THE PETER PIPER PAPERS: STUTTERVILLE PART III

     It was costing $3000 to have the worst time of my life. That's one thousand dollars a week for 21 days of punishment.  I should  have figured anything called the Precision Fluency Shaping Program at the Hollins Communication Research Institute was not going to be at all fun or easy.

" Hard work and long practice
 can be oh such a bore,
with just the wave of two arms
you'll stutter no more! "

   No magic spell could save me. There was no way to cheat, no shortcut to take or detour to make. This was a problem because making detours and cheating happen to be essential to stutterers. It's part of what makes us so sly when it comes to changing the rules of verbal engagement. 

     The head speech therapist, Ross, and the rest of the staff of the Precision Fluency Shaping Program, or PFSP, knew all the 'tricks of the trade' used by stutterers and wouldn't let us get away with anything. We weren't allowed to avoid, substitute, or disguise any sound. It was like Fat Camp, except the staff just cared about what came out of our mouths instead of what went in.

                                       

The Basics:

The vocal cords
(or what looks like a vagina in my throat). 

    One of the first things I learned is that there is a vagina in my throat that I can't control. This vagina, also referred to as the voice box, has vocal cords that vibrate evenly and smoothly when speech is fluent. When I stutter, my cords vibrate improperly and clamp together, trapping a sound.
   This trapped sound is referred to as a 'block'. Imagine, if you will, my voice box is not a vagina anymore but instead is a wrestling arena. In this arena, a 'blocked' sound is in a Full Nelson until it breaks free and escapes.

  





























   
                                                The pressure that is built-up by each block varies, making some of my stutters bigger and more obvious. Those are the ones that are painful for other people to watch in person or listen to over the phone. When the sound is finally released, the force behind it can be quite explosive. This creates what is called a 'hard-onset'. This is not to be confused with a hard-on, which also can be quite explosive at times. It might help to think of a hard-onset in terms of a manhole cover being blown off or a volcano erupting, which, like a stutter is uncontrollable and quite a sight to see.

   




   

A block and a hard-onset were simple words turned into important concepts, and neither were tolerated by Ross. We were taught to identify these two tell-tale signs of stuttering so we could be sure to never be caught doing them.  

 Sharp, jagged sound waves
of hard-onsets that look like
 broken fangs (above),

compared to the sound waves
 of the 'gentle-onset' 
that fall perfectly into place 
in a flawless formation of
flowing peaks and valleys (below).

   'Gentle-onset' helps to control the initiation of sound. Each sound starts off as a very low amplitude vibration of the vocal cords. The amplitude gradually increases as the vocal cords vibrate more quickly, until the loudness peaks. A gradual decrease in loudness immediately follows until the sound ends at the same amplitude level that it began.

   This fundamental action of fluent 

speech occurs naturally in those of you who don't stutter. In your case, the vagina in your throat is calm and relaxed without you having to make any effort or give it even one thought. Your vocal cords allow  sounds to rise and fall with unwavering uniformity, similar to the superb symmetry of synchronized swimmers.    

   The gentle-onset is the gold standard of proper speech and the cornerstone of the entire Fluency Shaping Program. If we mastered it, the fluent world was ours to conquer.

                NORMAL SPEECH 
                 WITHIN OUR REACH!

 To master the gentle-onset, you must tame the gentle-onset. And to tame the gentle-onset, you must slow the gentle-onset. And I mean really slow. Words had to crawl before they could walk. At Hollins Institute, words barely crawled, at least at the beginning of the program. Each word was deconstructed into all it's different sounds. Then each sound was deconstructed into a beginning, middle and an end, lasting a full 2 seconds.

                                  The 2-second gentle-onset stretch

   For you to grasp just how torturously long the 2 second gentle-onset was, all you have to do is write down the word ' 'WATERMELON'. Then break it down into all the different sounds that make up the parts of it. The WA is two sounds, the W and the A, each lasting two seconds each, for a total of 4 seconds. The TE and the R are another two sounds equaling another 4 seconds. That's 8 seconds so far. Now add that 8 seconds to the 6 seconds from the three individual sounds of the M, the E, and L. The O and the N at the end is an additional 4 seconds, for a grand total of 18 seconds. Yes, 18 seconds just to say 'watermelon'! In other words, it would take the same time to count out loud to '18 Mississippi'.

