“I AM THE RETARD I AM THE RETARD! I AM THE RETARD!”
And then he pulled down his underwear and I ran toward him. Toby grabbed his penis and held it straight up, swinging it back and forth.
“I AM THE RETARD! I AM THE RETARD! I AM THE RETARD!”
He started running again and it was Coach Williams who tackled him like an all-pro linebacker.
“NO NO NO NO NO! GET OFF ME! GET OFF! GET OFF!”
The Coach held him as Julie ran up with that leather trench. Then I fell on top of him and now Toby was crying. He was crying on the gym floor with both his parents lying on top of him. Coach Williams and Miss Fielding, his English teacher, huddled around us as I held my son as tight as I could on the hard gym floor with the world watching us.
“I am so sorry son,” I said, hugging him for the first time since he was in third grade.
Toby cried. I cried. And Julie cried over both of us.
ICE AND CANDY
COACH
I WAS DOWN AT the ice machine getting ice and a couple pops and two Snickers bars when I saw Paul Clampet. He had come down with his bucket and I think he was surprised as I was.
“Coach,” he muttered going to the ice machine.
The guy looked like he hadn’t slept for a week or had been drinking for a week—or maybe both. His hair was uncombed and his goatee scraggly and he had some old Tears For Fears T-shirt on and blue sweats. We all knew what had happened and I really felt sorry for his kid. That was a hell of a way to find out your old man had pulled a huge boner…
“How’s it going?”
“Hey Coach,” he mumbled.
I stood there with my ice bucket and my candy bars and two Diet Cokes. I mean I had heard his old lady kicked him out and I could relate. I’ll bet his son wasn’t too hot on talking to him either. Toby hadn’t come back to school since the dance and I figured they had just packed up and moved back to Chicago.
“Hey, for what it’s worth. I think your heart was in the right place with all of this. It was a little nutty, and I had never had a kid so I don’t know if I would ever do anything like that, but I think it took a lot of guts.”
He rubbed his goatee then nodded slowly.
“Thanks.”
“Your son. I mean, he’s alright? I know he hasn’t been back to school. Linda said he hadn’t been to any of his classes.”
Clampet shrugged speaking into the ice machine.
“I wouldn’t know. He won’t talk to me.” He looked up then with eyes blood red. “Neither will my wife.”
I nodded slowly.
“Yeah, that’s rough.”
Clampet stood up then and frowned.
“What are you doing here?”
I laughed lightly and held up my hand.
“The wife showed me the road after my little dance with Linda—Toby’s English teacher.”
Clampet punched in for some peanut M&M’s.
“Is she right?”
“Yeah. She was…it was about time. I mean I ain’t going to live forever.”
Clampet’s M&M’s clunked down and he picked them up.
“Yeah, well, living in a motel sucks. My assistant just went back to Chicago, so it’s just me and Netflix.”
“Yeah,” I said not knowing quite what to say.
I mean watching that kid go nuts and grab his dick and shaking it at everybody was freaky. I jumped on him because I thought he was going crazy. And then Clampet and his wife jumped on him and it was pretty sad. Linda kept saying that poor, poor family, and I have to agree. I just felt sorry for all of them.
“Well, take it easy Coach,” Clampet said shuffling back down the hallway.
“Yeah, you too.”
I stared after him.
“Hey Clampet.”
He stopped and turned around with ice bucket. I paused looking down with my ice and candy bars and Diet Coke.
“I know your life sucks now, and maybe mine will too. But I wouldn’t have had the balls to go out there and dance with Linda if I hadn’t seen Toby do it first. That kid—” I paused then feeling something in my throat. “Well, he’s got a lot of fucking guts.”
Clampet stared for a minute then nodded.
“A lot of fucking guts,” I muttered, taking my M&M’s back to my room.
STUD
MACY
I MEAN, I GUESS Randy and I are back together. But you know, I kind of liked that Toby guy. He was weird. Well, really weird because I guess he has some sort of disability. But I had some really cool times with him. I mean like when he went a hundred and scared the crap out of Randy and his homeboys. Or when Randy’s dad busted us in the cornfield while I was giving him a blowjob. And then that crazy dance he did at the Homecoming. Or when he put on the wig and the trench coat and blew away Randy and his dickwad friends with the blank gun.
Even freaking out and pulling off his clothes in the middle of the dance was pretty wild. I mean high school is lame, and mostly it is just boring. But being with Toby was not boring. It was like Breaking Bad or Jump Street 22. He did the unexpected and went right up to the edge, and that is pretty sexy. So I’m glad I gave him a blowjob and went out with him, and I guess that’s why I went down to the motel and knocked on Mr. Clampet’s door. Randy said he was living there because the coach was living there. I guess it’s where all the divorced guys end up.
He answered the door looking pretty crappy.
“Oh, hey Macy,” he muttered.
“Hi Mr. Clampet.”
He had on these sweats and I could see an open suitcase behind him and I could hear Breaking Bad in the background.
“You probably want the rest of your money, but right now I have to tell you I’m broke.”
“Actually I came to see how Toby is doing.”
