Life Begins (24 page)

With everything that has happened
between me and Jack, he has agreed to let me have the final say
with an addition to this last chapter that was filled so full of
hope all those great many years ago. He figures I know him better
anybody else, even himself.

The only problem is what do you
say about a man that is full of contradictions while always being
true to himself. He is a very private person, and yet he has chosen
a profession in which he puts himself out there for all of the
world to consume. He is one of the most caring and compassionate
people you will ever meet, and yet he has a condition that causes
him to get lost in thought and not think about others until I give
him a little social reminder of what is the polite thing to
do.

As much as I love him and know all
of his little quirks, I will never fully understand what he goes
through. I know in the chapter where he talks about being torn
between being human and trying to be more than that, he was trying
to express something in high school that was inside of him that is
related to his autism even before he was diagnosed with
it.

I can tell you his favorite Disney
movie is Pinocchio because he is always trying to become a real
boy. He somehow feels unhuman like something is missing. He likes
The Wizard of Oz because he relates to the Tin Man. The man has
never forgotten my birthday or an anniversary. He will buy me
flowers because he was walking down the street and saw my favorite
kind. He will randomly tell me I’m beautiful or call me for no
other reason than to tell me he loves me. He notices whenever I do
anything different with hair or wear a new outfit. He often puts
the needs of others ahead of himself, but will always think there
is something wrong with him and that he is somehow missing a heart
or that element of being human that really makes us
human.

I don’t know if it has something
to do with some of the other things he likes and what he feels is
inside of him. He very seldom loses his temper, but he has always
been afraid of losing it. When he does get angry, he usually blows
up like a volcano. Everything that has been pent up for who knows
how long makes its way out. He calls this releasing the Hulk. At
these times, it is best to just leave him alone and to let him burn
off his anger.

I hate to see him this way. During
these times, he doesn’t feel pain. It’s a lot like the fight that
took place between him and one of my ex-boyfriends. He could
physically injure himself, and he wouldn’t feel it. I know when he
was a child he used to get spanked. His mother gave up. He didn’t
seem to feel it, and she was starting to get to a point where she
felt it was too hard for a punishment.

I haven’t seen him do it in a long
time, but he used to get so angry that he would end up hitting
himself in the head or banging his head up against a hard object.
I’ve asked him about it before. He doesn’t know why. He just feels
the desire to do it.

I would guess it has something to
do with what he feels is a disconnect between his head and his
heart. He has emotions he can’t express. His head tries to
rationalize everything and make sense of the world, but he doesn’t
know what to do with feelings, especially since he somehow feels
they are somehow inferior to knowledge and logic. Emotions can’t
solve problems.

I think this is where he has the
moral dilemma between wanting to be human and something better. I
know he relates to Anakin Skywalker. He knows the strength that his
anger gives him and all of the potential that is inside of him.
When he was a teenager, he was trying to find the balancing act
between achieving greatness without becoming more machine than man.
He feared what he saw inside of himself.

Looking back at our high school
years, I can’t blame him for writing the Declaration of
Independence. I think he was afraid of his feelings for me and our
constant flirting without an actual relationship. His heart was
starting to feel more than his head could process. For him, it was
better to end the relationship and to live without me than to
continue to have me in his life.

I’ve never been afraid of Jack’s
anger. It is always directed at himself or at inanimate objects. He
will usually hit his head, which is his central computer, or he
will use his brute force to show he is superior to a piece of
equipment. In his anger, I have always felt he wants to feel human
or to show an electronic device that he is capable of doing things
it can’t.

Jack and I discussed whether we
should put this kind of behavior in this book. I can tell you it
was left out of the original version in high school because it was
something all of his friends knew about, but didn’t publicly
acknowledge. Now that he is a celebrity, he wanted other autistics
and their families to know that this kind of behavior shouldn’t be
acceptable, but that it was common for autistics.

There has been some concern about
his career and coming out as autistic. I told him he didn’t have to
disclose it if he didn’t want to. He responded, “As an artist, I
have never shied away from any thoughts or feelings I have had. If
I have thought it or felt it, then somebody else has, too. My
problem has always been expressing things that society would like
to act like don’t exist. I am autistic. What kind of artist would I
be if I stopped getting into trouble now because the world rather
define me as being disabled and somehow irrelevant?”

Jack has always said I make him
human. He has always been human. I just make him a little bit more
socially acceptable.

If you want to understand our
relationship, we are exact opposites. I’m the popular girl. He’s
the anti-social guy who sees society for what it really is. He has
a habit of being polite and following the rules. There are elements
of a southern gentleman to him. And then there is a part of him
that is a pure hell raiser that delights in making fun of societal
norms in such a way that you can never be sure if he is mocking you
or trying to be polite in a situation he considers
absurd.

I have dated bad boys before, but
Jack has the unique ability to be both socially acceptable and a
rebel. He doesn’t disdain for society and its rules. He hates
stupidity and is true to himself and his principles. He will follow
the heart of the rule, even if he has to break the actual letter of
it. He’s the type of guy that you can bring home to mom and dad,
and the guy who can embarrass the hell out you.

As much as he has embarrassed me
over the years, he is also the only guy who loves me for who I am
and not for the way I look. Even if I wanted to have sex with him
in high school, I liked how he restrained himself. I could flirt
with him and have him not be putty in my hands. He presented a
challenge to me whereas most guys would bow down to me.

