“I do not…” My throat closes. I feel the pressure in my head that means I will not be able to talk easily for a while. “It is not… right… to… to… say… what… you are… not sure… is true.” I wish I had not said anything about Don before. I feel wrong about it.
“You don’t want to make a false accusation,” he says.
I nod, mute.
He sighs. “Mr. Arrendale, everyone has people that don’t like them. You don’t have to be a bad person to have people not like you. And it doesn’t make you a bad person to take reasonable precautions not to let other people hurt you. If there’s someone in that group who has a grudge against you, fair or unfair, that person still may not be the one who did this. I know that. I’m not going to throw someone into criminal rehab just because they don’t like you. But I don’t want you to get killed because we didn’t take this seriously.”
I still cannot imagine someone—Don—trying to kill me. I have not done anyone harm that I know of. People do not kill for trivial reasons.
“My point is,” Mr. Stacy says, “that people kill for all sorts of stupid reasons. Trivial reasons.”
“No,” I mutter. Normal people have reasons for what they do, big reasons for big things and little reasons for little things.
“Yes,” he says. His voice is firm; he believes what he is saying. “Not everyone, of course. But someone who would put that stupid toy in your car, with the explosive—that is not a normally sane person, Mr. Arrendale, in my opinion. And I am professionally familiar with the kind of people who kill. Fathers who knock a child into the wall for taking a piece of bread without permission. Wives and husbands who grab for a weapon in the midst of an argument about who forgot what at the grocery store. I do not think you are the sort of man who makes idle accusations. Trust us to investigate carefully whatever you tell us and give us something to work on. This person who is stalking you might stalk someone else another time.”
I do not want to talk; my throat is so tight it hurts. But if it could happen to someone else…
As I am thinking what to say and how, he says, “Tell me more about this fencing group. When did you start going there?”
This is something I can answer, and I do. He asks me to tell him how the practice works, when people come, what they do, what time they leave.
I describe the house, the yard, the equipment storage. “My things are always in the same place,” I say.
“How many people store their gear at Tom’s, instead of taking it back and forth?” he asks.
“Besides me? Two,” I say. “Some of the others do, if they’re going to a tournament. But three of us regularly. Don and Sheraton are the others.” There. I have mentioned Don without choking.
“Why?” he asks quietly.
“Sheraton travels a lot for work,” I say. “He doesn’t make it every week, and he once lost a complete set of blades when his apartment was broken into while he was overseas on business. Don—” My throat threatens to close again, but I push on. “Don was always forgetting his stuff and borrowing from people, and finally Tom told him to leave it there, where he couldn’t forget it.”
“Don. This is the same Don you told me about over the phone?”
“Yes,” I say. All my muscles are tight. It is so much harder when he is here in my office, looking at me.
“Was he in the group when you joined it?”
Yes.
“Who are some of your friends in the group?”
I thought they were all my friends. Emmy said it was impossible for them to be my friends; they are normal and I am not. But I thought they were. “Tom,” I say. “Lucia. Brian. M-Marjory…”
“Lucia is Tom’s wife, right? Who is this Marjory?”
I can feel my face getting hot. “She… she is a person who… who is my friend.”
“A girlfriend? Lover?”
Words fly out of my head faster than light. I can only shake my head, mute again.
“Someone you wish was a girlfriend?”
I am seized into rigidity. Do I wish? Of course I wish. Dare I hope? No. I cannot shake my head or nod it; I cannot speak. I do not want to see the look on Mr. Stacy’s face; I do not want to know what he thinks. I want to escape to some quiet place where no one knows me and no one will ask questions.
“Let me suggest something here, Mr. Arrendale,” Mr. Stacy says. His voice sounds staccato, chopped into sharp little bits of sound that cut at my ears, at my understanding. “Suppose you really like this woman, this Marjory—”
This Marjory as if she were a specimen, not a person. The very thought of her face, her hair, her voice, floods me with warmth.
“And you’re kinda shy—okay, that’s normal in a guy who hasn’t had that many relationships, which I’m guessing you haven’t. And maybe she likes you, and maybe she just enjoys being admired from afar. And this other person—maybe Don, maybe not—is pissed that she seems to like you. Maybe he likes her. Maybe he just doesn’t like you. Whatever, he sees something he doesn’t like between the two of you. Jealousy is a pretty common cause of violent behavior.”
“I… do not… want… him… to be the one…” I say, gasping it out.
“You like him?”
“I… know… think… thought… I know… knew… him…” A sick blackness inside swirls around and through the warm feeling about Marjory. I remember the times he joked, laughed, smiled.
“Betrayal is never fun,” Mr. Stacy says, like a priest reciting the Ten Commandments. He has his pocket set out and is entering commands.
I can sense something dark hovering over Don, like a great thundercloud over a sunny landscape. I want to make it go away, but I do not know how.
“When do you get off work?” Mr. Stacy asks.
“I would usually leave at five-thirty,” I say. “But I have lost time today because of what happened to my car. I have to make that time up.”
His eyebrows go up again. “You have to make up time that you lost because of talking to me?”
“Of course,” I say.
“Your boss didn’t seem that picky,” Mr. Stacy says.
“It is not Mr. Aldrin,” I say. “I would make up the time anyway, but it is Mr. Crenshaw who gets angry if he thinks we are not working hard enough.”
“Ah, I see,” he says. His face flushes; he is very shiny now. “I suspect I might not like your Mr. Crenshaw.”
“I do not like Mr. Crenshaw,” I say. “But I must do my best anyway. I would make up the time even if he did not get angry.”
“I’m sure you would,” he says. “What time do you think you will leave work today, Mr. Arrendale?”
I look at the clock and calculate how much time I have to make up. “If I start back to work now, I can leave at six fifty-three,” I say. “There is a train leaving from the campus station at seven-oh-four, and if I hurry I can make it.”
“You aren’t riding on the train,” he says. “We’ll see that you have transport. Didn’t you hear me say we’re worried about your safety? Do you have someone you can stay with for a few days? It’s safer if you’re not in your own apartment.”
I shake my head. “I do not know anyone,” I say. I have not stayed at anyone’s house since I left home; I have always stayed in my own apartment or a hotel room. I do not want to go to a hotel now.
“We’re looking for this Don fellow right now, but he’s not easy to find. His employer says he hasn’t been in for several days, and he’s not at his apartment. You’ll be all right here for a few hours, I guess, but don’t leave without letting us know, okay?”
I nod. It is easier than arguing. I have the feeling that this is happening in a movie or show, not in real life. It is not like anything anyone ever told me about.
The door opens suddenly; I am startled and jump. It is Mr. Crenshaw. He looks angry again.
“Lou! What’s this I hear about you being in trouble with the police?” He glances around the office and stiffens when he sees Mr. Stacy.
“I’m Lieutenant Stacy,” the policeman says. “Mr. Arrendale isn’t in trouble. I’m investigating a case in which he is the victim. He told you about the slashed tires, didn’t he?”
“Yes—” Mr. Crenshaw’s color fades and flushes again. “He did. But is that any reason to send a policeman out here?”
“No, it’s not,” Mr. Stacy says. “The two subsequent attacks, including the explosive device placed in his automobile, are.”
“Explosive device?” Mr. Crenshaw pales again. “Someone is trying to hurt Lou?”
“We think so, yes,” Mr. Stacy says. “We are concerned about Mr. Arrendale’s safety.”
“Who do you think it is?” Mr. Crenshaw asks. He does not wait for an answer but goes on talking. “He’s working on some sensitive projects for us; it could be a competitor wants to sabotage them—”
“I don’t think so,” Mr. Stacy says. “There is evidence to suggest something completely unrelated to his workplace. I’m sure you’re concerned, though, to protect a valuable employee—does your company have a guest hostel or someplace Mr. Arrendale could stay for a few days?”
“No… I mean, you really think this is a serious threat?”
The policeman’s eyelids droop a little. “Mr. Crenshaw is it? I thought I recognized you from Mr. Arrendale’s description. If someone took the battery out of your car and replaced it with a device intended to explode when you opened the hood of the car, would you consider that a serious threat?”
“My God,” Mr. Crenshaw says. I know he is not calling Mr. Stacy his god. It is his way of expressing surprise. He glances at me, and his expression sharpens. “What have you been up to, Lou, that someone’s trying to kill you? You know company policy; if I find out you’ve been involved with criminal elements—”
“You’re jumping the gun, Mr. Crenshaw,” Mr. Stacy says. “There’s no indication whatever that Mr. Arrendale has done anything wrong. We suspect that the perpetrator may be someone who is jealous of Mr. Arrendale’s accomplishments—who would rather he be less able.”
“Resentful of his privileges?” Mr. Crenshaw says. “That would make sense. I always said special treatment for these people would rouse a backlash from those who suffer as a consequence. We have workers who see no reason why this section should have its own parking lot, gym, music system, and dining facility.”
