Anything but Typical

by Nora Raleigh Baskin

  This is the best thing that could have happened. It is serendipitous.

  Too bad, because that would have been great.

  This is just an outright lie.

  We could have taken a workshop or something together. Well, have a great time without me.

  I am hoping this doesn’t sound too friendly, but maybe a little cute. I know girls like cute boys.

  I hope she cannot read the relief in my words.

  I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I wonder if my feelings would be hurt if it were the other way around. I think, but I am not sure.

  I want her to know I really like her. I want her to think I really wish I could go.

  I really like Rebecca. She is my girlfriend. Because Rebecca is my girlfriend, that’s why I am worried about hurting her feelings.

  So I sign my name at the end of the e-mail, but instead of “sincerely” or “yours truly,” I write “love.”

  Love, Jason Blake.

  So she will know.

  Boy gets girl.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  We went anyway—

  To have me tested at Yale–New Haven like Miss Baum suggested.

  Three years later, but we went.

  And on the way there my mom got lost.

  My dad knocks on my door, so that for a second it seems that when I press send on my computer it makes a knocking sound on my door. That is a coincidence, but I wouldn’t exactly call it serendipitous.

  My dad comes into my room and tells me, “Good news. We found another flight and the airline is going to transfer my ticket to Mom. We didn’t want to tell you until we were sure it could be done. You are still going to the convention!”

  I look at my computer screen, where it still flashes YOUR MESSAGE HAS BEEN POSTED.

  I don’t know what it is. I don’t why it is, but for some reason the news doesn’t ricochet around my brain. My head stays connected to my body. The air goes inside and comes back out. Nothing happens.

  I just pressed send.

  “We didn’t want to disappoint you, Jason. We know how much this Storyboard thing means to you,” my dad says.

  I wrote “Love, Jason.”

  When a person is really happy, you can hear it in their voice. You can feel it in the way they take up space in a room. I know my dad is standing by my door and he is smiling. I have very good vision out of the corners of my eyes.

  “And don’t worry, Jason,” my dad says. “I’ll make sure to rent Mom a car with a GPS.” He is laughing.

  If my dad were a color, it would be orange. Happy. He likes to make me happy.

  I would be dark green, like the bottom of the ocean that doesn’t get any light from the sun, where the weird-looking organisms live that nobody ever sees. Or maybe I would be one of those creatures, colorless, with skin so translucent you can see right through them. You can see all their organs working inside, bubbling and squeezing, but if you brought them up to the surface they’d die instantly, because they’d be so sensitive to the light. That’s why they live down there at the very bottom of the ocean.

  But for some reason it is very quiet down here, and I am still, and so I just nod my head.

  There was some confusion with the overhead road signs on the way to Yale–New Haven. I remember that, even though it was four years ago.

  And there were big, big trucks on either side of us. The directions were printed on a piece of paper that crumpled loudly in her hand that held tight to the steering wheel.

  I was still young enough to have to sit in the back strapped into a seat. Jeremy was home with a babysitter.

  I was eight.

  The more nervous my mother got, the more I rocked into a rhythm so I couldn’t hear her words. But I heard them anyway.

  Why does Yale have to be in New Haven?

  Was that just the exit?

  Jason, stop that. Just sit still. We are fine.

  Oh, jeez, where did that truck come from?

  Why isn’t your father with me when I need him?

  It was almost as confusing to find the building and then the elevator and then the office with the right name on the door. DR. MARAKESH.

  And I spelled it over and over in my head as we sat in the soft seats with the rough fabric that hurt my skin.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Pardon me?” I heard my mother’s voice.

  “His mouth is moving, but he’s not saying anything.”

  “Where is your mother, little girl?” My mother told the little voice, “Don’t you think you should go sit with your mother?”

  “I’m autistic,” the little-girl voice said. “And I bet he is too.”

  So I am going to the Storyboard convention again.

  After all that.

  It is very ironic.

  But not the least bit funny.

  Placate.

  That’s the word that came to me this morning, as we were getting ready to leave for the airport. I was brushing my teeth really hard, even though the dentist told me I brush my teeth too hard. Sometimes I forget.

  We are getting ready to go to JFK Airport and then fly to DFW, Dallas/Fort Worth. In Texas, where the convention is. Where Rebecca lives.

  Placate.

  I know what that word means.

  It has nothing to do with what’s going on.

  Inside the John F. Kennedy Airport, JFK, the sound is bad.

  Like the gym at school, only worse. The ceiling is so far, too high, and the noise travels up there and sticks like an invisible thick cloud. Except here in the airport there are rows and rows and lines and lines and hall after hall and there is a lot of noise that gets stuck up there. There are conversations everywhere. Constant loudspeakers speaking.

  I pull my mother out of the way of a huge speeding golf cart that is screaming with a high-pitched warning, only with all the noise in this place there was no warning at all.

  “I think you just saved my life,” my mother is saying.

