“How is it going?” I say clearly, for Cameron’s benefit. “Fine, Joe Lee.” Cameron breathes out.
“Didja hear?” Joe Lee asks, and without waiting for an answer he rushes on. “Somebody’s working on a reversal procedure for autism. It worked on some rats or something, so they’re trying it on primates. I’ll bet it won’t be long before you guys can be normal like me.”
Joe Lee has always said he’s one of us, but this makes it clear that he has never really believed it. We are “you guys” and normal is “like me.” I wonder if he said he was one of us but luckier to make us feel better or to please someone else.
Cameron glares; I can almost feel the tangle of words filling his throat, making it impossible for him to speak. I know better than to speak for him. I speak only for myself, which is how everyone should speak.
“So you admit you are not one of us,” I say, and Joe Lee stiffens, his face assuming an expression I’ve been taught is “hurt feelings.”
“How can you say that, Lou? You know it’s just the treatment—”
“If you give a deaf child hearing, he is no longer one of the deaf,” I say. “If you do it early enough, he never was. It’s all pretending otherwise.”
“What’s all pretending otherwise? Otherwise what?” Joe Lee looks confused as well as hurt, and I realize that I left out one of the little pauses where a comma would be if you wrote what I said. But his confusion alarms me — being not understood alarms me; it lasted so long when I was a child. I feel the words tangling in my head, in my throat, and struggle to get them out in the right order, with the right expression. Why can’t people just say what they mean, the words alone? Why do I have to fight with tone and rate and pitch and variation?
I can feel and hear my voice going tight and mechanical. I sound angry to myself, but what I feel is scared. “They fixed you before you were born, Joe Lee,” I say. “You never lived days — one day — like us.”
“You’re wrong,” he says quickly, interrupting. “I’m just like you inside, except—”
“Except what makes you different from others, what you call normal,” I say, interrupting in turn. It hurts to interrupt. Miss Finley, one of my therapists, used to tap my hand if I interrupted. But I could not stand to hear him going on saying things that were not true. “You could hear and process language sounds — you learned to talk normally. You didn’t have dazzle eyes.”
“Yeah, but my brain works the same way.”
I shake my head. Joe Lee should know better; we’ve told him again and again. The problems we have with hearing and vision and other senses aren’t in the sensory organs but in the brain. So the brain does not work the same if someone doesn’t have those problems. If we were computers, Joe Lee would have a different main processor chip, with a different instruction set. Even if two computers with different chips do use the same software, it will not run the same.
“But I do the same work—”
But he doesn’t. He thinks he does. Sometimes I wonder if the company we work for thinks he does, because they have hired other Joe Lees and no more of us, even though I know there are unemployed people like us. Joe Lee’s solutions are linear. Sometimes that’s very effective, but sometimes… I want to say that, but I can’t, because he looks so angry and upset.
“C’mon,” he says. “Have supper with me, you and Cam. My treat.”
I feel cold in the middle. I do not want to have supper with Joe Lee.
“Can’t,” Cameron says. “Got a date.” He has a date with his chess partner in Japan, I suspect. Joe Lee turns to look at me.
“Sorry,” I remember to say. “I have a meeting.” Sweat trickles down my back; I hope Joe Lee doesn’t ask what meeting. It’s bad enough that I know there is time for supper with Joe Lee between now and the meeting, but if I have to lie about the meeting I will be miserable for days.
Gene Crenshaw sat in a big chair at one end of the table; Pete Aldrin, like the others, sat in an ordinary chair along one side. Typical, Aldrin thought. He calls meetings because he can be visibly important in the big chair. It was the third meeting in four days, and Aldrin had stacks of work on his desk that wasn’t getting done because of these meetings. So did the others.
Today the topic was the negative spirit in the workplace, which seemed to mean anyone who questioned Crenshaw in any way. Instead, they were supposed to “catch the vision” — Crenshaw’s vision — and concentrate on that to the exclusion of everything else. Anything that didn’t fit the vision was… suspect if not bad. Democracy wasn’t in it: this was a business, not a party. Crenshaw said that several times. Then he pointed to Aldrin’s unit, Section A as it was known in-house, as an example of what was wrong.
Aldrin’s stomach burned; a sour taste came into his mouth. Section A had remarkable productivity; he had a string of commendations in his record because of it. How could Crenshaw possibly think there was anything wrong with it?
Before he could jump in, Madge Demont spoke up. “You know, Gene, we’ve always worked as a team in this department. Now you come in here and pay no attention to our established, and successful, ways of working together—”
“I’m a natural leader,” Crenshaw said. “My personality profile shows that I’m cut out to be a captain, not crew.”
“Teamwork is important for anyone,” Aldrin said. “Leaders have to learn how to work with others—”
“That’s not my gift,” Crenshaw said. “My gift is inspiring others and giving a strong lead.”
His gift, Aldrin thought, was being bossy without having earned the right, but Crenshaw came highly recommended by higher management. They would all be fired before he was.
“These people,” Crenshaw went on, “have to realize that they are not the be-all and end-all of this company. They have to fit in; it’s their responsibility to do the job they were hired to do—”
“And if some of them are also natural leaders?” Aldrin asked.
Crenshaw snorted. “Autistics? Leaders? You must be kidding. They don’t have what it takes; they don’t understand the first thing about how society works.”
“We have a contractual obligation…” Aldrin said, shifting ground before he got too angry to be coherent. “Under the terms of the contract, we must provide them with working conditions suitable to them.”
“Well, we certainly do that, don’t we?” Crenshaw almost quivered with indignation, “At enormous expense, too. Their own private gym, sound system, parking lot, all kinds of toys.”
Upper management also had a private gym, sound system, parking lot, and such useful toys as stock options. Saying so wouldn’t help.
Crenshaw went on. “I’m sure our other hardworking employees would like the chance to play in that sandbox — but they do their jobs.”
“So does Section A,” Aldrin said. “Their productivity figures—”
“Are adequate, I agree. But if they spent the time working that they waste on playtime, it would be a lot better.”
Aldrin felt his neck getting hot. “Their productivity is not just adequate, Gene. It’s outstanding. Section A is, person for person, more productive than any other department. Maybe what we should do is let other people have the same kinds of supportive resources that we give Section A—”
“And drop the profit margin to zero? Our stockholders would love that. Pete, I admire you for sticking up for your people, but that’s exactly why you didn’t make VP and why you won’t rise any higher until you learn to see the big picture, get the vision. This company is going places, and it needs a workforce of unimpaired, productive workers — people who don’t need all these little extras. We’re cutting the fat, getting back to the lean, tough, productive machine…”