Like No Other Boy

by Larry Center

  “What?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Home. Home.” He pointed at Albert’s painting, then at Albert. “Home.”

  “You mean Albert’s drawing a picture of his home?” Rachel asked. Both of the doctors had moved toward the painting as well and were watching Albert’s work.

  Tommy nodded. “Good home. Happy.”

  On the top half of the poster board, Albert started painting reds and yellows and blues, blending them together in the same manner as he’d done the yellows and blacks.

  Tommy said, “Awbert. Making sun and sky. Awbert . . . member,” Tommy said, looking at us all as he pointed to his head. “’member.”

  “Remember?” Rekulak asked.

  Tommy nodded and stood on his toes. “Yes. Home. Jungle. Big, big trees. Sun. Sky. Sun. Down.” Tommy spread his arms wide.

  “Good job, Tommy! You know what Albert’s painting,” I said, going along. “How do you know?”

  “Oooohhh . . . good job, Awbert!” Tommy exclaimed, mimicking me and praising his new friend. Was my son actually trying to be humorous?

  Albert stopped painting, looked up, grunted, and then signed, “Talk-boy,” according to Rekulak. He grunted again.

  “He’s designating your son,” Rekulak said, “naming him.”

  Then Albert pointed to Rachel who explained, “Talk-woman.” Albert nodded.

  Just as Albert returned to his painting, Tommy emitted his low vowel sound, “Ooouuu. Need Radar. Radar, Daddy.”

  I pulled Radar from Mister Backpack and handed it to Tommy.

  “Awbert, look,” he said. “Look!”

  Tommy showed the Beanie to the chimp, who lifted his head from his art, gazed at it, scratched his head, and screeched. He studied it a while longer and made a sound like a snort. Tommy emitted a series of varooommms and started flying Radar, lifting the pet over his head and zooming him around in the air. Albert watched intently but didn’t seem to know what to make of it. When Tommy zoomed Radar close to the chimp’s face, Albert backed his head away, nostrils flaring.

  “Fly,” Tommy said. “Fly.”

  Albert grunted and signed “bird” as translated by Rekulak.

  Tommy mimicked the sign for bird and zoomed Radar around some more. When he tried to hand the Beanie to Albert, the chimp pushed it away. According to Rachel, Albert signed, “No me,” and returned to his painting, keeping his eyes glued to the paper in front of him, his brush swishing across the scene.

  Tommy hung his head and let his Beanie drop to the floor.

  “What’s wrong, Tommy? Did Albert hurt your feelings?” I asked.

  “No free,” he said softly, barely above a whisper. “Awbert no free. Awbert sad.”

  “Are you sad because he won’t take Radar?” Dr. Rekulak asked.

  “Awbert no like Radar.” He gave himself a whack right on his forehead.

  “Tommy!” I took his hands and held them to his sides. “Breathe. Relax.”

  Tommy tilted his head toward me, his eyes wet as he opened his mouth. I was sure he wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he wrestled himself free from my grip and began to suck the back of his hand, which I pulled away. Still, he brought it right back up to his mouth.

  Then he spoke in a soft but fierce whisper, “Now, Daddy. N-o-o-o-ow.”

  I had never heard him say this word before all by itself before, uttered with such strange intensity.

  “N-o-o-o-o-ow. See?” Tommy repeated.

  “What do you mean? Noooow. See?” Rekulak echoed Tommy’s utterance, then tapped a fist against his lips as he tilted his head to one side. “Tell us more.”

  Tommy shook his head, the cap slightly shifted, and Rekulak gently re-adjusted it. Tommy’s whole face screwed up into an impossible collage of flesh, distorting his features as much as his mind sometimes distorted reality.

  “Chimpie,” he said.

  “Yes?” I said, encouraging him.

  “Now! See? See?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t see,” I said. I shook my head and frowned.

  I watched as Albert chose black and painted with long, broad strokes. Then he shrieked and tore up the paper and threw it across the room.

  “Albert!” Rekulak cried. “No! Settle down!”

  Rekulak signed to the chimp, gave him a hug, and talked soothingly to him. He placed a new poster board in front of him, and the chimp, calming down, began to paint his lines, horizontal and then vertical, in just black now.

