UNEXPLAINABLE
KRISTIN FISHER
"...Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." –Stephen King
1
Alex
“Alex, put a jacket on,” I said. Alex sat, doubled over in one of the dining room chairs. He looked up at me, but found his knotted shoelaces more important. They seemed to grow more tangled with every touch of his fingers.
“Here, let me help, Alex.” I squatted down and quickly looped his lace into a bow—doubleknotted so they wouldn’t come undone when he played at recess. “Go grab your jacket, Alex. It’s hanging over the recliner for you.” He looked up again, but didn’t move from his seat. I let out a huff of impatient air. I picked up his jacket for him, tucking it under my arm.
“Alex, let’s go. We don’t want to keep school waiting, do we?” “They will wait for me!?” This was meant to be a statement, but Alex was afraid they
wouldn't.
I sighed. “Yes Alex, they will wait.” He happily ran out the front door. Through the glass of the window pane, I watched him clamber into the passenger seat of my car. I scooped up my backpack, and nearly forgot Alex’s sack lunch on the top shelf in the refrigerator. I grabbed the brown paper bag with “Alex” printed on it in large Sharpiedrawn capital letters. There was no note from Mom taped to the front. I remember when she put notes in my sack lunches. That was over ten years ago. Twentyoneyearolds don’t get notes from their mothers in their lunches anymore. They’re grownups now. Mom. Such an illfitting word to describe the woman who gave birth to Alex and I. It could have fit when I was younger, Alex’s age, 11. But the tides change when you suddenly have an autistic “accident child” on your hands. Most parents leave their
children savings bonds or their house. Mine left me with Alex.
2
Leaving
One week after we took Alex to the doctor, Mom left. He was four and our neighbor at the time, Bill, tried to teach him how to play baseball. With no father around (his whereabouts are irrelevant), Mom thought it a great idea to have a fatherly figure play with Alex. It was late fall, the trees almost bare. On the ground lay the corpses of the fallen leaves. Reds, browns, oranges...Alex would always laugh when they crunched underneath his lightup velcro shoes. I could smell the wilting earth on his hair for weeks, as if the two of us were still nestled in a pile of leaves.
The four of us: Bill, Mom, Alex, and I were crowded in the yard between ours and Bill’s house. A plastic softball sat atop a tee. Alex wielded a plastic bat, which drooped in his loose grip. He wore a neon green windbreaker. It was impossible to lose Alex anywhere in that thing. The only thing brighter than that jacket was Alex’s smile, radiant as a carefree child’s should be. That day, his face was void of that exuberant grin. We thought he might be getting a cold.
“You ready, champ?” Bill called. I hated when he called Alex that. It reminded me of those dads who shove their sons into Little League baseball. Mom stood behind Alex, adjusted his posture and grip on the bat. She stepped to avoid getting hit, either by the baseball or the bat.
“Okay, Alex. Swing!” Alex stood, still holding the bat, unresponsive. “Swing, Alex!” Bill tried again. Still nothing.
“All right, let’s try tossing it, Alex.” Bill picked up the fake baseball, strangely small looking and crushable in his large man hands. “Eye on the ball, Alex!” Bill called. I rolled my eyes. He tossed the ball lightly in the air. The ball landed with a cushioned thud on the ground at Alex’s feet.
“You’re supposed to hit it, Alex,” Bill explained. He took the baseball bat from Alex, and demonstrated how to swing. “Now you’re turn. One more time.” Again, Bill threw the ball. Again, it plopped at the toes of Alex’s lightup shoes.
Finally with an exasperated sigh, Bill asked aloud, “Is he deaf?” This question was aimed towards Mom.
“Alex, honey,” Mom cooed, “Come to Mommy.” Alex took off in the opposite direction, into the backyard. Mom looked at Bill, as if asking him what to do. Bill shrugged, another way of saying, “he’s not my problem”.
“Let’s take him to the doctor,” Mom decided. “Maybe he’s got an ear infection. Nothing to worry about.” I think this was where Mom left us, already bailing on us in her mind. Possible doctor or hospital bills. Responsibilities. She hadn’t signed up for that.
3
White Labs Coats and Cold Stethoscopes
Alex sat in the back of the car. He got real close to the window, then breathe on the window, and watch as he fogged up the glass. Alex used his small fingers to draw smiles on the window.
