Preface to Book One
By Dr. Ford Freud, B.A., B.S., M.A., PhD., M.D., C.P.A., B.M.F.
A child’s brain is a squishy gray abomination much like the gruel that my mother used to serve me each morning for breakfast. And just like my mother’s semi-congealed breakfast cereal, the brain of a child is too spongy to work particularly well or be a satisfactory doorstop. As a practitioner of the behavioral arts, I endeavor to make sense out of the chaotic pediatric brain and the irrational thoughts and emotions that spring from it. Where childhood irrationality is often at its most bizarre is in dreams and nightmares. Even for adults will fully-formed brains, these nocturnal expeditions into the vagaries of the subconscious mind can be temporarily disturbing or confusing. Young children usually lack the ability to understand that dreams are not real. Some of them can become so consumed with an irrational fear of what occurs in their dreams that they become emotionally unstable. This is often when an expert such as myself is called in to teach the child that he is exhibiting emotions that are not based upon reality and are therefore unacceptable.
To the scholars, healthcare practitioners, students and other members of the enlightened populace who have wisely chosen to read this book: I bestow upon you my warmest salutations and greetings! When I was approached by this fine publisher suggesting that I write a series of books about my most unusual and interesting cases in the field of psychology, I initially had to demur. I explained to the publisher that I simply could not devote the amount of time that would be required to compose such a collection of stories. I explained to the publisher that because of my obligations to the university, my grant-funded research and my active private practice, there was simply not enough hours in the day to devote to a new undertaking. This had become even more true because I had recently been elected as President of the Society of New and Original Thinkers (S.N.O.T.) When the publisher suggested that another author could “ghost write” the series of books, I was both intrigued and hesitant. I made it clear to the publisher that such an author would need to have the skills and acumen to fully appreciate my work and the practical ramifications that my research into the workings of the human brain has had on society as a whole.
After receiving such assurances from the publisher, I opened my patient files and personal notes to the ghost writer/author, Mr. J. A. Ford. Further, I spent many hours with the author, sharing with him the thought process, deductions and reasoning that I applied to each patient’s case. It is my belief that the author appreciates how my work in this field will at some time be regaled as a renaissance in the field of human cognition and behavior. Mr. Ford also performed research on his own so that he could get a grasp of the immense impact of my work. Mr. Ford has advised me that he has also conducted many interviews with pertinent witnesses in order to collect all of the applicable facts and circumstances surrounding the cases.
In order to assure the professionalism and academic integrity of this book, the publisher has demanded that Mr. Ford’s magnum opus not be seen by me until the final stage of the book’s publication. Confident in my professional accomplishments and having been assured of the author’s utmost professionalism, I have graciously agreed to this arrangement. Here, then, is the first book that examines my casework in the field of human behavior, pathopsychology and the shadowy world of the pediatric mind.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Ford Freud
Chapter One
All Hallows’ Eve
Most of us have forgotten what it was to think like an eight year old child. Case in point: a child’s failure to grasp the idea you can actually have too much of a good thing. Over-indulgence is a concept that is hard for a kid to understand. If one ride on a Ferris wheel is good and a second ride is fantastic, it is reasonable in the child’s mind to conclude that twenty rides would be awesome beyond belief. Adults can try to explain to the child that the fun will likely go away after about the fifth ride and that he will probably puke-up his corn dog and cotton candy after the fifteenth but it would probably be a waste of time. Most kids do not understand the well accepted rule of thumb that too much of a good thing is bad. Once they have polished off a tasty piece of chocolate cake with sugary whipped frosting, there’s no reason that they can think of as to why they shouldn’t have another piece. Or a third piece. Or a sixth.
According to a publication written by renowned pediatric psychologist Dr. Ford Freud, when parents tell a kid he can only have one piece of cake, there is a disconnect in the kid’s developing brain. “Why would my parents, who love me, want to keep me from eating one of the most wonderful things I have ever tasted?” To the kid, the oft-used explanation that doing so would spoil your supper is meaningless. So what if you spoiled your supper? Something that tasted this good had to be better than anything else mom could cook for supper.
On the other hand, the concept of serendipity is something that kids sometimes understand better than adults. Dr. Freud has explained that in the logical and regimented adult world, everything must have a cause and effect. If something bad happens, then there must have been an identifiable cause. A kid’s world, however, is full of daily events wherein something “just happens”. Food appears in the refrigerator. The furnace warms up and the air conditioner magically cools. It just happens. Serendipity.
When Jeremy Bracken was eight years old, overindulgence and serendipity collided into each other, creating an ordeal that was much larger than the mere sum of its parts. It was during this time that Jeremy’s life changed in a very profound way.
