The Speed of Dark (7 page)

It’s funny about the police. Some of us have more trouble than others. Jorge, who grew up inSan Antonio , told me if you are anything but rich, white, and normal they think you are a criminal. He had been stopped many times when he was growing up; he didn’t learn to talk until he was twelve and even then couldn’t talk very well. They always thought he was drunk or on drugs, he said. Even when he wore a bracelet that explained who he was and that he couldn’t talk, they’d wait until they’d taken him to the station to look at it. Then they’d try to find a parent to take him home, rather than taking him back across town themselves. Both his parents worked, so he usually had to sit there for three or four hours.

That didn’t happen to me, but sometimes I’ve been stopped for no reason I can understand, like with the security man at the airport. I get very scared when someone speaks harshly to me and sometimes I have trouble answering. I practiced saying, “My name is Lou Arrendale ; I am autistic; I have trouble answering questions,” in front of a mirror until I could say it no matter how scared I am. My voice sounds harsh and strained when I do it. They ask, “Do you have identification?” I know I’m supposed to say, “In my pocket.” If I try to get my own wallet out, they may be scared enough to kill me. Miss Sevier in high school told us the police think we have knives or guns in our pockets and that they have killed people who were just trying to get out their IDs.

I think that is wrong, but I read where the court decided it was all right if the police were really scared.

Yet if anybody else is really scared of the police it’s not all right for the scared person to kill a policeman.

This does not make sense. There is no symmetry.

The policeman who visited our class in high school said the police were there to help us and that only people who had done wrong would be scared of them. Jen Brouchard said what I was thinking, that it was hard not to be scared of people who yelled at you and threatened you and could make you lie facedown on the ground. That even if you hadn’t done anything, having a big man waving a gun at you would scare anyone. The policeman got red in the face and said that attitude didn’t help. Neither did his, I thought, but I knew better than to say so.

Yet the policeman who lives in our building has always been pleasant to me. His name is Daniel Bryce, but he says to call him Danny. He says good morning and good evening when he sees me, and I say good morning and good evening. He complimented me on how clean I keep my car. We both helped Miss Watson move when she had to go to Assisted Living; we each had one end of her coffee table carrying it downstairs. He offered to be the one to go backward. He doesn’t yell at anyone that I know of. I do not know what he thinks about me, except that he likes it that my car is clean. I do not know if he knows that I am autistic. I try not to be scared of him, because I have not done anything wrong, but I am, a little.

I would like to ask him if he thinks people are scared of him, but I do not want to make him angry. I do not want him to think I am doing something wrong, because I am still scared a little.

I tried watching some police shows on TV, but that scared me again. The police seemed tired and angry all the time, and the shows make it seem that this is all right. I am not supposed to act angry even when I am angry, but they can.

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Yet I do not like to be judged by what others like me do, and I do not want to be unfair to Danny Bryce. He smiles at me, and I smile back. He says good morning and I say good morning back. I try to pretend that the gun he carries is a toy, so that I do not sweat too much when I am around him and make him think I am guilty of something I did not do.

Under the blankets and pillows, I am sweaty now as well as calm. I crawl out, replace the pillows, and take a shower. It is important not to smell bad. People who smell bad make other people angry or scared. I do not like the smell of the soap I use—it is an artificial scent, too strong—but I know it is an acceptable smell to other people.

It is late, after nine, when I get out of the shower and dress again. Usually I watch
Cobalt 457
on Thursdays, but it is too late for that now. I am hungry; I put water on to boil and then drop some noodles into it.

The phone rings. I jump; no matter which of the choice of ringers I use, the phone always surprises me, and I always jump when I am surprised.

It is Mr. Aldrin . My throat tightens; I cannot speak for a long moment, but he does not go on talking.

He waits. He understands.

I do not understand. He belongs at the office; he is part of the office cast. He has never called me at home before. Now he wants to meet with me. I feel trapped. He is my boss. He can tell me what to do, but only at work. It feels wrong to hear his voice on the phone at home.

“I—I did not expect you to call,” I say.

