The Home

by Scott Nicholson

  "I just saw somebody I thought I knew." He poked at the pudding, then glanced at the pale, blond girl. She was staring at him again. She was exotic, dangerous, Faye Dunaway in Chinatown.

  Sure, something's wrong, Queen Starlene. Someday when you have a few years, maybe I'll tell you. Until then, ain't no shrink getting inside HERE. Because your kind always has to find something, and you always have to "fix " it, no matter if you break more stuff than you glue back together. So you keep on YOUR side of the table with Mr. Hunk-a-Hunka Burnin' Love there, and I'll sit right here, and both of us will get along just fine.

  Just stay out of my head and we'11 be okay. That goes for you, too, Miss Spooky Skeleton Girl who hasn't eaten a bite.

  A bell rang, and Randy checked his watch. "Yard time, soldiers," he barked loudly enough for the entire dining room to hear.

  Deke slipped in a quick lip-synch in imitation of Randy, eliciting giggles from his goon squad. Chairs scraped and flatware clattered as the kids assembled to dispose of their trays. Freeman took a last stab at the pudding and slipped a forkful into his mouth. It even tasted beige.

  Starlene smiled at him, an alfalfa sprout caught between her teeth. Freeman felt guilty for trying to read her. She was the only one here who had been nice to him so far. Maybe he could use it later on, play that particular character flaw to his own advantage. The best victims were those blinded by their own sincerity.

  Freeman ended up in line behind the skeletal blonde. He wasn't sure if he'd slowed his pace to arrange the encounter or if it was coincidence. Her hair hung halfway to her waist and looked so soft it was almost translucent against her baggy black shirt. Freeman stared straight ahead hoping she wouldn't turn around and speak to him.

  She scraped her plate into the garbage can. It was obvious she had stirred her food but had eaten nothing.

  One of the counselors came over, a man in a vee-necked sweater and carefully trimmed mustache. "How was your dinner, Vicky?"

  "Fine, Allen," she said.

  "Looks like you had a big appetite tonight." Not a hint of sarcasm.

  "It was yummy."

  He patted her on the shoulder. "We'll have you up to fighting weight in no time."

  Allen left and Vicky brushed her hand across the spot he had touched as if ridding herself of cobwebs. Freeman couldn't believe she had fooled the counselor so completely. Either she was smart, or Allen was stone dumb. Or maybe a little of both.

  Freeman put his tray in the window slot. A conveyor belt carried the dirty dishes into the mysterious depths of the dishwasher's room. The churning of water and the hum of rubber belts reverberated inside the little space. Freeman stuck his head in to see if an actual human being did the work or if the system was automated like something out of The Jetsons.

  Standing beside a large rack of glasses was the strange old guy Freeman had seen shuffling down the hall earlier. Maybe he was a janitor after all. No, not a janitor. Custodian. Everybody got a special name for their jobs these days so they could feel good about themselves.

  The man didn't take any notice of Freeman. He probably saw dozens of kids come and go, change placements, rejoin their families, or have the juvenile justice system finally catch up with them. The man's blank eyes were undoubtedly a gift of evolution, a survival mechanism. The less you see, the less you know. The less you know, the better off you are.

  Sounded like a pretty good philosophy. If the game was to be invisible, then the man in the dirty gown was a master.

  Freeman tossed his fork into a pan of soapy water, then turned and found himself face-to-face with Vicky.

  "By the way," she said. "You didn't accidentally read my mind. I read yours."

  She walked away, joining the herd of kids gathering to go outside. Her next words slipped inside Freeman's skull without the benefit of sound: You 're not the only one who's special.

  EIGHT

  Bondurant felt humbled here, the only place in Wendover that wasn't part of the domain he ruled. Two walls were lined with equipment: computers and monitors and racks of color-coded wires. Shelves of thick books covered a third wall, texts of everything from clinical cases to alternative religions to New Age healing modalities. A faint air of ungodliness cramped these quarters. Dr. Kracowski's office reeked of seeking.

