Fathermucker (19 page)

Already my feeble plan has failed. The best I can do is take my time closing the door and take the long way around the minivan, which doesn't have the desired effect either, because Roland's noticed the other kids heading for the big wooden platform rigged to the tractor on the other side of the “parking lot,” and gives my wrist a surprisingly forceful tug.

“Come on, stupid daddy.”

“I'm not stupid. Please don't call me stupid.”

We head toward the platform, Roland trying to pick up the pace, me trying to slow us down, his body going limp and then pulling taut, like a kite-string on a windy beach day. I look over my shoulder just in time to see Reid emerge from his orange car. I've seen him before—at school functions, at Lowe's, at the Bistro, where he seemed flattered by the attention of the fawning wait-staff—but aside from the occasional greeting by way of a nod and a “hey,” I've never spoken to him.

Reid is a big guy. Not fat, and not particularly muscular—the video for “My Heart Is Hydroplaning,” in which he cavorts shirtless in a mosh-pit, his well-inked arms as ripped as a middleweight's, is a good fifteen years old, if you can believe it—just big. He's a legit six-four, but filled out, like a boxer no longer in training. He towers over me (I'm five-eight in my Doc Martens; either average height for an American male or short, depending on whom you ask). And he always wears some slight variation of the same uniform outfit: dark blue Dickies jacket zipped over a bright orange hooded sweatshirt, work pants the same color as the jacket, engineer boots, and on his presumably bald dome, either a wool hat or a bandana, depending on the season. He dresses like a security guard, or a gas station attendant (or how gas station attendants used to dress in my suburban New Jersey youth; we don't have gas station attendants in New York).

Reid is fiddling with his iPhone—I think it's an iPhone; I'm too far away to tell—as he opens Zara's door. The pixie girl bounces out of the orange car and heads for the gaggle of kids over by the tractor, her Dora sneakers lighting up as she runs. Without looking up, Reid closes the door, locks the car, deposits the keys—which dangle from a metal chain, punk rock style—into his pants pocket, and follows her, peeking up from the tiny screen every few moments to avoid banging into a car or tripping over the half-worm-eaten apples strewn around the ruined lawn.

Roland, seeing Zara racing toward us, releases my hand and breaks into a run. She gigglingly follows him, passing me. I could either slacken my pace to wait for Reid or pick it up to catch up to the kids. Not trusting Roland, and feeling shy myself about interrupting the rock star's heated text exchange for something as mercenary as an interview request for a magazine he's almost certainly never heard of, I opt for the latter. No sooner do I start my half-jog than my foot catches in a hole in the grass, tweaking my ankle. Fortunately, nothing gives. While I manage to catch my fall, I can't stop the reflexive f-bomb from escaping my mouth. But the only person close enough to me to hear is Reid, and he's too absorbed in his iPhone to hear me . . . and even if he did, would a punk rock god really get his panties in a twist over a stray
Fuck
?

By the time I get to the tractor and the throng of kids, parents, and teachers, Roland and Zara have already found seats. I climb up rickety stairs to the platform, a crudely constructed plywood rectangle about eight feet wide and twenty feet long, with benches around the perimeter and in the middle, enclosed by a yard-high rail of two-by-fours. Most of the seats are already taken. Although Roland and Zara climbed up one after the other, he decided not to sit with her, instead finding a spot next to Tucker, who is not, best as I can tell, on the spectrum, unless there is an arcane DSM category for Mean Kid Who Doesn't Listen to His Teachers, Stirs up Trouble, and Enjoys Inflicting Pain. Tucker has the face of an angel, a snake-oil-salesman manner, and a collection of hip
Star Wars
T-shirts he wears every day, but make no mistake: the kid is a bad seed. I actively dislike him. On the other side of Tucker is his faithful sidekick, Joey, a fat Italian kid dressed in a gold Nike running suit, matching pants and jacket, like Bobby Bacala from
The Sopranos
. Joey has some sort of speech delay; instead of saying
He hit me
, he'll go with
Him hit me
. He is also the only kid in the class whose parents I've never actually seen.

