As Dog Is My Witness

by JEFFREY COHEN

  “So there I was, dressed from head to toe in bandages, walking into the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, and having people stare like this”—he made a face. The kids roared with laughter. “And when I got to the ticket booth . . . Aaron! Good morning!” Howard stood up and everyone else at the table turned to look at me. Since I had only put on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, hadn’t combed my hair or shaved, I figured they were staring because of my appearance. Not so.

  “Uncle Howard is telling us a funny story about a Halloween party he went to when he was in college!” Leah gushed. “It’s really funny!”

  “Yeah, Dad,” said Ethan. “He was dressed as the Invisible Man, and he had to get from New York to New Jersey in his costume.”

  “Sit down, honey,” said Abby, and she actually went to the stove and poured me a cup of honest-to-goodness hot chocolate made from scratch. I started to worry they’d been told I had a terminal disease, and were being nice to me for the short time I had left.

  “How did you sleep, Aaron?” asked the man pretending to be Howard.

  “Who are you, and what have you done with my brother-in-law?” I asked.

  Howard laughed. “You always were funny, Aaron.” I shot Abby a look that said, “Who is this man?”

  “If everyone at this table under the age of sixteen is finished,” Abby said, “could they please go to their rooms and get dressed?”

  The kids grumbled. “But we haven’t heard the end of the story!” Leah said.

  “Don’t worry,” said Howard. “I’ll tell it to you on the way to the airport.”

  And amazingly, that did it. The children got up and walked to their rooms without so much as a residual whine. But on the way out, Dylan said quietly to Ethan, “I get to go home and play a real video game today. Not your baby game.” And before I could say a word, Howard stood up and pointed a finger—at his son.

  “Dylan,” he said, “you’re going to be civil to your cousin, who’s given half his room to you for a week. And if you’re not, you won’t be playing video games until sometime next year.”

  “But Dad,” Dylan began.

  “Is that clear?” Howard emphasized.

  “Yeah, it’s clear.” Dylan slunk off, and the adults were left alone.

  I wondered if I had awoken in an alternate universe, but Abby was still beautiful and the hot chocolate still tasted wonderful. Perhaps it was a selective alternate universe.

  Once the kids were gone, Abby looked at me and said, “I think I’ll check the laundry.” This was a surprise, too, since I always do the laundry, at least until it needs to be folded.

  “Laundry?” I asked.

  “Yeah, you remember. How clothes get clean?” She left for the basement before I could wonder, and there I was, alone, with Howard and Andrea. I waited for the mask to slip off and for the real Howard Stein to appear, but no such thing happened.

  Howard cleared his throat a couple of times. This appeared to be his way to indicate he was going to speak. “Aaron, I just want you to know that I’m . . . sorry about the way I’ve treated you for, well, pretty much all the time we’ve known each other.”

  Now, I knew. Abby had slipped some hallucinogen into my hot chocolate, or his coffee. I pinched myself. It hurt. I knew I was awake.

  “You are?” is the best I could manage.

  “Yes, well . . . Howard’s eyes searched his frontal lobe for the right words, but he couldn’t find them.

  “I think what Howard’s trying to say is, well, he learned something about you last night,” Andrea said, “when you went out to find him even though you knew it could be dangerous.”

  “And it was dangerous,” Howard added. “I think maybe I’ve misjudged you, Aaron.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I answered. “I’m still the same guy you’ve found irritating and underachieving all these years. I’m still not good enough for your sister.”

  Howard puffed out his lips. “Apparently, she thinks otherwise,” he said. “When she insisted I walk the dog to keep you safe last night, that was the first time Abby openly defied me since our father died. To do that, she has to feel pretty strongly about you.”

  “The fourteen-year marriage, the two kids, and the thirty-year mortgage weren’t enough to convince you?” I asked. “Does she do that with everybody she finds mildly amusing?”

  “Boy,” said Howard, chuckling, “you don’t make it easy.”

  “I had a gun held to my head last night,” I said. “I’m not in a real bouncy mood.”

