“The problem is I don’t know how to identify them.”
Darren grinned and made his barking, happy noise before he signed again. You leave it to me. Now you’re talking online research and information gathering from social media, and that’s my area. You keep focusing on numbers.
There weren’t any numbers to focus on right now, but I decided I would find some because they’d be soothing. “What song are we going to do?”
Darren rocked and hummed, and I joined him as we considered. Every so often he would play a song on Spotify, and we would listen to it before discarding it as an option, though there were a few we liked well enough for him to put into a playlist we called the Viral Maybe list. The problem was neither one of us was good at this sort of thing, and though we had seventeen songs by the time David and Jeremey returned, we didn’t love any of them, and when David took a look at our list, he didn’t love any of them either.
“I’m down with the idea of the viral vid, though. I’ve been itching to do another one of those since forever. Let me think about it for a bit, and I’ll get back to you, okay?”
Except David didn’t come up with anything. There were songs we all thought were good, but nothing fit our theme for The Roosevelt Project and what we were trying to do.
“It’s got to be something selling the idea of helping people grow.” David scrolled through his music library. “Something about hope and the future and trying new things and having your own life…fuck, there’s no song like that.”
We kept searching, though, until one day we found it. Or rather, Jeremey found it.
He’d gone to Walmart with Tammy, which was crazy because he hated Walmart, but he was looking for a new dog bed for Mai, and he didn’t care for the ones anywhere else, and someone had said there were some soft ones for not much money on special at Walmart. Jeremey came home with a dog bed, but he also came home with a song title, something he’d heard playing on the overhead speakers while he shopped. The song was “Try Everything” by Shakira, from the Zootopia soundtrack.
None of us had seen the movie, so we all watched it together. It was a nice film about not judging people by appearances, though I had a difficult time accepting some of the creative physics of the cartoon animals.
Of course since we watched it in the lounge, the rest of The Roosevelt watched it too, including Stuart. Tammy had suggested we watch it there since everyone else would enjoy it, and she’d rented the movie on The Roosevelt’s money, so I couldn’t say no. I wish I had bought the movie myself so we could have gone to my apartment. I couldn’t hear half the movie because Stuart kept making noises. He insisted on sitting next to us too, trying to get my attention. He was always bothering me lately, always touching my arm and making noise at me. Sally told me Stuart considered me a hero, that it was flattering, but to me it was annoying.
The song Jeremey found was pretty much everything David had wanted in a song. The singer talked about how she wanted to try everything, wanted to do it all, though she knew she would fail, and she would keep trying and fill her heart with love, wouldn’t give up or give in. It had a nice beat, and we could all see how we could dance or move to it, even Darren who would have limited movements.
I like this song a lot, Darren signed.
David nodded. “There’s a lot to it, but it’s not so nailed down it can’t be stretched to fit our message. I remember it now from when the movie was out, but it’s not so overdone we can’t use it. Plus it’s been awhile, so we’re reviving it.”
I imagined us dancing in our Blues Brothers outfits to it, and I couldn’t help smiling. “Where would we film the video? Not Target again.”
David shook his head. “No. We take this baby on the road. We do some on the Internet on our own, but then we go places where other people will take video and do the job for us. We get Mai a Blues Brothers outfit to go under her service dog vest. Or something so she’s part of it too. Emmet, I say we get Kaya involved at this point. She’s going to have ideas.”
Kaya did have ideas. She was a big fan of our “Happy” viral video, and when she heard our plans for “Try Everything” and David’s thoughts for a statewide tour, she made high-pitched noises and bounced up and down. “Yes. Oh my God, yes. I’m going to talk to marketing, but I have so many ideas. You guys are going to have to tell me what you can and can’t do, but I think we could make this work. Both promotional for The Roosevelt Project but also advance work to undercut King and his cronies.” She looked as if she wanted to hug me, and she almost did, then ended up hugging herself instead. “Sorry. You’re making me too excited.”