I look at Mr. Stacy, whose face has stiffened. Something Mr. Crenshaw said has made him angry, but what? His voice comes out in a drawl that has an edge to it, a tone that I have been taught means some kind of disapproval.
“Ah, yes… Mr. Arrendale told me that you disapproved of supportive measures to retain the disabled in the workforce,” he says.
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Mr. Crenshaw says. “It depends on whether they’re really necessary or not. Wheelchair ramps, that sort of thing, but some so-called support is nothing but indulgence—”
“And you, being so expert, know which is which, do you?” Mr. Stacy asks. Mr. Crenshaw flushes again. I look at Mr. Stacy. He does not look scared at all.
“I know what the balance sheet is,” Mr. Crenshaw says. “There’s no law that can compel us to go broke to coddle a few people who think they need foofaraws [1) завитушки, побрякушки (в одежде, архитектуре и т.п.); безделушки, мишура; 2) буча, суета, переполох, много шума из ничего] like… like that—” He points at the spin spirals hanging over my desk.
“Cost a whole dollar thirty-eight,” Mr. Stacy says. “Unless you bought ’em from a defense contractor.” That is nonsense. Defense contractors do not sell spin spirals; they sell missiles and mines and aircraft. Mr. Crenshaw says something I do not hear as I try to figure out why Mr. Stacy, who seemed generally knowledgeable except about permutations, would suggest buying spin spirals from a defense contractor. It is just silly. Could it be some kind of joke?
“… But it is the point,” Mr. Stacy is saying when I catch up to the conversation again. “This gym, now: it’s already installed, right? It probably costs diddly to maintain it. Now say you kick out this whole section—sixteen, twenty people maybe?—and convert it to… there’s nothing I can think of to do in the space taken up by even a large gym that will make you as much money as paying employer’s share of unemployment for that many people will. Not to mention losing your certification as a provider-employer for this disability class, and I’m sure you’re getting a tax break that way.”
“What do you know about that?” Mr. Crenshaw asks.
“Our department has disabled employees, too,” Mr. Stacy says. “Some disabled on the job and some hired that way. We had one flaming scuzzbucket of a city councilman, a few years ago, wanted to cut costs by getting rid of what he called freeloaders. I spent way too many off-duty hours working on the stats to show that we’d lose money by dumping ’em.”
“You’re tax-supported,” Mr. Crenshaw said. I could see his pulse pounding in one of the blood vessels on his red, shiny forehead. “You don’t have to worry about profit. We have to make the money to pay your damned salary.”
“Which I’m sure curdles your beer,” Mr. Stacy says. His pulse is pounding, too. “Now if you’ll excuse us, I need to talk to Mr. Arrendale—”
“Lou, you’ll make up this wasted time,” Mr. Crenshaw said, and went out, slamming the door behind him.
I look at Mr. Stacy, who shakes his head. “Now that’s a real piece of work. I had a sergeant like that once, years ago when I was just a patrolman, but he transferred to Chicago, thank God. You might want to look for another job, Mr. Arrendale. That one’s out to get rid of you.”
“I do not understand it,” I say. “I work—we all work—very hard here. Why does he want to get rid of us?” Or make us into someone else… I wonder whether to tell Mr. Stacy about the experimental protocol or not.
“He’s a power-hungry SOB,” Mr. Stacy says. “That kind are always out to make themselves look good and someone else look bad. You’re sitting there doing a good job quietly, no fuss. You look like someone he can kick around safely. Unluckily for him, this other thing’s happened to you.”
“It does not feel lucky,” I say. “It feels worse.”
“Probably does,” Mr. Stacy says. “But it’s not. This way, see, your Mr. Crenshaw has to deal with me—and he’ll find his arrogance doesn’t go far with the police.”
I am not sure I believe this. Mr. Crenshaw is not just Mr. Crenshaw; he is also the company, and the company has a lot of influence on city policy.
“Tell you what,” Mr. Stacy says. “Let’s get back to those incidents, so I can get out of your hair and you don’t have to stay later. Have you had any other interactions with Don, however trivial, that indicated he was upset with you?”
It seems silly, but I tell him about the time Don stood between Marjory and me at practice and about Marjory calling him a real heel even though he cannot be literally a heel.
“So what I’m hearing is a pattern here of your other friends protecting you from Don, making it clear that they don’t like how he treats you, is that right?”
I had not thought of it that way. When he says it, I can see the pattern as clearly as any on my computer or in fencing, and I wonder why I did not see it before. “He would be unhappy,” I say. “He would see that I am treated differently than he is, and—” I stop, struck suddenly by another pattern I have not seen before. “It’s like Mr. Crenshaw,” I say. My voice goes up; I can hear the tension in it, but it is too exciting. “He does not like it for the same reason.” I stop again, trying to think it through. I reach out and flip on my fan; the spin spirals help me think when I am excited.
“It is the pattern of people who do not really believe we need supports and resent the supports. If I—if we—did worse, they would understand more. It is the combination of doing well and having the supports that upsets them. I am too normal—” I look back at Mr. Stacy; he is smiling and nodding. “That is silly,” I say. “I am not normal. Not now. Not ever.”
“It may not seem that way to you,” he says. “And when you do something like you did with that old catchphrase about coincidence and enemy action, you are clearly not average… but most of the time you look normal and act normal. You know, I even thought—what we were told back in the psych classes we had to take was that autistic people were mostly nonverbal, reclusive, rigid.” He grins. I do not know what the grin means when he has just said so many bad things about us. “And here I find you driving a car, holding down a job, falling in love, going to fencing meets—”
“Only one so far,” I say.
“All right, only one so far. But I see a lot of people, Mr. Arrendale, who function less well than you and some who look to function at the same level. Doing it without supports. Now I see the reason for supports and the economy of them. It’s like putting a wedge under the short leg of a table—why not have a solid, foursquare table? Why endure a tippy unstable surface when such a little thing will make it stable? But people aren’t furniture, and if other people see that wedge as a threat to them… they won’t like it.”
“I do not see how I am a threat to Don or to Mr. Crenshaw,” I say.
“You personally may not be. I don’t even think your supports are, to anyone. But some people don’t think too well, and it’s easy for them to blame someone else for anything that’s wrong in their own lives. Don probably thinks if you weren’t getting preferential treatment he’d be successful with that woman.”
I wish he would use her name, Marjory. “That woman” sounds as if she had done something wrong.
“She probably wouldn’t like him anyway, but he doesn’t want to face that—he’d rather blame you. That is, if he’s the one doing all this.” He glances down at his pocket set. “From the information we have on him, he’s had a series of low-level jobs, sometimes quitting and sometimes being fired… his credit rating’s low… he could see himself as a failure and be looking for someone to blame for everything.”
I never thought of normal people as needing to explain their failures. I never thought of them as having failures.
“We’ll send someone to pick you up, Mr. Arrendale,” he says. “Call this number when you’re ready to leave for home.” He hands me a card. “We aren’t going to post a guard here, your corporate security’s good enough, but do believe me—you need to be careful.”
It is hard to go back to work when he is gone, but I focus on my project and accomplish something before it is time to leave and call for a ride.
Pete Aldrin took a deep breath after Crenshaw left his office, in a rage about the “stuck-up cop” who had come to interview Lou Arrendale, and picked up the phone to call Human Resources. “Bart—” That was the name Paul had suggested in Human Resources, a young and inexperienced employee who would certainly ask around for directions and help. “Bart, I need to arrange some time off for my entire Section A; they’re going to be involved in a research project.”
“Whose?” Bart asked.
“Ours—first human trial of a new product aimed at autistic adults. Mr. Crenshaw considers this a top priority in our division, so I’d really appreciate it if you’d expedite setting up indefinite leave. I think that’d be best; we don’t know how long it will take—”
“For all of them? At once?”
“They may go through the protocol staggered; I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know when the consent forms are signed. But it’ll be at least thirty days—”
“I don’t see how—”
“Here’s the authorization code. If you need Mr. Crenshaw’s signature—”
“It’s just not—”
“Thanks,” Aldrin said, and hung up. He could imagine Bart looking puzzled and alarmed both, then running off to his supervisor to ask what to do. Aldrin took a deep breath, then called Shirley in Accounting.
“I need to arrange for direct deposit of Section A’s salaries into their banks while they’re on indefinite leave—”
“Pete, I told you: that’s not how it works. You have to have clearance—”
“Mr. Crenshaw considers it a top priority. I have the project authorization code and I can get his signature—”
“But how am I supposed to—”
“Can’t you just say they’re working at a secondary location? That wouldn’t require any changes to the existing departmental budgets.”
He could hear her sucking her teeth over the phone. “I could, I guess, if you told me where the secondary location was.”
“Building Forty-two, Main Campus.”
A moment’s silence, then, “But that’s the clinic, Pete. What ate you trying to pull? Double-dipping for company employees as research subjects?”
“I’m not trying to pull anything,” Aldrin said as huffily as he could. “I’m trying to expedite a project Mr. Crenshaw feels strongly about. They won’t be double-dipping if they get the salary and not the honoraria.”