  “Well, please think about my apology,” he said. “And let me know if you accept it.”

  I smiled. “I’ll tell you what I tell the kids, Howard,” I said. “I accept your apology, but I’ll be on the lookout to make sure you don’t do the same thing again. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes . . . if you learn from them.”

  “Fair enough,” Howard said.

  What happened next is a bit blurry. Their Christmas Day flight left early in the afternoon, so we didn’t have a whole lot of time to spare. The usual getting-the-family-out-the-door nonsense ensued, but baggage and personnel were conveyed to Newark Liberty International on time. Security concerns made it impossible to enter the gate with the travelers, and Howard wouldn’t pay for parking—some things never change—so we said our goodbyes at the drop off curb, and headed home.

  The Tuckers’ Christmas tradition was then observed, with a family outing to the movies (Ethan is currently obsessed with Adam Sandler) and our favorite Chinese restaurant, which serves the one and only General Tso’s chicken my son will deign to eat. We weren’t the only ones at dinner, but it was pretty close. The waiter sat and talked to us for twenty minutes, and, on the house, brought everyone ice cream for dessert because Leah, fresh from Chinese classes at school, could count to ten in Mandarin.

  After we got home, Abby walked the dog without incident, and we watched our traditional Christmas video together: Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story. Shepherd, at least, had attitude.

  Once the kids were safely tucked in bed, Abby and I spent a while on the sofa with the TV off, talking about almost nothing and smiling a lot. Then, I sent her to bed.

  I had a screenplay to revise by tomorrow.

  EPILOGUE

  “You think I’ve forgotten, don’t you?” Abby said. Thirty minutes before New Year’s, we stood together in the living room, and she looked so good I wanted to devour her whole. But then, that’s not unusual.

  “Forgotten what?” I said, having to speak loudly. Along with the family, we had our usual December 31st crowd: Leah’s best friend Melissa, her parents Miriam and Richard, and Ethan’s friend from summer camp, Cody, with his parents, Barbara and Milt.

  “You know perfectly well.” My wife, when it’s her intention, can be as annoying as the next woman, depending, of course, on who the next woman happens to be. If it’s Kelly Ripa, then she can’t be as annoying. Everything’s relative.

  “Okay,” I said. “What?” But she turned away and walked to the living room, where my kids and their friends were indulging in the one holiday tradition I insist upon: watching the Marx Brothers on New Year’s Eve. This year was Horsefeathers—a personal favorite.

  Lori Shery had called earlier in the day with New Year’s wishes. She still felt it was her fault I’d almost been shot in the head, and no amount of denials would persuade her otherwise. But she was still Lori, and therefore upbeat in a totally unannoying way. I said I still owed her 167 more favors, having evened the scales by only one. Lori, however, said we were even.

  Mary Fowler had called the week before. Recovering from the shock that Kevin was going to jail for murder and attempted murder, she said she was concentrating on Justin, who apparently had lost all interest in guns and was now obsessing over superheroes, with an eye toward becoming an illustrator of “graphic novels,” or, as I like to think of them, comic books with a good publicist.

  Justin was still working at the sporting goods store, but moved
to the fishing and kayaking section. No guns.

  Kevin, meanwhile, was held without bail, and the county prosecutor had already announced he would not seek the death penalty, but would recommend life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, which I considered the appropriate form of punishment.

  Howard and Andrea had called just before dinner (in fact, while we were preparing dinner, but what else is new?). Things were fine in Minnesota, where they’d already had seven inches of snow. Our weather had warmed up, strangely, and this afternoon, it had actually been in the fifties. So everyone was getting the weather they wanted.

  Mahoney, having spent the Christmas holiday with his mother, had decided to forgive her when she promised not to send anyone else to sabotage his work. He introduced her to cell phones, and explained their use in allaying her concerns about his safety. Isobel now knows that Mahoney is never truly stranded on the road, and presumably sleeps better at night. Her son, his status as the Babe Ruth of rental car mechanics restored, probably does, too. By the time I spoke to him, he was up to Escape from the Planet of the Apes.

