Thanatoscycle 05/22/2012 12:39:00 AM
TOADY'S MARKER
All of us knew him as Toady. We never knew his name, not his legal name, nor whether any law in the world applied to him. He ambled genially, full-figured in loose-fitting pants; State-issue seersucker shirt left him plenty of motion. Unlike us he wore that shameful shirt without a blink; we were allowed clothes from home if our parents could tender them. To our knowledge he had no parents.
Toady moved among us with a cheer that, until you knew him, was chilling. Nothing could perturb him; the word ”enemy” was not in his lexicon. This dropped a few jaws among the newer of us, to whom the world was crawling with threats. No delusion when you can be strapped or flayed at an instant's notice, when 30 of us were jammed together for ”disciplinary,” butts on the chilly floor, backs against cold grey lockers, for an hour at a stretch. By the same token friendship—when it means a bond against foes—escaped his brain. No one grew close with Toady, including me, his work partner by lot. To us he was an emblem, the kid brother who'd never learn, the boy who was not and could never be meshed with our world. We spared him the roughhouse, the strip games, the taunts, the King o' the Hill and most of all our hatred. Hatred even then coiling and ready to strike, two decades later, swift as a viper from heart straight to fingertips. Toady was shielded, as much as barred windows allowed.
But no woman with a mother's heart escaped his charm. Those pale blue eyes seemed ever to chase around the clouds, circle the cirrus in search of a sweetheart, a partner he knew beyond our grasp. Sometimes Freeman or the more perceptive boys would tease, ”Where is she now?” Toady looked downward as though guarding a secret. Few of us were blessed with his supple sureness; even fewer would care to pay the price.
”I'm a psychomotor epileptic!” That boast drew target hairs across his throat. Those merry hands drew down not hatred but a plan. ”Clear him out!”
We knew the marks, those of us who survived. We saw, but dared not cross, his starry gulf. Any who touched him, bound to have it rough. And any fool who'd clasp his hand was good as dead.
There was no fool. I touched, before I knew.
One July afternoon Toady and I were picked for garden duty. The Santa Ana winds of spring had dried the soil, withered most of the grass; what remained in our planters and beds was leached beyond benefit. ”Water it up, you yo-yos, your plants will grow.” Fairy tales from techs.
But with my pickaxe, his rake and spade and some geraniums given us from the beneficence of the State, the coughing rebel and the darling of the ward broke ground. My blisters. His gentle hands. No gloves, of course. Slave labor. When the flowers were nicely settled in their beds and Mrs. Larsen sounded ”Medication time,” he and I dragged the tools round to a shed behind the eaves. Shotta forced tranquility, we could care less. In the shower room we splashed our faces and trooped out to TV, waiting for chow hall.
That night was quiet—too quiet. No hill hikes with Johnny and Marcia, only Bob Stroh leading the next session of fingers 'n' strumming on the guitar. The star hellraisers were shunted down to the pool, so my pal Carl and I wavered between new licks with Bob and my solitary Les Miserables. Disgruntled, Carl enticed me to his cell for some rework of our endless electronic fantasies. Would Knight-Kit ever have the power of tubes? Behind me, a cinderbrick away in the next cell, slept Toady. ”I hope he's quiet,” I muttered to Carl.
After showers and the mop 'n' scrub detail that kept us 13 hard-core survivors nourished at all, I walked to my single cell. Stared east at the heat waves rising above Helmet Hill. ”Keep him safe!” was all I prayed to the moon.
Next afternoon, after a watchful morning in which not even Geisweit found a pry point for her spite, Toady had withdrawn into his cell. Huddled beside the bed, squatting, arms outstretched. Like a singed tree beneath an thunderhead. From curiosity John D, the man to beat in our games, peered in. I joined him on his right side, tinged with foreboding.
Then Toady's shoulders shook. His eyes rolled to the ceiling, implored his hovering sister. He tried to steady his left hand with his right, then pain convulsed and doubled him at his gut.
Luckily the kindly Mrs. Larsen applied the straps. She knew how not to pain a child. But suddenly shoving me aside came malevolent Russ, with loaded hypodermic. He'd quiet that dreamy heap of meat, at last!
