week.
'You really think this child will be able to give you information of substance?'
'I don't know. I've asked the same question. But she's all the police have got.'
'And your role in all of this?'
I thought up a quicky title.
'I'm a special consultant. They call me in sometimes when there are children involved.'
'I see.'
He played with his hands, constructing ten - legged spiders and killing them.
'I don't know, Alex. When we start to remove a patient from what has been determined to be an optimal dosage we sometimes upset the entire pattern of biochemical response.'
'You think she needs to be on medication constantly.'
'Of course I do. Why else would I prescribe it for her?' He wasn't angry or defensive. He smiled calmly and with great forbearance. The message was clear: Only an idiot would doubt him.
'There'd be no way to reduce the dosage?'
'Oh, that's certainly possible, but it creates the same type of problem. I don't like to tamper with a winning combination.'
'I see.' I hesitated, then continued. 'She must have posed quite a problem to merit sixty mgs.'
Towle placed a pair of reading glasses low on his nose, picked up the chart and flipped through it.
'Let me see. Ah, yes. Hmm. 'Mother complains of severe behavioral problems.' ' After thumbing through a few more pages: ' 'Teachers report failure to complete school assignments. Difficulty in maintaining attention span for more than brief periods.' Ah - here's a later notation - 'Child struck mother during argument about keeping room clean.' And here's a note of mine: 'Poor peer relations, few friends.' '
I was certain that the argument had something to do with giving away the giant walrus, Fatso. The gift from Daddy. And as for friends - it was easy to see that M and M Properties wouldn't truck with that kind of nonsense.
'That sounds pretty severe to me, don't you think?'
What I thought was that it was horse shit. There'd been nothing resembling a thorough psychological evaluation. Nothing beyond taking the mother at her word. I looked at Towle and saw a quack. A nice looking, white - haired quack with lots of connections and the right pieces of paper on his wall. I longed to tell him so, but that would do nobody - Melody, Milo - - any good.
So I hedged.
'I can't say. You're her doc.' Faking the comradely grin was an exercise in moral self - control.
'That's right, Alex. I am.' He leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head. 'I know what you're thinking. Will Towle is a pill pusher. Stimulants are just another form of child abuse.'
'I wouldn't say that.'
He waved away my objection.
'No, no, I know. And I don't hold it against you. Your training is behavioral and you see things behaviorally. We all do it, settle into professional tunnel vision. The surgeons want to cut everything out. We prescribe and you fellows like to analyze it to death.'
It was starting to sound like a lecture.
'Granted, drugs have risks. But it's a matter of cost - risk analysis. Let's consider a child like the Quinn girl. What does she start out with? Inferior genes - both parents somewhat limited intellectually.' He made the word limited sound very cruel. 'Lousy genes and poverty, and a broken marriage. Absent father - although in some of these cases the children are better off without the kind of role models the fathers provide. Bad genes, bad environment. The child's got two strikes against her before she leaves the womb.
'Is it any wonder then that soon we're seeing all the telltale signs - antisocial behavior, noncompliance, poor school performance, unsatisfactory impulse control?'
I felt a sudden urge to defend little Melody. Her genial doctor was describing her as some kind of total misfit. I kept silent.
'Now a child like this - ' he took off his glasses and put down the chart - 'is going to have to do moderately well in school in order to achieve some semblance of a decent life for herself. Otherwise it's another generation of P.P.P.'
Piss - poor protoplasm. One of the quaint expressions dreamed up by the medical profession to describe especially unfortunate patients.
Playing straight man to Towle wasn't my idea of a fun afternoon. But I had a hunch it was some kind of ritual, that if I held out and let him smilingly browbeat me he might give me what I came for.
'But there is no way a child like this can achieve with her genes and her environment working against her. Not without help. And that's where stimulant medication comes in. Those pills allow her to sit still long enough and pay attention long enough to be able to learn something. They control her behavior to the point where she no longer alienates everyone around her.'
'I got the impression that the mother was using the medication in a haphazard way - giving her an extra pill on days when there were lots of visitors at the apartment complex.'
'I'll have to check that.' He didn't sound concerned. 'You have to remember, Alex, that this child does not exist in a vacuum. There's a social context here. If there's nowhere for her mother and her to live, that isn't exactly therapeutic, is it?'
I listened, certain there was more. Sure enough: 'Now you may ask, what about psychotherapy? What about behavior modification? My answer is: What about them? There is no chance of this particular mother developing the capacity for insight to successfully benefit from psychotherapy. And she lacks the ability to even comply with a stable system of rules and regulations necessary for behavior mod. What she can deal with is administering three pills a day to her child. Pills that work. And I don't mind telling you, I don't feel a damn bit guilty about prescribing them, because I think they're this child's only hope.'
It was a great ending. No doubt it made a big hit at the Western Pediatric Ladies Auxiliary Tea. But basically it was all crap. Pseudoscientific gibberish mixed in with a lot of condescending fascism. Dope up the Untermenschen to make them good citizens.
He had worked himself up a bit. But now he was perfectly composed, as handsome and in control as ever.
'I haven't convinced you, have I?' He smiled.
'It's not a matter of that. You raise some interesting points. I'll have to think about it.'
'That's always a good idea, thinking things over.' He rubbed his hands together. 'Now, back to what you came for - and please forgive my little diatribe. You really think that taking this child off stimulants will make her more susceptible to hypnosis.' 'I do.'
'Despite the fact that her concentration will be poorer?'
'Despite that. I've got inductions that are especially suited for children with short attention spans.'
The snowy eyebrows rose.
'Oh, really? I'll have to find out about those. You know, I did some hypnosis, too. In the Army, for pain control. I know it works.'
'I can send you some recent publications.'
'Thank you, Alex.' He rose and it was clear that my time was up.
'Pleasure to meet you, Alex.' Another handshake.
'The pleasure is mine, Will.' This was getting sickening.
The unasked question hung in the air. Towle snagged it.
'I'll tell you what I'm going to do,' he said, smiling ever faintly.
'Yes?'
'I'm going to think about it.'
'I see.'
'Yes, I'll think it over. Call me in a couple of days.'
'I'll do that, Will.' And may your hair and teeth fall out overnight, you sanctimonious bastard.
On the way out Edna glared and Sandi smiled at me. I ignored them both and rescued Milo from the trio of munchkins that was climbing over him as if he were playground equipment. We made our way through the now -
