“Hey. Pencil dicks. Talking to you. Did you have something you wanted to share with the class, or do you get your jollies picking on crips?”
He was talking really loud, and everyone on the sidewalk watched us. They were pointing and whispering. Jeremey was nervous, but I wasn’t. David was being mean, but he was good at it. He was winning. I smiled, hoping he would keep going.
He did.
He backed the guys up to the edge of Lake LaVerne. “Come on. Let’s hear it. Give me your best shot. It must have been good, the way you were giggling. Look, you’ve got everybody’s attention. Those four girls over there look really interested to hear what a pack of assholes have to say to a quad and his autistic wingman and his friend with social anxiety. Go ahead. Wow them with your Rainman joke.”
“I’m Train Man,” I told David. I liked his nickname for me.
“There you go,” David said. “My man Emmet’s setting you up. He’s autistic. He loves trains. Train Man. Get it? Oh wait. He thinks that name’s funny. So if you want to mock him, you’ll have to try something else.”
“Let’s get out of here,” one of the guys said.
They hurried off, but David chased them. “Fuck off, assholes. I don’t need a functioning spine to kick your ass.” He stopped, watching to make sure they were gone. His face was angry, and his cheeks were red as he turned to us. “You guys okay?”
I laughed and clapped. “Yes. You’re my favorite bully, David.”
“Damn straight.” He turned his head, then spoke quietly. “Hey. Don’t look now, but those girls are checking us out.”
“Jeremey and I are gay,” I reminded him.
“Oh, damn.” David grinned. “I guess that means they’re all for me.”
He went over and talked to them, calling over his shoulder for Jeremey and me to come along. The conversation was boring, so I counted the cars passing by and memorized the license plates. Eventually, though, Jeremey tapped my shoulder.
“Emmet, David wants to know if we want to go to a bar with him and the girls.”
I frowned. “We aren’t old enough to drink alcohol.”
“David is. He says there’s a bar we could go to that isn’t too loud at this time of day, and they’ll let minors in. What do you think? Should we go?”
I didn’t really want to go to a bar, but Jeremey signed something extra. Please, Emmet? David wants to go, I can tell.
So I nodded, and that’s how we went to a bar.
It was a place called Bohemia on West Street, which was a long walk, but it was a nice day, not too cold, and there were five hundred and six cracks in the sidewalk on the way there. The girls walked with David, making a circle around his chair. They giggled a lot. Jeremey and I walked behind, and Jeremey kept having us slow down to put more space between us and them.
“He’s having fun,” Jeremey whispered. “This is his dream, having all those girls hanging on him.”
But when we got to the bar, David sent the girls in to find a table, and he hung out with us for a minute, just the three of us.
“You guys okay with this? If it’s too much, tell me, and we’ll bail.”
The bar was dark, but it didn’t make me nervous. I wasn’t sure about Jeremey, but he said he’d be okay. “Maybe not too long. I can do a little while, if there’s no loud music.”
“Just some piped-over stuff, as far as I could hear, and not loud.” David’s face was red, but his eyes were very alive. “I appreciate this. I don’t think I’m going to get lucky or anything—not sure what I’d do yet if I could take somebody home, despite your websites. But it means a lot to me to flirt. Feel normal.”
“Let’s go be normal,” Jeremey said, smiling.
“Okay.” David turned his chair around for the door and let out a big sigh. “A quad, an autistic and a depressive walk into a bar. We’re the opening line of a joke.”
Jeremey laughed, but I didn’t get it. He tried to explain it to me after, but I didn’t care. David was right. It was nice to feel normal. To be three friends hanging out in a bar. To be with my boyfriend, to hold his hand and let him lean on me, even if he was a little too much in my space.
There is no normal, not really. Not a right and a wrong way to be. But there is belonging. That day in Bohemia with Jeremey and David and the girls, I belonged. I belonged as much as anybody on the mean.
Maybe even a little bit more.