Looking back at our teen years, I
see now how many of our problems were related to his autism and to
me being normal. I didn’t understand why he was the way he was and
why he did the things he did. And he didn’t know either. If I asked
him to change, he seemed to resent it as if I was asking him to
change something fundamental about himself. And maybe I
was.

I don’t know the extent to which
he suffers from sensory issues. I know he doesn’t like going to
clubs or some of the wilder parties that I would go to in high
school. After his diagnosis, he tried telling me what it was like
for him at these things. He says it is like being able to see and
hear everything that is going all at the same time. There is so
much going on he can’t focus on one thing and enjoy
himself.

Shortly after we started dating,
we went to a party at one of the more popular kids in school’s
house. I knew Jack didn’t want to go, but he went because of our
Constitution and the compromise we had made of trying to do things
the other person wanted as part of this new relationship. Jack was
awkward. He didn’t dance. He clung to me. He didn’t drink any
alcohol. And he didn’t socialize with anybody. He would talk to the
people who would come up to him, but he didn’t take the initiative
to start any conversations.

I tried to be understanding, but I
was also slightly aggravated at him. I know he is able to be witty,
funny, and the life of the party. I just didn’t understand he can
only be these things when he is comfortable with the group he is
around. Out of my frustration, I drank a little bit more than I
should have and got a little bit out of control.

One of my ex-boyfriends thought it
would be a good idea to roofie my drink. He had planned on taking
advantage of me while another girl tried to seduce Jack.

You can say what you want about
autistics and their lack of social skills, but Jack’s skills came
in handy that night. His ability to hear everything going on
allowed him to hear what was planned. His protective and clingy
nature made him not take his eyes off of me.

As I was led back to one of the
bedrooms, Jack politely excused himself from the woman that was all
over him. The story is that he said, “Pardon me, but I wouldn’t tap
that if it were a keg. Good evening”, and then bowed in all
sincerity to the girl before making his way back to the bedroom to
where I was.

There is a lot I don’t remember
about that night. Jack doesn’t discuss it, and he left it out of
the original version of this book on purpose. The story I heard
from people at the party was that Jack came into the room full of
jocks and some of the bitches that hated me who were going to watch
as the rape was about to take place.

As the guy started to pull down my
pants and undo his pants, Jack comes up from behind the guy, leans
in and whispers in his ear, “If you rape her, I’m going to rape you
all the harder. The talk of the school Monday won’t be that you
scored with Christine, but that I fucked you so hard your ass still
hasn’t stopped bleeding.” The onlookers started laughing and the
soon to be rapist zipped up his pants and left with everybody
laughing at him.

Jack ignored the laughter, made me
decent again, and carried me out to his car. Rumor has it that he
persuaded everybody in the room to hand over any photos or videos
of the incident to him. I don’t know how much he paid them, but I
know Jack will spend whatever he has to to get what he
wants.

I’ve asked him about this. He says
he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Knowing Jack and his anger,
I’m guessing the Hulk was released once I was safely back home in
my own bed. Any cameras, camcorders, or memory cards with evidence
of the events were destroyed beyond repair. He denies this, which
means there is probably some truth to it. I know he didn’t put them
in his box of memories. He didn’t want to remember this, so he made
it like it never happened.

I woke up the next morning and saw
Jack watching me like an overprotective parent. He took care of me
that entire morning and made sure I was okay. He didn’t sleep until
the next night when he was sure I was okay.

And that’s Jack. He stands up for
things and people he believes in. It was common for people at the
parties to use some of the drunk girls for sex with people looking
on like it was a spectator sport. I knew it was going on, even if I
didn’t watch. Nobody said anything because nobody wanted to be that
one person who spoke up and lost their chance at popularity and
being accepted by everybody it was best to be accepted by. I could
have stopped it, but I was never like Jack.

Jack doesn’t care about being
popular. He used to say he never cared what a bunch of people he
didn’t hold in high regard thought of him. At the end of the day,
he has to go home and live with himself. It’s much easier to do
when you are always true to yourself.

I had fought for so long to have
Jack accepted by the popular kids. After I started dating him, I
spent more time seeing how the popular kids weren’t worth being
accepted by. The amount of wild parties and what used to happen at
them also started to slow down.

I’ve asked Jack if it ever bothers
him to be different and to spend life following the beat of a
different drum. He would only say, “The problem with majorities is
that they are made up of large groups of minorities who are afraid
to speak up for being different. It only takes one brave enough to
say something isn’t right for a minority to become the new
majority.” He then winked at me and pretended to be an injured
American Revolutionary soldier beating a drum and then playing
Yankee Doodle Dandy on a pretend flute.

I have never understood how Jack
responds to situations. If his own life is threatened or he is
being bullied, he doesn’t seem to be able to stand up for himself.
But if somebody or some cause he cares about it is the victim, he
will stop at nothing to defend it.

I have also never understood his
thinking when it comes to responding to the threat. Most people
would have attacked my ex-boyfriend before he tried to rape me.
Instead, Jack threatened to rape him. I have asked Jack about it
before, but he would only say, “I don’t know what you’re talking
about.” He seemed completely ignorant of the event, before he
smiled and said, “But it does sound like something I would do in
that situation. Some people believe in brute force. I believe in
outsmarting your enemies and having them think you are so crazy you
will actually follow through on any threat. And never underestimate
a straight man’s fear of homosexuality.”