Life, Animated

by Ron Suskind

  Very far.

  We’ve come to our neighborhood. There’s no time to delay.

  “This city. Where it is?”

  “California.”

  He pauses.

  “Burbank,” he adds.

  It’s better he’s not looking at me, because he’d be trying to read my smile and that would break the spell. Lately, when friends or relatives see his sketchbook and ask if he wants to be an animator, his response is swift and routine, exactly the same each time: “I want to be an animator at the Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, California, and usher in a new golden age of hand-drawn animation.”

  I’ve got two more turns. When we pull up to the house, this window will shut. His sidekicks story, of him searching with his sidekick friends (the wise ones, the confused ones, the resourceful ones)for their inner heroes, is clearly some sort of mirror he holds up to think about himself, his identity. If their destination is also Burbank, maybe the symbolic and the real—the parallel planes of his life—are due to merge. But it has to be more than just arriving. The sidekick has to do something to summon this inner hero.

  “And what happens there—in Burbank?”

  “He and his friends make a movie about the sidekicks journey using traditional hand-drawn animation. It touches people and saves the world.”

  I’m confused. “Is that the movie or real life?”

  “Both.”

  I pause for a minute, to think it through. I only get one shot at this.

  “You mean an animated movie about the fictional boy and the sidekicks, in this dark forest trying to find their inner heroes, gets made by a real boy, which is how the real boy finds his inner hero?”

  “Right, with hand-drawn animation.”

  “And that’s you?”

  “Right.”

  The car pulls to the curb. He suddenly turns to me with the plastered-on smile, the mask—chirps out an exclamatory “Okay?!”—and manages to leap out and shut the door in one swift motion.

  Walt sees his close buddy Mike Morris, another counselor, standing in the sun by the mail hut and sidles up to him.

  “Sounds like that was quite an adventure,” says Mike.

  Walt’s tired expression says it all. Mike, who’s been his friend since he arrived here as a twelve-year-old, lets out a little laugh.

  Mike’s already heard from the other counselors that the weather took a toll on the group. Walt and another counselor led eight campers, all thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds, on a five-day “expedition” through torrential downpours, over thirty-five miles of tough hiking across muddy mountain trails and creeks that turned into rivers on wet nights and long days. Near the end of the trek, the sun broke through, and they marched triumphantly back to camp.

  “Well, those campers feel like they scaled K2,” Mike says, as he and Walt look across the returning hikers unloading their wet backpacks in the sun. “Nothing they can’t do now. Look at them, they’re walking on air.”

  Almost twenty-one, and a second-year counselor, Walt is starting to clearly see the forces that helped shape him, something that tends to happen around this age. There’s nothing mysterious about it—old wisdom, now supported by plenty of research: manageable adversity. Not so much that you’re crushed, like so many kids in Cedric’s Washington, DC, neighborhood, but enough that it’s a fair fight, a contest that tests more muscles of resolve and ingenuity than simply those employed to score an A on some exam.

  The camp has honed that ethic to a fine edge and now, as part of the staff, it’s Walt’s job to impart it. They chat for a minute about some campwide activities slated for the coming week, when something dawns on Mike: one of Walt’s advisees—each counselor has three or four campers he mentors—who happened to be on the expedition Mike just led “has not one, but two autistic brothers.”

  Mike just found out. The kid, Craig, a twelve-year-old, is a new camper. Wondered if Walt knew. “No, he never mentioned it to me.”

  Mike nods. “Thought you might be interested.” It so happens that Mike’s one of the few guys at camp who knows Walt has an autistic brother.

  It just kind of happened that way. And then Walt didn’t make it un-happen. At first, back when he was twelve, he felt it wasn’t anyone’s business. A lot of kids at camp didn’t talk much about their families. And then it felt nice not to have the whole autism thing be an issue for two months of the year. It affected so much at home—seemed to own the house.

