His Hands were Quiet Page 4

  He again made a pointer finger with great concentration. But he didn’t touch his ear or his nose.

  “Your ear,” Sophie said. She reached out and pinched Raymond’s earlobe. “Touch your ear.”

  Ray-Ray still hovered, hesitant.

  “Touch your ear.” Sophie grasped Raymond’s little clenched fist and raised it up beside his face, touching his fingertip to his earlobe. “Good!” she praised immediately. “Touching your ear. Good listening, Ray-Ray. Have a lick.” She picked up the sucker from beside her and held it out to Raymond, allowing him one lick.

  The stricken expression had disappeared from his face, and he was cheering up. Sophie put the sucker back down in the bowl.

  “Now, touch your ear.”

  The little boy ran his fingers through his hair, tousling it and winding a lock around his finger. Sophie waited.

  Ray-Ray raised his finger and touched his earlobe a second time.

  “Good boy, Ray-Ray!” Sophie praised. “Good job.” She tickled his neck and offered him a lick of the lollipop. “One more time, and you can play with the toy. Okay?”

  He started to clap, and Sophie pressed his hands back down to the table again.

  “Ready? Touch your nose, Ray-Ray.”

  He made a pointer finger and touched his ear.

  “No!” Sophie slapped her hand down on the table.

  Ray-Ray burst into tears.

  Zachary realized he was gripping the sides of his chair, his knuckles white. He looked over at Abato.

  “It’s okay,” Dr. Abato assured him. “He’s fine. He’ll calm down in a minute.”

  “Isn’t she being pretty harsh with him? He’s just a little guy and he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “We need to be very clear when he is giving the right response and when he is not. There can’t be any confusion. He needs immediate, clear feedback.”

  When Zachary didn’t respond, he explained further.

  “It’s like training a dog,” he said logically. “When the dog sits, you give him a treat, right? And when he jumps up, you tell him ‘no’ and push him down. He learns to do the things that earn him a treat, and to avoid the things that cause an unpleasant response.”

  Zachary was uncomfortable with Ray-Ray being compared to a dog. It might sound like a logical course of action, but he was a child, not an animal.

  “But teaching a child, especially one as disabled as the kids we treat here, isn’t as simple as training a dog,” Abato said. “He doesn’t just need to sit and stay. He needs to learn complex language, behavior, social skills, life skills. If that little boy is ever going to be independent and contribute to society instead of being a drag on it, he has a lot to learn.”

  Zachary looked at the little boy, already starting to settle down and wipe his tears away. “He doesn’t seem that… different,” he said. “He seems like any other… neurotypical kid.”

  “Does he?” Abato considered Raymond through the glass. “That just shows you how well we are doing with him. How far he has come since he started with us. When Raymond was first evaluated by our staff, he couldn’t sit in a chair. He flapped and clapped his hands all the time. He couldn’t follow a single instruction. He chattered constantly about his favorite show. Top Gear.”

  Zachary couldn’t help but smile at that. Maybe Ray-Ray would grow up to become a mechanic. It was a useful skill. If he’d already started learning about car engines at age five, he’d be an expert by the time he was an adult. Fixing his mother’s car. Maybe all of the cars on the block.

  “You may think that’s cute behavior,” Dr. Abato said. “But it is dysfunctional. And when he’s seventeen and aggressive and won’t be dissuaded from his pet topic, it stops being cute. He won’t be able to make friends, get a job, or have any productive interaction with his community. If we don’t break him of it. How functional is it for him to be able to tell you how to put an engine together if he can’t tell the difference between his nose and his ear?”

  “Well… okay,” Zachary admitted. “He needs to learn those things. Or whatever he can.”

  “Kids like Raymond have to be explicitly taught how to function in society. They don’t pick it up by just watching other people. We have the ability to make him indistinguishable from his peers, if we have enough time with him. That’s the goal here. Not just learning to touch his ear or his nose. But to break down every skill he needs to know as a functioning human being, and teach them to him, one step at a time. We’ll repeat the same exercise a hundred times. A thousand times. Ten thousand times. Whatever it takes for him to learn it.”

