Best Boy (18 page)

“That was lovely,” said Mr. Rawson into his microphone, “and probably brought us closer to Greta than any amount of talking could.”

After that, there were several more events. A roommate of Greta's from Peace House named Connie Anis walked to the front of the room and talked into the microphone about how Greta had always wanted sisters and found them in her housemates. But then she forgot what she was saying and froze with her hands in the air and shut her eyes tight and started yelling and a staff had to walk her off the stage. Another girl from Peace came up and read a poem she'd written about Greta. Also there was a server from the McDonald's where Greta worked who talked about how “Greta Deane was a femomenon of good vibes who did the toughest stuff like cleaning the grease traps without complaining. Everybody loved on her.” More people came onstage to talk but I stopped following because I was trying to cross the air towards where Martine was sitting with my mind. I was trying to bend space so that I was sitting next to her instead of Randy Atkins and looking out from eyes that saw her out of their sides and were happy about it. I did this by shutting my own eyes and squeezing every muscle in my body in a way that looked like I was in pain but that actually felt comfortable. Raykene called it “crusherating” and she nudged me in the ribs with her elbow and into my ear she said, “You stop crusherating, now. What are you doing?”

I stopped crusherating but it made me sad to just be sitting there while the bad news came continuously of remembering my Momma was dead and that Martine was having fun with Randy
Atkins and was near enough for him to maybe feel the heat of his body through her clothes.

There was a note a staff read that had been written to us by Greta Deane's parents who were too sad to come. That made some people cry. Time got long for a while after that and ran on without me noticing much about it passing. Then it got short again as it became me specifically writing something with my hand on the leaf of paper for the Remembrance Tree. Raykene told me what to say. “She was nice,” I printed very slowly. Soon after that it was all over and everyone was applauding at different speeds or making a roaring sound in their throats.

“I'm going,” I said into Raykene's ear.

“Where?” she asked, but I was already walking down the risers and onto the floor through the other people that were now standing up and stretching or rocking and biting parts of themselves. I did tunnel eyes and kept moving forward. But by the time I got to where Martine had been sitting she was gone. I knew I was supposed to go out to lunch with her and her parents soon but I could still feel something buzz in my nerves that was like volts from the thought that she was walking somewhere right then with laughing Randy Atkins. I had quarters in my pocket and I went immediately to the soda machine and slid them one after the other into the slot. The machine threw up the cool can of Rolly-o Root Beer into my hand and as usual for as long as I was drinking it everything was fine.

PART
FIVE

TWENTY-SEVEN

A
FTER
W
ILD
P
ETER DIED, THE WORLD WAITED
two hundred years for autism to be invented. But then it had to wait another fifty years until autism became so successful it got a new name for itself. According to Mr. C, that name was
Autism Spectrum Disorder
. The new spectrum is very wide. Lots of people who have normal lives and families are “on” the spectrum.

What was once thought to be a rare, severe ailment is now recognized to be a common neurobehavioral disorder that occurs along a broad spectrum
.

The spectrum is so broad you can't see from one end to the other. Maybe that's why the number of children with autism keeps going up. Autism is now sometimes said to be
the largest childhood epidemic in history
. The spectrum is called a
comprehensive umbrella term
. It covers lots of things like
Rett Syndrome
and
Asperger's Syndrome
and
Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
and
Pervasive Developmental Disorder
that used to have their own special individual place but now all are part of one big autistic family.

Also, moms are having children at a later age than before and these children are more likely to be autistic. And people are sicker than they used to be because of stress and speed and eating more and eating worse. This makes them take more meds and while they're pregnant these meds can make bad things happen they didn't expect. Some people think it's because of the nine hundred different insecticides in America that are sprayed on food and lawns and parks and that are eaten and drunk and absorbed through the skin. Or maybe it's car pollution because when you're a baby growing inside the belly of someone you're born stupider from having breathed the exhaust of motors. Mr. C says this may be partly why
California has one of the highest rates of autism in the country
.

He says that some people think it's because of
elevated levels of testosterone in the amniotic fluid of mothers.
Or
low levels of the hormone oxytocin.
Others believe that the name
autism
should be changed to
Functional Disconnection Syndrome
, which means certain areas of the brain are growing too fast or too slow compared to other areas, causing the two sides to go out of balance like wheels on a car that make the front of it shake. Some say it's
vaccines
while others say
heavy metals
.

It's all confusing. But that's because words are confusing. And autism is a lot about words. Many of the words around autism come from the
DSM
. Mr C says it stands for the “
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
.” It was made by the Army after World War Two to put labels on all the different kinds of mental problems soldiers had after being shot at and burned and maimed and gassed. This manual is now
the bible of the psychiatric profession
. Doctors read it to know what's wrong with their patients and what meds to give them. Every few years there's a new
DSM
with new syndromes and new words for them.
Autism showed up in the
DSM
in 1980. Autism Spectrum Disorder showed up in 2008.

Another thing Mr. C says is that you can't take a blood test for autism. The doctor can't rub things on your skin like the allergist does to see what makes you sneeze. You can't X-ray the brain and see the autism spot. You can't listen for it with a stethoscope.

The diagnosis is highly subjective and can only be derived from observing a patient's behavior
.

But the spectrum is so wide that actually almost anyone can be on it. If you're a
picky eater
or
like being solitary
you could be on the spectrum. If you have
a natural gift for music
you might be on it. If you have
a good memory for detail
or a
flair for drawing
you could be on it. Isaac Newton was
the greatest logical-scientific mind that ever lived
and he was on it. People on it don't have to take meds or get driven in a van to work in a high school cafeteria. They can have children and suits and wear watches while flying on planes. They can pose for pictures and act in movies. They are Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Lewis Carroll, Andy Warhol. They are sharing elevators with you and cooking your food.

