Friday, 25 June 2010

• I guess I'm a bad stranger

  I don't have much experience with autistic people, but I do have one event to relate, and it's not a good one. This falls into multiple categories, including bad parenting.
  
  

  
  
  Not your average assault weapon
  
  

  I was at my social networking site- Barnes & Noble- I had just gotten my tea and decided to peruse the magazines, selecting a copy of the late and lamented Starlog. There were two empty benches, but they were far away and the one behind me held only a teenage boy reading a comic book. I sat on the opposite corner of the bench, far from him.

  If I'd been in a worse mood, my cynic's perception may have smelled the problem before it began, but for some reason I was happy that day, a rare condition that this kid managed to ruin with minimal effort. Because I was content, I ignored the first danger sign- him taking three quick, hissing breaths as soon as I sat. I figured he was just sick, or had a weird laugh. Each time I turned a page, or just shifted in my seat, he'd do it again. “Huff, huff, huff!”

  I began to lose concentration on my Jack Sparrow article, and watched The Ventilator out of the corner of my eye. He sat there defining the word geek, with thick, black plastic glasses, a faceful of zits and drool running onto his Batman tee shirt. I noted that he never once turned the page of his comic; his eyes were fixed on one spot. We continued like this for about ten minutes, until I reached for my tea, which required me to turn toward him. This proved too much for The Human Steam Valve, and with a very loud, anguished cry, he pulled the lid off his drink and dumped it into my lap.

  Fortunately, he had a frappuccino instead of something hot, a twist of fate that allowed him to leave the store with all of his blood. I watched in stunned outrage as he ran toward the other end of the magazine section, where he buried his face in the shirt of a disgustingly obese woman. She coddled him, simpered and asked what was wrong. I didn't think she was prepared for the problem he had created, but it was on its way to visit her nonetheless.

  With coffee-flavored ice soaking into my crotch, I stalked down to demanded an explanation, brandishing my ruined Starlog like my namesake. Despite blood pressure approaching Yosemite Sam levels, I politely asked her why her son did that to me. I should note that even though I was flaming mad, I did not raise my voice or use improper language. I have sense enough to know when something is not quite right, and this kid had proudly hoisted the colors of that particular realm.

  Fatty cast me a look of condescending loathing, as if I affronted her by existing. “He's autistic,” she said as if he was wearing a sign and I was an idiot for not reading it. “He's afraid of strangers, you must have done something to upset him.” Then this anthropomorphic whale has the nerve to ask me what my problem is. “It's just coffee, it'll come out,” she blatted, with a dismissive wave. When I asked her about the mess and whether she was going to pay for the ruined magazine, she looked at me like she was picking up something her dog had dropped. “They have people for that.”

  Her abrasiveness ground down the last of my patience. I asked her what she thought she was doing taking a kid who obviously needed supervision and leaving him alone in public. Moby Mom decided the best course of action was to dump any and all blame upon me with “He would have been fine if you hadn't bothered him!” All this time, her kid is hiding his face in her rolls and whimpering. I couldn't tell where his snot ended and the butter that passed for her sweat began.

  So here's me with my soggy Starlog dripping frap juice onto the tile, wondering if I'm going to have a stroke while trying to work out how this is my fault. The words I needed to express myself trampled around my head like stampeding cattle, afraid to come out lest Ms. Orca swallow them whole. All I could offer her was my standard incredulous look, to which she merely scoffed, grabbed her kid by the elbow and stomped off, tiles cracking underfoot. An employee chose this moment to arrive from science fiction and ask me if I needed any help. “Eugenics,” I said.

  I sympathize with the kid's condition and don't have any ill will toward him, but his abomination of a mother, sitting across the store licking the pictures in the cookbooks while leaving her socially inept kid to the mercy of the general public, needs a good harpooning. She did not bother to apologize, clean up the mess, or pay for the magazine her son had ruined. She simply trudged out, assuring her kid he had done no wrong, leaving me and a confused, underpaid bookseller to pick up the pieces.

  I'm no expert, but it seems to me that if you have a child with special needs, especially a terrible fear of strangers, you should not leave him alone in public. Thoughts?

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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