Do No Harm

The following pages consisted of self-reports, clinical observations, and the results of physiological exams, including a precocious series of skin conductance tests. A few wrinkled drawings remained at the bottom of the stack. Drawn with the fat, simple lines of a coloring book picture, they all featured the same guideline figure: that of a nurse. The nurse's outline was clearly defined, right down to her patronizing smile and white cap. Clyde had used mostly red crayons, turning the simple sketches into gruesome depictions. Vicious slashes colored the nurses' faces, markings pressed so firmly down into the pages they left indentations and even tore the paper in spots. Their heads were covered with layer upon layer of color, until they resembled bloody blurs. Many of the nurses' breasts and genital areas were likewise ravaged with red.

Hurwitz, Gregg

Do No Harm (2002)

A note at the bottom read: Particularly fierce and impassioned. And below that: Film Reel #23.

Dread spreading inside him, David looked up and located the dusty old projector in the corner. The cupboard above the filing cabinets seemed to stare back at him. He opened it to find reel upon reel of sixteen millimeter film, labeled in black marker. He found Reel #23. A screen pulled down from the ceiling in front of the window, unleashing more billows of dust. The light switch clicked off loudly, filling the room with shadows.

David blew the top layer of dust from the projector, plugged it in, mounted the take-up reel, and threaded the film. He pulled a chair around beside the projector and, bracing himself, flipped the switch.

Ten-year-old Clyde Slade, brought into a seclusion room with a timer on the wall. He wears a child's hospital gown. A nurse sits in a chair centered in the small room, staring at the wall like a statue. He goes over to her and takes her hand, but she pulls it away, keeping her stoic stare leveled at the far wall. A loud wavering shriek sounds from hidden speakers, so sudden it startles David back in his chair. On the screen, Clyde begins to cry and attempts to pull himself into the nurse's lap. She moves only to repel him, shoving him off. Clyde sits on the floor, hands pushed over his ears, mouth bent wide, his cries not even audible beneath the shrieking. The noise ends. By the timer on the wall, it takes Clyde over three minutes to cease his frantic sobbing.

And then a loud mechanical voice intones, "Three, two, one. Step back from the door." The loud sound of the door's bolt being unlocked, and Clyde scrambles to freedom.

Clyde's ritualistic phrase, his private mantra, was actually the hard-conditioned cue given to him as a child that his fear was about to end. He used it still to alleviate anxiety.

The film cut out and David wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead. Seconds later, the seclusion room appeared again on the screen, this time with the lights off.

The outline of the nurse in the chair is barely visible. Clyde is led in, though he pounds at the door as soon as it is closed behind him. "Please! Please!" He runs to the nurse, who again moves only to push him firmly away. The door opens and another nurse enters with a large rectangular box. She opens it and dumps what appear to be harmless garden snakes on the floor. Clyde shrieks and tries to run away but the snakes quickly spread out through the small seclusion room. The second nurse pushes them toward Clyde.

David closed his eyes for a moment, but Clyde's wails still came. "Please! I'll be good." And then: a final terrified strategy- "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

When David viewed the screen again, his mouth was dry and sour. Clyde turns to the wall, burying his face in the corner as the snakes curl around his feet. He murmurs to himself, something inaudible, though David knew he was counting down from three over and over, anticipating. Finally, the second nurse collects the snakes and the mechanical voice sounds, "Three, two, one. Step back from the door." Clyde sprints for freedom.

At the beginning of the next trial, Clyde crosses immediately to the seated nurse and bites her leg. She rises and administers him a quick but vicious spanking before returning to her stonelike perch on the chair. When a series of blinding lights begin to flash in the white room, a wet spot spreads down the leg of Clyde's trousers.

Trial after trial followed on the reel of film. Experiments with animals, with people in threatening poses, with motorized contraptions that sprang open like jack-in-the-boxes, but with no warning. By the final trial, Clyde had resorted to sitting against the far wall, face blank and dazed. He made no attempt to approach the seated nurse. They brought in a snarling German shepherd on a chain and held it inches from Clyde's face. Clyde seemed hardly to notice it. The scene cut out and the end of the film flapped in the reel.