  “Cage,” Tommy said. “No free. No go,” Tommy said, his face turning red. “See, Daddy? Awlbert sad.” Tommy pointed to him. “He wants now. But . . . but . . .”

  “What do you mean when you say ‘now’?” Rachel asked.

  Tommy took a deep breath and then precious words tripped out of his mouth, syllables dancing in the air. “Now-ing, Daddy. Now. . . ing. Awlbert now-ing. This time, here, now. See?”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Now . . . ing. But hooooman-peoples go back . . See? Back . . . And . . . peoples go . . . front, too.” Tommy pointed forward and then pointed back. “See? Front. Back. But chimps . . . Want NOW! Now-ing, all the time,” he said. “See?”

  “You mean being now? Right this second? In this moment?” Rachel asked.

  Tommy nodded and hugged himself.

  “I think I’m starting to get it,” I said. “Chimps live in the now, in the moment. Of course. That’s probably what gives them their photographic memories, too. They only see what’s in front of them. Reality sprays an entire picture at them, instead of the way we look at the world, taking in things one by one, this and that.”

  “Awlbert . . . hurt . . . Awbert lost NOW. Hurt! Remember. Paint black lines. No free.”

  My heart turned over. No free. Tommy seemed to be talking about being in the moment, in the now, when the past and future drop away. Albert couldn’t be happy in the Now, the way he should be, because of his painful past. Was Tommy “no free” as well? Locked up in the cage of autism? Of course, he was. I knew I would never give up until I’d found the key and opened his cage. This was my obligation. There simply was no other way. I held my breath to find out more.

  “So how do you think, Tommy?” I asked, kneeling down to his level. “Are you front and back, or are you . . . Now?”

  He stamped his foot once again, preparing to say something as he worked his jaw, opened his mouth, and shut it. His eyes shone and he cupped his hands in front of him as if he were waiting to catch water, cradling his ideas with his hands. Finally, he had the words.

  “I cage too, just like Awbert, Daddy. Hurt. Hurt bad sometimes. I know now, Daddy. Now.” He shook his head. “No like . . . back. No want front. Just want . . . Now! Can’t talk.” He lowered his head. “Like other peoples.”

  “It’s okay, Tom-Tom,” I said, putting an arm around him as he inched closer to me, my eyes moistening, my heart breaking. He didn’t resist my touch. “Listen,” I said, “we all have thoughts, humans have all kinds of thoughts. Some good, some bad. It’s okay to think about past and future. Front and back. It’s fine.”

  “Fine? Fine? Fine? Fine?”

  “Yes. It’s fine! Sometimes it’s fun to go back and front. That’s what people do,” I said, trying to reassure him.

  “Back front?” Tommy said.

  “Yes! You can go places in your mind, think up things, see? Sometimes back and front is fun! Future. Past. Back, front. They’re fun. Daddy has fun with front and back. So can you, Tommy. Past, present, and future are all good. That’s how you talk better.”

  “Okay, Daddy,” Tommy said. “Varooom.” Flick, flick. Flick-flick. “I talk now. Okay?”

  “Yes, you do!” My pulse raced. I was making a connection here, forming a linguistic bridge, just like Tommy was doing with the chimps. I couldn’t believe it. This was as close to a miracle as I’d ever gotten.

  “So, what can we do to help Albert, then?” I asked a minute later.

  Tommy once again tried to give Rad
ar to Albert, who rejected it a second time.

  “Free,” Tommy said. “Free.”

  “Freedom?” Rachel said.

  “Free!” Tommy said. “Free! Albert need free.”

  “You mean like outside?” Rachel asked, pointing to the door. “Back in the forest?”

  “No. Free!” Tommy exclaimed. Then he formed his lips in an O and spouted the words: “Like . . . like . . . Granna.”

  For a moment, we were all silent as we contemplated this concept.

  Granna?

  “Wait,” I said, rubbing the side of my face. “I think I get it. I think he’s saying that Albert’s sentenced to live the rest of his life in a worn-out body, no matter whether he’s indoors or outdoors. I’m not sure it’s just about being imprisoned,” I continued, thinking about how we’d explained his grandmother’s death to Tommy. “I think Albert needs to be free in a different way.”