Roland thinks that Tucker and Joey are a barrel of laughs. He equates being naughty with being funny. He doesn't understand the nuance. This sort of thing worries me. I don't want him to fall in with the wrong crowd, with rotten apples (the metaphorical answer to the ones all over the ground) who will take advantage of his trusting nature. My mind is rife with scenarios of his naïveté getting him into trouble when he's a teenager.
Just put the CD in your jacket and walk out, Roland. The cashier won't even notice. It'll be a gas.
Aspie kids get picked on a lot in school because they often don't understand when their tormentors are being mean to them. Deciphering the motives of a sophisticated bully is beyond the scope of their cognitive abilities. Hopefully he'll stay tall and handsome and interested in girls. Girls will keep him out of trouble. Three cheers for girls! For now, though, the Tuckers of the world are content to lead the Rolands of the world down the wrong path. Like, Tucker will sometimes smack Roland across the face for no apparent reason. Roland will react by slapping him back. Sometimes this gets him into hot water with Mrs. Drinkwater, although to be honest, I'd rather he hit back than just take it with a grin. In any case, I'm not pleased with my son's choice of seat.

Ideally, I'd wait for Reid to sit and find a spot next to him. But he's still on the grass, fiddling with his iPhone, and in no apparent hurry to board the clumsy wooden platform, which lists back and forth like a Shanghai harbor junk. So I take a seat on the middle bench, caddy-corner from Roland, Joey, and Tucker, between Lenore and Ethan's mother, an obese woman given to wearing pastel-colored shirts with pictures of unicorns and fairies on them. Because Thornwood is a special school, the student body hails from towns all over Ulster County: Highland, Plattekill, Milton, Marlborough, Modena, Clintondale, West Park, Port Ewen, and so on, where church attendance is higher, Republican sympathy stronger, mean household income lower, college degrees rarer, gun ownership more common, and NASCAR interest more acute, than they are in New Paltz. And while I have nothing against Jesus, Giuliani, blue collar employment, GEDs, revolvers, or Jeff Gordon, there is not much overlap in the Venn diagram of “People Who Like Those Things” and “My Friends.” Thus I have not fraternized much with the other Thornwood parents, who are probably just as put off by my ironic T-shirts, stylish glasses, Doc Martens, and staunch belief, as evidenced by the
OBAMA/BIDEN
bumper sticker on Stacy's Outback, that the President was not born in Kenya. I smile, I say hello to the kids, I comment on the weather, and that's the extent of my interaction. But there's more to it than simple elitism. To engage at Thornwood means having to talk about The Spectrum. And I don't want to talk about it. The last thing I want to do, when contending with Asperger's for most of the day, is spend my free time discussing Asperger's.

Ethan's mother sits so that that she's turned away from me, her giant ass a veritable Hadrian's Wall between us. Just as well.

“Pumpkins,” Tucker says, “taste like
poop
.”

This cracks up Roland, who says, “Tucker is so silly.”
Silly
, his catch-all word.

I can think of some other choice adjectives to describe Tucker, but I let it go. “Yes,” I say. “Tucker is indeed silly.”

Reid is the last person aboard the wooden contraption that will carry us down the half-mile length of broken road to the pumpkin patch. He finds a seat next to his daughter, as far from me as you can get on the platform, and across from Olivia's mother, who is dressed to the nines. Salon Mom, Stacy calls her; I don't even know her real name. Lisa? Liz? Lauren? Something with an “L.” Tanning-salon tan, perfectly manicured nails, perfectly frosted hair, and an outfit several degrees too dressy and/or revealing for the occasion. Today she's wearing skinny jeans, a form-fitting sweater, and shiny red pumps with three-inch heels. Heels! To the pumpkin patch!

At long last, Reid looks up from his cell, which I'm now close enough to confirm is, indeed, an iPhone. “No reception out here,” he says, to no one in particular.

“AT&T is horrible,” says Salon Mom, adjusting herself so her small but firm tits are pointed at him. “I didn't get an iPhone because I just didn't want to deal with them.”

Before Reid can respond, the owner of Meadow Hill Farms—who is a) named MacDonald, and b) sort of old—climbs onto the tractor. “Hello, boys and girls,” he says, his voice disturbingly loud. “Welcome to the farm! Who's ready to
pick some pumpkins
?”

The kids all cheer maniacally, as if prompted to do so by a guy waving a sign on the set of
Leno
. Sort-of-old MacDonald fires up the tractor, which comes to life with a series of clangs and starts, and the entire platform rumbles with its shaky engine.

