He held both arms extended out from his body, and she pumped cream, cold to the touch, onto each one.
“You rub it in now. I know you don’t want me touching you, so you do it. Rub it in, Angel. Come on.”
She pretended to be rubbing lotion onto her own arms. Angel mirrored her movements, matching the timing of every movement to hers.
He couldn’t rub the cream where the bands went around his arms, which was where it burned the most. He moaned as he tried to slide his fingers under the arm bands.
“Since you’re done your session,” Kelly was looking at the printed schedule. “That means you have computer lab.”
Angel tried again to get his fingertips under the armbands, but Kelly caught his fingers and gave them a tug.
“Computers. You like the computers, don’t you, Angel?”
He barely heard her. He did like computers, but he was distracted by the change in schedule and the man who had been in the hallway when he got out. He knew Dr. Abato, but not the man with him. The other man had been angry. His fists were clenched and shaking. His demeanor was a welcome change to Angel, because Angel was also angry. Usually the people who were angry were the ones with the shockers, but the man in the hallway had not had a shocker.
Angel let Kelly pull him out into the hallway. The man was still there, his eyes wide and his fists still clenched. His face turned toward Angel.
“Where is he going now?” he asked Kelly.
“Computer lab.”
“Mind if I tag along?”
Kelly’s body shifted and her grip on Angel’s hand tightened. “Who are you, again?”
“Zachary Goldman.”
Angel liked the name Goldman. He envisioned a tall statue of a man made of solid gold. That would really be something. He mouthed the name Angel Goldman to himself. The two names went together well. Kelly started to move down the hall again without telling Zachary Goldman that it was okay for him to go along, but he followed along with them anyway. As they went by the unit administration desk, Zachary Goldman spoke to a woman whose name tag said Agnes Peal. “If Dr. Abato is looking for me, I’ll be in the computer lab.”
Mrs. Peal made a motion with her hand like she wanted to stop him, but he didn’t pay any attention. Angel kept his head turned so that he could watch Zachary Goldman out of the corner of his eye as he walked with them. Goldman didn’t try to touch him or ask him questions.
Zachary could see Angel keeping an eye on him, but Angel seemed calmer than he had during the therapy session and didn’t make any threatening movements.
Kelly too kept looking at Zachary, but she was more circumspect about it. Looking at him when she thought he was distracted by something else. She didn’t know that Zachary had learned in places just like Summit to have eyes in the back of his head; to always be aware of everyone’s movements around him. She’d have to be a lot more careful to keep him from seeing her nervousness over his going to the lab with her.
Zachary had given her his name, but not who he was or why he was there, so she had to be wondering whether he had the right to go with her or if she should be stopping him.
“Here we go, Angel,” Kelly announced, steering Angel into the computer lab. Angel looked around and headed for an empty chair. It appeared to be somewhere he knew the expected behavior and was willing to comply. He hadn’t, Zachary noted, had his ESD equipment swapped out. His arm cuffs were still at different heights, exactly where they had been after Angel had pulled one of them loose and had it reattached below the inflamed skin. Dr. Abato hadn’t been concerned enough about the possibility that Angel’s equipment was faulty to ensure that it was fixed or replaced. Zachary was sure that, like him, Abato knew very well that Kelly hadn’t been pressing the button repeatedly because she wasn’t getting a good shock. She had been attempting to escalate the punishment.
It was a strange feeling, seeing the pretty young blond and knowing that she had essentially been torturing Angel. As much as Zachary knew it wasn’t true, it was hard not to associate beauty with goodness. He simply didn’t expect someone as pretty as she was to be someone who could intentionally hurt a young boy. Angel had been thrashing and crying on the floor and she just kept pressing that button.
Even so, Angel hadn’t avoided her after leaving the meeting room. He hadn’t protested about her being the one to escort him down to the computer lab or pulled away from her touch as she directed him there. It would appear that the alternating cycle of pain and rewards had securely bonded Angel to his aide, as Lovaas had predicted.
Kelly didn’t follow Angel to his computer to stand behind him, as a few of the other staff members were doing. Instead, she stood a short distance away, watching not just Angel, but the other students in the lab as well. Zachary studied the boxes hanging from her belt. Angel’s wasn’t the only student whose remote she carried. How many of the other children in the lab did she have the ability to punish?
Most of the other students in the lab were wearing backpacks, and if Zachary looked closely, he could see the wires leading out of them that connected to the electrodes. How naive had he been to think they were simply bags of schoolbooks, not even seeing the wires?
A couple of the aides watching over the busy students were talking to each other in low voices, laughing occasionally. Zachary couldn’t hear what they were saying, and moved a little closer, trying to catch the gist of it. As he got closer, he saw one of the kids near him make a deliberate motion toward him. He turned his eyes to her, careful not to move too fast and appear confrontational.
The girl angled a paper toward him, keeping her face toward her computer screen. Zachary looked down at the page.
HELP ME
It shouldn’t have surprised him that some of the residents had the ability to write a communication. He had met Margaret, who appeared to him to have all of the abilities of a neurotypical woman. If there were women who could pass as non-autistic, there had to be younger people who also appeared to be neurotypical. Teenagers, children, all age groups. Nancy had said they had some residents who were not developmentally disabled, too. Kids who were mentally ill or delinquent.