  “Wow. Okay.”

  They turned their attention back to Sophie and Ray-Ray. Ray-Ray was no longer crying, but still looked miserable. His hair was more untidy than ever. He motioned to the toy on the table. “Play time?”

  “No, Ray-Ray. It’s not play time. No toys if you can’t do what you’re told.”

  He looked around the room. His gaze lingered on a cupboard mounted on the wall. It was out of the boy’s reach, and a padlock hung through the eyelet of the latch, keeping it shut. The padlock wasn’t locked, but perhaps if Raymond had been older and taller, it would have been, to keep him away from whatever was in there. Zachary’s heart went out to the little guy. He remembered having nothing as a foster child. Having only his clothes and toothbrush in a plastic shopping bag and having that taken away from him by a foster parent. Having them act as if it were their own property, to do with as they pleased. As if Zachary himself were another piece of their property, to acquire, use, and dispose of as they pleased. Sophie and Dr. Abato thought they had every right to treat Raymond as they pleased. To take away his possessions and lock them up. To train him to do what they wanted him to. Because he was just a child. A broken child who needed to be fixed.

  “Go home?” Ray-Ray asked.

  “No. It’s school time. You need to work hard. If you do what I tell you to, you can play with a toy. And you’ll go home when we’re all done.”

  He flapped his hands beside his face. Sophie pressed them to the table. “Quiet hands.”

  Ray-Ray held his hands together on the table, his expression pained. Sophie went on with the session.

  “I want you to come give me a hug, Ray-Ray.”

  Zachary was taken aback. He looked over at Dr. Abato to see if he would put a stop to this, but he didn’t. Sophie waited.

  “Stand up,” she instructed eventually.

  Ray-Ray sat there, looking at the toy on the table and at his hands held quietly on the table in front of him. When he didn’t respond, Sophie stood up herself. She reached around the little table and pulled Ray-Ray to his feet.

  “Give me a hug,” she told him again.

  The boy stood there like a statue for a moment, then started to shuffle toward her, inching his feet forward, until he was close enough to press his body against hers. He didn’t reach up and put his arms around her.

  “Give a hug,” Sophie prompted again. She reached down to grab Ray-Ray’s arms and wrapped them around her body. She held them there for a moment, then let them go, praising him. “Good hug, Ray-Ray. Hugging is nice, isn’t it? Hugging makes people feel good.” She grabbed the lollipop to give him a lick.

  Zachary ventured another look at Abato, still waiting for him to step in and intervene. Abato gave him a supercilious smile. “Hugs are as necessary a part of our social construct as shaking hands,” he informed Zachary. “We hug our friends and family as a greeting, to comfort each other, to initiate a romantic relationship… we can’t get along in life without human touch, no matter what sensory defensiveness we might have. Don’t you think Raymond’s mother wants to be able to hug him when she says hello or puts him to bed at night? Wants him to be able to hug his grandmother when she comes to visit? Wants him to grow up and meet a nice girl and have a relationship? Of course she does. All parents want those things for their children. And that’s our job here. To teach kids all of those little things, so that they can be comfo
rtable and make friends and function normally.”

  Zachary looked back at the therapist and her charge. Sophie continued to put Raymond through the paces, requesting hugs, making him hold her tighter or longer, until he was responding on command each time.

  Chapter Six

  L

  et’s see how he is able to generalize this skill,” Dr. Abato suggested.

  Zachary frowned, not sure what the doctor meant. Dr. Abato stood up and Zachary followed his lead. The doctor smoothed back his hair and went to the door of the therapy room. He checked to make sure that Zachary was following him and let himself in.

  Sophie looked up to see who was interrupting her session and gave Dr. Abato a plastic smile. “Doctor.”

  “Raymond.” Dr. Abato waited for the boy to look at him. “Come give me a hug.” He opened his arms in invitation.

