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10 April 14: Therapy session.

Q: George, you trust me, don't you?

A: Uh-huh, I guess.

Q: Why do you suppose it's so hard to talk to you?

A: Is it?

Q: Remember when we were doing the Thematic--you know, the pictures where you made up the stories? You were talking a blue streak.

A: Don't rightly remember.

Q: If you could talk straight to me like that, we'd get through real fast.

A: Well I could try.

Q: Attaboy! Man, I like working with you. Okay, let's go... George--.

A: Hm?

Q: What was in the letter you wrote Anna overseas?

A: --.

Q: George?

A: --.

Q: George, I thought you were going to help.

A: Well I just don't remember. (Very surly.)

Q: Okay, we'll forget that. George, when you go hunting--.

A: Ah-h-h... not that again.

Q: (After a long pause.) You see how something makes you clam up? George, that something's no friend of yours. That something doesn't want you to leave here.

A: (Plaintive.) Well I just can't help it.

Q: (Warmly as possible.) I know you can't, George... I can, though.

A: You can what?

Q: I know a way to help you remember better so you can talk better.

A: How? (Warily.)

Q: Take off your shoes.

A: My shoes? (But takes them off.)

Q: Attaboy. Now lie down on the cot. No, on your back.

A: (Reluctantly.) Well--all right.

Q: Close your eyes... You're all tensed up. Relax your hands. That's it. Make your feet go limp.

A: You going to make me go to sleep?

Q: No. That's a promise. You'll be awake the whole time and every minute you'll know you can get right up and stop it if you want to. Close your eyes again. That's it. Now the hands, the feet. You are not sleepy, you're just relaxed, limp all over. Feel how limp your toes are, your ankles. No, don't move 'em! Just let them go limp; feel how limp. Now that same limpness is in the calves of your legs and your knees, they're like oiled they're so limp. Unwind that fist, there, feel your fingers--no, don't move 'em. The thumb is One, the pointer is Two; now feel each one go limp as I count them, One Two Three Four Five. One Two Three Four Five. One Two--how do you feel?

A: (Subdued.) Pretty good. Very good. Like on my aunt's farm.

Q: Now I'm going to show you just how well you can remember. I bet I can make you remember something you forgot and didn't even know you'd forgotten... George, can you remember a happy time when you were a little boy? Say when you were four years old. Four years old. Four years old. Remember a quiet time in the kitchen at home, maybe? Before your mother was very sick?

A: (Contentedly.) Mmm Q: You are four years old. In the kitchen at home. Four years old. Does your head come up to the top of the table?

A: (Wonderingly) N-no...

Q: Is it warm in the kitchen when you are four years old?

A: Warm.

Q: Now look around you. Slowly. Look on the shelves. Look at the chair. Look at the cracks in the floor. Look around you, four years old. Look at what you forgot all these years. Look along the window sill. Look around your...

A: (Quiet, absolute astonishment) There's... my... plate! (Leaps off the cot, bolt upright, face inflamed, mouth open. Laughing. Shouts:) I seen my goddam plate!

Q: You did?

A: Look, when I was a little kid I had a plate, it was blue around the edge and white inside, down in the bottom was a blue picture of a cow. Why, I didn't think of that goddam plate now since the whale puked up Jonah!

Q: Well, good! Now get back on the cot

A: I seen it so good I seen the craze around the edge near the top.

Q: Shh. Relax now and close your eyes. This is a kind of game, and one of the rules is that if I put you back to four years old I have to bring you out again. Shh now... Now you are four years old, in the kitchen. Feel how warm in the kitchen, four years old. You're just a little boy four years old. Now stand there in the kitchen but don't look for anything. Just feel warm. Now in a minute I'm going to clap my hands. As soon as you hear the handclap you will be twenty-three. You will be twenty-three right here and now in the room with me. I'm going to count backwards from five to one and then clap my hands. Understand?

A: Mmm...

Q: Five, Four, Three, Two, One. (Clap.) Okay. You can open your eyes. How do you feel?

A: Like I slept two hours. Phil, what did you do?

Q: It's just a remembering trick. You do it just fine.

