, but intrivial matters of social behavior and human relations he's frequentlyuncertain, as likely as not to pull a howling bloomer. Seems unusuallybaffled and exasperated by some of the social mores he runs into, suchas the many tabu subjects for conversation, or taking your clothes offwhenever or wherever you feel inclined to. Poor Helen. She tries toexplain and he keeps doggedly after her with ruthless logic, obviouslytrying hard to understand, and ... you know ... it's surprising how fewreally sound, logical reasons there are for half the acceptedconventions that rule our lives.
"He's pinned me down several times to the conclusion that a certainconvention exists solely because people can't be trusted to behaverationally without restraining rules. It's rather a dismaying conclusionwhen it's dragged out in the open like that, and it seems to horrifyhim. An ordinary kid learns by experience and accepts the rules withsporadic rebellion, but our boy acts as if they were beyondcomprehension. And I think they are ... to him.
"The first crime drama he happened to see on TV turned him white asa sheet, and when he stuck his nose out the gate a few days later andwatched some neighborhood kids playing cowboys and Indians with cappistols, he was sick on the grass. Explaining the 'glamour' of the earlywest made it worse. He drew back from me as though I were contagious.I had the feeling that he _pitied_ me. I wonder, sometimes, whether hemakes any real sense at all out of what is said to him. He's very slowto interpret the shades of expression possible in voice and face. I feelthat potentially he has an exceptional mind, but the great difficulty iscommunication."
"Like pulling his leg. It's too easy to be fun."
"Exactly, unless the little so-and-so is pulling ours, which I sometimessuspect." Phil winced a little and rubbed his hand across his forehead."Getting a headache. Well, what's this third item you had in mind?"
* * * * *
"I can't pin it down, but I have a feeling there's a fairly obviousphysical factor linking the periods of relapse."
"Physical tiredness?"
"No ... the contrary, perhaps. At the start he got himself overtiredpretty often, as though he overestimated his endurance, but it didn'tseem to do him any harm. But if he awakens early or unexpectedly, theremay be an appreciable delay before he orients himself. Then he comes towith a snap."
"Shock? Confusion of any sort?"
"Confusion, certainly. He didn't last five minutes when they triedhim in school, you remember. Howled for his dog, then sat on the floorand dribbled. The confusion of being chucked into a group of noisy,aggressive six-year-olds was too much for him. You remember he recoveredcompletely--almost instantly--when his mother packed him out of theschool."
"That reminds me of something else. I think that dog is some sort of asymbol to him. Perhaps it has somehow become associated with security.Try this for size: his mind is struggling to free itself from its straitjacket; the dog captures his attention at a critical moment; the motherscreams when he speaks, frightening him, but the dog comes reassuringlyto his arms and subsequently--or did _he_ see it as a consequence?--hisparents make much of him. In other words, at the start of his rationallife the dog is a friendly element and the parents a frightening one.The details of the association drop soon enough from his consciousmemory, but not from his subconscious. When the dog is with him, hefeels secure. When they are separated--it was not allowed into schoolwith him, of course--his symbol is gone and he panics, much as anordinary child panics if it loses its mother in a crowd."
"Slick, but not convincing. It touches on another peculiarity, however... the way he wants that hound with him always, no matter where. Sleepswith it on his bed, eats with it by his chair, even takes it to thebathroom--by-the-by, he acquired the dog and bowel-control at the sametime, if you recall--but does he _like_ the dog? He never pets it tospeak of. Plays with it sometimes in a clumsy, disinterested sort ofway, but it's not the classic boy-dog relationship. If the dog is merelya symbol, as you suggest--"
"I didn't say 'merely' a symbol. If I'm right, an association as strongas this one could be devilish awkward and even dangerous, hooked to ahair-trigger mind like his. What if something happens to the dog beforehis dependence or whatever can be broken? Dogs get run over, you know,and even their normal life span is short. Maybe we ought to try to breakit up ... damn this headache."
* * * * *
_(Regret/Despondency) Degraded to pain ... static/thick tongue. (Resignation) Delay, delay, delay ... break conversation. Time wrong._
* * * * *
"You been bothered with headaches lately?"
"Off and on--nasty sort of twinges. If I trusted myself with acarpenter, I'd let you give me a check-up. Well, let's cut this short.What I was going to say ... let's see ... oh, since Timmy seldom paysany attention to the dog, why does the dog stick to him like a shadow?"
Clancey grunted.
"That dog's no fool, stupid as he is. Clumsy, homely, and half-wittedenough to sit on a tack for five minutes before he howled--I've seenhim do just about that--he knows when he needs a protector. If itweren't for Timmy, the hound would have been destroyed long ago asan act of mercy. Helen and Jerry are resigned to him, of course, forTimmy's sake, but have you noticed that the dog reacts much the sameas Timmy if they get separated? Casts about at once for a way torejoin him, and the longer he's delayed the more he panics. Maybe it'sa two-way switch--maybe Timmy and his dog are indispensable symbols toeach other!"
"You dream up any more lulus like that, you keep them to yourself.Psychopathic dogs I draw the line at. Clancey, there is only oneconclusion to be drawn from these here solemn deliberations. Throw outthe textbooks and roll with the punches."
"Amen."