  The giant golf cart with the flashing light on top, carrying a little girl with crutches and two old people, passes us by.

  I can feel my mother’s skin, her fingers. Her arm is bent and stiff. She is nervous too, and we aren’t even driving yet. We didn’t even have to drive to get here. My dad had someone from his office drive us. But she is already nervous.

  Maybe we should have practiced walking through the airport. It is apparently much more stressful than sitting on a plane will be.

  All the sounds gather at the ceiling, where there are large white pipes. The voices of all these people, steps large and light, rolling wheels, constant mechanical clicking, beeping, and dinging. This must be what it is like inside my computer.

  “He doesn’t have an ID. He’s only twelve,” my mother is telling the ticket man behind the tall counter. “Yeah, well, he looks big for his age.”

  Soon my ID will say:

  JASON BLAKE

  WESTON, CONNECTICUT

  STORYBOARD MEMBER

  THREE YEARS

  Rebecca, in my awake dream, will know who I am, because my identification will be hanging right there around my neck.

  But I see Rebecca first.

  She is wearing a name tag too, of course. I know it is her, before she sees it is me. She is leaning over the sign-in table gathering her information: the schedule of workshops, the times for the lectures, the room assignments, and coupons for the local outlet shops. When she stands up, I see her face.

  I see her face.

  There is a large purplish stain across her left cheek and down her neck; that’s all I see. It looks like she is two different colors. It is a birthmark like Mr. Shupack has on his arm, but this is all over her face.

  It’s all I can see when I look at her.

  And then I wonder maybe if Rebecca was just as afraid of me seeing her as I am of her seeing me.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The GPS in the rental car isn’t working.

  Or my mom doesn’t know how to work
it.

  If she tries to reverse the car back into the parking lot to ask for help, she will run over those metal spikes and pop all the tires, and we would be stuck here for hours.

  I kind of hope that happens.

  I am not looking forward to getting to the hotel.

  Because then I will be that much closer to the convention.

  That much closer to Rebecca seeing me.

  My mother has never really been the same since we left Yale–New Haven that afternoon.

  And I, apparently, never had been.

  The doctor asked me questions and gave me puzzles to do. They made me look at patterns and then asked me to draw them. They gave me blocks. And pictures. They tried to get me to think we were playing fun games, board games and word games and stacking games.

  But nothing was fun.

  They gave me numbers and told me to repeat them.

  “One. Seven. Eight. Five.”

  They told me riddles and asked me to explain them. They showed me photographs of faces and asked me what the person was feeling.

  “Is this person happy or sad?”

  They showed me pictures of clothing and asked me who would wear this?

  “Who would wear this dress?”

  I cried and tried to run away. They gave me candy, and I played more games. I drew more pictures. I recited more numbers.

  Then they talked to my mom, and I got to play video games or watch TV in a special waiting room, not the one we waited in when we first came in. There were lots of other kids in this room and maybe some grown-up watching. But the grown-up didn’t seem connected to any particular kids. There were five or six video machines, some like in an arcade and another hooked up to a little television set that wasn’t even in color. There were books on the table and some on the floor. There were headsets on all the video games, but you could still hear the music and the beeping and the chiming if one of the kids didn’t have the earpiece on his head right.

  And there were a lot more kids than there were video games.

  I stood ready for this kid to get down from the stepping stool so I could have a turn next. Every time he looked like he was going to get off, he’d look at me and play again.

  My head started to fly off my body. I wanted a turn. I wanted to play.

  One of the grown-ups came over and stood near me. Tall legs and a man’s voice.

  “It’s okay, Jason. I will make sure you have a turn. I have a watch. See?”

  A little clock came down in front of my face. It’s not a watch; it’s a clock. How can I trust this voice?

  I will never have a turn.

  But just then a woman’s voice came through the opened door, and the little kid at the video game ran away. I stepped up onto the stool as fast as I could. I don’t remember what the game was. It was old and it wasn’t that interesting, but I grabbed on to it so I wouldn’t fly away.

  When my mother came into the room through the opened door, I looked at her face. I never look at her face. I am afraid to look at her face. But all the strange shoes and the unknown voices, the games and the noises. The candy was sick in my stomach.

  I looked at her face.

  She had been crying.

  Her face was so ugly, red, and puffy.

  She is so ugly because she is so mad at me, I thought.

  Because I would not end my video game and get down from the stool, and because I wet my pants, all down my legs and into my shoes—

  My mother is crying.

  “It will be okay, Jason,” my mother is saying. I can hear the crying just waiting inside her voice. She has pulled the rental car over in order to reprogram the GPS.

  She is clicking and spinning.

  Then she is making noises from her mouth. Now her hands are around her head, in her hair, like she tells me not to do. She is not putting in the right letters. The computer can’t help you if you don’t ask it the right question.

  I can.

  I can reach over.

