Raising Cubby (22 page)

We approached our first stoplight at a brisk rate of speed. The light turned yellow, but cars like that do not just stop at the whim of traffic lights. I applied the brakes and our speed moderated, but we continued sailing forward at a pretty good clip. Some drivers might
panic in a situation like that. Not me. I reached across the dash and flipped the switch for the annunciator, which began shrieking like an ambulance siren in an old foreign film. No one in his right mind would get in our way, including the police car we passed on our way through the red light. Not surprisingly, the cops pulled in behind us.

“Watch out, Cubby, we might be getting stopped,” I warned him, but he remained unperturbed. All he did was shut the rear shade, so any pesky blue lights would not disturb his video game. I wondered what would happen next.

A second police car appeared from a side street, to join the first. When that happens, you know you are in trouble. One cop car means a ticket. Two cop cars means you’re getting arrested. I wasn’t sure what we’d done to justify such action, but I warned Cubby and he was ready. Unlike me, he’d never been in jail, and the idea seemed kind of cool.

But nothing happened. There were no flashing blue lights, and no one shouting through a loudspeaker, “Pull over and remain in the vehicle!” We continued sailing along, with all the lights green before us, and nothing standing in our way. Suddenly, it hit me. The cops had not pulled out to arrest us. They were there to escort us. I realized we had best not stop or step out of the vehicle, lest we spoil their image of Chinese royalty. I accelerated slightly as the annunciator roared briefly at an errant pedestrian. The police could arrest him later.

We made it to the show in record time, only to find the entrance blocked. Two hundred cars stretched out in a line as harried volunteers admitted people one by one. There was always the challenge from the keepers of the gates:
Are you parking or exhibiting?
Cars that were deemed worthy of exhibition were allowed onto the show grounds. All others were consigned to the meadow down below.

We did not have any doubt as to our car’s destination, and with two police cars to protect us, we saw no reason to linger. Chairman
Mao certainly would not have waited. In fact, in his day, outriders would have cleared the riffraff from the road before he even appeared. In the sixties, the guards at the gate might well have been executed or at least imprisoned for their impertinence. We didn’t have armed outriders, but we had the next best thing.

With a brief chirp from the annunciator, we drove into the oncoming lane, around the offending automobiles, and past the startled attendants. Our flags snapped crisply in the oncoming ocean breeze. The people at the gate turned to follow us as we motored by. Then they turned to our escorts. I don’t know what happened back there. Either they didn’t let the police cars pass, or else the cops decided their job was done. I wished I could thank them, but I didn’t want to be arrested for doing so. In the end, we simply watched them recede into the distance as we motored serenely across the grounds.

We found two shady parking spaces and settled the car in with its littler brothers. The chairman’s Benz looked big enough to put any two of those smaller Mercedes in its trunk, with room to spare. I opened the door and stepped out into the sun. Cubby opened his door and emerged blinking, Game Boy in hand.

Many eyes had followed Chairman Mao’s car in its stately progression across the show field. Nothing like it had ever appeared at the car show before. The crowd may not have known who was inside, but they knew he was important. The way that car looked, they probably expected someone like Oddjob from the James Bond movies to step out the driver’s door. Being aware of that, I waved as I got out. I think they expected someone else. Someone perhaps a little more Asian looking. And a passenger in the back with something more in his hand than a Game Boy.

Later that day we learned we’d won a prize: Best in Class for Mercedes. Cubby took the award—a large silver platter—and loaded it with cookies for the ride home.

By this time, Cubby had been doing gymnastics for several years, and he was really quite good at it. He could stand on his head on parallel bars and sit perfectly straight while hanging from a ring in midair. His cartwheels and tumbling put my own teenage efforts totally to shame.

To get to that point, he’d spent countless hours practicing with Coach Cal and his teammates. Together they had made the transition from gawky kids to poised young athletes. As an added bonus, Cubby had made several new friends on the team. He spent all his free time talking to them and hanging out.

The only problem was, the team went on vacation when school let out for the summer. At the same time, Mom decided to go to Mexico for her doctoral research. That meant it was up to me to manage our kid seven days a week and burn off his energy. Even though I’d never faced full-time kid management before, I was undaunted. I had a plan. I would send Cubby to gymnastics camp.

At that time, the University of Massachusetts had a topflight gymnastics team that recruited athletes from all over the country. Cubby and I watched them whenever we got the chance. In fact,
they won the ECAC championship that year, and my son and I were there to capture the moment in pictures. On a few occasions, his teammates from Hampshire Gymnastics got to work out with the college team, and when UMass competed in a big meet at West Point, the Hampshire Gymnastics team performed at halftime. The kids were awfully proud of that. Their parents were in the stands hollering louder than the families of the college gymnasts who were actually competing.

When Cubby heard the men’s coach was offering a two-week summer camp, he was eager to sign up. Off we went.

Everything went smoothly right up to the end. Coach Roy Johnson told me how much my son had improved on cartwheels, rings, and parallel bars as Cubby nodded his head in excited agreement. Hearing that, I decided to attend the last day of camp and photograph the kids. Armed with two cameras, I followed them through the pool, the bars, tumbling, and even outside for free-form moves on the grass.

