novembre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the special bus will take you far away. there is an adorable eleven year old at the school where i work. i don't know his diagnosis, i haven't read his case files yet. he exhibits autistic qualities but so do many kids that are abused or emotionally unbalanced. his novembre pseudonym is zippy because, in his land, everything is sped up. every morning i drive a van to four group homes or houses to pick up kids for school. zippy is on my route. hi elka. give me five elka. hi buddy. why you smiling? you laughing? (buddy is not laughing and never usually is when zippy asks him this every morning, but when zippy first met him in september, buddy was giggling.) he memorizes visual signals and remembers them as sign posts for the next time he encounters things; a sort of check point for his memory. hi carmen. where's your white shirt? i'm wearing a blue shirt today. blue shirt? where's your white shirt? at home? it's at home. at home. elka can i open this window? go ahead, zippy. he revisits these reminders daily, and often repeats what people say to him, especially if they are angry or sad. [he doesn't understand drastic emotion so he repeats emotive phrases until they become part of his verbal landscape, a way of communicating when he is agitated.] today is friday. today we are going to the mall? (we go to the mall every friday, a practice in economy, purchasing, social interaction, and junk food.) we are going to the mall. what are you getting at the mall-- hamburger french fries and orange soda PLEASE. you're gonna get a hamburger, french fries and orange soda please? yes. hamburger french fries orange soda please. (for a while zippy turns his attention to the window, watching the cars stop at the intersection.) that's a blue bus? yes. not the special bus? no, that's not the special bus. can i go to mexico on the special bus? (at this i laugh because someone probably tried to joke with him about buses, and inadvertently he was convinced that there was a special bus that would take him to mexico. and now we go through the motions, repeating everything he's ever heard about the special bus.) i want to go to mexico and eat tacos. (he pronounces tacos TAH~KOHs and it is the cutest thing, his little mouth stretching over the word.) they would eat me alive there? i'm too young? yes. you are too young to go on the special bus to mexico. maybe later. maybe later? when? when i am eighteen. one day zippy turned to me and asked me to get him beef for christmas. i've never been able to figure out why. what is most heartbreaking is that zippy is being abused by his caretaker. we first noticed signs when he'd scream things like FUCK YOU! I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU WANT! SIT DOWN I'LL WHOOP YOUR ASS when he became overexcited, confused, scared, frustrated or overwhelmed. [he'd also spit, kick, pinch, bite, shout, slap, bounce and any other physically overt verb you can think of, but that is common to frustration when one is autistic. echolalia is as well, repeating phrases over and over, but to repeat phrases like this was the obvious tip-off to abuse.] one morning in november i asked zippy why his lip was bleeding. i bit it. you bit your lip? how did you bite your lip? i bit it with my teeth. i bit it it is bleeding. did someone hit you? (at this, zippy's eyes zoom up at mine and his hand flies to his right leg.) no. i bit my lip. after a while i am convinced that he did indeed bite his lip, but that there must be something wrong with his leg. when we stop to pick up another kid, i ask him to show me his leg. is there something wrong with your leg? can you show me? at this request a strange little look enters his face that i have not seen. it is akin to both happiness and sadness. he pulls up his pant leg. there is an open sore, bleeding, the size of a half-dollar on his right shin. how did you get this? does it hurt? did someone hit you with a stick or a belt? yes. she said sit down in the chair be quiet shut your mouth. she put vaseline on it she said don't touch it it will go away. by this time i the tears are falling from my cheeks onto the steering wheel and the other kids are intrigued and alarmed. zippy's facial expression deepens. why you crying elka? because someone hurt you. who hurt you? has she done this before? i listen to his fragmented responses and piece together patterns. then i ask him to show me both of his legs. as he watches me recoil, a smile curls in the corners of his mouth. there are dozens of round scars covering both of his legs, barely separated by an inch between them. why you crying elka? it is at this point that i completely lose it and am hell-bent on driving everyone to school so i can report this to the principal and CPS. i am crying and there is this feeling of desperation and loss that i have never felt below muscle and blood it is in my bones and it is shaking me, telling me that i am witnessing one of the saddest things on earth. she should hug me not hit me right elka? he and i look at each other for a long time, longer than he usually holds eye contact. this is a tape-recorded message. other people have seen these scars. how long has this been going on? hug you not hit you?
and what happens now? the caretaker knows that we know and she convinced him not to talk about it, which makes him even more agitated and aggressive at school, i don't want to talk about it no no let's change the subject, he hasn't had any new wounds since then, and we haven't been contacted by child protection services about an inquiry. have they investigated at all? will they interview us or him? what will happen to him afterwards? will they take him away from his mother and put him in foster care? who would adopt him? how would he understand what is happening to him? he adores his mother and would become violent on a regular basis if they took him away from her. is it just going to stay as it is? whenever his caretaker is brought up around him he freaks out and can't be calmed down. when he finds out that he has to spend more time than usual at her house he is inconsolable the whole day, shaking and wide-eyed, flinching like dying roadkill. hopeless like dying roadkill. there are probably piles and piles of cases before zippy's, all waiting to be looked into. zippy is in a long line of paperwork, beaurocracy and denial. i am used to this sadness now and can tell this story matter-of-factly like it was just another day, just another morning in the van. after i tell it i get angry. zippy is disabled and has no communicable voice except a sort of verbal tape recorder. where is your white shirt? is a far cry from normal conversation. grotesque scar tissue polka-dotting his shins isn't the aftermath of a lesson well learned. you don't hit a kid to make him learn, especially a disabled one, even if he himself is physically aggressive at times. he is eleven and barely four foot tall, confused, unbalanced and afraid. and she is ignorant and wielding a switch. i wonder if, that morning in november, his lip was bleeding because he bit it to keep from screaming. 11:12 pm - 02.13.03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||