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Show beyond their reasonable limits and therefore got me through each day. Days when I was incapable of perceiving a pattern to teaching. We began to run around and around the building. She was too big to restrain when in full rage, she could not be held, and time-out did not offer the same threat when she could still toss things and injure those she could not see. There was no psychologist then, standing at the door to my room and passing out answers. So we ran. It is how I deal with my own anger, so it is how she would learn to deal with hers. If this were not a real story, no one would believe this: a tour of State Legislators strolling past just as we stopped and I was hitting Patty's hand away from her face, as she attempted to tear her skin. She, bellowing and screeching, and I, beating her as if I had drawn the blood from her hand. Even now, I find it amusing to recall that not one of them turned his head even near our direction or gave any indication that we all stood next to each other on the same sidewalk. And yet they are said to smile at strangers, kiss babies, and shake hands of other politicians, waiting for election year to come. We were into the second hour and I was tired. I decided to let her have this "win;" I was not athletic enough to even want to stay the rounds with her. I took her to the swings and signed "swing" to her- She grabbed the end of a chain link on the side of it and began to masturbate, laughing. She was not going to allow a truce. There was no turning back now, so we ran. I signed to her, "Want what?" Nothing. Running. I asked her again. Nothing. We ran. "Want what?" Nothing. Running. Silence, her hands stilled at her sides. Suddenly, she grabs my hand and places it against her mouth. She begins to breathe heavily into it, with her tongue stuck out as if panting. Her teacher had brought a list of fifty signs that Patty could express with her hands. She had even claimed that Patty could put some of them together to form phrases. Patty would do -7- |