The Speed of Dark

“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…”

Buzzwords, Aldrin thought. The same buzzwords he had fought in the first place, to get Section A those very perks that made them so productive. When the profitability of Section A proved him right, senior management had given in gracefully—he thought. But now they’d put Crenshaw in. Did they know? Could they not know?

“I know you have an older brother with autism,” Crenshaw said, his voice unctuous. “I feel your pain, but you have to realize that this is the real world, not nursery school. Your family problems can’t be allowed to make policy.”

Aldrin wanted to pick up the water pitcher and smash it—water and ice cubes and all—onto Crenshaw’s head. He knew better. Nothing would convince Crenshaw that his reasons for championing Section A were far more complex than having an autistic brother. He had almost refused to work there because of Jeremy, because of a childhood spent in the shadow of Jeremy’s incoherent rages, the ridicule he’d had from other kids about his “crazy retard” brother. He’d had more than enough of Jeremy; he’d sworn, when he left home, that he would avoid any reminders, that he would live among safe, sane, normal people for the rest of his life.

Now, though, it was the difference between Jeremy (still living in a group home, spending his days at an adult day-care center, unable to do more than simple self-care tasks) and the men and women of Section A that made Aldrin defend them. It was still hard, sometimes, to see what they had in common with Jeremy and not flinch away. Yet working with them, he felt a little less guilty about not visiting his parents and Jeremy more than once a year.

“You’re wrong,” he said to Crenshaw. “If you try to dismantle Section A’s support apparatus, you will cost this company more in productivity than you’ll gain. We depend on their unique abilities; the search algorithms and pattern analysis they’ve developed have cut the time from raw data to production—that’s our edge over the competition—”

“I don’t think so. It’s your job to keep them productive, Aldrin. Let’s see if you’re up to it.”

Aldrin choked down his anger. Crenshaw had the self-satisfied smirk of a man who knew he was in power and enjoyed watching his subordinates cringe. Aldrin glanced sideways; the others were studiously not looking at him, hoping that the trouble landing on him would not spread to them.

“Besides,” Crenshaw went on. “There’s a new study coming out, from a lab in Europe. It’s supposed to be on-line in a day or so. Experimental as yet, but I understand very promising. Maybe we should suggest that they get on the protocol for it.”

“New treatment?”

“Yeah. I don’t know much about it, but I know someone who does and he knew I was taking over a bunch of autistics. Told me to keep an eye out for when it went to human trials. It’s supposed to fix the fundamental deficit, make them normal. If they were normal, they wouldn’t have an excuse for those luxuries.”

“If they were normal,” Aldrin said, “they couldn’t do the work.”

“In either case, we’d be clear of having to provide this stuff—” Crenshaw’s expansive wave included everything from the gym to individual cubbies with doors. “Either they could do the work at less cost to us or, if they couldn’t do the work, they wouldn’t be our employees anymore.”

“What is the treatment?” Aldrin asked.

“Oh, some combination of neuro-enhancers and nanotech. It makes the right parts of the brain grow, supposedly.” Crenshaw grinned, an unfriendly grin. “Why don’t you find out all about it, Pete, and send me a report? If it works we might even go after the North American license.”

Aldrin wanted to glare, but he knew glaring wouldn’t help. He had walked into Crenshaw’s trap; he would be the one Section A blamed, if this turned out bad for them. “You know you can’t force treatment on anyone,” he said, as sweat crawled down his ribs, tickling. “They have civil rights.”

“I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be like that,” Crenshaw said. “And if they do, that’s a matter for a psych evaluation, I would think. Preferring to be sick—”

“They aren’t sick,” Aldrin said.

“And damaged. Preferring special treatment to a cure. That would have to be some kind of mental imbalance. Grounds for serious consideration of termination, I believe, seeing as they’re doing sensitive work, which other entities would love to have.”

Aldrin struggled again with the desire to hit Crenshaw over the head with something heavy.

“It might even help your brother,” Crenshaw said.

