Trouble started at a quarter to eight on the morning when Alex’s bus called and said they’d be there in five minutes. That’s early; that means we don’t have as much time on the elevator ride down to the street to punch extra buttons and visits all the floors Alex wants to visit.
He shoved by me and went for the buttons. I gave him 8. I gave him 7. He moved to punch three. “Alex, we have to catch a bus! The bus is waiting!”
“Want 3!” We slide down past 7 and I can see in his face that he’s realized that 3 isn’t going to happen. He flattens himself against the side of the elevator. I take his hand to guide him back into the world and feel the steel that is suddenly trying to move my 14-year-old autistic son anywhere he doesn’t want to go.
When Jill and I were contemplating kids, a co-worker said to us, “I have a lot of traits I wouldn’t want to pass on to my kids!” One of my traits, I’m afraid, is anger.
And now – maybe God willing, it’s just the hormones as he turns into a young man -- Alex flails and sputters before sleep. Bites his arm when we say “no,” yanks me back when I tell him he has to go somewhere that anybody so-called normal would understand you just have go sometimes.
He made me drag him from the elevator like a big dog that doesn’t want to go for a walk, braced his leg against his father all along the glassy floor of the lobby while the security guard must have looked on (I don’t know because I didn’t even glance over at the desk). Alex bites his own arm. He bites my finger when I try to control him; the pain shoots white up my arm. (“Alex you can’t always do what you want when you want!” I told him, telling myself at the same time that I was being a reasonable dad – more reasonable than some dads I’ve heard of, that’s for fuck’s sure – that I was being a reasonable dad in a nightmare.
Alex has been getting on school buses for a decade, but of course he hasn’t been a teenager for a decade. He went up two of the three steps of the bus and spun to try to muscle past the matron. “He was like this yesterday,” the driver says. I mumble something; I don’t remember what. Maybe I should remember but I don’t. The bus doors slide shut. All day along I expect a call from school.
One never comes. The bus arrives at 4:15 p.m. “He tried to bite,” the driver tells me through the sliding doors. Bite the driver?! Bite the matron?! “No, not me,” says the driver. “He tried to bite her. Tried to bite himself. Kept banging the window.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll talk to him.” When we leave the bus to walk inside, the matron blows him a kiss. “Alex,” says the driver out the window as he pulls away, “we’ll see you Monday.” This driver has never said See you Monday.
I’m coming to see the many things that Alex will never be. I hope “angry” is one of them.
Posted by Jeff Stimpson
at 4:57 PM EST
Updated: Saturday, 17 November 2012 5:01 PM EST