  “And what’s that?” Rekulak asked, brow furrowed.

  Rachel looked confused as well.

  “Albert wants to be free from his pain,” I said. “That’s the kind of freedom he’s talking about. Freedom from this world.” I shuddered when I said it, looking down at Tommy who was nodding at me, as our eyes connected: “Albert just wants to die.”

  “Yes, Daddy,” Tommy said. “Albert want die. Soooon. Free. No cage no more.”

  I shivered, hearing the words drip from my son’s mouth. I caught Dr. Rekulak’s eyes and there were tears in them. The next thing I knew, he was breaking down and sobbing, covering his face with his hands. I stared at him, stunned. I didn’t know what to say. Pain, suffering, that was Albert’s life; pain and suffering at the hand of man. So, who was the real animal? Wasn’t that a fair question? I was on the verge of breaking down myself.

  “Oh, Albert,” Dr. Rekulak said, “my poor friend. Such a journey you’ve taken. And to think of all that’s been done to you. It’s so cruel. So very cruel.”

  God, the ache inside my chest felt like a stone that suddenly sank into my stomach. Rachel and I traded glances, that same breeze of understanding passed between us, and when she reached out and touched my hand, I caught a trace of mistiness in her eyes. She tried to give me a sorrowful smile, but couldn’t make her lips turn up. I also wiped away a tear. I felt our connection deepen, that breeze of understanding blowing just a bit stronger.

  “It’s true,” Dr. Rekulak said, gazing at Albert, whose head was down, panting hard now with pain. “So very sad and so very true.”

  Tommy held Radar tightly. “Ouuuu . . . drrrrrr . . .” He closed his eyes and turned within, not picking up on the grief that was suddenly circling the room.

  Chapter 10

  On Monday, two days after the Weller visit, which was probably the most extraordinary event of my life—I still couldn’t get over it—I found my father in the backyard, standing high on a ladder and cleaning leaves from his gutter, wearing large garden gloves. The ladder was shaking, his legs, trembling. The good news was that there were still no further seizures from Tommy, thank God, and I sent Whitaker a note of thanks to his email.

  “Dad! Get down from there.” I stormed up and placed my hands on the ladder to stabilize it. “You want to kill yourself?”

  I’d come to check on him and tell him everything I’d seen with Tom-Tom and Albert. There was another reason, too, which nestled deep inside of me.

  “I’m fine,” he growled. His lined face contorted into the frown of frowns. “You don’t have to worry about me.” He grabbed a handful of leaves from the gutter and slung them to the ground, just missing my head. “I was cleaning leaves from gutters before you could even walk.”

  But when he reached out again for another bunch of leaves, his legs trembled even more and for a dire moment, his upper body slanted and the ladder perilously shook.

  “Dad! Watch out!”

  “There.” He barely righted himself. “Man, it’s a mess up here.”

  “Would you please get the hell down?”

  When he finally climbed down, he was breathing heavily. He mopped his brow with a white handkerchief, then tipped his ball cap back on his head. His face was as pale as wax.

  “Next time call me and I’ll help you,” I said angrily. “Are you trying to wind up in the hospital or something?”

  He didn’t say a word. He had a way of going to the Tommy-side too. He studied me as he rubbed his leathery neck, his skeptical frown telling me I wasn’t fit to even be the water boy on the ball club of gutter cleaners he ran.

  He tromped over to his bed of roses in the middle of the backyard. A beautiful array, cordoned off by a knee-high wooden fence. He bent down to a red rose and took a long, deep sniff. I stood next to him, my nerves still on edge.

  “Now, that’s what I call nice,” he said in his rough voice. “Yes, sir.”

  I bent down to smell the roses as well, taking a long whiff. Then I took in the yard, the weeping acacia tree and the two pear trees that grew full and tall. I’d played many games of army with my neighborhood friends under that acacia tree. I was always a restless kid, couldn’t sit still to save my life. I also did puppet shows and experimented with all kinds of voices, using socks at first as hand puppets and creating short plays. Kids all over the neighborhood would come to watch. It turned out I had talent to make people laugh with my voice at a young age. Go figure.

