The Easy Chain

by Evan Dara

  That, somewhat, it could have been expected – absolutely – she loves trains, Anya – a real foamer, since she was a girl – really back to four or even three – age – it probably started in the Loop – when we’d take her around on Saturdays or Sundays, in the car – going to the flower conservatory, or to Oak Street Beach – and I’d have to cut through town to make a stop in the office – but she didn’t care about that, she wasn’t impressed with all the desks and the chairs, she was only interested in what was rumbling overhead – every time she saw one, the first moment she heard them approaching, she’d start turning and looking – searching with big wide – giving off ooooo ooo’s – and if we had to move, like if the light had turned, greened, sometimes she would try to cry, but Every time she’d twist and pivot back to look – so it became easy, it became a good cheap way to – we’d just take her up to the old railyards up by Northwestern, or wait at the level crossing in Skokie – I found out it’s the busiest on Sunday afternoons – and if we were sitting on the lawn chairs, she’d Spring up when the earth first started to shiver – and clap her hands, the whole hard part Palms, straight up – but this was After, of course, after she had her fling with the cup and ball – That she used to love, beFore trains, she could play with that for Hours – we bought her one when she was about three, when we took a car-trip to Whitefish – Montana – we had friends with a summer house there – and it was all thin wood, the cup was decorated with diamond shapes in a lighter onlay, we were told it was a design from Lombardia – and the string was strong, thin but twisted like a tight braid – and that was it, you know, that was the summum for about a year – day and night, tossingLeaping with the thing – and that thing was Loud, it Clack!ed when she got the ball in – Rattled – at night we had to show her that we’d put it on the shelf by her bed – I would lay it at an angle – easily visible if she looked over And then it was Count Chocula! – afterwards, After the trains, she started to love Count Choc – she’d wait for the commercials, Breath!less, hang around by the tube and zoom in after she heard the switch to the ads – and this was love, this was transport But don’t worry! the cereal Doesn’t Bite Back! – and the same palm-slam applauding, her shirts rippling as she jumped—

  I did some digging and found out which programs showed the most Chocula ads – professional compulsion – and about the best most was this Darkwing Duck thing, if I rememb on afternoons at 4 – at 4:30 – and, whatever, it generally had a Minimum one or two Choculas per show – usually starting about ten minutes in – and even if the spots the commersh’s repeated pretty regularly, it was a rich harvest – so Anya then had a focus for her weekday afternoons – that’s what she did when she came home, she’d watch, wouldn’t go out – though she didn’t really like the program, the Darkwing – or so she said – but she would still always be there, right after school, so my wife got into the habit of Making things every now and then – brownies, oatmeal cookies, sometimes strawberry jello with whipped she made the brownies with pieces of walnut – and inviting some of the kids from the block in for a snack – she would call their parents the night before, or sometimes just go out and ask the kids directly – if she saw them through the window – and she’s a good cook, you know, so this went over well – and so, when I knew she was making the oatmeal cookies – always liked them – I’d, well – I’d get I’d try to get home a little – they could disappear pretty quick – so one evening, a Wednesday about ten of five – I get home, put my workbag on the hall chair and – and there’s still two cookies left – one kind of angled up and sticking out nice – this in the kitchen – and there’s no one hovering around it’s a pretty good batch – and I’m in the living room now, sitting looking at my – and the second one is also good and I see Paulie, from 568 – Paulie Mavis, who lives down our block – also six, probably, a nice boy Greek black hair – and he’s in the den the TV room – and he’s sitting on the couch, and kicking – lightly – but repeatedly – over and over again – he’s kicking Anya’s foot her shoe – I she’s standing there in front of him, watching TV – and he’s just kicking her foot – he isn’t trying to hurt her – it looks like he’s just trying to provoke some kind of something – but she was too, I don’t know – she didn’t know – she was too Trusting – or when I drove in, once – I’m coming home on our street and I turn in the driveway – it’s a Saturday – and there are two other kids from the area – Also boys – I think from Oakwood Avenue – and they’re running around Anya – who’s standing on our lawn – and they’re spinning, twirling this long necklace of little seashells we bought for her – circling running around her and grabbing the necklace – and spinning it around her neck, and laughing – and she’s kind of turning in place, in the direction they’re going – but more slowly, her arms up – and she must be thinking this is some kind of Game—

