Stuck in Neutral (5 page)

My dad turned slowly toward me, then gazed back into the camera. “If we cannot educate kids because they are uneducable, and we will not simply warehouse them in shoddy group homes or huge, impersonal, neglect-prone institutions, doesn't it ask the question, ‘What do we do?' I wish I had a simple answer for such questions. We all wish we had simple answers to our complex questions. Yet the truth is there are no simple answers—there are only complex answers to complex ques …”

Right there was when my seizure hit.

It came on right when my dad and me were in front of the camera looking all cozy-lovey father and son like, right then—
crackle-crackle-crackle-swoosh
—red light, blue light, bluer light—idiot laughter—muscle contractions—slow spin of the room—spirit rising out of my body.

And while I don't usually remember many details of “reality” during seizure times, I do remember parts of this one.

Dad stopped talking when he heard me laughing. He turned, looked in my eyes, saw the seizure grabbing me. Of course I felt happy, as I always am when a seizure hits, but I caught glimpses of his face, his mood, as I drifted away. He looked sad and disappointed. Because I was having a seizure, I couldn't make out all of what he said, but bits of his speech came through: “And what of our children who suffer unbearable pain …” “doesn't to love them …” “if we really love that child …” “shouldn't we …” “and if …” “no hope …” “shouldn't …” “someone …” “end his pain?”

My spirit floated near my dad and me. I listened as well as I could, trying to pay attention. But in another moment my spirit was unable to resist the temptation to cruise over and nuzzle Becky's breasts, to lick the vanilla cookies in the open bag on Mrs. Hare's desk, to soar out to the playground and play slalom between the posts of the swings and the metal poles of the basketball backboards.

I know, I know, I'm irresponsible. I should have tried to stick around and listen to the rest of Dad's PBS special on retards and educableness and “Appropriate Allocation Decisions in an Era of Diminishing Funding.” I should have stuck around. So sue me. Hell, I'm fourteen years old! For some reason, flying and slaloming and cookie licking and breast nuzzling just felt like a much better—what?—utilization of my resources.

When I came back into my body, Dad and the cameraman were already packing up their gear. The show was over. I felt a little bad about missing it all. And then I remembered what my dad had said: “end his pain....”

I'd heard that phrase not so long ago, that day with the crow. At that time it had made me nervous, but I'd tried to forget about it. Now, hearing it again so soon, I got the picture.

In another few moments Dad walked away, toward the door. As he reached for the door handle, he glanced back over his shoulder one final time. I happened to be looking directly at him. There was something in his expression that I'd never seen before, a look in his eyes that I can't describe. All I know is that I felt a chill, as though a sudden gust of cold air were blowing through the room.

End my pain? It made me mad. What right does he have to decide what's best for me? What right does he have to think about ending my pain? He's never even around me! Dad is only talking now, but how long before he does more than just talk?

I say,

why is this happening to us?

Lindy shifts Shawn in her lap,

slides her fingers across his cheek,

gently as soft breathing
.

She doesn't answer
.

We sit in silence

and we wait
.

I
barely remember when Dad left our family. I
wasn't quite four years old, but I remember the last time he ever fed me, and that was the same week he left us.

“Damn,” Dad yelled as I coughed a mouthful of rice and mashed vegetables into his face. He was feeding me my lunch.

Mom was doing dishes.

“I can't get used to this,” Dad hollered as he wiped my spit and bits of food off his face. “I'd expect it from a baby! But you're a little … Damn it!” he yelled again, throwing the spoon across the kitchen into the wall.

“Hey,” Mom said.

Dad's hands trembled as he looked at her.

“I'm sorry,” he said, his voice tired and sad.

Silence then.

Mom said, “I know, babe, I understand. We just have to try and remember it's not his fault.”

“It's not
him
I'm mad at,” Dad said. “It's that damn screwed-up part of him, that stuff he can't help but is all we ever see! Maybe it's God I'm hating so much.”

Mom stared at Dad from across the room, her face full of sadness.

Dad said, “Why does he have to be so totally messed up? Why does God have to make him such a total wreck?”

“It's not God,” Mom said softly. “You don't believe in God anyway, but if you did, you'd know it's not God. It's just the way things happen sometimes.”

“I know,” Dad said, his voice low and tired, “but I can't do this anymore. I can't stand this.”

Mom looked at Dad for another moment, then turned away. “I don't want to hear it,” she said, mad, low, and icy. Dad just sat there.

I also remember one time when I heard my mom talking about Dad's leaving. Mom sat with her friend Connie. They drank coffee at the little dining area just off our kitchen. I sat in my wheelchair in my usual spot next to the window overlooking Puget Sound. It was a pretty day, blue sky and a clear view of the Olympic Mountains far across the water.

Mom sounded very sad. “I understand him,” she said, talking about my dad. “I know what he went through over Shawn. The thing that kills him is not knowing whether Shawn is aware or not. The doctors have assured us, a thousand times, that it's almost impossible that Shawn could have any awareness, but it's that ‘almost' that makes it intolerable for Syd.”

Connie said gently, “I still don't think that gave him a right to leave you guys.”

My mom looked down into her coffee cup. “No,” she said. “It sure didn't. He's weak and cowardly. Sometimes I hate him. But I know, too, that he just can't stand seeing Shawn suffer with the seizures. Syd can't stand the thought that Shawn might be trapped inside himself.”

Even before Dad won a Pulitzer for “Shawn,” he'd won awards. His books of poems, writings in newspapers and magazines, and teaching literature at the college where he used to work made him seem smart to me. Does he know something that I don't about dying? Would he kill me without being sure it was the right thing to do? Knowing that my dad loves me makes everything even more confusing.