That was too much. “Please leave my brother out of this,” Aldrin said through his teeth.

“Now, now, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Crenshaw smiled even wider. “I was just thinking how it might help…” He turned away with a casual wave before Aldrin could say any of the devastating things colliding in his mind and turned to the next person in line. “Now, Jennifer, about those target dates your team isn’t meeting…”

What could Aldrin do? Nothing. What could anyone do? Nothing.

Men like Crenshaw rose to the top because they were like that—that is what it took. Apparently.

If there were such a treatment—not that he believed it—would it help his brother? He hated Crenshaw for dangling that lure in front of him. He had finally accepted Jeremy the way he was; he had worked through the old resentment and guilt. If Jeremy changed, what would that mean?

Chapter Two

Mr. Crenshaw is the new senior manager. Mr. Aldrin, our boss, took him around that first day. I didn’t like him much—Crenshaw, that is—because he had the same false-hearty voice as the boys’ PE teacher in my junior high school, the one who wanted to be a football coach at a high school. Coach Jerry, we had to call him. He thought the special-needs class was stupid, and we all hated him. I don’t hate Mr. Crenshaw, but I don’t like him, either.

Today on the way to work I wait at a red light, where the street crosses the interstate. The car in front of me is a midnight-blue minivan with out-of-state plates, Georgia. It has a fuzzy bear with little rubber suckers stuck to the back window. The bear grins at me with a foolish expression. I’m glad it’s a toy; I hate it when there’s a dog in the back of a car, looking at me. Usually they bark at me.

The light changes, and the minivan shoots ahead. Before I can think, No, don’t! two cars running a red light speed through, a beige pickup with a brown stripe and an orange watercooler in the back and a brown sedan, and the truck hits the van broadside. The noise is appalling, shriek/crash/squeal/crunch all together, and the van and truck spin, spraying arcs of glittering glass… I want to vanish inside myself as the grotesque shapes spin nearer. I shut my eyes.

Silence comes back slowly, punctuated by the honking horns of those who don’t know why traffic stopped. I open my eyes. The light is green. People have gotten out of their cars; the drivers of the wrecked cars are moving, talking.

The driving code says that any person involved in an accident should not leave the scene. The driving code says stop and render assistance. But I was not involved, because nothing but a few bits of broken glass touched my car. And there are lots of other people to give assistance. I am not trained to give assistance.

I look carefully behind me and slowly, carefully, edge past the wreck. People look at me angrily. But I didn’t do anything wrong; I wasn’t in the accident. If I stayed, I would be late for work. And I would have to talk to policemen. I am afraid of policemen.

I feel shaky when I get to work, so instead of going into my office I go to the gym first. I put on the “Polka and Fugue” from Schwanda the Bagpiper, because I need to do big bounces and big swinging movements. I am a little calmer with bouncing by the time Mr. Crenshaw shows up, his face glistening an ugly shade of reddish beige.

“Well now, Lou,” he says. The tone is clouded, as if he wanted to sound jovial but was really angry. Coach Jerry used to sound like that. “Do you like the gym a lot, then?”

The long answer is always more interesting than the short one. I know that most people want the short uninteresting answer rather than the long interesting one, so I try to remember that when they ask me questions that could have long answers if they only understood them. Mr. Crenshaw only wants to know if I like the gym room. He doesn’t want to know how much.

“It’s fine,” I tell him.

“Do you need anything that isn’t here?”

“No.” I need many things that aren’t here, including food, water, and a place to sleep, but he means do I need anything in this room for the purpose it is designed for that isn’t in this room.

“Do you need that music?”

That music. Laura taught me that when people say “that” in front of a noun it implies an attitude about the content of the noun. I am trying to think what attitude Mr. Crenshaw has about that music when he goes on, as people often do, before I can answer.

“It’s so difficult,” he says. “Trying to keep all that music on hand. The recordings wear out… It would be easier if we could just turn on the radio.”