I sat next to Alex, silent and worried. I glanced at Alex, who was trailing his finger across the window. His hand spasmed, he scribbled all over his fog drawing so there was nothing left. Alex plopped his hands in his lap and looked down. I continued to stare at him. He didn’t look up at me, which bothered me. I hated that natural feeling you got when someone was staring at you and you could feel their stare on you. Alex’s body was motionless, except for his feet which he kicked back and forth, as if he was trying to pump himself high on a swing.
We rolled into the curved parking lot of the local pediatrics. The car stopped and I heard the click of the parking brake.
We’re here, Alex,” Mom called. She sat in the front of the car alone. Bill stayed at home. Alex stayed planted firmly in his car seat. “Jesus Nell, unbuckle the damn kid,” Mom snarled. The car door opened and slammed as Alex and I and the silence of her leaving remained. My fingers fumbled with the childproof safety restraint of the car seat. As I reached to pull Alex’s arms out of the straps, he let out a shriek.
“Alex, I’m only helping!” I quickly untangled him from the seat and helped him out of the car. The moment Alex’s feet hit the pavement, he began to shriek again. He flapped his arms against his body. “Shh, shh, Alex,” I tried to coo him. At last, I just picked him up to calm him down.
I walked, Alex in my arms, through the automatic doors that swished open to the waiting 6
room, white and sterile. For a pediatrics office, the room was horribly bland and unfriendly. Mom was arguing, probably about our insurance covering this, with the secretary seated behind the desk. I took Alex into the waiting room, plopping him in the chair next to me. Alex immediately squirmed down from the chair and he dashed to Mom’s side. He tugged relentlessly at her pants. I was familiar with the anger that built in Mom when I used to do that. Next came the shouting. “Off mommy’s leg, Nell!” I remembered the yelling all too well. It was like taunting a bees’ hive and whacking it one too many times.
“Alex, stop hanging on her!” I called. He turned to me and I beckoned him to come back. He saw me waving, but it didn’t seem to register in his head. His tugging on Mom’s pants increased.
“Alex, can’t you see I’m trying to talk! This is grownup stuff!” You only learn when you get stung. Alex looked confused and hurt. He couldn’t figure out what he did wrong.
A few minutes of waiting passed before a doctor poked his head into the waiting room.
“I’m here to see big boy Alex?” The doctor clicked his pen incessantly. Mixed with Alex, I’m sure Mom was getting a massive migraine. The three of us followed the doctor through a narrow hallway, branching off into room that were just as white and sterile and unhappy as the waiting room.
“My name is Dr. Brandt, by the way,” the doctor called from ahead of us. Dr. Brandt turned suddenly into one of the identical rooms. White paper covered the exam table. It crinkled when we lifted Alex onto it. He liked the crinkling, he squirmed on it. Dr. Brandt pulled a stethoscope from a drawer and draped it around his neck. From that point on, Alex was fixated on the metal chest piece of the stethoscope. His eyes glazed over like he’d found the best thing on earth.
“Now what seems to be the problem?” Dr. Brandt scooted a swivel chair in front of Alex. He kept his chair away from Alex’s feet, which were kicking back and forth excitedly.
“We don’t know. That’s what we’re here to find out,” Mom snapped. I stepped in,
“He’s been unresponsive lately to our voices. He also hasn’t been talking; he makes more sounds than words. We’re just worried he may have an infection or something,” I explained. We talked of Alex as if he wasn’t in the same room. He didn’t notice, so we continued.
“I see. Well, let me do a quick routine checkup.” Dr. Brandt worked in silence. First, he shined a mini flashlight in Alex’s eyes, followed by a temperature check through his ears. Dr. Brandt attempted to check Alex’s throat, but it took a few tries to get Alex to open his mouth for the popsicle stick. The whole time, Alex was staring into space, more specifically the screensaver on Dr. Brandt’s computer. The ball on the screen bounced off the walls and turned different colors.
It wasn’t until Dr. Brandt removed his stethoscope from behind his neck that Alex payed attention. He reached out and tried to grab it from Dr. Brandt. We fought him, but finally got Alex to keep his hands to himself. As soon as the chilled metal touched Alex’s chest, he let out a shriek. He leapt back from the doctor.
Dr. Brandt removed the stethoscope from his ears and turned to us. “I think you should bring Alex in for further testing. I think he may have autism.”
K, now please don't be too harsh on this. It's the beginning and most likely very boring. The good part comes later and it's all in my head at this point. Feel free to tell me what you think.
