Do You Think This Is Strange? (21 page)

“My non-violent past behaviour is not a significant factor in your decision,” I said.

Quote-Headmaster-unquote McClintock nodded.

“But my anticipated future violent behaviour is.”

“That's the challenge of being an administrator,” McClintock said. “Anticipating the future in order to protect the present.”

—

I left something else out of the conversation with my dad after I was expelled: I wasn't angry when I hit Chad. But I did feel
something
, something I was unable to identify. I had never felt it before, and I wasn't certain if it was an emotion or a gastrointestinal incident.

But I felt it. As I stood watching Chad Kennedy and Oscar Tolstoy, I noticed I was observing a fundamentally illogical situation. The disagreement was over whether or not Oscar should go away. They both appeared to agree that he should go away. Yet he wasn't leaving. The person advising Oscar Tolstoy to go away was the same person preventing him from going away.

I was perplexed by this. It wasn't logical to have a disagreement over something on which they agreed. But they were having this disagreement in front of my locker, which was inconvenient for me.

To make it worse, I wasn't certain who should be addressed when instructing them to move. Oscar was blocking my locker, but asking him to move would likely have no effect, for it was Chad who was keeping him there. Therefore, in order to ask Oscar to move, I had to ask Chad to move first.

This is too confusing
, said the threads.
Why not assign Chad Kennedy full responsibility for ensuring Oscar Tolstoy moves?

Works for me, I thought.

—

“It is my decision, therefore,” the quote-headmaster-unquote of Templeton College told me and my father, “that Frederick Wyland is considered a threat to the physical safety of our students and will be, therefore—”

“You already said therefore,” I interrupted. He stopped talking and, without moving his head from over the paper he was reading, looked directly at me, unblinking.

“Therrrrrefore,” he said, “in light of the fact that the accused student has shown no evidence of remorse, I feel it is my duty as headmaster—”

“Principal,” I corrected.

“Freddy,” my father said. “Shut up.”

“—to permanently expel Freddy Wyland from Templeton College. This is effective immediately.”

The room was silent. The principal continued to stare at me, even though I was no longer doing Annoying Things.

The morning after I was expelled from Templeton College, I returned to collect the contents of my locker, and Oscar Tolstoy was there, leaning against my locker. I wondered if he enjoyed blocking my locker door.

He stepped aside and said, “Did you know that Ty Cobb's 1911 baseball card is now considered the second-most valuable baseball card in the world?”

“No.” I opened my locker and began placing my things into my backpack.

“It's worth two hundred and seventy-three thousand dollars.” He swung his hands back and forth, watching me empty my locker into a bag, and asked, “Are you suspended?”

“I was expelled.”

“Shoeless Joe Jackson was expelled from baseball. His 1910
T
210 red border card is worth one hundred and ninety-nine thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars.”

Two boys walking by came over. I didn't know them.

“That was awesome, what you did,” one of them said.

“No, it wasn't,” I replied. My locker was now empty.

“Dude, it totally was,” he said. “You made him your bitch. I don't think
anyone
has seen a slapdown like that before. Not in this school. And the trophy falling on his head! It was like
art
.”

I closed my locker door. “Chad Kennedy was standing in front of my locker.”

The boy laughed. “Holy cow!
That's
the reason you told McClintock?”

I closed my gym bag.

“But why?” he asked.

“Because it was the reason,” I said and turned around and walked away.

“It sucks, and all,” he called after me. “I mean, you getting expelled and stuff. But that guy totally had it coming. He should be the one getting expelled.”

“Maybe if I played more football,” I said over my shoulder.

I opened my eyes.
The principal of Hampton Park sat at the far end of the table, looking at me, waiting for me to say something.

This was not like Templeton College. This time around, the principal didn't read a report on why I was being expelled. Instead, I was interviewed by a committee consisting of him and two school trustees. Jim Worley sat with me, to help me with the process.

I believe he now thought of me as his client.

I came before them at 4:30, to a meeting room beside the teachers' lounge, on the day after the fight. I sat at one end of the conference table with Mr. Worley. They sat at the other end. Chairs ran down the wall behind me, empty save for one, in which my father sat and smouldered.

“Do you have anything to say in your defence, Mr. Wyland?” the principal asked me after he read out a report of the fight.

“I'm here against my will,” I replied.

“No, you're not, Freddy,” said my father.

Jim Worley touched my arm. “Try again.”

“I don't want to be expelled,” I said.

The principal nodded, but his expression didn't change. “Why do you want to stay here at Hampton?”

“Because I love to,” I said a little loudly, then quickly closed my mouth.

“You love to?” the principal said slowly.

“Freddy,” Jim Worley counselled, “relax. Take your time.”

“I want to stay at Hampton Park Senior Secondary,” I said slowly, in one long exhale.

“We understand that, Mr. Wyland,” said one of the trustees. Her name was Martha Turkel. She was decorated in jewellery and wore a hat that covered her silver hair. “I want you to tell us
why
we should let you stay here at Hampton,” she said.

“Because I have a chemistry class partner.”

Martha Turkel frowned, uncertain. It's likely she was expecting a more abstract reason regarding regret and desire to be a better person. I am more literal.

“Is that the only reason you want to stay here at Hampton?”

“Yes,” I said, because it was true.

“Do you not like attending Hampton Park?”

“No,” I said. I was getting annoyed. I sensed a lack of communication, which was disastrous for me. A lack of communication almost always preceded a prolonged discussion, in which I would have to take an active role. It was a tiresome task.

“No, you don't like attending Hampton, or no, you
do
like attending Hampton?”

“Neither,” I said. She stared at me.

A moment passed. They continued staring.

I took a deep breath. “I neither like nor dislike attending Hampton Park. It doesn't have any unique characteristics. I like attending this school as much as I would like attending any school.”

