Somebody Somewhere Read Online Free PDF Page A

definition be brain-damaged. The brain is made up of many different parts, containing many different abilities. Just because one area is affected doesn’t mean others are, too. Retarded people are not necessarily physically disabled, and vice versa. The ability of the brain to compensate for damage by using functions that are still intact is often overlooked. Too often, also, those who have trouble linking thought to action or words, or viceversa, are thought retarded or disturbed, when the problem may not be in the capacity so much as the mechanics.
    In this well-intentioned teacher’s classroom, I was unable to say any of this. Here in this hygienic, laminated, playschool atmosphere, I stood watching “the babysat.”
    Vegetables grow in gardens, not in classrooms. It seemed inexcusable to get paid to watch vegetables grow when attempts could be made to help them realize a little more humanity as human beings. Years pass too quickly, and those assumed to be vegetables sometimes fulfill low expectations and do not grow up to live as human beings.
    I entered a classroom for special-needs adults. Robbie seemed to me to be a shining example of someone who had won in terms of a battle to keep the world out and convince everyone there was nobody home. He was twenty-two, six feet tall, and clad in diapers.
    “He’s severely retarded and autistic,” said the member of the staff quietly. Robbie’s pale blue eyes stared hypnotically into nothingness. I felt he “wasn’t home.”
    Robbie was being regularly toileted. This constituted most of his “education” five days a week, and my job was to take him to the toilet at regular intervals. It was hoped that after twenty-two years Robbie would realize the system and do it for himself. It was just as likely that he’d already developed another system they’d taught him; that of living up to unbelievably low expectations.
    It was dinnertime. A tin of baby food was opened and the yellow-brown slop was spooned into Robbie’s expressionless face. The slop soon covered his chin and nose. Watching him slowly swallow the mulch was like watching a tree grow. Apparently Robbie could not hold the spoon. Apparently Robbie could not hold anything. At home, Robbie was kept in diapers and hand-fed.
    His crystal blue eyes staring straight ahead into nothing, his face totally expressionless, a haunting dead smile fixed upon his face, Robbie’s hand went to jelly as he was handed anything—a master of the art of non-being.
    —
    My older brother’s six-year-old hand had hold of my wrist. He shook my hand in front of my five-year-old face. The waving hand would attract myattention.
Slap.
My hand was smacked into my face to the sound of laughter. “Here, make your hand all floppy-woppy again,” came the excited voice of the one still holding my wrist. To him it was nothing more than a child’s game meant in “fun.”
Slap
came the sound of my hand hitting my face like a limp, wet fish. It was thought hilarious. How could I be so stupid that I didn’t learn the consequences of letting my hand go floppy? I thought I was “disappearing.” I didn’t connect the feeling of “disappearing” with its effect upon my body or appearance. The fact that my hand went floppy as a result was entirely irrelevant.
    —
    My hand stretched out in Robbie’s direction. My eyes were fixed on a distant spot on the other side of the room, well away from where I was, as though I were entirely unconnected to the hand approaching him. My hand let go of the object it was holding out. My face expressed no recognition of my action. This was “giving” according to “my world” definitions. I was a passing machine, an object passing object after object to someone who was not there.
    To the amusement and surprise of the two other staff present, Robbie took the things my hand dropped in front of him in the same way I had “handed” them to him, his eyes staring straight ahead into nothingness. He was using