“I have my doubts,” Shirley said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks,” Aldrin said, and hung up again. He was sweating; he could feel it running down his ribs. Shirley was no novice; she knew perfectly well that this was an outrageous request, and she would sound off about it.
Human Resources, Accounting… Legal and Research had to come next. He rummaged through the papers Crenshaw had left until he found the chief scientist’s name on the protocol. Liselle Hendricks… not, he noticed, the man who had been sent to talk to the volunteers. Dr. Ransome was listed as “physician liaison, recruitment” in the list of associated technical staff.
“Dr. Hendricks,” Aldrin said a few minutes later. “I’m Pete Aldrin, over in Analysis. I’m in charge of Section A, where your volunteers are coming from. Do you have the consent forms ready yet?”
“What are you talking about?” Dr. Hendricks asked. “If you want volunteer recruitment, you need Extension three-thirty-seven. I don’t have anything to do with it.”
“You are the chief scientist, aren’t you?”
“Yes…” Aldrin could imagine the woman’s puzzled face.
“Well, I’m just wondering when you’ll send over the consent forms for the volunteers.”
“Why should I send them to you?” Hendricks asked. “Dr. Ransome is supposed to take care of that.”
“Well, they all work here,” Aldrin said. “Might be simpler.”
“All in one section?” Hendricks sounded more surprised than Aldrin expected. “I didn’t know that. Isn’t that going to give you some problems?”
“I’ll manage,” Aldrin said, forcing a chuckle. “After all, I’m a manager.” She did not respond to the joke, and he went on. “Now the thing is, they haven’t all made up their minds. I’m sure they will, what with… one thing and another, but anyway—”
Hendricks’s voice sharpened. “What do you mean, with one thing and another? You’re not putting pressure on them, are you? It would not be ethical—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Aldrin said. “Of course no one can be forced to cooperate, we’re not talking about any kind of coercion, of course, but these are difficult times, economically speaking, Mr. Crenshaw says—”
“But… but—” It was almost a splutter.
“So if you could get those forms to me promptly, I’d really appreciate it,” Aldrin said, and hung up. Then he quickly dialed Bart, the man Crenshaw had told him to contact.
“When are you going to have those consent forms?” he said. “And what kind of schedule are we talking about? Have you talked to Accounting about the payroll issues? Have you talked to Human Resources?”
“Er… no.” Bart sounded too young to be important, but he was probably a Crenshaw appointee. “I just thought, I think Mr. Crenshaw said he—his section—would be taking care of the details. All I was supposed to do was make sure they qualified for the protocol over here. Consent forms, I’m not sure we have them drafted yet—”
Aldrin smiled to himself. Bart’s confusion was a bonus; any manager might easily go over the head of such a disorganized little twit. He had his excuse now for calling Hendricks; if he was lucky—and he felt lucky—no one would realize which one he’d called first.
Now the question was when to go higher. He would prefer to carry the whole tale just when rumors were beginning to rise that high, but he had no idea how long that took. How long would Shirley or Hendricks sit on the new data he’d given them before doing anything? What would they do first? If they went straight upstairs, top management would know in a few hours, but if they waited a day or so, it might be as long as a week.
His stomach churned; he ate two antacid tablets.
Chapter Fourteen
“You don’t want to make a false accusation,” he says.
I nod, mute.
He sighs. “Mr. Arrendale, everyone has people that don’t like them. You don’t have to be a bad person to have people not like you. And it doesn’t make you a bad person to take reasonable precautions not to let other people hurt you. If there’s someone in that group who has a grudge against you, fair or unfair, that person still may not be the one who did this. I know that. I’m not going to throw someone into criminal rehab just because they don’t like you. But I don’t want you to get killed because we didn’t take this seriously.”
I still cannot imagine someone—Don—trying to kill me. I have not done anyone harm that I know of. People do not kill for trivial reasons.
“My point is,” Mr. Stacy says, “that people kill for all sorts of stupid reasons. Trivial reasons.”
“No,” I mutter. Normal people have reasons for what they do, big reasons for big things and little reasons for little things.
“Yes,” he says. His voice is firm; he believes what he is saying. “Not everyone, of course. But someone who would put that stupid toy in your car, with the explosive—that is not a normally sane person, Mr. Arrendale, in my opinion. And I am professionally familiar with the kind of people who kill. Fathers who knock a child into the wall for taking a piece of bread without permission. Wives and husbands who grab for a weapon in the midst of an argument about who forgot what at the grocery store. I do not think you are the sort of man who makes idle accusations. Trust us to investigate carefully whatever you tell us and give us something to work on. This person who is stalking you might stalk someone else another time.”
I do not want to talk; my throat is so tight it hurts. But if it could happen to someone else…
As I am thinking what to say and how, he says, “Tell me more about this fencing group. When did you start going there?”
This is something I can answer, and I do. He asks me to tell him how the practice works, when people come, what they do, what time they leave.
I describe the house, the yard, the equipment storage. “My things are always in the same place,” I say.
“How many people store their gear at Tom’s, instead of taking it back and forth?” he asks.
“Besides me? Two,” I say. “Some of the others do, if they’re going to a tournament. But three of us regularly. Don and Sheraton are the others.” There. I have mentioned Don without choking.
“Why?” he asks quietly.
“Sheraton travels a lot for work,” I say. “He doesn’t make it every week, and he once lost a complete set of blades when his apartment was broken into while he was overseas on business. Don—” My throat threatens to close again, but I push on. “Don was always forgetting his stuff and borrowing from people, and finally Tom told him to leave it there, where he couldn’t forget it.”
“Don. This is the same Don you told me about over the phone?”
“Yes,” I say. All my muscles are tight. It is so much harder when he is here in my office, looking at me.
“Was he in the group when you joined it?”
Yes.
“Who are some of your friends in the group?”
I thought they were all my friends. Emmy said it was impossible for them to be my friends; they are normal and I am not. But I thought they were. “Tom,” I say. “Lucia. Brian. M-Marjory…”
“Lucia is Tom’s wife, right? Who is this Marjory?”
I can feel my face getting hot. “She… she is a person who… who is my friend.”
“A girlfriend? Lover?”
Words fly out of my head faster than light. I can only shake my head, mute again.
“Someone you wish was a girlfriend?”
I am seized into rigidity. Do I wish? Of course I wish. Dare I hope? No. I cannot shake my head or nod it; I cannot speak. I do not want to see the look on Mr. Stacy’s face; I do not want to know what he thinks. I want to escape to some quiet place where no one knows me and no one will ask questions.
“Let me suggest something here, Mr. Arrendale,” Mr. Stacy says. His voice sounds staccato, chopped into sharp little bits of sound that cut at my ears, at my understanding. “Suppose you really like this woman, this Marjory—”
This Marjory as if she were a specimen, not a person. The very thought of her face, her hair, her voice, floods me with warmth.
“And you’re kinda shy—okay, that’s normal in a guy who hasn’t had that many relationships, which I’m guessing you haven’t. And maybe she likes you, and maybe she just enjoys being admired from afar. And this other person—maybe Don, maybe not—is pissed that she seems to like you. Maybe he likes her. Maybe he just doesn’t like you. Whatever, he sees something he doesn’t like between the two of you. Jealousy is a pretty common cause of violent behavior.”
“I… do not… want… him… to be the one…” I say, gasping it out.
“You like him?”
“I… know… think… thought… I know… knew… him…” A sick blackness inside swirls around and through the warm feeling about Marjory. I remember the times he joked, laughed, smiled.
“Betrayal is never fun,” Mr. Stacy says, like a priest reciting the Ten Commandments. He has his pocket set out and is entering commands.
I can sense something dark hovering over Don, like a great thundercloud over a sunny landscape. I want to make it go away, but I do not know how.
“When do you get off work?” Mr. Stacy asks.
“I would usually leave at five-thirty,” I say. “But I have lost time today because of what happened to my car. I have to make that time up.”
His eyebrows go up again. “You have to make up time that you lost because of talking to me?”
“Of course,” I say.
“Your boss didn’t seem that picky,” Mr. Stacy says.
“It is not Mr. Aldrin,” I say. “I would make up the time anyway, but it is Mr. Crenshaw who gets angry if he thinks we are not working hard enough.”
“Ah, I see,” he says. His face flushes; he is very shiny now. “I suspect I might not like your Mr. Crenshaw.”
“I do not like Mr. Crenshaw,” I say. “But I must do my best anyway. I would make up the time even if he did not get angry.”
“I’m sure you would,” he says. “What time do you think you will leave work today, Mr. Arrendale?”
I look at the clock and calculate how much time I have to make up. “If I start back to work now, I can leave at six fifty-three,” I say. “There is a train leaving from the campus station at seven-oh-four, and if I hurry I can make it.”