“And do you like attending any school?”

“No,” I said. But I don't think she understood.

There are few upsides to autism, but the forbearance of strangers is one of them. People around me tend to react with patience, once they come to know I'm on the spectrum. People around me tend to give me the benefit of the doubt when I say something rude. I think it worked in my favour at that moment.

“I'm sorry, Freddy,” said Principal MacLeod. “We're all getting a little confused. I'm asking why you want to stay at Hampton, but all I'm getting from you is that you have a good chemistry partner.”

“Yes,” I said. “I want to keep her as my chemistry partner. I believe I'll get better grades, and so will she.”

“Ah,” said Martha Turkel slowly. “
She
 . . .”

The three exchanged glances.

“Who,” asked Principal MacLeod, “is this girl?”

“Saskia Stiles,” I said, and behind me, my father gasped, then choked on his gum.

He coughed for more than a minute.

Saskia has seen my bedroom. I have seen hers. Back when our parents still made us put on pyjamas before one of us had to leave, we would retreat to the bedroom and ignore each other like very good friends should do.

Within the slim definition of “play” that applies to autistic children, Saskia Stiles and I played. We bounced around rooms at Excalibur House, without bumping into each other, without talking to each other, without interacting with each other. Most people thought we were ignoring each other, but if you asked me what I did for the day, I would have told you that I played with Saskia. She would have said the same.

When we played, I was happy. She let me do the things that I wanted to do, with no other demands. I let her do the things that she wanted to do, with no other demands. We were glad for each other's company. It was enough.

Communities form from their shared experiences, good or bad. So it was that Linda and John Stiles met my mother and father at a therapy session, each family coming to terms with a brand new diagnosis. They quickly became friends.

“They like the same things we do,” my mother said, the first time after they came to visit, and threw the beer cans and wine bottles in the recycling.

“Did we leave the table even
once
tonight?” my father asked.

Often, we played at my home, and often we played at Saskia's home. Our parents sat in the living room at her house or around the kitchen table at our place, laughing loudly, drinking bottles of beer, eating bowls of potato chips.

When we played in my room, I often went downstairs, but Saskia didn't mind. She hopped around my bedroom while I sat on the kitchen floor and watched our parents. Saskia found nothing interesting about downstairs, and she was right. I did little more than sit. The adults rarely acknowledged me and sometimes I didn't even listen. Yet it was enjoyable
because
they ignored me: I could be around them without having to answer questions.

I could sit and not have to pay close attention. There was no need to be ever alert for an impending conversation, nor was there the agony of labouring to understand what they were saying.

I could
blend
. I could sit in the background and not be an object of their attention. I could sit on the floor, my book on my lap, flipping pages. Two forward. One back.

I could be
me
.

My parents sat at the table with John and Linda Stiles. They drank beer, they laughed at each other, and my father smiled at me if I walked by him to get a drink of water. Sometimes, if I came within arm's reach, he grabbed me and hugged me, causing me to push him away, to squirm until he let me go.

It never bothered me that he tried to hug me. I was acting by rote. When someone grabs me, even my father, I try to get away. But I
liked
that he grabbed me. Ten years later, I wondered if that was why I poured myself so many glasses of water.

When Saskia's family came to visit, my father drank beer and tried to wrap me in his arms.

And he smiled. I went downstairs to see my father smile.

—

John Stiles and my father spent a lot of time together, until the day before I said goodbye to Saskia.

After that day, I never saw Linda and John Stiles again. My father enrolled me in Templeton College, a private school, and I never went back to Excalibur House.

After that day, my mother was gone.

Correlation is not causation.
Even when you know it's not causation, you still can't stop thinking about it.

I opened my eyes
and I was seventeen. Bill sat in the driver's seat of the truck, gripping the steering wheel, his lips pressed together so hard they were white.

He yelled at me all the way home.

“Saskia Stiles,” he said through gritted teeth. “You're kidding me, right? You're just freakin' kidding me.”

I didn't answer. I knew he wasn't wondering if I was joking.

“Saskia goddamn Stiles?” he shouted.

“That's not her middle name,” I said.

“Stop,” he barked, pointing a shaking finger at me. “Just stop that. Not right now. Not right fucking now do you make stupid-ass comments like that. You know what I mean. You know
exactly
what I mean.”

But I didn't know. I didn't understand why he was so angry that I was chemistry class partners with Saskia Stiles.

“You could have told me,” he said, his hand gripping the wheel so tight the knuckles were as white as his tightly pressed lips. “You could have bloody well told me. How long, Freddy?” He looked at me, a little too long for someone who should be concentrating on driving. “How long have you two been hanging out?”

“Eight weeks, six days,” I said.

“Two goddamn months you're seeing this girl, and you don't think once of telling me?”

“Yes,” I said. “I thought about telling you eleven times.”

He took a breath, held it, exhaled slowly. “So why the fuck didn't you?”

I didn't answer.

That night, I stared at the clock on the wall while downstairs my father slammed cupboard doors.

When we got home, he said, “Just go to your damned room,” and stomped to the kitchen. “Get out of my bloody sight before I do something I can't take back.”

I would not sleep, I knew. The threads lay heavy, blanketing my mind like fresh snow. I thought back to when we walked out of the committee room. The principal had dismissed my father and me without making a decision on my status. For the time being, they said, I was suspended, and they would decide if they were going to expel me. That made me afraid.

It was a brand new type of fear that I had never felt before.

For the first time, I was afraid of losing someone. I was afraid that, upon being expelled, I would have to go to another school, and Saskia Stiles would no longer be my chemistry partner. I knew I would get a new chemistry partner, but I knew that it was unlikely it would be someone whose company I wished to keep.