  But, up here, Walt can take ownership. It’s like he can be a different person here, accepted for who he was, just like everyone else, without any special designation; it seems to make every defeat, the stuff of learning; every victory, sweet. Sometimes people would hear he had a little brother. And because there are so many generations of families at camp, they’d say, “Hey, another Suskind coming up?” And Walt would just say, “He’s just not a camp kind of guy.” That’s all.

  All part of a bigger equation—Walt can see that now: how the independence he won, or was granted, with his folks spending so much time and effort on Owen, allowed him to create a bit of a double life. In a way, that’s what his mom and dad seemed to want; that his day-to-day would be as normal—whatever that means—as possible.

  But hearing about this kid with the autistic brothers has made him consider something he hadn’t thought much about: that his family doesn’t have any really close friends among other autistic families. Walking to his cabin after the chat with Mike, he thinks it sure would have been nice to know—really know—another sibling of an autistic person. Someone who would understand.

  The next week brings more rain. Usually, the camp gathers on Tree Talk Ridge, an outcropping in a grove of pines that overlooks Newfound Lake, for the weekly “Tree Talk.” It’s a stand-and-deliver moment, where counselors, starting their second year at the camp, step up to offer some wisdom, maybe hard-earned, that’ll be valuable for the campers. Today, a hundred campers, counselors, and staff gather in an open-air hall, high atop the camp. Rain pounds the cedar shingles. Walt composes himself, and looks down at the typed pages in his hand. It’s time they knew what’s really been going on in his life.

  I want to begin by telling you a little about the best teacher I have ever had.

  He is eighteen years old, sketches cartoon characters like there is no tomorrow, and every Friday we make our ritual trip to the video store. He is my brother, Owen.

  When Owen was diagnosed with autism as a three-year-old, I didn’t really understand what that meant. I just remember my mom telling me that Owen was a little different than other kids. In the fiftteen years since then, Owen has struggled with and overcome barrier after barrier that stood in his path.

  At times, it has been tough, but having a brother like Owen has taught my parents and me lessons we never would have learned otherwise, and helped us become the family we are today. And although maybe at eighteen and twenty we are a little old to be going back to Disney World year after year, and yes, maybe our encyclopedic knowledge of the characters in Fievel Goes West isn’t quite the norm for most families, as far as I’m concerned, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  The joy my brother finds in things that most people would roll their eyes, at has helped to let my family realize what is important to us. And that makes every up and down along the way not a blessing in disguise, as some might call it. Just a blessing. When I wonder if life would have been easier if Owen was a “normal” kid, I always remember it is because of him that I am the person I am. The hard work Owen puts in day after day in taking on the myriad challenges that stand before him—and because I know he works harder in a single day than I could even imagine possible—helps me to realize that as tough as things may appear at times, it is in the face of the seemingly insurmountable challenges that you have your greatest victories and learn things about yourself you’d never thought possible…

  He goes on to talk about the insurmountable challenges they faced on this last expedition, walking days through the downpour, and
how the campers rose to the occasion.

  After it’s over, and the boys come up, one-by-one to shake Walt’s hand, Craig approaches Walt.

  “Wow, Walt, that was quite a Tree Talk.”

  “Glad you liked it.”

  “I felt like you were talking to me.”

  Walt puts a hand on his shoulder.

  “Well, it’s something that’s hard to understand for most people.”

  It’s Walt’s twenty-first birthday on September 13, 2009, and we Skype to Spain, where he’s starting his junior year of college abroad. It’s 11:00 P.M. there—he’s six hours ahead—and things are just cranking up in Seville. We all sing. He laughs. Love you guys.

  Everything’s good. He tells us he tried out for a Seville football team—American football in a league that plays across Europe. It’s somewhere between club and semipro, mostly local enthusiasts and a few U.S. college players; and he made the team. That’s a real kick. Working the huddle will certainly help his Spanish, that’s for sure. Listen, got to go. Other kids in his program are calling. It’s his birthday. The night beckons.

  Cornelia and I watch the screen darken. We’re missing him, of course, on his birthday, but watching him enter the wide world is a thrill. We try not to over-appreciate—to greet everything he does like some huge victory. As he often tells us, “don’t make a big fuss over me—I’m just doing what other kids do.”