“I know,” he says. “I called you at home because I needed to talk to you away from the office.”

My stomach feels tight.“For what reason?” I ask.

“Lou, you need to know before Mr. Crenshaw calls you all in. There’s an experimental treatment that may reverse adult autism.”

“I know,” I say. “I heard about it. They have tried it on apes.”

“Yes. But what’s in the journal is over a year old; there’s been… progress. Our company bought out the research. Crenshaw wants all of you to try the new treatment. I don’t agree with him. I think it is too early, and I think he is wrong to ask you. At least it should be your choice; no one should pressure you.

But he is my boss, and I can’t keep him from talking to you about it.”

If he cannot help, why is he calling? Is this one of those maneuvers I have read about normal people doing when they want sympathy for doing wrong because they could not help it?

“I want to help you,” he says. I remember my parents saying that wanting to do something was not the same thing as doing… that trying was not the same thing as doing. Why doesn’t he say, “I will help you,”

instead?

“I think you need an advocate,” he says.“Someone to help you negotiate with Crenshaw.Someone better than me. I can find that person for you.”

I think he does not want to be our advocate. I think he is afraid Crenshaw will fire him. This is
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reasonable. Crenshaw could fire any of us. I struggle with my stubborn tongue to get the words out.

“Shouldn’t… wouldn’t it… I think… I thinkI— we—should find our own person.”

“Can you?” he asks. I hear the doubt in his voice. Once I would have heard only something other than happiness and I would have been afraid he was angry with me. I am glad not to be like that anymore. I wonder why he has thatdoubt, since he knows the kind of work we can do and knows I live independently.

“I can go to the Center,” I say.

“Maybe that would be better,” he says. A noise starts at his end of the telephone; his voice speaks, but I think it is not for me. “Turn that down; I’m on the phone.” I hear another voice, an unhappy voice, but I can’t hear the words clearly. Then Mr. Aldrin’s voice, louder, in my ear: “Lou, if you have any trouble finding someone… if you want me to help, please let me know. I want the best for you; you know that.”

I do not know that. I know that Mr. Aldrin has been our manager and he has always been pleasant and patient with us and he has provided things for us that make our work easier, but I do not know that he wants the best for us. How would he know what that is? Would he want me to marry Marjory? What does he know of any of us outside work?

“Thank you,” Isay, a safe conventional thing to say at almost any occasion. Dr. Fornum would be proud.

“Right, then,” he says. I try not to let my mind tangle on those words that have no meaning inthemselves at this time. It is a conventional thing to say; he is coming to the end of the conversation. “Call me if you need any help. Let me give you my home number…” He rattles off a number; my phone system captures it, though I will not forget. Numbers are easy and this one is especially so, being a series of primes, though he probably has never noticed it. “Good-bye, Lou,” he says at the end. “Try not to worry.”

Trying is not doing. I say good-bye, hang up the phone, and return to my noodles, now slightly soggy. I do not mind soggy noodles; they are soft and soothing. Most people do not like peanut butter on noodles, but I do.

I think about Mr. Crenshaw wanting us to take the treatment. I do not think he can make us do that.

There are laws about us and medical research. I do not know exactly what the laws say, but I do not think they would let him make us do it. Mr. Aldrin should know more about this than I do; he is a manager. So he must think Mr. Crenshaw can do it or will try to do it.

It is hard to go to sleep.

ON FRIDAY MORNING, CAMERON TELLS ME THAT MR. ALDRIN
called him, too. He called everyone. Mr. Crenshaw has not said anything to any of us yet. I have that uncomfortable sick feeling in my stomach, like before a test that I do not expect to pass. It is a relief to get on the computer and go to work.

Nothing happens all day except that I finish the first half of the current project and the test runs all come out clean. After lunch, Cameron tells me that the local autism society has posted a meeting at the Center about the research paper. He is going. He thinks we should all go. I had not planned anything this Saturday other than cleaning my car, and I go to the Center almost every Saturday morning anyway.

