The Question of the Felonious Friend

by E. J. Copperman

  “Why did you come in to ask if I knew him?” Richard asked. His voice, even at a low volume, betrayed some anxiety.

  “I did not ask if you knew him,” I corrected. “I was aware that he came to this store every day. I asked if you were a friend of his.” That was, after all, the reason for my visit to the Somerset Quik N EZ. I did not mention to Richard the appalling spelling his store’s name expressed, since I doubted that was his responsibility.

  “Why?” Richard had avoided answering the question.

  I did not wish to disclose my role in the question. For one thing, I have always maintained anonymity for my clients when discussing a question with anyone but the client or the police. For another, I believed it would be best for Tyler if it were not known he had paid me to answer this question for him.

  “Because I have met Tyler and have an interest in knowing if he has friends,” I said. That was a very general response, but it might sound to Richard like I had said something valuable.

  “Are you jealous?” he asked.

  That was confusing. Why would I be jealous? And of whom? Did Richard want me to be jealous? “I don’t understand the question,” I said.

  “Are you, like, in love with this guy and you don’t want him to have any friends?” Richard said.

  Now I was lost in unfamiliar territory and was coming up short of acceptable responses. “That is definitely not the situation,” I said. “I am merely concerned about Tyler’s ability to find friends and am trying to verify what he told me, that you were a good friend of his.” All of that was true, and I had managed to avoid mentioning I was being paid for my efforts.

  Ms. Washburn, who could still hear the conversation through the cellular telephone in my pocket, raised a thumb toward me, telling me I had handled the situation well. She must have known it was awkward for me.

  “A good friend?” Richard’s face contorted into an expression of something that, if I were reading it correctly, was disgust. “No way, man. Look. I went over to the guy’s house once to play some games I didn’t have the money to buy myself. Then he starts coming into the store every day and mooning at me like I’m his lost puppy or something. I feel sorry for the big dweeb and this is what I get for it, him sending some truant officer to ask if I’m his friend.”

  “I am not a truant officer,” I said. That was the only thing I could demonstrably refute in the tirade Richard had launched, particularly since I was not familiar with the word dweeb. It did not sound like a complimentary term the way Richard said it. This conversation was going in a disappointing direction.

  The other counter worker from the Quik N EZ opened the store door and extended his head through it. “Come on, Rich,” he said. “I can’t cover for you forever.”

  Richard looked back at him, nodded, and then turned back toward me. “Don’t come around here anymore. Okay, man? I don’t have anything to tell you and I don’t know what your deal is, so just go harass somebody else about the ADHD kid. Okay?”

  As he turned to walk back to the store, I felt I had one last chance to clarify the issue and report an answer to my client. “So you are saying you’re not a friend of Tyler Clayton?” I asked.

  This time when Richard turned to face me, his attitude bordered on pity. “No,” he said. Then he turned back and walked into the convenience store.

  Even though I knew he was not within the sound of my voice, I found myself asking aloud, “Does that mean you are not Tyler’s friend, or that it wasn’t what you were saying?”

  Five

  My mother sat in the reclining chair in the Questions Answered office with her feet raised, sipping on a cup of hot tea I had purchased for her at the small grocery, A Quick Bite, three doors down from our office in the strip mall on Stelton Road. Mother likes to breathe in the steam from the tea, then drink it slowly. She says tea should not be drunk quickly, as that practice would somehow insult the beverage and negate its positive (Mother would say healing) properties.

  I believe tea is a drink, one of which I am not fond, and that at best it might help to relax the sinuses. But I also believe Mother is entitled to her beliefs about the liquids she pours into her body.

  “I think you’re splitting hairs,” she said now, after closing her eyes for a moment and thinking about the information I’d just given her. “That means—”

  “I know what it means,” I said.

  Mother nodded. “You asked the boy whether he is a friend of Tyler’s, and he said no. You have the answer to Tyler’s question. It’s not the one he wanted, but it is the correct answer. Why don’t you want to give it to him? I’ve never seen you acting sentimental before.” She smiled a tiny bit, and I recognized the look. She thought I was making some sort of breakthrough with my Asperger’s Syndrome, and was both hopeful and proud at the same moment. It was going to be difficult to dash her hopes, but she was mistaken.

  “I am not being sentimental,” I said. “It’s not a question of empathy for Tyler. I do understand what it is like to be without age-­appropriate friends, and you know that. But this is not about that, and Tyler is not me. This is simply a situation in which I am not certain of the answer and am reluctant to present my client with incomplete data.”

  Mother looked over at Ms. Washburn’s desk. After we’d returned from the Quik N EZ, Ms. Washburn had spent six hours working on research for two other questions our office was answering. She had heard every word of my exchange with Richard Handy, had expressed much the same opinion as Mother was now stating, and after hearing my explanation, had chosen not to discus Tyler’s question for the rest of the day. I believe this is called “passive aggression.”