Zachary looked at the back of the girl’s head. She didn’t look at him. But he could tell by the angle she had her head cocked at that she was still paying attention to him. She didn’t have an aide hovering right behind her, so Zachary sat down in a vacant computer chair the next station down from hers and turned it toward her slightly.
“Are you okay?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
She tapped away at her keyboard. She appeared to be playing a game or manipulating a three-dimensional object for a math question. “I want to get out of here,” she whispered back, not looking at him.
“I’m sorry… I can’t do anything about that.”
“You gotta. You gotta do something.”
“I’m just a visitor. I don’t have any power around here.”
“Power.” The girl snorted. “We’re all wired for power around here.”
“What’s wrong? You look… like you’re okay.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m great.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You know what day it is today?”
“Uh… Monday…?”
“Yeah. And Monday is when the staff review all of the weekend security footage to see what happened over the weekend.”
“I still don’t see…?”
She didn’t answer at first, looking intently at her computer screen as if working out a complicated puzzle. A shadow passed over Zachary, and he realized that someone had been standing close behind them.
“It’s catch-up day,” the girl said, barely opening her mouth. “They watch to see what everyone did over the weekend and if you did anything that should have been punished, they give it to you Monday afternoon.”
“No!” Such a policy went directly against Lovaas’s program, which dictated that a reward or punishment should be given within one second of a good or bad behavior. To wait several
days and punish retroactively was completely wrong.
She nodded infinitesimally. “Just sittin’ here… waiting… waiting to see who gets shocked and who gets away.”
“That’s not fair!”
He could see her smile. Unamused. In agreement with his assessment. Zachary massaged his temples, trying to figure out if there was something he could do. It seemed like a hopeless cause. How was he supposed to do anything to change the institution’s policies? Newspaper articles had been written, trials had been held, protests had been made, and inspections had been done. And no one had been able to fight the administration of Summit and the devoted parents who insisted their children needed to be there and needed ABA therapy to keep them safe.
The two aides who Zachary had been trying to hear drifted closer to him. He kept his head down, trying not to look as if he’d been talking to the girl or had any interest in the conversation.
“It works best if you catch them off guard,” the older man said. “An unexpected aversive is more powerful than one that the kid is expecting and already braced for. They build up a resistance over time. That’s why the doctor is trying to get these new ESDs passed. The ones we’ve got now,” the guard tapped one of the remotes on his belt, “they’re stronger than the ones we started out with. Work a lot better. But even with how strong these ones are, some kids are barely affected by them. They can sit there and just look at you while you press the button. Just daring you to do it again.”
The younger of the two aides, a boyish-faced redhead, nodded earnestly.
“I guess that makes sense.”
“So what works best is if you can stand across the room. Even around a corner. Where they can’t see you and won’t be expecting anything.” The aide glanced around at the students working industriously away on the computers. All heads down. All fingers on the keyboard. A boy at the end of the room laughed and started to flap his hands excitedly. Zachary watched the aide reach for one of his remotes, take a quick glance at it to make sure it was the right one, and punch the button.
The excited little boy gave a shriek and nearly fell out of his chair. The two aides laughed. Zachary saw red. It was all he could do to clamp his fingers around the table and hold himself back from jumping up and punching the aide who had pressed the button. The other students in the room were looking around, eyes wide and anxious. An aide who was closer to the boy who had been shocked settled him back in his chair, warning him not to disturb others with his noises and flapping.
Zachary could see that Angel was no longer engaged with his computer program. He would look at the computer for a moment, and then turn around and look warily at the aides. Was he vigilant because of the other boy who had been shocked? Or like the girl, did he know that it was Monday and there might be retroactive shocks in store for him? A teenage girl seated a few chairs down from Zachary started to rock back and forth and to cry quietly. The atmosphere in the room thickened, everyone hyper-aware of her behavior. Zachary watched the older aide who had been showing the young redhead the ropes to see if he would be the one to respond, shocking her unexpectedly from a distance. But he didn’t seem to be concerned about it. Maybe he knew that hers wasn’t one of the remotes hanging from his belt. A female aide moved toward the girl instead and coaxed her to stand up and leave the room.
Zachary could see Angel starting to rock, could see his anxious looks around the room increasing. Would Kelly catch his anxiety escalating and remove him from the lab, as the girl’s aide had? Or would she try to shock him into quiet, compliant behavior?
The girl who had written ‘help me’ pounded on her keys, glancing at Angel and at Zachary. “Just chill, Angel,” she murmured, very quiet so that one of the aides wouldn’t hear her or wouldn’t know the sound had come from her. She was too far away for Angel to have heard her. She just wanted to avoid what was coming next.
And so did Zachary. He didn’t know what to do. Approach Angel and tell him it was okay and to calm down? Talk to Kelly and see what she could do to settle Angel down without shocking him?
Zachary had the feeling that Kelly’s go-to solution would be to shock Angel. That’s what Dr. Abato kept saying worked, even if he did think that the effectiveness might be wearing off somewhat for the boy.
