"That's not scary," said Tommy. "Besides, there aren't any hippopotamuses any more. Now, if you'd seen a great big hairy red, purple furry catty-pillar, that woulda been scary."
"Have you ever seen one?" He nodded quickly. Somberly. "Was it scary?"
He nodded even quicker. As if he didn't even want to admit it. I lowered my voice and looked around the room. "Who else has seen big hairy red, purple furry catty-pillars?"
A few of them raised their hands. Some of them were probably lying or making it up, it didn't matter.
"Okay," I said, holding Alec firmly in my lap. "Let's make some noises to show how scary we think big hairy red, purple furry catty-pillars are. Now, wait-this isn't about making the loudest noise you can, just the scariest; fraidiest noises, okay? Make the noise you would make if you were really scared."
It was a chilling sound, the sound of fifty children moaning and screaming and weeping. Even pretend-moaning and weeping and screaming was eerie.
"Good," I said. I was beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea. But once started, we had to go through to the end. I couldn't leave these kids stuck in the middle of a scary place. The experience had to be completed. "Okay. Who has another scary story. "
"I'm scared of the dark," said Holly, a tiny voice beside me. I reached over and patted her hand. I was surprised by her presence. I had thought she was sitting next to Little Ivy.
"Who else is scared of the dark?" I asked. Almost all of the Iiands went up. I raised mine too. In my lap, Alec moved. He raised Bear's one paw.
"That's a good scary one. Okay, let's make some 'fraid of the dark noises."
This was a different quality of noise, but no less chilling. Little Ivy was losing her grin. She wasn't sure where I was going with this.
"I'm not scared of the dark," said Davey Holmes. He and Chris I linchley were sitting side by side. Chris looked a little pale and hc was holding Davey's hand tightly. "Uh-uh," said Chris. "It's the things that hide in the dark."
"Big hairy men with long dark hair and bushy beards," said Davey. "That's who hides in the dark. I don't like them. I don't want to grow up if it means being like that."
"Little round fat men with bright red faces," said Chris. "I don't like little round men who say nasty things."
"Big mean women who yell at you," said Toby-Joy. "That's who I'm scared of."
"I'm scared that my mommy won't come back," said a little round girl we called Hobbit.
"I'm scared that my mommy will," said Crystal. "I'm scared of my mommy."
The room was suddenly quiet. This was a new dimension in mrror and the children were clearly uncomfortable with it. As if she sensed this wasn't enough explanation, Crystal added, "My mommy tried to hurt me. She had a big knife, but I ran away and hid from her."
"My mommy locked me in the dark closet," offered Holly. It seemed a pitiful offering compared to Crystal's, but to Holly it was a major one. "My mommy slapped me and locked me in the dark."
Crystal was unimpressed. "My mommy said she was going to hurt me real bad when she found me. She said it wouldn't do me any good to hide. B-Jay says she won't let her find me, but I know she's still looking for me, and my mommy always finds what she's looking for."
This thought made some of the children look around nervously. Hell, I wanted to look around myself; but I suppressed the urge. My guess had been right. These kids were good at frightening themselves. Hell, they were frightening me.
Kim-the one we called Kimmy-Winkles-spoke up then. I noticed she was holding Nic's hand very tightly in her lap. "I'm scared of strangers," she said. "Especially strange children. Especially Richard."
I didn't pursue that one. I didn't know who Richard was. We didn't have any Richards here in Family. Behind her, though, I noticed that Little Ivy was scribbling furiously on a notepad. She had a look of grim satisfaction. A lot of things were coming to the surface here. There would be a lot of follow-up.
"Foster," said Tommy quietly. "I don't want to go back to Foster. He held me down on the bed and hurt me. In the ass. I cried and he cried and he promised he wouldn't do it again. But he did."
Alec didn't move, but at the same time, I sensed that he had become more rigid, more attentive. I looked down at him in my lap. He was hugging Bear close to his chest in a miniature version of the same embrace I had him wrapped up in. Was he hiding inside himself again? I realized how tightly I was holding him and loosened my arms to give him more space. Maybe then, he could loosen his hold on Bear. I wondered if we were all crowding him too much. Maybe we needed to give him space to come to us? 1 didn't know. What if we did the wrong thing? I stroked his hair and kissed him gently on the top of his head.
"That's all so scary, those are the scariest things I ever heard of," I said, and I meant it. Nothing I could have made up could possibly be as scary as the things these children had been through. And I was sure we hadn't even scratched the surface. This was only what they were willing to admit.
"Okay," I said. "I want you to know it's all right to be scared. Sometimes scary things happen. There's nothing wrong with being frightened of scary things. But sometimes we carry around the fear long after the scary things have gone away. And you know what? We forget to scream. So, now, here's what we're going to do. When I tell you, but not before then, we're all going to scream and make all the noises we want to make when we get scared. We'll all make scared-to-death noises, okay? Everybody ready? Does everybody have something scary to think of? Okay; close your eyes if you want to and make all the scary noises you can."
A low moan. A sob. A high-pitched weeping. A shriek. A scream. A whimper.
A symphony. A cacophony. A chorus of mangled, anguished cries.
