Do What You Have to

Many years ago I was the youngest of three kids. My brother and sister had already entered the 7th and 8th grade ahead of me.

With a last name like ours it was fairly common that we were going to be teased, no questions about it. My sister ignored them. My brother ignored them. Then I got on the bus for the first time.

My parents knew that my brother and sister had been teased, and they told me the same thing they said to them: "ignore them and they'll leave you alone."

Yeah, not so much. They know you can hear them. They know you can feel it when they slap you across the back of the head. As it turned out, I was autistic, and just wanted to be left alone anyway, so I did my best to ignore them.

Then came the day with the Stompers.

See, years ago these little battery operated toys called Stompers were all the rage. They weren't cheap, and they were pretty much a status symbol. They were these little toy trucks that ground mindlessly forward over whatever was in their path. All you did was turn on the switch and let them go.

Well, the kids on the bus thought it'd be real funny to take one of these and drop it in my hair on the back of my head, wait for it to get tangled up, and then yank it loose. Mind you, I was doing what I was told, even through that much pain.

Finally came a day when they got one so tangled up they couldn't. Yank. It. Loose. No. Matter. How. Many. Times. They. Tried.

So they thought, hey, let's drop another one right beside it. Which also promptly got so tangled up they couldn't. Yank. It. Loose. No. Matter. How. Many. Times. They. Tried.

Finally the bus gets to my stop (first one in line) and I'm just going to go home and cut the things loose because I don't know what else to do. The kids on the bus all start screaming that I'm stealing their Stompers.

That was the moment I realized I was nothing to them but a target. I was fairly thin, fairly tall, wore eyeglasses, didn't want to interact, read a lot... you know.

What they didn't know was that I was autistic and they had just presented me with a problem that had one solution. As an autistic I have a pretty black and white solution set.

I said "you want your Stompers back?" The whole bus is involved now. They scream "yeaaaahh!!"

I said "okay." Took off my eyeglasses, put my books down, put the eyeglasses down on top of that.

Reached up with one hand on either side of my head, grabbed a Stomper, and yanked straight down.

Scalp wounds bleed pretty heavily. Now there's one Stomper in each of my hands, with a fair amount of blood, hair, and skin attached, and I look like I've been shot. The bus of kids is screaming now, just for a different reason.

I say "you still want 'em back?" ...the owners are screaming, but they're screaming for their Stompers back as they simultaneously scream in horror. They gag out "yeah".

....okay. I put both hands down on the floor of the bus, leaving one bloody, messy Stomper next to the other. The owners start heading that way.

Before they can get so much as two steps out, though, I jump up in the air and come down with one size 13 shoe on each Stomper. They're bloody, messy garbage now. Now the entire bus is screaming for basically three reasons. I put my glasses on, pick up my books, and walk home.

I get home and I still look like I've been shot. My mom doesn't get home till after 6 or so, so when she comes in, I'm still trying to clean up and not doing a very good job. She sees the back of my head and just about goes ballistic crying right there. She knew the kids had been teasing me but she didn't know how bad it had gotten.

She patched me up.

Obviously we didn't know I was autistic yet (it was called Aspergers starting in 1992 and lumped in with autism in the DSM-V much later) but my mom said one of the best things to me that she's ever said.

She said "I'm sorry. We were wrong. You do what you have to."

Mind you, this was back in the 80's, when you didn't automatically get thrown out of class for defending yourself.

"I'm sorry. We were wrong. You do what you have to."

To an autistic, that was like saying, "go into that phone booth, pull open your shirt, change into your costume, and whip the f*** out of whoever's hurting you until they stop."

I got in six fights the rest of high school. Autism's curse? I remember their names 40 years later. Autism's blessing? After I put one of them in the hospital and immobilized the rest while injuring them pretty severely, including one 11th grader, they left me alone.

"I'm sorry. We were wrong. You do what you have to."

40 years later and I still cry thinking about it.