I smiled at her and held up my hand. “Let’s do this instead. High-fives.”
She gave me a high-five, but then she started to cry, which I didn’t understand. She said she was happy, not sad, but I went to my desk to do math, because my octopus had had enough Kaya for a while after that.
We began practicing for our new lip sync the same day we decided on the song, but I could tell right away it was going to be different than when we did “Happy” at Target.
I suppose it made sense because “Happy” was a celebration for Jeremey and for the three of us, but “Try Everything” wasn’t a celebration. We had an agenda, as Kaya kept reminding us. We weren’t setting up the song to have fun. We wanted to convince people to call their representatives and support our project. Or be willing to call them later. It was complicated to put the message into a dance move.
“Don’t think too much about making sure your dance achieves the right result,” Kaya told me when I expressed my concern. “Your job is to convey the right message.”
“But the right message is the one that achieves the goal,” I pointed out.
She said I should have faith, but I had never liked this answer, so I kept trying to use math and algorithms to solve the gap between our message and the goal. It didn’t work, though, no matter what I did. I researched everything I could, but the more I investigated, the more I discovered this was a place where prediction could not win.
I warned you, Darren said over chat when I finally asked him for help and he confessed he had nothing to give me. If there was a way to harness public opinion, political scientists and the entertainment industry would do it. Sometimes they manage to find a way, but it only works for a while. Human brains don’t want to be controlled.
I don’t want to control them. I only want to explain to them why our way is the better way.
But even as I typed to Darren, I realized I did want to control their brains. Not for long, and not for a bad reason. But if I had to control them to get The Roosevelt Project settled…
I thought of RJ King and his algorithm that tricked the city council. I wondered what else he would think of to control the state legislature, how he was controlling the voters. Did it mean I should try to control them too?
Did I have to be like RJ King to beat RJ King?
My head began to hurt, and I said goodbye to Darren and put my monitor to sleep, but when rocking in my chair didn’t help, I got up to go to my closet and my sensory sack. Except for the first time ever I didn’t want my sack. Or my bed, or my hammer, or anything. I didn’t know what I wanted. I was confused, and lost, and overwhelmed.
I wandered around the apartment, humming, pacing along the edge of the carpet where it meets the hardwood floor. My octopus was wild, and I wanted to pound my skull against the wall to stop it. All the sounds were too loud, the scrape of the clock hands in the bathroom, the roar of the refrigerator, the banging of the water as it dripped into the sink, the loud echoes of air rushing through the furnace, and water burbling in the pipes.
A song and dance could never beat RJ King. It would take lies and tricks and algorithms. Was I not smart enough to lie and trick the way he did? Or not mean enough?
Why did it feel as if I could see the future, that I already had the algorithm in my hand and it was telling me the good guys would lose and the bad guys would win, that the math was stacked against me?
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Footsteps in the hall startled me out of my thoughts, each thump on the floor echoing in my head. I twitched when a key clawed at the lock, and I wanted to leave, to go to my room and hide, but I couldn’t. I knew it was Jeremey on the other side of the door. I heard him speaking softly to Mai, in his loving voice he only uses to her, telling her they would go inside and get a treat and then sit and watch TV together. Jeremey talks to Mai all the time, and hugs her. She is his sensory sack, except he can have his sensory sack on a leash and use it almost anytime.
I didn’t want my sensory sack right now, though. Or, at least, I didn’t want the one in my closet.
My head hurt so much, pounding on the top right side of my skull, making my eyes water. The room felt too bright, too sharp, and I wanted to leave it, but what I wanted more was to see Jeremey. I didn’t know why. Part of me was afraid when he and Mai entered the room the stimulus would be too much and I would have a breakdown and embarrass myself and upset Jeremey and not look like the competent boyfriend I wanted to be. But most of me didn’t care about that. Something in me was sure if I only saw him, I would feel better.
