“I’m Margaret Beacher,” the blond woman said, thrusting her hand toward Zachary.
He had a hard time catching her hand squarely and ended up squeezing her fingers instead of getting a good grip. She pulled away and stood there looking at him, her eyes boring into him.
“And what’s your name?” she demanded, as if he’d missed an important cue.
“Zachary. My name is Zachary Goldman.”
“What are you doing here? If you’re not working here and you don’t know enough about the program to know what an aversive is, why are you here?”
Zachary bent to put down his briefcase, which was starting to get a little heavy. “Can I get a little space? I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic.”
The protesters looked at Margaret like she was the one in charge, but she didn’t give them any sign. The majority stepped back, giving Zachary a bit more room. Some looked elsewhere, eyes sharp for anyone else they should talk to. Missionaries looking for a convert.
“So?” Margaret demanded. “Who are you and what are you doing here, Zachary Goldman?”
“I’m a private investigator. I’m here looking into Quentin’s death.” Zachary nodded toward one of the signs with Quentin’s picture on it.
Margaret’s eyes got big. “A private investigator?” she squawked.
“Yes. Don’t go getting all excited. It’s not like on TV. I’m just here to ask some questions, follow up on some reports.” Zachary indicated his briefcase. “It’s lots of paperwork and talking to people. Not all romantic…”
“But you’re looking into Quentin’s death.”
“Yes.”
“So you don’t think it was suicide.”
“I haven’t come to a conclusion yet. There’s no reason yet to think that it wasn’t just what it looked like. But I’m trying to find out.”
“His mother doesn’t think it’s suicide.” She said it like it was something he didn’t already know.
Zachary nodded. “I know. She hired me.”
“Quentin Thatcher didn’t have to die,” Margaret said loudly, her inflection like a chant. Everyone raised their signs in agreement. “Quentin Thatcher didn’t have to die!”
Zachary studied Margaret. “What do you think happened?” he asked. His brain was buzzing through the possibilities. Her chant wasn’t that he was abused, neglected, or murdered. Their statement wasn’t that it wasn’t suicide, but that he didn’t have to die.
“Autistic people all around the world are being hurt and traumatized by ABA therapy. It has to stop! They have to stop treating neurodiverse people like they are animals.”
Zachary looked for somewhere they could sit down. There was a low landscaping wall between the grass and the sidewalk, and Zachary motioned to it. “Let’s sit.”
She joined him, sitting just an inch too close. Zachary slid down a little and took a breath.
“How are they being hurt? By skin shocks?”
“By skin shocks. Other aversives like pinching, hitting, kicking, holding, strong smells, loud noises, hot pepper sauce, whatever their tormentors can think of to punish them for behaving the wrong way. For being autistic instead of neurotypical. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be punished for who you are? For the way your brain was formed? Something you have absolutely no control over?”
Zachary watched an ant carrying a crumb along the sidewalk block in front of him. He’d spent his entire childhood being punished for something he had no control over. Not autism, but other diagnoses. For being incorrigible. A troublemaker. When all that he’d ever wanted was to be good.
“You don’t believe me?” Margaret demanded, her tone aggressive.
“Yes. I believe you.”
“Oh.” She gave him another look and lowered her voice to a more reasonable tone. “When ABA was first devised, Lovaas recommended slapping or pinching. He said to practice on your friends, so you knew how hard to hit so that it would hurt, but not do permanent damage. Cause the autistic child pain every time they responded the wrong way, and they would learn not to do it. Reward them every time they responded the right way, and they would learn to do the right thing instead. Or, you could always torture them until they gave the right response, and then stop.”
Zachary looked at her. “This is an approved therapy?”
“It’s mainstream. Almost all of the autism therapies are based on it. They all make their own adjustments, of course, but even if you take the aversives out of the loop, it’s still torture.”
They hadn’t been hitting or shocking Ray-Ray, but Zachary had still felt like they were going too far. Like they were doing something dirty and callous instead of teaching him. But Kenzie had pooh-poohed the idea. Sometimes therapy was painful. Like physiotherapy or debriding a wound. Zachary gave a little shudder just thinking of it again. Trying not to let himself get swept away by the memories. He needed to think clearly about Ray-Ray’s therapy. Good or bad?
“And how did shocks come into it?” he asked Margaret, who was looking impatient for him to get it all through his head.
“Shocks were a wonderful new development. You can’t standardize a pinch or a slap. I might slap one way, and you might slap another. Yours might not be hard enough to be effective, and mine might be too hard and cause damage. We can practice on each other like Lovaas says, but we’ll still end up with everyone in Summit punishing differently. But with shocking, you can set all devices to one level, and everybody can administer exactly the same punishment for wrong behaviors. Hurt them enough to deter them, but not enough to harm them permanently. Unless, of course, they have a heart condition or something, and you kill them.”
“Has that happened?”
“Children have died.”
Zachary thought of the reported deaths at Summit and wondered whether he would be able to get any details on the deaths other than Quentin’s.
