The Speed of Dark (29 page)

“… But it
is
the point,” Mr. Stacy is saying when I catch up to the conversation again. “This gym, now: it’s already installed, right? It probably costs diddly to maintain it. Now say you kick out this whole section—sixteen, twenty people maybe?—and convert it to… there’s nothing I can think of to do in the space taken up by even a large gym that will make you as much money as paying employer’s share of unemployment for that many people will. Not to mention losing your certification as a provider-employer for this disabilityclass, and I’m sure you’re getting a tax break that way.”

“What do you know about that?” Mr. Crenshaw asks.

“Our department has disabled employees, too,” Mr. Stacy says. “Some disabled on the job and some hired that way. We had one flaming scuzzbucket of a city councilman, a few years ago, wanted to cut costs by getting rid of what he called freeloaders. I spent way too many off-duty hours working on the stats to show that we’d lose money by dumping ’em.”

“You’re tax-supported,” Mr. Crenshaw said. I could see his pulse pounding in one of the blood vessels on his red, shiny forehead. “You don’t have to worry about profit. We have to make the money to pay your damned salary.”

“Which I’m sure curdles your beer,” Mr. Stacy says. His pulse is pounding, too. “Now if you’ll excuse us, I need to talk to Mr. Arrendale —”

“Lou, you’ll make up this wasted time,” Mr. Crenshaw said, and went out, slamming the door behind him.

I look at Mr. Stacy, who shakes his head. “Now that’s a real piece of work. I had a sergeant like that once, years ago when I was just a patrolman, but he transferred toChicago , thank God. You might want to look for another job, Mr. Arrendale . That one’s out to get rid of you.”

“I do not understand it,” I say. “I work—we all work—very hard here. Why does he want to get rid of us?” Or make us into someone else… I wonder whether to tell Mr. Stacy about the experimental protocol or not.

“He’s a power-hungry SOB,” Mr. Stacy says. “That kind arealways out to make themselves look good and someone else look bad. You’re sitting there doing a good job quietly, no fuss. You look like someone he can kick around safely. Unluckily for him, this other thing’s happened to you.”

“It does not feel lucky,” I say. “It feels worse.”

“Probably does,” Mr. Stacy says. “But it’s not. This way, see, your Mr. Crenshaw has to deal with me—and he’ll find his arrogance doesn’t go far with the police.”

I am not sure I believe this. Mr. Crenshaw is not just Mr. Crenshaw; he is also the company, and the
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company has a lot of influence on city policy.

“Tell you what,” Mr. Stacy says. “Let’s get back to those incidents, so I can get out of your hair and you don’t have to stay later. Have you had any other interactions with Don, however trivial, that indicated he was upset with you?”

It seems silly, but I tell him about the time Don stood between Marjory and me at practice and about Marjory calling him a real heel even though he cannot be literally a heel.

“So what I’m hearing is a pattern here of your other friends protecting you from Don, making it clear that they don’t like how he treats you, is that right?”

I had not thought of it that way. When he says it, I can see the pattern as clearly as any on my computer or in fencing, and I wonder why I did not see it before. “He would be unhappy,” I say. “He would see that I am treated differently than he is, and—” I stop, struck suddenly by another pattern I have not seen before. “It’s like Mr. Crenshaw,” I say. My voice goes up; I can hear the tension in it, but it is too exciting. “He does not like it for the same reason.” I stop again, trying to think it through. I reach out and flip on my fan; the spin spirals help me think when I am excited.

“It is the pattern of people who do not really believe we need supports and resent the supports. If I—if we—did worse, they would understand more. It is the combination of doing well and having the supports that upsets them. I am too normal—” I look back at Mr. Stacy; he is smiling and nodding. “That is silly,”

I say. “I am not normal. Not now. Not ever.”

“It may not seem that way to you,” he says. “And when you do something like you did with that old catchphrase about coincidence and enemy action, you are clearly not average… but most of the time you look normal and act normal. You know, I even thought—what we were told back in the psych classes we had to take was that autistic people were mostly nonverbal, reclusive,rigid .” He grins. I do not know what the grin means when he has just said so many bad things about us. “And here I find you driving a car, holding down a job, falling in love, going to fencing meets—”

“Only one so far,” I say.