“You aren’t riding on the train,” he says. “We’ll see that you have transport. Didn’t you hear me say we’re worried about your safety? Do you have someone you can stay with for a few days? It’s safer if you’re not in your own apartment.”
I shake my head. “I do not know anyone,” I say. I have not stayed at anyone’s house since I left home; I have always stayed in my own apartment or a hotel room. I do not want to go to a hotel now.
“We’re looking for this Don fellow right now, but he’s not easy to find. His employer says he hasn’t been in for several days, and he’s not at his apartment. You’ll be all right here for a few hours, I guess, but don’t leave without letting us know, okay?”
I nod. It is easier than arguing. I have the feeling that this is happening in a movie or show, not in real life. It is not like anything anyone ever told me about.
The door opens suddenly; I am startled and jump. It is Mr. Crenshaw. He looks angry again.
“Lou! What’s this I hear about you being in trouble with the police?” He glances around the office and stiffens when he sees Mr. Stacy.
“I’m Lieutenant Stacy,” the policeman says. “Mr. Arrendale isn’t in trouble. I’m investigating a case in which he is the victim. He told you about the slashed tires, didn’t he?”
“Yes—” Mr. Crenshaw’s color fades and flushes again. “He did. But is that any reason to send a policeman out here?”
“No, it’s not,” Mr. Stacy says. “The two subsequent attacks, including the explosive device placed in his automobile, are.”
“Explosive device?” Mr. Crenshaw pales again. “Someone is trying to hurt Lou?”
“We think so, yes,” Mr. Stacy says. “We are concerned about Mr. Arrendale’s safety.”
“Who do you think it is?” Mr. Crenshaw asks. He does not wait for an answer but goes on talking. “He’s working on some sensitive projects for us; it could be a competitor wants to sabotage them—”
“I don’t think so,” Mr. Stacy says. “There is evidence to suggest something completely unrelated to his workplace. I’m sure you’re concerned, though, to protect a valuable employee—does your company have a guest hostel or someplace Mr. Arrendale could stay for a few days?”
“No… I mean, you really think this is a serious threat?”
The policeman’s eyelids droop a little. “Mr. Crenshaw is it? I thought I recognized you from Mr. Arrendale’s description. If someone took the battery out of your car and replaced it with a device intended to explode when you opened the hood of the car, would you consider that a serious threat?”
“My God,” Mr. Crenshaw says. I know he is not calling Mr. Stacy his god. It is his way of expressing surprise. He glances at me, and his expression sharpens. “What have you been up to, Lou, that someone’s trying to kill you? You know company policy; if I find out you’ve been involved with criminal elements—”
“You’re jumping the gun, Mr. Crenshaw,” Mr. Stacy says. “There’s no indication whatever that Mr. Arrendale has done anything wrong. We suspect that the perpetrator may be someone who is jealous of Mr. Arrendale’s accomplishments—who would rather he be less able.”
“Resentful of his privileges?” Mr. Crenshaw says. “That would make sense. I always said special treatment for these people would rouse a backlash from those who suffer as a consequence. We have workers who see no reason why this section should have its own parking lot, gym, music system, and dining facility.”
I look at Mr. Stacy, whose face has stiffened. Something Mr. Crenshaw said has made him angry, but what? His voice comes out in a drawl that has an edge to it, a tone that I have been taught means some kind of disapproval.
“Ah, yes… Mr. Arrendale told me that you disapproved of supportive measures to retain the disabled in the workforce,” he says.
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Mr. Crenshaw says. “It depends on whether they’re really necessary or not. Wheelchair ramps, that sort of thing, but some so-called support is nothing but indulgence—”
“And you, being so expert, know which is which, do you?” Mr. Stacy asks. Mr. Crenshaw flushes again. I look at Mr. Stacy. He does not look scared at all.
“I know what the balance sheet is,” Mr. Crenshaw says. “There’s no law that can compel us to go broke to coddle a few people who think they need foofaraws [1) завитушки, побрякушки (в одежде, архитектуре и т.п.); безделушки, мишура; 2) буча, суета, переполох, много шума из ничего] like… like that—” He points at the spin spirals hanging over my desk.
“Cost a whole dollar thirty-eight,” Mr. Stacy says. “Unless you bought ’em from a defense contractor.” That is nonsense. Defense contractors do not sell spin spirals; they sell missiles and mines and aircraft. Mr. Crenshaw says something I do not hear as I try to figure out why Mr. Stacy, who seemed generally knowledgeable except about permutations, would suggest buying spin spirals from a defense contractor. It is just silly. Could it be some kind of joke?
“… But it is the point,” Mr. Stacy is saying when I catch up to the conversation again. “This gym, now: it’s already installed, right? It probably costs diddly to maintain it. Now say you kick out this whole section—sixteen, twenty people maybe?—and convert it to… there’s nothing I can think of to do in the space taken up by even a large gym that will make you as much money as paying employer’s share of unemployment for that many people will. Not to mention losing your certification as a provider-employer for this disability class, and I’m sure you’re getting a tax break that way.”
“What do you know about that?” Mr. Crenshaw asks.
“Our department has disabled employees, too,” Mr. Stacy says. “Some disabled on the job and some hired that way. We had one flaming scuzzbucket of a city councilman, a few years ago, wanted to cut costs by getting rid of what he called freeloaders. I spent way too many off-duty hours working on the stats to show that we’d lose money by dumping ’em.”
“You’re tax-supported,” Mr. Crenshaw said. I could see his pulse pounding in one of the blood vessels on his red, shiny forehead. “You don’t have to worry about profit. We have to make the money to pay your damned salary.”
“Which I’m sure curdles your beer,” Mr. Stacy says. His pulse is pounding, too. “Now if you’ll excuse us, I need to talk to Mr. Arrendale—”
“Lou, you’ll make up this wasted time,” Mr. Crenshaw said, and went out, slamming the door behind him.
I look at Mr. Stacy, who shakes his head. “Now that’s a real piece of work. I had a sergeant like that once, years ago when I was just a patrolman, but he transferred to Chicago, thank God. You might want to look for another job, Mr. Arrendale. That one’s out to get rid of you.”
“I do not understand it,” I say. “I work—we all work—very hard here. Why does he want to get rid of us?” Or make us into someone else… I wonder whether to tell Mr. Stacy about the experimental protocol or not.
“He’s a power-hungry SOB,” Mr. Stacy says. “That kind are always out to make themselves look good and someone else look bad. You’re sitting there doing a good job quietly, no fuss. You look like someone he can kick around safely. Unluckily for him, this other thing’s happened to you.”
“It does not feel lucky,” I say. “It feels worse.”
“Probably does,” Mr. Stacy says. “But it’s not. This way, see, your Mr. Crenshaw has to deal with me—and he’ll find his arrogance doesn’t go far with the police.”
I am not sure I believe this. Mr. Crenshaw is not just Mr. Crenshaw; he is also the company, and the company has a lot of influence on city policy.
“Tell you what,” Mr. Stacy says. “Let’s get back to those incidents, so I can get out of your hair and you don’t have to stay later. Have you had any other interactions with Don, however trivial, that indicated he was upset with you?”
It seems silly, but I tell him about the time Don stood between Marjory and me at practice and about Marjory calling him a real heel even though he cannot be literally a heel.
“So what I’m hearing is a pattern here of your other friends protecting you from Don, making it clear that they don’t like how he treats you, is that right?”
I had not thought of it that way. When he says it, I can see the pattern as clearly as any on my computer or in fencing, and I wonder why I did not see it before. “He would be unhappy,” I say. “He would see that I am treated differently than he is, and—” I stop, struck suddenly by another pattern I have not seen before. “It’s like Mr. Crenshaw,” I say. My voice goes up; I can hear the tension in it, but it is too exciting. “He does not like it for the same reason.” I stop again, trying to think it through. I reach out and flip on my fan; the spin spirals help me think when I am excited.
“It is the pattern of people who do not really believe we need supports and resent the supports. If I—if we—did worse, they would understand more. It is the combination of doing well and having the supports that upsets them. I am too normal—” I look back at Mr. Stacy; he is smiling and nodding. “That is silly,” I say. “I am not normal. Not now. Not ever.”
“It may not seem that way to you,” he says. “And when you do something like you did with that old catchphrase about coincidence and enemy action, you are clearly not average… but most of the time you look normal and act normal. You know, I even thought—what we were told back in the psych classes we had to take was that autistic people were mostly nonverbal, reclusive, rigid.” He grins. I do not know what the grin means when he has just said so many bad things about us. “And here I find you driving a car, holding down a job, falling in love, going to fencing meets—”
“Only one so far,” I say.
“All right, only one so far. But I see a lot of people, Mr. Arrendale, who function less well than you and some who look to function at the same level. Doing it without supports. Now I see the reason for supports and the economy of them. It’s like putting a wedge under the short leg of a table—why not have a solid, foursquare table? Why endure a tippy unstable surface when such a little thing will make it stable? But people aren’t furniture, and if other people see that wedge as a threat to them… they won’t like it.”