  “What else do you need to know?” Mother said. She closed her eyes and took another sip of tea, then sighed a bit after she swallowed. “You can’t possibly be confused by Richard’s answer to your last question. Janet was recording it on her phone and played it for me while you were exercising. He was very clear. He doesn’t consider Tyler a friend.”

  I had spent some time on the telephone—something I do not like to do—with Tyler Clayton’s sister, Sandy Clayton Webb, after we had returned to the office. I did not tell her I had obtained a successful answer, but I did get Sandy’s perspective on how her brother might react to news that was not what he was hoping to hear.

  “Does that mean he’s going to hear bad news?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I do not have enough facts to definitively answer the question.” In my mind, that was certainly true. Mother and Ms. Washburn were questioning my reasoning, but it was, finally, my reasoning that Tyler had sought out.

  “Well, nobody’s happy to find out that someone they consider a friend really isn’t,” Sandy said after a pause. “But Tyler’s a special case, as I’m sure you realize.”

  In my opinion everyone is a special case, since no two people are exactly alike. What Sandy meant was that Tyler’s behavior places him on the autism spectrum, and she was implying that meant he required special treatment. It has long been my contention that the world needs to accept more than modify the behavior of those like myself, but this was not the time to get into a philosophical argument with Sandy while I decided on a course of action.

  “I understand that Tyler has a diagnosis on the autism spectrum,” I said. “Does his behavior include anger difficulties or depression?”

  “Not depression,” Sandy said. “Thank goodness we haven’t had to deal with that. But he has had anger issues, especially when he was at school. He threw chairs a few times. He never hurt anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I assure you, I am never asking anything other than what I am asking.” That seemed an odd sentence as I heard it out loud, but Sandy did not seem to have an issue with it.

  “That’s comforting,” she said.

  “When Tyler was here, he mentioned your brother Mason,” I said. It was an avenue I’d wanted to ex
plore since I’d met Sandy the first time, but this was my opportunity to do so without Tyler present. “Does Tyler live with him?”

  “Yes,” Sandy said. “Mason is not married and doesn’t have kids. I was married at the time our mother died, and our father had left many years before. Someone had to take Tyler, and then it couldn’t be me, so he went to live with Mason.”

  “Perhaps I should discuss this matter with him, then,” I suggested.

  “I wish you wouldn’t.” Initially I believed that Sandy was asking me to grant her a wish as one would a genie in a fantasy story. Then I realized it was an expression she was using, a way to ask me to avoid talking to Mason Clayton. “Tyler didn’t tell Mason he was coming to see you because he thought Mason would tell him not to do it. That’s why I dropped him off and picked him up at your office. Tyler spends a lot of his days here, especially when he’s working because his job is nearby. Mason works during the day for a company that power washes houses, so we waited for a day when it wasn’t raining.”

  That was perhaps more detail than I had been expecting, so it took me a moment to process all the information. “Is Mason stern or authoritative with Tyler?”

  “Do you mean is Tyler afraid of Mason?” Sandy asked. She was astute; that would have been my next question. “I wouldn’t use the word afraid, really. Tyler wants Mason to approve of everything he does; in a way, I think he wants to be Mason when he grows up.”

  “Tyler is an adult,” I pointed out.

  “Physically, yes. But emotionally? He’s probably about fifteen years old.”

  Again, I saw no benefit in explaining to Sandy that the measurements of one’s emotional age are devised by and based upon people whose behavior does not place them on the autism spectrum and so therefore are invalid for those of us with Asperger’s Syndrome or another form of difference. It would not help answer Tyler’s question. The best thing to do, then, was to thank Sandy for her time. I did not request Mason Clayton’s phone number or contact information since Sandy seemed reluctant to share them. It would be easy enough for Ms. Washburn to find them tomorrow.

  Now I was trying to explain and defend my position in a conversation with my mother. And she had just suggested that Richard Handy had told me in no uncertain terms that he did not consider himself Tyler Clayton’s friend.

  “The terms were anything but certain,” I reminded her. “Richard left it open to my interpretation as to whether he was answering my question, or stating whether he was answering my question.”

  “I don’t think you believe that,” Mother reasserted. “I think you just don’t want to disappoint the young man who hired you.”

  I stood up. “I have completed my work for the day,” I said. “Shall we go home now?”

  But Mother did not extricate herself from the recliner. “What’s this really about, Samuel?” she asked.

  “I don’t understand. This is, as always, about finding an accurate and correct answer to the client’s question. Tyler asked whether Richard Handy is his friend.”

  “And you know that he’s not. So why are you delaying the inevitable? Is it that you see too much of yourself in Tyler and you know how much the answer will hurt?”

  I shook my head as much in wonder as to communicate a negative answer. “I do not believe myself to be at all similar to Tyler Clayton,” I said. “In the neurotypical terminology, his symptoms are not at all like mine. He is less verbal. He is not able to maintain a business as I do. He does not think in logical terms and so his decisions are often driven by projection and emotion rather than by facts.”

  Mother looked into my eyes for a moment, then stood up slowly, her knees being somewhat stiffened by arthritis. I do sometimes worry about her health; she had a heart issue some years ago.