The door opened, my octopus riled, and I hummed, trying to keep myself from falling apart.
The sun was setting outside, and there is a window outside our door, so when Jeremey came in, he was a shadow with white-orange light all around him. With my sensitivity on such high alert it felt like a rush of electricity, as if I’d touched a light socket, but then he shut the door and I could see him normally. Except he was still beautiful to me. Beautiful, soft, tender, perfect Jeremey, my Jeremey, his smile fading as he saw me, his expression becoming complex and then turning into concerned as he quickly undid Mai’s harness and vest and crossed the room to me.
“Emmet—Emmet, are you all right?”
He stood before me, so close I could almost feel his breath, but he didn’t touch me. His eyes were focused with fear, moving all over my body, trying to find out why I was upset. Despite his panic, though, he took such care with me. He knew just how to be with me. He kept his voice quiet. He came close but didn’t overstimulate. He was worried but didn’t run for help, not until I told him to or he saw that I was in trouble.
Maybe I had more than one sensory sack. Maybe I had a Mai too.
Except I couldn’t decide if I wanted to snuggle in the sack or talk to it. I decided to try talking, though with as upset as I was, I was going to have to sign. I’m sad and overwhelmed. I don’t think we can beat RJ King.
Jeremey could have spoken his reply, but he signed anyway. We haven’t tried yet.
I can’t find the formula. I think the formula only works if you’re a liar and a cheat. I don’t want to be a liar and a cheat. I don’t want to be like him. The tightness in my throat burst out, and a loud, ugly sob rattled the silence of the room. I shut my eyes and kept signing. But I don’t want The Roosevelt Project to fail.
Another sob followed, and for a moment I gave into crying because it was all I could do. Then I felt hands move over my arms, not touching but disturbing the air above them.
“Emmet, can I hug you?”
I nodded, still crying. I didn’t want a hug, but I wanted Jeremey, and this was the way he would be with me now. He hugged me tight, carefully, the same way he handled the rest of me. The hug didn’t comfort me much, but thinking about how thoughtfully Jeremey executed the hug made me feel loved, and it helped calm me.
Jeremey kissed me, a soft, firm touch, his lips pressed to my cheek. He pulled away, and he spoke, his voice quiet.
“I don’t know how to beat King, or if we can. But I know I want to try. I also know I could never do it on my own. Only with you and the others. But mostly you, Emmet. I can do a lot of things now with Mai. But with you? When you’re with me, Emmet Washington, I always feel as if I could do anything in the world. Even if it scares me.” He kissed me again, this time closer to my lips. “I don’t think you have to lie or cheat, either. I don’t think you should. I think if we put our message out there, people will be impressed and believe in us and do the right thing.”
This was the part where I always got so tangled inside, where all I could do was think about what new evil algorithm King was using. “What is our message? How will it beat King’s math?”
“Our message is everyone deserves a chance to grow and live in the world, to have safe space. We have a program for how people with special needs can have that place, and it’s affordable for tax payers.”
I considered this a moment. “I think this is an accurate but awkward message.”
“It’s not an easy thing to paraphrase, no. It’s not an easy thing to do.” Jeremey put his head on my shoulder. “Do you remember when I told you managing my anxiety and depression was like trying to carry an ocean? I feel as if The Roosevelt Project is the same thing, but bigger. We’re carrying everyone else’s oceans too. It’s a lot of oceans.”
My octopus was still wobbly, but it liked Jeremey, and it was calm enough I could think about his simile. “We aren’t carrying the oceans. We’re helping them find places to be to carry them themselves more easily.”
“We’re trying to shelter the sea, then.”
I shut my eyes and imagined this, Jeremey and Darren and David and Kaya and me standing on a beach, holding our oceans while we guarded other people like us as they scooped up their waters and found a place to stand. “It’s good. But I don’t think people would understand it if we put it on a poster, and I don’t know if it would make them call their representatives.”