  I – I decided not to Bop! stop the car and run out – so I pulled down the driveway – to the back of the house – and then walked past the bushes to out front – and then the boys stopped – I saw it for another second but then they stopped – I mean better shame than the reinforce they’d get from my blowing my stack – better for Anya, too – I, probly – so the boys walked off, ran and you know Anya’s done as well as .42 on the Gilliam scale, so there was a risk – but I hope that, probably – I hope she didn’t understand – that she didn’t know – and, in fact, we just went in the house, and she was fine – I we gave her a few Chocolate Town cookies, and she no one said another word about it – which is what I beLieve the University of Michigan guidelines would have recommended – but it isn’t clear, you know – you know, in all these things, how to – what exactly to – because, you, every moment and movement involves another choice – mil, uncountable Millions of options – and each, significance – repercussions – conceivablyPossibly perm long term! – I mean they get their hook into you – and so you dwell on them, Dwell on – it becomes a loop, running steaming on its Own – choices, answers, choices No answers – I mean, I we originally didn’t even want to designate, to give it her a – to categorize her, to think of her as having any part of this ASD business – it didn’t seem Necessary – we decided to suppress the Adam compulsion – because the second you do, as soon as you give anything a name – it changes things – it changes EVery – how you, how She – because she they pick it up, they know imMediately – that function is, o no, is Not impaired – and in her case, it – her variation is so little – so subtle insigNifi – and so subjective, I – I mean, how does my opinion Your opinion – who were We to create determine Her particularity – to pronounce and judge classify – how did We know what was – Is! – how do Any of these experts—

  Because all of them, All of them, are experts – without Question, They, Are, Experts! – certain about their expertise, entirely Uncertain about results, soLutions – so then just Step Up for the experts’ Tests – make way so they can exert, objectivize their expertise – on every flicker, swerve, fillip of – facial expressions, are they inappropriate? – does the subject ignore pain? – does he/she have difficulty expressing needs, desires? – is there Hand-flapping? – the inability to sustain a conversation? – to initiate a conversation? – is she guilty of not turning her head towards voices? – of exhibiting insufficient skills in Imitation? – does she have an aversion to being touched? – and speak in a voice that’s Louder than required? – does the subject exhibit an abnormal interest in spinning objects? and if so if so! we have a Label – because we have a test! – because there Is a Standard – a flexible sometimes but inviolable-when-decided Standard! – subjective in measurement, but entirely Objective in value and determining significance – and if you’re looking for Proof of the validity of their tests, of their judgments standards, just look at their medical centers – their walk-in clinics – and storefront offices with wall charts and thick-bound books and exquisitely-machined Monitoring implements – So ImPressive! – or go verify with independent practitioners – or lay
observers – applying frameworks, indices, averages – means – medians – moDalities – vast numbers of Numbers! – and then, of course, you must acCept the prescribed treatment – cognitive, behavioral, integrative, neurochemical – in fact, for every diagnosis consider at least Three possible treatments – variable in recommendation, uncertain in outcome – from every subsub-modality, another possibility! – I mean, we must have heard fifteen – a Hun!dred and fifteen proposed treatments – and I don’t Care how many knobs they have on their machines – or how white their lab coats are – because once you’re in you’re In, somewhere buried deep within their opinions is something that makes you afraid to go Out – I mean, In implies some kind of limited area – but once you’re In, the obligations, the imperatives ramify, multiply, end up Endless—

  Ultimately, though – after hearing all the experTise, we decided to be sensible – to try that option in alternative medicine – to make up our Own minds – and do what our instincts told us was – and so to us, my wife and I, at that point – it seemed that a normal a conventional environment would – would be the best thing – for her – the most salutary for her, for Anya, so she could learn and feel – and, ultimately, interAct with, internalize – the whole skein of normal behavior – that she would develop the sense, fundamentally, deeply innerly, that she was not was Not apart – so we decided to enroll her, when the time came for her to go to school – we put her in the local public elementary school – about a mile from our house – PS 5, over on Linwood Avenue – though we went to the school first, before fall term began – and spoke with the principal – and later with Anya’s first-grade teacher, Miss Jerome – who was Quite a hottie – and told them asked them that – even though she is sometimes, by certain definitions, classified as high-functioning autistic, that they make do nothing to treat her differently – to favor her, or single her out – and of course by doing this we made our request impossible – still, it was a decision, and we did it, good faith—

