Fathers & Sons, part 2

(cont'd from Wednesday November 15, 2005)

* * * * *

So there I was; Barnes & Noble. Audiobooks. Pen and paper scraps. Sweater. Adam's dad. I've got a 20-year-old autistic son.
My very own bouncing baby man-child.
An infant, now into his 240th month.
My new gigantic baby, it's my face he sees more than all others. The most important influence on his life, whether he (or I) like it or not.

I haven't saved nearly enough for his college, as my four visions dictated I would have done by now. Then again, my four visions didn't include having a child whose taste buds are so dulled that he pours ketchup on his Frosted Flakes just to taste something.

* * * * *

At some point, everyone has to come to a decision about God. Is He real? Does He effect our lives? And how much does any of it play into our everyday lives? It doesn't really matter which side of the fence you park yourself on, but it is important to eventually come to some sort of understanding, if for no other reason than to move on with life.
Parents imagine raising healthy babies. Babies that will grow and learn and struggle and succeed. They'll listen to music you don't like, cut their hair in nonsensical ways, think thoughts that you can't imagine ever thinking (but did) and they'll grow out of it all the moment you feel you can no longer take their stupidity and selfishness.
Parents imagine that having a child will eventually produce two things. 1) another member of society able to make this world a better place and 2) someone who will tell you stories further on down the road, when your own stories start getting stale.

I know this is what fathers and mothers think, what parents hope for and imagine, because it is what I hoped for and imagined, as I've made perfectly clear by now, I too am a father.

Questioning God comes into play when that kid doesn't look at 20, the way you imagined. At twenty, your child is scared of thunder and loud noises and watches cartoons and can't fold a pair of pants. You start looking deeper into God, when it seems he handed you a punishment in the place of a miracle. The questioning of God rears its ugly head when the visions you had as a soon-to-be-parent can't possibly happen and the visions you are stuck with carry an air of doom.

* * * * *

I will remind you of my visions from the previous post.

1) Rockwellian fatherhood. (playing catch, shooting hoops).

2) Tough love. (punishments)

3) Influence. (baseball and Springsteen passed on to the next generation)

4) Community. (self-explanatory)

I angered a few of you by leaving you hanging on Thursday. For that I apologize and for your patience, I will illustrate the differences between my la-la land hopes of pre-parenthood and the nastiness of actually going into parental battle.

ROCKWELLIAN FATHERHOOD

I'm not He-Man. I'm fairly certain I'm not gonna be the type of dad who threatens to punch my kid's coach in the stomach if he doesn't give him more playing time. And if I happen to coach a team myself, I'm fairly certain I wouldn't punch some other kid's dad for suggesting I give his kid more playing time. But I do love sports and do find many aspects of sports worthwhile.
My son doesn't see it this way.

I've taken to teaching my kid how to play basketball. He hates basketball and stands a mere 5'7'', so it's not like I have high hopes for his career. But I noticed his affinity for shooting the ball, so it was something to build on.

He refuses to pass.
I've taken to calling him "Grippy" because if you make the mistake of giving him the ball, you can bet he ain't lettin' it go, unless to shoot - wildly.
"I'm open, kiddo," I'd scream this because it was true. I was open. He was open too, we were the only two people playing. But we were running drills and the drill was for him to pass.
"I got it Shafer," he says. This is a wierd way to talk to his father. Had I known him when he learned to talk, I would not have allowed this to go on.
I'd continue to scream, "Kiddo, don't shoot the ball. You've got to learn to pass to your..."
Instead of having enough time to finish my thought, the ball was six miles into the air, over the backboard and into the driveway of the neighbor's house.
"Shooting is only part of the game, buddy. There's passing - which you never do - and dribbling, which you also never think to do. And rebounding, which is your role if you miss a shot."
This kid. My baby boy.
Fruit of my employer's loins.
Apple of somebody's eye that isn't me. He looks at me, but only for a second, because his autism dictates that he cannot make eye-contact with anyone (which is the emotional equivalent of living with a surly 15-year-old forever!) and says, "You rebound Shafer. Tha-tha-tha-that's your role. Your role."
By this time "Grippy" got the ball again, launched it over the hoop and says with a smile and cackle that could peel paint, "I-I-I missed. I missed. Rebound. Rebound. It's your role, Shafer."

We went inside and stopped playing basketball. My vision of Norman Rockwell, gone.

TOUGH LOVE

That wouldn't be the last time I played basketball with my fake son. I play with him almost everyday. Wait...no. That's not exactly true, I guess. I typed that to make myself feel better and to sound as if I were a better father than I am. It's closer to every other day that I play basketball with him.
This whole thing started because of Oprah Winfrey, a woman whom I despise with a capacity deeper than any ocean. Y'see, my son isn't a manly-man. I'm not either. I like daquiries and "feelings" just as much as any gal, but by comparison I could be a street-fighter. Comparitively, I should have tattoos that say "DeathDog" and a mustache with food and blood stuck in it.
Oh, and missing teeth. Missing teeth is pretty tough too.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that I'm way tougher than my son. I'm raising a real sissy. I'm not kidding. I looked up the definition in the dictionary. All it said was,

Sissy. Si-see. adj. Def: see the 20-year-old boy you are raising.