Mr. Clampet scratched his cheek and squinted at the mid-day light.
“Not so good. His mother says he won’t leave his room and he won’t go back to school.”
“But why?”
Mr. Clampet breathed heavy and put his arm against the doorframe.
“I think he is embarrassed because he thinks everyone knows that I set everything up for him and so he feels like … well I suppose he feels like a fool for thinking he was popular when he wasn’t really.”
I opened my mouth and felt really bad then. Because in a way, I had let Randy say all those crappy things to him and did nothing about it.
“But he is popular Mr. Clampet! He is all anyone talks about at school. Even getting naked in the gym has put him like in Superstar status. But I mean even before. Going African-American and pulling the gun on Randy and his asshole friends, or going one hundred in that balls-out Mustang. Shit. Believe me, he is the dude.”
Mr. Clampet stared at me and I could see he didn’t know this.
“You mean you think he really is popular?”
“Dude, he is the shit! I mean he has to know that. He should come back to school.”
Mr. Clampet paused and scratched his stubby cheek. It looked like hadn’t shaved for a long time and I could smell some pretty strong booze. He looked at me.
“Do you think you might stop by the house and tell him that Macy? He won’t talk to me. It might be just the thing he needs to hear.”
I shrugged.
“Sure. No problem.”
Mr. Clampet smiled then. I mean it looked like he hadn’t done that in a while. I paused then and did something that to this day I’m not sure if it was smart. Mom says I was really stupid and should get my head out of my ass, but I was tired of my mom harping on me about getting the rest of the money. Things didn’t work out for her the way she is and I think I always thought it was money that kept her in town, but maybe it was something else.
“Don’t worry about the money, I just want to see Toby come back to school.”
Mr. Clampet looked like he might cry then.
“Thank you Macy.”
“Sure, see you around Mr. Clampet.”
I walked past that balls out car th
en and told myself I would get one of those one day. Right after I got out of this crummy town.
LONG GONE
PAUL
“I WAS THINKING ABOUT what you said about it’s an eat what you kill world, and that everyone has to fend for themselves if they are going to make it.”
That’s what Amber said when she went back to Chicago. Maybe she realized there was really nothing between us besides a work relationship, and that was pretty much gone with the whole High School Central thing on hold and possibly over. The Queens had returned to Chicago because I couldn’t afford to pay the motel bill anymore. Maybe she wanted to start her own computer company. I didn’t have any special credentials except I had a knack for adding printers and getting hard drives to behave, or killing off viruses. The hilarious thing about most IT guys is they are one step away from the grease monkey of old and just made the jump when people couldn’t figure out how to cut and paste.
Anyway, I didn’t ask her what she meant. I mean, she was twenty-five and she couldn’t sit in a motel room in Indiana forever to see if her boss was going to ever get his shit together. I didn’t know the answer to that one either. I spent a lot of time binge-watching Orange is the New Black, Downton Abbey, Parenthood, Modern Family. And it came to me what binge watching was really all about. You hand your life over to someone else and for a while you are them. You even think you are them when it is over. I studied Parenthood like a surgeon to find out how Adam and Christina handled Max, and I just couldn’t find a smoking gun as to why everything went so wrong. Then I found a picture in a box of clothes I brought over from the house that I spent hours looking at.
It was when Toby was maybe four, and we had gone to an apple orchard. It was one of those warm days in October between summer and winter with this dry leave whispering air. We had lay down on the grass and spread out a blanket and I remember Julie had bought some chips and pop. Then I laid back and hoisted Toby up and he squealed. And then I brought him down to my cheek and hugged him and he put his arm over mine and he was smiling. Julie snapped the picture then. I spent a lot of time wondering where all that went.
“He grew up,” Julie said, when I described the picture to her. “You just missed that.”
“I was there Julie,” I said standing on the porch of our house.
She looked at me.
“Were you?”
It was like this now. She was the keeper at the gate for Toby, who had still declined to join the human race.
“He is very hurt at what you did,” Julie told me more than once.
“I did? What about we did?”
Julie looked at me with her arms crossed and circles under her eyes.
“It was always your plan Paul. It was your way to become the uber father right before it all ended.” She then looked at me in a funny way. “Do you remember that scene when Rhett Butler left Scarlett in Gone With the Wind?”
I stared at her. We had watched the movie together many times.
“No.”
“Yes you do. They are burning Atlanta and Rhett is taking Scarlett back to Tara and then they stop while the rebels trudge by in retreat.”
I had kind of had enough of all of this and I shook my head.
“What are you getting at Julie?”
She pointed at me.
“That’s you Paul. You aren’t in until it is almost all is lost and then you try and swoop in to save the day. When Toby got kicked out of school in his senior year you became Rhett and joined up.”
“A stretch,” I muttered.
“You could just be the super dad at the end and figure it made up for the years when you were running away all the time.”
“Psychobabble bullshit.”
Julie shrugged.
“He still doesn’t want to see you and I don’t blame him. You humiliated him in front of the school, and worse, he may not graduate now.”
“You’re going to hang that around my neck now?”