October 31, 1975, was going to be Jeremy’s fourth trick-or-treat experience in his short life. Jeremy did not remember very much about the first time he went out trick-or-treating. Mom and Dad had taken a picture of him in his costume when he was five years old, which was the first time he had gone out into the night in search of candy. His mom had put him up in one of his father’s old business suits. She smeared a little Vaseline on his chin and sprinkled it with coffee grounds to make it look like Jeremy had whisker stubble. As best as he could remember, his parents had only taken him to a handful houses that night. When he was six, he was allowed to walk up to the door on his own but his father was trailing him. His father told him that the only reason he was tagging along was to make sure that none of the older kids stole his candy along the way.
The following Halloween Jeremy was finally old enough to go out with his friends, without being escorted by a lurking parent. Before he left the house, his mother gave him a long list of things to avoid such as barking dogs, men in cars and older kids who were vandalizing property. It was an amazing journey. Mom had bought the good kind of costume made by the Ben Cooper Company. It was sold in a colorful, flimsy paperboard box with the mask staring blankly from behind a sheet of cellophane. Inside was a onesie that made the identity of the costume obvious to all who saw it. Spider-Man had his insignia emblazoned on the chest and the cowboy had chaps and a gun belt printed on the costume. Most of the kids had to stretch the costume over their clothes because their mothers wanted them to stay warm while they were running around in the crisp October air. Jeremy and his pals ran from house to house, eagerly collecting candy in their neighborhood. It was a great adventure! Could life be any better than gallivanting around the neighborhood with your buddies and collecting loads of free candy? Jeremy did not think so. They started their trek at 6:30 and did not return to their homes until 8:00. While they were walking back home, Jeremy saw that there were still a few houses that had yet to turn their porch lights off. If a couple of his friends had not gotten tired, Jeremy could have put in at least another half hour.
When he got home, his parents were surprised to see the impressive size of his haul. The brown paper grocery bag that he carried was nearly half full with treats! Almost immediately, the bag of candy was whisked away and placed in the cabinet above the refrigerator by his mother. His parents explained that the bag of candy was only open for business at certain times of the day. Over the following weeks, the candy was rationed out by his parents.
When Halloween 1975 was only a week away, Jeremy called together a summit of his closest friends to discuss the details of their upcoming onslaught of the neighborhood’s candy supply. All of the boys at the meeting were eight years old, except for Rob, who had already turned nine. The boys got together at the baseball diamond and talked about the pressing issue of parental interference with their Halloween candy. All of the members of this brain trust shared with the group that they had endured similar restrictions on the consumption of their candy. The flow of sugary goodness was so slow that some kids reported that they were still drawing from their bag of candy after Thanksgiving. Jeremy encouraged the group to suggest ways to avoid this parental restriction on the flow of candy.
As was typical, the kids who had older siblings had the most information to share with the group. They knew what schemes their older brothers and sisters had tried and what pitfalls could occur. The advisability of hiding a stash of candy in your bedroom closet was debated. Tales of dogs, cats, siblings and even a mouse getting into the hidden stashes were shared. Stories of hiding candy outside always ended poorly. Even when cleverly hidden in heavily fortified tree forts, the stash of candy was inevitably ravaged by rain, snow, squirrels or thieves. Despite the significant collection of Halloween experts that had been assembled, the summit could not come up with a fool-proof solution. Once all meaningful discussions had been exhausted, the members of the summit divided up and played cowboys and indians.
Like a soldier preparing for battle, Jeremy laid out his gear on his bed the night before Halloween. After finding grocery bags too fragile, he told his mother than he needed an old pillowcase to carry his loot. He had grown a fair amount in the past year, so his Batman costume was too small. In order to get one more year out of the costume, his mother used scissors to slice darts in the legs and down the middle of the back of the onesie. Even with these alterations, it barely fit over the top of Jeremy’s jeans and sweatshirt. The sleeves only came down to just below his elbows. Luckily, it was unseasonably warm that year in the Midwest, so Jeremy did not have to try to pull the costume over a bulky winter coat. The brittle, gray rubber band on his mask had broken shortly into last year’s mission. Dad had threaded an old shoestring through holes on each side of the mask. Jeremy did not own sneakers but he had an old pair of shoes that were well-worn and good for running. Jeremy was careful as to whom he chose to travel with that year. His plan was to cover a large area in a short amount of time, so any of his buddies who were not up for an aggressive attack on the neighborhood’s candy were not invited to join the elite strike force.
