About JeffsLife

Father of an autistic 13-year-old boy,
Author Archive | JeffsLife

Until He Drops

By on December 30, 2011 in Autism

“Alex, we’re going out to get presents!”

 

“Presents.”

 

“You’re going to buy presents for Ned and mommy. What are you going to buy for Ned?”

 

“Buy for Ned.”

 

“What are you going to buy for mommy?”

 

“Buy for mommy.” We go through this three times.

 

I’ve decided that it’s time for Alex to learn how to buy presents: walk to the store, pick out crap for those who mean something to him, walk to the register, take the bills from me, take the bag and collect his change, and leave the store. Then home to wrangle with the Scotch tape, scissors and paper until he has a present to, well, present on one of the waning evenings of Chanukah.

 

I head out with Alex on the morning of the day after Christmas. He’s silent to my questions as he presses the extra elevator buttons on the way to the ground floor. “What’s Santa going to bring mommy, Alex?”

 

“Santa mommy.”

 

We go through this a few times. Outside, I decide to start at the beginning. “Alex, to go shopping for presents, we need money first, right?” We head to the ATM. I slide in my card and punch the buttons while Alex studies the blue wall of the bank. “Look, Alex. Cash.” (Way too much in this year, too.) We head to the local all-purpose drug store, which these days means toys and housewares and all sorts of stuff. I steer him into the Christmas aisle, which should be cheap as hell by this time in the calendar, but isn’t. Mommy wants new icicle lights for the window.

 

“Alex, what does mommy want?”

 

“Mommy want.”

 

“What does mommy want?”

 

He shops like my brother Lee: With just a glance and then a look away, Alex shoots out his hand and pulls out, like a dragoon’s saber, a marked-down roll of Santa wrapping paper. Jill is Jewish. Of all things in this store, nothing screams “Jill Cornfield!” to me less, but this is Alex’s call.

 

“What do you want for Ned, Alex?” We head to the short toy aisle. Without hesitation he squats to press buttons on the preschool toys that make noise and pull out the detailed plastic farm animals. Apparently Ned wants a goat, a horse and a cow. “No Alex, this is a present for Ned.” Alex counts the plastic animals. “One, two three…”

 

“Up here, Alex. What would Ned like from here?” From the top shelf, the Nerf Dart refill pack would work, I think, but Alex finds a green plastic truck. Again with the Uncle Lee shopping: shoot out and pull.

 

“Let’s go pay, Alex.”

 

At the register, Alex tosses in a red bow that I’ll later examine and determine that he pulled off some display. I don’t think the cashier, with a glance at Alex, charges us for it. I put the twenty in his fingers and he hands it over; I coax him to take his change. Outside the store, he hands me the bag to carry.

 

I’ve never wrapped wrapping paper for a present. Alex has trouble tearing off the Scotch tape. Pretty soon, though, everything is in its paper, and Alex heads to the living room to watch the iPad. Like often in the holidays after the wrapping’s done, I’m left to think I’ve actually done something.

 

Comments { 0 }

The Looks

By on December 20, 2011 in Autism, Autism Awareness, Parenting, Special Needs

(This piece appears in the recently published Anthology of Disability Literature)

Recently, my 12-year-old Alex kept trying to scoot through an open door in the basement of our neighborhood supermarket. The store wasn’t crowded and hardly anyone noticed me hauling him back to the checkout line except a young lady working the register. I saw her looking at Alex with the small smile and direct eyes that I’ve learned mean: She knows someone with autism. She stroked his head once.

The cashier might have stroked Alex’s head out of understanding the kind of life Alex is likely to have. Of course I wish she’d felt comfortable yelling at him, comfortable because he was normal and he shouldn’t be trying to run in the basement of a grocery store, comfortable in the way somebody might be yelling at Alex’s typically developing 9-year-old brother Ned.

They don’t yell at Alex in the pizza place, either. I take him there in the fragile hope that he’ll eat the cheese off a slice or two while he’s out of the house so Ned can get his English tutoring. Alex and I often take the table way in the back, and the first few times I did this I was scared he would bolt while I got the pizza. “We’ll keep an eye on him, buddy,” the guy behind the counter said.

Alex has received his share of looks – more outside of New York City (they positively stared in the Massachusetts malls), perhaps because people are used to seeing just about anything in New York and passing by without what appears to be an obvious thought. When Alex was still a baby on oxygen, some kids on a Queens sidewalk did ask, “What happened to that guy!?” That was nice; Alex was emerging from a year in the hospital, and it was good to think he’d ceased to be patient and had finally become some “guy” on a sidewalk.

People – at least the people I’d like to have around Alex – seem to need to think there’s something beyond vulnerability to those with autism. Something special or beneficial to society, or at least likable and warm, like the message of movies like Rain Man, lessons tied up in what Richard Yates disdainfully called “a neat little dramatic package.” Yeah, there’s autism. But they can count cards, too! Some of them can count cards. Some can paint. Some with autism can do all sorts of things, just like some of all of us can, and of course the verdict is still a long way off when it comes to Alex’s real abilities. I want people to stroke his head someday because he helped them, because he contributed in a way that brought him fulfillment at the end of his working day. And I want to live to see him get that. I call that my Hopeful Outlook.

–Jeff Stimpson

Alex: The Fathering of a Preemie and Alex the Boy: Episodes From a Family’s Life With Autism

Comments { 1 }