Brain Child

by Andrew Neiderman

  In the morning she called Nikki’s Salon and pleaded for an early appointment. She was promised one if she rushed right down, so she skipped breakfast and left everything for Lois to do. Of course, Lois offered no resistance, but this time she had other reasons to want her mother to leave.

  Dorothy was pleased with herself. Nikki himself took charge of her hair. He moaned and groaned and bawled her out for letting it go so long. Then he saw her as a challenge, and before long her hair became center stage for the whole beauty parlor. He lectured as he worked, and the other women, who normally chatted and read magazines while they waited, gathered around and watched him revive Dorothy Wilson’s good looks. She was flattered by the attention and her spirits soared. It never even occurred to her that her husband could show his appreciation only with the blinking of eyes. She was singing along with the car radio as she pulled into the driveway.

  Her first disappointment came when neither of the children met her at the door. It was quiet as usual and there were no lights on downstairs. She took off her thin white sweater and stood admiring herself in the mirror in the entrance hall. With her face glowing with a smile of satisfaction, she walked in farther.

  “Lois,” she called. “Billy.” She waited, but there was no response. “Lois?” Something was different, she thought, and then she recognized a strange new odor in the air. It was emanating from upstairs. “Damn, where are you two? What’s going on here?” she muttered and started up. The odor was very strong at the top of the stairs. When she turned into the master bedroom, she froze in the doorway, for a moment too shocked to utter a sound. Lois, dressed in one of her lab robes, was on a footstool completing some window-trim painting. Billy was just below her, sprawled on his stomach, painting a strip of molding. All of the walls of the bedroom had been repainted a bright green.

  “What are you doing?” All of her facial features became distorted in the rubbery movement of her mouth, the widening of her nostrils, the exploding of her eyes. She clutched at her new hairdo, her fingers digging right through the sculptured strands and into her scalp. Greg was laid out flat, his bed lowered totally so he could only stare up at the yet-to-be-painted ceiling. Lois turned and paused, holding the small paintbrush like an artist disturbed at her easel. Billy was so intent on what he was doing that he didn’t bother to stop.

  “I’m changing Daddy’s negative environment. This is the room in which he suffered his stroke. The room has a bad connotation for him in that respect,” Lois said. Dorothy could see tiny specks of green on Lois’s eyeglass lenses.

  “But why green? This green is so … ugly. I hate green. I’ve always hated it.”

  “We’re not doing this for you, Mother. I’ve done a thorough study of color,” Lois said, turning back to her work. She continued to paint as she spoke. “Green has been found to benefit the nervous system as well as increase vitality. The late Col. Dinshah P. Ghadiali wrote a compendium of color therapy based on many years of research with patients from all over the world. His book Spectro-Chrome-Metry contains an immense amount of information on color therapy. He considered green the master healer.”

  “That’s ridiculous. How can a color make any difference?”

  “Oh, but it does,” she said, stopping her work again and turning back. “Color therapy is centuries old. Each color has its own specific frequency or wavelength which is a valid source of energy. I’m not saying it can do things all by itself, but in conjunction with other factors—”

  “But I can’t stand green. This is my bedroom too,” she said, as though she had just realized it.

  “Mother, I’m surprised at you. Really, this isn’t a time for us to think of ourselves,” Lois added and looked at her father. Billy stopped working and looked up at his mother. Dorothy was taken with his very real look of hatred.

  “But I …”

  “Why don’t you move into one of the other bedrooms up here? That would solve the problem.”

  “There’s such an odor from that paint. Don’t you think it bothers your father?”

  “We’ll air it out. You want to help with this?” she asked, holding up the brush.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Your hair looks terrific,” Lois said. Dorothy realized she still had the fingers of her right hand pressed into her trimmed and sculptured strands. She lifted it out quickly and patted herself behind the ears gently.

  “Think so? Everyone at Nikki’s thought so. Do you like it, Billy?”

  “It’s nice,” he said, but he was obviously more taken with his painting job.

  “I just felt that I had to do something. I just felt … I needed it.” She moved farther into the room, grimacing at the odor of paint and the color. “I’ll sit you up, Greg, so you can see,” she said, moving to the bed’s controls.

  “No point in doing that now,” Lois said without turning around. “He’s asleep.”

  Dorothy studied her husband’s face. His eyes were indeed closed. He looked like a man suspended in time—immobile, hardly breathing, yet still possessing enough of a complexion to look alive.

  “How did you know without even looking at him?” Dorothy asked, still staring down at Greg.

  “He’s been asleep ever since we started painting,” Billy said, obviously sounding proud that he knew something Dorothy didn’t. In fact, she thought he sounded as arrogant as Lois did at times.

  “It works out better that way,” Lois said. “By the time he awakens, we should be finished here.”

  Dorothy stood there, watching the two of them work. Then she walked to the doorway.

  “I’m going to get myself some lunch. I’d better eat before this stink destroys my appetite. I haven’t had a thing all day.”

  “Fine. Which of the two bedrooms do you want, the farthest or closest?”

  “The closest, of course.”

