Stupid

There's a couple of things you have to know about my older brother Morris. First, he's really great on the piano. Second, he'll go apeshit if anyone tries to bully his younger brother, me. If you don't know that about Morris, you don't know anything.

Nobody can figure out how Morris learned to play the piano. He just did. He'd sit there for the longest time, as if he was trying to work out Einstein's Theory of Relativity in his head, then tap a key. Then another. For months he did that. Then riffs and runs started coming out of him. New stuff. Genius stuff. Stuff that makes you tingle to hear it.

Now he's got a repertoire. At first it was all his own improv material. Then one day my mom gasped and started crying while Morris was tickling the ivories. She was sitting on the sofa, reading a book and listening to Morris play. She dropped the book in her lap and stared as if she was seeing some kind of ghost on the bench beside my brother. "That's Oscar Peterson," she kept saying.

From www.oscarpeterson.com, the Official Oscar Peterson web site.

Oscar Peterson sounds like this.

I normally wouldn't listen to that kind of stuff, unless Mom or Dad was playing it. Or Morris. And none of them really play like OP, of course. But sometimes you hear little bits of Oscar in Morris's music, and it blows you away to think he's worked that out all on his own. Myself, I can't even play chopsticks on the piano. My instrument is base guitar. I'm pretty good at that, but not near as good as Morris on the piano.

We go to the same high school. I won't tell you which one. It doesn't really matter, cause it's just like every other high school you've ever been in or seen on TV: noisy hallways lined with clanging metal lockers; teachers prowling around like prison guards; nerds, jocks, flirts, potheads, geeks, preppies all eyeballing each other like a riot's about to break out... you know the scene.

I mean, high school's okay if you know how to fit in. But if you're a bit weird... well, things won't generally turn out for you like they did for Cinderella.

Morris and I aren't in any of the same classes, and I'm glad. It's bad enough being in the same school with your older brother, the thought of being in the same class makes me cringe. Any younger brother would feel a bit queasy about that, I suppose, but I have more reasons than most because other thing you have to know about Morris is he's got Special Needs. That's Special with a capital 'S' and Needs with a capital 'N'. Another way to spell it out is A-U-T-I-S-T-I-C. Morris is autistic.

That means I have special needs, too - small 's', small 'n'. If you're an adult reading this story, or a social do-gooder, who's never had to live with an autistic brother, you're probably tsk, tsking all over the place. Don't worry about it. Me and Morris have worked things out. That doesn't mean I have to pretend like everything's always peachy between us. It's hard work, man, and there are things I'm ashamed to talk about. There have been times when I've wished for a different sort of brother, a 'normal' bro, whatever that means.

I can show you a bit what it means to be autistic. It's something you should learn about, because most people don't understand autistic kids. A lot of people who've never bothered to ask, think autistic kids don't have any feelings. That's a lie. They hurt when you dis them. They get pissed off when bullies muscle them aside. Who doesn't? Their brothers are probably the people who can hurt them most in this world. Here's some pictures of autistic kids that are posted on flickr. Take a look at their faces, man. Really look hard...

Video posted on YouTube; music from www.danosongs.com

I love Morris and get mad at him all at the same time. He could be one of the kids in those pictures. Maybe he's all of them. Sometimes Morris looks rumpled and weird, like he's tuned-in to a different planet and there's too much static in the air; other times you'd hardly know there's anything wrong with him at all... unless you're a teenager, that is. Teenagers always know there's something different about Morris. They're like sharks when it comes to spotting little things that make people different. Their sensors are always scanning, checking, metering how normal or weird you are. Morris sets them off, the ones who are weirder than him, that is.

There's only one person in the world who really has enough patience for Morris. Mom. I wasn't around when Mom and Dad discovered their first child was 'different'. And I've grown up with Morris, so I've never really been disappointed with him has a brother - not personally, that is - even if I said earlier that I've sometimes wished for a 'normal' bro. It's complicated. It's not that I don't want Morris as a brother; it's just that I'd like a normal brother too. Mom isn't like that. Morris is Morris to her, and he's the centre of her universe. Sometimes I feel like planet Pluto on the edge of her solar system.

