by Larry Center
“Have you ever been convicted of a DUI, Ms. Bridgewater?” Mark asked.
I leaned forward in my seat. She murmured the word. “Yes.”
Mark took a breath and eyed Korbovitch, who seemed preoccupied with a thought. His eyes looked distant. Mark said, “And was your son in the car when you were stopped while driving under the influence?”
Cheryl took a long moment before answering, eyes shifting back and forth. Finally, she said in a soft voice, “Yes.”
“And so, you say mothers know best?” Mark asked. He caught Korbovitch’s eye.
“Look. I’d had two glasses of wine that afternoon, okay? I’d just won a bid for a major job in La Jolla, and I was celebrating with some friends. I picked up Tommy from his after-school therapy session and I ran a red light. It was a huge mistake, I admit it. But I’ve made restitution, I’ve paid the fine, I’ve gone to the traffic safety classes, and I did public service. It occurred three years ago. I don’t see why you should even bring it up.”
“But it was a DUI with your son in the car, was it not?”
Cheryl looked down and her shoulders sagged. “Yes.”
Mark let the information sink in. “And one final question, Ms. Bridgewater. Did Tommy have an accident at a playground while you were supervising him?”
The surprised look on Cheryl’s face made me hurt inside. I winced. I hated bringing this memory up, airing it out like this. “Yes. But it was—”
“Can you tell us about that incident?”
Cheryl suddenly looked away. A hand went to the side of her face and her brow narrowed. She didn’t reply to the question.
“Ms. Bridgewater? Can you tell us?”
She spoke slowly as her cheeks inflamed. “I was with a friend, all right? Another mother, and we were watching our sons play on the monkey bars.” Cheryl swallowed and sunk down in her chair. “So, I turned around to talk to my friend for no more than a second, and, the next thing I know,” she looked squarely at Mark, “he was on the ground.”
“Did he require stitches?”
“Yes. It could have happened to any mother. We aren’t perfect.”
“But Mister Crutcher must be perfect?”
“Yes, no. Oh, I don’t know.” Cheryl’s exasperated voice tripped through the courtroom. She scratched her wrist. “All I know is that chimps are much more dangerous than playground mishaps.”
“No further questions.”
The judge dismissed us and I sat there, talking to Mark. I tried to sense how he was thinking it was going, but he seemed hard to read. I knew my own face was an open book, total desperation written all over it. We walked out together into the hallway and Mark departed with a clap on the shoulder, saying, “Keep the faith.” Not much else.
Sure. Why not?
I spotted my father and Rachel waiting for me, standing side by side. They were talking together as I approached them. I was surprised. My father hardly talked to anyone.
“Don’t look like such a hound dog,” my father growled, leaning on his cane as I approached. “You’re going to win this thing. Don’t worry.”
“So, you met Rachel, I see,” I said to him.
“Yep. Told her all about how I used to see pictures in my mind too.”
“Your dad’s quite the character,” Rachel said with a smile.
“A bit rough around the edges,” I said.
“Look, I need to get home,” my father said. “Got a ball game to watch.” Then he winked at me. “I like her, Chris,” he said.
I felt myself blushing, then spoke the first words that came into my head. “I do, too.” I smiled at Rachel.
My father departed, latching onto Belinda’s arm, and then it was just me and Rachel, who shot me a pained look. “God, Chris, this must be so hard for you. I can hardly stand it in that courtroom. I imagined something a lot less intense. I had no idea it would be like this.”
“So, how do you think it’s going?” I asked. I was eager to know her thoughts.
But now she was silent. She muddled her brow. “Not sure. That judge is so hard to read.”
“I know.”
We walked outside together, shuffling into the San Diego sunlight, which was as bright as ever. Emotional explosions kept blowing up in my mind. The fear of losing Tommy. Gloria Beaman and her legal tactics. And now what my father said about Rachel right in front of her. I like her. He was never so quick to compliment someone. Amazing.
