Jimmy A Martin had a crippling addiction to children.
Okay, maybe I didn't phrase that too well. Jimmy A Martin is the name of this guy I knew. The A stands for this word that's too hard to say plainly without you sounding like a sneezing lizard, and he didn't like it when people called him that. So we call him Jimmy, and we stop at the y. Also, Jimmy had autism. I'm not too good at introducing other people unless they're called Chris Lovett(me), and besides, Jimmy gets touchy if I go on about all his life. But the thing I want to talk about right here is a rather bewildering thing that happened last summer. And it includes Jimmy, autism, a train, and my pre-puberty summer voice.
Now, if autism sounds like a stupendously huge thing to have in your brain, it's because it is. While it's some fancy-schmancy words doctors like to use, it's also like a horse pill to swallow. Mrs. Sherry said that it basically happens one of your chromosomes--which is basically your DNA--either duplicates, deletes, or inverses itself. A chromosome is basically like the directions you put in Google Maps. When one of your chromosomes go wonk, like, real wonk, and they start squiggling and twisting and stretching awfully weirdly, bad things can happen to your brain. And that's like arriving at that weird girl who's obsessed with horses and the armpits of Justin Beiber's house when you really wanted to go to Pizza Hut[1].
However, that makes Jimmy all freaky and weird-looking, when he really wasn't, so we just say he has autism and that's all. We leave the children part, however, because (1)Mrs. Sherry was pretty darn sensitive and that putting 'likes' and 'children' in the same sentence makes him look like a weird pedophile with a child's head(It didn't help that he was black, too). And it seems all bizarre how I wrote it in italics, but that's how the 20 kids in Mrs. Sherry's math 6th-grade class said it because it was supposed to be a serious matter, young man[2]. Only that it wasn't funny-sounding anymore, and that was a real shame since everything in 6th grade was supposed to be funny.
But is everything funny in 6th grade when Jimmy got pulled out to go to therapy while he was still crying and snot was everywhere on his shirt because he couldn't stack up those cups for the 1500th time? Was it funny when he couldn't stop staring at those children on Barney the Dinosaur's TV show[3]? Was it funny when he showed me all those scars from the operation his parents thought he wouldn't survive?
Well, no, even if he obviously survived all the operations and the humiliation of 6th grade and above, because, if he didn't, I would've just written that Jimmy A Martin had a hard name to pronounce and had this thing called Autism. But this book is obviously not over yet, because you're still reading this sentence. Plus, there are like 7 more pages to read.
Even though Jimmy saw syringes and scalpels like how you and I see broken ice-cream vending machines, there was a multitude of problems too. Like, the guy was skinny. And by skinny, I mean that he was skinnier and leaner and tremendously thinner than anything skinny, lean, and thin you could think of. The cool thing is that he could disappear into any nook and cranny, which I guess is useful when you wrap your head around it because it meant that the guy could face right and totally disappear. Like Amelia Earhart, or Tupac[4].
Jimmy also had a hard time listening and learning in class, which meant that he had to have this therapist, which was just this girl in 11th grade called Rebecca Barns. But we call her Ms. Rebecca without the r because she's not a married woman, and because Mrs. Sherry says it's polite. Rebecca was a real nice lassie and all, and she seemed intelligent, 'cause she worked at the psychiatrist thingie, which was also impressive[5]. I learnt a lot of things from her, like Cognitive Dissonance[6], Genderalization[7], and Political Studies[8]. She seemed okay, but she had too frizzy hair and her front teeth protrude out way too much.
Rebecca also asked me to come on over to her house a few days ago, which I found really strange since my mom said that grown women don't look for young boys to come to their houses unless it's for Halloween[9]. However, Rebecca typed it all in a nice little email and asked her if I could join her for an intimate discussion on your classmate Martin, preferably on his mental health, accompanied by some biscuits, tea, and water, which I replied, yes, of course, why not, Ms Rebecca, see you there, because I wanted to be polite, and this was about Jimmy. Besides, I felt darn important thinking about how essential I was to Ms. Rebecca as a whole since she typed an email with the Dear Mr. Lovett, which was equally nice[10].
Upon my arrival at Ms Rebecca's house, I made sure I knocked on the door real loud, until I was greeted by an 'Oh, it's you,' by the deaf housekeeper, who didn't look too bad in terms of personality. 'Come on in,' she rasped with a gravelly voice. 'Rebecca wants to see you real bad as well.'
'Is everything alright with her?'
'Of course, Chris, but if you want to really know how it's going, I think it's better if you walk up there and see it for yourself, dear[11].'
By walking up the winding staircase in Rebecca's house, you could see that she had a real taste for all things brown, Indian American, and African. There was this one machete with this black blade and all that was polished with a special polish by a special person with a special rag, which just shows how Rebecca got a huge bang outta lots of things, especially if they look like they could maim you as soon as your eyes land on them[12].
I soon entered Rebecca's room which was the third from the right of the large vase Rebecca's father got to her as a 16th birthday gift[13]. As I stepped in, the room--which didn't even look like a bedroom[14]--smelled an awful lot like cinnamon, Indian tea, and a whole lot of Strepsils[15].
'Sit down on that chair, Chris,' she said, slowly, with her voice all soft. 'Do you want anything to eat? Drink? I have tea here if you want some.'