The needle jabbed like a cobra's fang! Russ, smiling baleful glee, took his time. Not to waste a single milliliter of that strong drug. Toady calmed. His eyes reached up again, and closed.
I don't know whether he ever wakened. But he never got out of it. Russ saw to that. That syringe could hold just a 20% surplus.
A man in red knocked me to the left. John D was starting to feel threatened! Against my shock, I smiled friendship at him. He tapped my shoulderblade. Between us, he signalled, it's all right!
”Outta my way, smartass!” the redshirt shouted. John and I jumped away from the gurney. We saw Mrs. Larsen on Toady's left, Russ on his right.
By that time Carl had joined us. I searched his black eyes, but he had beaten me to it. We knew. I shivered, and against our proud show we hugged. That gurney was bound for the Old Side. Nobody needed to say it. Where millions of volts would chase his visions away.
As Toady passed beneath our eyes, I shuddered. Long as I'd known him,he seemed to chase a girl, a sister, a fantastic image quiet to him, beyond my reach. In drug-induced twilight, was he chasing her then?
Is he chasing her still??
I, and all of us, could see this gentle soul as a dolphin. A breed of its own intelligence, mute to us but for bright eyes and quick hands. With its own companions, a little amazed at our foolery. And I ask you, reading me, is America's goal to exterminate the dolphins? These dolphins? Who may not once contribute to corporate society? Who'll never murder babies with Agent Orange? Who can't apply to IBM or Halliburton? Who will never hang from southern trees any Strange Fruit? Who can't join Ed Teller in stockpiling 70,000 H-bombs? Who don't care for a career with Elizabeth Arden, to whom Eddie Haskell means nothing? Whose wives don't sell Tupperware? How are we to know they've nothing better to do? Just that they'd rather not tell us?
Exterminate the dolphins! Phillip Bouhler, head of Hitler's chancellry, thought so when he took over as head of Aktion T4 to enforce the secret edict of 9-1-39 for ”disinfection”of the populace. This policy was illegal even under Nazi codes,but no jusge stood up to it. On 1-13-41 Bouhler supervised the first mass extermination at Hadamar, near Limburg. Cleanse the population. Starting with the least appealing, the least German, the least—American? Did my uncle stock our aircraft carriers in the Pacific so that another Bouhler, by any name, might murder in California? Or did we believe then, somewhere, in Roosevelt's Four Freedoms? One of which is freedom from fear?
I want my work partner to have a marker, a bronze plaque right at the center of CSU Channel Islands, beneath pink geraniums like those we planted:
”For the victims of the California Health Authority who died here unmourned, from 1936 to 1997--
NEVER AGAIN!”
TOADY'S MARKER
All of us knew him as Toady. We never knew his name, not his legal name, nor whether any law in the world applied to him. He ambled genially, full-figured in loose-fitting pants; State-issue seersucker shirt left him plenty of motion. Unlike us he wore that shameful shirt without a blink; we were allowed clothes from home if our parents could tender them. To our knowledge he had no parents.
Toady moved among us with a cheer that, until you knew him, was chilling. Nothing could perturb him; the word ”enemy” was not in his lexicon. This dropped a few jaws among the newer of us, to whom the world was crawling with threats. No delusion when you can be strapped or flayed at an instant's notice, when 30 of us were jammed together for ”disciplinary,” butts on the chilly floor, backs against cold grey lockers, for an hour at a stretch. By the same token friendship—when it means a bond against foes—escaped his brain. No one grew close with Toady, including me, his work partner by lot. To us he was an emblem, the kid brother who'd never learn, the boy who was not and could never be meshed with our world. We spared him the roughhouse, the strip games, the taunts, the King o' the Hill and most of all our hatred. Hatred even then coiling and ready to strike, two decades later, swift as a viper from heart straight to fingertips. Toady was shielded, as much as barred windows allowed.