  And were very quickly proved right – Anya, as it turned out, was a perfectly good student – good in reading, reasonably good in math – altogether OK in other classroom subjects – across the board she put in an acceptable even fine performance – for Any kid, regardless of – though, of course, the challenges came where – where they were to be expected – penmanship, art drawing – some of the playtime activities that involved eye-hand motor – so she isn’t Rod Laver in tetherball – but in class she did her work – Most of the time – and kept up with the teacher, most of the – but what kid that age Doesn’t every now and you know – and while Miss Jerome told us that Anya was a little quiet – a little reserved – I mean what’s there to say to a bunch of five-year-olds – how’s the bladder control? – but they certainly – they certainly, after a few weeks – they found things to say to her – several of the other kids were really quite talkative – and I found out, I confirmed – I stopped in during a play hour to – stayed up in an unused classroom – kept dark, by a window – and I saw, I confirmed – that a couple of the kids made a habit of asking Anya if she has a pool – because why does she always have water in her ear – you know, the way she holds her head sometimes – and a couple of others, always in groups – would run over and ask her to say the word succotash – and – and others, Several others – kept coming up and calling Hey Mick Jagger! Hey Mick Jagger! – you know, her tongue, occasionally, sometimes – I mean, the kids’ parents must the logo but where do these kids at five, six – I mean how Where does this Come from? there’s more give in the Civic code! – I they must know or sense What reservoirs of hate Where Do they Get! this from THIS WAS A PERFECT BEING! … —

  And so, when, in February, the 18th, a Friday – when she knocked over a fishbowl – or someone did, but she – well, we felt that – it was clear that – so we pulled her from – we understood that – and I can tell you she did Not object when she didn’t have to get dressed for on the following Mond – not one word of what or why or – she took to her colorings and the TV without a – and was gurgling happy all – all week, really – three straight weeks, in – but we – we understood – it was evident – we had to get her back to school – my wife, she has her – and it was better, it was necessary for her, for Anya – despite the whatever risks that it – so we called around, and visited, used the net – took a few drives, middle of the week, took several afternoons off – and found a place, Highly recommended – part of the Easter Seals program, down on South Maryland Aven probably better no name – specializing in – in PDD remedial supportive – cross-disciplinary – the entire staff trained – all the students same – grades one through twelve – supportive – but not cheap – special teachers special books – special play things special Colors on the walls – and a nice building, some green – use biophilia – though mostly favoring a methodology out of UNC – University of North Carolina – based on work by a guy named Schipler, his spectral personality approach – a program called Teach – emphasizing inclusion, discrete-trial training – promoting independent work skills – sensitizing us to human iridescence, they said – sounded reasonable – persuase – but it was quite a trip – for my wife – the school hadn’t extended the shuttle to our area, and we didn’t trust it her on mass transit – course not – would have required two changeovers – so it was forty thirty-eight minutes each way – twice a day, of course – Four times a day, of course, for my wife, long in the car – and rush hour, too, on the way down – but we did it, we got her started there the next September, second grade – don’t just inject her into the end middle of a school year—