As I trailed them around, I could not help noticing that Cubby had made fast friends with several of the college gymnasts who helped Roy with the coaching. I remembered doing the same thing myself, when I connected with the grad students at my father’s school even as I failed to make friends my own age. The college students had the mental agility to follow the weird things a geeky kid like me would say, and I had no doubt the same thing was true for my own son. I also saw the way he took the time to help the younger kids and share what he had learned, and how the younger kids looked up to him. I was proud of that.

At the end of the camp day, the coach had a surprise. “We’re going to Riverside Park,” he announced. Riverside was a large amusement park located half an hour away in Agawam. The kids were bouncing up and down at the thought of roller coasters and other scary rides. The coach had lined up transportation and I wasn’t too keen to spend a few hours in a crowded amusement
park, so I wished them well and sent them on their way. “I’ll see you this evening,” I said as I watched them drive off.

Two hours later, I got a call. “Dad, you have to come here. Something happened. Right away!” Cubby sounded very worried. I called back but didn’t get an answer. I called the coach, and his line was busy. Frightened, I got into the car and headed for the park.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I could see flashing lights everywhere. It was obvious that something bad had happened. Pushing my way past the gate attendants, I rushed into the park in search of my kid. That was one of those times that it’s good to be six foot three and two-hundred-some pounds. I can see over most people and move through them pretty fast.

My eyes were drawn to the mob around one of the roller coasters. The first thing I saw was the uniforms. Then I saw the kids from Cubby’s camp.
What had happened to them? Was my son hurt?
I parted the crowd like a snowplow and covered the hundred yards to the coaster in a matter of seconds. As I was making my way onto the platform, I caught sight of Cubby. He looked all right, but scared. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Something happened to Joel,” and he pointed to a circle of EMTs who huddled around a small form, motionless on the ground. As we watched, they lifted the stretcher and headed for the park gate at a trot. As they ran, an ambulance backed through the entrance to meet them. We watched the medics load Joel inside and shut the door. With a chirp of the siren, the ambulance pulled past the gate and accelerated out of the parking lot. As they raced toward Baystate Hospital, I turned to find a parent, to see what happened.

Being kids, the gymnasts had gravitated toward the fastest and scariest rides in the park. The big roller coaster was an irresistible attraction. Most of the kids were eager to ride it, but a few were scared. “Come on,” their campmates said, “we’ll all ride it.” They got on. The gymnastics kid pack made it through every scary and
dangerous-looking ride at the park. There was the Cyclone, Mind Eraser, and even more aggressive rides that just about ripped your head right off. Then they arrived at the Twisted Train.

The park brochure said, “This is a great coaster for the little ones. Not too fast, not too rough, but still enjoyable for adults and children alike!” Finally, they’d come to a coaster that even the parents would ride. They all piled aboard.

About halfway around the ride, something went wrong. Joel panicked, threw up, and began choking. With all the noise and excitement, no one noticed. The ride circled the track, over and over while Joel struggled to breathe. As the ride coasted into the station, the kids around him realized something was horribly wrong and started screaming. The ride operators sounded the alarm as worried gym camp chaperones gathered up the kids.

It was too late. Joel died. He was twelve, just a year and a half older than my son. The pictures we took at camp that afternoon showed a smiling, happy kid. I thought I’d be giving my pictures to his parents as souvenirs. Instead I sent them to the coach, who delivered them at the funeral.

Cubby never said much about his experience at the park, but I noticed that he became more cautious. I often wondered what he felt about the events that day, and I tried to understand by relating what happened to earlier experiences of my own. More than one person had suggested that autism insulated me from the emotional ups and downs of life. That certainly seemed to be the case here. There was no question Cubby understood logically what had happened, and of course he was sad that his campmate died. Yet he did not seem terribly sad himself. However, he became very agitated by the very mention of Riverside Park. From that day on, the park remained the one topic that was conversationally off-limits for my son.

Now, when I think back on that time, I realize our son was holding quite a lot in, probably because his Asperger’s prevented
him from fully understanding what had transpired that day and expressing the feelings. It’s regrettable that we didn’t know any of that at the time; we did the best we could with the knowledge we had.

Cubby never went on a roller coaster again, and he never returned to Riverside Park. A short while later, Six Flags bought the place and spent millions to update and remodel the park, and still he stayed away. Me too. That was the last coaster ride for both of us.

The following year UMass canceled its gymnastics program in the midst of a budget crisis. Coach Roy was laid off and the athletes scattered to the winds. Shortly afterward, Hampshire Gymnastics replaced Coach Cal with someone new. Cal had always worked with my son one-on-one, and the new fellow didn’t do that. Cal explained everything carefully for Cubby and helped him through every new move, one step at a time. The new coach was almost nonverbal in comparison. He’d say, “Watch me and imitate” and expect the kids to follow his demonstration on their own. Cubby couldn’t do that, and when he floundered the new coach barked out instructions too fast for my son to follow. Cubby fell behind, and within a few months he was out of gymnastics.

Cubby took up fencing instead.