When we got home from the bar, on the day I felt as if I belonged, I asked Jeremey if he wanted to try anal sex, and he said yes.
I wasn’t surprised. Jeremey always said yes to anything about sex. He wasn’t nervous about anal penetration now. We’d ordered a dildo from a reputable online sex store, and he said it felt great. I tried it too, but I don’t care for things in my butt. Jeremey does, which is good. I wanted to be in him that way.
We took a shower together, which we hadn’t done before. It was weird at first, but then it was fun and sexy, because we kissed with water coming down on us. It was a lot of sensation at once, and it made me so excited. I wanted to make love with him more. I wanted to be the dildo in him. My cock inside him, in the hot place.
We didn’t use a condom, since we were monogamous and disease free, plus I didn’t like the way they felt. No used prophylactic for me like Jake Blues. I wanted to feel my cock naked inside Jeremey, but first I had to get him ready. I used gloves and lots of lubricant, and I pushed my index finger carefully inside his body.
It’s still a little weird to me to put something in someone’s anus, except when I watch Jeremey’s face as I do it, I don’t think it’s so gross. It’s not much different than all the germs in someone’s mouth, but we kiss them anyway. An anus has fecal matter, but if you use proper precautions, it can be okay. Plus many people don’t wash their hands, so we all probably have more fecal matter going around than we want to know about, Mom says.
I’d watched videos about anal sex, some porn and some that were more instructional. I’d gotten good at loosening Jeremey’s anal ring for the dildo, but this was the first time I was doing it for me. For my cock to go inside him.
It made me excited to think about going inside Jeremey.
When I did it, I jolted like electricity, it felt so good. It was tight and extra hot, like spicy peppers. Jeremey was facedown, and his gasps and cries made me more aroused. I pushed my cock in deeper, and he gripped the bedspread and arched his back.
“Oh God, Emmet—fuck me.”
I did. I pumped my hips into Jeremey over and over the same as a porn video, but it wasn’t a porn video. It was a love video. I loved him. We were making love. We were boyfriends, a couple. I was the top. He was the bottom. Some people don’t care for labels, but I like this one. I enjoy being a top. And I know Jeremey enjoys being a bottom.
I came a little faster than usual that first time we had anal sex, and it had me so overstimulated I had to make the sign to lay by myself a second until I could calm down. Jeremey didn’t mind. He jerked himself off, then lay quiet on the bed, looking like he might fall asleep. When I made the sign that I was ready to cuddle, he snuggled against me and kissed my chest.
“Did you like the anal sex?” I asked him.
“I loved it, Emmet.” He leaned up to kiss my chin. “I love you.”
“I love you, Jeremey.” I got the wet wipes to clean us up, and then I held him until he fell asleep.
I am normal. I belong. I have a friend who can kick ass from a wheelchair. I live independently and get good grades. I’m an excellent lover.
Like I said. I’m awesome. I’m Emmet David Washington. Train Man. The best autistic Blues Brother on the block.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jeremey
On the one-year anniversary of my meltdown at school, I had a family meeting with my parents.
It was at my therapy session, and Dr. North was there, but
I almost thought I could have done it without him. He’d given me that option, but I decided it was the same as my Target practice. Best to start the first try with something I was sure would work out.
My parents were nervous, and I couldn’t blame them. The last time we’d had a family meeting, Emmet had panicked, and I’d shouted. This time he wasn’t with us, though. He waited in the lobby, probably counting ceiling tiles or figuring pi.
This was a meeting I wanted to do by myself.
“Thank you for coming,” I told Mom and Dad as we sat down. “It’s good to see you.”
My mom frowned and brushed invisible lint from her trousers. “You never visit us. You don’t call often.”
It wasn’t a friendly start to our meeting, but I’d talked a lot about my parents, especially my mom, with Dr. North. I’d expected this kind of greeting. Worse, to be honest. I hadn’t been sure they’d come at all.
