A Thought For Tomorrow

ofrubber hoses on the top. Potts felt sure that Joe took a sadisticdelight in his work. As the line moved forward, he glanced at theattendant's florid face, tight smiling lips and squinted eyes. Pottsshuddered.

  No member of the hospital staff had ever condescended to explain toPotts the exact purpose of the P. T. bath, other than that it would makehim feel good. It only frightened Potts. The correct procedure was thatthe patient stepped between the pipes of the needle shower and washedhimself. Then the attendant turned off the shower and sluiced thepatient with powerful streams of water from the hoses.

  The routine seemed senseless and innocent enough, but Potts had heardwhispered conversations in the night that filled him with horror. The P.T. machine, rumor said, was actually an instrument of torture and death.The water pressure could be increased to two thousand pounds, enough topush out a man's eyes or break his bones. Instead of water, the hosescould spit fire like a flamethrower. Acid could spray from the shower.Potts had even heard that Joe had killed seven men in the P. T. bath.How much of this was true, Potts did not know. When he saw bodies turnsuddenly red under a rain of hot water, or writhe and tremble as ifbeing whipped, he could believe all of it.

  The line advanced slowly, like a gang of criminals going to the gaschamber. Potts grimly determined to think himself out of the hospital atonce, for who knew when fire instead of water would spout from thehoses? If he recalled some place outside, in exact detail, Potts knew hecould become all mind and project himself there. He must recalleverything, scents, temperature, the ground beneath his feet, precisecolors. Potts concentrated.

  He tried to remember the home he had not seen for three months. Hereceived a dim impression of a tiny crowded apartment and a wife growingincreasingly indifferent. He could not even remember the color of hereyes, or whether the living room contained one easy chair or two. Hewould have to project himself to another place, one that did not seemlike a vague dream.

  Potts saw that his bath would come next. Danny Harris stood in the sprayand stared stupidly at the tile floor. Potts looked at Joe. A wide smilethat revealed two gold teeth creased the burly attendant's face. Hairyhands turned off the needle shower, twisted two more knobs, and pickedup the twin hoses. Joe stood like the villain in a Western movie,blazing away with two guns, and shot thin powerful streams of wateragainst Harris's spine. Harris shrieked, though he rarely uttered asound outside the P. T. bath. As the icy water raked him from head toheels, he yelled and danced.

  "Turn around," Joe commanded.

  Harris pivoted and wailed, and Joe basted him on all sides with water.Potts watched fascinated as the thin body turned alternately blue withcold and red under the stinging water. He would not endure that againthis morning. He knew now one place he could sense and visualize incomplete detail.

  "All right," said Joe, laying down his hoses. "Let's go, Orville Potts!"

  Harris reeled, like a man rescued from drowning, into the dressing room,and Potts took his place between the four vertical pipes of the needleshower. From innumerable holes in the pipes, powerful jets of waterspouted against his body. He stood with his back turned to the machineand made no attempt to wash. He never did--he saw no point in bathingwithout soap.

  Potts thought of the Ward J dayroom, the room in which he had spent muchof his time for the past three months. He visualized the maroon chairswith metal arms and legs, the green cretonne curtains, the cream walls,the black-and-red inlaid linoleum floor glinting with spots of old wax.He sensed a stale odor of tobacco smoke, furniture polish, andperspiration. He heard the talk of patients engaged in perpetual gamesof rook. He felt his thighs, hips, and back pressing against one of thechairs, and his feet on the smooth floor.

  "Now, Orville Potts," Joe jeered, "let's hear you sing like DannyHarris!"

  But Potts wasn't there.

  * * * * *

  Potts opened his eyes. He had always wondered how it would feel, but hehad felt nothing. In the same instant, he stood tensed, waiting for thewater, and he sat in a chair in the Ward J dayroom. Directly in front ofhim, a nurse played rook with three of the patients grouped around asquare table. Not many patients were in the room at this hour, and noattendant stood guard. The nurse turned her head slightly. She gasped,shoved back her chair and ran to the porch. Nasen, the ward attendant,charged through the door she had used.