“Let's go!”

I glance around the platform. Even the parents seem excited about this little adventure. Salon Mom, for one, looks like she might orgasm (in her defense, the throbbing of the platform does add a frisson of tactile pleasure to the experience). Pumpkin picking, I don't get it. Seems to me that if I'm working the fields, harvesting the orange gourds myself,
they
should pay
me
, not the other way around. Apples at least you can eat, or give to teachers, or throw like baseballs. But pumpkins? Heavy, bulky, useless. Beyond that, these field trips make me nervous. Although there are plenty of kids here on the spectrum, and therefore less potential for judgment, that doesn't make it easier when Roland misbehaves. I'm constantly fretting about what he might do. And today, the pressure of landing the
Rents
interview has pushed my anxiety to new levels. It's almost enough to make me forget what Sharon told me, and that little shit Chad Donovan. Almost. But the nagging ache in the pit of my stomach is a constant reminder.

Reid is deep in conversation with Salon Mom, who would, I'm sure, suck him off right there in the tractor bed if he but said the word. Roland seems happy. He, Tucker, and Joey are shrieking with glee as the tractor winds its way down the long path. Up ahead, a big red barn, which can charitably be described as “distressed,” approaches.

“So I understand you're a screenwriter,” Lenore says.

I was so preoccupied with my own shit that I forgot about the pretty twentysomething speech therapist sitting beside me. “That might be overstating it,” I say. “But yes, I write screenplays.”
Write,
or
wrote?

“Cool,” she says. I can't tell if she's sincere or just trying to make conversation. “Anything I might have seen?”

God, I hate when people ask that question. I know she's trying to be nice, and for all I know she's genuinely curious, but still. “Not yet.”

She seems mildly disappointed. “Well, I'm sure it's just a matter of time.”

“Thanks.” I change the subject. “I hear Roland's been mean to you.”

“No, no. Roland's a sweet kid. He just says some funny things sometimes. He has such an active imagination.”

“That he does.”

Our conversation ends as the tractor lurches to a stop, every last person on the platform falling forward. Sort-of-old MacDonald stands up on the tractor and holds out his arms like a ringmaster at a circus. “Here we are!” he cries. “One pumpkin each! Last one there's a rotten egg!”

Mrs. Drinkwater, positioned by the stairs, tries to manage the ensuing mass exodus created by the rotten-egg incantation, but in vain. Parents and kids push and shove their way pell-mell and tumble bumble down the narrow stairs, and scamper into the pumpkin patch, a football-field-sized expanse just behind the big “distressed” barn, as fast as four-year-old legs can carry them. “One each,” the white-haired teacher hollers, tumbling after, slowed by her long skirt and her brittle legs. “Just one each!”

Tucker is first to the pumpkin patch, Joey and Roland at his heels. I decide not to try and catch up.
Chill out, Josh. Have some trust. Let the boys have their fun.

I watch my son run—he's fast, faster than I ever was, his build tall and lean, like a cross-country runner's, like my father's—and the others follow him, and when I snap out of it, I realize I'm alone on the platform with Daryl “Duke” Reid. We get to the steps at the same time. A golden opportunity to engage him.

“After you,” I say.

“I insist,” he replies.

So I go down first, but I wait for him. “Zara's a real sweetheart,” I tell him. “My son adores her. I'm, um, Roland's dad.”

“I know,” he says. “She talks about Roland all the time.”

“Nothing bad, I hope.” I recall last year's crush, Mollie, with her round face and cute glasses, how Roland used to express his affection by biting her leg and trying to cut her forearm with scissors.

Reid chuckles. “No,” he tells me. “Nothing bad.”

“Roland can be a handful.”

“Zara's used to it. She has an older brother.”

“Oh yeah? How old?”

“Six. Almost seven. He's in the second grade.”

Elementary school is so far in my future that it feels like science fiction. When Roland is in second grade, there will be spaceships and teleportation devices and phasers set to stun—or so it seems. But of course this is ludicrous. A year from now, he'll be in kindergarten, armed with his IEP and his classification and his milk money, well on his way to the numbered grades of the primary school, to puberty, adolescence, and what lies beyond.