Afternoon, actually; Alex will learn about what magic a prom holds while the sun is still out. "On Friday, the students will be having their annual prom," reads the notice sent home from his school. "The students voted for a theme and the winner was 'New York, New York!' Students will have the opportunity to socialize with their peers while enjoying and afternoon filled with music and dance. You can dress your child up for the day or you can send them to school with dress clothes and they can change right before the prom begins."
Child.
My prom happened at night, I guess, since I never went because I never had the nerve to ask the girl I wanted to take and I'm not sure she'd have wanted to go, anyway. I was a child, too, then, with little town blues.
Start spreading the news. “Are you going to ask a girl to dance, Alex? You can, you know. You have the Stimpson good looks ... sometimes they say 'yes' when you don't expect it." Your mother did! He doesn't seem to hear, but does applaud something on "Teletubbies" on his iPad.
He’s ready for something like asking a girl to dance. He has a zit. He's been doing pointy things with his hair in the bathroom mirror, daydreaming while getting ready for school. He's been adamently wearing only khaki pants and mismatched socks. “Typical for a teenager," says Jill, with sadness on her face. Why sad? "Because we still have to take a boy who's almost 14 to the schoolbus and pick him up from a schoolbus."
I guess we'll stuff his blazer in his backpack. I imagine he won't wear it. I don't know if he'll dance, but there is one girl in his class and I have no doubt he'll march right up while his 1:1 para holds his hand and ask her to dance. I also imagine he won't know what the words he uses to speak to her will really mean, but who really does at 14? We'll take what we can find for "normal" for Alex, including mismatched socks and wordless statements about hair.
I'm frankly scared of a future that includes Alex and girls. I've always tried to write about him with respect, but it's getting harder and harder in our small apartment to ignore the rubbing and the big ball placed against him under the blanket. Still, it's just a prom, a party.
Alex busted in on a neighbor's party a few weeks ago: He heard the hub-bub of arriving guests in the corridor outside our apartment and was gone with a slam of the door. I found him in our neighbor's place weaving between honor guards of young, well-dressed smilers who glanced at him as he flashed past (pretty crowded: had to be someone in there who knew someone with autism...).
"Sure he wanted to go to a party!" his unit teacher said when I told her. "When I was 14 I loved to go to parties!" We must tap his social need to inspire language, find a way to get him to ring the doorbell first and ask to come in. Maybe asking someone to dance will be a start.
Posted by Jeff Stimpson
at 3:14 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, 21 May 2012 3:18 PM EDT