“Well, I want to talk to you about visiting you more.” I had my hands in my lap, carefully not making a fist or fidgeting. I wanted to present calm, controlled body language. It was difficult to do, but I wanted to try. “But I also wanted to tell you what I’ve learned in the last year. Since the day I had to leave school. Would you care to hear what I’ve learned? What I’ve done at The Roosevelt?”
My mom crossed her arms over her body and glanced at my dad, still frowning. “I suppose.”
I admit, I wanted her to be eager and happy. I will always watch Emmet’s parents and David’s and wish mine could be like theirs. But that wasn’t who my parents were. And though they made me nervous and were, I’m pretty sure, the reason I got as out of control as I did, I did love them, and if I could have a relationship with them, I wanted one.
This was the first step toward that. I wasn’t sure success here was any more likely than me being able to go to a rock concert and dance in the pit, but I wanted to try.
I told my mom what I’d learned.
“Well, there are a lot of things. Most of them are little to most people, but they’re big to me. I’ve learned how to live by myself, for one. I know how to balance my checkbook and make sure there’s food in the fridge. With Emmet’s help, I keep my room clean, and the apartment too. I help residents at The Roosevelt, especially David, my friend who is a quadriplegic. I want to go to school to be his aide. I signed up for an online class this summer. I want to go to the classroom in Ankeny, but I’m going to work up to it slowly.
“That’s the big thing I learned this year: it’s okay to go slow. That everybody else’s pace and definition of success isn’t mine. What is easy for other people isn’t necessarily so for me. Though some things are easy for me and hard for other people. This year I learned I’m good at feelings. Emmet calls these our superpowers—his are listening and seeing and math and remembering. Mine is feelings. I can tell what everyone is feeling all the time, and I almost feel it with them. So I have to be careful, because if there are too many feelings around me at once, I get overwhelmed. This is why shopping is challenging for me. It’s as if every aisle has strangers with too many feelings, and I can’t always stop them. But I’ve learned how, sometimes. I take headphones and wear sunglasses. I take my friends. I take my boyfriend.”
I smiled, thinking of Emmet. “That’s another something I learned this year: how to be a boyfriend. How to listen to someone else, what they need, how to give it to them. What I need. How to love them. How to handle it when they get jealous—or when I do. How to make a life with someone. How to help someone else through their struggles, and let them help me with mine.”
I stopped then, waiting. I wasn’t sure if they still didn’t like Emmet. I watched their faces, trying to read them. They weren’t happy, but I couldn’t tell if it was Emmet, or because this meeting made them uncomfortable.
That seemed a good time to move on to the next part.
“The other thing I learned, Mom and Dad, is that I need to protect myself. There’s nothing wrong with me and who I am, but I do have depression and anxiety, and they’re both pretty severe. I have major depressive disorder. I have clinical anxiety. They’re real things. They’re invisible to everyone but me, but I have to tell you, most days Emmet’s autism and David’s quadriplegia don’t hold them back as much as my depression and anxiety do me. I have to fight every day, and some days I can’t win. There are days I have to tell David I can’t help him go to school when my depression or anxiety is too bad. And you know what? Those days he usually stays with me, unless he has a test. He sits with me or helps Emmet make my lunch. Until I can climb on top again. He’s my employer, but he’s also my friend. One of my two best friends.”
My mom was frowning, and my dad seemed disgusted. I was sad, since it was clear this meeting wasn’t going to be a success at all. I felt the dark clouds coming over me, as if the lights in the room were going dim. I didn’t panic, but I felt tired, and I wanted to withdraw.
Dr. North, sitting beside me, rubbed my shoulders.
I glanced down at my hands, which I held still, but they were clenched in fists now. I stared at a bracelet Emmet had made me, an intricate weave of patterns that he said reminded him of me. I touched it, thinking of him in the lobby, wondering what he was counting now.
I considered going to sit with him, leaving my parents. Not trying anymore. I told myself I still had a family. I had Emmet. But it still made me sad.
