Do You Think This Is Strange? (26 page)

When I looked up, it was 10:30. Downstairs, I heard my father shuffling in the kitchen, and the clink of glass.

I closed my book, crawled under the covers, turned off the light, and went to sleep.

—

The next morning, my routine was fully broken. I sat in bed, hungry, my bladder full to bursting, and I waited for my mother to come in, turn on the light, pull back the covers, kiss me on the forehead, and tell me to get up.

She didn't come. The light remained off.

I waited.

Soon, I became uncomfortable, with a swollen bladder, but I still didn't get out of bed.

I waited.

A few minutes later, I couldn't hold it. I relieved myself in my pyjamas. At first, the urine was warm, and I was comfortable, so I waited some more. But, after the pee cooled down, and my thighs became itchy, I climbed out of bed and dressed myself.

When I walked into the kitchen, my father was standing at the sink, staring out the window.

“I'm hungry,” I said, and he didn't reply.

I went to stand beside him. “I'm hungry,” I repeated. “I want Froot Loops.”

“We're out of Froot Loops,” he said, still staring out the window. He was fully dressed, but his clothes were unkempt. His shirt was untucked. I could smell stale cigarette smoke. “Have Sugar Crisp instead,” he told me.

“But I want Froot Loops,” I said. “I don't want Sugar Crisp. I want Froot Loops.”

“Too bad,” he said and pulled a cigarette from his front shirt pocket.

“
Listen
. I want—”

“Dammit Freddy!” my father yelled at me. “There are no bloody Froot Loops. Get that through your head!”

I turned away from him and went to the cereal cupboard. There was only Sugar Crisp.

“Where's Mom?” I asked.

“She's not here.”

“Where's Mom?” I asked again.

“If she was up your ass, you'd feel it.”

“Where's Mom?”

He hung his head. “I don't know, Freddy,” he said. “I don't know.”

—

One week after that, the wind was blowing through the trees as I walked home from the school bus. There was a car in the driveway, and my mother was waiting for me on the front steps, two suitcases at her feet. She hugged me and kissed me.

At first, I didn't recognize her. She had cut her hair short, and she wore sunglasses. I thought she looked older. But I was happy to see her.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“I had to go away, sweetheart,” she told me. “I had to leave. But I've come back to get you. Okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Can I play on the Game Boy?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

I started up the stairs to the front door, but she stopped me. “We're not going inside, Freddy.”

“Hey, Freddy,” said John Stiles, stepping out of the car.

Listen
: I remembered.

It was John Stiles who came with my mother and picked me up outside our house. My mother was smiling, but he wasn't. He got out, took her bags, and put them in the trunk of his car. As he did it, he glanced at me several times, frowning.

“Hey, sport,” he said.

I didn't answer because he hadn't asked me a question. It's not necessary to answer when you are not asked a question.

My mother snapped me in my seat belt, in the back seat, behind her.

“Where's my booster seat?” I asked my mother.

“Not now, Freddy,” she said, looking around as she clipped me in.

I opened my eyes
and rain fell hard against the kitchen window. The day was long and had wound itself out of me. I came in the front door, tired, empty, a single thread still in my mind.

Go home, Freddy
, Linda Stiles had told me the night before.
You need to talk to your father
.

Bill sat at the table before a bottle of whisky. He looked aged. I could see the tendrils of white that had crept into his hairline. He looked tired. His sleeves were rolled up. His shirt was light blue. He had just returned from work. He had come home early.

Come home early to drink.

When I walked in, he looked up, then back down at the tumbler in his hand. It held two ounces of whisky and three ice cubes.

Leaning back, he reached to the kitchen counter for a second tumbler, put it on the table, then poured in whisky. He pushed the glass toward me.

“Join me,” he said and smiled briefly. “Time to be a man.”

I pulled a chair out and sat across the table from him.

“Drink, drink,” he motioned to the whisky. I didn't move. After a moment, he shrugged and took the tumbler back, pouring the contents into his own glass. “Suit yourself,” he said.

“John Stiles no longer lives with his wife,” I said.

My father nodded slowly, his face grim. He agreed with me.

“Mrs. Stiles said I should ask you about it,” I continued.

He nodded again. “She did, did she?”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you anything else?”

“Yes.”

He paused and took a drink. “What else did she tell you?”

“That you're an asshole.”

He smiled slightly, turning up one corner of his mouth. “I've been wondering for a while when you would figure that one for yourself.”

“I figured that for myself four months and nine days ago,” I confirmed. “It was ancillary to the previous thing I found out for myself four months and nine days ago.”

He took a drink. “And what was the previous thing you figured out?”

“That we are
all
assholes.”

—

Four months and nine days ago, Jack Sweat threw me out of his house. He threw me out because I offended him when I didn't kiss him back. I didn't kiss him back because I felt no such desire.

There was no precedent in my life for returning a kiss from a friend. Kisses were returned in films or television only if you were related or in love or French or Arabic. I was none of these.

Perhaps I should have slapped him. That's what they do in the movies.

When I didn't kiss Jack back, he stood motionless, his eyes still looking down, his mouth firmly closed, his cheeks reddening. But his hands remained at his side. His shoulders slumped.

He asked me to leave. He asked me to leave the room, the gym, his life.

For a long time after that, I carried a thread:
Who was responsible? Why had my one and only friendship disintegrated that night?

Was Jack to blame for kissing me or was I to blame for not kissing him? Should I have slapped him?

The answer was constructed after careful thought. Neither of us were to blame. We acted as we were supposed to.