  “OK,” Lois said, a slight smile on her face. “As soon as I finish here, I’ll help you move some of your things. I’ll make the bed and get the room aired out for you.”

  Dorothy didn’t respond. She went downstairs quickly, all the while feeling a terrible sense of nervousness. She was shaking again. Here she had finally left the house and come back without feeling that terrible sense of doom when she drove into the driveway, and now she was all in a tremor. It wasn’t food she needed; it was a stiff drink—a highball, quickly. She made one and retreated to the living room. She forcefully sat herself in the easy chair. After a moment she began to chastise herself for going into a sulk, but she did feel that the limits of her tolerance were quickly being reached. She consumed her drink quickly and made herself another, stronger one. Soon a warm, relaxed glow came over her. She knew it would happen quickly because she had no food in her stomach. Kicking off her shoes, she put her feet up on the hassock. She was calming down; it was going to be all right. She took a deep breath to suck in the long-missed odor of hair spray. That, too, helped revive her spirits.

  “I suppose,” she muttered, “Lois is right.” After all, she thought, the girl was brilliant. Who knows, maybe she would come up with something that would help Greg and bring about a real recovery. How could she stand in the way of that? As long as she didn’t do anything that was downright harmful to anybody, there was no reason to stop her. Dorothy was sure Lois had Greg’s best interests at heart. So she would sleep in one of the other bedrooms. No real harm in it since they didn’t have to heat it. In fact, she secretly applauded the idea.

  It had been difficult sleeping in the bedroom with Greg. What could she do—hold his hand while she masturbated? It was like being alone anyway. Even worse than that, it was like being beside a different kind of creature. Oh, God forgive her for thinking such a thing, but it was true. She couldn’t help the way she felt. If things were reversed, he’d feel the same way. She was sure of that.

  Still, she didn’t like the way Lois was taking over. She was too smart, she thought, and then she reconsidered. “No,” she said aloud, “this is probably Lois’s way of showing her lo
ve. At least she cares.” Dorothy had been worried lately that Lois was totally indifferent to what had happened.

  Greg’s stroke had certainly not changed Lois’s life much. It meant she wouldn’t have to work in the store for the summer and it meant that Billy would stay home and remain her responsibility, but Lois didn’t make any real changes in her daily life. At least, not as far as Dorothy could see. She was still into her work and into her schooling. She continued to read a great deal and stay to herself as usual. No, Dorothy thought, she couldn’t chastise her for painting the room. In doing that, she was coming out of her shell somewhat and doing something for someone else.

  All this reasoning, plus the third and fourth drink, put Dorothy into a happier frame of mind. She put the stereo on and moved to the music. She got up and danced about the room, giggling and laughing to herself, subduing and bawling herself out for making too much noise.

  “You want to wake Greg up?” she said and laughed. It was so silly, but it did feel so good. After a while she got very dizzy and had to catch herself on the arm of the couch. At that moment she looked into a wall mirror and caught sight of herself—staggering, her clothes a little disheveled, her new hairdo a little messed. It brought tears to her eyes. She sat down, unable to prevent herself from sobbing. But even that felt good. Then she began to feel nauseated. She clutched her stomach, hiccuped, and rushed to the bathroom.

  Upstairs, Lois and Billy had completed their job.

  In Lois’s mind, moving her mother to another bedroom was essential for the success of the project. A description of the project, activities making up the project, and the results of those activities were all a major part of what would be the paper on obedience she had been planning and writing since she had met Professor McShane. She had been planning a series of traditional-type experiments using lab animals, but on the day her mother first brought up the idea of bringing her father home, she conceived of something so innovative it nearly drove her mad with excitement.

  She would turn her father’s bedroom into a Skinner box. B. F. Skinner, the famous psychologist, made a science of using operant conditioning on animals in the laboratory. Operant conditioning was sometimes referred to as the carrot-and-stick method of modifying behavior. Rewards were given for desired responses, and punishments were used to discourage repetition of undesired behavior. A Skinner box gave a caged animal an opportunity for reward or punishment. What was her father now, if not a caged animal?

  What scientist could take a human being and place him or her in a caged environment so he could experiment with operant conditioning? No university would approve of such a project; no fund would finance it. But think of the things that could be learned about the human mind and human behavior, she reflected. Her father was already imprisoned by his stroke. He was already in a kind of Skinner box. What harm could there be in taking advantage of that fact? There was certainly much to be gained. She might even enter college with a publishable study all completed.

  Now a second possibility had suddenly emerged. In manipulating her mother out of the bedroom, Lois had discovered the potential for an even larger Skinner box: the entire house. The paper was practically writing itself. She was very glad now that she had gone to the drugstore and had done the inventory before they sold the business. Her mother thought she had only brought home sundries, cosmetics, minor medications, and the like. But she had had more foresight than that.

  Her father hadn’t just fallen asleep at the beginning of the painting of the bedroom and coincidentally slept through the work. Now she would have other uses for those sleeping pills. And what of the other drugs she had collected and cached in the house? Some of them would prove to be carrots for her experiments with operant conditioning. She would need them for both her father and her mother. Her mother was a veteran of uppers and downers anyway. Her sudden interest in booze was symptomatic of how she handled most of her anxieties.