The radio here has loud banging noises or that whining singing, not music. And commercials, even louder, every few minutes. There is no rhythm to it, not one I could use for relaxing.

“The radio won’t work,” I say. I know that is too abrupt by the hardening in his face. I have to say more, not the short answer, but the long one. “The music has to go through me,” I say. “It needs to be the right music to have the right effect, and it needs to be music, not talking or singing. It’s the same for each of us. We need our own music, the music that works for us.”

“It would be nice,” Mr. Crenshaw says in a voice that has more overtones of anger, “if we could each have the music we like best. But most people—” He says “most people” in the tone that means “real people, normal people.”

“Most people have to listen to what’s available.”

“I understand,” I say, though I don’t actually. Everyone could bring in a player and their own music and wear earphones while they work, as we do. “But for us—” For us, the autistic, the incomplete. “It needs to be the right music.”

Now he looks really angry, the muscles bunching in his cheeks, his face redder and shinier. I can see the tightness in his shoulders, his shirt stretched across them.

“Very well,” he says. He does not mean that it is very well. He means he has to let us play the right music, but he would change it if he could. I wonder if the words on paper in our contract are strong enough to prevent him from changing it. I think about asking Mr. Aldrin.

It takes me another fifteen minutes to calm down enough to go to my office. I am soaked with sweat. I smell bad. I grab my spare clothes and go take a shower. When I finally sit down to work, it is an hour and forty-seven minutes after the time to start work; I will work late tonight to make up for that.

Mr. Crenshaw comes by again at closing time, when I am still working. He opens my door without knocking. I don’t know how long he was there before I noticed him, but I am sure he did not knock. I jump when he says, “Lou!” and turn around.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Working,” I say. What did he think? What else would I be doing in my office, at my workstation?

“Let me see,” he says, and comes over to my workstation. He comes up behind me; I feel my nerves rucking up under my skin like a kicked throw rug. I hate it when someone is behind me. “What is that?” He points to a line of symbols separated from the mass above and below by a blank line. I have been tinkering with that line all day, trying to make it do what I want it to do.

“It will be the… the link between this”—I point to the blocks above—“and this.” I point to the blocks below.

“And what are they?” he asks.

Does he really not know? Or is this what the books call instructional discourse, as when teachers ask questions whose answers they know to find out if the students know? If he really doesn’t know, then whatever I say will make no sense. If he really does know, he will be angry when he finds out I think he does not.

It would be simpler if people said what they meant.

“This is the layer-three system for synthesis,” I say. That is a right answer, though it is a short one.

“Oh, I see,” he says. His voice smirks. Does he think I am lying? I can see a blurry, distorted reflection of his face in the shiny ball on my desk. It is hard to tell what its expression is.

“The layer-three system will be embedded into the production codes,” I say, trying very hard to stay calm. “This ensures that the end user will be able to define the production parameters but cannot change them to something harmful.”

“And you understand this?” he says.

Which this is this? I understand what I am doing. I do not always understand why it is to be done. I opt for the easy short answer.

Yes, I say.

“Good,” he says. It sounds as false as it did in the morning. “You started late today,” he says.

“I’m staying late tonight,” I say. “I was one hour and forty-seven minutes late. I worked through lunch; that is thirty minutes. I will stay one hour and seventeen minutes late.”

“You’re honest,” he says, clearly surprised.

“Yes,” I say. I do not turn to look at him. I do not want to see his face. After seven seconds, he turns to leave. From the door he has a last word.

“Things cannot go on like this, Lou. Change happens.”

Nine words. Nine words that make me shiver after the door is closed.

I turn on the fan, and my office fills with twinkling, whirling reflections. I work on, one hour and seventeen minutes. Tonight I am not tempted to work any longer than that. It is Wednesday night, and I have things to do.

Outside it is mild, a little humid. I am very careful driving back to my place, where I change into T-shirt and shorts and eat a slice of cold pizza.