There is nothing intrinsically offensive about a kiss. A kiss is a sign of interest at worst, and a sign of love at best. There is no reason to strike someone for kissing you; that would indicate that you are threatened by their interest at best, or their love at worst.

It may be that this was a case where I should have kissed Jack back, or a case where I should have slapped him. But how does someone know which are the acceptable cases? They aren't advertised. There is no page on Wikipedia detailing the correct way to slap someone. We can't seem to agree on the correct circumstances. We can't agree because we can't find an objective framework. We can't point to unassailable rules of right and wrong.

We can't do any of this because none of us knows all of the rules of right and wrong. We only carry approximations, fuzzy guidelines with wiggle room. Often, we will drift off course and be wrong. But we won't always know we were wrong until later, after much consideration.

That means that we are doomed to walk through our lives doing things we will only later realize were wrong.

Listen
: I told my father that I learned every one of us is doomed to do wrong, no matter how hard we try to do otherwise. Every one of us will do things that we will long regret. Every one of us will do things that hurt others, sometimes on purpose, sometimes out of sheer ignorance. Every one of us will do some of these things and never get the chance to apologize.

Every one of us is an asshole.

I told my father why we were all assholes; I told him about Jack Sweat. He let out a long sigh and clinked the ice in his empty glass.

“I never did like that Jack kid,” he said. “Never understood why he hung around you.” He glanced up at me quickly, and an expression ran across his face. “I just meant that—” he said and stopped.

I nodded. “I understand what you meant,” I said. “Muggles rarely associate with wizards.”

He nodded and dropped his head, smiling with his mouth but not with his eyes. “Yer a wizard, Harry,” he said softly.

—

When I was young, my parents spoke to me differently. When they spoke with others, it was quicker, with shorter words and greater inflection. With others, their voices carried emotional themes, ones they rarely used with me. With me, their words were measured, careful. My father, in particular, spoke like a HAL 9000 computer.

Even at an early age, I understood that he spoke condescendingly, although I did not have a word to associate with it, or a full meaning, or even a context. I only knew that it was different, intended to convey meaning at its most basic level.

I didn't mind being patronized.

On May 23, 2004, my mother told me that I was autistic.

“Do you know why you go to Excalibur House?” she asked me.

“No,” I said, not because I didn't know, but because, at the time, I was still uncertain what the word “know” meant. Saying “no” was an appropriate response to most things. If I said “yes,” I would have to justify myself.

If I said “no,” my mother would explain things to me, and I wouldn't have to talk. After she explained things, I repeated back to her what she said. I could do this—it was relatively easy. I have a good memory.

“Remember how sometimes I yell at you and tell you you're not listening?” Dad asked me.

“Yes,” I said. I was rarely asked to explain something I had remembered.

“Do you know why I yell at you and tell you that you're not listening?”

“Because I'm not listening,” I said. I knew the answer to this because I had been asked the same questions many times.

“Do you know why you don't listen?” Mom asked.

“Why,” I said.

“Because you are autistic. Do you know what that means?”

“What.”

“It means that you have difficulty processing information, and difficulty communicating with others. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“What did I just say?”

“You have difficulty processing information, and difficulty communicating with others.”

My mother shook her head. “
I
don't have that problem, Freddy.
You
have that problem.”

“Yes,” I replied.

She nodded. “Some people have red hair. Some people have blond hair.”

“I have blond hair,” I said.

She nodded again. “Some people have blue eyes.”

“I have blue eyes,” I said.

“Some people wear glasses.”

“I wear glasses.”

“No, you don't.”

“I wear sunglasses.”

“Yes, Freddy, you do. Sometimes.”

“I don't like to wear sunglasses.”

“That's why you don't wear them.”

“That's why I don't wear them.”

She took my hand. “Listen closely.”

I stepped toward her. Her eyes shone on me and I fell into them.

“Some people wear glasses because it helps them see. And some people can't see.”

“They can't see?”

“They're blind. And some people are deaf, which means they can't hear.”

“I can hear.”

“You're not deaf, Freddy.”

“No.”

“Some people can talk to others easily. Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“No, Freddy, it's not.”

“No.”

“Do you know why you have trouble talking to other people?”

“No.”

“Because you have autism.”

I looked around. I fished in my pocket. “Where is it?” I asked.

She tapped me on the top of my head. “It's in there, Freddy,” she said. “It's in there.”

I opened my eyes
. I was seven years old. My mother, gone for a week, was now back, and I was in the car as we drove to the train station. John Stiles kept glancing back at me, as my mom tried to calm me down.

“Are you all right?” John Stiles asked her.

“Never better,” she said.

“Betty,” he said to her. “You never said you were bringing Freddy. They're expecting only you.”

“He can sleep in my bed,” she said.

“It's just—”

She put her hand on his forearm as he drove. “John,” she said, “did you think I would ever go without him?”

The sky was darkening, and it was raining hard. I wasn't confident this would be a fun car ride.

“Where's my booster seat?” I called out.

—

It's necessary to ask questions about things that cause you concern. Sitting in the back seat, the thing that was of great concern was my booster seat. It came with me every time I went for a good car ride. How was it possible that I could have a good ride without the seat? It was
important
. It's absence caused me
concern
. I asked questions about it.

The first thing I asked when I got in the car was: “Where's my booster seat?”

“Sweetie,” my mother said, “I'll get you a new one, I promise.”

This wasn't working for me. “But I need my booster seat,” I repeated.

She cupped my face in her palms. “Freddy, this is really, really,
really
important,” she said and kissed me on the nose. “Please, we need to go.” She patted my cheek, closed my door, then got in the front seat.