But no woman with a mother's heart escaped his charm. Those pale blue eyes seemed ever to chase around the clouds, circle the cirrus in search of a sweetheart, a partner he knew beyond our grasp. Sometimes Freeman or the more perceptive boys would tease, ”Where is she now?” Toady looked downward as though guarding a secret. Few of us were blessed with his supple sureness; even fewer would care to pay the price.
”I'm a psychomotor epileptic!” That boast drew target hairs across his throat. Those merry hands drew down not hatred but a plan. ”Clear him out!”
We knew the marks, those of us who survived. We saw, but dared not cross, his starry gulf. Any who touched him, bound to have it rough. And any fool who'd clasp his hand was good as dead.
There was no fool. I touched, before I knew.
One July afternoon Toady and I were picked for garden duty. The Santa Ana winds of spring had dried the soil, withered most of the grass; what remained in our planters and beds was leached beyond benefit. ”Water it up, you yo-yos, your plants will grow.” Fairy tales from techs.
But with my pickaxe, his rake and spade and some geraniums given us from the beneficence of the State, the coughing rebel and the darling of the ward broke ground. My blisters. His gentle hands. No gloves, of course. Slave labor. When the flowers were nicely settled in their beds and Mrs. Larsen sounded ”Medication time,” he and I dragged the tools round to a shed behind the eaves. Shotta forced tranquility, we could care less. In the shower room we splashed our faces and trooped out to TV, waiting for chow hall.
That night was quiet—too quiet. No hill hikes with Johnny and Marcia, only Bob Stroh leading the next session of fingers 'n' strumming on the guitar. The star hellraisers were shunted down to the pool, so my pal Carl and I wavered between new licks with Bob and my solitary Les Miserables. Disgruntled, Carl enticed me to his cell for some rework of our endless electronic fantasies. Would Knight-Kit ever have the power of tubes? Behind me, a cinderbrick away in the next cell, slept Toady. ”I hope he's quiet,” I muttered to Carl.
After showers and the mop 'n' scrub detail that kept us 13 hard-core survivors nourished at all, I walked to my single cell. Stared east at the heat waves rising above Helmet Hill. ”Keep him safe!” was all I prayed to the moon.
Next afternoon, after a watchful morning in which not even Geisweit found a pry point for her spite, Toady had withdrawn into his cell. Huddled beside the bed, squatting, arms outstretched. Like a singed tree beneath an thunderhead. From curiosity John D, the man to beat in our games, peered in. I joined him on his right side, tinged with foreboding.
Then Toady's shoulders shook. His eyes rolled to the ceiling, implored his hovering sister. He tried to steady his left hand with his right, then pain convulsed and doubled him at his gut.
Luckily the kindly Mrs. Larsen applied the straps. She knew how not to pain a child. But suddenly shoving me aside came malevolent Russ, with loaded hypodermic. He'd quiet that dreamy heap of meat, at last!
The needle jabbed like a cobra's fang! Russ, smiling baleful glee, took his time. Not to waste a single milliliter of that strong drug. Toady calmed. His eyes reached up again, and closed.
I don't know whether he ever wakened. But he never got out of it. Russ saw to that. That syringe could hold just a 20% surplus.
A man in red knocked me to the left. John D was starting to feel threatened! Against my shock, I smiled friendship at him. He tapped my shoulderblade. Between us, he signalled, it's all right!
”Outta my way, smartass!” the redshirt shouted. John and I jumped away from the gurney. We saw Mrs. Larsen on Toady's left, Russ on his right.
By that time Carl had joined us. I searched his black eyes, but he had beaten me to it. We knew. I shivered, and against our proud show we hugged. That gurney was bound for the Old Side. Nobody needed to say it. Where millions of volts would chase his visions away.
As Toady passed beneath our eyes, I shuddered. Long as I'd known him,he seemed to chase a girl, a sister, a fantastic image quiet to him, beyond my reach. In drug-induced twilight, was he chasing her then?
Is he chasing her still??