The sound was hideous. The emotions were exquisitely dark and furious, churning and swirling like a maelstrom. The fear came roiling round and round, all red and cold and fiery. It was an icy spike ramming up the spine and through the heart and into the base of the skull, and it came out as a moan, a scream, a gasp, a shriek-
It just kept on getting louder and louder, until I thought we would all go mad
And then, just as quickly, the uproar leveled off, hesitated, gathered for a moment more, and then-sated, satiated, spent, exhausted-it began to ebb. The shrieks and screams died away first, leaving only the crying; then as if terrified of its own sound, the crying too began to ebb, leaving only a few small whimpers here and there around the circle.
I looked around at them. They looked shocked, stunned, horrified, haggard.
And at the same time, they seemed more alive than before. As if some of the walls of impassiveness they hid behind had been shattered.
"I don't want to play this game anymore," Holly said. "This isn't fun."
"We're almost through," I reassured her. "And I promise you that the next part is much more fun than the last part."
The kids looked very nervous. I had to move fast.
"All right, listen. We're almost through now. There's just one more thing to do. I want you to close your eyes again and pretend again. But this time, I want you to pretend that you're the scariest thing in the world; that everybody in the world is scared of you, all the monsters and mean people and things in the dark are scared of you! Close your eyes and watch them run away from you; but you have to make the kind of noises that will scare away all the scary things, okay? Is everybody ready? Let's all be big and strong and mean and scare away all the bad monsters in the world, right now!"
This sound was the loudest of all-and the most joyous. Beethoven would have envied the spirit of this chorus. They were discordant and beautiful and hideously loud, and I loved every jangling decibel of their defiance.
"Get angry at the monsters!" I shouted. "Tell them what you think of them. Tell them to go to hell! Tell them to go fuck themselves!" I got a little carried away myself, but the kids didn't mind. They laughed and screamed and cheered and soon they were jumping up and down-and dissolving into laughter and happy tears and hugs and kisses and silly-sad smi
les, and it was okay, and it was good, and for just a little while, they almost looked like normal children again.
They even looked happy.
We hugged and laughed and ended up all jumping naked in the pool and had the biggest water fight in the world and it was the best summer night of my life. And theirs too.
I was grinning like a crazy man, I was so pleased. It had worked. I had done good.
There was a young fellow named Jim
who liked to get naked and swim
with plastic sex toys
shaped like pubescent boys,
'cause he'd rather be gay than be grim.
38
Hell in the Specific
"A waist is a terrible thing to mind."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Of course, Betty-John gave me hell.
"Just what in God's name did you think you were doing?" she demanded. "Kimmy-Winkles is still having nightmares. Simone can't stop crying. Allie and Dave are afraid to go to bed alone. And trust me, you don't want to hear what little Jim Pauley did!
"You've turned half the kids into Weeping Willies and the other half are so jumpy, Birdie is thinking about sedating the whole camp for a week. Have you seen what's going on? The ones that aren't bursting into tears every two minutes are having such an attack of the sillies, it's got to be a psychotic reaction; everything we say to them, they burst out giggling, as if it's all some colossal joke. They're running around like deranged gargoyles, making faces and trying to scare the shit out of each other-including the ones who are still so skittish, they're back to wearing diapers. Jesus, Jim! Is this how you repay a favor? I was in there, fighting for your goddamn fences and you're out here, playing psychotic head games on the children. Most of them are so hoarse they can't talk; six of them have sore throats, and three are in the psych ward today for observation."
I listened to it all without comment.
There really wasn't anything else to do. This was something eIse Jason had taught me, taught all of us. When people give you a communication, you don't have to do anything with it. Just hear and acknowledge that you heard it. "Answer the question, acknowledge the statement, that's the basis of true communication. Don't do anything else. That isn't communication."
So, I let Betty-John say whatever she had to say knowing inside that it didn't have a thing to do with me. It was her upset, not mine. I listened. I empathized with her anger. But I didn't have to accept it as a personal attack, because-I could even hear Jason explaining it to me-her anger wasn't about what I did, her anger was really about her fear. What I did only triggered it. So, now my job was to let her have her anger so she could get past it.
If I were to argue with her, she would stay angry. If I were to try to justify what I did, she would have to do something to prove herself right and me wrong. She would have to punish. So I should do nothing except listen. When she was through being angry, her anger would disappear and she would have nothing left to say or do.
It took a while, but she finally ran down.
"Okay," she said. "What? I'm waiting. What was the point of that little exercise in hysteria?"
"The children are fine," I replied as calmly as I could. I wanted to project certainty. It was very important that she be reassured. I would have to explain this very carefully. "What you're seeing right now is a release of energy. It's very normal. It's very natural. It's healthy. It's a good sign. I know it looks like upset; it is, but it's upset pointed in the right direction, not the wrong. Trust me."
B-Jay gave me her most skeptical look. "I've heard that same kind of bullshit before, Jim, from confirmed child-molesters: 'But the child enjoyed it too.' "
I didn't want to argue with that one. That brought up too many memories of Loolie and-there was just too damn much knotted up in that conversation. I needed to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand.