“I only wanted you to be happy.”
The voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. I looked up, wondering if maybe I’d imagined it, but my mom was watching me. Crying silently. Whispering. To me, while my dad held her hand.
“I only wanted you to be happy,” she said again. Her face was twisted up in misery. Her mascara ran down her cheeks, until she wiped at it with a tissue and made streaks. “You’re always so withdrawn, and I knew how you felt, because I felt that way too at your age. I didn’t want you to be sad. I wanted better for you.” She blew her nose, and my dad put an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. She put her forehead on his cheek, crying harder. “I didn’t want that for you. I didn’t want that for my baby.”
I stared at my mom, my head spinning, too light, like it wasn’t on my body. Was this actually happening? Was this my mom? My dad? It felt unreal. I’d imagined her hugging me a million times the way Marietta hugged Emmet, of magically becoming somebody else, but I’d never envisioned this. Her telling me she wanted me to be happy. That she understood. And crying as if someone had taken everything away.
In the same way that one day I’d had a glimpse of Emmet only wanting good things for me, helping, not waiting for me to be fixed, I had a new look at my parents, especially my mom. I watched her crying, as upset as I felt sometimes, more upset than I’d ever seen her. I felt that way too at your age. Did she still feel that way, I wondered? Had her mom talked to her the way she’d talked to me? Had she been lumbering through life in the dark, heavy fog, the same as me?
Without an Emmet to light the way?
I don’t know if I was right, or even close. But at that family meeting, I didn’t wish my mom were somebody else. I didn’t get nervous about what she might say that would upset me. That day I got up from my chair, crossed the room and hugged her tight. I let her cry on my shoulder. Felt the bad feelings with her, and did my best to make them go away.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, and buried her face in my shoulder.
I patted her back and rocked her side to side like Emmet rocked me. “It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay.”
And you know what? It really was.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Emmet
A lot happened to me, and to Jeremey, after his family meeting with his parents. All kinds of things happened to David. But those are other stories, and David will get mad if I tell his for him. So I’ll tell you about my job, and the train.
When I started my junior year of college, one of my professors tol
d me about this company in Ames called Workiva. It used to be WebFilings, but they changed their name. A supervisor from Workiva asked me if I wanted to get an internship there. I didn’t get paid for it, but I learned all kinds of things about working and got real-world experience, which is important for getting a job that pays. Except when I did my internship, they liked me so much they asked me if I wanted to stay and get paid once my internship was finished. I told them no thank you, I still had school. So they said they’d pay for me to complete my schooling if I promised to work for them part-time until I was done and stick around after.
I had to talk to my parents, because it sounded more complicated than I could agree to in a meeting, and it was. My dad talked to my supervisor for hours and hours, and he brought a lawyer once too. While they talked, though, I researched the company. I’d learned a great deal from my internship, but I found out they were growing quickly and had offices all over. I enjoyed working there. They generated reports for other companies, and they liked how good I was at writing programs and noticing patterns. They were excellent at modifications too. Even when I was an intern, they made sure my space was comfortable, and they changed a few of the company rules for me so I didn’t feel unsafe. They told my dad’s lawyer, who was my lawyer now too, they would make more accommodations for me if that was what it took to get me to sign on.
I said I wanted to learn to drive a car, but dad says they can’t promise that.
They gave me all kinds of other things, though, and so after my internship, I did work there, for money. They gave me rides to school, and sometimes they did it in a fancy car, which made me feel like a Blues Brother for sure. Even if I didn’t drive.
They also gave me so much money I was able to take Jeremey, David and our families on a train.
I’d been on Amtrak before, but never on the train with my boyfriend. Jeremey and David hadn’t been at all. David worried he couldn’t do it with his chair, but the train staff was helpful, actually. They brought bridges for platforms that had gaps and ramps to get on and off the train. They would bring him his meals in his car, or he could transfer to the lounge car at a scheduled stop, since the dining car was on the second floor.
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