A: That is the damndest thing I seen yet. My plate, you imagine?

Q: I'm glad... Close your eyes.

A: You going to do it again?

Q: Not right away. But you are so comfortable now. Take it easy, like the feller says. You're taking it easy. Easy.

A: Yeah.

Q: They feed you all right?

A: Feed good. I had worse and paid for it.

Q: You take it easy, easy like that, you can talk real good to me, you know that?

A: I guess.

Q: You like the movies?

A: I didn't see no movies in a long time. Yes, I like movies.

Q: What kind you like best?

A: Western movies.

Q: So do I... George, you know how you can always tell the good guy from the bad guy?

A: Sure. If the good guy gets shot it's always in the chest or shoulder and if the bad guy gets shot it's always in the belly.

Q: (Laughs. A lot.) By God George. I never knew that! And you know, now I think of it, you're right? I was going to say about moustaches.

A: Oh yeah, that.

Q: George, close your eyes. Take it easy, easy now. I want you to remember a bad time you had, but I want to see if you can remember it easy, easy.

A: Oh... Okay.

Q: Close your eyes. Take it easy. I want you to remember when they sent for you and you went to see the major, the one had your letter. George, you've got a frown right there over your nose. Iron it out. You can't take it easy with a frown over your nose. Good. Oh, real good. Now I just want you to remember that time, and how it was. How you felt. How mad you were. When you took the glass. When you broke the glass.

A: (Suddenly raises and clenches right hand. Muscles knot under the shirt. Face twists. Breath hisses.)

Q: You never got the chance, George. What did you want to do then? Suppose you'd had the chance, nobody around by you and him?

A: Kill 'im. I'd 'a killed 'm.

Q: How? What would you do? What would he do?

A: I'd take that broken glass or a knife, I'd let 'im have it. He--.

Q: Go on.

A: He'd back off but I'd go after him. I'd cut a big hole and the blood would jump out all over the place.

Q: Mm-hm. And then...

A: And then the old man would look at me like he didn't know what hit him. He'd go nuts. His eyes pop out, scared to death... It wouldn't do him no good if he was mad at me now. He's so weak. He can't stand up no longer. Before you know it he's on the floor, choking, like he can't breathe. He shakes his head back and forth a minute... That's it. He finally got his!

Q: (!) And what then, George?

A: I guess that's all. He wouldn't bother me no more. He'd leave my mother alone now, too.

Q: Yeah.

A: Yeah.

Q: George... Did you ever see a man die that way, with the blood jumping out all over the place?

A: (Without hesitation.) That old watchman. By the paper box factory.

Q: Was it an accident?

A: Hell no. I hit him over the head with a pipe first. I must have knocked him cold because he didn't put up no fight. Or maybe he was too drunk. Then I cut his chest like a damn rabbit. The old bum didn't have much blood.

Q: George, where did you cut him? Show me exactly where you put the knife.

A: Right here. (Grasps his chest with his right hand between the right nipple and the armpit.)

Q: What did you do after the old man died?

A: I pushed him behind the big tank.

Q: And then what did you do?

A: I went back into the woods. But it was too dark to do anything. I got lost a while, I guess. (He pushes his hands flat under his belt and down inside his trousers.) Get hot thinking about it.

Q: Hot? You mean for a woman?

A: (Snorts.) O God no! Here--here! (He is clutching his lower belly.)

Q: What happens when you get hot like that, George?

A: I like to hunt. Rabbit, look out.

Q: Like hungry.

A: It's different.

Q: (Looks at watch.) Which reminds me, I better cut out of here or I won't get any lunch. Missed the first two shifts already.

A: Me too, I wish I had a horse let alone rabbit.

Q: (Knocks on door for guard.)

A: Hongry hongry hongry!

Q: Take it easy; easy now.

A: You got me all churned up, Phil.

Q: (Pounds on door.)

A: They all gone to lunch. Nobody but you and me here now.

Q: (Pounds on door.)

A: (Kneading lower belly.) Turble to feel like this, you cain't kill yourself a possum or a rabbit.

Q: You just take it easy, George... here's Gus now. Gus, I thought you'd never get here!