The Thank Tank

The Thank Tank is a repurposed police-station isolation cell used by Commander Judd and the Eyes to break the will of female detainees during the early consolidation of Gilead. It is the site of Aunt Lydia's systematic psychological and physical torture, which transforms her from a defiant judge into a collaborator, and becomes the crucible in which she forges the cold, strategic ruthlessness that will define her decades-long rule over Ardua Hall.

Definition and Physical Description

The Thank Tank was a repurposed police-station isolation cell, approximately four paces by four. It contained a bed shelf with no mattress and a bucket that still held human waste, as evidenced by the smell. The cell had once had a light socket, but it was not live; Aunt Lydia stuck her finger into it after a while, as she notes anyone would have. Any light came from the corridor outside, through the slot by which sandwiches would arrive. The darkness was nearly total, and the isolation was absolute. The cell was located in a building that had been a police station; the lettering had been covered over, and on the front door there was an image of an eye with wings, the logo of the Eyes.

The Ordeal: Isolation, Sensory Deprivation, and Brutalization

Aunt Lydia was held in the Thank Tank for an unknown length of time, though she judges from the length of her fingernails when she was brought out that it could not have been that long. Time, however, is different when shut up in the dark alone; it is longer, and she lost track of when she was asleep and when awake. Cockroaches walked across her face, their tiny feet tiptoeing tenderly, tentatively, as if her skin were thin ice; she did not slap them, because after a while any kind of touch is welcome. The mind goes soggy in the absence of other people; one person alone is not a full person, and she risked becoming no person. Every once in a while an eye would view her through the sliding shutter. Every once in a while there would be a scream or a series of shrieks from nearby, or a prolonged moaning, or a series of grunts and breathy gasps that sounded sexual. She had no way of knowing whether these noises were real or merely recordings intended to shatter her nerves and wear away her resolve. After some days she lost track of the plotline of her resolve.

Three times, men came into her cell without warning, shone a glaring light into her blinking, purblind eyes, threw her onto the floor, and administered a precise kicking and other attentions, including Tasers. She was not raped, she supposes because she was already too old and tough for the purpose, or because the men were priding themselves on their high moral standards, which she doubts. The kicking and tasing procedure was repeated three times. She wept, tears coming out of her two visible eyes, but she felt a third eye in the middle of her forehead, cold like a stone, that did not weep: it saw. Behind it someone was thinking: "I will get you back for this. I don't care how long it takes or how much shit I have to eat in the meantime, but I will do it."

The Aftermath and Transformation

After an indefinite period, the door to her cell clanged open, light flooded in, and two black uniforms hauled her out. She was a shambling wreck, even smellier than before. She was taken to a hotel, where she was given three days of rest and recuperation: orange juice, a banana, a green salad, poached salmon, a bed with sheets, several towels, a shower, and a beautiful ceramic toilet. She fell to her knees and uttered a heartfelt prayer, though to whom or what she could not say. She spent the next few hours taking showers, inspecting her healing abrasions and yellowing and purpling bruises. She had lost weight; she could see her ribs. She slept for a long time. When she woke, there was another meal: beef stroganoff with asparagus, peach Melba, and coffee. Her stinking former clothes had been removed; she was to live in the white terry cloth hotel bathrobe. On the third morning, she woke in an improved state of coherence; she could think again, she could think the word "I." A fresh garment was laid out for her, not quite a cowl and not quite made of brown sackcloth, but close. She had seen it before, in the stadium, worn by the female shooters. She felt a chill. She put it on.

The Test and the Bargain

Commander Judd then subjected her to an ordeal: she was made to participate in an execution. The women were blindfolded, and when she shot she did not fall. This was Commander Judd's test: fail it, and her commitment to the one true way would be voided; pass it, and blood was on her hands. She showed some weakness: she threw up afterwards. One of the targets was Anita, her colleague from the stadium. Anita must have said no instead of yes; she must have chosen a quick exit. Aunt Lydia reflects that perhaps Anita was simply not considered useful to the regime, whereas she was. The Thank Tank experience is what Commander Judd called "Level One" of his regimen. He asked if it was enlightening; she said it was. He then asked if she was prepared to prove that she meant her "yes." The ordeal was the proof.

Narrative Role and Significance

The Thank Tank is the fulcrum on which Aunt Lydia's character turns. Before it, she was a defiant judge who believed in the Constitution and the rule of law. After it, she is a collaborator who has internalized the regime's logic of survival through complicity. The Thank Tank is also the origin of her signature method: the patient accumulation of discreditable knowledge. The cold, stone third eye that watched from her forehead during the beatings becomes the instrument of her long game. She will spend decades collecting secrets, waiting, and exacting vengeance not with a Taser but with information. The Thank Tank is not merely a punishment; it is a factory that produces the kind of person who can run Ardua Hall. It is the place where she learns that "sorry solves nothing" and that the only way to survive is to become the one who holds the leash.