The kid had a dirty mouth. Worse than mine. He had our number. He thought he had mine. Done deal. For him, anyway. His parents had sued the school district. They wanted a one-on-one for their kid, and the school district wasn’t buying it. I was a friend of the court. Basically, the court had no idea what to do.
An Individual Education Plan is SPED law. Even before I saw the kid, I knew this was going to be a powerful challenge. I don’t follow educational paradigms student teachers are so loathe to give up. Little baskets of art supplies and word cards. He will throw the basket at you.
Then, he gave up.
I don’t give a fuck what his name was.
He was Soccerboy to me. He started banging his head against the wall. Until his head was bloody.
The demented tales of Special Education. His name was Randy. Special Education had failed me, too. I am high functioning. Randy would have been high functioning but he rejected the grief of having to be around neurotypicals. The Normals. We don't think they're normal. But they do. I don't know what exactly an autistic person is. I do know that I am autistic but I can hide it with the many masks I wear.
He did not know his times tables.
He did not know how to spell. He wanted to die. If there was no wall, he’d pound his head on the ground. I wanted to know the name of the principal who had let this go on and on for a long time. There was no excuse for this. But one. Covid was a vile motherfucker. It had hit the court hard, too. Frankly, I was glad for it. It bought me time. Anything that buys me time is good. Now, my job was to support him to the extent where Soccerboy could testify in court.
"You can't strip your clothes off in court."
"Why."
"Because the electric chair stinks after they burn your brain to chic peas."
"I want to change my name. I don't want to be Randy."
"I'm not going to ask."
"I want to be Joey Boom Boom."
"Joey Boom Boom is dead. He went up into that eternal sky. He was a card shark."
"I could beat him at poker."
I believed it, but I could not let him know that.
"I want a horse."
My eyes to the sky. "Good. Maybe the horse can sit with you as you watch TV on the wrecked couch."
Obviously, I had been to his house.
"You stop going to my house."
"No."
He had not met no means no. Until now. Oh, happy day.
Just because he could communicate a little more by this time did not mean we could understand him, or that he could understand us. Communication is not a relationship.
"What is a relationship thing, you know."
"A relationship thing is when I beat you at poker." He was itching for a game. What are those. Cards.
"You are so on."
My straight beat his Two of Clubs. The only way to have any influence against his outrage at life was to entangle him in it.
It takes time to build those skills. It doesn't happen in a day. Typical twelve-year-olds would fail. I did not represent the court. I did not really care about the court. I did not care about the judge. I did not care about the school. And, frankly, I did not care about soccer, either. But I would employ it as a tool. My job is to represent the best interests of the minor child. He was my focus. Period.
The principal was out. Aides were out. Teachers were out. Substitutes were out. The janitor died. Education was a wounded institution. Let me tell you a secret. Supposedly, the covid kids lost a year. Are you kidding me. It’s going to take a decade to even catch up.
I was kinda out of my mind.
“Pi, I want to talk to you about Soccerboy. How do I get a helmet on this kid and make the parents and the school keep it on his head 24/7.”
“Or.”
“He’s going to smash brains out and I am not kidding. ”
“What is the resistance.”
“It’s not resistance. It’s indifference. The court is an institution. The school district is an institution. The parents are giving up. Fuck them, Pi.”
“Stop alienating the people who want to be on your team, but they don’t know how. It is not your responsibility to get the kid a helmet. It is, however, your responsibility to get the helmet off the kid, not on him. Getting the helmet on his head will be the easy part.”
“I get it,” I lied.
“You will after you rearrange the furniture a few times.”
“I’m bringing a helmet to school in the morning, and he’s going to wear it if he likes the helmet or not. He’s smart enough to make the state go all flubberbusted, and he knows how to manipulate teachers, he has no friends, no one likes him. He thinks he is a lawyer and he lawyers and argues everything. And everyone. I think he goes home and just watches TV. A wild guess. Have you heard him sing commercials. The next adult who asks him to sing commercials because they think it’s funny, will deal with me.”
“Go be with your student. I will be waiting, Tim.”
Pi thinks I am wasting my time as a writer. “You could be making real contributions to some damaged kids and writing is a distraction."
“I’m not giving up writing, Pi.”
“Soccerboy is not a project. If you fail, it’s not on him.”
“Bye, Pi.”
Soccerboy hated the helmet. We replastered and painted the hole of the classroom wall. This kid was going to kill himself over my dead body.
He spit. He tried biting. Scratching. We had fists. Kicking. Turning purple.
“Where are we going.”
“Soccer practice.” He liked my jeep and he rapped. His soccer was a mess.
This meant he could kick the ball around. Alone. No one would play with him. No one wanted to see his butt. "You can't spit at Grandma's house."
"People who spit at Grandma's house get the electric chair."
"You have to wear a light for a hat."
"It's not a hat."
Or it could have been that he liked flashing his ass on the field. The judge was going to have a cow. The typical kids knew exactly how to avoid Soccerboy. The one whose head breaks the mirror in the bathroom.
The field was big enough to contain him. Least restrictive.
Mainly, he kicks the ball about three feet. He wanted to kick me more than three feet.
