18.11.04
Jack marches in, an hour and a half late, dressed entirely in black, dressed in the toothy grin of a maniac, and in dark sunglasses.
"It's great man," he says. "I've got everything I need to live in my pockets."
He pulls out a cigarette lighter, a walkman, three tapes, some cigarette papers, tobacco, change, solo card, a bottle of vitamins, and a small lead model of a futuristic soldier. He puts them in a small pile on the coffee table next to my laptop and the microphone.
"Why do you need that?" I ask, pointing to the soldier.
"So when I'm fucked I can stare at it. I can stare at that thing for hours. Like, yeah, I should have been one of those."
"A lead model?"
"Yeah, man."
He sits down next to me on the couch and starts prodding at the hole in the arm rest. "Bud, you need better furniture."
"I'll get better furniture when you quit smoking weed. Deal?"
He laughs the riotous laugh of a machine gun. "Shit, dude, we both know that's never gonna happen."
"My point, Junkie."
"Don't say that! That's a fucking terrible thing to say," he sounds offended but I know better. He's still grinning like a shark, his blond hair slicked back, spiky as a porcupine. His laugh has become a mechanical hiss, escaping through his teeth.
"Right, whatever. Are we gonna do this or not?"
I open the recording programme on my computer and get him to shout, "Test," into the microphone a few times. He does so. He has to speak loudly, I explain, because the microphone is shit. Sure he says, no problem, but immediately begins to mumble when the interview starts.
"So," I say. "What do you want to talk about?"
"You said this was an interview, dude, you're supposed to ask me."
"Yeah, but anything I can ask you you won't want to talk about."
"Look, at the end of the day, I'm me, right? I don't give a shit what I say, do I? So just get
on with it." "Okay then, tell me what it's like having AS."
"Nah, man. I don't want to talk about that."
He's lying. He tells complete strangers at the bus stop what it's like to have Asperger's Syndrome, to be somewhat autistic.
"Why not?"
"Cos I'm not just some label, you know? I don't want people thinking about me like that."
He's lying. AS is his beloved excuse for everything he does. He strides into college for his meetings with his tutors and says things like, "I'm telling you straight up I can't write that essay until Thursday, because I can't get any weed until Wednesday, and at the end of the day, I can't write it unless I'm mashed, because it makes me more human. You know?"
Jack doesn't quite understand people on an emotional or social level. This is what AS does. He believes marijuana allieviates this disability. We try to tell him otherwise. He is not convinced.
He is also paranoid. That is why the interview is going so badly.
"Well what will you talk about? Dude you're the most interesting guy I know, but you're not gonna talk about your disability, and I know you won't talk about that shit in Bristol, or about being in prison or about what you did to get into prison, so I'm kind of screwed here!"
"All right, all right, I'll tell you about what it was like when I lived in Bristol."
He begins to drone on about someone he knew sometime, or someone he knew some
other time. He lights a cigarette and the smoke fills the small room. I leave him droning at the microphone in tones too low to be heard as I go to the kitchen, try to find a clean cup, and pour myself a drink.
We are at the crux of the problem. Self-censorship. Jack is terrified the police will turn up and arrest him, no matter what he has or hasn't done. He hears the emergency hospital helicopters and ducks out of sight of his window, sure it must be the police. "Shit man! They'd better not fucking come here."
He oscillates between extremes. Black and white, there is no middle ground. For him, this is his Asperger's at work. Do you love them? No? Then you must hate them. "At the end of the day, man, I can't be fucked to hang out with people I don't like. They're fucking irrelevant." Trying to explain the ambivalence of emotion is lost on him.
I have known him for years. Predicting his behaviour is still a matter of picking to extremes and waiting to see which one he will choose. Take this interview. One of two responses. Either, "Shit man, I can't be fucked with that. At the end of the day, if they can't be arsed to go out there and be fucking dodgy themselves, I don't see why I should tell them how to do it." (Not the point, I would of course, point out. He, of course, wouldn't understand.) Or he might say, "Shit man, yeah, of course I'll do it. At the end of the day, you might as well hear it from someone who's been there, right?"
Although, what actually happened first was, "Shit man, how do they know about me? Why do they want to hear about me?"
He's still monotoning about some job he had at a place that sold windows, and another job he had at a fast food restaurant, about how he used to get crap jobs for a week and then live for a week on all the money, and spend it all on crap he didn't need, on CDs and computer games and drugs and small lead miniatures. I have known Jack long enough, I could write a more convincing dialogue for him than the stuff he's giving me right now.