Among the things I never tell Dr. Fornum about is my sex life. She doesn’t think I have a sex life because when she asks if I have a sex partner, a girlfriend or boyfriend, I just say no. She doesn’t ask more than that. That is fine with me, because I do not want to talk about it with her. She is not attractive to me, and my parents said the only reason to talk about sex was to find out how to please your partner and be pleased by your partner. Or if something went wrong, you would talk to a doctor.

Nothing has ever gone wrong with me. Some things were wrong from the beginning, but that’s different. I think about Marjory while I finish my pizza. Marjory is not my sex partner, but I wish she were my girlfriend. I met Marjory at fencing class, not at any of the social events for disabled people that Dr. Fornum thinks I should go to. I don’t tell Dr. Fornum about fencing because she would worry about violent tendencies. If laser tag was enough to bother her, long pointed swords would send her into a panic. I don’t tell Dr. Fornum about Marjory because she would ask questions I don’t want to answer. So that makes two big secrets, swords and Marjory.

When I’ve eaten, I drive over to my fencing class, at Tom and Lucia’s. Marjory will be there. I want to close my eyes, thinking of Marjory, but I am driving and it is not safe. I think of music instead, of the chorale of Bach’s Cantata No.39.

Tom and Lucia have a large house with a big fenced backyard. They have no children, even though they are older than I am. At first I thought this was because Lucia liked working with clients so much that she did not want to stay home with children, but I heard her tell someone else that she and Tom could not have children. They have many friends, and eight or nine usually show up for fencing practice. I don’t know if Lucia has told anyone at the hospital that she fences or that she sometimes invites clients to come learn fencing. I think the hospital would not approve. I am not the only person under psychiatric supervision who comes to Tom and Lucia’s to learn to fight with swords. I asked her once, and she just laughed and said, “What they don’t know won’t scare them.”

I have been fencing here for five years. I helped Tom put down the new surface on the fencing area, stuff that’s usually used for tennis courts. I helped Tom build the rack in the back room where we store our blades. I do not want to have my blades in my car or in my apartment, because I know that it would scare some people. Tom warned me about it. It is important not to scare people. So I leave all my fencing gear at Tom and Lucia’s, and everyone knows that the left-hand-but-two slot is mine and so is the left-hand-but-two peg on the other wall and my mask has its own pigeonhole in the mask storage.

First I do my stretches. I am careful to do all the stretches; Lucia says I am an example to the others. Don, for instance, rarely does all his stretches, and he is always putting his back out or pulling a muscle. Then he sits on the side and complains. I am not as good as he is, but I do not get hurt because I neglect the rules. I wish he would follow the rules because I am sad when a friend gets hurt.

When I have stretched my arms, my shoulders, my back, my legs, my feet, I go to the back room and put on my leather jacket with the sleeves cut off at the elbow and my steel gorget. The weight of the gorget around my neck feels good. I take down my mask, with my gloves folded inside, and put the gloves in my pocket for now. My

Don comes in, rushed and sweating as usual, his face red. “Hi, Lou,” he says. I say hi and step back so he can get his blade from the rack. He is normal and could carry his

I go outside. Marjory isn’t here yet. Cindy and Lucia are lining up with epees; Max is putting on his steel helmet. I don’t think I would like the steel helmet; it would be too loud when someone hit it. Max laughed when I told him that and said I could always wear earplugs, but I hate earplugs. They make me feel as if I have a bad cold. It’s strange, because I actually like wearing a blindfold. I used to wear one a lot when I was younger, pretending I was blind. I could understand voices a little better that way. But feeling my ears stuffed up doesn’t help me see better.

Don swaggers out,

“Did you stretch?” Lucia asks him.

He shrugs. “Enough.”

She shrugs back. “Your pain,” she says. She and Cindy start fencing. I like to watch them and try to figure out what they’re doing. It’s all so fast I have trouble following it, but so do normal people.

