That evening they had frozen TV dinners. Bobby carefully and methodically heated them in
the oven, and he and Cindy ate them from the foil trays while they watched a twilight serial
on the tube. After they cleaned up, Bobby went to his room and tried to take a nap while
Cindy sat up to be the guard. Now the whole house, the television set and living room were
hers as well, and she had the same unpleasant feeling of being bored.
Having fed Barbara a sandwich and a Coke, the kids had gagged her again, engineered her
to bed, spread-eagled and tied her there. Afterwards-from her point of view-she was very
nearly forgotten, discarded as simply and with as little thought as a toy. She was
embarrassed and angry-indeed, she had been mostly so all day-but at the same time, she
was strangely relieved. After the morning's shocks of discovery, the hours of discomfort
sitting in that chair, the ordeal of being watched and guarded all the time, she was almost
pleased to be lying down again, quiet and-for the instant-alone. The same position that had
seemed intolerable before now seemed bearable.
That's not true, Barbara said. People who are tied up don't just lie around in comfort. Soon
enough the 49
muscles around her underarms and in her .hips would begin to ache, and the blood would
slow down and her hands and feet grow numb. It would hurt. Above all, however, was the
burden of time to be passed. If the same pattern were followed tomorrow as had been set
today, it could be sixteen hours-twilight, evening, night, morning, and midmorning-before
she would be allowed the barest movement, and that would only be to the end of the
hallway and back again. Fear-leading to-panic can begin in soft, quiet ways, and it began
now liked a velvety moth circling around in her mind.
Sixteen hours, Barbara was appalled. Yes, that's the very soonest too. Maybe more. I can't
stand it, Barbara said. But it's going to happen anyway.
The anticipation alone was enough to throw her into unreasonable hysteria, make her exert
every ounce of her energy in one more desperate struggle to be free. Young Bobby was
improving as a jailer, however; he had used his longest length of rope this time, and her
wrists were tied with hitches in the middle and the ends out of sight somewhere behind the
headboard. There was nothing to tempt her or raise hopes. And she could not even sleep.
Out in the kitchen Bobby and Cindy clattered and bickered over their simple dinner.
Barbara's nose, sharpened by a day's unsatisfied hunger now, could smell it nearly the
moment they peeled off the foilfried chicken. When Cindy came to check the prisoner, her
fingers and mouth were greasy with it, and she seemed to reek of food. Barbara bad the
disgusting thought that if she were free just then, she'd take a bite out of the child as if
Cindy were a plump little chicken herself. And the TV blared.
During dinner the children had silently watched the old TV reruns. Later, after they cleaned
up and Bobby went to his room to nap, Cindy sat vacuously through the whole long
evenings of shows, one after the other, favoring those on which there were child or animal
characters and after that, the most exciting and violent. Often-perhaps simply to exercise
her exclusive
50
control over all the 'knobs of the set-she switched from channel to channel seemingly able
to follow all the simple stories at once. At one point, she dawdled away a long commercial
break by also trying to play "The Happy Farmer" on the piano. It gave Barbara a headache.
The child's mind was obviously spinning loosely, shallowly, from this to that to this to that
without any anchor of attention to hold it, and she was the jailer and Barbara the captive. It
was insane.
Finally, during the late-late show, things steadied down, and there was no further
movement from the living room. Planes dove and strafed; Japanese died with endless
screams; the surviving Marines formed up and marched out presumably to new battles; the
Orioles beat the A's 9-5 to keep their hold on first place; the dollar was again under attack
in Europe; and then there was "The Star-Spangled Banner'' and, at last, only a gritty,
staticky, blue-white buzz. Cindy, Barbara supposed, had long since gone to sleep, likely as
not on the rug. Bobby was still absent-probably asleep in his room-and Barbara was truly
alone.
Now was the time for the heroics and daring of fiction. A subtle flick of her fingers and a
hidden razor blade would suddenly appear; snick, slash, and she would be free.
Unfortunately, of course, it was only on the tube that such things happened. Now, here, in
life, victims remained pretty much what they had been before-victims.
·
The callousness with which the children were able to leave her thus-save making it worse
by guarding, of course-was astonishing to Barbara. They seemed to have no ability or
desire to project themselves into her situation or imagine how much she hurt. They had no
gods---or, if they did, they weren't charitable and loving gods-and they had no heroes
unless the name Freedom Five implied that guerrilla fighters had some hold on
imagination. They just went along. Like Cindy, they all just sort of went along buoyed up by
their automatic, thermostatically controlled, smoothly
51
running house machines and credit cards and charge accounts. Adults weren't really
needed or heeded at all.
Oh, stop that, Barbara said, frightened. You're going off the wall. It -isn't that way at all.
Oh, yes, it is. Why not? 0 god. She strained not to strain at her ropes; that would only hurt
more. Lie still.
I'm trying. I'm trying.
If she could momentarily will her body to quietude, however, Barbara could not silence her
mind. As an Ed major, her young head was full of everything from Group Needs and
Interaction down to Gestalt Psychology (a lot of it, undigested) . Her head-in enforced
solitariness, would spin on-would keep her awake. If I could only make something out of all
of this, Barbara said. Instead a tune came to mind; it emerged out of "The Happy Farmer."
School-days, school-days, Dear old golden rule days,
Reading and writing and 'rithmetic, Taught to the tune of a hick'ry stick ....
Stop it, Barbara said again. I want to think. And she did, but the silly music went on and
transposed itself into:
The automatic children and the prophylactic pup
Were playing in the garden when the bunny gamboled
up
No, I do want to think!
It was no use, thinking had gone. Barbara hurt and ached now: at her best, possibly, she
could not have pursued the matter. It wasn't her sort of thing, not like it was Terry's.
Terry could settle down, not mannishly of course, but settle down with a relaxed attitude
that at least indicated the absence of body concerns from mind. Chin on left palm, right
hand scribbling notes in swift, efficient shorthand, she exuded concentration, isolation. A
wall existed around her. At the other end of the room
52
by contrast, Barbara sat twisted and twined around her chair like a vine. Her legs were
crossed and recrossed, foot hooked behind ankle. Her hands willfully played with things on