“Johnny,” they say, “Don’t touch that. It’s not yours.” I was just handing a pretty girl her notebook, and she smiled and said thank you.
“Johnny,” they say, “Be quiet and sit down. Class has started.” It has not. Also, I was just getting up to sharpen my pencil and wasn’t even talking.
“Johnny,” they say, “Don’t do that. You’re supposed to be listening.” Listening to what? And I wasn’t even doing anything.
“Johnny,” they say, “No. Now isn’t the time.” But that kid over there was doing the same thing and he wasn’t reprimanded!
“Johnny,” they say, and I just stop what I’m doing, shut my mouth, and sit down in my chair, because I don’t want to hear it.
I’m like a punching bag, absorbing all the blows and never throwing anything back, or like a polite president being criticized by an out-of-control Congress. Five days a week, seven hours a day, this happens.
It’s getting awfully tiring, I can tell you that much.
I have Asperger’s, which to me means that I am constantly pushed around by people and treated like I don’t know anything, I have an aid that follows me from class to class like a Military Policeman, and I know all the U.S. presidents in order both forwards and backwards, along with lots of random facts about them. It also means that I don’t have friends because I am different from everyone else, though I don’t feel it physically or mentally. Just socially, because I am treated like dirt.
Unless you have it, there’s no way to understand. No one else sees it like I do. To everyone, with the possible exception of my father, I have behavioral issues. I am a troublemaker who needs to shape up. But I just do what other teenagers do, like socialize, crack jokes, and try to be noticed a little bit. It’s okay when they do it, but I’m not supposed to act like that. I’m supposed to be the quiet, polite boy with autism who voices none of his opinions because he possibly doesn’t have any and doesn’t care if or rather when people make fun of him.
Right.
. . .
“Did you know that John Tyler—our tenth president—had fifteen children?”
Emma’s eyes widen a little and her mouth opens slightly in surprise. She crosses her ankles and tucks them underneath the bench we’re sitting on, clasping her hands in her lap. “Fifteen children?” she says in disbelief.
I nod. “Yep. Only one of them didn’t live to adulthood. Don’t worry—they were from both his first and second marriages, so it’s not quite as bad.”
She laughs, because fifteen children with any number of women is still an insane amount.
“On the contrary,” I continue, “James Buchanan, number fifteen, had no children. He was never even married or anything.”
“Too bad John Tyler wouldn’t share any of his kids with him,” she jokes, laughing. I laugh, too, even though something like that would never happen.
I’m about to tell her about Warren G. Harding’s illegitimate daughter when she takes a quick breath and adds, “Didn’t Teddy Roosevelt have a son named Kermit?”
I grin. “Yeah, like the frog.”
I’m not really surprised that Emma knows this, because she’s what I like to call exceptionally knowledgeable, not to mention she’s pretty no matter what she wears. She reminds me of Millard Fillmore’s first wife, Abigail Powers, who established the White House’s first permanent library, because she likes good literature and she writes things as well. I really like her because she seems to like hearing about our past presidents, and she’s the only one who engages me in conversation about them. No one else cares, though I tell them anyway.
“Johnny.” Meg, one of the aids, stands to my left. “The assembly starts soon. Come sit by Adam.” I look to her right and see Adam’s wheelchair on the gym floor, next to the bottom row of bleachers.
“Actually,” I say, looking away because I’m not too keen on eye contact, “I was talking to Emma here. It’d be nice if I could sit with her during the assembly.” I ask for so little, she should realize.
Her eyebrows draw together. “No, Johnny. Come here. Now.”
I stand reluctantly, looking apologetically at Emma. “I gotta go,” I mutter. “We’ll talk another time.” Emma just smiles up at me.
“Sure, that’d be great.”
When the assembly starts, I’m sitting between Meg and Adam’s chair so I can’t get up and leave as easily, which has happened before. Rather than focusing on the woman at the podium speaking through a microphone, which I’m supposed to be doing, I casually look to my left at Adam.
To me, he looks a bit like Andrew Jackson, with a long, pointed nose and delicate features. He’ll never ride a horse into battle, though, because Adam’s confined to his wheelchair. I’m not sure what’s wrong with him, but he moves very little and talks not at all. His body is quite small, though he’s a year older than me at sixteen, and he appears almost bird-like. Every time I look at Adam, I notice his eyes, which wander around loosely, taking in everything around him. He’s awake in there, I realize—thinking, trapped by his own body. I bet sometimes he wishes that he would die. I don’t blame him one bit.