“I do not see how I am a threat to Don or to Mr. Crenshaw,” I say.
“You personally may not be. I don’t even think your supports are, to anyone. But some people don’t think too well, and it’s easy for them to blame someone else for anything that’s wrong in their own lives. Don probably thinks if you weren’t getting preferential treatment he’d be successful with that woman.”
I wish he would use her name, Marjory. “That woman” sounds as if she had done something wrong.
“She probably wouldn’t like him anyway, but he doesn’t want to face that—he’d rather blame you. That is, if he’s the one doing all this.” He glances down at his pocket set. “From the information we have on him, he’s had a series of low-level jobs, sometimes quitting and sometimes being fired… his credit rating’s low… he could see himself as a failure and be looking for someone to blame for everything.”
I never thought of normal people as needing to explain their failures. I never thought of them as having failures.
“We’ll send someone to pick you up, Mr. Arrendale,” he says. “Call this number when you’re ready to leave for home.” He hands me a card. “We aren’t going to post a guard here, your corporate security’s good enough, but do believe me—you need to be careful.”
It is hard to go back to work when he is gone, but I focus on my project and accomplish something before it is time to leave and call for a ride.
Pete Aldrin took a deep breath after Crenshaw left his office, in a rage about the “stuck-up cop” who had come to interview Lou Arrendale, and picked up the phone to call Human Resources. “Bart—” That was the name Paul had suggested in Human Resources, a young and inexperienced employee who would certainly ask around for directions and help. “Bart, I need to arrange some time off for my entire Section A; they’re going to be involved in a research project.”
“Whose?” Bart asked.
“Ours—first human trial of a new product aimed at autistic adults. Mr. Crenshaw considers this a top priority in our division, so I’d really appreciate it if you’d expedite setting up indefinite leave. I think that’d be best; we don’t know how long it will take—”
“For all of them? At once?”
“They may go through the protocol staggered; I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know when the consent forms are signed. But it’ll be at least thirty days—”
“I don’t see how—”
“Here’s the authorization code. If you need Mr. Crenshaw’s signature—”
“It’s just not—”
“Thanks,” Aldrin said, and hung up. He could imagine Bart looking puzzled and alarmed both, then running off to his supervisor to ask what to do. Aldrin took a deep breath, then called Shirley in Accounting.
“I need to arrange for direct deposit of Section A’s salaries into their banks while they’re on indefinite leave—”
“Pete, I told you: that’s not how it works. You have to have clearance—”
“Mr. Crenshaw considers it a top priority. I have the project authorization code and I can get his signature—”
“But how am I supposed to—”
“Can’t you just say they’re working at a secondary location? That wouldn’t require any changes to the existing departmental budgets.”
He could hear her sucking her teeth over the phone. “I could, I guess, if you told me where the secondary location was.”
“Building Forty-two, Main Campus.”
A moment’s silence, then, “But that’s the clinic, Pete. What ate you trying to pull? Double-dipping for company employees as research subjects?”
“I’m not trying to pull anything,” Aldrin said as huffily as he could. “I’m trying to expedite a project Mr. Crenshaw feels strongly about. They won’t be double-dipping if they get the salary and not the honoraria.”
“I have my doubts,” Shirley said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks,” Aldrin said, and hung up again. He was sweating; he could feel it running down his ribs. Shirley was no novice; she knew perfectly well that this was an outrageous request, and she would sound off about it.
Human Resources, Accounting… Legal and Research had to come next. He rummaged through the papers Crenshaw had left until he found the chief scientist’s name on the protocol. Liselle Hendricks… not, he noticed, the man who had been sent to talk to the volunteers. Dr. Ransome was listed as “physician liaison, recruitment” in the list of associated technical staff.
“Dr. Hendricks,” Aldrin said a few minutes later. “I’m Pete Aldrin, over in Analysis. I’m in charge of Section A, where your volunteers are coming from. Do you have the consent forms ready yet?”
“What are you talking about?” Dr. Hendricks asked. “If you want volunteer recruitment, you need Extension three-thirty-seven. I don’t have anything to do with it.”
“You are the chief scientist, aren’t you?”
“Yes…” Aldrin could imagine the woman’s puzzled face.
“Well, I’m just wondering when you’ll send over the consent forms for the volunteers.”
“Why should I send them to you?” Hendricks asked. “Dr. Ransome is supposed to take care of that.”
“Well, they all work here,” Aldrin said. “Might be simpler.”
“All in one section?” Hendricks sounded more surprised than Aldrin expected. “I didn’t know that. Isn’t that going to give you some problems?”
“I’ll manage,” Aldrin said, forcing a chuckle. “After all, I’m a manager.” She did not respond to the joke, and he went on. “Now the thing is, they haven’t all made up their minds. I’m sure they will, what with… one thing and another, but anyway—”
Hendricks’s voice sharpened. “What do you mean, with one thing and another? You’re not putting pressure on them, are you? It would not be ethical—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Aldrin said. “Of course no one can be forced to cooperate, we’re not talking about any kind of coercion, of course, but these are difficult times, economically speaking, Mr. Crenshaw says—”
“But… but—” It was almost a splutter.
“So if you could get those forms to me promptly, I’d really appreciate it,” Aldrin said, and hung up. Then he quickly dialed Bart, the man Crenshaw had told him to contact.
“When are you going to have those consent forms?” he said. “And what kind of schedule are we talking about? Have you talked to Accounting about the payroll issues? Have you talked to Human Resources?”
“Er… no.” Bart sounded too young to be important, but he was probably a Crenshaw appointee. “I just thought, I think Mr. Crenshaw said he—his section—would be taking care of the details. All I was supposed to do was make sure they qualified for the protocol over here. Consent forms, I’m not sure we have them drafted yet—”
Aldrin smiled to himself. Bart’s confusion was a bonus; any manager might easily go over the head of such a disorganized little twit. He had his excuse now for calling Hendricks; if he was lucky—and he felt lucky—no one would realize which one he’d called first.
Now the question was when to go higher. He would prefer to carry the whole tale just when rumors were beginning to rise that high, but he had no idea how long that took. How long would Shirley or Hendricks sit on the new data he’d given them before doing anything? What would they do first? If they went straight upstairs, top management would know in a few hours, but if they waited a day or so, it might be as long as a week.
His stomach churned; he ate two antacid tablets.
Chapter Fourteen
On Friday, the police arranged to have me picked up and taken to work. My car was towed to the police station for examination; they say they will bring it back by Friday night. Mr. Crenshaw does not come to our section. I make a lot of progress on my project.
The police send a car to take me home, but first we go by a store to buy a replacement battery for my car and then to the place where the police keep cars. It is not the regular police station but a place called an impoundment. That is a new word to me. I have to sign papers stating that my car is my car and that I am taking custody of it. A mechanic puts the new battery I just bought into my car. One of the policemen offers to drive home with me, but I do not think I need help. He says that they have put my apartment on a watch list.
The inside of my car is dirty, with pale dust on the surfaces. I want to clean it, but first I need to drive home. It is a longer drive than coming straight home from work, but I do not get lost. I park my car next to Danny’s and go up to my apartment.
I am not supposed to leave my apartment, for my own safety, but it is Friday night and I need to do my laundry. The laundry room is in the building. I think Mr. Stacy meant I should not leave the building. It will be safe in the building, because Danny lives here and he is a policeman. I will not leave the building, but I will do my laundry.
I put the dark things into the dark basket and the light things into the light basket, balance the detergent on top, and carefully look through the peephole before opening the door. No one, of course. I open the door, carry my laundry through, relock the door. It is important to lock the door every time.
As usual on Friday evening, the apartment building is quiet. I can hear the television in someone’s apartment as I go down the stairs. The hall outside the laundry room looks the same as usual. I do not see anyone looking in from outside. I am early this week, and no one else is in the laundry room. I put the dark clothes in the right-hand washing machine and the light clothes in the one next to them. When no one is here to watch me, I can put the money in both boxes and start both machines at the same time. I have to stretch my arms to do it, but it sounds better that way.
I have brought Cego and Clinton, and I sit in one of the plastic chairs by the folding table. I would like to take it out into the hall, but there is a sign that says:
I do not like this chair—it is a strange ugly shade of blue-green—but when I am sitting in it I do not have to see it. It still feels bad, but it is better than no chair.
I have read eight pages when old Miss Kimberly comes in with her laundry. I do not look up. I do not want to talk. I will say hello if she speaks to me.
“Hello, Lou,” she says. “Reading?”
“Hello,” I say. I do not answer the question, because she can see that I am reading.
“What’s that?” she says, coming closer. I close the book with my finger in my place, so that she can see the cover.
“My, my,” she says. “That’s a thick book. I didn’t know you liked to read, Lou.”
I do not understand the rules about interrupting. It is always impolite for me to interrupt other people, but other people do not seem to think it is impolite for them to interrupt me in circumstances when I should not interrupt them.
