The patient stamped his foot. “Ah for—”
“The real self,” said Poffis, “is strictly blameless. The trouble comes from wrong traits and attitudes having been established, usually in childhood, and by their habitual presence having generated emotions which falsely color the information passed to the brain. The cure for this is best administered early by the parent. By inflicting pain without damage, the parent breaks the grip of the wrong emotion, destroys its effects in distorting the information passed to the brain and demonstrates that emotions are temporary and changeable. Seeing the wrong emotion flee before the hand of the parent, the child is emboldened to strike down the wrong emotion himself, and takes the first step towards becoming master in his own house.”
The patient ground his teeth, and looked around like one seeking sympathy for the heavy burden under which he labors.
“Punishment,” said Poffis methodically, ‘”should be swift, intense and fleeting, with proper suggestions for future improvement, and should be ended without vindictiveness when the right attitude is firmly established. That’s the theory. Now for the practice.”
The patient leaned against the bars in an attitude of exaggerated boredom, and looked ready to fall asleep anytime.
“The practice,” said Poffis, “is even simpler than the theory. By appropriate action, we first permit the undesirable traits to manifest themselves and promptly deliver painful consequences on each occasion. Next we administer a general treatment designed to loosen up bad traits and induce a cooperative frame of mind, during which we urge improvement. Following this comes formal punishment, then the actual recovery. All this is basically very simple, the difficulty being to properly suit the treatment to the individual patient. That’s the practice. Now you have it, and your mind will retain enough so that it may be of use to you later. It’s time. Prepare for treatment.”
Outside the cell, Moklin opened a faucet that filled a bucket half-full of water. He tossed a sponge into the bucket, picked up a clean towel and a first-aid kit, set a chair just outside a corner of the cell and dusted off the seat of the chair with a whisk broom.
The patient glanced around with a scowl and gave the cell door a quick shake. The door was solidly locked.
Poffis glanced at the wall clock, then cleared his throat with a somewhat pompous, false and irritating sound. He said, “Now, first, permit me to point out—ah—that this method, while it could be used for wrong purposes, is in fact only used for the real good and the genuine—”
Dr. Garvin, outside the cell, squinted at Major Poffis, and tried to get him back into focus. By some trick of vocal wizardly, Poffis began to project such an air of sweet reasonableness that even Garvin felt the urge to get Poffis by the throat and bang his head against the wall. Garvin had no trouble overcoming this impulse, but the patient abruptly ceased looking for a way out, and eyed Poffis.
“—welfare of the patient,” Poffis was saying sweetly. “The entire treatment is meant for the patient, who, deprived of proper parental assistance in the initial stages of character-formation, is thus disadvantaged by his defective self-control. We assist the deprived patient in many areas—”
“G’r’r,” said the patient. His tail flicked back and forth, and his lips drew back to disclose large sharp teeth.
“—always,” said Poffis piously, “to aid in whatever measure may be granted to us the unfortunate, underprivileged—”
The patient blurred forward, seized Poffis around the waist and slammed him to the floor.
Poffis landed stretched out, his forearms taking much of the impact, rolled aside fast as his patient took a flying kick at him, bounded to his feet and landed a blow that sent the patient sprawling.
As the patient stumbled, dazed and fearful, to his feet, Poffis seemed to undergo a delayed action from the fall he’d suffered. He gripped his side and tottered around the cell like someone in the last stage of physical deterioration.
This was too good an opportunity for the patient to resist. He hastened over to start a blow from the floor up, aimed for Poffis’s jaw.
Poffis, however, recovered with miraculous speed, moved aside as the blow whistled past and smashed the patient on the jaw.
Garvin watched in stupefaction as Moklin stepped forward with the water bucket.
Poffis was now bent over the unconscious patient, tenderly bathing his bloodied face with a wet sponge.
III
As the patient came to and looked around dazedly, Poffis at once began to plead. “Now look here, I am your officer. You can’t—”
The patient at once caught the pleading tone, and the words “I am your officer.” He reacted with still-fast reflexes.