She and Dad have described often enough how it was for them to finally accept their Morris was different. I'm thinking I might never have kids of my own, man, because to learn that your first born is never going to speak right, or look quite right, and that he's probably always going to live with you and require special care, that he's never going to have a girlfriend, or drive a car, or go to university, or get a job on the 25th floor... all those things I've always known about Morris they had to give up. And they had to keep on loving him while their dream-boy faded away. Morris has always been Morris to me, and it's not my job to love him all the time. We are brothers, right? Sometimes we hate each others guts!

But Mom's at the centre. Check out this video about autistic families to get some idea of how much my Mom has been there for Morris. I have to tell you, watching that clenches my stomach. I feel for  Mom, for Morris, for Dad and for me all at the same time, and it's hard to describe what I feel. It's a weird concoction of sadness, fear and determination. I'll never let Morris down. Never again, that is.

You try to do what's right, but it's not always easy to decide what that is. Sometimes 'right' doesn't mean the same thing to different people. Marlene and I were walking home the other day and we came across an injured sparrow. She wanted to rescue the bird; I thought it best to let nature take its course. Was I wrong? Was she? There's no right answer. We caught the bird and it died in the nest of Marlene's hands. Then we had to figure out what to do with the body, because it had become our responsibility. We buried it in the park. Did our sadness and consolation make any difference? Was it for us, or for the bird? I don't know. All I know is someone had to give way, and this time it was me.

With Morris it's not so easy. He's not a crippled bird that's going to be in your life for a few minutes, then gone. He's forever. Marlene understands that. She's taught me there are people who do understand and who will make Morris a part of their lives too. She's taught me there are really good people in the world - beautiful people, to use a phrase from my parents' generation. I didn't know that before I met her. Not really, because before Marlene no one outside of my family had been such a big part of my life. It happened so fast. I can't believe it. One minute we're friends, the next, I can't be away from her for five minutes without thinking about her. Literally, she takes my breath away.

A lot of kids wouldn't be able to accept Morris like she has. I can't blame them. For a while, there, I sort of pushed him away, too. It just wasn't cool to have Morris around much. And I wanted to be cool. Decisions, right. They're not always easy. For as long as I can remember, I've walked home with Morris, talking when he feels like talking, just walking when he doesn't. So much for hanging out. I was the Gotta-go-boy, and I hated it.

It's not like Morris can't make it home on his own. He's not stupid. But for the two years I was still in elementary school and he was up the road in high school, Mom would meet us every day. Then, once I was in the 'big house' I took over,  walking home with him most days, unless there was some sort of activity like sports, or theatre going on. Then Mom meets him. She waits across the street. They don't make a big deal about it. He'll be walking along and Mom joins him. Then they walk together. Some days Morris is excited, and he talks too loud; some days he just shlumps along like he's got just enough energy to get one foot in front of the other.

You'd never know he appreciates me or Mom being with him, but he does. 'Cool' is not really a factor in Morris's calculations.

I've asked myself: What if Morris wasn't my brother? Would I say hello to him in the hall, or walk a block with him even once in a lifetime?

The answer's obvious, but I don't want to say it out loud. But if he was my girlfriend's brother, would I be like Marlene? Am I capable of that kind of generosity? Could I get beyond my own prejudice and self-interest to the point where Morris would actually become a friend? What if she had a sister in a wheelchair, or a brother with Downs Syndrome? How would I respond?

I want to be with her so bad, I'd probably get over it and figure out a way to live with the situation. But it would always be a condition of our relationship, right? Not true friendship. And if you took her out of the equation - well there wouldn't be any equal sign at all. Her 'handicapped' sibling would not be part of my life, right?

To be continued...