I was shocked, but also impressed with how detailed Webster's is getting.

Anyway, he's soft. And his softness stems from a mother who parked him in front of a television for 18 years during the afternoons and figured Oprah was the best option. So now my 20-year-old son mintzes around, crossing his legs at the thigh, offering to make me cocktails (he has no idea what a cocktail is, but his mother might be a closet alcoholic), describing the meatloaf we make on Mondays as "devine and scrumptious" (two words that should never be applied to meatloaf or anything ending with "loaf") and a prediliction toward ending most of his sentences with "girl".

Two examples: "Shafer, this meatloaf is the best I've ever had, girl." Or, "Giiiirl, I can't wait to see the Judds in concert!"
Like I said, a sissy.

Oprah is killing this kid, this kid's soul. My 20-year-old newborn is already swallowed up in a world that only makes sense when looked at through the myopia that is Oprah.

Grab your basketball, kiddo. We're gonna teach you some new tricks.

I decided that from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. everyday, we'd miss Oprah, opting instead to play basketball (unless he's willing to suggest a better idea, but he never does. He just throws a hissyfit like a three-year-old baby when he realizes he's not watching his favorite show. This reaction is all the proof I need that I'm doing the right thing.) My agreement with him is that if he can beat me in a game of HORSE, we can go inside and watch whatever remains of Oprah.
If he doesn't beat me in the first game of HORSE, we play until he does beat me, or until the sun goes down. Perfectly, the sun happens to set at about 5, right when Oprah is over.
This agreement pissed J.P. off (which, I guess, doesn't make it an agreement at all). He hates this, hates me for doing this and fears the days we play HORSE. And sadly enough, this is exactly how I assumed it would go when doing the tough love act on my kid. I just never thought I'd be doing it to a 20-year-old with a basketball in my hand.

The quirk of this story is that, this same kid, this autistic, limp-wristed, limp-ankled, sissyboy launching every shot onto the neighbor's driveway - this little bastard - beat me.
Sonuvabitch.
H-O-R-S (Adam's son) to H-O-R-S-E (Adam).
I was furious.
The grounds swelled, the earth shook, blood ran from the rivers and frogs rained from the heavens, all because of my epic rage. That little bastard. My boy could do this when he wanted to. When he had to. If we were antelope in the wild, my son would apparently not be the first to fail the "survival of the fittest". He learned what he needed to know. Did what he had to do. Became who he had to in order to maintain his myopic urge to keep current on Oprah's bookclub reading list.
He won the battle. The war, has since been mine.
Now I play harder at HORSE and he doesn't beat me so easily. We've also established several passing and rebounding drills that he must finish before we go inside. Before he misses all of that damn Winfrey.
I no longer rebound his shots in the neighbors driveway. He no longer takes 100% of the shots and much to the chagrin of every small child (or autistic 20-year-old) he's learning the lessons I'm trying to teach him.
The tough way.

INFLUENCE

By now, many of you have heard the story of my trying to get my boy to listen to something other than Wynonna Judd (the only person he loves more than Oprah). I'm not trying to change who my son is, but I am trying to give him some perspective, broaden his horizons.

One day I opened up my cd collection and said, "Pick something, kiddo. It doesn't matter what. Pick anything."
He flipped and flipped and flipped and settled on Bruce Springsteen's Born In the USA. I was ecstatic. Perfect choice. My boy was becoming a man. My influence was taking root. I held up the album cover and let the American flag background soak into my son's consciousness.



That was what soaked into my son's consciousness.
I put the cd on and asked him why, out of all the albums he could have chosen, he picked Born In the USA.
His reply still haunts me to this day.
"He has... he ha-has a cute butt. CUTE BUTT."
!
"Cute butt."
My son.
My heir.
Total. Sissy.

Many of you know that story. He followed that gem up a month later with another dagger to the heart. Devoid of my cd's, we flipped through the radio. We stopped at a station and he started popping his fingers to one of the tunes. It wasn't "snapping" his fingers, because my autistic doesn't snap correctly. It's awkward and unexplainable. "Autistically accurate" as I have learned to term certain things.
But the song he was popping his fingers to was a song by a band named JET. I like this band and was pleased my son seemed to like them too.
Surprised by his enjoyment, I asked, "Dude, do you like this song?"
"I do. I do," he says.
With raised eyebrows, I follow up, "Really? Do you know who sings this?"
"I do. I-I do. It-it-it's Jet. It's the Jet," he says as if aware of how suprised I am.
Had I not been driving a car, I would have fainted. Being in the car, I knew fainting would kill us both, so instead I let my mouth fall open.
How, the hell did this kid know that?! Not much for problem solving, I decided just to ask him how he knew that.
"How'd you know that?"
Smiling now and swaing strangely, he says, "Beautiful voice. I love it. I lo- I love the singing."
"How long have you liked them?"
"For-forever. Forever. Love their voice."
Awesome.
He was aligning himself with my tastes, broadening his horizons. Becoming more complete, bigger, better.
My son.
My son.
Then he stabbed me. Stabbed me cold and ruthless.
He says, "Beautiful voice. She's got such a... she's beautiful. Red hair. Beautiful voice."
No one in JET has red hair and no one in JET is a "she".
"What are you talking about, boy-o? It's a band full of men."
"N-n-n-no it's not. Nuh-uh. Beautiful voices. Wynonna and Naomi. Beau-beautiful."
J.P. didn't say JET or "The Jet". He said "The Judds".