                                       Watermelon said normally.

An 18-second long watermelon.

                                         

No picture of the 'therapy suites' was available 

but I did find this shot of break-time at a

Hungarian Maximum Security Prison

REDLIGHT DISTRICT  LOCK DOWN

       Ross assigned each of us a 'therapy suite', which was actually more like a 'therapy closet'. They were tiny rooms that faced each other with a narrow hallway in between. There was a built-in tabletop with a chair under it, with nothing else except a small, odd, black box sitting on the table facing the chair.

 

   It turned out that this black box, otherwise known as the Precision Fluency Shaping Program Voice Monitor, or PFSPVM for short, was going to be my new speech therapist. It looked like a basic ham radio. The built-in microphone didn't connect to anywhere outside of the box. There was no human listening on the other end, and no voice, machine or otherwise, to answer me back. The only interaction it offered was flashing one red nipple-shaped light bulb at me whenever I screwed up a gentle-onset. The Voice Monitor had the extremely precise and extremely annoying ability to detect any disruption of airflow or even the slightest hint of a hard-onset.  

  From the moment it first flashed it's red nipple at me, I knew this new plugged-in speech therapist and I weren't going to get along. Machines and I have never gotten along; I don't like anything that I can't charm or make laugh (another reason why I didn't like Ross).

    Hearing myself speak so slowly made it  hard  to focus and to even stay awake. It sounded like a Buddhist chant that seemed to echo in the tiny, bare room. Even though everyone's doors were shut, I could still hear the muffled drones of the other stutterers through the walls. It sounded more like a Tibetan monastery than a speech clinic. Occasionally I heard a loud accidental 'damn it!' or 'shit!' from someone else who, obviously frustrated with the Voice Monitor, forgot to curse with a gentle-onset.

       You would think that the worst part of the PFSP was being in the solitary confinement of my therapy suite while having to spend hour after hour  stretching out every conceivable combination of vowels and consonants for 2 seconds each. For me, having to leave my tiny room and join all the other stutterers at break-times was even more torturous.

      First of all,  I was  very disappointed in the group I got stuck with. I waited my whole life to finally meet other stutterers, and I ended up having nothing in common with them. There weren't any other Jews in my group, or  New Yorkers either, or anyone who was particularly funny, sexy or loud like me. What was most disappointing was the fact that there was not one other gay stutterer in the group. I was sure that there would be at least one, or maybe even a few.
   Having moved into Manhattan immediately after High School to study illustration at Fashion Institute of Technology and then moving into an apartment in Chelsea with my boyfriend Scott, I had become accustomed to there always being a gay presence around me. I wanted to be surrounded by gay people as often as possible to make up for all the lost time I spent with straight people my whole childhood. It was an entirely new reality that gave me comfort and strength. I had thought the days of me being the only gay person in a group were over. I didn't like the feeling I got when there weren't any other gays nearby. After all, it was 1982 and the gay rights movement was taking off, fueled by the start of the AIDS crisis a year earlier, and declaring one's gayness was a powerful political statement and tool.  

       I made a point of letting it be known that I was gay to Ross and to anyone else at the Hollins Institute who I felt the need to tell. When I was in my 20's, I  made it an issue wherever I went, and was happy to have it define me. I was creating an intentional distance between myself and straight people, even if they stuttered. Looking back now, it was probably the most inopportune  time for me to be in such a straight environment as the Hollins Institute in Roanoke. And the fact that I found my group as a whole to be particularly boring didn't help at all. I tried to join conversations during break-times  but I have never been able to fain interest. Hearing fluent people discuss sports, cars, the weather, and National Parks is boring enough, but hearing stutterers trying to discuss it is nothing less than a punishment. 

    What made it even worse was that all of us had to time ourselves as we had these boring conversations. Ross had given each of us a stopwatch that was to be carried at all times. He told us that we were to consider the watches to be   as important to our survival as pacemakers are to people who have bad hearts.  Whenever we were not in front of the Voice Monitor, we had to use the stopwatches to make sure that each sound of every word we said was still 2 seconds long. 

   Ross instructed us to use this 2 second stretch anytime we opened our mouths, even if it was for the most basic question or the most obvious answer. He refused to give any exceptions or 'time-outs', even if someone felt what they had to say was too important to be spoken slowly. We were not allowed to shorten sentences, abbreviate words or use the very handy 'never mind' or the even handier shoulder shrug.  Every sound had to be at the same slow speed.  Ross was like a very strict hallway monitor, except he was  patrolling our mouths instead of the halls. 

