Thought For Food
by Yeshiva Guy
He moves disjointedly. His right arm juts out from his elbow at the oddest angle. Where the veiny wrist meets his hand, it seems to be in a permanent 90 degree angle of sorts, pointing directly at you.
He wears shorts. Always. Thin brown, hairy legs stick out, and exaggerate the stiffness of his stride. The beaten gray Reeboks he wears are covered with soot and grime and white and orange and all sorts of fearsome materials and unappetizing colors.
His face is fixed in the cruelest of leers. There is nothing untoward about this leer, though, or for that matter about this person. No criminal aspect. Then too, he doesn’t play favorites.
Everyone who walks into the bakery is graced with this passive examination; an exam that takes place entirely through the optics of autism.
It was awkward, that first time.
I remember walking in and spotting him and his leer; he was clad in his standard navy shorts and sky blue tee, and was staring at me from the spacious rear section of the store. On the tee, numerous flour stains were in evidence, betraying an intimacy with the baking process that made me queasy. Strolling around the patron’s part of bakery, I perused the assorted wicker platters filled to the brim with various baked goods, politely pretending not to notice him. A relative of the owner, no doubt. Here today and gone tomorrow.
Today, months later, he still stares. It’s still awkward.
Now, I move in and out of the establishment with purposeful movements; I’m a busy bochur. Sometimes I avoid him, and his gruesome glare. Sometimes not. When he is there, anywhere in sight, I’m somehow especially careful wielding the sticky tongs and selecting my sugared pastry confections. It’s in and out, these days.
But sometimes, when I have time, I wonder what it is like for him. The faceless multitudes who invade his space, day in, day out. The thousands who stare back at him; the hundreds who have no time for him and snap at his clumsy attempts to hand them change. What does he think of them? Like his look, is the leer betraying his leeriness- of them?
Is it, after all, awkward… For him?
Why do you assume that he is a relative of the owner?
Perhaps the owner is more able to get past the “queasiness” that you feel and is helping a ‘difficult to employ’ Jew find something meaningful to do…
I doubt the owner eats the goods there. Lookup “dogfooding”. They don’t practice it here.
I wonder if he is actually autistic (did you diagnose him as autistic or do you know it for a fact?), or if he has Asperger’s syndrome, which is an autism spectrum disorder, a high-functioning form of autism. I recently read the book, House Rules by Jodi Picoult that is about a teenage male with Asperger’s. It really gave me a better understanding about how hypersensitive they are to the going ons in the world and how difficult social situations are for them. It’s impressive that this young man is capable of handling such a job, which is definitely a significant challenge for him.
Do people affected with Asphergers have physical symptoms that manifest themselves as described?
I am no expert on autism or Asperger’s Syndrome but I believe that an individual with AS may display physical clumsiness. Is this person you are talking about able to communicate verbally?
Sadly, I do not know. I will be finding out soon, though, as per Elianah-Sharon above.
I asked my 17 year old who is autistic what your friend is thinking. He is thinking that you avoid him because he is strange. And he wishes he wasn’t strange and that you would talk to him because he wants to talk to you but he doesn’t know how to start. You should ask him his name and then say hello every day and smile at him because inside that’s what he is doing to you… he just can’t get it out because his autism is out too much.
For my son, knowing that people treat him the way they do because he is “different” sears through his precious soul. He so wants to be like you but he knows he isn’t. And he knows you know it too. Can you even imagine that pain???
I know an autistic boy who gets carts at the market. He tells me “G-d bless you Ma’am” every day. And I say “Hey Ryan, thanks! How are you?!” Sometimes he answers, sometimes he’s too intent on the work. I think how I hope someone will treat my son like I treat Ryan…and realize he’s inside there filled with love and wanting more than anything else to just connect with another human.
Please, YG, be that human for me.
I cannot imagine it. Which is partly what motivated me to put this up. Seems almost like a paralytic who wishes to communicate with the world around him-desperately- but is bound by restraints not his own.
I will try.