  Though I hadn’t heard recently from his mother’s long-ago boyfriend, I knew Mr. Shapiro was out there somewhere. On the first morning of Chanukah, I had gone out for the newspapers in the morning and found a dozen Sonny Amster bagels on the doorstep.

  Big, Bigger, and Biggest were no longer outside the house. But if someone comes after me again with a Glock, I may request their renewed interest.

  Lydia Soriano at Snapdragon was pleased with my Asperger’s angle on the Michael Huston story, and thought she might assign me a more general AS story early in the new year. I was happy with the potential for more work, and with the $1,500 check for the Huston piece (750 words at $2 a word).

  Karen Huston, charged with hiring Kevin Fowler to kill her husband, was out on bail. Her father had seen to that, and hired a colleague, someone he’d gone to law school with, to defend her. I doubted she’d ever make it to trial. Abby said an incompetence defense was probably going to force a plea bargain at some point. She’d initially thought Karen might try to get immunity by selling out her uncle, but the possibility she knew enough about Shapiro to merit prosecutorial attention was remote, and besides, it was better to go to jail than to get Hyman Shapiro mad at you.

  Rezenbach himself faced no charges—he hadn’t known about Karen’s plans or her hiring of Kevin Fowler. He’d merely supplied money and connections when she’d asked, and because she was his daughter, he’d asked no questions.

  Karen was said never to leave her house, but she hired a boy across the street to walk Dalma after three others turned her down. The poor dog was thought to be unlucky. Dalma loved the boy across the street, and there was speculation that if Karen went to jail, Dalma would find a home not far away.

  Leah couldn’t stop laughing when Harpo dashed through the streets in a garbage cart pulled by two white horses. If you haven’t seen the movie Horsefeathers, there’s absolutely no way to explain it.

  With only a short time before midnight, I recalled that, though we had lit the Chanukah candles after dinner, we hadn’t yet given the kids their gifts. We’d decided to make this night the Big Present night because of the “double” holiday (Chanukah and New Year’s).

  I called the gathering to attention and raised my plastic cup of Diet Coke. “Ladies and gentlemen!” I shouted. “Thank you for coming tonight. It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without you. But tonight, it’s also the sixth night of Chanukah, and my children have been waiting a very long time for this.”

  Abby arrived with two boxes, a small one and a larger one. “For Leah,” Abby said, and our daughter ran forward and accepted the smaller box. “Thank you, Mom and Dad,” she said, and quickly opened her gift.

  “A digital camera!” And the least expensive one there was, too, since we knew she’d destroy it in about two weeks. But Leah is an aspiring photographer, and the film and developing bills were becoming serious enough to merit the change to digital media. It was an equitable trade-off. Leah hugged each of us, especially me, since she knew Abby didn’t have a clue how to go about selecting a digital camera.

  “This one,” Abby said, indicating the larger box, “is for Dad to give.” We had disagreed a bit on this, and she had finally given in to my point of view. I took the box and handed it to Ethan.

  “Now, it’s something that’s not on your list,” I told him.

  “It’s not?” He was suspicious. Another “Trouble” game?

  But when he opened the box, he was not disappointed. “PlayStation2!” he shouted, and there was actually some applause around the back of the room. “Dad!”

  “Well,” I said, “I got paid for writing the Michael Huston story, and you helped by solving the murder. You deserved something special for that.”

  Ethan, who avoids most physical contact, gave me a bear hug and held it for a long time. Then he asked if he could leave the party to set it up in his room, and I said he had to be back in fifteen minutes for midnight. He said he would.

  Just as Abby was bringing out plastic cups filled with champagne, the phone rang. I figured it was my mother, offering New Year’s wishes and a tale or two of supermarket subterfuge at her local Shop Rite. As I took the plastic flute of champagne, my wife said, “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “I’m sure you haven’t.” The woman was demented. I picked up the phone.

  “Aaron!” said Glenn Waterman. “Happy New Year!”

  “Not for another six minutes, Glenn. Or three hours and six minutes, where you are.”