I, and all of us, could see this gentle soul as a dolphin. A breed of its own intelligence, mute to us but for bright eyes and quick hands. With its own companions, a little amazed at our foolery. And I ask you, reading me, is America's goal to exterminate the dolphins? These dolphins? Who may not once contribute to corporate society? Who'll never murder babies with Agent Orange? Who can't apply to IBM or Halliburton? Who will never hang from southern trees any Strange Fruit? Who can't join Ed Teller in stockpiling 70,000 H-bombs? Who don't care for a career with Elizabeth Arden, to whom Eddie Haskell means nothing? Whose wives don't sell Tupperware? How are we to know they've nothing better to do? Just that they'd rather not tell us?
Exterminate the dolphins! Phillip Bouhler, head of Hitler's chancellry, thought so when he took over as head of Aktion T4 to enforce the secret edict of 9-1-39 for ”disinfection”of the populace. This policy was illegal even under Nazi codes,but no jusge stood up to it. On 1-13-41 Bouhler supervised the first mass extermination at Hadamar, near Limburg. Cleanse the population. Starting with the least appealing, the least German, the least—American? Did my uncle stock our aircraft carriers in the Pacific so that another Bouhler, by any name, might murder in California? Or did we believe then, somewhere, in Roosevelt's Four Freedoms? One of which is freedom from fear?
I want my work partner to have a marker, a bronze plaque right at the center of CSU Channel Islands, beneath pink geraniums like those we planted:
”For the victims of the California Health Authority who died here unmourned, from 1936 to 1997--
NEVER AGAIN!”
TOADY'S MARKER
All of us knew him as Toady. We never knew his name, not his legal name, nor whether any law in the world applied to him. He ambled genially, full-figured in loose-fitting pants; State-issue seersucker shirt left him plenty of motion. Unlike us he wore that shameful shirt without a blink; we were allowed clothes from home if our parents could tender them. To our knowledge he had no parents.
Toady moved among us with a cheer that, until you knew him, was chilling. Nothing could perturb him; the word ”enemy” was not in his lexicon. This dropped a few jaws among the newer of us, to whom the world was crawling with threats. No delusion when you can be strapped or flayed at an instant's notice, when 30 of us were jammed together for ”disciplinary,” butts on the chilly floor, backs against cold grey lockers, for an hour at a stretch. By the same token friendship—when it means a bond against foes—escaped his brain. No one grew close with Toady, including me, his work partner by lot. To us he was an emblem, the kid brother who'd never learn, the boy who was not and could never be meshed with our world. We spared him the roughhouse, the strip games, the taunts, the King o' the Hill and most of all our hatred. Hatred even then coiling and ready to strike, two decades later, swift as a viper from heart straight to fingertips. Toady was shielded, as much as barred windows allowed.
But no woman with a mother's heart escaped his charm. Those pale blue eyes seemed ever to chase around the clouds, circle the cirrus in search of a sweetheart, a partner he knew beyond our grasp. Sometimes Freeman or the more perceptive boys would tease, ”Where is she now?” Toady looked downward as though guarding a secret. Few of us were blessed with his supple sureness; even fewer would care to pay the price.
”I'm a psychomotor epileptic!” That boast drew target hairs across his throat. Those merry hands drew down not hatred but a plan. ”Clear him out!”
We knew the marks, those of us who survived. We saw, but dared not cross, his starry gulf. Any who touched him, bound to have it rough. And any fool who'd clasp his hand was good as dead.
There was no fool. I touched, before I knew.
One July afternoon Toady and I were picked for garden duty. The Santa Ana winds of spring had dried the soil, withered most of the grass; what remained in our planters and beds was leached beyond benefit. ”Water it up, you yo-yos, your plants will grow.” Fairy tales from techs.
But with my pickaxe, his rake and spade and some geraniums given us from the beneficence of the State, the coughing rebel and the darling of the ward broke ground. My blisters. His gentle hands. No gloves, of course. Slave labor. When the flowers were nicely settled in their beds and Mrs. Larsen sounded ”Medication time,” he and I dragged the tools round to a shed behind the eaves. Shotta forced tranquility, we could care less. In the shower room we splashed our faces and trooped out to TV, waiting for chow hall.