A string of drool slides down Adam’s chin and just hangs there. He’s probably embarrassed about it, since he has to leave it until someone wipes it away for him. I would hate not being able to do anything for myself.
It’s not that I like Adam a lot, because I don’t, as he is treated better than I am. I just can’t help but feel bad for him, so I decide to help.
After peeking over at Meg, who’s watching the speaker intently, I slowly close my left hand around Adam’s right forearm. He doesn’t tense up when I do this—he just watches me with curious blue eyes. His arm is limp in my hand as I raise it to his face, sleeve at the ready, to show him that he can take care of himself.
“Johnny!” Meg shrieks, standing up. She yanks my hands away from Adam and shoves them into my lap. “Stop! Don’t touch him!” She uses a Kleenex to wipe up the drool, and after being asked to I scoot over so she can sit between Adam and me, preventing me from trying anything else.
“He just wanted to take care of himself,” I mumble, and Meg looks over. I’ve aggravated her.
“Don’t make things up,” she says. “Just sit quietly and watch.”
I can hear my heartbeat pounding loudly in my ears, drowning out the guest speaker and the soft muttering of students around me. I was not making anything up. For the first time in a long time, instead of wanting to cry after an incident like this, I want to shout. I’m angry, because I did absolutely nothing wrong. I sit, seething, bouncing my legs to the rhythm of a Men at Work song I like.
When Meg says, “Just sit still, Johnny, for crying out loud,” I stop moving and close my eyes for a moment, trying to calm myself down. It doesn’t help to tell myself that it doesn’t matter, because it does matter—I’ve been dealing with this for too long. It isn’t one bit fair!
I should be treated if not with dignity like the presidents of the United States of America, then with respect, like everyone else in this school.
Through the red wall of anger and hatred that’s barricading me from the real world, I hear the public speaker, only for a moment: “Stand up for your rights,” she says, “so they’ll never be taken away from you.” She’s right, by George, she’s right.
I stand up, though she’s still talking. “Sit down, Johnny,” Meg says, and I ignore her. She repeats it, more sternly this time.
“She said to stand up for my rights, and that’s what I’m doing,” I say, stone-faced. People around us are watching—I can feel their eyes.
After a moment, through the booming microphone, I hear, “See? He’s got the right idea!” The speaker woman is pointing at me, the only one standing in the whole gym besides her. “Stand up for your rights!” One by one, all the students and staff members in the gym that can rise from their seats around me. Even Meg, who does it disdainfully with one hand on Adam’s wheelchair. I compare it to the moment when the president walks into a room and all the guests rise, sitting only when he sits, and I find myself smiling so wide that I show teeth.
Maybe this is how you get a point across.
I remain standing even after everyone has sat back down, after the speaker has continued from where she left off. Meg’s hand clamps in a vice grip around my arm, just below my elbow. “You’ve made your point, Johnny, now sit down,” she hisses.
I don’t move, because she still doesn’t get it.
“Johnny,” she says again.
She stands up next to me so she’s sure that I can hear her, though I’m taller and she can’t reach my ear. I speak before she can, because rather than her not being heard, it’s me.
“Stop it!” I shout, finally letting loose the monster inside me. “Stop! I’ve had enough! All you tell me is No No No! I’m not doing anything wrong! I just want to be treated like everyone else! Could you please stop saying no!? I’m tired of it!”
I stop yelling, and everyone is silent, watching, waiting. What will Johnny do next?
Nothing, apparently, because Meg unlocks the brakes on Adam’s wheelchair and, with her hand still tight around my arm, she says, “You’re coming with me, young man.” She practically drags me out of the gym while the speaker fights to remember what she was going to say.
“Your behavior was inexcusable,” Meg says angrily once we’re in the hallway. “You’re going to have a chat right now with Principal Anderson and he can straighten this out.”
I’m quiet for a moment before speaking, and when I do, I go out of my way to meet her eyes. “I have nothing left to say,” I reply with a small smile leaning towards smirk.
I think that I’ve won the battle, like when General Grant received the signed surrender papers from General Lee, until Meg stops abruptly and sticks a finger into my face.
“No talking back.”