"Dude, you've gotta say something interesting here! You said you'd help me. Tell me about some of the interesting shit you used to get up to. Like that thing with the skull and -"
"Shut up, man! You can't say that!"
"Why not? It's not like anyone's ever going to hear this."
"What, you can edit it?"
"What?"
"You know, take out the bad bits before you play this to anyone?"
"Dude, I'm never going to play this to anyone! It's for fucking research! It's just so I can remember all the things you're saying."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Fuck it! Give me that mike! What do you want to know?"
And he's off, naming names, detailed descriptions, this asshole, that asshole, the girl he was dating, who's family he moved in with, only to drop her, get a new girlfriend and stay in the ex's house, how he convinced the ex's mother to leave the ex's father, how he had a cabal.
Cabal?
Yeah, man, they were convinced I could to voodoo shit. Kill bugs by looking at them and stuff. Best bullshit I ever told. How he stole a man's skull.
Skull?
Yeah, man, we found this broken mausoleum and we went in, and they were all daring me to have a look in the coffin, and I didn't understand why they were scared, cos, you know, of how I am, and cos my friends can basically convince me to do anything.
Anything?
Yeah, man, I'd probably jump off a bridge if you told me to. How he went to prison.
Prison?
Yeah, for the skull. How he tried to kill himself with heart pills, and then, in the ambulance to hospital, asked if they could drop him off in Bath to go shopping.
Bath?
Shit man, you're right. I should have asked for somewhere better.
I could note it all down, transcribe it, but I could not do it justice. The crazy laughter, the wide eyes, the cheeks, hollowing as he sucks in smoke, blows out smoke, sucks it back in through his nose, out again through his nostrils. The way the information stays locked inside or falls away from him like dry fish scales, like a rollercoaster gone out of control.
Jack would say, "Fuck it man, they don't need to know every last thing about my life to know I'm fucking weird."
I'm inclined to agree.
He gets up to leave and says, "Dude, you should keep recording random conversations we have in case you catch something really deep I say that I can sell as a quote."
"Text me later, okay?" I answer.
"Can't, mate. Out of credit. Tell you what though, as soon as I get some, I'm gonna sign up to one of those dating agencies and get text messages from whores!"
He pastes his grin back on, so huge it makes my mouth ache, plugs in his headphones and strides out the door, slamming it behind him.
"It's great man," he says. "I've got everything I need to live in my pockets."
He pulls out a cigarette lighter, a walkman, three tapes, some cigarette papers, tobacco, change, solo card, a bottle of vitamins, and a small lead model of a futuristic soldier. He puts them in a small pile on the coffee table next to my laptop and the microphone.
"Why do you need that?" I ask, pointing to the soldier.
"So when I'm fucked I can stare at it. I can stare at that thing for hours. Like, yeah, I should have been one of those."
"A lead model?"
"Yeah, man."
He sits down next to me on the couch and starts prodding at the hole in the arm rest. "Bud, you need better furniture."
"I'll get better furniture when you quit smoking weed. Deal?"
He laughs the riotous laugh of a machine gun. "Shit, dude, we both know that's never gonna happen."
"My point, Junkie."
"Don't say that! That's a fucking terrible thing to say," he sounds offended but I know better. He's still grinning like a shark, his blond hair slicked back, spiky as a porcupine. His laugh has become a mechanical hiss, escaping through his teeth.
"Right, whatever. Are we gonna do this or not?"
I open the recording programme on my computer and get him to shout, "Test," into the microphone a few times. He does so. He has to speak loudly, I explain, because the microphone is shit. Sure he says, no problem, but immediately begins to mumble when the interview starts.
"So," I say. "What do you want to talk about?"
"You said this was an interview, dude, you're supposed to ask me."
"Yeah, but anything I can ask you you won't want to talk about."
"Look, at the end of the day, I'm me, right? I don't give a shit what I say, do I? So just get
on with it." "Okay then, tell me what it's like having AS."
"Nah, man. I don't want to talk about that."
He's lying. He tells complete strangers at the bus stop what it's like to have Asperger's Syndrome, to be somewhat autistic.
"Why not?"
"Cos I'm not just some label, you know? I don't want people thinking about me like that."
He's lying. AS is his beloved excuse for everything he does. He strides into college for his meetings with his tutors and says things like, "I'm telling you straight up I can't write that essay until Thursday, because I can't get any weed until Wednesday, and at the end of the day, I can't write it unless I'm mashed, because it makes me more human. You know?"