He ran over to me, all flubberbusted. “Who are those kids running over here.”
“That’s the high school soccer team. My friends. They want to meet you, and please don’t pull your pants down. We’ve seen it. We’re kind over it.”
“I’m scared.”
"Not as scared as I am.”
“Don’t call me Soccerboy. They will think I know how to play soccer -- I don't -- and they are going to laugh at me.”
“Probably.”
“You don’t care.”
“True. I do not give a fuck about what anyone calls you. Why should I.”
“I’m a person.”
“So you say. I saw a straightjacket in a classroom. Come on, Randy. Get real. No classroom wants a straightjacket. You are now going to be a person on a team. It will be different. I will be here to keep you out of fights and I won’t let anyone murder you. That’s my job. And that will be about it.”
"Are you from the court."
"Yes."
“I will bang my head on a tree.”
“You are wearing a helmet and be my guest.”
“They’re really big kids.”
“They’re going to eat your lunch. You are now the soccer ball boy, and when the team travels, you travel, but your job will be to make sure the soccer balls get to the game. Can you handle it.”
“I need a hug.”
“Can you handle it.”
"What. A hug, I knew you were a faggot. You wanna see my ass."
"Maybe next year you could play on the team."
"And no washing old balls."
"I wouldn't put it that way."
"We're just the losers, faggot, don't you know that, you wanna rape me."
I only whispered about doing the team laundry.
“What.”
“Nothing. Here they come.”
It was a tsunami of muscle and shoes — they seemed to leave a dust cloud everywhere they went — and they picked him up like the tide, and now he was their problem.
People a thousand miles away could hear him yelling, “I’m going to fuck you up.”
People ten thousand miles away could hear much 17-year-old laughter ensue.
Usually, he rode the little yellow bus home. The first time I saw them wrap him into the straightjacket — Soccerboy flailing and landing punches — gets strapped into the seat like a mummy.
Later that week, I met with the parents while Randy was at practice. “He even sleeps.”
“Drop the lawsuit.”
“Why. Because a one on one takes all the choices away. Randy has to make it by himself. Yesterday, he wanted to die. Today, he wants to fight. You two have heard it all. I know that. When he tells me he’s scared, I believe him.” I’m talking to a blackboard.
“Everyone says that.”
“Everyone is right. He’s scared. But not of soccer. He washes the balls with soap so they look new. Kinda new. Not very new. But that’s his trip. Everyone has to find their trip. Everyone doesn’t learn like everyone else. He’s dealing with typical kids who he crushes on. How normal is that.”
They were leaning in.
It was Randy’s turn to do some leaning in, too.
“But what is wrong with him.” His teammates were making an effort. But they were filled with questions. Kids are not indifferent. They can only get it from their parents who think a lawsuit will solve everything. It will only solve some of everything. All the superficial stuff.
There was a big pot hole indentation on Randy’s side of the couch. This was where he has spent most of his life. It was an abyss and he knew it.”
“We call it neurodivergent.”
“What does that mean.”
“It means if he loses the soccer balls you may feel free to tie him in a straightjacket and ship him to the pyramids.”
Sometimes humor has to make an entrance so people feel you are on their side. I was a guardian. My job is to guard him. And in so doing, throw him into the community. Why. Because he might spontaneously combust. Or explode.
I can still hear him yelling, “I’m gonna fuck you up.” It was not exactly helpful to his cause. And this was issued to his team. Not the other team. He was fighting with his own mates and having a great time. So, I waded in.
“Don’t let him get away with this. Put pressure on him to keep up. He has crushes on you and you and you.”
There was a long silence. Soccerboy was boiling hot mountains of salt.
"You told."
"If someone was crushing on me, I would want to know it."
“What does it mean,” I asked the adolescent soccer team.
Hem. Haw. Shifting balance.
"Is he gay."
It always comes down to that. Always.
"I do not know, and I do not care."
We do not have a year.
"If he smashes my in face again, I'm going to react."
"This is why people hate him. What this means is that someone loves you. Not as a date. He doesn’t know what a date is. All he can do right now is get the balls to the game.”
I thought they might like that one. The soccer team had to laugh. It was kind of a nervous laugh though.
“You have enough problems. I used to work with kids. Who had real problems. Like hunger. Like HIV. Like a foster placement while their parents are in prison. Like Big Girl addictions. That come with violence. So, you can go play your little game, but if you fuck him up in any way, I will come back, and I will fuck you up with my boot.”
I meant every word of it.
I did have to kick some butt that year. Pi was now the one asking the questions. It was a bit of a turnabout. “Is Randy autistic, Tim.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“And they call you a friend of the court.”
“No. They usually just call me, Tim.”
“Ha ha ha.”
“Pi, you’re laughing.”
“Someone has to.”
When he's miffed, he talks like me because the mirror is a mask. My voice will be in his head the rest of his life. How many Soccerboys are out there fighting with more than a soccer ball.
He thinks Pi is really a person. Like him. But with no money. "I have a whole dollar."
The soccer team lost. Every game. But one.
The only progress I can report on is that Joey Boom Boom is no longer restrained in a straightjacket on the way home. -- Tim Barrus