   These break-times were when Ross really could show what an asshole he could be. But looking back at it, the breaks also revealed what incredible patience he must have possessed. A lesser man would have gone insane having to listen to as many stutterers going through the Fluency Program as he did over the years. In his defense, the job of head clinician required that he be the asshole he was. In a way, being such an asshole helped to make him the best in the world at what he did.

      Ross never slowed his speech to match ours so conversations with him were very lopsided. Answering him took ten times longer than he took to ask the question. It made any conversation longer than I ever wanted to have with him. But those conversations seemed quick compared to whenever I got trapped speaking to another stutterer. Conversations that should have been finished in two minutes were taking a quarter of an hour. Each interaction turned into an investment. So much effort went into every response that I had to force myself to participate. 

   The first person would click the on/off button of his stopwatch and stare down at the second-hand trying to time each sound of the word he was saying. In the mean time, the second person just stood there waiting. When the first person timing himself was finished, he would click off his watch and look back up. This was the cue for the second person to click on his stopwatch and begin his response, looking down at his watch's second-hand while the first person now stood there and waited. You can imagine how unbearable this  become, at least for me.

   A stopwatch had always  represented the quickness of things, but at the Hollins Institute it became the guardian of slowness. It made me aware of how incredibly slow 2 seconds can be. All the clicking and quick ticking became the background music for all our conversations.

               

    By the end of the fourth day, I could swear I was still hearing faint ticking in my ear as I laid in the bed of my hotel room unable to sleep.  I  was  dreading having to go back to the Institute in the morning and face another full day of the Voice Monitor's  flashing red light and The Stopwatch Sonata. 

                                                   *       

    I had hoped by the next day I would be more inspired about the program, but being back at the Institute in my tiny therapy suite suffering through more hours of the Voice Monitor's silent, flashing judgements was becoming unbearable. Time inside the therapy suite was dragging more and more each hour. Remember, this was in the 80's before PC s, cell phones, and any other technology that nowadays keep us from ever feeling trapped and alone. Once that door closed, it was me vs. the Voice Monitor. There was nothing else in that room to distract or interest me. The only entertainment  I had was to repeat an 8-second "ffFuuUUUuuKkk yyYYYyyooOOoo," over and over to the Voice Monitor.

    My mind was everywhere except where it was supposed to be. I couldn't focus enough to continue practicing with the Voice Monitor. All I wanted to do was go to sleep. I could still hear the stretched-out muffled moans coming from the other stutterers as I put my head down on my arms folded on top of my workbook. But just as I was dozing off, Ross appeared on one of his random check-ins. He went from suite to suite at will, opening our doors without warning to keep us on our toes. I sprang forward in my chair just in towards the Voice Monitor acting like I was in the middle of practicing. He  stood silently against the back walland listened to me doing gentle-onsets into the microphone. He hardly ever commented on what was done well or what wasn't. He knew just his presence alone was enough to usually make everyone try their best. 

    " I told you the first week is the hardest, Gary. We start in the deep-end and then swim to the shallow part. This gets easier, but only if you do what you're supposed to do now. You still have too many hard on-sets, " Ross broke his silence and said.

    I wanted to complain to him but I knew he would make me say it stretched out with my stopwatch so I didn't bother. 

   "You should take this as seriously as you seem to take being a gay person. Your speech is as big a part of you as anything else, " he told me as he opened the door. 

     I sat stunned in my chair not knowing how to answer him.

  " And talk to more people at break-times. You don't have to enjoy the conversations or the people. That's not the purpose of speaking with each other here," he added, closing the door behind him and leaving me alone again with the Voice Monitor that was flashing it's red nipple at me.

    " He didn't mean speak to you more," I sneered at the Voice Monitor and unplugged it from the wall. "That should teach you," I grinned and stuttered at it.

       It flashed its bitchy red light to criticize my hard-onset without even being plugged in. 

        "How the hell did you do that?" I sneered at it again.

      I picked it up and looked at it's dangling plug, then turned the black box over to find that it ran on batteries as a back-up. " You bitch," I said, wishing it was alive for a moment so it could understand how much I truly hated it.