“Yes, sometimes,” I say. I do not look up from the book because I hope she will understand that I want to read.
“Are you upset with me about something?” she asks.
I am upset now because she will not let me read in peace, but she is an older woman and it would not be polite to say so.
“Usually you’re friendly, but you brought in that big fat book; you can’t really be reading it—”
“I am,” I say, stung. “I borrowed it from a friend Wednesday night.”
“But it’s—it looks like a very difficult book,” she says. “Are you really understanding it?”
She is like Dr. Fornum; she does not think I can really do much.
“Yes,” I say. “I do understand it. I am reading about how the visual processing parts of the brain integrate intermittent input, as on a TV monitor, to create a stable image.”
“Intermittent input?” she says. “You mean when it flickers?”
“In a way,” I say. “Researchers have identified the area of the brain where the flickering images are made smooth.”
“Well, I don’t see the practical use of it,” she says. She takes her clothes out of the basket and begins stuffing them into a machine. “I’m quite happy to let my insides work without watching them while they do it.” She measures out detergent, pours it in, inserts the money, and pauses before pushing Start. “Lou, I don’t think it’s healthy, too much concern with how the brain works. People can go crazy that way, you know.”
I did not know. It never occurred to me that knowing too much about the way my brain worked could make me insane. I do not think that is a true statement. She pushes the button and the water whooshes into that machine. She comes over to the folding table.
“Everybody knows psychiatrists’ and psychologists’ children are crazier than average,” she says. “Back in the twentieth century, there was a famous psychiatrist who put his own child in a box and kept it there and it went crazy.”
I know that is not true. I do not think she will believe me if I tell her it is not true. I do not want to explain anything, so I open the book again. She makes a sharp blowing sound and I hear her shoes click on the floor as she walks away.
When I was in school, they taught us that the brain is like a computer but not so efficient. Computers do not make mistakes if they are correctly built and programmed, but brains do. From this I got the idea that any brain—even a normal brain, let alone mine—was an inferior sort of computer.
This book makes it clear that brains are a lot more complex than any computer and that my brain is normal—that it does function exactly like the normal human brain—in many ways. My color vision is normal. My visual acuity is normal. What is not normal? Only the slightest things… I think.
I wish I had my medical records from childhood. I do not know if they did all the tests on me that this book discusses. I do not know if they tested the transmission speed of my sensory neurons, for instance. I remember that my mother had a big accordion file, green on the outside and blue on the inside, stuffed with papers. I don’t remember seeing it after my parents died, when I packed up things from their house. Maybe my mother threw it away when I was grown up and living on my own. I know the name of the medical center my parents took me to, but I do not know if they would help me, if they even keep records of children who are now grown.
The book talks about a variation in the ability to capture brief transitory stimuli. I think back to the computer games that helped me hear and then learn to say consonants like p and t and d, especially at the ends of words. There were eye exercises, too, but I was so little that I don’t remember much of them.
I look at the paired faces in the illustration, which test discrimination of facial features by either placement or type. All the faces look much the same to me; I can just tell—with the prompting of the text labels—that these two have the same eyes, nose, and mouth, but one has them stretched out, farther from the other features. If they were moving, as on a real person’s face, I would never notice. Supposedly this means something wrong with a specific part of the brain involved in facial recognition.
Do normal people really perform all these tasks? If so, it’s no wonder they can recognize one another so easily, at such distances, in different clothes.
We do not have a company meeting this Saturday. I go to the Center, but the assigned counselor is out sick. I look at the number for Legal Aid posted on the bulletin board and memorize it. I do not want to call it by myself. I do not know what the others think. After a few minutes, I go home again and continue reading the book, but I do take the time to clean my apartment and my car to make up for last week. I decide to throw away the old fleece seat cover, because I can still feel occasional pricks from glass fragments, and buy a new one. The new one has a strong leathery smell and feels softer than the old one. On Sunday I go to the early service at church, so that I have more time to read.
Monday a memo arrives for all of us, giving the dates and times of preliminary tests. PET scan. MRI scan. Complete physical. Psychological interview. Psychological testing. The memo says we can take time off from work for these tests without penalty. I am relieved; I would not want to make up all the hours these tests will take up. The first test is Monday afternoon, a physical exam. We all go over to the clinic. I do not like it when strangers touch me, but I know how to behave in a clinic. The needle to draw blood doesn’t really hurt, but I do not understand what my blood and urine have to do with how my brain functions. No one even tries to explain.
On Tuesday, I have a baseline CT scan. The technician keeps telling me it won’t hurt and not to be frightened when the machine moves me into the narrow chamber. I am not frightened. I am not claustrophobic.
After work, I need to go grocery shopping because last Tuesday I met with the others in our group instead. I am supposed to be careful about Don, but I do not think he is really going to hurt me, anyway. He is my friend. By now he is probably sorry for what he did… if he is the one who did those things. Besides, it is my day for shopping. I look around the parking lot when I leave and do not see anyone I should not see. The guards at the campus gates would keep out intruders.
At the store, I park as near to one of the lights as I can, in case it is dark when I come out. It is a lucky space, a prime: eleven out from the end of the row. The store is not too busy tonight, so I have time to get everything on my list. Even though I do not have a written list, I know what I need, and I do not have to double back anywhere to find something I forgot. I have too much for one of the express lanes, almost a full basket, so I pick the shortest regular lane.
When I come out it is darker already but not really dark. The air is cool, even above the parking lot pavement. I push the basket along, listening to the rattling rhythm made by the one wheel that only touches the pavement now and then. It is almost like jazz, but less predictable. When I get to the car, I unlock the door and start putting the grocery sacks in carefully. Heavy things like laundry detergent and juice cans on the floor where they cannot fall off and crush something. Bread and eggs on the backseat.
Behind me, the cart suddenly rattles; I turn and do not recognize the face of the man in the dark jacket. Not at first, anyway, and then I realize it is Don.
“It’s all your fault. It’s your fault Tom kicked me out,” he says. His face is all bunched up, the muscles sticking out in knots. His eyes look scary; because I do not want to see them I look at other parts of his face. “It’s your fault Marjory told me to go away. It’s sick, the way women fall for that disability stuff. You probably have dozens of ’em, perfectly normal women all falling for that helpless act you do.” His voice goes high and squeaky and I can tell he is quoting someone or pretending to. “‘Poor Lou, he can’t help it,’ and, ‘Poor Lou, he needs me.’” Now his voice is lower again. “Your kind doesn’t need normal women,” he says. “Freaks should mate with freaks, if they have to mate at all. The very thought of you taking out your—being that way—with a normal woman just makes me puke. It’s disgusting.”
I cannot say anything. I think I should be frightened, but what I feel is not fear but sadness, sadness so great it is like a heavy weight all over me, dark and formless. Don is normal. He could have been—could have done—so much, so easily. Why did he give it up to be this way?
“I wrote it all down,” he says. “I can’t take care of all your sort, but they’ll know why I did this when they read it.”
“It is not my fault,” I say.
“The hell it’s not,” he says. He moves closer. His sweat has an odd smell. I do not know what it is, but I think he ate or drank something that gave it that smell. The collar on his shirt is crooked. I glance down. His shoes are scuffed; the lace of one is loose. Good grooming is important. It makes a good impression. Right now Don is not making a good impression, but no one seems to be noticing. From the corner of my eye I see other people walking to their cars, walking to the store, ignoring us. “You’re a freak, Lou—you understand what I’m saying? You’re a freak and you belong in a zoo.”
I know that Don is not making sense and that what he says is objectively not fact, but I feel bruised anyway by the force of his dislike of me. I feel stupid, too, that I did not recognize this in him earlier. He was my friend; he smiled at me; he tried to help me. How could I know?
He takes his right hand out of his pocket, and I see the black circle of a weapon pointing at me. The outside of the barrel gleams a little in the light, but the inside is dark as space. The dark rushes toward me.
“All that social-support crap—hell, if it weren’t for you and your kind, the rest of the world wouldn’t be sliding into another depression. I’d have the career I should have, not this lousy dead-end job I’m stuck in.”
I do not know what kind of work Don does. I should know. I do not think what is happening with money is my fault. I do not think he would have the career he wants if I were dead. Employers choose people who have good grooming and good manners, people who work hard and get along with others. Don is dirty and messy; he is rude and he does not work hard.
He moves suddenly, his arm with the weapon jerking toward me. “Get in the car,” he says, but I am already moving. His pattern is simple, easy to recognize, and he is not as fast or as strong as he thinks. My hand catches his wrist as it moves forward, parries it to the side. The noise it makes is not much like the noise of weapons on television. It is louder and uglier; it echoes off the front of the store. I do not have a blade, but my other hand strikes in the middle of his body. He folds around the blow; bad-smelling breath gusts out of him.
“Hey!” someone yells. “Police!” someone else yells. I hear screams. People appear from nowhere in a lump and land on Don. I stagger and almost fall as people bump into me; someone grabs my arms and whirls me around, pushing me against the side of the car.