  Ray-Ray looked at Dr. Abato, then back at Sophie, waiting for her instruction. She remained silent, not giving him any indication one way or the other what he should do. A few seconds of silence ticked by. Then the boy moved slowly to approach Abato and give him a hug. He barely touched Dr. Abato, then withdrew again quickly. Abato reached around him and gave him a squeeze, holding on to him firmly. Ray-Ray squirmed to get loose.

  “Good job,” Sophie praised when Dr. Abato released him. “Doesn’t it feel good to get a hug?” She tousled Raymond’s already-messy hair and offered him another lick of the lollipop.

  “Now give Mr. Goldman a hug,” Dr. Abato instructed, waving a hand in Zachary’s direction.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Zachary protested. “He doesn’t know me. I’m just here to observe…”

  “He needs to generalize instructions,” Abato said firmly. “And he needs to learn that a hug is normal, non-threatening contact so that he doesn’t overreact defensively to them in the future. We know what we’re doing here, Mr. Goldman.” He looked at Raymond again. “Give Mr. Goldman a hug.”

  Ray-Ray turned toward Zachary. To his surprise, the boy didn’t shuffle and approach him reluctantly as he had done with Sophie and Dr. Abato. He threw himself at Zachary, wrapped his arms around him, and clung to him tightly. Zachary looked down at him, not sure how to react, then put his arms gently around the little boy and rubbed his back gently. “There,” he said gently. “There, that’s okay.”

  Dr. Abato chuckled. “Okay, let him go now, Raymond.”

  Raymond continued to hold on to Zachary, his grip not loosening. Zachary wasn’t sure what to do about it, continuing to rub Ray-Ray’s back soothingly. But Sophie wasn’t waiting for anyone else to act. She strode across the small room and grabbed hold of Raymond, peeling his hands away from Zachary.

  “You need to listen,” she chided.

  The boy struggled, striking out blindly with fists and feet, letting out a howl of protest. Sophie took him back to his chair and dropped him back into it.

  “Proper sitting,” she told him, holding him in place. “You know what to do. Show me proper sitting.”

  He gradually stopped struggling and sat still. Sophie went back around the table to her seat and looked across the table at him.

  “Look at me, Ray-Ray.”

  He sat there with his face blank and his eyes distant, not acknowledging that there was even anyone else in the room.

  “Raymond. Look at me. Eye contact.”

  He didn’t budge.

  “This kind of defiant behavior is not acceptable,” Sophie snapped. She reached across the table, holding Raymond’s head between her hands, and centered his face directly in front of her own. She leaned forward, just inches away from his face, eye-to-eye.

  Raymond started to howl as if she were hurting him. He clawed at her hands and spat at her, trying to pull away.

  “No,” Sophie said firmly. “Stop. I’m not letting you go until you listen. You make your body quiet and show me good eye contact, then I’ll let you go. I can’t talk to you until you show me eye contact.”

  He continued to struggle for what seemed like an eternity. Zachary stood there, his whole body rigid, wanting to rescue the little boy. But Sophie and Dr. Abato were silently insistent. With no other options, Raymond finally stopped trying to get Sophie to let him go and looked into her eyes with his tear-filled brown eyes. He whimpered and sniffled, but didn’t struggle. Sophie let him go. Ray-Ray’s body immediately slumped.

  “No,” Sophie warned. “Proper sitting.”

  He was coaxed into an attentive sitting posture, shoulders back, feet flat on the floor.

  “Hands on the table,” Sophie instructed. “Show me quiet hands.”

  With a great effort, as if he were holding bowling balls in them, Raymond arranged his hands on the table, both of them cupped slightly, one hand resting in the other. Sophie nodded.

  “Good hands,” she approved, and stroked his messy hair. “That’s a good boy.”

  Zachary was exhausted as Dr. Abato led him out of the therapy room. All he had been doing was observing, yet he’d been so tense and rigid, his heart pounding so hard, he felt like he’d just had a huge fight.

  Dr. Abato smiled at him cheerfully, as if he’d been energized rather than drained.