The sounds of heavy traffic rose around me. Fortunately, the obnoxious reporters were nowhere to be seen. Clusters of people, some well-dressed, some in t-shirts and jeans, were coming in and out of the courthouse. My heart pounded hard. Divorce. Custody. I realized that this was a world in itself that went on day by day. It was like a factory that welcomed people in, stamped them with legal decisions, one way or the other, then spat them out.
“We’ll get through this,” Rachel said. “I know it’s hard. But we have so much evidence, remember. The judge has to see our side of things.”
Our eyes met, that same breeze of understanding that I’d felt before, passed through us again. I knew it.
“It’s hard, Rachel,” I said. “Really hard.”
“I know.”
We hugged, expressing our feelings of trepidation the only way we knew how. Further words seemed useless as our bodies spoke to each other with a newborn sense of togetherness, intimacy, and need.
When we finally pulled apart, I looked deep into her eyes. Rachel said, “I didn’t think I’d get so involved in this, Chris. It all started out as merely a research project, you know? But now, see . . . I had no idea what was going to happen when I took hold of Tommy’s hand that day. I thought I was walking him into the play yard, but you know what? He was the one who was leading me—straight into a new world. Straight into your arms.”
Touched deeply by her words, by her caring and understanding, I stroked her hair and plumbed the depths of her eyes. They seemed bottomless, endless as the natural beauty in Gombe. “Are you saying this is more than science between us?”
She nodded as the blue-green emotional oceans before me sparkled with tears. We hugged again.
* * *
The next day I was much too nervous to eat breakfast, so I relied on only a large cup of dirt-black coffee to get me through the morning. I couldn’t stop thinking about Rachel and what she’d said. That this was more than a mere science project to her, that Tommy had taken her hand and led her into my arms. Wow. Heady stuff. Was this really happening? I felt excited, but at the same time, unsure. She was leaving for Africa anyway. Who knew what would really happen between us?
Max kept pacing around me, reflecting my own anxiety. He wouldn’t leave my side. He wasn’t swishing his tail and he kept licking my shoes for some reason. I left him in the backyard with his bowl of food and water.
“See you later, buddy,” I said. “Got some major BS to get through today.”
Max just eyed me and then laid down, whining. In his own way, I was sure he knew that I was in bad shape, that something was definitely up.
Wearing a navy-blue blazer and grey pants, I made my way up the steps to the courtroom, where once again, reporters aimed questions at me, firing one after another. The silence I retaliated with was the perfect weapon; they hated the sound of it.
I didn’t see Rachel. My father was sitting in the back with Belinda by his side. This time he gave me a quick nod when our eyes met. I didn’t know what to do—I wanted to talk to him for emotional support, but I was afraid to go near him as well because he might say something that would piss me off. Let’s face it, a fire provides warmth, but it also burns. I chose to stay away.
Wade, wearing a dark-blue suit, was talking to Cheryl. He had a hand on her shoulder. I had no idea how he was taking all this, but I wondered if he was now having regrets about getting involved with a woman with an autistic child. He looked caged in, his eyes darting right and left. Trapped. Every so often, he pulled at his collar. I was sure he’d rather be sa
iling in wide open spaces. Having fun now, Jaguar Man?
The bailiff called us to order, and I once again took my seat next to Mark. Korbovitch marched into the courtroom, black robes, all business. Taking his seat, he whipped off his bifocals, which were perched on the crest of his bent nose and penetrated the room with a stern glare.
“Ms. Beaman,” he said. “Please begin your questioning.”
“I would like to call Dr. Norman Kaplan to the stand,” Beaman said.
Kaplan stepped up to the stand with quick confident strides, silver hair slicked back from a large forehead. He was a local psychologist who specialized in autism. Everyone in the autistic community knew him. A very conventional thinker. I was sure he was not going to support my side.
“Dr. Kaplan, please tell the court what you saw when you investigated the boy in question at the chimp institute,” Beaman said.
“Actually, I visited Tommy Crutcher at both Hillwood, his conventional school, and at the chimp institute.” Kaplan’s soft voice had a way of demanding attention. Wire-framed glasses gave him an edgy but intelligent persona. “I wanted to compare the differences in Tommy’s behavior in the two different settings.”