I just shook my head, since I was pretty sure that her voice going all soft meant bad news and bad news meant perhaps my stomach getting sick. And boy oh boy, you do not want your room to smell like Strepsils and barfed-up onion burgers with cheese pizza and Sprite, because that is an ugly combo, punto basta.
'Your classmate, Martin, if I'm correct, is friends--he is friends with you, yes?'
I replied with a stout nod and fiddle with a loose thread I found from my coat. I moved my arse in the chair a little since it was perhaps the hardest chairs I've sat one in history[16].
'Well, I'm going to read you an interesting email he sent me,' she murmured, never taking her eyes away from my face the way teachers do when you've said a great fib and they give you that look that says I'm-pretty-sure-I'm-older-than-you-right. She then lifted a bony finger from the desk she was sitting on, only that her hand was all weird and her finger was pointing to the calendar. It's a shame because she's always doing that and then some poor dude has to go and guess at what she's trying to point out[17], and then she acts more like a grizzly old woman than an actual highschooler.
I moved my arse a bit on the plastic chair and watched intently as she reached for a piece of paper over heaps and heaps of magazines. They were the ones that made you seem intensely smart whenever you talked about them in real life(although I doubt anyone would strike conversation about how diseases are becoming more and more frequent now that ice caps are melted while watching a basketball game, but I could be wrong), with names like National Geographic, The scientist, and Entertainment Weekly. Suddenly she pulled it all out and put her horn-rimmed glasses and started to read:
Dear Chris, how are you?
We're currently not doing fine, if you would like to know. In fact, Jimmy is dead. And it's weird, because as his parents, we never knew anything about it. We honestly thought that he was doing better, with his optimism and all, but apparently, he was doing worse.
The nurses say that he died of meningitis. Apparently, they didn't know what he wanted, but my husband says that they simply didn't care since it wasn't in their domain. In short, and I'm trying to type this without crying, they didn't take care of him enough.
Apparently they also forgot that he was rejecting water and he wasn't thirsty anymore. They 'misread' his diagnosis, although it was typed and his nurses had a copy of it. His doctor says sorry, though. I'm thinking of doing a wreath in his memory. If you want to join, or ask other people to join, I'd love to invite them in.
Sorry,
Jimmy's Mom
She stops and puts the paper down and gets that look that therapists have when they're handling a child with the mental and physical capacities of a chihuahua with rabies. 'Chris, tell me. How do you feel?'
But I didn't feel anything. I didn't have the words to tell that I felt like anything, and I never really felt like finding them, not ever.
I felt guilty, if you really wanna know. I felt like I was in deep, shark-infested trouble, since I kinda knew that it was coming. I knew this because he was black and he had autism, and black 6th graders with autism and a love for trains and stacking things never got their voices heard.
And that's what Jimmy was.
Given the chance, Jimmy would've become an engineer, because he got a huge bang outta messing with metals and having dates with physics books. Or a child psychologist, with all their plaques and knowledge and use of big words. When he was sad, he would plant his nose between pages of photo albums or physics books, 'cause those were the two horsemen of the apocalypse, I guess. He had this camera he kept all polished and shined, as if some white-toothed bouncing blonde called Sharon would hire him for a modeling agency.
But black kids with autism don't get those kind of chances. They don't get white-toothed bouncing blonde called Sharon hiring them for modeling agencies. They don't even get hired that easily, even. And they don't even get Sharon.
It sucks lemons, really, to be black and have autism. It sucks lemons for kids like Jimmy to not see anything in front of them other than the door leading to the therapist's room. It sucks for them to have no-one to encourage them and to tell them that they're like a great, shiny gold star they give you in kindergarten. And then they start feeling that they aren't great at all. After, they think that they aren't great because they are black and autistic. And black and autism basically means to them that destiny is nothing but failure after failure after therapy session.
You know, it's starting to sound a whole lot like that water cycle they teach kids at school, but a whole lot saltier and sadder and self-depreciating because everything about Jimmy was at one point salty and sad and self-depreciating.
So, all poor and black and weak and self-depreciating, I stood up from there. 'I don't know what to say, honestly,' I muttered. 'It's so sad, all of this.' I'm pretty sure she was expecting me to do all of this, since I'm black and these things must happen literally all the time. Well, I guess she'd be right, since it does.
She looked at me and shrugged weirdly before giving me a small smile. 'You're really strong, Chris. I know you are.'
Well, if her definition of strong meant walking away from your problems, I would've been the Hulk or even Superman, because I practically ran away from there with my tail between my legs. It's weird, really, when I think about it. If I hurt myself like this, am I weak? Or am I actually strong?
[1] : It actually happened to me, no joke. Her name was Barbara and she wrote fanfics about her and her math buddy. One was called 'Heated Geometrically' and there was too many commas.
[2] : That's what Mrs. Sherry told me when I said that autism sounded like the art of blending a vegetable. Let's just say that she wasn't happy with that all. I don't think the Autism community would've been either.
[3] : He liked BJ a whole lot. And that brown-haired girl that talked like she was always asking a question. Kinda like a journalist, only with a giant t-rex that honestly shouldn't exist.
-Wrote this in 10th grade. Honestly, this one may be the worst one I've ever written.