  Bondurant looked through the two-way mirror that bridged the office to Room Thirteen. Kracowski was attaching tiny electrode patches to a young, dark-skinned boy. The boy sat on the bed in gym shorts, socks, and nothing else except for the rubber circles stuck to his chest and his left temple. Bondurant pulled the boy's case file from his mental drawer.

  Mario Diego Rios. Nine years old. Found at a bus station in Raleigh where he had gone without food for three days. His dad, a mechanic for the bus line, had locked him in an unlit storage closet. Little Mario still suffered nightmares, even after intensive talk therapy and Bondurant's prayer sessions. Since the abandonment, Mario couldn't stand to be in enclosed places.

  Which was why the boy was trembling now, because Thirteen was fairly cramped. Kracowski said something to Mario, which was picked up by a microphone in the ceiling. The displaced words came to Bondurant through the computer speakers.

  "It's okay, son. I'm going to help you. But first you're going to have to do something for me. Can you do that? Por favor?"

  The boy nodded, lips tight.

  "You're going to have to think about something."

  The boy looked at the door, then at the mirror.

  "It's going to seem a little scary at first, but that's the only way I can help you."

  The boy's brown face faded to light tan.

  "You trust me, don't you, Mario?"

  The computer recorded data from the patches that covered the boy's chest and head. The boy's heartbeat played out on a graph, along with a corresponding jagged line that had something to do with Kracowski's electrodes. An inset image showed a multi-colored map of the boy's cranial cavity on one corner of the screen. Bondurant concentrated on the graphics so he wouldn't have to see the boy's frightened face. Green, purple, and red fields marked a transverse image of the boy's brain.

  "Think back for me," said Kracowski, his voice low and soothing. "Can you do that?"

  Then, "Good."

  The jagged line rose slightly as the boy's heart rate increased. The purple field on the brain scan shifted to red, measuring increased blood flow.

  Through the microphone: "I want you to remember what it was like in the storage closet."

  The line jumped, spiked, fell off rapidly, and jumped again. The red of the colored brain map pushed at the green.

  "Dark," said Kracowski. "You feel the walls closing in, don't you?"

  The line made a saw-tooth pattern, the peaks nearly touching the top of the computer screen. A tape machine whirred, recording the session. The computer printer spat out a paper version of the data being stored on the hard drive.

  Kracowski's voice went even lower. "You're trapped, aren't you? You scream and nobody can hear you."

  The boy's rapid panting was picked up by the microphone. Bondurant couldn't resist any longer. He looked away from the machines and through the mirror. Kracowski stood over the boy, fidgeting with the buttons on a small box that looked like a cross between a television remote and a control for a radio-operated toy. The boy's eyes were pressed so tightly together that they quivered.

  "Now, Mario, what you're feeling is the negative energy inflicted by the experience," the doctor said, as if the boy could understand those big words. "The fear has disrupted your energy fields and blocked the normal flow of your emotions."

  The doctor poised a finger over his control box. "I can help you. Now, it's going to hurt for just a moment, but I want you to keep thinking about that small, dark space."

  Kracowski pressed a button and the boy shook uncontrollably for a couple of seconds. Bondurant glanced with concern at the computer monitor and saw that the bottom line had flattened. The boy's heart had stopped.

  Bondurant
clasped his hands together and asked Jesus to have mercy, on both the boy and on Wendover's good standing.

  In Thirteen, the boy had fallen back on the bed. Kracowski adjusted the controls on his handheld box, then thumbed a lever. Both lines on the computerized chart took a wild leap, then ran together in synch. The gap between the lines had narrowed, the top one no longer jagged and inconsistent. The red on the brain map softened and faded to a placid purple.

  Kracowski bent over Mario and lifted one of the boy's eyelids. The doctor smiled, turned to the mirror, and nodded, then began removing the electrode patches. Kracowski turned off the lights and left the room.

  A few moments later the office door opened. Bondurant pretended to study the odd items on Dr. Kracowski's desk. A human brain, crenulated and obscene-looking, floated in a jar of formaldehyde. The label on the jar read "Do Not Open Until Judgment Day." Bondurant shuddered at the sacrilege.

  "Satisfied?" Kracowski brushed past Bondurant and dragged the sheaf of printed data toward his desk.