“Go on.”
“My conclusion was that I saw no real transferability that would benefit the boy’s best interests.” He folded his arms across his chest and spoke emphatically.
Was the man blind? How could he say that? I grabbed a pen resting next to me and tried to squeeze the ink out of it.
“Explain, please.”
Kaplan formed a V with his hands. “You see, even if Tommy were to somehow communicate with these chimps, I believe this kind of activity would fail to ultimately improve Tommy’s relationships with humans, children, or adults. Given what I know about autism, I see Tommy’s focusing on chimps as a kind of escape mechanism from human relationships altogether and thus a hindrance.”
His words fell like hammers on my ears, pounding my eardrums.
He had it totally backwards! Tommy was much more human-friendly when he was with the chimps. I sagged in my chair, wanting to stand up and shout this man down, while Cheryl, sitting across from me next to Beaman, was eating it up. She leaned forward as Kaplan spoke and then wrote down a few notes of her own. Then she turned my way, looked at me, and death-stared me down.
“I see,” Beaman said. “So, these chimps are limiting his ability to progress toward better human interaction in your opinion, then?”
“Yes, I believe so. I can tell he enjoys it there at Weller, and it certainly de-stresses him, if you want to call it that. But as a therapeutic interventional tool, I think it has severe limitations. I would have to consider any such evidence merely anecdotal at best.”
“Thank you, Dr. Kaplan,” Beaman said.
“Mr. Levy?” Korbovitch said.
Mark stood and fired up the computer that cast an image onto a wall-mounted monitor, its screen visible for the entire courtroom to observe. This was the moment when, for the first time, Tommy’s talents would be seen somewhere besides Weller.
“I’d like to play a video of Tommy interacting and relating to the chimps,” Mark said.
The judge nodded. “Go ahead.”
Mark clicked a button on his computer and the video began. He’d set up a monitor that faced the courtroom, so that all of us could view the screen. Tommy’s young voice came through the speakers, and just hearing him speak in his own unique way made my eyes wet. I blinked and pressed my hands together as I held them under the table, my eyelids growing hot, my chin trembling. Cheryl sat immobile, refusing to even view the monitor.
“Daddy say good meet you, Awbert. Chimpie old. See Obo. He meet me in place and we talk much. He good chimpie.”
Cheryl glanced my way. My stomach turned to jelly. I read in her look an iron-willed determination. My hands grew slick. I’d never seen her so fierce. Beaman reviewed her notes as if what we were doing didn’t even exist.
“Chimpies . . . play. See . . . my . . . See. Chimpies love play. They be fun. Obo want show you here . . .every . . .thing.
Mark stopped the video. “How would you compare those rates of fluency with the ones observed at Hillwood, Dr. Kaplan?”
Dr. Kaplan coughed. “The boy’s speaking, for sure, but there’s no consistency, no real communication. It’s just words.”
“Words?”
“Yes, words!” Kaplan furrowed his brow. He leaned forward and nearly spat it out. “A child cannot communicate with a chimp and a chimp cannot communicate with a child beyond a few signs or things like that. If you think there’s any way that this could ever in a million years help an autistic child speak better or learn better or . . .”
“Surely, sir, you must see at least some fluency, do you not?”
“No, I do not! These are random words. Those chimps are just drawing him out because they’re playful. He’s getting lost in their world. What I want to see is real communication with human beings! That’s what Ms. Bridgewater cares about, and it’s what I care about too, what any normal parent would care about.”
Korbovitch wrote down some notes and looked off into the distance in a state of contemplation. The sinking feeling in my stomach told me the video had not brought the kind of clear result we’d intended.
Korbovitch dismissed us for the morning. It was 11:30.
I went to lunch at a place called Lucy’s, a bar/restaurant down the street. I wanted to be alone.