Jeremey picked up my hand, threading our fingers together. “But it will help you. You can put it on a poster inside your head, and whenever RJ King makes you angry or you feel defeated, remember you’re helping to shelter the sea. It’s a big, impossible job, but you already know how to carry an ocean, so it’s not such a big deal after all.”
My heart felt full, my headache fading, my octopus settling in the haze of happiness. “I love you, Jeremey.”
“I love you too, Emmet.” He touched the center of my chest, right beside my heart. “Will you make love to me? Right now?”
I wanted to make love to him, but I also wanted to ask him to marry me. I was so full of love for him in that moment I wanted to ask him right there. I knew he would say yes. I knew too all my fears were silly, and there was no reason not to ask him.
Except I thought about the way Jeremey had taken such care with me. How right now he was aware my autism might mean I would say no and I couldn’t have sex with him right now because I was overstimulated.
How Jeremey would like to be proposed to?
It didn’t matter to me how it happened because it was just a question, and now that I knew I wanted to do it, his agreement was all I needed, but I wondered what kind of care I should put into asking for Jeremey.
I didn’t know the answer to this question yet, except I knew it should be more special than simply asking him in the middle of my breakdown.
Instead I pushed through my stimulation as much as I could as I replied to him, touching his face, kissing him softly on the lips though it made my whole body feel as if there were wooly bears crawling all over me. “Yes, I would like to make love to you right now.” I tried to speak in a sexy whisper, but I had a feeling it wasn’t as good of a sexy whisper as I wanted it to be.
If Jeremey thought so, he didn’t tell me. He shivered and shut his eyes, his body almost going limp. “Emmet.”
I wasn’t sure how long I could keep doing this, but I decided I would try. “Take care of Mai while I clean up in the bathroom, then meet me in my room. Then I’ll make love to you some more.” I kissed him softly again, telling the octopus to make friends with the wooly bears.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jeremey
There was something different about Emmet as he made love to me.
It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t so odd I felt as if someone else was having sex with me, but I noticed we weren’t having the sex we usually had. It wasn’t as if we al
ways did the exact same thing, but Emmet does have his patterns and habits, and, well, we have them in bed too. This was more than that, though. It was the way he was having sex with me that felt different. I liked it, but it was so unexpected I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He was so gentle. Emmet has a thing about pressure and the way he touches me. When it’s too soft it overstimulates him. I worried he wouldn’t be able to have sex at all because he’d been so upset in the living room, and any contact might have been too much.
So why was he running his hands over my skin, so soft and faint I tingled all over? His lips on my collarbone were bare brushes, teases and whispers—this should be making his skin crawl, but he didn’t stop, didn’t say anything. It was something out of my deepest fantasy, but I couldn’t enjoy it. All I could think about was how out of character it was for him, how it went against everything I knew him to be, and eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. I put my hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eye.
“Emmet, what’s going on? Why are you being so soft?”
He frowned. “Am I doing it wrong?”
I couldn’t stop a shiver. “No. It’s wonderful—but you can’t be enjoying it, can you? You always tell me this is the kind of touch you can’t stand. That it almost hurts you.”
“But you like it. I wanted you to have it this time.”
My heart ached and melted at the same time. “I don’t want you to hurt for me. It isn’t pleasure for me if it hurts you.”
He ran his hand down my sternum, the contact soft but more firm, an Emmet touch again. “It doesn’t hurt exactly. More of a tickle.”
I touched him too, being pointed in giving him the sensation I knew he enjoyed. “Have I ever complained about your touches? Have I said I wished for something different?”
He was staring at my hairline, but I knew he was looking as directly into my eyes as he could. “You like them. You should get them sometimes. And I don’t want anyone else to give them to you.”
My heart swelled, and I pulled him closer to me, so his chest was pressed to mine as I spoke into his ear. “But don’t you see, Emmet? All I want is you. It’s as if you’re the cake and everything else is frosting. I don’t want any other cake but you.”
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