  "Orville Potts!" he cried. "Where's your clothes?"

  Potts then noticed that he was completely naked and wet.

  Nasen dragged Potts from the chair, applied a light hammerlock, andmarched his captive from the room. "Did you come over here from P. T.like that?" he asked. "How'd you get out?"

  Potts went along willingly enough, but without answering.

  Nasen unlocked the door to the shower room and thrust Potts within."Stay right there," he said. As he was locked in, Potts heard theattendant call, "Frank, go tell Dr. Bean that Orville Potts slipped outof P. T. with no clothes on. I don't know how. He must have stolen akey."

  Potts took a towel from the shelf, sat on the bench, and rubbed his hairwith the towel. He hoped they all went batty trying to learn how he hadescaped. He thought most of the attendants should be patients anyhow.

  Clutching a pile of clothing and a pair of slippers, Nasen returned."Put these on," he said. "Orville Potts, you're in trouble now. What didyou do with the key?"

  Potts struggled into a tight blue shirt minus most of the buttons. "Ididn't have a key."

  "You're _talking_?"

  "I can talk when I want to," Potts admitted. "I just never want to."

  Nasen said, "That's more words than I've heard from you all at one time.Why did you come back stark naked like that?"

  "I thought my way out," Potts explained, pulling on the trousers thathad evidently been tailored for a giant.

  "Oh, you thought your way out. Put those slippers on."

  Joe and Wilhart, flushed and panting, charged into the shower room.

  "There he is! Grab him!" Joe yelled. He seized Potts' arms and pulledthem behind in a brutal double hammerlock.

  "He's not giving any trouble," Nasen said. "What happened, Joe?"

  "Damn if I know. He was in the shower, and I turned my head for asecond. Next thing I knew, he was gone. What'd you find on him--a key ora lock-pick or something like that?"

  Nasen grinned. "He didn't have even that much on when I first saw him.He came into the day room and sat down, and Miss Davis like to threw afit."

  Wilhart tossed a bundle on the floor. "There's nothing in his ownclothes but a pack of cigarettes."

  "Where's the key, Orville Potts?" Joe grated, squeezing Potts's arms."You know what's going to happen to you? You'll get the pack room, ormaybe Ward D. How would you like Ward D, Orville Potts?"

  Nasen said, "If he had a key, he--"

  "You better run along, Nasen," Joe said. "I think Dr. Bean wants to talkto you."

  "Well, I--uh--" Looking worried, Nasen left the shower room.

  Wilhart handed Joe a towel.

  "Leave me alone!" Potts yelled.

  Joe wrapped the towel around Potts's neck. "Where's the key, OrvillePotts?"

  "Help!" Potts cried. The towel tightened.

  With rapidly dimming vision, he saw Wilhart assume a stance. A huge fistthudded against his shrunken stomach. He tried to scream, but the towelcut off all air and sound. Again and again, the fist struck.

  Potts found himself sitting on the floor, gulping air into starvedlungs. For a moment, he hoped he had managed another transportation, butthe two white-clad human gorillas leering down at him proved he had notleft the shower room.

  "Get up," Joe said.

  They dragged Potts to his feet. Nasen opened the door, clamped histeeth, and then opened his mouth to say, "Dr. Bean wants Orville Potts.I'll--"

  "I'll take him," Joe said.

  Potts winced as spatulate fingers almost met through his biceps. Hisfeet barely touched the floor of the corridor when Joe marched him tothe office of Dr. Lawrence D. Bean.

&
nbsp; * * * * *

  Dr. Bean, a thin bald man, sat behind a maple desk and peered at Pottsover spectacles attached to a black ribbon. Joe shut the door and leanedagainst it.

  "I've been hearing things about you, Orville," Dr. Bean said. "We'llhave a little examination. Now, hold your right arm out straight, closeyour eyes, and touch the end of your nose with your index finger."

  "Can't we do without the foolishness?" Potts asked. He sank into thechair beside the doctor's desk and gently rubbed his bruised arm.

  The doctor looked slightly startled, but said, "I'm pleased to hear youspeaking again, Orville. If