“All right, only one so far. But I see a lot of people, Mr. Arrendale , who function less well than you and some who look to function at the same level.Doing it without supports. Now I see the reason for supports and the economy of them. It’s like putting a wedge under the short leg of a table—why nothave a solid, foursquare table? Why endure a tippy unstable surface when such a little thing will make it stable?

But people aren’t furniture, and if other people see that wedge as a threat to them… they won’t like it.”

“I do not see how I am a threat to Don or to Mr. Crenshaw,” I say.

“You personally may not be. I don’t even think your supports are, to anyone. But some people don’t think too well, and it’s easy for them to blame someone else for anything that’s wrong in their own lives.

Don probably thinks if you weren’t getting preferential treatment he’d be successful with that woman.”

I wish he would use her name, Marjory. “That woman” sounds as if she had done something wrong.

“She probably wouldn’t like him anyway, but he doesn’t want to face that—he’d rather blame you. That is, if he’s the one doing all this.” He glances down at his pocket set. “From the information we have on him, he’s had a series of low-level jobs, sometimes quitting and sometimes being fired… his credit rating’s low… he could see himself as a failure and be looking for someone to blame for everything.”

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I never thought of normal people as needing to explain their failures. I never thought of them as having failures.

“We’ll send someone to pick you up, Mr. Arrendale ,” he says. “Call this number when you’re ready to leave for home.” He hands me a card. “We aren’t going to post a guard here, your corporate security’s good enough, but do believe me—you need to be careful.”

It is hard to go back to work when he is gone, but I focus on my project and accomplish something before it is time to leave and call for a ride.

PETE ALDRIN TOOK A DEEP BREATH AFTER CRENSHAW LEFT HIS
office, in a rage about the

“stuck-up cop” who had come to interview Lou Arrendale , and picked up the phone to call Human Resources. “Bart—” That was the name Paul had suggested in Human Resources, a young and inexperienced employee who would certainly ask around for directions and help. “Bart, I need to arrange some time off for my entire Section A; they’re going to be involved in a research project.”

“Whose?” Bart asked.

“Ours—first human trial of a new product aimed at autistic adults. Mr. Crenshaw considers this a top priority in our division, so I’d really appreciate it if you’d expedite setting up indefinite leave. I think that’d be best; we don’t know how long it will take—”

“For all of them?At once?”

“They may go through the protocol staggered; I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know when the consent forms are signed. But it’ll be at least thirty days—”

“I don’t see how—”

“Here’s the authorization code. If you need Mr. Crenshaw’s signature—”

“It’s just not—”

“Thanks,” Aldrin said, and hung up. He could imagine Bart looking puzzled and alarmed both, then running off to his supervisor to ask what to do. Aldrin took a deep breath,then called Shirley in Accounting.

“I need to arrange for direct deposit of Section A’s salaries into their banks while they’re on indefinite leave—”

“Pete, I told you: that’s not how it works. You have to have clearance—”

“Mr. Crenshaw considers it a top priority. I have the project authorization code and I can get his signature—”

“But how am I supposed to—”

“Can’t you just say they’re working at a secondary location? That wouldn’t require any changes to the existing departmental budgets.”

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He could hear her sucking her teeth over the phone. “I could, I guess,if you told me where the secondary location was.”

“Building Forty-two, Main Campus.”

A moment’s silence, then, “But that’s the clinic, Pete. What ate you trying to pull?Double-dipping for company employees as research subjects?”

“I’m not trying to pull anything,” Aldrin said as huffily as he could. “I’m trying to expedite a project Mr.

Crenshaw feels strongly about. They won’t be double-dipping if they get the salary and not the honoraria.”

“I have my doubts,” Shirley said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks,” Aldrin said, and hung up again. He was sweating; he could feel it running down his ribs.

Shirley was no novice; she knew perfectly well that this was an outrageous request, and she would sound off about it.