Vision 3. Dead.

COMMUNITY

J.P.'s mother is tired. Why shouldn't she be? I try not to judge her too hard (a failed attempt at times). Sometimes, after working with 14 autistic students for seven hours, I struggle to muster enough energy for another five hours with just one single autistic kid. It really does take a dang village to raise a kid. Hopefully a village without Oprah in it, but I digress.
Fatigued one day, I decided to take my son to see the rest of the villagers: we went to the mall.
*Sigh*
My boy doesn't handle steep slopes very well. He doesn't handle loud noises very well and he hates people. So, we head to the mall, shop at Hollister and ride the escalators three or four times while we're there. And this is what I've learned:
The villagers want nothing to do with the raising of your child. the village is chok full of children, raise your own damn child. If the village wanted more than one kid, they woulda had their own. Now get out of my store and take your weird friend with you.
If you've never been to a Hollister store, relax. You're not missing anything.
It's Gap with dimmed lights.
It's Banana Republic with sexually suggestive slogans on their tee-shirts made for 13-year-olds.
It's Abercrombie & Fitch with less nudity.
But one thing they are good at in Hollister is playing loud music.
Their marketing team is brilliant. I got into the store, walked all the way back and was so harmed by the noise blasting through their speakers, that I grabbed two nearby sweatshirts and pressed them firmly against my ears just to muffle the pain I was going through. The next thing I knew, some 17-year-old prep with "Lick me" stitched onto the back of her track pants was pointing to a sign that read, "If you press it against your ears - you take it home."

I paid $120 for those earplugs and as soon as the receipt rang through, they turned the music down.

My son needs this though. He's been pampered for so long, he needs his feathers ruffled. He wants it, he just doesn't know he wants it. He is horrified of downward escalators. A fact that escaped me at one point, only to come crashing back into my memory when - mistakenly under the impression I was leaving him - he began violently yelling and shaking after I boarded the escalator.
We leave Hollister and head downward. The entire time I'm warning him of our next destination. That destination being "down".
He asks if I would hold his hand.
Can't you just see that? This kid acts like a four-year-old, but believe me - he looks 20. No doubt. We look like friends. Which is not the impression I want to give to strangers. I'm not sure how mentors look, but I want to look like my son's mentor.
What an awful thing for a father to say.

I refuse to hold his hand and promptly get on the escalator. I tell him that if he cries or carries on, no Oprah. If he panics or refuses to go down the escalator, no Oprah. If he asks a stranger to hold his hand, since I won't do it, no Oprah. I'm halfway down the escalator when he takes a leap onto the moving stairs.
He's on.
He's smiling.
He wants me to be proud of him for taking the escalator down. Something he hasn't done in years probably. And in a way, I guess I kinda was proud of him, oddly enough. I don't tell him this, he should be taking an escalator without fanfare. If he can - which he just proved he is able to do - then we shouldn't applaud him for it.
I also don't tell him that I'm kinda happy for Oprah. Without her, we'd still be at the top of that escalator.
He reaches the bottom of the stairs and wants to high five.

What the Hell.
I held out my hand low and he gives it a - whack - echoing from the Macy's down to the Sears. The mall, the community, the village helping to raise my son all turn and look. They see my boy holding his arm, pained and sad. He hurt himself slapping me five.
And you all thought I was exaggerating when I called him a sissy.

The problem is that our fellow villagers, they all look around to see someone seven inches taller than the "retarded kid" holding his arm in pain after hearing a booming slap.
My own community uniformly assumed I just beat up a boy with autism.

* * * * *

This is my day. This is my life. I am paid to be a father. To be proud, embarrassed, hopeful and tough. I don't get paid enough for doing what I do. I don't have the stamina to do it all by myself and to do it well. But it's something.
It's more than he had.
I'm going to abandon my son come August. His mother will have to fill my void with someone else. But he will always be my first child. He will always be the one that caused me to question universal fairness.
He will always be the one who was God's punishment and miracle. He will be the one to prepare me for my own kids, my real kids, my kids from the beginning.

I'll be ready for them. I'll be ready for anything. Let my kids fit my first four visions or my current four realities. Let my kids fit something completely different than either.
I'm prepared, and I'm excited.
My dad had his visions, I have mine. I suppose the fact that our visions can no longer match means that I've regained those 30 years. I suppose that means I can once again don my cutoff jeanshorts.
I suppose knowing my 20-year-old son means that anything is possible and I suppose it means I'll be ready for it.
I guess that means I should pick up my sword and shield and armor and continue on.

The End