  We bought her almost an entire set of new clothes – nice dresses shirts – and told her what they told us to tell her – beautiful green grounds and building, great games – new friends – very friendly people – and Anya, from pretty early on, seemed to like the place – to get on with the teachers – make friends with the some other students – and she moved right along with the schoolwork – which was, admit, being pursued at a leisurely pace – she would come home and read out loud to us – and learned very politely to ask for a glass of water – well yes of Course, Anya, you May – nice – and she had begun to learn cursive but my wife had to leave the house at eight in the morning, just before eight, every – to drive her – then wouldn’t or couldn’t get back to start Her day until around ten – and then the afternoon shot – and she doesn’t like to drive, and – but she did it, you know, we couldn’t and the school was already quite expen – and yes, she my wife really rejoiced in the progress Anya was making – so that was – she loved how Anya was dressing herself more easily, more harmoniously, in the morning – and rinsing out the cup after brushing her teeth – and she said she’d look forward to the time when Anya would know understand to say thank you – that would be a milestone, she said – like for when someone did something nice for her, she said – even, especially if it’s done regularly – like for when someone reschedules her whole tennis lessons club because of – and practically no longer has the chance to see Jill, her friend Jill, because of – O yes, did Anya have a lot to be grateful to my wife for – and when my wife got into a small accident on the way back home one morning – nothing big, not serious, a guy Chrysler coming out of a dry cleaner’s driveway just nicked her at a stoplight – a little paint off, that’s all – dimple – I gave her a wristwatch, a new one, nice, a Movado Amorosa, I made Sure to thank her then—

  In fact, there were Reasons for thanks – by the Spring, in April, Anya was doing addition three digits – and multiplication two places – and memorizing things, sometimes whole short paragraphs, from Frances the Badger – so it was and she was getting along Very well with a girl from Bridgeport – a girl called Stacy – nice girl, high-spirited – we arranged for playdates pretty often on Saturdays, at both of our houses – and they would also, every now and then, talk on the phone – but that was a little more you know – because of the lack of visual – but it happened – with Hello’s and O
K Bye’s and See you on Monday – she would hold the phone herself – two hands, so big the earpiece next to her – so when my wife hit her that May, a Thursday night, I wondered if how she would tell Stacy – the next day?, would she wait til Monday? – would she shield Stacy?, would she look for comfort? – and how could she even beGin to comprehend what – because it was a good sharp slap, right across the temp – did she understand what she had done to warrant – she had dropped a glass in the living room, and it broke, filled with chocolate milk – so could she even start to process because you don’t Do that – you just Don’t! – under No circumstances! – you don’t Strike a little girl, Any little girl, for – for Anything like that! – yes the carpet Fuck the carpet you do not Hit you Do Not HIT a little under ANY! like—!

  We had took a nice vacation that summer, this was ’96 – up to Vancouver, nice long drive, mostly route I-80, I-90, good to feel the road – flaring past and all the air – and great Huge spaces, of course, Montana – vast carpet land – and Vancouver is very lovely Stanley Park Grouse Mountain right there – all the cafés on Robson Street feels like Via Veneto in La Dolce though there are so many Asians Hong Kong – really another, a foreign universe – and that year summer we also bought a wading pool – a Reprieve 52-inch oval, interlocking stabilizer rails right in the back yard – but keep it, this is essential, no more than two feet deep – yard hose not too much chlorine – and it was a hot summer here, so that was – immediate freshed the twigs leaves not so bad – sit on down – also hot when Anya went back to school, if you o but you wouldn’t – all the kids, I’m told, were feeling it – but she was glad to go back, I think, I’m sure, see her friend Stacy – her homeroom teacher that year, we called her Gertrude, said Anya was re-integrating well – her reading, tested, improved – though why she started, she refused to do math, they we didn’t know – just didn’t want to any more, pushed the paper pencils away – wouldn’t add wouldn’t multiply – she was also, she tended sometimes to come home with her clothes dirty – smudged soiled not torn – and so you know, what was – what was – and then she, it became like a Thing she did – she started pushing things off desks – other kids’ rulers and cups, pencils gluepots – splattered all over the ground – once, from her desk at the front of, Gertrude’s glasses case – but never Stacy’s – never anything from Stacy – and then Stacy – her spell cards – so it was disruptive – the other kids – she wouldn’t talk about she turned away from questions when you – when I when even the principal, who knows how to – she would turn and hold her right arm all up and over her head – like something was hurting her, like it she was unwell – and it wasn’t fair, you know – to the other students – they couldn’t they saw and sensed, they would stop what – even the teachers – so one Wednesday, when I got a call – in the middle of a meeting, breaking in – popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, crayola papers all over the floor – so I went down there – I drove – I drove straight down – picked her up—