“Oh, can’t I?” he snarled. He staggered to his feet with Poffis’s help, and immediately tried to plant his knee in Poffis’s groin.
Poffis turned too fast, and sank his fist in his patient’s midsection.
Dr. Garvin watched the patient collapse and lie motionless.
Poffis now dumped a bucket of water on the patient, brought him to, and as the patient looked around dazedly Poffis bent over him and said sympathetically, “Understand, none of this is meant for the real you. We have to retrain your habits and attitudes, and this is the quickest way. I realize what you’re going through, because I’ve been through the same thing myself.”
The patient sat up dizzily. Some instinct for self-preservation apparently prompted him to keep Poffis talking. “You—you did?”
“Yes,” said Poffis reminiscently. “I’ve been through the whole thing. You see, I had bad habits.” A tinge of regret entered his voice. “And wrong attitudes, and I didn’t even know it. That’s how it works. No one could reason with me, or get through to me by anything that boiled down to reason, because, you see, this wrong attitude of mine distorted everything, and I couldn’t understand things right.”
Garvin was staring, wondering what would happen next. Poffis’s voice was starting to grow heated.
“So,” said Poffis emotionally, “they stuck me in a cell, and for these bad habits and wrong attitudes they beat me up, and slammed me all around.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Sure, I had it coming. I deserved it. Because of the bad habits.” His voice dropped. “But I felt every blow. It was meant for the bad habits. But I felt it.”
There was now an impression of smoldering resentment building up behind Poffis’s expressionless face. The patient glanced around nervously.
“Bad habits,” said Poffis flatly. “They got me in all that trouble. And I suffered. I hate them!”
“Sure,” said the patient nervously. “I can appreciate—”
“I hate bad habits, bad traits, bad emotions,” said Poffis, his voice rising. “But they’ve been beat out of me, so now there’s only one way I can get back at them.”
The patient tried a quick shake of the cell door. It was still locked.
“And that,” said Poffis, “is to find them in someone else.”
The patient’s eyes were wide-open. “Hey now. Wait a minute. Listen, now!”
“Right here,” snarled Poffis, gazing intently at the patient, “I see conceit, arrogance, carelessness—”
Poffis’s voice, already charged with emotion, took on a tone suggestive of rending flesh and popping bones. He tore off his tunic and tossed it toward a corner of the cell, where Moklin with one deft motion snapped it out through the bars and laid it on the chair, neatly folded.
Patient and psychotherapist were suddenly flashing around the cell in a blur of speed, the prisoner screaming at the top of his lungs. “You can’t! Help! You’re responsible! STOP!”
WHAM!
The cell was one flying tangle of furry arms, legs and tails, with the prisoner’s horrified face in view, and now Poffis’s grim visage. Grunts, screams and gasps resounded like the sounds of a medieval torture chamber.
Captain Moklin, watching, grinned and nodded.
Dr. Garvin looked on in horrified stupefaction, staring at the chaos resolved momentarily into grim scenes.
For an instant the prisoner was flattened out on the floor.
Then he was slammed motionless against the bars.
Next he was suspended in midair, one outstretched arm against the ceiling.
A fraction of a second later, it was one chaos of violence all over again.
Interspersed with the violence was Poffis’s grim voice:
“You will listen.
“You will try!
“You will learn!”
There was a sudden crash, and the prisoner was saying rapidly, “All right! I’ll do it! Sure, I’ll do it! Anything you say!”
Poffis stared intently into the prisoner’s eyes. “You look crafty. You don’t mean it.”
The cell exploded into chaos.
The prisoner screamed, “I promise! I mean it!”
Poffis stared deep into his eyes. “Close, but you’re not there yet.”
The violence ended the next time with a cry of despair. Then Poffis straightened. “Moklin!”
“Yes, sir! The lash?”
“The board.”
Moklin handed in a medium-sized solidly made paddle.
The prisoner stared as Poffis took it, and said in a kindly voice, “Bend over, son. Grip the bars.”