The night before Halloween, Jeremy laid in bed and stared on the dark bedroom ceiling. Jeremy and three friends made a pact to aggressively scour the area and liberate as much candy as possible the following evening. They discussed where the greatest density of houses was located and how they could cover the greatest amount of territory. As he ran through their basic battle plans in his head, it was no wonder that Jeremy found it difficult to fall asleep. Eventually he nodded off with thoughts of sweet Halloween candies on his mind and a smile on his face. As long as he could remember, Jeremy had colorful and detailed dreams. That night, he dreamt that he was riding a toboggan down a hill covered with slick chocolate frosting. When the sled got to the bottom of the hill, Jeremy was catapulted forward, landing in a large mound of Tootsie Rolls. Swimming out of the candy, he smelled the faint, wonderful scent of milk chocolate. He picked up one of the Tootsie Rolls and tried to unwrap it, but it was sealed tight and would not open. Jeremy could not remember what happened next in his dream.
Despite not sleeping very well the night before, the four boys were full of energy and they covered a lot of ground on Halloween night. Batman, Spiderman, the Lone Ranger and a hobo scurried as a group from house to house. Houses with no lights on were ignored, as the group had no time for pranks or retribution against these party poopers. After a treat was dropped into their bags, they did not take time to analyze the type or size of the candy, as this would just slow them down. Besides, there would be plenty of time to do that analysis on November 1st. The Four Horsemen of the Candy Apocalypse raced through multiple neighborhoods, autumn’s brittle leaves crunching under their shoes. For the first hour, they were able to maintain a very fast pace, running and laughing as they went from house to house. Contrary to his mother’s instructions, Jeremy and his friends did not use the sidewalks and instead ran through peoples’ yards.
They slowed down a little during the second hour but not much. By the end of the second hour, a few houses had turned off their lights and this pumped new energy and a sense of urgency into the group of costumed characters. By 8:45, most of the houses had closed up shop, so the group started walking towards home. As they did so, they recounted the night’s success with excited voices, sometimes leering into their bags and running their hands through the treasures they had amassed. It was 9:00 by the time they were back in their own neighborhood. Since he knew that his bag of candy would be confiscated as soon as he got home, Jeremy suggested to his friends that they take a few minutes before returning home to gorge themselves on candy.
Sitting on a curb under a streetlight, they had a contest to see how much candy each of them could stuff into their mouths at once. Jeremy stuffed some little candy bars, a few bites of a popcorn ball and a string of licorice into his mouth. This odd combination of sugary goodness tasted wonderful! The boys’ hands could not unwrap the treats fast enough. As soon as they freed the candy from its wrapper, it was popped into the mouth. There were times that they had the tastes of multiple kinds of candy in their mouths all at the same time. Jeremy concluded that he was making his own kind of Halloween treat in his mouth. Had anyone ever taken chocolate, peanut brittle and licorice and ground it up into a gravy? Was anyone willing to add a few bites of a sweet popcorn ball to this concoction?
No matter what combination of goodies he tried, Jeremy thought that the outcome was glorious. Jeremy concluded that this was apparently what the adults did not want them to experience and why they controlled the flow of candy. They did not want the kids creating unique and crazy combinations of goodness. It was alright for you to have all of the ingredients of the mish-mash, but if you dared to mix them altogether, you were venturing into forbidden territory.
When he walked up the porch steps of his house, Jeremy’s stomach was churning and he was not feeling very well. Great explorers and trailblazers usually paid a price for their expeditions into uncharted territory and Jeremy was no different. He felt like he had gas and the area below his belly button was being inflated with an air pump. The pain came in waves. At times he felt like his innards were being twisted. As he anticipated, the bag of candy was sequestered in the cupboard above the refrigerator by his mom shortly after he walked through the front door. Jeremy did not make a fuss because he had no interest in candy at that point. When his mother tucked him in, she noticed that he was wincing.
“How much candy did you eat while you were out there?” she asked in an accusatory tone.
“Just a little,” Jeremy sheepishly replied.
“Yeah, I bet,” she said, slowly shaking her head. She brought a wastepaper basket into Jeremy’s bedroom and put it by the bed. “Just in case you need it,” she said, pointing at it. “Love you, honey,” she added as she left his room.
It was a rough night. His belly pain did not subside and it was bad enough to keep him up most of the night. At one point, he stared at the wastepaper basket that was illuminated by the moonlight coming through his bedroom window. He considered sticking his finger down his throat, in hopes that a long course of vomiting would give him some relief. Throwing up, he thought, might reduce the pressure that was building up in his stomach. At one point he got his hand all the way to his lips before pulling it back. Jeremy decided to just ride the storm out. It ended up being a very long and tortuous storm.