On Saturday morning, I walk over to the Center. It is a long walk, but it is not hot this early in the morning and it makes my legs feel good. Besides, there is a brick sidewalk on the way, with two colors
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of brick—tan and red—laid in interesting patterns. I like to see it.

At the Center, I see not only people from my work group but also those who are dispersed elsewhere in the city. Some, mostly the older ones, are in adult day care or sheltered workshops with a lot of supervision and live in group homes. Stefan is a professor at the smaller university here; he does research in some area of biology. Mai is a professor at the larger university; her field is in some overlap of mathematics and biophysics. Neither of them comes to meetings often. I have noticed that the people who are most impaired come most often; the young people who are like Joe Lee almost never show up.

I chat with some of the others I know andlike, some from work and some from elsewhere, like Murray, who works for a big accounting firm.Murray wants to hear about my fencing; he studies aikido and also hasn’t told his psychiatrist about it. I know thatMurray has heard about the new treatment, or for what reason would he be here today, but I think he does not want to talk about it. He doesn’t work with us; he may not know it is near human trials. Maybe he wants it and wishes it were. I do not want to ask him that, not today.

The Center isn’t just for autistic people; we see a lot of people with various other disabilities, too, especially on weekends. I do not know what all of the disabilities are. I do not want to think about all the things that can be wrong with someone.

Some are friendly and speak to us, and some do not. Emmy comes right up to me today. She is nearly always there. She is shorter than I am, with straight dark hair and thick glasses. I do not know why she has not had eye surgery. It is not polite to ask. Emmy always seems angry. Her eyebrows bunch together, and she has tight little wads of muscle at the corners of her mouth, and her mouth turns down.

“You have a girlfriend,” she says.

“No,” I say.

“Yes. Linda told me. She’s not one of us.”

“No,” I say again. Marjory isn’t my girlfriend—yet—and I do not want to talk about her to Emmy.

Linda should not have told Emmy anything, and certainly not that. I did not tell Linda Marjory was my girlfriend because she is not. It was not right.

“Where you go to play with swords,” Emmy says. “There’s a girl—”

“She is not a girl,” I say. “She is a woman, and she is not my girlfriend.” Yet, I think. I feel heat on my neck, thinking of Marjory and the look on her face last week.

“Linda says she is. She’s a spy, Lou.”

Emmy rarely uses people’s names; when she says my name it feels like a slap on the arm. “What do you mean, ‘spy’?”

“She works at the university. Where they do that project, you know.” She glares at me, as if I were doing the project. She means the research group on developmental disabilities. When I was a child, my parents took me there for evaluation and for three years I went to the special class. Then my parents decided that the group was more interested in doing research papers to get grant money than in helping children, so they put me in another program, at the regional clinic. It is the policy of our local society to require researchers to disclose their identity; we do not allow them to attend our meetings.

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Emmy works at the university herself, as a custodian, and I suppose this is how she knows Marjory works there.

“Lots of people work at the university,” I say. “Not all are in the research group.”

“She is a spy, Lou,” Emmy says again. “She is only interested in your diagnosis, not in you as a person.”

I feel a hollow opening inside me; I am sure that Marjory is not a researcher, but not that sure.

“To her you are a freak,” Emmy says.“A subject.” She made
subject
sound obscene, if I understand
obscene
.Nasty.A mouse in a maze, a monkey in a cage. I think about the new treatment; the people who take it first will be subjects, just like the apes they tried it on first.

“That’s not true,” I say. I can feel the prickling of sweat under my arms, on my neck, and the faint tremor that comes when I feel threatened. “But anyway, she is not my girlfriend.”

“I’m glad you have that much sense,” Emmy says.

I go on to the meeting because if I left the Center Emmy would talk to the others about Marjory and me.

It is hard to listen to the speaker, who is talking about the research protocol and its implications. I hear and do not hear what he says; I notice when he says something I have not heard before, but I do not pay much attention. I can read the posted speech on the Center Web site later. I was not thinking about Marjory until Emmy said that about her, but now I cannot stop thinking about Marjory.