Tucker

Tucker’s mom raised the money to cover the costs of Tracker Marybeth Hill and I to fly to West Virginia.

First session little Tucker cried like a baby and voooosh his mom wheeled the little boy out of the studio.

That afternoon Tucker returned and rolled up to the workstation he, you guessed it, started crying like a baby, and up came his loving mom to wheel him away.

This was when, forgive me, I said, “Please step back. Way back. Let us work with him.”

Tucker’s parent’s had informed us that clinicians informed them Tucker was such damaged goods he could not understand language.

To this I thought, “Bullshit.”  I pictured the clinician peppering the tiny lad with clinical questions that would jam in the kids head, this jam up proving not that Tucker lacked understanding, but that the clinician was a robot who had no clue what was going on inside the boy. His struggle. The time and quiet he needed to signal the answer.

And the questions were likely of no interest and so why answer them? 

So Tucker is at the work station, a canvas pinned up, Marybeth ready to do her Tracker thing, Tucker wailing, yes, like a baby.

Lowering to rest on one knee I hissed in his ear, “Listen to me, buddy. Your mother paid a lot of money to bring us down to work with you and now you’re going to act like a baby?”

Unable to see his reaction I asked Marybeth, “His expression?”

Laughing Marybeth reported, “A smile from ear to ear!”

[I knew he would like my Terminator thing.]

“We’re told you don’t understand language Tucker.  Let’s see just how wrong they are.”

When Marybeth had the laser headband on Tucker  I asked her, “Can you hold your

hand on the canvas, palm out, and keep it there?  Ask Tucker to train the laser on

your palm.”

“Tucker?” Marybeth asked. “Can you get this bright light, over here, on my hand?”

With some serious straining on Tucker’s part, the ruby red bead of the laser moved horizontally, from the right of Marybeth, eventually crossing her palm, but continued on, stopping five feet to the left of the open palm.  A pause to gather things together, back came the laser the way it had come, once again crossing Marybeth’s hand, and on it traveled horizontally, but this time stopping three feet from Marybeth’s palm. And here comes the ruby bead, back the way it had come, again crossing the palm, this time stopping a foot from the target. With some straining on Tucker’s part back the laser traveled back the way it had come.  It slowed, then stopped, the ruby bead parked dead center on Marybeth’s palm.  And there the light would remain.