Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's (6 page)

As a logical thinker, I cannot help thinking, based on the evidence, that many people who exhibit dramatic reactions to bad news involving strangers are hypocrites. That troubles me. People like that hear bad news from across the world, and they burst into wails and tears as though their own children have just been run over by a bus. To me, they don’t seem very different from actors and actresses—they are able to burst into tears on command, but does it really mean anything?

Often those same people will turn to me and say things like, “What’s wrong with you? You’re not saying anything. Don’t you care that all those people got killed? They had families, you know!”

As I got older, I found myself in trouble more and more for saying things that were true, but that people didn’t want to hear. I did not understand tact. I developed some ability to avoid saying what I was thinking. But I still thought it. It’s just that I didn’t let on quite so often.

4

A Trickster Is Born

A
bout this time, I figured out one way to capitalize on my differences from the mass of humanity. In school, I became the class clown. Out of school, I became a trickster. I made quite a few trips to the principal’s office in those years. But it was worth it.

I was good at thinking up tricks. When I did, the other kids laughed with me, not at me. We all laughed at the teachers or whomever else I poked fun at. As long as my pranks lasted, I was popular. It felt great, having other kids admire me and like me.

I didn’t even have to ask the other kids to join in. They did it on their own. And even if they didn’t, they never made fun of me over my tricks.

Of course, once I figured that out, I kept doing it. And I got better with time.

I read all the time, and I was learning all sorts of new things. In fact, I kept the more interesting volumes of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
next to my bed. I knew my tractors or dinosaurs or ships or astronomy or rocks or whatever else I was studying at that moment.

People began looking at me and listening to me as if I was a prodigy. This was especially true of my family, my few friends, and my parents’ close friends. They were a good audience, because they always seemed to like me, even when other people didn’t. They saw how intently I studied things. They saw how often I was right, and they heard the certainty in my voice when I said things. It seemed to be a case of “say it and it must be so.”

I had an idea: Perhaps I could create my own reality. My first experiments were relatively simple. When I pointed out stars and constellations in the night sky to my grandparents, I added one.

“There’s the Big Dipper,” I said. “See, over there. And over there, that’s Orion.”

“You just know all your stars, John Elder!” My grandmother was impressed.

“And that bright star—that’s Sirius, the Dog Star. And that one there, that’s Bovinius, the Cow Star.”

“Are you pulling my leg, John Elder? I never heard of the Cow Star.” My grandparents were skeptical.

“I read about it in my book of mythology. The one you bought me. Cows are sacred in India, and that’s their star. Wanna read about it?”

“No, son, I’m sure you’re right.”

The trick was weaving enough truth into the story to make it plausible. I pointed out stars and constellations they knew, and then I showed them a new one. All the elements of my explanation made sense. Maybe there was a Cow Star after all.

And so Bovinius began to shine over Georgia. My grandfather continued to spread the legend.

“Hey, Jeb, look up there. You see that star? That’s the goddamn Cow Star. My grandson told me about it. Kid read about it in a book.”

“Cow Star, huh?”

“Yeah. Goddamn Indians. Named a goddamn star for a cow,” my grandfather said.

“Indians?”

“Yeah, real Indians. From India.”

“Cow Star.”

As I got older and smarter, my pranks became better, more polished. More sophisticated. Sometimes my stories would acquire a life of their own.

I started out tricking my family. When my grandfather found out he was being tricked, he thought it was funny. He encouraged me. My father was mean, and he was dangerous to trick. But it worked with my mother and brother all the time. The vanishing kid trick became a staple. I worked endless variations for many years.

The first time was when our mother left Varmint and me together at the petting zoo at Look Park in Northampton. Look Park was a supposedly safe place close to home. She went off to the bathroom, and to get us some snacks. She was gone less than five minutes. Varmint was six, and I was fourteen. I had a sudden flash of inspiration.

“Quick, Varmint, hide in that shed before Mom gets back. We’ll trick her.”

I pointed to a small building where they stored maintenance tools and supplies. Varmint slipped in and pulled the door shut, but opened it a crack so he could see what would happen.

When our mother came back, I was leaning on the rail, reaching out to pet a deer.

“John Elder, where is your brother?”

Without even looking around, I said, “He went to find you.”

She headed back the way she came, looking for Varmint. So far, so good. I glanced over to the shed and grinned at Varmint.

Soon she was back. “John Elder, I don’t see your brother.”

“Well, he’ll turn up.”

Looking unconcerned, I wandered off. My mother followed me. I continued to act indifferent, which got her even more agitated.

“John Elder, where is Chris?”

“He’s fine. And anyway, he’s just a Varmint.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about your brother like that.”

Now ten minutes had passed with no sign of the Varmint. I was proud of him, staying quiet in the shed all that time. He was doing very well. Our mother was getting really upset. It was time to spring the trap.

“John Elder, I’m getting worried about your brother.”

Yes, it was definitely time.

“Why are you worried? He’s with your friend Paul. He’s fine.”

My mother did not have a friend Paul. She turned white.

“John Elder!! What are you talking about?”

“Varmint went with Paul. They went to find you and ride the train.”