Not that it's important, but my dad and I both have double-jointed thumbs. We can bend them backward, at an odd angle, so they look as if they've been broken by a mafioso enforcer. Neither Paul nor Cindy can bend their thumbs backward like that, but I can. Actually, when I say I can bend my thumbs, what I mean is that on those few times when Dad comes to visit, he always takes my hands and gently bends my thumbs back, so they look broken and weird. Then he puts his thumbs like that. I can't control the muscles of my own thumbs, of course, but Dad holds them at that strange right angle; then, while he's holding my thumbs like that, he bends his own back too. Our hands, except for the difference in size, look like the paws of mutant monkey twins, half human, half deformed. It's funny. I've watched Dad's face come into focus sometimes in the middle of this little ritual, and it's always seemed that it's then that he feels closest to me. Sometimes he laughs sadly, a real small laugh. And right then I feel most loved by him.

I almost trust Dad to do what's best. I almost trust him to know whether “ending” my “pain” would be the right thing to do. Almost.

Inside my chest,

where my heart should be,

a ghost bird

is flying into a terrible wind,

a frozen winter wind,

and its eye is covered in ice,

and it has no voice,

and it is fading out of itself;

falling and falling
.

C
indy's sleepovers with her girl friends are one of
the few places where invisibility has advantages. Being a total retard and not being able to communicate has presented certain drawbacks when it comes to securing a close, intimate relationship with a girl. In fact, in case you couldn't figure this one out on your own, it's made it completely impossible. Nope, I'm never gonna score with the ladies, that's for sure. But like I said, invisibility has some advantages.

After a little while of being with me, people begin to forget I'm there. First they look past me, then around me, and eventually right through me. I become invisible.

However, every dark cloud, as they say—you wouldn't believe the stuff teenage girls talk about when they think no guys are around to hear. And because I can't tattle, and because they think I'm a vegetable anyway, they don't think of me as a guy. Actually I'm pretty sure they don't think about me much at all.

There they are, bouncing around in their bras and panties and changing clothes right in front of me in the family room. Not really “right in front of me,” but from where my wheelchair is parked, near the window in the kitchen, when my eyes happen to turn that direction, I have a perfect view into the family room. Our big-screen TV, the CD player and stereo, and a couple of big couches are in there, so that's the room where Cindy and her friends usually camp out for the night. The way our house is set up, although I'm in a different room altogether, I'm only about fifteen feet away from them. I can hear all but their most private, softly whispered secrets. And when my eyes are willing, I can watch them.

Tonight Cindy has a new friend over for the first time. She's come for a sleepover. Most of Cindy's friends are pretty cute. But none come close to being as pretty as this girl is. She is tall, and she has blondish-brown hair and an amazingly attractive body. Her face looks like one of those women in Maxfield Parrish paintings (Mom has a couple prints in her room). God, she's beautiful.

When people first meet me, they usually do their Annie-Sullivan-meeting-Helen-Keller-in-
The Miracle Worker
routine.

“HI SHAWN, NICE TO MEET YOU.... MY NAME IS ALLY WILLIAMSON.... HOW ARE YOU?” For some reason people always speak real slowly and real loudly when they're introduced to me. Usually it bugs me. Not with Ally Williamson, though. She's
so
perfect!

Cindy says, “He doesn't talk.”

Ally answers, “Oh. Well … does he … understand … does he know what I'm saying?”

Cindy says, “Not really.”

Ally turns back to me. “HI ANYWAY, SHAWN. HAVE A NICE DAY.”

Looking at Ally, listening to her, my stomach aches and is warm and safe all at once. My palms are sweaty. My chest, my heart, all my insides feel hot and tingling. I won't even start to describe some of the other parts of my body—other than to say that I feel better than I've ever felt. I feel dizzy.

Two hours pass and I'm in bed in my room, thinking about girls in general and Ally Williamson in particular. My bed is an oversize crib with wooden rails to keep me from falling out onto the floor.

I can't hear Cindy or Ally talking anymore and the TV is silent, so I'm pretty sure they are already asleep in the family room. It feels late; the whole house is quiet. A soft breeze blows some branches against my window. Even in the darkness, I can “see” my room. Above my head a cardboard African animal mobile hangs over my bed. This “stimulation” piece was installed before I could remember anything, which means before I turned four. My dad may have put it here. How many times have I looked up at that giraffe, tiger, lion, parrot, zebra, and hippopotamus? How many times? Well to give you some idea: The giraffe has a total of 76 spots on his body from the tip of his ears to the bottom of his hooves; the zebra, 38 stripes; the tiger, 23. The lion shows six teeth and has 122 visible brush strokes making up the long, tan hairs in his mane; the hippo shows only eight teeth in his huge, gaping mouth; the little bird perched on the hippo's ass has four yellow-tipped feathers on its wings. I could go on. The point is I've put in a lot of lying-here-staring-at-the-mobile time in my life. Even through the dark I can “see” all the mobile's features.

Finally, unable to hold off any longer, I feel myself starting to drift toward sleep.

My bedroom, despite being black already, turns darker still. The room begins to swallow me, like it does every night. My immobile mobile hangs in the stillness; my plastic foot brace jobbies that I wear to keep my feet and ankles less spazzed out lie on the floor; soon all of the room and everything in it fades into the darkness.

As sleep takes me, I begin to dream. In my dream I take a deep breath, and I have complete control of my body; it's similar to the feeling I have when I'm in a seizure.