  “Samuel,” she said quietly as she began walking slowly to the door, “the Beatles song. The one with all the yeah-yeah-yeahs in it.”

  We reached the door and I opened it for her. I have learned that one opens the door for a lady, particularly for one’s mother. I knew she was not simply asking me a random question about the Beatles, but I did not yet understand her point in bringing up the song. “‘She Loves You,’” I said, although I was certain Mother knew which song was in question.

  “Yes, that one. How would you interpret the lyrics?”

  We walked out into the evening and the cooler air was refreshing, but I was paying attention to what I was sure was a ploy by my mother to reiterate her point. “The lyrics are quite straightforward,” I said. “It concerns the singer telling a man that a woman he has previously treated badly still loves him.”

  “But the third party is doing the singing,” Mother said. “Right? It’s not called ‘I Love You.’”

  “That’s correct, Mother, and you’re well aware of it. What is your point?” I opened the car door for her and she got in on the driver’s side.

  “Do you think the person singing is doing the right thing?” she asked.

  I closed her door and walked around to the passenger side as Mother started the car. I got in and sat in the passenger seat. “The right thing?” I asked.

  “Yes. Do you think in that case, with a woman who loves a man sending that message through a third party, should the third party have kept the information away from him?”

  It had never occurred to me before that such a simple lyric might have contained a moral dilemma. “The decision has been made before the song begins, and we are given very little in the way of detail about the relationship in question,” I said. “It is an early song and not one of the more sophisticated lyrics.”

  “Still.” Mother put the transmission into reverse and backed out of the parking space. She changed gears to drive and maneuvered the car toward the parking lot exit. “It’s clear the woman in the song asked this other person to deliver a message, and he is doing it. Should he have refused to do so?”

  “I don’t see why. The woman in the song asked for the message to be delivered.”

  “And is the man being told she loves you better off for the knowledge?” Mother asked. Now her tactic was becoming more transparent.

  “It is impossible to say without more information,” I said, trying to counter Mother’s trap before she could spring it. “It is possible the relationship in question is not a healthy one, or that the recipient of the information might find it uncomfortable.”

  Mother kept her eyes straight on the road, which is the sensible thing to do while driving. She knows I get very nervous when I ride in a car with someone who does not concentrate on safety behind the wheel.

  “So it’s better to be kept ignorant of another person’s feelings rather than have the opportunity to act on them?” she asked.

  I did not see the appeal of continuing this hypothetical. “Mother, we are discussing a song written more than fifty years ago about fictional people. While the situation seems relevant to Tyler Clayton’s question on its surface, it is not. Richard Handy did not ask me to tell Tyler he is not a friend.”

  Mother waited until completing a right turn before answering. “I think he did, but you didn’t necessarily understand what he was asking,” she said. “You wanted to think Richard was being vague, but he wasn’t. You asked if he was a friend of Tyler’s and he said no. You know that’s true and, having listened to the recording, I know it’s true. Why are you hesitating to give Tyler the answer to his question?”

  I did not want to readdress my concerns about Richard’s statement. I sometimes have difficulty seeing another person’s perspective, so I decided to consider Mother’s point of view. Her guidance has been extremely valuable in the past.

  The same is true of Ms. Washburn, whose interpretation of the events at Quik N EZ were similar to Mother’s. I could not dismiss them out of hand.

  “I am ashamed of myself for asking the question,” I said finally. “I had specifically set out to avoid mak
ing it clear to Richard what I’d been sent to find out. I thought he might be cruel to Tyler when Tyler arrived at the convenience store after I left. I felt like I had let my client down. But Tyler’s sister Sandy said she has spoken with Tyler after his daily pilgrimage to the store and he had not reported any traumatic event. ”

  “So you know that Richard Handy is not Tyler Clayton’s friend,” Mother said softly.

  “I believe that to be the case, but I am not certain. It seems fairly obvious that Richard was using Tyler for video games and probably for the rather extravagant tips Tyler must leave every day when he appears.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Richard about the money?” Mother asked.

  I had wondered about that myself. With a half-day’s worth of introspection, I could answer honestly, “I’m not sure. I think it might be because I did not know how to broach the subject without making it sound like Tyler was paying Richard to be his friend.”

  “How things sound isn’t usually a concern of yours.”

  I nodded. “I know. It is very odd.”

  “This question has gotten to you personally,” Mother said. “I think the best thing to do is go to Tyler tomorrow and answer it. Put the experience behind you and let everyone move on with the next part of their lives.”

  Other than blinking I never close my eyes in a car, but I did find myself wanting to lean back and rest for a moment. This question had indeed been different than others I’d answered before, although I disagreed with the reasoning Ms. Washburn and my mother were attributing to that difference. I did not see Tyler Clayton as a younger version of myself; indeed, there was little resemblance at all. But his difficulty with social situations and his obvious need for assistance in that area had awakened a side of myself with which I was not entirely familiar. I am not by nature a person who dedicates himself to the needs of others. I answer questions I find interesting and I do so because I am in need of an income and it suits my talents well.