We had her now. She was panicked.

“I don’t know any Paul. Who is he?”

“How should I know? He’s your friend.”

That was just the right thing to say. I was getting really good at thinking on my feet.

“Oh my God. Wait here.”

She ran off.

I decided we might have trouble if she came back with the police and they went looking for Paul. I motioned Varmint out. He was grinning. Even though all he’d done was stand still, he was still proud of his part.

“Okay, Varmint, you have to keep a straight face now. Can you do it?”

“I think so,” he said.

Our mother returned with two policemen. She saw the Varmint. She ran and grabbed him.

“Christopher Robison, where have you been?”

The police saw this, lost interest, and wandered away. Before Varmint could say anything, I said, “Paul brought him back, just like I told you.”

Varmint rose to the challenge.

“We rode the train, and got an ice cream.” He made that up all on his own. I could see it then. One day, he might be as good as me at telling stories.

Our mother was suspicious, but she wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t want to scare him unnecessarily. She had no idea the whole thing was all a trick, and we were in on it together. She was afraid to say more about this mysterious Paul, since Varmint was, after all, seemingly back in one piece. It was time to distract her.

“Varmint, let’s go get a paddleboat and ram the other boats and sink them.”

She never figured out who Varmint had gone off with, but we were on to something else as we headed for the paddleboats.

I didn’t stop there. I tricked the neighbors, too, and my teachers. I had a particularly disagreeable high school biology teacher. His ideas of the work I should do, and how and when I should do it, were far removed from my own. He tormented me during my weekly lab, holding up my “sloppily dissected frog” for everyone to ridicule. He also singled me out in class, asking questions he knew I couldn’t answer.

“What’s this?” he would ask, pointing to a spitball-sized bit of frog spoiling on my tray.
How should I know?
I thought, but I fumed and said nothing. I could not close my eyes for a moment in his class, because he’d pounce. It was exhausting and humiliating. I pondered how I might respond.

I decided he needed reading material to distract him. Something to take his mind off harassing nice kids like me.

So I went to Burtle’s, the local newsstand. I headed for the magazine racks. They had by far the best selection of smut in town. They had magazines like
Playboy
and
Penthouse
on an upper shelf in back, but the serious stuff was under the counter, by the cash register. I needed those magazines, but I could not see any way to get my hands on them. I didn’t need to take them from the store. After all, I only wanted the subscription forms. But how would I get them?

There was only one answer. I would have to buy them. That called for some groundwork, because I didn’t have any money.

The next day was a Saturday. I went into town with a metal camping plate and a sign. I swiped two milk crates from behind Eddie’s, the town grocer. I set up across the street, in front of the Quicksilver Bar and Grill. In that location, everyone walking through town would see me and my sign. The sign, which I had made with my mother’s art supplies, read:

C
HILDREN’S AND
O
RPHANS’
R
ELIEF

H
ELP US HELP THEM

Y
OUR DONATIONS COUNT

S
AVE A CHILD

It was remarkably easy. Amherst was a great town for panhandling. In just a few hours, I had thirty dollars in change and sixteen dollar bills. My pockets were bulging. Many people just walked by and dropped money into my pan. Often they looked away from me while doing so. Surprisingly, no one questioned or challenged me. I was glad no one I knew walked by. That would have been embarrassing for me. Although, for them, it might have been inspirational. If some of my friends had seen my panhandling success, they’d have been out there the next day themselves.

By this time in my life, I had gotten to know many of the lowlifes that hung around downtown during the day. Rug, Stump, Fatso, and Freddie. And Willie the bookie and Charles the pimp. I found Rug sitting in a doorway next to a Miller High Life beer sign.

“Rug, can you go over to Burtle’s and buy me some porn? The good stuff, from under the counter. Buy me five good ones and you can keep one for yourself.”

He was still hesitant.

“Come on, I’ll buy you a quart of Schlitz.” That did it. I could have saved the cost of a magazine for a sixty-nine-cent quart of beer.

“Okay.” Rug smirked, thinking I was buying material to satisfy my own base desires.

“Fuck you, Rug,” I said. “It’s not for me. It’s for my teacher.”

“Hey, you don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he said. He clearly did not believe the magazines were for my teacher. But he bought them anyway.

That evening, I looked up my teacher’s address. I filled out the subscription cards in his name, checking the “bill me” boxes. Then I hid one of the leftover magazines in my father’s chest of drawers and another in his part of the bookcase—places where my mother would find them and not associate them with me. I slipped one into the parents’ waiting area in the school guidance office. And I left the last one in a pew in the church downtown.

Before distributing the magazines, I looked through them to verify the quality of my gift. In the back pages of one, I found the ideal product for a lonely high school teacher.

R
EVERSIBLE
U
RSULA

T
HE
U
LTIMATE
I
NFLATABLE
D
OLL

B
OY OR
G
IRL

A F
RIEND
W
HO
W
ILL
N
EVER
L
ET
Y
OU
D
OWN

She was too good to let get away. I went to the post office with seventeen of my panhandled dollars and ordered her.

Nothing happened for a few weeks. Then, out of the blue, my biology teacher walked up to me one day in the hall.