  Yes, Lois thought, all the ingredients were here. She could maintain control over all of them. She was confident of that. After she had completed her experiments, she would return things to their “normal” state. She could handle everything in such a way that no one would really understand what had taken place. The therapist was finished with his instructional visits, and with the doctor being available only when needed … no one from the outside should interfere.

  At times when she planned and dreamed, she felt she could grow giantlike and lift the roof off. She’d peer down on her family and move them about. She’d have the all-knowing, omnipresent point of view; godlike, she’d determine futures, map out destinies. This was her fairy tale. It was her Jack and the Beanstalk, her world of Oz. She was the age-old storyteller who began, “Once upon a time … ,” but unlike him, she worked in the real world.

  After Lois and Billy had finished the molding and window trim, she put her father into a sitting position. His eyes were still closed, but she expected he would awaken shortly. His response to the new room color might be interesting, she thought. To go to sleep in one world and then wake up in another had to be traumatic. He’d probably think he had been moved out of the house.

  “Take the brushes and the paint out carefully,” she commanded.

  Billy began rolling the paper up from the floor. “We still got a lot left, Lois.”

  “I know. I have other uses for this green.”

  “We’re gonna paint some more?” he asked excitedly.

  “Yes.”

  “But what if Mommy gets mad?”

  “She won’t get mad; she’ll get indifferent.”

  “What’s indifferent?”

  “Never mind. Just put everything away carefully. Make sure the lid on the paint can is tightly closed.” He worked quickly, obediently. She watched him for a moment and then studied the room. It wasn’t going to be hard. She had a good mind for mechanics.

  She would put a hook in the ceiling right above the left side of his bed. A pulley would be placed on the hook. There would be another hook by the door. The cable would run from his bed to a gong attached to the wall, right by the door. At the end of the cable by his bed she would attach a tiny flat bar. The bar would dangle just above his left hand. All he would have to do would be to raise his fingers and pull down on the bar. That would pull on the cable and ring the gong. Thus she would have a typical Skinner box response mechanism. It was important that he hear the sound of the gong, too. Later on, she would use that sound to establish various conditioned reflexes. She had so many ideas. Her mind was simply exploding with them.

  After she arranged the response mechanism, it was simply a matter of shaping the behavior. What was to be the stimulus? Why would he pull down on the bar? What would be the positive reinforcement? She determined she would start with the most basic of needs, food itself. Now he was on a regular schedule fit to his biological clock. She would have to change that by putting him on what was known as a variable interval schedule. He would learn that the only way he could get food would be by pulling down on the response bar, but she wouldn’t reinforce this every time. He would know that he couldn’t get food without pulling on the bar, but he would not command food. He would get it when she gave it to him, at intervals she would determine, intervals she would vary. Of course, she would keep as exact a record as possible of how often and when he made the gong ring.

  It occurred to her that she should give Billy some role in this. She would make him aware of the gong and have him record when he heard it too. That way, if she missed the sound and he didn’t, the gong would still be recorded. She decided she would place the chart right up on the wall just outside his door. She would show Billy how to mark it.

  Once all this basic work was completed, she could begin her important experiments. To what extent could she control his physiological functions: cause him to be hungry when she wanted him to be hungry, for example? What would be the effects of a vitamin deficiency over a specific length of time? How would that affect operant behavior? She hadn’t been just kidding he
r mother before. She was fascinated with the effects of color. She had all sorts of ideas for experimenting with that. And perhaps with sounds too. Then there were the drugs.

  She had taken all sorts of mood modifiers from the drugstore. How would they affect appetite and other physiological functions? How soon could she get him into an addiction and then get him out of it? In short, she believed she could control his body at will, determine the rate of his heartbeat and breathing, the cycles of his ingestion, digestion, and excretion. Perhaps she could even get into his sexual fantasies. The potentials were enormous; her problem was limitation. She had just so much time to work, and everything she did had to be done well, accurately, with proper documentation and replication. Unfortunately, she had to be selective and realistic.

  His eyelids flickered and then opened slowly. As he focused and took in the new green color, he moved his head from side to side to see as much of the room as possible. His mouth opened and closed. The fingers of his left hand moved up and down. Then he made his guttural noise.

  “You’re still at home, Daddy. I’ve just painted your room. How do you like it?” He blinked twice, indicating the negative. “Oh, I bet you’re thinking more about Mother and her opinion than your own. Is that it?” He blinked once. “No problem, Daddy. She’s going to sleep in one of the other bedrooms.” His eyes widened. “That’s by her own choice too.

  “You see,” she said, moving closer to his bed, “I’ve made a study of color and the positive and negative effects different hues have on people. Green has definite medicinal benefits.” She paused and then put on her quick, mechanical smile. “Just have patience and trust me. Everything I’m doing, I’m doing for your benefit. And the benefit of science too,” she added. That made him turn more toward her.