  “He’s come such a long way,” he told Zachary. “If you’d seen Raymond when he first came to us, you would not believe he was the same child.” He looked at his watch, frowning. “It did take a long time, though. I have time to take you to Quentin’s room, and that will have to be it. I have other things I need to do today, I just can’t spend the whole day talking to you.”

  “Okay. Lead the way.” Zachary was relieved that there was only one more thing to do; then he could go home and veg for a while and get his energy and his perspective back again. Even with all of the brightly-painted, well-lit rooms, the institution felt oppressive. It reminded him too much of all of his hospital and institutional stays. He couldn’t help feeling like if he stayed there too long, they would lock him up again. They would see through his thin veneer of civilization and realize that he too needed to be properly trained before he could function on his own in the real world.

  The doctor continued to patter away as he led Zachary down the halls, out of the therapy wing and into living quarters. Zachary barely heard a word he said. It was probably in all of the online information on the institution’s website anyway. Zachary could review it later, when he was at home and could concentrate on the words without being distracted by his own demons.

  Abato stopped at a door and opened it for Zachary. “This was Quentin’s room.”

  Zachary looked around. He wasn’t sure what he had expected. A pool of blood? Quentin’s sheets still on the floor? An untouched crime scene?

  It was just a small, square room. A bunk attached to the wall. A small, drab, institutional dresser with four drawers. A little closet with no doors and no hangers on the rod. Painted semigloss institutional white, scuff marks and chips here and there. They would repaint it and put another boy there.

  Zachary rubbed the back of his neck. “Were you here when they found him?”

  “It was early morning, I wasn’t on yet. We do have medical personnel on staff. Of course, we have to, dealing with residents who are violent or self-injure. Nonverbal residents can’t always communicate that they’re sick or hurt and can be seriously ill before we find out something is wrong. Even if we’re just dealing with day-to-day colds and flus, we need someone on staff. Epidemics can run rampant in places where so many people are in such close contact.”

  “So someone on site was called? Who was it that found him?”

  “One of the unit supervisors, when he didn’t come out for breakfast.”

  Zachary could visualize it. The reveille or breakfast bell rang, and everyone lined up for their food. Someone noticed Quentin’s absence. A supervisor went to find him, discovering he had died in the night.

  “The photographs show that he was on the floor instead of on the bed,” Zachary said, sketching out the location of the body in the cell with his hands and evaluating
the view angle from the observation window set in the door.

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “Is anyone checking on the residents at night? Are the doors locked or unlocked?”

  Dr. Abato pursed his lips. “Most of the doors are unlocked. If a resident is prone to wandering or is a danger to others, they are locked. But most of them, no, not locked.”

  “And was Quentin’s?”

  “Quentin could be violent. If he’d had any episodes during the day, his door would probably be locked. But I’d have to get someone to check the records. See if it was logged.”

  “There’s not a rule that it has to be recorded? It might not have been?”

  “No, there’s not a specific rule about recording locks. But everything out of the ordinary is supposed to be logged. We keep detailed records on therapies, behaviors, how many times a child has to be prompted… all of that. If his door was locked, I expect someone would have made a note of it.”

  “Wouldn’t the supervisor who opened his door be able to tell you? Whether she had to unlock it or not?”

  “No.” Abato smiled. “We all have proximity keys.” He showed Zachary a plain bracelet around his wrist. “When you reach out to open a door, it unlocks. She wouldn’t notice whether it was locked or unlocked, because she would be able to open it either way.”

  “Oh.” Zachary nodded. “That’s cool.” He thought about it. “They’re all individually programmed? So different staff would have access to different areas.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So who would have had access to Quentin’s room?” Zachary made a gesture to indicate his surroundings.

  “Anyone with an administrative or high-security rating. The unit supervisors and security staff. His therapists.”

  “Why would his therapists have access to his room?”

  Abato raised his brows. “So they could come and get him when it was time for a session.”

  “A supervisor or guard wouldn’t just open it for them?”

  “Why, when we’ve got this system that allows personalized access? No need to bother anyone else, they just collect the kids they need.”