Benjy’s chin dropped to his chest. Finally, he said, “Grandpa wanted me to go to Dartmouth College, and I didn’t. I failed to go there.”
I was relieved this was about something so relatively minor. I smiled. “Benjy, that was a long time ago. Please don’t worry about it. That’s when he wasn’t thinking clearly. It became obvious that was not the best place for you, and Grandpa would have agreed with that, I’m certain. He did for me. The important thing is Grandpa wanted you to go to college, and you’re going to college. So he’d be very proud.”
Then I saw Lydia gesture to Benjy to keep talking. I realized there was more, and it was serious.
“I don’t want to go to college, Dad,” he said.
After a moment, I managed to say, “Oh.”
“I mean, I want to go to college, but—” His voice trailed off. He looked to Lydia, and she made a gesture, encouraging him to plunge ahead. Benjy fixed his eyes on mine. “I only want to take the courses I want, not the ones they want. I want to study English and history and political science and psychology. And car repair. So I can fix Corvairs like Kenny.”
“That’s—wow—that’s a big change from your plan,” I said. I eyed Lydia, wondering what she might have had to do with this; she shrugged as if to say she was blameless. “Benjy, you won’t get your college diploma that way,” I said. “There are certain courses you need to take, even if you don’t like them. That’s just the way the system works.”
“But that doesn’t make sense to me.”
“I know,” I confessed. “It doesn’t make sense to me either. But that’s the way it is.”
“I want to learn about what I’m interested in while I work on Corvairs with Kenny. That’s what I want to do now—work on Corvairs with Kenny.”
“Do you mean work on Corvairs with Kenny as a job? A career?” I sighed a very loud sigh.
Benjy nodded eagerly, despite my clear social cue of disappointment.
I again turned to Lydia to see if she’d instigated this. She raised her hands innocently. “Don’t look at me. It’s what he told me while you were up there. It’s what he wants.”
“Wow, Benjy, this is a lot,” I sputtered. “This needs to be thought through very carefully. Ver-ry carefully. We’ve had a lot of excitement today. Let’s take a day or two to digest all this.”
Benjy didn’t want to wait a day or two. “I want to go to college and study what I want, and work on Corvairs with Kenny, and earn money when we sell them,” he said softly. “He says we can be partners, and it’ll be a good business. Lydia said she’ll buy a Corvair from us, and two other people at the race want one, so we’ve made three sales already.”
I turned to Lydia again. “When I earn enough to buy a car,” she said, pushing a purple lock out of her eyes, “it’ll be one of Benjy’s Corvairs. Because I know it’ll be a good car.”
“Yes,” said Benjy, emphatically.
“I think this all sounds cool,” said Lydia. “Really, really cool.”
I didn’t think it sounded cool. I liked Lydia a lot, but I was very happy to see her father pull into the parking area to take her away. Parking several spots away, he waved dourly to us; he didn’t seem overjoyed to be there. “Pop the trunk,” Lydia called to him as she retrieved her garbage bag of belongings from our Corvair. She hurled the bag in the open trunk, slammed the lid shut, then returned to us.
“So. Long day, huh?” she said to Benjy.
“All days are 24 hours long,” Benjy replied.
Lydia grinned and tried to pull Benjy into an embrace. Benjy held his arms by his side and stiffened. “It’s okay to hug, isn’t it?” she asked. “You can put your arms around me, can’t you?” She slowly raised first his left arm and then his right. “You’re practically an adult now, so you can do this,” she instructed. “And then you bring your hands against my back and squeeze a little. Not too hard. Just enough. And I do the same to you.”
He let his fingers extend slowly to touch the back of her shirt, then gently squeezed.
“Perfect,” she said quietly as she relaxed for a moment in his arms. “Even though I don’t know you that well, Benjy, you’re like the only person in the world I trust. And even though I’m going away, I want to stay in touch with you, okay? I want to hear how you’re doing, and tell you how I’m doing. And I want to see you when I come back to see my mom. Will you promise to stay in touch with me?”
“Okay,” Benjy agreed. “I’m going to learn how to use Facebook.”
“Then I’m going to friend you,” Lydia replied.
“Great,” Benjy said proudly. “You’ll be my first friend.”
“Well, I can’t keep the old man waiting.” Just as Lydia had raised his arms to begin their embrace, now she lowered them to end it. Then she kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, Benjy,” she said softly.
“Okay,” he said.
“When someone says that, it’s nice to say ‘I love you’ back. If you mean it.”
Benjy nodded. He understood. Finally, he said, “I love you.”
Pleased, Lydia turned to me. “Don’t take it so hard, Mister B,” she said as she walked backwards to her father’s car. “It’ll all work out somehow.”
“Goodbye, Lydia,” I said, hoping she was right.
She got into the passenger seat of her father’s car, and they were quickly gone.
“She’s quite a girl,” I told Benjy. “I can see why you like her.”
His chin was on his chest.
“She’ll be back to see us,” I said. “You’ll be friends a long time.”
“Dad?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I want to live at Kenny’s house,” he said.
I sighed loudly again, and looked away to the sunset over the mountains.
“Upstairs—the upstairs of Kenny’s house,” he emphasized.
