17.7.03
Small Koala Bears. (Because I have no better idea for a title)
This week has passed in a haze of heat, and desperate job-searching. Somehow, scribbling got lost in the cracks, and I'm sitting here thinking - crap, how can I possibly make this interesting?
I was hot. I got turned down a lot. My options it seems, are Burger King, or a call centre. I'm not sure I expect either of them to get in touch. This upsets me because I want to be employed. It thrills me because it means I'm freed of burger flipping and unwanted, intrusive sales calls.
So, I figure, I can't make this interesting, not without wallowing in self-pity.
Instead, I'll tell you about the incredible Slim Fast kid I've been babysitting for the last fifteen years. Today was his latest gatecrash.
I shouldn't call him 'The Kid.' I'm sure he'd resent it if he knew. At 16, I'd resent it too. Still, "I can't come out today," I tell a friend. "I've got to take the kid to the beach." As if I'm the only one taking him, I'm driving, buying his cokes, and responsible. Really, it's a ritual I've given up fighting as the real grown-ups drag us out on Sundays.
I have no siblings, except for him, and he's not related to me at all.
When I was a small child, and he was smaller, he would come around and break my toys, and forget to think it might be nice to apologise.
(We know now, like half a dozen of my cousins, he has Asperger's Syndrome, and will never think to remember to apologise.)
Historically, he was just the incredible kid. The kid because, he's younger than me. Because as much as I hated him, it was good to have someone to hate, who you knew hated you back, in exactly the right way. My kid - mine to bitch about and rage at - mine to sit and enjoy when we were both calm.
When he got sick --
(We know now, he was depressed. We know now, his migraines, inability to connect, exhaustion, apathy, tendency to stay awake all night and sleep all day, stemmed from that irritating Syndrome he picked up in a couple of unlucky genes. It hit him head-on, and fast, and worse than it ever hit any of the cousins I knew half as well as him.)
- and missed a year and a half of school, sometimes I came down during my free periods, and lunch breaks, and sat with him; prodding his dog and searching for something to say.
He was incredible, not because he was particularly amazing, but because I couldn't believe in him. He was the only thirteen year old Meatloaf lookalike I knew. He walked on the balls of his feet -
(We know now, that is the dyspraxia. But I think, sometimes, we know too much.)
- and whined like a teenage girl. He was also incredible, I suppose, because clinical depression is a bitch to beat off. And while he came close, while he bragged about all his conditions, while he kept right on breaking my stuff and forgetting to apologise, he never gave up.
He came in today, having broken that all important height barrier - 5'4" - and shooting past me.
"You want a soda?" I asked.
""It's fucking pop, not soda," he growled at my Americanism. "And no, I can't drink anything but water today."
"Oh, yeah," I said. "I forgot, you're the SlimFast poster boy."
He sniffs, airily, aware that I am jealous he's managed to drop more weight than I could easily carry, and silently knowing that he could drop that much more before becoming slender.
We forget to miss each other when I'm away in college. I come home, and somehow, he's sitting on my couch, riffing off about Buffy or bad seventies punk rock. He's sitting at my piano, playing strange, chromatic melodies with one hand. He's twitching nervously. He's insulting me. He's stuttering, the way he's stuttered since he was four years old, and I have to remind myself - never interrupt.
This week has passed in a haze of heat, and desperate job-searching. Somehow, scribbling got lost in the cracks, and I'm sitting here thinking - crap, how can I possibly make this interesting?
I was hot. I got turned down a lot. My options it seems, are Burger King, or a call centre. I'm not sure I expect either of them to get in touch. This upsets me because I want to be employed. It thrills me because it means I'm freed of burger flipping and unwanted, intrusive sales calls.
So, I figure, I can't make this interesting, not without wallowing in self-pity.
Instead, I'll tell you about the incredible Slim Fast kid I've been babysitting for the last fifteen years. Today was his latest gatecrash.
I shouldn't call him 'The Kid.' I'm sure he'd resent it if he knew. At 16, I'd resent it too. Still, "I can't come out today," I tell a friend. "I've got to take the kid to the beach." As if I'm the only one taking him, I'm driving, buying his cokes, and responsible. Really, it's a ritual I've given up fighting as the real grown-ups drag us out on Sundays.
I have no siblings, except for him, and he's not related to me at all.
When I was a small child, and he was smaller, he would come around and break my toys, and forget to think it might be nice to apologise.
(We know now, like half a dozen of my cousins, he has Asperger's Syndrome, and will never think to remember to apologise.)
Historically, he was just the incredible kid. The kid because, he's younger than me. Because as much as I hated him, it was good to have someone to hate, who you knew hated you back, in exactly the right way. My kid - mine to bitch about and rage at - mine to sit and enjoy when we were both calm.
When he got sick --
(We know now, he was depressed. We know now, his migraines, inability to connect, exhaustion, apathy, tendency to stay awake all night and sleep all day, stemmed from that irritating Syndrome he picked up in a couple of unlucky genes. It hit him head-on, and fast, and worse than it ever hit any of the cousins I knew half as well as him.)
- and missed a year and a half of school, sometimes I came down during my free periods, and lunch breaks, and sat with him; prodding his dog and searching for something to say.
He was incredible, not because he was particularly amazing, but because I couldn't believe in him. He was the only thirteen year old Meatloaf lookalike I knew. He walked on the balls of his feet -
(We know now, that is the dyspraxia. But I think, sometimes, we know too much.)
- and whined like a teenage girl. He was also incredible, I suppose, because clinical depression is a bitch to beat off. And while he came close, while he bragged about all his conditions, while he kept right on breaking my stuff and forgetting to apologise, he never gave up.
He came in today, having broken that all important height barrier - 5'4" - and shooting past me.
"You want a soda?" I asked.
""It's fucking pop, not soda," he growled at my Americanism. "And no, I can't drink anything but water today."
"Oh, yeah," I said. "I forgot, you're the SlimFast poster boy."
He sniffs, airily, aware that I am jealous he's managed to drop more weight than I could easily carry, and silently knowing that he could drop that much more before becoming slender.
We forget to miss each other when I'm away in college. I come home, and somehow, he's sitting on my couch, riffing off about Buffy or bad seventies punk rock. He's sitting at my piano, playing strange, chromatic melodies with one hand. He's twitching nervously. He's insulting me. He's stuttering, the way he's stuttered since he was four years old, and I have to remind myself - never interrupt.