That night was quiet—too quiet. No hill hikes with Johnny and Marcia, only Bob Stroh leading the next session of fingers 'n' strumming on the guitar. The star hellraisers were shunted down to the pool, so my pal Carl and I wavered between new licks with Bob and my solitary Les Miserables. Disgruntled, Carl enticed me to his cell for some rework of our endless electronic fantasies. Would Knight-Kit ever have the power of tubes? Behind me, a cinderbrick away in the next cell, slept Toady. ”I hope he's quiet,” I muttered to Carl.
After showers and the mop 'n' scrub detail that kept us 13 hard-core survivors nourished at all, I walked to my single cell. Stared east at the heat waves rising above Helmet Hill. ”Keep him safe!” was all I prayed to the moon.
Next afternoon, after a watchful morning in which not even Geisweit found a pry point for her spite, Toady had withdrawn into his cell. Huddled beside the bed, squatting, arms outstretched. Like a singed tree beneath an thunderhead. From curiosity John D, the man to beat in our games, peered in. I joined him on his right side, tinged with foreboding.
Then Toady's shoulders shook. His eyes rolled to the ceiling, implored his hovering sister. He tried to steady his left hand with his right, then pain convulsed and doubled him at his gut.
Luckily the kindly Mrs. Larsen applied the straps. She knew how not to pain a child. But suddenly shoving me aside came malevolent Russ, with loaded hypodermic. He'd quiet that dreamy heap of meat, at last!
The needle jabbed like a cobra's fang! Russ, smiling baleful glee, took his time. Not to waste a single milliliter of that strong drug. Toady calmed. His eyes reached up again, and closed.
I don't know whether he ever wakened. But he never got out of it. Russ saw to that. That syringe could hold just a 20% surplus.
A man in red knocked me to the left. John D was starting to feel threatened! Against my shock, I smiled friendship at him. He tapped my shoulderblade. Between us, he signalled, it's all right!
”Outta my way, smartass!” the redshirt shouted. John and I jumped away from the gurney. We saw Mrs. Larsen on Toady's left, Russ on his right.
By that time Carl had joined us. I searched his black eyes, but he had beaten me to it. We knew. I shivered, and against our proud show we hugged. That gurney was bound for the Old Side. Nobody needed to say it. Where millions of volts would chase his visions away.
As Toady passed beneath our eyes, I shuddered. Long as I'd known him,he seemed to chase a girl, a sister, a fantastic image quiet to him, beyond my reach. In drug-induced twilight, was he chasing her then?
Is he chasing her still??
I, and all of us, could see this gentle soul as a dolphin. A breed of its own intelligence, mute to us but for bright eyes and quick hands. With its own companions, a little amazed at our foolery. And I ask you, reading me, is America's goal to exterminate the dolphins? These dolphins? Who may not once contribute to corporate society? Who'll never murder babies with Agent Orange? Who can't apply to IBM or Halliburton? Who will never hang from southern trees any Strange Fruit? Who can't join Ed Teller in stockpiling 70,000 H-bombs? Who don't care for a career with Elizabeth Arden, to whom Eddie Haskell means nothing? Whose wives don't sell Tupperware? How are we to know they've nothing better to do? Just that they'd rather not tell us?
Exterminate the dolphins! Phillip Bouhler, head of Hitler's chancellry, thought so when he took over as head of Aktion T4 to enforce the secret edict of 9-1-39 for ”disinfection”of the populace. This policy was illegal even under Nazi codes,but no jusge stood up to it. On 1-13-41 Bouhler supervised the first mass extermination at Hadamar, near Limburg. Cleanse the population. Starting with the least appealing, the least German, the least—American? Did my uncle stock our aircraft carriers in the Pacific so that another Bouhler, by any name, might murder in California? Or did we believe then, somewhere, in Roosevelt's Four Freedoms? One of which is freedom from fear?
I want my work partner to have a marker, a bronze plaque right at the center of CSU Channel Islands, beneath pink geraniums like those we planted:
”For the victims of the California Health Authority who died here unmourned, from 1936 to 1997--
NEVER AGAIN!”