Jazz music from speakers filled the air. It was a dark place, dimly lit, and the atmosphere suited me fine. Waiting for my food, I pulled up a file on my cell’s video mode. There was Tommy getting his first haircut, three years old. He was sitting so still for the barber. My eyes grew misty just watching. It was amazing. He’d stopped droning, too, sitting there like a little champion. We’d bribed him with the promise of ice cream. For some reason, it actually worked. Another video: Tommy and I in the park. “Swing son,” I was saying as I threw him the ball and he held the bat on his shoulder, just like I’d taught him. He was five then. Cheryl was recording it. The ball went past him and the bat didn’t even budge off his shoulder. I laughed. No, a pro ball career was definitely not in his future.
Sometimes I just saw this hidden person inside him, and I knew this Other Tommy was dying to come out, the way he’d suddenly turn to me and look up at me so out of the blue and alive, wanting to connect with me, trying so very hard, so innocent. This was the normal Tommy, the one that could have been normal as any other child. It tore me up, knowing it would never happen, that the normal son of I’d hoped for would never emerge.
One more episode: The day he was born, 5:47 p.m., the nurse, the doctor, Cheryl’s mother and me in the room. Cheryl looked beautiful and exhausted, the smile of accomplishment on her sweaty face. Tommy squirming with his eyes shut and a finger in his mouth, so new to this world, so ready for anything. He was such a beautiful baby boy, lips, chin, ears, all perfectly formed.
I’d never been so proud.
* * *
“Cheryl. Please. Please don’t do this,” I called to Cheryl, who was up ahead of me on the way into the courthouse the next morning.
I touched her shoulder and she swung around. The San Diego weather had lost its mojo and had turned coolish, low sixties, and clouds were blowing in from the east just like the clouds that were blowing through my mind.
“Have some mercy,” I said.
Cheryl stopped walking and turned to me, her face all made up like a mask, her armor against the world. I had luckily found her without Beaman. When our eyes met, I wobbled on my feet. I rubbed the back of my neck. A car horn honked from the street. An airplane soared above us. The wind blew Cheryl’s hair and she pulled it back from her face.
“I need Tommy in my life too,” I said. “Don’t you see that?”
“I’m seeking full custody, Chris. That’s the only way—”
“That’s just Beaman talking! You couldn’t really want that! To separate me from my own son? To break up our b
ond? You know I can’t move to Houston and leave my dad. You know he needs me too much. You know how close Tommy and I are—how could breaking us up be good for him?”
Cheryl sighed. She looked right and left. “I have to go inside now.”
“Cheryl, please. Be reasonable.”
But she turned and walked away and I stared up at the increasingly cloudy sky and just stood there, shaking my head. She’d become a totally different woman. I felt so lost with her now, completely disconnected, and I saw no way that I’d ever get any kind of a relationship back, which was sad, since we were Tommy’s parents. Who had more influence over her—Beaman or Wade?
When the hearing resumed, Mark called Dr. Dunn to the stand. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. After establishing his credentials as a Ph.D. from Berkeley, a neurobiologist and autism researcher for many years, Mark asked him, “Dr. Dunn, can you tell us about the benefits that the boy in question is receiving as you view this video from a neurologist’s perspective?”
“I clearly see major benefits,” Dr. Dunn said, sitting up straight in his seat. He looked out at us through clear brown eyes. “I see the chimps bringing Tommy out of his shell, making him more alive and happy. I also studied his behavior at Hillwood and the fluency charts, and what we just witnessed looks like an immense improvement in fluency. Tommy, in the presence of the chimps, appears to be released from his mental shell.”
“So, you see chimp therapy as potentially beneficial for Tommy Crutcher?”
“I do.”
“And would you recommend that the father be allowed to pursue this approach on reasonable scientific grounds?”
“I would.”
Mark glanced at Korbovitch who pursed his lips together and tapped a pencil on his desk. God only knew what he was thinking. “And may I ask why you don’t recommend the Acorn School?”
“Well.” Dr. Dunn paused for a moment. “I’ve examined the data that comes out of the school, and some of it troubles me. Sample scores are skewed to make findings appear more positive than is really the case.”
“Interesting. Can you give us an example?”