Ben
BEN
A blonde-brick building stands silently on the corner of Garret and
5th. The glass doors are tinted and the windows on either side mirrored.
Graffiti stains the southern wall, stamping a bleak package of
consequences. The lobby is empty. There's no reception desk. The doors lining the back hallway are all locked today.
The occupants of these rooms are preparing for a journey. You can almost feel labor pains here. This is a birthing house, a beginnings place. As morning colors the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street, we turn to see the Queen of this small empire. Laura West. She seems ready for the day. And she knows that this day is unique of all the days of her life so far. She ignores her own reflection as she unlocks the front door.
When she reaches the hallway, she pauses to reflect. Her brainchild will be born today. Let’s glance at a few of the charts attached to each of 5 doors. Jacob Trent /26 / 155 lbs / 67 in / brown hair/ brown eyes / ward of Deerville St. Mental Hospital since the age of 15 / general disrespect for authority / occasional disruptive behavior / no official diagnosis / approved for participation.
And another. Jennifer Lowe / 19 / 102 lbs / 64 in / red hair / brown eyes / arrested at age 14 for petty theft committed to Deerville St. Mental Hospital at age 17 / chronic truancy / disregard for personal hygiene / bedwetter / no official diagnosis / approved for participation.
But Laura’s favorite resident rests this morning behind the last door on the left. Benjamin Isaiah / 23 / 117 lbs. / 62 in / blonde hair / green eyes / ward of Deerville St. Mental Hospital since the age of 6 / quiet and withdrawn / occasional loss bowel and bladder control / unable or unwilling to follow toileting schedule / no official diagnosis / approved for participation.
We find Laura focused on this door. She looks down at the clipboard she has taken from the lobby. PROJECT A. She remembers the process of observing and choosing candidates for this program. While she reflects, we’ll find a more comfortable seat for the show. Deerville State mental Hospital. Home of the lost. Our Ben sits on a green rubber coated sofa, staring at a 50-inch television.
Movie time is over. The screen is black. But Benjamin doesn’t bother to get up. He anxiously nibbles at the tips of his fingers; the nails have long
since been digested. A DCW watches from the glassed in nurses station at
the center of the room. He knows why Ben doesn’t leave the TV area with
the rest of the patients. “Benjamin Isaiah, report to the nurses
station.”
There may be a slight grin on his face as he takes his finger off the intercom button. Ben stays where he is. Everyone in the nurses’ station is now aware of the situation. They also know that it’s futile to page this particular patient. A woman in her mid-fifties with her hair pulled back in a tight bun snaps her heels as she approaches the couch. Her nametag reads, Edna Tucker Head Nurse.
We hear a slight whimper from our friend as Nurse Tucker grabs his elbow and pulls him out of his seat. “You are filthy! Look what you did.” She grabs his chin and forces his face toward the spot recently vacated by his bottom. There are brown streaks on the matted surface. Feces covers the back of Ben’s shirt and streaks down his thighs beneath his shorts.
Nurse Tucker pulls him into the shower room and roughly pulls his shorts down revealing his badly soiled underwear. She carefully grips a portion of the waistband that is still white and tugs them to his ankles. She is at least a head taller than Ben and she easily pulls his shirt over his head. She pushes him a few feet away from the fetid clothing and obtains a hose from a coil beside one of the sinks.
She turns the nozzle as far as it will go and aims the resulting stream at Ben’s groin. We can tell by the way his testicles recoil that the water is freezing. His skin depresses where the spray hits it. Ben doesn’t move or try to protect his tender flesh. He stands before Nurse Tucker shivering and whimpering. She comes closer and pulls aside one butt cheek as she inserts the tip of the nozzle into his rectum.
Now we see tears in Ben’s eyes when she pulls back the hose and the contents of his colon splatter the ground. She does this until the water squirting from his anus runs clear then she turns off the hose. “You just stand right here and think about the mess you made.” With these words, we watch her amble out of the room. Let’s not follow her, let’s stay here with our buddy.