“Or,” Margaret says, “they might just be injured. Burns and blisters. Or with other aversives, maybe atrophied muscles from being strapped to a restraint board for weeks, months, even years.” She gave a shrug as if that were nothing. “Or maybe no physical injuries. Maybe just PTSD for the rest of their lives from the hell Summit puts them through. Or whatever ABA program they are in.”
“But you said that not all programs use aversives.”
“Even without aversives, therapy can still cause PTSD or other anxiety or emotional problems.”
Zachary scratched the back of his neck. “Do you have proof of that?”
“I am proof of that.”
He looked at her, studying her face and her body language. “You did ABA?”
“Yes. I did.”
“What for? You aren’t autistic, are you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You… must be very high-functioning. I wouldn’t have guessed it…”
“Do you think that’s a compliment?” she snapped.
Zachary fumbled for an answer. He had clearly said the wrong thing. He’d somehow insulted her. And he didn’t know what he’d done or how to undo it.
“You think I want to be like you?” Margaret persisted, her eyes flaming.
“Like me?” Zachary let out one bitter bark of laughter before he caught himself. “No, I don’t think you would want to be like me.”
Neither of them said anything for a few minutes. Margaret looked like she had a lot more to say on the subject, but she closed her mouth and just looked at him.
“Why do you say I wouldn’t want to be like you?” she asked finally, in a normal, non-confrontational tone. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What isn’t wrong with me?” Zachary rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
The other protesters were milling around, holding up their signs, occasionally yelling at the passing motorists. As parents arrived for therapy, they were harassed, and in some cases simply got back into their vehicles and drove away. Others came out of the facility and made their way back to their cars, sheltering children fr
om the yells and sneers of the crowd.
Zachary watched one such mother and child make their way in tandem toward their vehicle.
“Don’t you think it’s ironic that you’re scaring the same children you’re claiming need to be protected?”
Margaret turned slightly to look at them. “Wouldn’t you steal Jewish children away from the Nazis if you could? Even if you scared them in the process?”
“I’m not sure you can make that comparison.”
“They are torturing children,” Margaret said with a loud voice. “They need to be stopped.”
“They need to be stopped!” echoed one of the other protesters in a yell. The chant was picked up for the next few minutes.
“You don’t think so?” Margaret asked. “You don’t think it’s wrong for them to imprison these children because they are different? To shock them, or withhold food, or restrain them for weeks on end?”
“I don’t know what to think. This is all new to me.”
“Well… that’s honest. I guess I should be glad you’re not telling me that I’m a liar. I get that a lot. Or that I’m trying to ruin the lives of all of the families of the children here. People don’t like it when you threaten to take their comfort away.”
“Do you mind if I get my notepad out?” Zachary gestured to his briefcase.
“I’m not holding a gun on you. You can do whatever you like.”
Zachary got out pen and paper. “What about the kids who are violent?” he asked. “It’s not a matter of their families’ comfort, but their safety. Quentin was here because he was violent. His mother feared for herself and her other children. What would happen to families like that if you shut down all of the ABA programs? Or even just Summit?”
“ABA isn’t the only way to deal with violence. There are other methods out there. What about the thousands of autistic people who aren’t at Summit? I don’t see them creating havoc. Their families have found other ways to manage difficult behaviors.”
“Other than medicating them?”
“Sometimes medications are appropriate. Sometimes they’re not.”
“What else can they do?”
Margaret looked at the brick building for a minute. “How about taking them out of therapies that traumatize them? Making accommodations? Improving communication? Whatever form of communication they prefer, instead of pushing speech. Reducing stressors instead of escalating problems?” She shook her head. “I was violent as a teenager. I didn’t know how else to react to people I felt were attacking me. And trust me, there were plenty of things my parents and therapists could have done other than terrorizing and torturing me with ABA and other aggressive therapies.”
But those therapies had apparently worked, since Margaret was no longer solving her problems with violence. How could anyone know what the outcome would have been if Margaret’s issues had been solved through other means?
He wondered if he should go into the building, now that the conversation seemed to be winding down. He had listened to the protesters’ side. He would be remiss if he didn’t ask the staff at Summit for their response. He couldn’t make any kind of judgment without hearing both sides of the story.
“So what’s wrong with you?”
Margaret wasn’t looking at Zachary, and at first, he thought she was asking someone else. But her silence and waiting attitude convinced him that she was asking him.
“I have PTSD too,” he told her eventually. It was easier without her looking at him. He didn’t feel so much like a bug under a magnifying glass. “I was in a fire when I was young. I haven’t done a lot of psychotherapy. I was forced into it when I was younger, and I don’t like other people digging around in my brain. But the guy I’ve started seeing says my PTSD probably originated way before the fire. With the way our—my—parents were.”
“How were they?”
“They fought a lot. A lot. Constantly. Not just arguing. It was like a war zone. And I guess that means we—I—developed PTSD just like someone in a war zone.”
“You have flashbacks to the fire? To them fighting?”
“Yes.” Zachary turned his head to look at Margaret. She looked off into the distance. Her jaw was rigid. Teeth clenched. “And you have flashbacks to therapy?”
