I did not know. It never occurred to me that knowing too much about the way my brain worked could make me insane. I do not think that is a true statement. She pushes the button and the water whooshes into that machine. She comes over to the folding table.
“Everybody knows psychiatrists’ and psychologists’ children are crazier than average,” she says. “Back in the twentieth century, there was a famous psychiatrist who put his own child in a box and kept it there and it went crazy.”
I know that is not true. I do not think she will believe me if I tell her it is not true. I do not want to explain anything, so I open the book again. She makes a sharp blowing sound and I hear her shoes click on the floor as she walks away.
When I was in school, they taught us that the brain is like a computer but not so efficient. Computers do not make mistakes if they are correctly built and programmed, but brains do. From this I got the idea that any brain — even a normal brain, let alone mine — was an inferior sort of computer.
This book makes it clear that brains are a lot more complex than any computer and that my brain is normal — that it does function exactly like the normal human brain — in many ways. My color vision is normal. My visual acuity is normal. What is not normal? Only the slightest things… I think.
I wish I had my medical records from childhood. I do not know if they did all the tests on me that this book discusses. I do not know if they tested the transmission speed of my sensory neurons, for instance. I remember that my mother had a big accordion file, green on the outside and blue on the inside, stuffed with papers. I don’t remember seeing it after my parents died, when I packed up things from their house. Maybe my mother threw it away when I was grown up and living on my own. I know the name of the medical center my parents took me to, but I do not know if they would help me, if they even keep records of children who are now grown.
The book talks about a variation in the ability to capture brief transitory stimuli. I think back to the computer games that helped me hear and then learn to say consonants like p and t and d, especially at the ends of words. There were eye exercises, too, but I was so little that I don’t remember much of them.
I look at the paired faces in the illustration, which test discrimination of facial features by either placement or type. All the faces look much the same to me; I can just tell — with the prompting of the text labels — that these two have the same eyes, nose, and mouth, but one has them stretched out, farther from the other features. If they were moving, as on a real person’s face, I would never notice. Supposedly this means something wrong with a specific part of the brain involved in facial recognition.
Do normal people really perform all these tasks? If so, it’s no wonder they can recognize one another so easily, at such distances, in different clothes.
We do not have a company meeting this Saturday. I go to the Center, but the assigned counselor is out sick. I look at the number for Legal Aid posted on the bulletin board and memorize it. I do not want to call it by myself. I do not know what the others think. After a few minutes, I go home again and continue reading the book, but I do take the time to clean my apartment and my car to make up for last week. I decide to throw away the old fleece seat cover, because I can still feel occasional pricks from glass fragments, and buy a new one. The new one has a strong leathery smell and feels softer than the old one. On Sunday I go to the early service at church, so that I have more time to read.
Monday a memo arrives for all of us, giving the dates and times of preliminary tests. PET scan. MRI scan. Complete physical. Psychological interview. Psychological testing. The memo says we can take time off from work for these tests without penalty. I am relieved; I would not want to make up all the hours these tests will take up. The first test is Monday afternoon, a physical exam. We all go over to the clinic. I do not like it when strangers touch me, but I know how to behave in a clinic. The needle to draw blood doesn’t really hurt, but I do not understand what my blood and urine have to do with how my brain functions. No one even tries to explain.
On Tuesday, I have a baseline CT scan. The technician keeps telling me it won’t hurt and not to be frightened when the machine moves me into the narrow chamber. I am not frightened. I am not claustrophobic.
After work, I need to go grocery shopping because last Tuesday I met with the others in our group instead. I am supposed to be careful about Don, but I do not think he is really going to hurt me, anyway. He is my friend. By now he is probably sorry for what he did… if he is the one who did those things. Besides, it is my day for shopping. I look around the parking lot when I leave and do not see anyone I should not see. The guards at the campus gates would keep out intruders.
At the store, I park as near to one of the lights as I can, in case it is dark when I come out. It is a lucky space, a prime: eleven out from the end of the row. The store is not too busy tonight, so I have time to get everything on my list. Even though I do not have a written list, I know what I need, and I do not have to double back anywhere to find something I forgot. I have too much for one of the express lanes, almost a full basket, so I pick the shortest regular lane.
When I come out it is darker already but not really dark. The air is cool, even above the parking lot pavement. I push the basket along, listening to the rattling rhythm made by the one wheel that only touches the pavement now and then. It is almost like jazz, but less predictable. When I get to the car, I unlock the door and start putting the grocery sacks in carefully. Heavy things like laundry detergent and juice cans on the floor where they cannot fall off and crush something. Bread and eggs on the backseat.
Behind me, the cart suddenly rattles; I turn and do not recognize the face of the man in the dark jacket. Not at first, anyway, and then I realize it is Don.
“It’s all your fault. It’s your fault Tom kicked me out,” he says. His face is all bunched up, the muscles sticking out in knots. His eyes look scary; because I do not want to see them I look at other parts of his face. “It’s your fault Marjory told me to go away. It’s sick, the way women fall for that disability stuff. You probably have dozens of ’em, perfectly normal women all falling for that helpless act you do.” His voice goes high and squeaky and I can tell he is quoting someone or pretending to. “ ‘Poor Lou, he can’t help it,’ and, ‘Poor Lou, he needs me.’ ” Now his voice is lower again. “Your kind doesn’t need normal women,” he says. “Freaks should mate with freaks, if they have to mate at all. The very thought of you taking out your — being that way — with a normal woman just makes me puke. It’s disgusting.”
I cannot say anything. I think I should be frightened, but what I feel is not fear but sadness, sadness so great it is like a heavy weight all over me, dark and formless. Don is normal. He could have been — could have done — so much, so easily. Why did he give it up to be this way?
“I wrote it all down,” he says. “I can’t take care of all your sort, but they’ll know why I did this when they read it.”
“It is not my fault,” I say.
“The hell it’s not,” he says. He moves closer. His sweat has an odd smell. I do not know what it is, but I think he ate or drank something that gave it that smell. The collar on his shirt is crooked. I glance down. His shoes are scuffed; the lace of one is loose. Good grooming is important. It makes a good impression. Right now Don is not making a good impression, but no one seems to be noticing. From the corner of my eye I see other people walking to their cars, walking to the store, ignoring us. “You’re a freak, Lou — you understand what I’m saying? You’re a freak and you belong in a zoo.”