Little redheaded Chelsea Benderfield, ten years old, hurt the Bobo doll so badly its innards spilled forth and did not grow into new Bobo dolls.
Dr. Russland and her six assistants were aghast. Aghast and triumphant. They barely contained their excitement. The non-PhD’d personnel cheered. It was the first time they had encountered a true aggressive.
The less aggressive kids were not able to replicate the kind of focused anger and strength which Chelsea Benderfield exhibited that day. When they participated in the “killing act,” or the disassembly of the plastic doll, their heart wasn’t really into the act; they were simply trying to please their handlers in order to get an imagined reward. They were then deemed unfit, shipped back to their parents with a red label indicating their ineptness.
Dr. Russland gave Chelsea a glowing star and a two-day break to visit a marine conservatory and a bonsai emporium. She claimed to be very interested in bonsai cultivation, babbled about bonsai wire-training practices that resulted in beautifully stunted branching in miniature trees. She said suffering could breed grace, could lead to discipline. She was chaperoned by two attendants who reported no untoward incidents.
A few days later, the battery of tests commenced.
“How angry are you feeling right now, Chelsea,” the experimenter asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, brushing a strand of her hair off her face. “I’m not angry. I just want to hurt it.” She referred to the Bobo doll that was now reduced to shreds — the shreds rendered sufficiently inert and unable to propagate new Bobo dolls.
The experimenter did not react.
“I’m supposed to hurt it, right? Like on the video?” Chelsea persisted. Her tone said that she already knew that it was the case. “Hurt it so that it won’t grow back. Hurt it so it won’t replicate. Hurt it so we remain safe. Like how we treat our enemies, correct?”
“But were you angry while you were hurting it?”
“I suppose I am now. I don’t know why. I just want to get my star.”
Dr. Russland’s glowing star was famous in North America. It was the stuff that fulfilled every child’s dreams. The questioning was stopped after exactly twenty minutes, the maximum time allotted in the manual for interrogating a child.
Little redheaded Chelsea Benderfield, ten years old, was given a glass of real milk between questioning. Real milk was pricey and could be considered an unnecessary expense, but the lab would naturally splurge to provide for a child who would soon become the president. She slurped the expensive white stuff sourced from real cows in Outerbridge, the only remaining farmland in America where plants were still grown in soil.
Ignoring the cameras in the room, she concentrated on the milk. She found it incredibly delicious and unlike any other milk she had tasted before.
The recording of Chelsea Benderfield’s eighteenth and last interrogation that week started at 0100 hours.
Subject description: Subject is dressed in a plain white dress and patent leather shoes. She appears alert and well-rested. With Dr. Russland’s approval, she was given a meal of hypoallergenic protein mix and cereal, artificial celery, and an organic apple thirty minutes before she entered the interrogation room.
Interrogator is Anne Fender (designated as AF in the following transcript), accorded secondary status by Dr. Russland.
AF: Hello, Chelsea. How are you feeling today?
CB: Fine.
AF: Glad to hear that. So, what are your thoughts about the unstable man, the smiling Bobo?
CB: Haven’t thought of him at all. But I know that he’s the enemy. Anyone who does not look and talk like us is the enemy. They gave me milk last night, and I want more. Can I have some?
AF: True. Anyone who wobbles and anyone who hesitates can and will infect us. We have to hurt them enough so that they won’t grow back into little Bobos.
CB: I promise I will hurt them as best as I can. Can I have some milk?
AF: You’ll get one in a few minutes. Now, when we hurt them, we also need to put our hearts and minds into hurting them. It is very important that you feel anger towards them.
CB: Why?
AF: So they won’t come back. So we remain safe forever. Remember, anger is what you should feel. Now—
CB: I promise. I’ll be good at getting angry. Can I have milk now?
AF: Of course. In a few minutes, you can have all the milk that you want.
CB: What do we do now? I mean, I know I’m supposed to be angry. And I can be angry at will. You’ll see. No little Bobos will ever come back after I’m through hurting them.
AF: I believe you. Soon. For now, we just wait.
CB: I want my milk. I really want it now.
END OF TRANSCRIPT
The Playground
No one goes there anymore, except for the curious out-of-town folks who overhear the stories and read the back pages of tabloids where the articles about fertility beads, UFO sightings, weeping Virgin Marys, and the latest cures for cancer are splayed. They come in groups — families mostly, with screaming babies, toothless grandfathers, pimply teenagers, grim-faced parents bored with the usual vacation trips to Jamaica and Cancun. Rarely does anyone come alone. During summertime when activity in the playground is at its peak, an occasional group of well-dressed university people and self-proclaimed experts gawk in small groups from a respectful distance.
The moment they arrive at that sinkhole of a town in eastern Utah, they rush out of their idling cars and nervously point fingers to the playground for their companions’ benefit. They call attention to the lonely wire-enclosed playground as if the obvious movement on swings is somehow too obvious to notice. Enthralled, they watch how the swings creak and arch up in the absence of wind. The chains rattle the only sound.
“Is this for real?” one asks.
“No special effects or nothing?” another adds, laughing uneasily.
“Shit, will you look at that!”
“Mommy, why can’t we get inside and play?”
“Not here, baby, we can’t get inside. We are only supposed to look.”
“Look at what? I wanna go home.”
This is what they say.
Always with worried glances from behind the barbed wire enclosures that line the isolated playground, they wonder at how the candy bar wrappers, the leftover chocolate still fresh on the edges of the licked foil, collect on the uncut grass. They notice the slides which remain shiny as if recently used. Years from now, none of them will ever forget the yellow-painted seesaws that bob on their own. And when they return to their cars, they will never know what gets into the car with them until they get home.