"B-Jay," I said carefully. "These children are little walking timebombs. The day I arrived here, you told me some of what they've been through, and you've been reminding me ever since that these kids are desperately trying to do whatever they have to do to survive. Do you think I haven't been looking at them? I see that everything you've said is right on the money. Most of these little monsters have walled themselves up so tight that nobody's going to get at them. God, B-Jay, it's terrifying how right you are. There's very little chance that any of them will ever be fully human, let alone sane. But we have to try anyway, because if we don't civilize the next generation while we still have the chance, then there isn't any point in fighting the other war either. That's what this is about. I wanted to do something that would make a difference for them."
B-Jay's expression relaxed only a little. It was hard for her to argue with her own words.
"The only thing that's really going to help these kids," I said, "is if they Iearn how to . . . how to reach out to us from their own side. They've got to learn that pain and fear and grief are normal, and they've got to learn how to let it out. That's what all that screaming was. A safety valve. They needed it. Otherwise, they're just going to keep on building up intolerable pressure until they explode and do something dangerous and stupid and selfdestructive."
B-Jay was frustrated and angry and disbelieving. "Who made up this shit, Jim? Where did you get this idea?"
I wanted to respond angrily, I wanted to reach her so badly. "B-Jay. I made it up. I've done this all my life; whenever I get so frustrated and crazy with other people's inability to hear what I'm trying to say; whenever I get so crazy that I want to put my hands around their throats. I go and lock myself in a dark closet, or I get in the shower and turn the water up full, and then I scream and scream and scream as hard as I can and as long as I can until I'm too weak to even stand up any more. I mean it. It works. It's like blowing off all the rage and fear and grief in one great painful orgasm. If I can't let it out, then I have to carry it around inside of me-and if I do that, then I'll die. Or worse, I'll do something terrible and other people will die."
B-Jay's eyes were still hard. "Maybe it works for you, but these kids . . ." She shook her head.
"Okay, yes. What I did was extreme; but it looked to me that something extreme was called for. Most of these kids are still robots. They're only going through the motions. Yes, you're making progress here; but oh, so slowly. It's so frustrating, because I know what's possible for children. So do you. These kids are still doing whatever you want them to, like machines, because they don't know there's anything more. It's just another set of rules for survival. Their lives are going to be about finding the right set of rules and nothing more. They won't be alive. No-hear me out: Do you think I don't know what these kids are feeling? I've been there, dammit. And I hurt so badly for them that I had to do something."
"So you taught them to be crazier?"
"Give them a week, you'll see the difference. They're starting to play with each other in a whole new way. They're starting to relate to each other instead of at each other. Please, B-Jay, don't be so quick to judge."
"Jim, I believe that you believe what you're saying. But, you should have checked with me first. You should have waited until-"
"Goddamn it, B-Jay!" It was my turn to be angry. "I tried to check with you, but you never have the time to listen to anything, and you're always asking people to put off their plans so you can get yours done, and then you have the nerve to wonder why everybody's always pissed off at you and why people are always doing things without your permission. I don't know about everybody else, but I'm sick and tired of waiting for you to have the time to sit and listen. And please don't give me that story about how much you have to do. I've heard it already, ten times over, and I can probably give as good a performance of poor B-Jay as you can.
"These kids were hurting, and I had a tool that I thought would help them. This is only the first step. These kids need to be trained, given the tools to handle their own emotions, their own reactions, so that they can cope with the rest of the bullshit that life is going to throw at
them. It all comes down on all of us before we're ready for it. The least we can do for these kids is give them some tools for fighting back. I gave them permission to scream at the universe. Now they have a way to express what they're feeling, where before all they could do was bottle it up. Now they won't be pressure cookers or timebombs. They'll scream it out, and then there'll be a little bit of space for them to try to be rational, or as close to it as they're ever going to get."
"You think this is an improvement?" Betty-John demanded. "Have you even looked at your own kids today? Alec has turned into a babble-box. We can't shut him up. He finds a word he likes and repeats it over and over and over until he gets bored with it, then he finds another word and starts all over again."
"He's playing, B-Jay, in the only way he knows. But notice that he's playing with language now, instead of resisting it. He's interacting with his mental landscape. And I'm so glad to have him babbling anything, I don't care. He's got a lot of energy to discharge."
"He's not a goddamn battery! Christ on a pancake! Where did you pick up this psychobabble?"
"Uh . . . ," I hesitated.
"What are you, Jim? An unreconstructed Modie?"
"I've never done the Mode training," I said, vaguely uncomfortable.
"Well, you sure as hell talk like it! Where have you been, Jim?"
I shook my head. "I don't want . . ."
"Uh-uh. No way. If you want to teach the kids to open up, you'd better start with yourself. Just who the hell are you anyway, mister?"
"You know who I am."
"No, I don't. For all I know, you could be a renegade spy yourself."
I felt my blood turn cold at that. I almost rose from my chair. "I'm not. Not that; I know what renegades are like, B-Jay. Better than you think. I'm not one of them. I don't ever want to be like them again-"
"Again?"
I hesitated. Then I admitted it. "Yes. Again. I was captured. Brainwashed. I lived with a Tribe of Revelationists-"
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