Angel was probably one of the kids that Abato was hoping to get his new, upgraded device approved for.
Chapter Fourteen
I
t doesn’t work, Angel,” the girl beside Zachary said, her voice a little louder than it had been. “It doesn’t work. Nothing does. Even if they send you home. They still send you home with these.” She tapped one of her armbands. “They train your folks to shock you, so even if you can get away from this place for a few days, even if you can get a weekend pass, you can’t get away from them. You can’t get away from this crew and their shocks!” The girl’s voice had gradually risen and was slightly sing-songy. She was definitely starting to attract the attention of the staff, and that wasn’t good for her. It was distracting some of the attention from Angel, but Zachary was afraid that she was just setting herself up for trouble.
“Shh. Better stay quiet,” he urged.
“They’re going to do it anyway. You can’t stop it. None of us can stop it. They’re going to do it anyway, no matter what!”
The older aide had noticed Zachary and was frowning at him, trying to figure out who he was and what he was doing there.
“Shh,” Zachary tried again to soothe the girl and keep her from escalating further. It felt impossible. He saw himself again facing Annie, on the other side of a steel security door, unable to do anything to help her or to stop them from hurting her. “Come on. What’s your name?”
“They don’t care about your name. Your name doesn’t matter, only whether they have your picture.”
Zachary supposed that was true.
“It’s Monday!” the girl said suddenly, in a loud voice. She turned her head and looked directly at the older aide. “It’s Monday, so why don’t you just go ahead and do it?”
The aide reached for his belt. Zachary saw what was going to happen an instant before it took place.
“No, wait, you’ve got—”
The man pressed the button on the box, meeting the girl’s eyes. She didn’t move. But a few seats down, Angel shouted and splayed out his arms. He made a gurgling, choking noise. The aide looked down at the box in his hand, realizing that he’d just hit the wrong button. He swore and moved his hand over one to grab the box with the girl’s picture on it. Double-checking that he had the right one this time, he pressed the button on the second remote. The girl immediately reacted, throwing her head back and laughing. The hair rose on the back of Zachary’s neck at her paradoxical reaction. The girl slammed both palms down on the table with a crack like the lash of a whip. Her eyes were bugging out and she looked like she was on a fairground ride, her whole body vibrating.
The seconds seemed like hours. All of the shocks that Zachary had seen had been the prescribed two-second shocks, other than when Kelly had been pressing Angel’s button repeatedly to stack them up. Zachary turned his head to look at the aide to see if he was still holding down the button or pressing it again, but the older man’s hand was no longer on the remote. But the girl still juddered and made guttural noises of protest beside Zachary, starting to slide out of her chair.
“It must be malfunctioning!” Zachary shouted. He grabbed one of the armbands and tried to pull it away from her skin and undo the Velcro closure at the same time. It was difficult to work with when the girl kept bucking and vibrating, unable to help herself. The smell of singed hair wafted up to Zachary’s nose, making him nauseated, triggering flashbacks. Zachary struggled to keep from slipping back into the past. He got one armband off, but the girl still had three other electrodes that he could see, plus whatever was on her torso under her clothing. “Help me!”
The experienced aide was finally at Zachary’s side, pushing him away. Rather than starting to work on the second armb
and, he went for the backpack, doubling one of the girl’s rigid limbs up to get her out of it. He yanked the backpack away, tearing at the wires to disconnect them. The girl collapsed, sobbing.
The aide dropped the backpack to the floor.
“The battery pack’s in the backpack,” he informed Zachary. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. “No battery, no juice. She’ll be okay. We’ll get this unit to the shop for repairs.”
Zachary was still gasping for breath. He could smell burnt flesh, could feel his own skin shriveling and searing in the fire. The girl was injured, and the aide was more worried about getting the ESD fixed than getting her help. Zachary knelt back over the girl, fumbling to remove the second armband to assess the damage.
The aide swore, staring at the blisters already forming where the electrode had been. “Just get out of the way. We’ll get her to the infirmary.”
He reached down, grabbing the girl’s arm where it wasn’t burnt, jerking her to her feet.
“Get the other electrodes off,” Zachary said. “Get them off so they’re not rubbing against the injuries.”
“Don’t worry about it,” the man growled. “These kids don’t feel pain like you do. Didn’t you see Trina laugh when I shocked her? She wanted me to do it. She asked for it!”
“She’s injured, and she does feel pain! We need to get the electrodes off and get them to bring a gurney—”
“She can walk.” The aide gave the girl a pull that made her stumble. “No need for a damn stretcher. It’s not that bad.”
He headed for the door, with the girl in tow, moaning in pain.
Zachary Goldman was still kneeling on the floor beside Trina’s backpack. He had helped Trina; maybe he would help Angel too. Angel turned his head back and forth, looking around the room. Kelly was across the lab, talking with one of the other aides, not paying Angel any attention. He got out of his seat and moved as quickly as he could toward Goldman. Goldman was a man who made things happen. He made them stop Angel’s therapy session. He made them take off Trina’s backpack. Angel wanted his backpack off too.
His Hands were Quiet Page 13