He makes no move to try to warm himself; the pitiful look on his face says that all he knows is passive submission. At this moment, Laura has just entered the nurses’ station. She is speaking with some of the employees about Project A. During a guided tour of the facilities, she discovers Ben. When she inquires about his current state, she is told that he messes himself and this is part of his toilet training program.
Laura immediately knows that she wants this boy for her program. He’s perfect. And he’s so small and helpless. When she touches his arm, he twitches a little and looks away. She wants to take him now. She wants to comfort him and hold him. All she can do though is fill out the papers necessary for him to be released into her custody. It will take three days. She leaves Deerville more eager than ever. As she stands in front of this door now, she cannot wait another second to open it. For we are now back in the Project A building.
We will have plenty of time for reflection later as Laura unlocks these
doors one by one. But for now, we are sticking with Ms. West in the
present. We want to know what Project A is all about and we are slowly
learning. The door is open and the room behind seems to be just waking up
along with our Benjamin. He is sitting on the edge of the bed with his
hands between his legs. He’s subtly rocking and staring at the floor. Laura watches him for a moment and smiles knowing that today, for the first time in his life, this boy’s fears are unfounded.
As she approaches, she notices that the bed is soaked. For a moment, she just runs her fingers gently through his hair, silently comforting him. Then she guides him onto his back with a hand on his chest. She tenderly pulls his shorts and underwear off and lays them in a pile at the foot of the bed. She opens the top drawer of the bedside table and pulls out a tub of baby wipes.
She warms them in her hand before she begins washing his groin.
When she lifts his leg and sees his torn, swollen rectum, anger flashes
through her heart at the abuse this man child has suffered. She quickly
recovers and guides him to his feet where she removes his shirt and
continues to clean him. She spreads a mat on the floor lays him on it. She rubs cream on his penis, testicles, and softly, onto his injured rectum. She sprinkles powder between his legs and on his chest then slides a diaper beneath him.
She can feel the tension leaving his body as she fastens the final tape. She sits on the floor and presses him to her breast. They rock. She does her best to synchronize with the rhythm in his head. By the time Laura has Ben dressed in a fresh t-shirt and Velcro shoes, the other patients are being tended by the morning staff. We’ll see about them later.
For now, let’s follow these two out the front door and into Laura’s car as she fastens Ben into a booster seat. She knows she’ll have to take him in to day care tomorrow while she initiates the others into the program. They won’t be as easy as this one. So for now she intends to make the most of this day for Ben. When they reach Laura’s house, she takes him directly to the room she has prepared for him.
In one corner, there is a large crib. On the other side there is a low table covered with a thin foam pad. Beside it there is a stack of diapers, as well as wipes, powder, and cream. There is a whimsical rug in the middle of the rooms with toddler toys neatly laid out upon it. She takes him to the changing table and peeks into the back of his diaper.
He has filled it almost to capacity. She lays him down on the table and
pulls back the tapes. She uses as many wipes as necessary to clean him
completely. Then she carefully applies cream and powder before taking out
a new diaper. She lifts his legs and slides it underneath his bottom. Before she pulls it up between his legs, she rubs his tummy and smiles at him. He is almost smiling back. There is a look of contentment on his face and he seems much more relaxed than he was this morning.
For lunch she cuts up chicken strips and puts them on the tray of an oversized high chair. He timidly takes the small pieces and puts them in his mouth. As he does this, he watches Laura. He looks as though he’s afraid
someone will take his food from him. He swallows quickly without chewing.
Worried that he will choke, Laura takes out the food processor and purees
the remaining chicken. She then feeds him with a small rubber coated
spoon. She hands him a sippy cup and he drinks from it thirstily. She washes his face with a warm rag and takes the tray from his chair. She sits down and pulls him into her lap.
She realizes that he is small enough so that if he straddles her lap with his head on her shoulder she can easily rock him. It takes about 10 minutes for him to fall asleep this way. She lays him back onto the couch and checks his diaper. He is wet so she changes him where he is rather than waking him. We’ll look on Ben’s progress in a bit. For now let’s follow Laura into tomorrow where we will meet another patient and participant of Project A.
To be continued