some of your blood by Theodore Sturgeon

Author:Theodore Sturgeon [Sturgeon, Theodore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-11T06:26:10.162000+00:00

8

Here's a sheaf of therapy notes, transcribed from shorthand. Q=Therapist. A=Patient. All notes refer to the case termed AX 544.

March 25.

Morning: 3 hours.

Q: Morning, George.

A: Who--me? George? (Lying on cot. Sits.)

Q: (Shrug.) A good name. You picked it.

A: (Nods.) What I wrote... It work?

Q: Work?

A: To get me out of here.

Q: It works like a brick, George, building something. Part of a whole lot of things.

A: All that. A brick.

Q: That was two whole truckloads, George. That was a good job.

A: (Lies down. Seems angered. Watches Q, eyes slitted. Respiration slow.)

Q: (Turns back. Walks to window. Fills pipe slowly. Lights. Turns. A. now looking, off-focus, at ceiling.) It takes a lot of bricks. But it's the only way.

A: Okay.

Q: No in-and-out this time, George. I'm here till lunch time. (Pause.) If you want me.

A: (Shrugs slightly.)

Q: Want to get to work, then?

A: Doing what?

Q: What I have to do mostly is get to know you real well.

A: Asking questions.

Q: That's one way.

A: Goddam major sent me here... he ask too many questions.

Q: (Recognizing warning: don't pry.) Okay. Let's try this, George. (Starts to lay out Wechsler on table. Curious, George gets up.)

The Army Wechsler Mental scale consists of ten types of questions, some requiring good use of language, others, easy mathematical manipulation, still others solving simple picture puzzles. It is a standard intelligence test, not likely to stir up violent reactions.

Q: (More than an hour later, halfway through tests.) You don't talk much, do you, George? What happened: use up all your words writing?

A: (Slipping from passivity to surliness.) Never did talk much... Quit callin' me George.

Q: Okay... want me to use your real name? (It is Bela--a natural taunt for American juveniles.)

A: Hell no...

(On the Wechsler, he scored at a high average level when it came to understanding conventional meanings and ideas. That is, he knew what was expected of him by people around him. But when the test demanded intense concentration and abstract thinking he did less well. He could not apply his mind to a complex idea or situation. I judged that he was equipped to do it, but was unable--at the moment at least--to use the equipment. It seemed tied up in some other task. He was the figurative clam to the letter, the impenetrable valves open a crack, just sufficient to contact what was immediate, direct, simple, touchable.)

Q: (Looking at watch.) Man, you're movin'! You know we're all done with this and we have a whole hour left? You keep on at this rate...

A: Yeah? (Drops passivity for a quick look at Q. Searching for sincerity. Unused to praise.)

Q: Want to try more?

A: (Dully.) Okay. (Here one could sense, rather than hear or see, a difference in the dullness. This differed from the genuinely, unstirred phlegmaticism. This was almost identical, but an act to conceal an increased awareness.)

Q: This is called the Rorschach.

A: (Defensively) Shock?

The Rorschach is a set of ten standardized "inkblots." (You would make such a blot by putting a blob of ink on paper, folding it in two through the blot, pressing the folded paper flat and then opening it up.

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