Human Resources, Accounting… Legal and Research had to come next. He rummaged through the papers Crenshaw had left until he found the chief scientist’s name on the protocol. Liselle Hendricks…

not, he noticed, the man who had been sent to talk to the volunteers. Dr. Ransome was listed as

“physician liaison, recruitment” in the list of associated technical staff.

“Dr. Hendricks,” Aldrin said a few minutes later. “I’m Pete Aldrin , over in Analysis. I’m in charge of Section A, where your volunteers are coming from. Do you have the consent forms ready yet?”

“What are you talking about?” Dr. Hendricks asked. “If you want volunteer recruitment, you need Extension three-thirty-seven. I don’t have anything to do with it.”

“You are the chief scientist, aren’t you?”

“Yes…” Aldrin could imagine the woman’s puzzled face.

“Well, I’m just wondering when you’ll send over the consent forms for the volunteers.”

“Why should I send them to you?” Hendricks asked. “Dr. Ransome is supposed to take care of that.”

“Well, they all work here,” Aldrin said.“Might be simpler.”

“All in one section?”Hendricks sounded more surprised than Aldrin expected. “I didn’t know that. Isn’t that going to give you some problems?”

“I’ll manage,” Aldrin said, forcing a chuckle. “After all, I’m a manager.” She did not respond to the joke, and he went on. “Now the thing is,they haven’t all made up their minds. I’m sure they will, what with…

one thing and another, but anyway—”

Hendricks’s voice sharpened. “What do you mean, with one thing and another? You’re not putting pressure on them, are you? It would not be ethical—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Aldrin said. “Of course no one can be forced to cooperate, we’re not talking about any kind of coercion, of course, but these are difficult times, economically speaking,
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Mr. Crenshaw says—”

“But… but—” It was almost a splutter.

“So if you could get those forms to me promptly, I’d really appreciate it,” Aldrin said, and hung up. Then he quickly dialed Bart, the man Crenshaw had told him to contact.

“When are you going to have those consent forms?” he said. “And what kind of schedule are we talking about? Have you talked to Accounting about the payroll issues? Have you talked to Human Resources?”

“ Er… no.”Bart sounded too young to be important, but he was probably a Crenshaw appointee. “I just thought, I think Mr. Crenshaw said he—his section—would be taking care of the details. All I was supposed to do was make sure they qualified for the protocol over here. Consent forms, I’m not sure we have them drafted yet—”

Aldrinsmiled to himself. Bart’s confusion was a bonus; any manager might easily go over the head of such a disorganized little twit. He had his excuse now for calling Hendricks; if he was lucky—and he felt lucky—no one would realize which one he’d called first.

Now the question was when to go higher. He would prefer to carry the whole tale just when rumors were beginning torise that high, but he had no idea how long that took. How long would Shirley or Hendricks sit on the new data he’d given them before doing anything? What would they do first? If they went straight upstairs, top management would know in a few hours, but if they waited a day or so, it might be as long as a week.

His stomach churned; he ate two antacid tablets.

ON FRIDAY, THE POLICE ARRANGED TO HAVE ME PICKED
up and taken to work. My car was towed to the police station for examination; they say they will bring it back by Friday night. Mr.

Crenshaw does not come to our section. I make a lot of progress on my project.

The police send a car to take me home, but first we go by a store to buy a replacement battery for my car and then to the place where the police keep cars. It is not the regular police station but a place called an impoundment. That is a new word to me. I have to sign papers stating that my car is my car and that I am taking custody of it. A mechanic puts the new battery I just bought into my car. One of the policemen offers to drive home with me, but I do not think I need help. He says that they have put my apartment on a watch list.

The inside of my car is dirty, with pale dust on the surfaces. I want to clean it, but first I need to drive home. It is a longer drive than coming straight home from work, but I do not get lost. I park my car next to Danny’s and go up to my apartment.

I am not supposed to leave my apartment, for my own safety, but it is Friday night and I need to do my laundry. The laundry room is in the building. I think Mr. Stacy meant I should not leave the building. It will be safe in the building, because Danny lives here and he is a policeman. I will not leave the building, but I will do my laundry.

I put the dark things into the dark basket and the light things into the light basket, balance the detergent on top, and carefully look through the peephole before opening the door.No one, of course. I open the
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