“I heard you, Benjy, it’s just a lot to process at once. You’re making my head spin.” I sighed and walked in a circle to digest this. “But what about those dogs?” I said finally. “You don’t like those dogs. Benjy, you—I mean—living with Kenny. I mean, he’s Kenny. Right?” I couldn’t even form a sentence.
“I think I’m okay with the dogs now that they know me. And Kenny’s my friend, even if you don’t like him. We would be like a team. I can help him do things he can’t do. And he can help me do things I can’t do. We’ll rebuild Corvairs, and I can be an advocate for them, and be an advocate for people who are different. Like I planned. So it’s really not changing what I want to do.”
“It’s not?” I thought it was changing a lot of very important things.
“No.”
“You really want to live with Kenny?”
“Yes.”
I eyed him. “You have thought about this, haven’t you?”
He nodded.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t like it,” he confessed. “And you don’t like it. I can tell. You think I can’t do it, or shouldn’t do it.”
He had read me perfectly.
“Lydia said I should tell you. She thinks it’s a good plan.”
I recalled again what Annie had told me so long ago. I would not change Benjy. He would change me.
I fished in my pocket, pulled out the keys to our Corvair, and placed them in his palm. “You’ll need a car while you’re living at Kenny’s,” I told him.
He eyed the keys, then me. “You won’t have a Corvair, Dad,” he said. “The Camry is not as good as the Corvair.”
“I will have a Corvair. Because, if you do this, you have to promise me that I can have the first Corvair you restore. Is that a deal?”
He closed his fingers over the keys. “Deal,” he agreed. “But you have to pay for it.”
“I will pay for it,” I assured him.
He beamed.
“You sold a lot of Corvairs today,” I told him. “You’re good at this.”
He grinned brightly—brighter than
he’d grinned in a long time.
I reached over and tousled his hair, and he didn’t resist. “Do you remember when you opened the envelope from Wheeler?” I asked him. “Do you remember what you said?”
He nodded. Of course, he remembered.
But I still reminded him. “You said there was no place in this world for you. But you were wrong. There is a place. You’re making it.”
He nodded, then suddenly yanked me into a bear hug and squeezed, knocking half the wind out of me. I didn’t care. Bless you, Lydia, for teaching him to hug.
The Corvair fired up on Benjy’s first turn of the key. When we reached the cemetery gate, I thanked the manager for staying open. “Not a problem,” he said. “I’ve been admiring your car. My grandparents had one. But haven’t you heard? It’s unsafe at any speed!” Then he winked.
Benjy understood the social cue. From deep in his gut, rolling up the back of his throat, then erupting out his wide open mouth, came a volcanic roar. “HA, HA, HA, HA!” he laughed, his body heaving. “HA, HA, HA, HA!” he rejoiced, proudly and defiantly different, rocking behind the wheel of his beloved Corvair.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many wonderful people urged me to write this book, and then supported me when I was on the verge of giving it up. I want to – and wish I could – thank each by name, but please accept my apologies in advance if lack of space, poor notes, or bad memory cause me to leave one of you out.
First, I thank Jonathan Rintels, Sr., my father, who first introduced me to Corvairs, and my son, Jonathan III, known to all as “J.B.,” who first introduced me to Asperger’s Syndrome. In truth, they both taught me so much more about life than they did about those two things, and they both continue to inspire me daily. And while the three generations of my family obviously informed this book, please understand that the Bennetts are a fictional family in a work of fiction, and the two families should not be confused.
Those who generously tutored me in all things Corvair include Scott Allison, Warren LeVeque, Michael LeVeque, Timothy Shortle, Wade Lanning, David Robertson, Allen Bristow, the other always supportive members of the Central Virginia Corvair Club, and the excellent Communique magazine of CORSA, the Corvair Society of America. Dollie Cole gave generously of her time to share stories about her late husband, Edward N. Cole, the “Father of the Corvair.” George Bonfe, a wheelchair-bound Corvair owner and car restorer, kindly spent so much time with me, a total stranger; he deserves his own book.
On Asperger’s, Patsy A. Dass, Ph.D., reviewed the manuscript and gave many excellent suggestions. The writings of John Elder Robison and Jonathan Mooney fascinated and inspired me. The dedicated faculty and staff at the Oakland School and at Monticello High School in Charlottesville, Virginia taught me so much as they successfully supported my son’s education. The staff of the Virginia Youth Leadership Forum, a wonderful summer program in which special needs students are trained and motivated to become tomorrow’s leaders, was amazing.
Michael Alan Eddy was the manuscript’s first reader, and his uncharacteristically unrestrained enthusiasm sustained me through months of rewrites. Stefan Bechtel, Melinda Metz, J. B. Rintels, David Rintels, Vicki Riskin, Peter Loge, Charlie Clark, Scott Patton, Kate Moore Patton, Lynne W. Levine, Robert Bianco, Judith Fox, Dr. Lillian Carson, Dean Johnson, and many others gave so much of their time to share useful insights as well as unwavering support when I really needed it.
David Wilk offered me wise counsel about the publishing business, patiently answering my endless questions, and then offered to publish my book – every writer should be so lucky. Gary Hamburgh took the gorgeous cover photo, enthusiastically granted me permission to use it, and then after reading the manuscript sent me a note I will forever treasure.
Saving the most important for last, I thank both my children, J.B. and Elizabeth. You two are the best, period, end of story, and make me feel so blessed. Every father should be so lucky.
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