  “Well, I’m getting to you early,” he said. “I read the revisions, and you’re a genius.” I didn’t tell him I was a ridiculously fast genius, having revised a 120-page screenplay in five hours. Or that I’d gotten two hours of sleep Christmas night, and then FedEx’ed him the screenplay on the 26th.

  “Thanks. Does this mean . . . ?”

  “After the first of the year, we’re going to call your agent to work out an option,” Glenn said. “Happy New Year.”

  I grinned. “It certainly seems that way.”

  After I hung up, Leah, who’d been sent to retrieve her brother, did so, and just in time. We all raised our glasses as Dick Clark and 500,000 of his closest friends counted down the seconds. I had no time to tell Abby about the call.

  She sidled over to me with three seconds left. “I didn’t forget!” she shouted over the din, and then it was a new year, and everyone was shouting and kissing.

  My wife gave me a kiss that would kill a normal man, and held me so tight I thought we would meld into one big parent—not that I was complaining.

  “Happy birthday,” she said. “I never forget.”

  “Okay, you remembered. Thanks. So, where’s my present?”

  “Later,” she said.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Every word of this book is completely fictional, but there is one real person in it: Lori Shery of ASPEN, Inc., who really was there at the beginning when everyone was wondering what an Asperger was, and we were panicking because a doctor had just said the “autism” word to us for the first time. Every word about her kind, selfless dedication to we Asperger parents is true, and I really would jump on the bandwagon if Lori decided to become the first female Jewish president. She kindly agreed to become a fictional character for my book, and I appreciate it beyond what I can express. Thanks, Lori.

  In addition, Sonny Amster’s Bakery in Millburn, The Galloping Hill Inn in Union, and Thomas Sweets Ice Cream in New Brunswick (and Princeton), NJ are real businesses. I sincerely doubt the bakery’s bagels are the favorite of any organized crime figures, but I really have no way of knowing. If you’re in the area, you should definitely check out all these places (and no, I have no business interest in any of them). As for the rest, it’s all made up.

  But for all the parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings, friends, and those with AS or high-functioning autism, I hope the depiction of Asperger Syndrome found herein
is one that pleases you. Keep fighting the good fight, and maybe the world will understand the differences a little better one day. If you believe, however, that I am making light of the situation, that I don’t think AS is a serious thing, I apologize and beg your forgiveness—nothing could be farther from the truth. But without a sense of humor, we have no perspective, and we can’t be everything we should.

  My family approaches Asperger’s with as much humor as we can, and our own Aspie is a source of pride and inspiration beyond our wildest hopes. Sometimes, even his jokes are funny. Should this book be your introduction to Asperger Syndrome, welcome. Please take it in the spirit in which the story is offered—as an entertainment.

  If you want to know more, please go to:

  http://www.aspennj.org

  or any of the links at the web site

  http://www.aarontucker.com for more information.

  And when the “weird kid” in your class does something in a way that might not be the way you’d do it, maybe you should think twice.

  For this book, thanks to the usual suspects: my wife and family, editor and publisher Bruce Bortz, PJ Nunn, Mindy Starns Clark, Mark D. Terry, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Ross Hugo-Vidal, Jeff Pollitzer, Ian Abrams, Michael Levine, Marcy Gross, and Ann Weston.

  Thanks to the wonderful booksellers I’ve met who work so hard to get my books to readers who’d like them. Thanks, also, to the wonderful librarians who work, if possible, even harder.

  To everyone who has taken the time to email and let me know the books have tickled or touched them, thank you. That is an author’s greatest joy.

  Thanks also to Rita at Penny’s Restaurant in Highland Park, NJ, for making possible such great book launch parties (but shame on you, Rita, for selling the business; now how will we have a launch party?), and to all those who go out of their way to attend. Seeing you there, or at bookstores or libraries, is well worth the trouble of sitting down to write a book.

  Aaron Tucker and his family and friends were born out of a desire to amuse. If you’ve been entertained by this or the other books in the series, please feel free to let me know at jeff@aarontucker.com.