  Dad took care of his roses as if they were his children. He turned on the serpentine-shaped soaker hose nestled on the ground in the rose bed. “About two inches of water a week.” He didn't look at me. His gravelly voice sounded like a stream of words pouring over rocks. “Deep soaking’s best. Helps to firm up the canes.” He stroked a few petals. “Love these Betty Priors.” He stood back, admiring them. Then he lumbered over to the garage and, hunched over, returned with some clippers and delicately clipped away a few misaligned stems. For a long moment, a sad silence hung in the air between us, and then: “Know what day this is?” He kept his eyes on the roses; he still wouldn’t dare take his gaze away.

  A weighty sadness fell around my shoulders, emotional shoulder pads. I took a long breath before answering. “Of course, I do.”

  “Well . . . You think I’m going to get all upset over it?”

  “Hell, no. Not you. That’s not your style.” Our eyes refused to meet.

  “You’re right. And that’s why I keep these damn roses. They remind me of your mother. They’re here for her.”

  The moment hovered like a big grey rain cloud. Neither of us spoke for a while. This was the second anniversary of my mother’s death. We refused to look each other in the eye, two men needing their distance, uncomfortable with expressing their emotions, especially in the presence of each other. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ever hugged my father. “I brought over some hearing aid batteries, Dad,” I said finally.

  He put a hand to his ear and twisted one of the dials on his hearing aids. His scowl deepened. “Hate wearing these damn things.” He turned off the hose and studied me like only a father can. Finally, our eyes met. He grumbled: “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  I flinched. “What do you mean?”

  His face crumpled into a collision of skin against skin. “You look, I don’t know, different. Better. You’re even standing straighter. And I don’t see that wimpy expression in your eyes. What’s got into you?” He flashed me a nanosecond of a proud smile. “Know what? I like it.”

  “Thanks.” I could feel it myself, a new resolve inside me. Tommy’s chimp therapy was bringing out the best in me. I was taking charge, changing, just like my father had said: I was doing something. Maybe I could bring my dad one day to Weller. Who knew? They might want to put him under that MRI cap and read his brain as well.

  “Well, whatever you’re doing, keep it up.” My father took off his gloves, then clapped me on the back.

  We entered his house through the creaky backdoor. My father went straight to the fridge, handed me a beer and grabbed one for himself. Local IPAs. Coolwater
Brew. He took a long pull. Two empty beer cans stood on the counter, pictures of log cabins on the silver labels. I blinked and shook my head. And he’d been up on that ladder? Was he kidding? He was an accident waiting to happen.

  He was drinking too much, but what could I do? Restraining my dad was like trying to cage the wind.

  I tossed the hearing aid batteries onto the kitchen table.

  “Could use one of these little buggers right about now.” He growled. “Thanks.”

  My father took off his hearing aid, searched around the kitchen for his bifocals, found them next to the phone book, and put them on. After taking the sticky tape off the battery, he attempted to replace a tiny silver battery inside the aid with a new one. His hands tremored, hardly able to perform the fine motor task—the silver battery was as small as a collar-button—but I knew better than to try to do it for him, even when he fumbled. I didn’t feel like getting slapped or yelled at.

  “There, goddammit.” He got the battery in, inserted his hearing aids back into his ear, then cranked them up. “Better.” He sighed heavily. “Gettin’ old, Chris,” my father said, taking off his bifocals. “Don’t let it happen to you. It’s no fun. Let me tell you that. Back’s killing me today too. Must be arthritis.”

  “Well you had no business up on that ladder, that’s for sure.”

  He waved a hand in the air and grumbled. “Fuck that shit.”

  My father led me to his den and snapped on a light. The curtains were closed on this beautiful day, and a distinctively sour odor made my nose itch. Books and magazines, candy bar wrappers, and beer cans were scattered everywhere. The day after I cleaned up, the place became as much of a mess as ever.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” He pointed to his head. “Order here.” And then he pointed to the room. “Chaos there. That’s how I like it.”

  He finished his beer as he studied the picture of my mother on the wall above us. The heaviness of her passing tromped all over my heart.

  I knew my father would want me around today—would expect me around—even though he would never admit it. I felt an aching in my chest that seemed to dig into my very soul.