“Hi, Lou,” Marjory says, from behind me, I feel warm and light, as if there were less gravity. For a moment I squeeze my eyes shut. She is beautiful, but it is hard to look at her.

“Hi, Marjory,” I say, and turn around. She is smiling at me. Her face is shiny. That used to bother me, when people were very happy and their faces got shiny, because angry people also get shiny faces and I could not be sure which it was. My parents tried to show me the difference, with the position of eyebrows and so on, but I finally figured out that the best way to tell was the outside corners of the eyes. Marjory’s shiny face is a happy face. She is happy to see me, and I am happy to see her.

I worry about a lot of things, though, when I think about Marjory. Is autism contagious? Can she catch it from me? She won’t like it if she does. I know it’s not supposed to be catching, but they say if you hang around with a group of people, you’ll start thinking like them. If she hangs around me, will she think like me? I don’t want that to happen to her. If she were born like me it would be fine, but someone like her shouldn’t become like me. I don’t think it will happen, but I would feel guilty if it did. Sometimes this makes me want to stay away from her, but mostly I want to be with her more than I am.

“Hi, Marj,” Don says. His face is even shinier now. He thinks she is pretty, too. I know that what I feel is called jealousy; I read it in a book. It is a bad feeling, and it means that I am too controlling. I step back, trying not to be too controlling, and Don steps forward. Marjory is looking at me, not at Don.

“Want to play?” Don says, nudging me with his elbow. He means do I want to fence with him. I did not understand that at first. Now I do. I nod, silently, and we go to find a place where we can line up.

Don does a little flick with his wrist, the way he starts every bout, and I counter it automatically. We circle each other, feinting and parrying, and then I see his arm droop from the shoulder. Is this another feint? It’s an opening, at least, and I lunge, catching him on the chest.

“Got me,” he says. “My arm’s really sore.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. He works his shoulder, then suddenly leaps forward and strikes at my foot. He’s done this before; I move back quickly and he doesn’t get me. After I get him three more times, he heaves a great sigh and says he’s tired. That’s fine with me; I would rather talk to Marjory. Max and Tom move out to the space we were using. Lucia has stopped to rest; Cindy is lined up with Susan.

Marjory is sitting beside Lucia now; Lucia is showing her some pictures. One of Lucia’s hobbies is photography. I take off my mask and watch them. Marjory’s face is broader than Lucia’s. Don gets between me and Marjory and starts talking.

“You’re interrupting,” Lucia says.

“Oh, sorry,” Don says, but he still stands there, blocking my view.

“And you’re right in the middle,” Lucia says. “Please get out from between people.” She flicks a glance at me. I am not doing anything wrong or she would tell me. More than anyone I know who isn’t like me, she says very clearly what she wants.

Don glances back, huffs, and shifts sideways. “I didn’t see Lou,” he says.

“I did,” Lucia says. She turns back to Marjory. “Now here, this is where we stayed on the fourth night. I took this from inside—what about that view!”

“Lovely,” Marjory says. I can’t see the picture she’s looking at, but I can see the happiness on her face. I watch her instead of listening to Lucia as she talks about the rest of the pictures. Don interrupts with comments from time to time. When they’ve looked at the pictures, Lucia folds the case of the portable viewer and puts it under her chair.

“Come on, Don,” she says. “Let’s see how you do with me.” She puts her gloves and mask back on and picks up her

“Have a seat,” Marjory says. I sit down, feeling the slight warmth from Lucia in the chair she just left. “How was your day?” Marjory asks.

“I almost was in a wreck,” I tell her. She doesn’t ask questions; she just lets me talk. It is hard to say it all; now it seems less acceptable that I just drove away, but I was worried about getting to work and about the police.

“That sounds scary,” she says. Her voice is warm, soothing. Not a professional soothing, but just gentle on my ears.

I want to tell her about Mr. Crenshaw, but now Tom comes back and asks me if I want to fight. I like to fight Tom. Tom is almost as tall as I am, and even though he is older, he is very fit. And he’s the best fencer in the group.