Julie shrugged. “He’s not going to school because of what you did. I don’t think it is a stretch.”
I stared at the white Mustang that I had to turn back in next week.
“He wants to move back to Chicago as soon as possible and he said he never wants to talk to you again,” she continued.
I crossed my arms and felt the combined punch of a pissed-off wife and son.
“You told him that is inappropriate, right?”
“He’s almost eighteen. He can make his own decisions now.”
I breathed heavy then scratched my neck.
“So what about us?”
“Paul,” Julie said gently, “there is no us anymore.”
And then she shut the door.
HANDS AND EYES
TOBY
VIDEO GAMES ARE ACTUALLY very good for people with autism. It requires a high degree of hand-to-eye coordination, and poor motor skills is a hallmark of the syndrome. Low-executive functioning is also addressed, because split-second decisions must be made as bad guys, trolls, bombs, and exploding bridges have to be dealt with quickly to move on to the next level. Again, low-executive function is a symptom on the autistic spectrum. Probably the best thing about a video game though is that it is impossible to think of anything else when you are busy mowing down soldiers from the Zombie Apocalypse.
“Toby, there is someone here to see you.” That was Mom.
“Tell Dad I don’t want to see him.”
I continued firing my machine gun.
“It is not your father,” Mom said at the door.
She usually came up for talks explaining that Dad loved me very much and that’s why he conned an entire school into supplicating me. I know why he did it. He had probably read the many treatises on autism and how it becomes a self-perpetuation affliction as failure on many fronts causes a person to lose hope and turn to drugs and possible suicide when confronted with the fact that life may not provide anything but heartache and depression. I had pointed out that Dad may have had noble motivations, but he lied to me throughout and deceived me and therefore made me look like a retard to the entire school.
“It’s Macy,” Mom said, while I continued gaming.
I hit the pause and stared at the screen.
“I’ll talk to her,” I said leaving my room for the first time except for trips to the bathroom.
Macy looked the same. In fact she looked even better than the dance the other night. I was fully aware that she witnessed my disrobing and hoped she would not hold it against me. People with autism have many breaking points, and outbursts such as mine are not uncommon. What was uncommon was getting naked in front of an entire gymnasium of people but I maintain this is not any different from the autistic kid who beats his head against a cement sidewalk. Frustration can be self-actualized into many forms, and raging is the venting of autistic frustration that the world will not follow procedure. In my case I was really pissed that Dad had made me believe I was succeeding in high school when I had been failing. He made me a look like a complete dick.
“Hello,” I said sitting down on the couch. “Would you like something to drink?”
“No.” Macy had on jeans and a white shirt with PINK across the breasts. It conjured up the old movie Flashdance, which I had also studied for my routine before I discovered Saturday Night Fever.
“Your dance has gone viral Toby. Like almost a hundred thousand views.”
“I suppose that is a good thing.”
“Are you kidding me? Dude, you are famous!”
“I wouldn’t say that. Fame is very relative in the age of the Internet. It is not what it was before. People can now become famous for doing nothing at all.”
Macy sat down.
“I saw your dad and he said that you are pretty embarrassed by everything.”
I considered returning to my room where I could continue gaming.
“Yes. I was.”
“Well I don’t know why. I mean I didn’t even take the money he offered me.”
I was stari
ng at the dust motes floating in the air.
“You would have not have dated me if it wasn’t for my dad,” I pointed out.
She frowned and didn’t look like a carefree popular girl in high school.
“You’re right. But after we went out I had a lot of fun. I mean you’re a fun guy, Toby. Nobody has ever taken me in a car going one hundred miles per hour before or did a great dance and then freaked out Randy and his gang with a blank gun and then got naked in the gym.”
I felt discomfort on many levels and stood up.
“I would appreciate it if you left now. I know my dad put you up to this.”
Macy stared at me. “Are you fucking crazy? I came over to let you know you are fucking popular dude, and not because of your dad.”
I walked over and opened the front door.
“Thank you for coming.”
She stopped by the door and stared at me. “You should come back to school and quit being such a little bitch. People like you. I like you. Fucking get over it.”
She left then. I then went back upstairs and watched Macy return to an old pickup truck that I assumed was her mother’s. After she pulled away I continued murdering soldiers.
NO THANKS
LINDA
I WAS SO DISTRESSED that Toby Clampet had not returned to school. He has a very good brain and I didn’t want him to slip back and not graduate. And I have to admit, I do feel a bit of a debt to him for what he did. We are now paying for our dance and I won’t say it has not been disconcerting with the double looks and the whispered comments in the lounge. I have started eating my lunch outside the school and feel this is good training for when we will all be eating our lunch in cars or at home.
But on one of my lunches I stopped in at the Clampets. Ronald told me Mr. Clampet has been living in the Baker Motel. It is curious the way all these paths intersect, but any good novelist worth his salt knows all about the interweaving of lives. I had met Mrs. Clampet once when she came to pick Toby up, and I made a point of telling her what a bright, insightful child he is. Parents need to hear that, especially special needs parents. The truth is, public schools cannot handle special needs children and frequently make them much worse.
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