“Let him go,” another voice says. “He’s the victim.” It is Mr. Stacy. I do not know what he is doing here. He scowls at me. “Mr. Arrendale, didn’t we tell you to be careful? Why didn’t you go straight home from work? If Dan hadn’t told us we should keep an eye on you—”
“I… thought… I was careful,” I say. It is hard to talk with all the noise around me. “But I needed groceries; it is my day to get groceries.” Only then do I remember that Don knew it was my day to get groceries, that I had seen him here before on a Tuesday.
“You’re damned lucky,” Mr. Stacy says.
Don is facedown on the ground, with two men kneeling on him; they have pulled his arms back and are putting on restraints. It takes longer and looks messier than it does on the news. Don is making a strange noise; it sounds like crying. When they pull him up, he is crying. Tears are running down his face, making streaks in the dirt. I am sorry. It would feel very bad to be crying in front of people like that.
“You bastard!” he says to me when he sees me. “You set me up.”
“I did not set you up,” I say. I want to explain that I did not know the policemen were here, that they are upset with me for leaving the apartment, but they are taking him away.
“When I say it’s people like you who make our job harder,” Mr. Stacy says, “I do not mean autistic people. I mean people who won’t take ordinary precautions.” He still sounds angry.
“I needed groceries,” I say again.
“Like you needed to do your laundry last Friday?”
“Yes,” I say. “And it is daylight.”
“You could have let someone get them for you.”
“I do not know who to ask,” I say.
He looks at me strangely and then shakes his head.
I do not know the music that is pounding in my head now. I do not understand the feeling. I want to bounce, to steady myself, but there is nowhere here to do it—the asphalt, the rows of cars, the transit stop. I do not want to get in the car and drive home.
People keep asking me how I feel. Some of them have bright lights they shine in my face. They keep suggesting things like “devastated” and “scared.” I do not feel devastated. Devastated means “made desolate or ravaged.” I felt desolate when my parents died, abandoned, but I do not feel that way now. At the time Don was threatening me, I felt scared, but more than that I felt stupid and sad and angry.
Now what I feel is very alive and very confused. No one has guessed that I might feel very happy and excited. Someone tried to kill me and did not succeed. I am still alive. I feel very alive, very aware of the texture of my clothes on my skin, of the color of the light, of the feel of the air going in and out of my lungs. It would be overwhelming sensory input except that tonight it is not: it is a good feeling. I want to run and jump and shout, but I know that is not appropriate. I would like to grab Marjory, if she were here, and kiss her, but that is very inappropriate.
I wonder if normal people react to not dying by being devastated and sad and upset. It is hard to imagine anyone not being happy and relieved instead, but I am not sure. Maybe they think my reactions would be different because I am autistic; I am not sure, so I do not want to tell them how I really feel.
“I don’t think you should drive home,” Mr. Stacy says. “Let one of our guys drive you, why don’t you?”
“I can drive,” I say. “I am not that upset.” I want to be alone in the car, with my own music. And there is no more danger; Don can’t hurt me now.
“Mr. Arrendale,” the lieutenant says, putting his head close to mine, “you may not think you’re upset, but anyone who’s been through an experience like this is upset. You will not drive as safely as usual. You should let someone else drive.”
The police send a car to take me home, but first we go by a store to buy a replacement battery for my car and then to the place where the police keep cars. It is not the regular police station but a place called an impoundment. That is a new word to me. I have to sign papers stating that my car is my car and that I am taking custody of it. A mechanic puts the new battery I just bought into my car. One of the policemen offers to drive home with me, but I do not think I need help. He says that they have put my apartment on a watch list.
The inside of my car is dirty, with pale dust on the surfaces. I want to clean it, but first I need to drive home. It is a longer drive than coming straight home from work, but I do not get lost. I park my car next to Danny’s and go up to my apartment.
I am not supposed to leave my apartment, for my own safety, but it is Friday night and I need to do my laundry. The laundry room is in the building. I think Mr. Stacy meant I should not leave the building. It will be safe in the building, because Danny lives here and he is a policeman. I will not leave the building, but I will do my laundry.
I put the dark things into the dark basket and the light things into the light basket, balance the detergent on top, and carefully look through the peephole before opening the door. No one, of course. I open the door, carry my laundry through, relock the door. It is important to lock the door every time.
As usual on Friday evening, the apartment building is quiet. I can hear the television in someone’s apartment as I go down the stairs. The hall outside the laundry room looks the same as usual. I do not see anyone looking in from outside. I am early this week, and no one else is in the laundry room. I put the dark clothes in the right-hand washing machine and the light clothes in the one next to them. When no one is here to watch me, I can put the money in both boxes and start both machines at the same time. I have to stretch my arms to do it, but it sounds better that way.
I have brought Cego and Clinton, and I sit in one of the plastic chairs by the folding table. I would like to take it out into the hall, but there is a sign that says:
Residents are Strictly Forbidden to Take Chairs out of Laundry Area
I do not like this chair—it is a strange ugly shade of blue-green—but when I am sitting in it I do not have to see it. It still feels bad, but it is better than no chair.
I have read eight pages when old Miss Kimberly comes in with her laundry. I do not look up. I do not want to talk. I will say hello if she speaks to me.
“Hello, Lou,” she says. “Reading?”
“Hello,” I say. I do not answer the question, because she can see that I am reading.
“What’s that?” she says, coming closer. I close the book with my finger in my place, so that she can see the cover.
“My, my,” she says. “That’s a thick book. I didn’t know you liked to read, Lou.”
I do not understand the rules about interrupting. It is always impolite for me to interrupt other people, but other people do not seem to think it is impolite for them to interrupt me in circumstances when I should not interrupt them.
“Yes, sometimes,” I say. I do not look up from the book because I hope she will understand that I want to read.
“Are you upset with me about something?” she asks.
I am upset now because she will not let me read in peace, but she is an older woman and it would not be polite to say so.
“Usually you’re friendly, but you brought in that big fat book; you can’t really be reading it—”
“I am,” I say, stung. “I borrowed it from a friend Wednesday night.”
“But it’s—it looks like a very difficult book,” she says. “Are you really understanding it?”
She is like Dr. Fornum; she does not think I can really do much.
“Yes,” I say. “I do understand it. I am reading about how the visual processing parts of the brain integrate intermittent input, as on a TV monitor, to create a stable image.”
“Intermittent input?” she says. “You mean when it flickers?”
“In a way,” I say. “Researchers have identified the area of the brain where the flickering images are made smooth.”
“Well, I don’t see the practical use of it,” she says. She takes her clothes out of the basket and begins stuffing them into a machine. “I’m quite happy to let my insides work without watching them while they do it.” She measures out detergent, pours it in, inserts the money, and pauses before pushing Start. “Lou, I don’t think it’s healthy, too much concern with how the brain works. People can go crazy that way, you know.”
I did not know. It never occurred to me that knowing too much about the way my brain worked could make me insane. I do not think that is a true statement. She pushes the button and the water whooshes into that machine. She comes over to the folding table.
“Everybody knows psychiatrists’ and psychologists’ children are crazier than average,” she says. “Back in the twentieth century, there was a famous psychiatrist who put his own child in a box and kept it there and it went crazy.”
I know that is not true. I do not think she will believe me if I tell her it is not true. I do not want to explain anything, so I open the book again. She makes a sharp blowing sound and I hear her shoes click on the floor as she walks away.
When I was in school, they taught us that the brain is like a computer but not so efficient. Computers do not make mistakes if they are correctly built and programmed, but brains do. From this I got the idea that any brain—even a normal brain, let alone mine—was an inferior sort of computer.
This book makes it clear that brains are a lot more complex than any computer and that my brain is normal—that it does function exactly like the normal human brain—in many ways. My color vision is normal. My visual acuity is normal. What is not normal? Only the slightest things… I think.
I wish I had my medical records from childhood. I do not know if they did all the tests on me that this book discusses. I do not know if they tested the transmission speed of my sensory neurons, for instance. I remember that my mother had a big accordion file, green on the outside and blue on the inside, stuffed with papers. I don’t remember seeing it after my parents died, when I packed up things from their house. Maybe my mother threw it away when I was grown up and living on my own. I know the name of the medical center my parents took me to, but I do not know if they would help me, if they even keep records of children who are now grown.
The book talks about a variation in the ability to capture brief transitory stimuli. I think back to the computer games that helped me hear and then learn to say consonants like p and t and d, especially at the ends of words. There were eye exercises, too, but I was so little that I don’t remember much of them.
I look at the paired faces in the illustration, which test discrimination of facial features by either placement or type. All the faces look much the same to me; I can just tell—with the prompting of the text labels—that these two have the same eyes, nose, and mouth, but one has them stretched out, farther from the other features. If they were moving, as on a real person’s face, I would never notice. Supposedly this means something wrong with a specific part of the brain involved in facial recognition.