  "As long as he's not dead."

  "He's not only not dead he's better than ever. How long have your therapists been working with the boy?"

  "Six months."

  "Six months of suggestion and mind games and feigned kindness. And the boy's claustrophobia didn't improve."

  "Of course not."

  "Post-traumatic stress disorder, adjustment disorder, possible Axis IV diagnosis of situational heart arrhythmia due to anxiety. Far too much negative energy, wouldn't you say?"

  Kracowski sat behind the desk. Bondurant stood like a servant awaiting orders. "The boy's afraid of the dark. The Lord is the light," Bondurant said.

  "You found one answer, and it works for you, no matter the question." Kracowski nodded at the bookshelf. "But there are ten thousand paths to knowledge or God or truth. According to quantum theory, we don't even exist as separate entities because our atoms have no substance when you get close to the center. According to the Taoist philosophy, the closer you get to the center, the farther you are from where you were going. According to Dr. Richard Kracowski, the center and the outer limits are exactly the same."

  Bondurant looked at the dark window into Thirteen. "What happens when he wakes up and starts screaming?"

  Kracowski tented his hands, the fingers like painted bones. "He won't scream."

  "Every night since his arrival, he has insisted on a night light."

  "That's one of your mistakes. You're treating the symptoms, not the underlying cause."

  "Sure. We also fed him, taught him, gave him individual counseling and group therapy. We allowed him to grieve."

  "You allowed him to grieve for a father who cared so little that he would lock away his own flesh and blood. You should have taught the boy to hate that bastard."

  "That's not the compassionate care that Wendover represents."

  "I'm not talking about the mission statements and slogans that you pitch at your child psychology conferences. I'm talking about perfect harmony and alignment."

  Kracowski tapped the computer screen. The brain map was now a deep cobalt blue. "That, Mister Bondurant, is the color of healing. Cobalt blue is the color of God."

  Bondurant watched the computer monitor as it paced out the boy's steady heartbeat. "So you heal them by killing them for a few seconds."

  "Synaptic Synergy Therapy works. Low voltage at the proper emotional meridians, applied just long enough to disrupt the blockage. Multi-wavelength electromagnetic fields to influence the brain's neurotransmitters and blood flow. Radiopharmaceuticals to chart the brain chemistry. And add the power of positive thinking."

  Bondurant turned. "No matter that it disrupts the heart's functioning?"

  Kracowski smiled, his cheeks creased into shadowed pits. "A man of faith should know that the heart and mind are connected."

  "The girl. Did you give her an SST treatment as well as the rebirthing therapy?"

  "You did want to cure her promiscuity, didn't you? Isn't that one of the things Moses forbade on his dear stone tablets?"

  "God told Moses nothing about treating claustrophobia," Bondurant said.

  "Did you ever consider," Kracowski said, leaning forward, "that God might have told me instead?"

  Bondurant swallowed. Kracowski was taunting him, knowing who controlled Wendover's purse strings. And the silent investors had kicked in a ten percent salary bonus for Bondurant. With great power came great responsibility and a ton more bullshit to swallow. Bondurant was about to speak when the computer began beeping and the printer scrolled more paper toward the floor.

  "The boy," Kracowski said. "He's waking up."

  "For heaven's sake, turn on the lights over there."

  "Oh ye of little faith."

  "You haven't heard his screams. You're never around at night."

  "I might be around more often than you think." Kracowski approached the mirror. "And cameras never lie."

  Inside Thirteen, the boy's outline was faintly visible in the darkness. His eyes snapped open and his gasp was audible over the microphone. The heart rate graph rose in intensity. Bondurant clenched his fingers.

  Darkness. He'11 think he's back in the closet. Now he'11 scream.

  The boy sat up. On the monitor, the twin lines rose and fell in parallel motion. The brain image glowed in bands of red and indigo.

  "See the upper reading?" Kracowski said. "That's his energy field as measured across the meridian points I devised. Did you notice how erratic the reading was before my treatment?"

  "You mean before you gave him electroshock?"