“Yes.”
It seemed like a bizarre idea at first. But he thought about watching Ray-Ray being bullied by Sophie and Dr. Abato, and how it had stirred up so many unpleasant memories for Zachary. And he thought about how Kenzie had compared therapy to debriding. And he’d instantly flashed back to debriding. If debriding his burns—something that had to be done for him to heal properly—had caused him that much trauma, then why not the behavioral therapy that Ray-Ray and Margaret had gone through?
“Were you in a program like this, where they shocked you?” he asked Margaret.
“No. No physical aversives. But plenty that was uncomfortable and painful in here,” she tapped her head. “Mental and emotional abuse is still abuse.”
“Of course.” Zachary made a few more notes for himself. “I should go in there now. I have more investigating to do.”
“Yes, you do. Will you call me later? Let me know what you find out?” Margaret pulled out a business card wallet and put one into Zachary’s hand.
“I really can’t do that,” Zachary said. “You’re not my client. There is confidentiality. I can’t share my findings with you just because you’re interested.”
She gave a grimace. When Zachary tried to hand the card back, she pushed his hand away sharply. “Keep it. Call me if you have questions.” She looked over at the looming brick building. “You will have questions.”
# #
Zachary felt like he had moved into a parallel reality. Even though he had not been through the front doors of the building before, the themes and architecture were the same as they were throughout the rest of the building. The receptionist had a soupy smile pasted across her face. The potted plants and furniture were the same. But everything felt different. When he had walked into Summit before, he had been open to it being positive. To being impressed by what they were doing and to give them the benefit of the doubt. He’d done his best to compartmentalize the emotions and memories that the institution had stirred up in him and to focus on what Abato was showing him, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. But after talking to Margaret, he was no longer able to separate his own feelings about institutions from Summit. Were all institutions corrupt? Was it inevitable that there would be abusers? Bullying? Predation? There had been everywhere he had gone, and it sounded like Summit at the other facilities like it were not exempt.
So in spite of the bright colors and cartoon themes, Zachary felt a pall of darkness over the whole place. The knot that had been in his stomach on his first visit there had at least doubled in size.
“How can I help you?” the receptionist asked, the smile forced over her tired, cynical features.
“There are a few people I need to talk to,” Zachary explained. “I’ve cleared all of this through Dr. Abato. He took me on a tour of the facility earlier in the week.”
She frowned at him. “I didn’t get any memos from Dr. Abato. No emails or messages that you would be making inquires, Mr.…?”
“Zachary Goldberg,” Zachary enunciated clearly. He looked at her expectantly, spelling it out slowly so that she got the message and wrote it down on the pad on her desk. “And I need to talk to Quentin Thatcher’s psychotherapist, his residential unit supervisor, the person who discovered his body, any night guards who were on shift in his unit the night he died, and… his behavioral therapist and any aides he may have had.”
He waited between each person’s role, waiting for her to write them down. She looked at the list. “That’s a lot of people. They won’t all be on shift today, and of those who are, most of them will be busy. If you don’t have an appointment, people won’t have the time for you. We all keep very busy here.”
“I’m sure you do,” Zachary said, in as understan
ding a tone as he could manage, trying to give the impression of being calm and professional while the back part of his brain was flipping out. “To start with, you can get me their names. Then I can contact them and see how many can meet with me today, and how many I can schedule for another day. I’m from out of town, so I’m sure you can understand how I need to see as many as I can in one day. I can’t be back and forth for ten different appointments.”
She squinted at him, either trying to figure out the best way to thwart him or trying to decide if she should make an effort to help him.
“I’ll see if I can get the names for you,” she said finally. “It’s going to take a while.”
“I’ll just be waiting over here.” Zachary motioned to the couch in the reception area.
Zachary’s list of witnesses was quickly whittled down to one. The night staff were not on. The aide who had been with Quentin most recently was booked up and he would have to set up an appointment later.
“He doesn’t have a psychotherapist,” the receptionist said. “He has an ABA, but she’s got back-to-back appointments all day.”
Zachary frowned. “He doesn’t have a psychotherapist?”
“Our program here is focused on ABA. We are proactive in avoiding problems, rather than waiting until they become issues.”
“You must have someone on staff to deal with depression, learning disabilities, things like that.”
“We’re not treating mental illness and learning disabilities. We’re treating developmental and behavioral issues.”
“But other conditions can go along with autism.”
She just stared at him blankly.
“So no one was treating Quentin for depression.”
“No.”
“Who prescribes medications if they are needed?”
“Dr. Abato or one of the other senior staff. But no medications that are behavioral crutches. We demedicalize as soon as they get here.”
Zachary had been on med holidays several times in order to ‘establish a baseline’ with a new doctor. A hellish process of getting all of the chemicals out of his system and then trying desperately to hold it all together until they started adding prescriptions back in one at a time. It was better as an adult, when he could use just what he needed under whatever circumstances he was in and could tell a doctor to take a hike if he wanted to reduce the number of prescriptions Zachary was using. A med holiday was never a holiday for him.
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