Jack doesn't quite understand people on an emotional or social level. This is what AS does. He believes marijuana allieviates this disability. We try to tell him otherwise. He is not convinced.
He is also paranoid. That is why the interview is going so badly.
"Well what will you talk about? Dude you're the most interesting guy I know, but you're not gonna talk about your disability, and I know you won't talk about that shit in Bristol, or about being in prison or about what you did to get into prison, so I'm kind of screwed here!"
"All right, all right, I'll tell you about what it was like when I lived in Bristol."
He begins to drone on about someone he knew sometime, or someone he knew some
other time. He lights a cigarette and the smoke fills the small room. I leave him droning at the microphone in tones too low to be heard as I go to the kitchen, try to find a clean cup, and pour myself a drink.
We are at the crux of the problem. Self-censorship. Jack is terrified the police will turn up and arrest him, no matter what he has or hasn't done. He hears the emergency hospital helicopters and ducks out of sight of his window, sure it must be the police. "Shit man! They'd better not fucking come here."
He oscillates between extremes. Black and white, there is no middle ground. For him, this is his Asperger's at work. Do you love them? No? Then you must hate them. "At the end of the day, man, I can't be fucked to hang out with people I don't like. They're fucking irrelevant." Trying to explain the ambivalence of emotion is lost on him.
I have known him for years. Predicting his behaviour is still a matter of picking to extremes and waiting to see which one he will choose. Take this interview. One of two responses. Either, "Shit man, I can't be fucked with that. At the end of the day, if they can't be arsed to go out there and be fucking dodgy themselves, I don't see why I should tell them how to do it." (Not the point, I would of course, point out. He, of course, wouldn't understand.) Or he might say, "Shit man, yeah, of course I'll do it. At the end of the day, you might as well hear it from someone who's been there, right?"
Although, what actually happened first was, "Shit man, how do they know about me? Why do they want to hear about me?"
He's still monotoning about some job he had at a place that sold windows, and another job he had at a fast food restaurant, about how he used to get crap jobs for a week and then live for a week on all the money, and spend it all on crap he didn't need, on CDs and computer games and drugs and small lead miniatures. I have known Jack long enough, I could write a more convincing dialogue for him than the stuff he's giving me right now.
"Dude, you've gotta say something interesting here! You said you'd help me. Tell me about some of the interesting shit you used to get up to. Like that thing with the skull and -"
"Shut up, man! You can't say that!"
"Why not? It's not like anyone's ever going to hear this."
"What, you can edit it?"
"What?"
"You know, take out the bad bits before you play this to anyone?"
"Dude, I'm never going to play this to anyone! It's for fucking research! It's just so I can remember all the things you're saying."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Fuck it! Give me that mike! What do you want to know?"
And he's off, naming names, detailed descriptions, this asshole, that asshole, the girl he was dating, who's family he moved in with, only to drop her, get a new girlfriend and stay in the ex's house, how he convinced the ex's mother to leave the ex's father, how he had a cabal.
Cabal?
Yeah, man, they were convinced I could to voodoo shit. Kill bugs by looking at them and stuff. Best bullshit I ever told. How he stole a man's skull.
Skull?
Yeah, man, we found this broken mausoleum and we went in, and they were all daring me to have a look in the coffin, and I didn't understand why they were scared, cos, you know, of how I am, and cos my friends can basically convince me to do anything.
Anything?
Yeah, man, I'd probably jump off a bridge if you told me to. How he went to prison.
Prison?
Yeah, for the skull. How he tried to kill himself with heart pills, and then, in the ambulance to hospital, asked if they could drop him off in Bath to go shopping.
Bath?
Shit man, you're right. I should have asked for somewhere better.
I could note it all down, transcribe it, but I could not do it justice. The crazy laughter, the wide eyes, the cheeks, hollowing as he sucks in smoke, blows out smoke, sucks it back in through his nose, out again through his nostrils. The way the information stays locked inside or falls away from him like dry fish scales, like a rollercoaster gone out of control.
Jack would say, "Fuck it man, they don't need to know every last thing about my life to know I'm fucking weird."
I'm inclined to agree.
He gets up to leave and says, "Dude, you should keep recording random conversations we have in case you catch something really deep I say that I can sell as a quote."
"Text me later, okay?" I answer.
"Can't, mate. Out of credit. Tell you what though, as soon as I get some, I'm gonna sign up to one of those dating agencies and get text messages from whores!"
He pastes his grin back on, so huge it makes my mouth ache, plugs in his headphones and strides out the door, slamming it behind him.