Maybe they're even marrying you.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I
WOKE UP IN MY BED WITH A SUDDEN HEAVE.
I
T
was dark and the house creaked around me. Strange patterns moved on the wall. Soon I realized these were made by the headlights of a car driving away. Normally there aren't cars on campus in the middle of the night. I don't have a clock in my room but I knew it was very late. I could tell this by the stillness. Why had someone been on campus at this time of night? I looked carefully around my room, feeling my eyes touch the things one by one. Then my eyes shut and I went back to sleep.

Later that morning after I had eaten breakfast and showered I was waiting patiently in front of my bedroom window. I had been told to do so because Martine's parents were coming to get me. Sherrod Twist had said this was a “probationary outing” and that she expected me to “behave impeccably.” I continued to wait by the window until noon when a long shiny black car came out of the sunshine and slid by my cottage and then kept going.
A minute later I heard a knock on the front door. I left my room and walked past Tommy Doon who was watching television. When I opened the front door Martine was standing there.

“Well, look at you,” she said.

“Okay, look.”

She pointed with her finger at where I had recently had all my hair cut with an electric clipper that buzzed loudly in my ear.

“Mr. Clean,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Finally we get to see your face,” she said.

“My face,” I said.

“And you think that's a good thing?” she asked and frowned.

“I don't know,” I said.

“Ta-da!” she cried. “Mom, Dad, meet Todd.”

Martine's father stepped into the living room. He was very tall and had waves of shiny white hair on his head and was wearing a short-sleeved dark shirt and dark pants. He walked towards me with an arm held out straight in front of him like a pole. At the end of the pole was his open hand.

“Corbin Calhoun, pleased to meet you,” he said in a low voice.

“He says he's my father,” said Martine, “but we're not sure.” After a second she laughed.

“Funny,” said a small gray-haired woman who came into the cottage behind the father, “is not one of her gifts.” The woman stuck out her hand.

“Annalise Calhoun.”

“Hello,” I said.

The mother shook my hand and looked at me and then around the cottage.

“Martine Calhoun's parents,” Tommy Doon said loudly.

“Tommy Doon is my roommate,” I said.

“And the village announcer, I see,” the father said. “Hello, Tommy.”

“Don't try any rough stuff!” Tommy cried, and looked in a frightened way at the father and then got up fast for a very fat person and ran into his room.

“People say my dad looks like a bad guy from TV,” said Martine.

“The hair,” said the mother and pointed to the father's waves of whitish hair.

“Don't buy the hype,” said the father to me and winked. “I'm just a pussycat.”

“Wow,” said the mother as she looked around, “and you keep this so clean.”

Tommy Doon poked his head out.

“Todd Aaron is a slob!” he shouted, and then he saw Mr. Calhoun and stuck his head back in his room and slammed the door.

The mother looked out the window and said pleasantly, “And people look so well put together here, groomed and dressed.”

“Mom, you say something nice about every place I go, and then I leave and it's suddenly the worst place on earth,” said Martine.

“Hey, kids, how about some lunch?” said the father, and then he smiled. “Or are my needs at the bottom of the list today, as usual?”

“Have you met my husband?” the mother asked me. “The son I never had?”

The father blew her a kiss.

“Mr. Calhoun?” A man in a black suit and a cap stood in the doorway.

“Hi, Bernie,” said Martine. The man nodded at her.

“Right,” said the father, “let's go.”

We walked out the door where the big car was waiting for us with its doors open and its dark red blood-colored insides hanging out. Inside the car were two long couches in this same color that faced each other. Martine and her father got in one and the mother and I got in another. Through the windows I could see villagers not moving on the lawn from their surprise at seeing a car that big at Payton. The doors closed and we began driving off while pieces of gravel shot out from under the tires with gunshot noises. The mother looked out the windows.

“It's all so delightfully . . . rural,” she said.

“That's what happens when you get out of the city,” said the father, taking a phone out of his pocket.

“I kind of always wished I'd grown up on a real farm,” the mother said to me and put her hands together under her chin.

“Oh,” I said.

“But Cos Cob was a bit short on that kind of thing,” she said. She tilted her head to one side and smiled.

“I'm leaving,” said Martine.

“Thanks for telling us,” said the father, looking at something on the phone. He leaned forward. “The Orangerie, right?” he said to the driver.

“Yes sir,” said the man.

“Did you Yelp it?” the mother asked. “You remember that last place, what was that called?”

“Le Grand Boeuf.”

“Just awful.”

“True, but just because this one has a pretentious name too doesn't mean it makes bad food.”

“I forget how wise you are,” said the mother. “Have I ever told you how wise you are?”

“My parents,” said Martine with a smile, “pretend it's fun to argue but they really do hate each other.”

“This isn't the time, sweetie,” said the mother.

“When is it ever?” said the father.

“I'm leaving here,” said Martine.

“No, you're not,” said the father.

“Yes, I am. People in this place are sick. They sit around staring all day with their mouths open.”

“Remember what Dr. Wolfensohn said?” asked the father.

“Wolfenstein,” said the mother.

“Whatever. ‘At this point in her life,' the doctor said, ‘Martine needs her feet held to the fire until she feels the burn.'”

“He was a repulsive little man,” said the mother.