Do normal people really perform all these tasks? If so, it’s no wonder they can recognize one another so easily, at such distances, in different clothes.
We do not have a company meeting this Saturday. I go to the Center, but the assigned counselor is out sick. I look at the number for Legal Aid posted on the bulletin board and memorize it. I do not want to call it by myself. I do not know what the others think. After a few minutes, I go home again and continue reading the book, but I do take the time to clean my apartment and my car to make up for last week. I decide to throw away the old fleece seat cover, because I can still feel occasional pricks from glass fragments, and buy a new one. The new one has a strong leathery smell and feels softer than the old one. On Sunday I go to the early service at church, so that I have more time to read.
Monday a memo arrives for all of us, giving the dates and times of preliminary tests. PET scan. MRI scan. Complete physical. Psychological interview. Psychological testing. The memo says we can take time off from work for these tests without penalty. I am relieved; I would not want to make up all the hours these tests will take up. The first test is Monday afternoon, a physical exam. We all go over to the clinic. I do not like it when strangers touch me, but I know how to behave in a clinic. The needle to draw blood doesn’t really hurt, but I do not understand what my blood and urine have to do with how my brain functions. No one even tries to explain.
On Tuesday, I have a baseline CT scan. The technician keeps telling me it won’t hurt and not to be frightened when the machine moves me into the narrow chamber. I am not frightened. I am not claustrophobic.
After work, I need to go grocery shopping because last Tuesday I met with the others in our group instead. I am supposed to be careful about Don, but I do not think he is really going to hurt me, anyway. He is my friend. By now he is probably sorry for what he did… if he is the one who did those things. Besides, it is my day for shopping. I look around the parking lot when I leave and do not see anyone I should not see. The guards at the campus gates would keep out intruders.
At the store, I park as near to one of the lights as I can, in case it is dark when I come out. It is a lucky space, a prime: eleven out from the end of the row. The store is not too busy tonight, so I have time to get everything on my list. Even though I do not have a written list, I know what I need, and I do not have to double back anywhere to find something I forgot. I have too much for one of the express lanes, almost a full basket, so I pick the shortest regular lane.
When I come out it is darker already but not really dark. The air is cool, even above the parking lot pavement. I push the basket along, listening to the rattling rhythm made by the one wheel that only touches the pavement now and then. It is almost like jazz, but less predictable. When I get to the car, I unlock the door and start putting the grocery sacks in carefully. Heavy things like laundry detergent and juice cans on the floor where they cannot fall off and crush something. Bread and eggs on the backseat.
Behind me, the cart suddenly rattles; I turn and do not recognize the face of the man in the dark jacket. Not at first, anyway, and then I realize it is Don.
“It’s all your fault. It’s your fault Tom kicked me out,” he says. His face is all bunched up, the muscles sticking out in knots. His eyes look scary; because I do not want to see them I look at other parts of his face. “It’s your fault Marjory told me to go away. It’s sick, the way women fall for that disability stuff. You probably have dozens of ’em, perfectly normal women all falling for that helpless act you do.” His voice goes high and squeaky and I can tell he is quoting someone or pretending to. “‘Poor Lou, he can’t help it,’ and, ‘Poor Lou, he needs me.’” Now his voice is lower again. “Your kind doesn’t need normal women,” he says. “Freaks should mate with freaks, if they have to mate at all. The very thought of you taking out your—being that way—with a normal woman just makes me puke. It’s disgusting.”
I cannot say anything. I think I should be frightened, but what I feel is not fear but sadness, sadness so great it is like a heavy weight all over me, dark and formless. Don is normal. He could have been—could have done—so much, so easily. Why did he give it up to be this way?
“I wrote it all down,” he says. “I can’t take care of all your sort, but they’ll know why I did this when they read it.”
“It is not my fault,” I say.
“The hell it’s not,” he says. He moves closer. His sweat has an odd smell. I do not know what it is, but I think he ate or drank something that gave it that smell. The collar on his shirt is crooked. I glance down. His shoes are scuffed; the lace of one is loose. Good grooming is important. It makes a good impression. Right now Don is not making a good impression, but no one seems to be noticing. From the corner of my eye I see other people walking to their cars, walking to the store, ignoring us. “You’re a freak, Lou—you understand what I’m saying? You’re a freak and you belong in a zoo.”
I know that Don is not making sense and that what he says is objectively not fact, but I feel bruised anyway by the force of his dislike of me. I feel stupid, too, that I did not recognize this in him earlier. He was my friend; he smiled at me; he tried to help me. How could I know?
He takes his right hand out of his pocket, and I see the black circle of a weapon pointing at me. The outside of the barrel gleams a little in the light, but the inside is dark as space. The dark rushes toward me.
“All that social-support crap—hell, if it weren’t for you and your kind, the rest of the world wouldn’t be sliding into another depression. I’d have the career I should have, not this lousy dead-end job I’m stuck in.”
I do not know what kind of work Don does. I should know. I do not think what is happening with money is my fault. I do not think he would have the career he wants if I were dead. Employers choose people who have good grooming and good manners, people who work hard and get along with others. Don is dirty and messy; he is rude and he does not work hard.
He moves suddenly, his arm with the weapon jerking toward me. “Get in the car,” he says, but I am already moving. His pattern is simple, easy to recognize, and he is not as fast or as strong as he thinks. My hand catches his wrist as it moves forward, parries it to the side. The noise it makes is not much like the noise of weapons on television. It is louder and uglier; it echoes off the front of the store. I do not have a blade, but my other hand strikes in the middle of his body. He folds around the blow; bad-smelling breath gusts out of him.
“Hey!” someone yells. “Police!” someone else yells. I hear screams. People appear from nowhere in a lump and land on Don. I stagger and almost fall as people bump into me; someone grabs my arms and whirls me around, pushing me against the side of the car.
“Let him go,” another voice says. “He’s the victim.” It is Mr. Stacy. I do not know what he is doing here. He scowls at me. “Mr. Arrendale, didn’t we tell you to be careful? Why didn’t you go straight home from work? If Dan hadn’t told us we should keep an eye on you—”
“I… thought… I was careful,” I say. It is hard to talk with all the noise around me. “But I needed groceries; it is my day to get groceries.” Only then do I remember that Don knew it was my day to get groceries, that I had seen him here before on a Tuesday.
“You’re damned lucky,” Mr. Stacy says.
Don is facedown on the ground, with two men kneeling on him; they have pulled his arms back and are putting on restraints. It takes longer and looks messier than it does on the news. Don is making a strange noise; it sounds like crying. When they pull him up, he is crying. Tears are running down his face, making streaks in the dirt. I am sorry. It would feel very bad to be crying in front of people like that.
“You bastard!” he says to me when he sees me. “You set me up.”
“I did not set you up,” I say. I want to explain that I did not know the policemen were here, that they are upset with me for leaving the apartment, but they are taking him away.
“When I say it’s people like you who make our job harder,” Mr. Stacy says, “I do not mean autistic people. I mean people who won’t take ordinary precautions.” He still sounds angry.
“I needed groceries,” I say again.
“Like you needed to do your laundry last Friday?”
“Yes,” I say. “And it is daylight.”
“You could have let someone get them for you.”
“I do not know who to ask,” I say.
He looks at me strangely and then shakes his head.
I do not know the music that is pounding in my head now. I do not understand the feeling. I want to bounce, to steady myself, but there is nowhere here to do it—the asphalt, the rows of cars, the transit stop. I do not want to get in the car and drive home.
People keep asking me how I feel. Some of them have bright lights they shine in my face. They keep suggesting things like “devastated” and “scared.” I do not feel devastated. Devastated means “made desolate or ravaged.” I felt desolate when my parents died, abandoned, but I do not feel that way now. At the time Don was threatening me, I felt scared, but more than that I felt stupid and sad and angry.
Now what I feel is very alive and very confused. No one has guessed that I might feel very happy and excited. Someone tried to kill me and did not succeed. I am still alive. I feel very alive, very aware of the texture of my clothes on my skin, of the color of the light, of the feel of the air going in and out of my lungs. It would be overwhelming sensory input except that tonight it is not: it is a good feeling. I want to run and jump and shout, but I know that is not appropriate. I would like to grab Marjory, if she were here, and kiss her, but that is very inappropriate.
I wonder if normal people react to not dying by being devastated and sad and upset. It is hard to imagine anyone not being happy and relieved instead, but I am not sure. Maybe they think my reactions would be different because I am autistic; I am not sure, so I do not want to tell them how I really feel.
“I don’t think you should drive home,” Mr. Stacy says. “Let one of our guys drive you, why don’t you?”
“I can drive,” I say. “I am not that upset.” I want to be alone in the car, with my own music. And there is no more danger; Don can’t hurt me now.
“Mr. Arrendale,” the lieutenant says, putting his head close to mine, “you may not think you’re upset, but anyone who’s been through an experience like this is upset. You will not drive as safely as usual. You should let someone else drive.”