“I saw you fight Don,” he says. “You handle his tricks very well. But he’s not improving—in fact, he’s let his training slide—so be sure you fight some of the better fencers each week. Me, Lucia, Cindy, Max. At least two of us, okay?”

At least means “not less than.”

“Okay,” I say. We each have two long blades,

We circle, first one way, then the other. I try to remember everything Tom has taught me: how to place my feet, how to hold the blades, which moves counter which moves. He throws a shot; my arm rises to parry it with my left blade; at the same time I throw a shot and he counters. It is like a dance: step-step-thrust-parry-step. Tom talks about the need to vary the pattern, to be unpredictable, but last time I watched him fight someone else, I thought I saw a pattern in his nonpattern. If I can just hold him off long enough, maybe I can find it again.

Suddenly I hear the music of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, the stately dance. It fills my head, and I move into that rhythm, slowing from the faster movements. Tom slows as I slow. Now I can see it, that long pattern he has devised because no one can be utterly random. Moving with it, in my personal music, I’m able to stay with him, blocking every thrust, testing his parries. And then I know what he will do, and without thought my arm swings around and I strike with apunta riversa to the side of his head. I feel the blow in my hand, in my arm.

“Good!” he says. The music stops. “Wow!” he says, shaking his head.

“It was too hard I am sorry,” I say.

“No, no, that’s fine. A good clean shot, right through my guard. I didn’t even come close to a parry on it.” He is grinning through his mask. “I told you you were getting better. Let’s go again.”

I do not want to hurt anyone. When I first started, they could not get me to actually touch anyone with the blade, not hard enough to feel. I still don’t like it. What I like is learning patterns and then remaking them so that I am in the pattern, too.

Light flashes down Tom’s blades as he lifts them both in salute. For a moment I’m struck by the dazzle, by the speed of the light’s dance.

Then I move again, in the darkness beyond the light. How fast is dark? Shadow can be no faster than what casts it, but not all darkness is shadow. Is it? This time I hear no music but see a pattern of light and shadow, shifting, twirling, arcs and helices of light against a background of dark.

I am dancing at the tip of the light, but beyond it, and suddenly feel that jarring pressure on my hand. This time I also feel the hard thump of Tom’s blade on my chest. I say, “Good,” just as he does, and we both step back, acknowledging the double kill.

“Owwww!” I look away from Tom and see Don leaning over with a hand to his back. He hobbles toward the chairs, but Lucia gets there first and sits beside Marjory again. I have a strange feeling: that I noticed and that I cared. Don has stopped, still bent over. There are no spare chairs now, as other fencers have arrived. Don lowers himself to the flagstones finally, grunting and groaning all the way.

“I’m going to have to quit this,” he says. “I’m getting too old.”

“You’re not old,” Lucia says. “You’re lazy.” I do not understand why Lucia is being so mean to Don. He is a friend; it is not nice to call friends names except in teasing. Don doesn’t like to do the stretches and he complains a lot, but that does not make him not a friend.

“Come on, Lou,” Tom says. “You killed me; we killed each other; I want a chance to get you back.” The words could be angry, but the voice is friendly and he is smiling. I lift my blades again.

This time Tom does what he never does and charges. I have no time to remember what he says is the right thing to do if someone charges; I step back and pivot, pushing his off-hand blade aside with mine and trying for a thrust to his head with the rapier. But he is moving too fast; I miss, and his rapier arm swings over his own head and gives me a whack on the top of the head.

“Gotcha!” he says.

“You did that how?” I ask, and then quickly reorder the words. “How did you do that?”

“It’s my secret tournament shot,” Tom said, pushing his mask back. “Someone did it to me twelve years ago, and I came home and practiced until I could do it to a stump… and normally I use it only in competition. But you’re ready to learn it. There’s only one trick.” He was grinning, his face streaked with sweat.

“Hey!” Don yelled across the yard. “I didn’t see that. Do it again, huh?”