  And he’s right. Take out the twist of playing football, and he’s living the basic junior-year-abroad experience, a common feature these days of college life.

  But it’s hard not feel awe of the commonplace when you’re thinking about how to reengineer it from scratch. Try to map, for instance, the social schema (a cognitive framework for organizing and interpreting inputs) for a night of barhopping in Seville; or finding a cab back to the dorm at dawn. How about something more basic, like getting along with a roommate. Or one level down: calling for assistance when you’re lost or learning to use money. And one more step, still: not getting into a car with a stranger, or crossing a busy thoroughfare against the light.

  That’s what’s on our mind as Walt signs off: engineering a life. Owen’s starting his senior year. After that, who knows?

  Early the next morning, Cornelia and I slip into a deli in Cabin John, Maryland, a riverside enclave atop the Potomac’s cliffs north of Washington, DC. We’re here for the monthly visit, a few doors away, to Owen’s psychiatrist—this time just us. We do this once in a while; go to a session without Owen. That way we can talk openly, strategize, and probe a bit beyond our shared knowledge, our team of two. And there’s a lot to discuss, as Owen enters his senior year.

  We brought Dr. Lance Clawson in when the bullying was revealed—a year and three months ago now—and liked him. He’s caring and attentive, but matter-of-fact. What do we need? What do we do? Is there a right answer? Cornelia and I have built up so much knowledge over the years, that we often get treated like colleagues. We like that, up to a point. But we’re not doctors, after all. That’s why we’re visiting one.

  We settle around the deli’s wrought-iron table, with the heart-shaped chairs, and quietly spread cream cheese on our bagels.

  She asks, “What do other couples do with all their spare time?”

  “I don’t know, golf, maybe. Bridge. Progressive dinner parties, with the fondue forks.”

  “I guess we’ll be doing some of that next year when we’re empty nesters. What fun.”

  Her tone is light, facetious, with a base note of resignation. We eat our bagels in silence. Her Herculean effort of Patch of Heaven was to boost him to a high school that might usher him off, well prepared, to some college program. We’ve looked at a few over the years: programs where kids live in collegiate environs, with added structural support and, generally, a lighter academic load. Many are small campuses that are like a college, or are situated within an existing one. The goal, most often, is not to graduate. One big school, in fact, is called CLE, which stands for College Living Experience. Some kids get degrees. But for $80,000, that’s mostly what you get—the experience.

  That’s not going to happen. “He’s not ready for anything like that,” Cornelia says after a bit. “And I don’t see him being ready in a year.”

  A few weeks before, we called parents we knew from his school to discuss the possibility of starting a transition program, a group house where a few kids—including The Movie Gods—might live next year, at least a few days a week. Cornelia sketched outlines of how we could hire someone, maybe a young man, who could mentor, coach, teach, and help them build life skills. The other parents were interested, if tentative. Of course, it’d be a huge undertaking—bigger than Patch of Heaven—where a house would need to be rented and a supervisory person hired. Plus, activities, a curriculum, would need to be developed and implemented. It’d have to be created, whole cloth, and Cornelia knows it’d mostly fall to her.

  I know not to offer any easy answers—any “here’s how we fix this” suggestions that, as a guy, are always within reach. After all, it’s mostly been her burden to carry. Might be for quite a while.

  “He’s not going to graduate and settle into the basement—that’s not good for him or for us.” Cornelia’s adamant about that, and she’s right. But where does he go? Or, if he’s home, what do we do with him each day?

  “Look, honey, it’s still a year away.”

  “Nine months.”

  A few minutes later, in Lance’s office, we run through updates. His medications, mostly a very low dose of Prozac, are fine. No bad reactions. On the last visit in August, Cornelia reported there were some scattered verbalizations over the summer, where, unprompted, he’d yell out “no!” or “I hate that word!”—a residual, still, from the bullying. But she hasn’t heard any in the past month.