  I can spell the exact name of the hotel. The arrow points to each letter. You have to spin the dial. It turns smooth in my hands, clicks into each spot, drops like pennies in a jar. The letters spill into my hands, out my fingers. Return to enter. H. Enter. E. Back to start. All the letters click into place. Smooth. The hotel is spelled out, and the mechanical voice starts talking.

  “Proceed to the route shown,” it says. It sounds like a girl’s voice.

  I can feel my mother’s shoulder drop. I know she wants to reach over and hug me and really let herself cry.

  I am glad she is driving and can’t do this.

  “Jason,” she says. I can tell by the sound of her voice that she is keeping her head facing forward. “Thank you, thank you, my sweetheart.” She is looking at the road ahead instead of at me.

  A couple of days after we got back from Yale–New Haven they told me I was autistic, but they didn’t really use that word.

  Autistic.

  I didn’t learn that word until a long time later. First my mom and dad told me I was special. I had a different way of seeing the world and a different way of being in the world.

  “And now we know how to get real help,” my dad said. “The right kind. Everything is going to be better now, Jason.”

  “Now we know what’s going on, Jason,” my mother said. “Now we know what’s wrong. And so we can fix it.”

  They told me the word for what was wrong, three letters, and it gave me a name. My mom and dad were saying something. They were telling me things. But at eight years old I had already learned that people will say one thing and mean something else completely.

  Special.

  Different.

  But in a way I was relieved.

  It explained some things, like why none of the other kids minded sitting in the grass when Mrs. Babcock took us outside on sunny days. The grass felt like needles. I hate to sit on the ground. I like to stand.

  It explained things like why Henry Gaberman told me my face was like a blinking traffic signal.

  Like why I didn’t really have any friends who invite me to their house after school.

  But I didn’t think anything was going to get any better.

  I didn’t need any letters or any new names to tell me what I already knew.

  It is so hot in Dallas.

  Hot like sticky wool on my skin.

  When we get out of the car and walk to the hotel, I feel like I am swimming in a horribly heated pool. I have to walk fast, my pants legs swishing against each other. My mother is a lot slower, and when the automatic doors of the hotel shut behind me, she is still on the other side.

  And all of a sudden I am inside by myself.

  Is this what it feels like to be alone in a strange place?

  I don’t know what to do. There are people in line at the counter, people walking around. People who work in the hotel all wear dark purple jackets. A woman has a suitcase on wheels. Another woman is pushing a stroller. A man in a chair, like this is his living room, reading a newspaper. Down one hall a little kid is crying. I smell the chlorine of a pool, but I don’t see one. I smell the chemical odor of carpet glue. The elevator makes a noise just before it lands and opens wide.

  There is a drinking fountain by the restrooms. A urinal is still flushing when the men’s-room door flings open and swings closed. A phone rings. Two phones ring, and neither one is picked up.

  “Jason, Jason. Stop that. Stop that.”

  I don’t know what I am doing, but my mother is mad at me for doing it.

  “C’mon,” she says.

  I follow her pink and white sneakers and the tall rolling suitcase that stays right beside her.

  She gives the man behind the counter our name. She gives him her credit card. He gives her a key, which looks like another credit card.

  “C’mon, Jason,” she says.

  And I do.

  I think I could live very well in a hotel room. There are so few choices. And so little furniture. It’s pretty quiet for the m
ost part unless you turn the volume on the TV too loud.

  And turn it up and then down.

  You can read the temperature on the thermostat, and nobody gets too mad if you turn that up or down, unless you keep doing it.

  And the windows don’t open in a hotel room. I like that, too.

  But I’ve never been in a hotel room with just my mom. She seems different, like without my dad she isn’t the same.

  I understand that.

  There are some things my dad always does. Like give the man who brought our suitcases up some money. My mother fumbled around. She didn’t know what the man in the uniform was waiting for.

  Then she didn’t know how much to give him.

  “Two,” I told her. I always watch my dad. I knew how much to give.

  And there are things my dad could never do. My dad could never cook dinner and help me with my math homework and play Uno with Jeremy all at the same time. My mom does that.

  Placate.

  Serendipity.

  Confluence.

  Vizcaíno.

  Jaba Chamberlain.

  “It’s strange being in a hotel without Daddy and Jeremy, isn’t it?” she says to me.

  Most things are strange to me, I am thinking.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Before I walk into a room where there are going to be a lot of people, like the room where the registration for the convention is, there are certain things I am supposed to do. My occupational therapist taught me what to do.

  I am supposed to touch the wall of the doorway with the backs of both my hands, and press. As hard as I can. For ten seconds, counting quietly in my mind.

  Not out loud.

  I am supposed to have a destination when I walk in, so I am not just wandering around, which can make me anxious.

  I am supposed to anticipate being overwhelmed.

  I am supposed to listen to my own breathing and know it’s in my control. And I am supposed to keep my eyes just a few feet in front of me, like car headlights.