“Yes, Dr. Fornum, I am listening.” Her words pour over me, slightly irritating, like a vat of vinegar. “Listen for conversational cues,” she tells me, and waits. “Yes,” I say. She nods, marks on the record, and says, ‘Very good,’ without looking at me. Down the hall somewhere, someone starts walking this way. Two someones, talking. Soon their talk tangles with hers. I am hearing about Debby on Friday… next time… going to the… Did they?… And I told her… But never bird on a stool… can’t be… and Dr. Fornum is waiting for me to answer something. She would not talk to me about a bird on a stool. “I’m sorry,” I say. She tells me to pay better attention and makes another mark on my record and asks about my social life.
She does not like what I tell her, which is that I play games on the Internet with my friend Alex in Germany and my friend Ky in Indonesia. “In real life,” she says firmly. “People at work,” I say, and she nods again and then asks about bowling and miniature golf and movies and the local branch of the Autism Society.
Bowling hurts my back and the noise is ugly in my head. Miniature golf is for kids, not grownups, but I didn’t like it even when I was a kid. I liked laser tag, but when I told her that in the first session she put down “violent tendencies.” It took a long time to get that set of questions about violence off my regular agenda, and I’m sure she has never removed the notation. I remind her that I don’t like bowling or miniature golf, and she tells me I should make an effort. I tell her I’ve been to three movies, and she asks about them. I read the reviews, so I can tell her the plots. I don’t like movies much, either, especially in movie theaters, but I have to have something to tell her… and so far she hasn’t figured out that my bald recitation of the plot is straight from a review.
I brace myself for the next question, which always makes me angry. My sex life is none of her business. She is the last person I would tell about a girlfriend or boyfriend. But she doesn’t expect me to have one; she just wants to document that I do not, and that is worse.
Finally it is over. She will see me next time, she says, and I say, “Thank you, Dr. Fornum,” and she says, “Very good,” as if I were a trained dog.
Outside, it is hot and dry, and I must squint against the glitter of all the parked cars. The people walking on the sidewalk are dark blots in the sunlight, hard to see against the shimmer of the light until my eyes adjust.
I am walking too fast. I know that not just from the firm smack of my shoes on the pavement, but because the people walking toward me have their faces bunched up in the way that I think means they’re worried. Why? I am not trying to hit them. So I will slow down and think music.
Dr. Fornum says I should learn to enjoy music other people enjoy. I do. I know other people like Bach and Schubert and not all of them are autistic. There are not enough autistic people to support all those orchestras and operas. But to her other people means “the most people.” I think of the Trout Quintet, and as the music flows through my mind I can feel my breathing steady and my steps slow to match its tempo.
My key slides into my car’s door lock easily, now that I have the right music. The seat is warm, cozily warm, and the soft fleece comforts me. I used to use hospital fleece, but with one of my first paychecks I bought a real sheepskin. I bounce a little to the internal music before turning on the engine. It’s hard to keep the music going sometimes when the engine starts; I like to wait until it’s on the beat.
On the way back to work, I let the music ease me through intersections, traffic lights, near-jams, and then the gates of the campus, as they call it. Our building is off to the right; I flash my ID at the parking lot guard and find my favorite space. I hear people from other buildings complain about not getting their favorite space, but here we always do. No one would take my space, and I would not take anyone else’s. Dale on my right and Linda on my left, facing into Cameron.
I walk to the building, on the last phrase of my favorite part of the music, and let it fade as I go through the door. Dale is there, by the coffee machine. He does not speak, nor do I. Dr. Fornum would want me to speak, but there is no reason. I can see that Dale is thinking very hard and doesn’t need to be interrupted. I am still annoyed about Dr. Fornum, as I am every quarter, so I pass my desk and go on into the mini-gym. Bouncing will help. Bouncing always helps. No one else is there, so I hang the sign on the door and turn good bouncing music up loud.
No one interrupts me while I bounce; the strong thrust of the trampoline followed by weightless suspension makes me feel vast and light. I can feel my mind stretching out, relaxing, even as I keep perfect time with the music. When I feel the concentration returning and curiosity drives me once more toward my assignment, I slow the bouncing to tiny little baby bounces and swing off the trampoline.
No one interrupts me as I walk to my desk. I think Linda is there, and Bailey, but it doesn’t matter. Later we may go for supper, but not now. Now I am ready to work.
The symbols I work with are meaningless and confusing to most people. It is hard to explain what I do, but I know it is valuable work, because they pay me enough to afford the car, the apartment, and they supply the gym and the quarterly visits to Dr. Fornum. Basically I look for patterns. Some of the patterns have fancy names and other people find them hard to see, but for me they have always been easy. All I had to do was learn the way to describe them so others could see that I had something in mind.
I put headphones on and choose a music. For the project I’m on now, Schubert is too lush. Bach is perfect, the complex patterns mirroring the pattern I need. I let the place in my mind that finds and generates patterns sink into the project, and then it is like watching ice crystals grow on the surface of still water: one after another, the lines of ice grow, branch, branch again, interlace… All I have to do is pay attention and ensure that the pattern remains symmetrical or asymmetrical or whatever the particular project calls for. This time it is more intensely recursive than most, and I see it in my mind as stacks of fractal growth, forming a spiky sphere.
When the edges blur, I shake myself and sit back. It has been five hours, and I didn’t notice. All the agitation from Dr. Fornum has gone, leaving me clear. Sometimes when I come back I can’t work for a day or so, but this time I got back into balance with the bouncing. Above my workstation, a pinwheel spins lazily in the draft of the ventilation system. I blow at it, and after a moment — 1.3 seconds, actually — it spins faster, twinkling purple-and-silver in the light. I decide to turn on my swiveling fan so all the pinwheels and spin spirals can spin together, filling my office with twinkling light.
The dazzle has just started when I hear Bailey calling from down the hall, “Anyone for pizza?” I am hungry; my stomach makes noises and I can suddenly smell everything in the office: the paper, the workstation, the carpet, the metal/plastic/dust/cleaning solution… myself. I turn off the fan, give a last glance at the spinning and twinkling beauty, and go out into the hall. A quick flick of a glance at my friends’ faces is all I need to know who is coming and who is not. We do not need to talk about it; we know one another.
We come into the pizza place about nine. Linda, Bailey, Eric, Dale, Cameron, and me. Chuy was ready to eat, too, but the tables here hold only six. He understands. I would understand if he and the others were ready first. I would not want to come here and sit at another table, so I know that Chuy will not come here and we will not have to try to squeeze him in. A new manager last year did not understand that. He was always trying to arrange big dinners for us and mix us up in seating. “Don’t be so hidebound,” he would say. When he wasn’t looking, we went back to where we like to sit. Dale has an eye tic that bothers Linda, so she sits where she can’t see it. I think it’s funny and I like to watch it, so I sit on Dale’s left, where it looks like he’s winking at me.