  Lance says these outbursts will happen from time to time, but the progression over the past year has been good and he thinks we should take him off a drug he’s taking for OCD.

  He asks if we detect any anxiety about what’s ahead for him, with Owen starting his senior year. None we detect is our response.

  “How about for you guys?” he says, lightly. We laugh.

  Cornelia runs through some of the preliminary options, and describes the parent meeting, and the possibility of building a transition program.

  Lance immediately sees what a large undertaking that’d be. “He may be at home for a while,” he says. “If they have a structure, a job, responsibilities—and maybe a separate entrance. Lots of young adults thrive that way.”

  “It’s not that we don’t want him home, Lance,” Cornelia says. “Over the years, we’ve seen him thrive when he’s out of the house, when he’s challenged. He rises to it.”

  “What’s Owen think about any of this? You talk to him?”

  That gives me an opening, something I’ve wanted to get Lance’s view about since last spring when Owen told me more about his movie.

  “Owen’s untroubled. He thinks he’s going to be an animator at Disney in California. And there he’ll create a movie—about how we’re all sidekicks, searching for our inner hero—that’ll save the world.”

  “Well, he sure doesn’t aim low,” Lance says, with a laugh.

  I talk about my uncertainty about how to proceed, how, when he first vanished into autism, we discarded parental notions of future greatness for him and never much thought about him having dreams. If we didn’t, how could he? Across the years, he’s developed little sense of the prevailing consensus about what society deems as worthy of aspiring to, about the big prizes, or reckoned with the traditional adolescent awakening about how distant those hopes might be, about how very large and competitive the world is.

  Lance nods. Yes, of course. Owen’s gaps are common features of autism. A grasp of scale, and one’s measure, are all calculations of context.

  I feel context is one thing I understand, and how this is a mighty tall mountain he’s cast his gaze upon. When Owen was just four, I recount, and I
was working on A Hope in the Unseen from Providence, Rhode Island, the kids at Brown University—fully realized young artists and math whizzes who could draw—were already flocking to animation. It grew after Toy Story came out in 1995 and spread to video games. It hasn’t abated.

  Cornelia steps in, broadens it. “Every parent worries about their kid being disappointed. With him, just multiply those feelings. He’s still so hopeful, even as he’s becoming aware of the world’s judgments, how harsh they can be. It seems he’s rested his whole identity on this dream. We just don’t want him to be hurt.”

  Lance lightens it up. “So what’s the book title—A Hope in the Unseen? This is our nature.” He talks about how guys wrestle with this in their teenage years—how they realize they won’t be a quarterback for the Redskins. “A boy reconciles with that. Then some girl says she loves him anyway, and they live happily ever after. It’s part of life to work this out on our own.”

  Okay, that’s the general point, but the challenge, every day, is to draw the line between what’s the same and what’s different, where the conventional thinking does or does not apply to those with autism. Over fifteen years as a developmental psychiatrist, he’s seen thousands of teens and young adults on the autism spectrum.

  “Look, I’m sure you’ve dealt with this before.”

  He has. “Some people disagree, but my policy has always been let them dream and learn what they can, or not—in their own way—about how the big, bad world works.

  “We were allowed to dream,” he says. “Why shouldn’t they.”

  We all sit there for a minute.

  “I’m sure many just keep dreaming,” I say. “Context blind and quite content.”

  He nods. “They do. But there’s really nothing wrong with that. So their dreams don’t die. Maybe that’s a path to happiness.”

  On a snowy Sunday in mid-December, Maureen O’Brien is standing in the doorway of an unusual two-story studio beside her Northwest, Washington, DC, house. This tall hut is itself eccentric—blissfully inhabited each Sunday by the giddy Maureen and five artsy teenage girls. We’ve been coming to this locale for most of the fall. And today, like always, there’s great fanfare when Owen arrives that’s led by Maureen, a wide-eyed, red-haired, late-forties, child-mom painter, photographer, calligrapher, drafter, and sculptor who runs the art program at a nearby private school.