  "Mr. Bondurant, that's a crude comparison. I'm not a psychosurgeon. I don't try to cure by destroying the brain. I don't give frontal lobotomies, or whatever term they use these days for systematic depersonalization. I merely drive away the traumatic residue that blocks the normal functioning of the brain's neurotransmitters."

  Gobbledygook, Bondurant thought. Kracowski's tech-nobabble was as bad as me counselors' psychobabble.

  Mario looked around unhurried, curious. It had taken three grown men to restrain the boy during his first night here, when the lights were turned off in the Blue Room and the boy fled for the exit, clawed at the walls, rammed his skull against the steel door. Now the boy sat in the dark as if meditating with open eyes.

  "He's not screaming," Bondurant said.

  "He doesn't seem to be uncomfortable in the confined space," Kracowski said.

  The monitor showed the top line on the chart had leveled out while the bottom line rose and fell steadily. Kracowski waved a hand to indicate the pattern. "Calm as a nursing infant."

  "I must admit, the treatment is impressive. How long do the effects last?"

  "My initial research shows that it may be temporary. But even if the neurotransmitters must be, shall we say, 'realigned' every month, that's a much better success rate than any of your shrinks can claim."

  Mario looked at the mirror, and for a moment, Bondurant was struck with the impression that the boy could see him. "What about potential cardiac damage?"

  "No chance. It's as if a light switch was flipped off and then back on."

  "Let's hope so. One incident, and the state licensing board and the Social Services investigators will sweep through this place like storm troopers. I don't think they would find your techniques in the chapter on standard practices."

  "Your job is to keep them away. At least until I've finished my work. Then they, like the rest of the world, will finally see the light."

  Bondurant shuddered at the way Kracowski had emphasized the word work. He'd said it with an almost religious fervor. Kracowski might have made a good pastor. But the man found his pleasure in healing a troubled brain instead of leading a troubled heart to the Lord.

  Inside the darkened room, Mario called out. "Hello? Are we finished yet? I'm hungry."

  Kracowski pressed a button and the lights blazed in Thirteen. "I didn't say I could cure his eating disorder. Let's save that for next time."

 
Randy and Dr. Swenson entered from the hall and removed Mario's restraints. Dr. Swenson asked "Mario, are you ready to play a game of cards?"

  "Cards?" he said. "Que Clase?"

  Kracowski smiled.

  Bondurant was afraid to ask if an SST treatment caused any other negative side effects besides temporary death.

  NINE

  Figured it wouldn't last.

  Yard Time had been nice, and Freeman was able to score a good spot on the rocks, bathing in the sun with his eyes closed. He was surprised the kids were allowed near the lake since it might prove tempting to the potential suicide cases among them. Many of the kids had broken into groups near the main building. The shouts and rubbery thuds of a soccer match rose from the lawn.

  Freeman opened one eye against the orange blaze of sundown. The mountains huddled like great beasts around the group home. Farms and pastures stretched beyond the fence to the base of the rocky slopes, giving Freeman a sense of unease, as if with two leaps the mountains would be on him, with no trees in the way to slow them down. He hoped he wasn't developing a case of agoraphobia to go along with his other problems.

  Deke and his goon squad were hanging out in a worn spot amid the shrubbery, by the fence at the rear of the property. A gray thread of smoke spun from the shadows, either tobacco or marijuana. Deke probably had a steady supply of contraband, yet another way to maintain his throne and win tribute and loyalty from his dimwitted subjects.

  "A penny for your thoughts," came a voice below him. A girl's.

  Vicky.

  Freeman's breath caught in his lungs, as if he had inhaled one of the high clouds. His pulse jumped in his wrists and his scar itched. He snapped his eye shut and wondered if he should pretend to be asleep.

  "How about a dime?" she said.

  Freeman blinked and sat up, feigning drowsiness. She'd claimed to have ESP, and unless she had learned to lie telepathically, he couldn't ignore her forever. And he wasn't sure he wanted to. "Hi."

  "You're new."

  Brilliant powers of observation.

  But before he could twist his mouth into a frown, their eyes met and again Freeman felt his chest expand and his heart float. Or maybe his medicine was screwing with him. "Just got in today."