Which is why the residents and I were heading to the theatre. (Dr. Pratt, my deconstructed grad school mentor and erstwhile life coach, would be proud of me for this brilliant analysis.)
For you see, each of the residents is supported by a program, a title this or a title that. And programs administer troughs and therefore require budgets. And budgets require numbers, including numbers for money spent. So each client is a part of the budget of New Directions, and New Directions has informed Government that dollars X are necessary to spend for the entertainment of resident Y, entertainment being a necessary part of the life of a Special, just as it is for a Normal Human Being. And if that entertainment money (better to call it “programming”) is not spent on client Y, it will not be in next year’s budget, which is not good for New Directions or for client Y.
So Cassandra said to me a few days after I began, “Ralph’s account is getting too big. Buy him something—a new area rug or lamp or radio . . . anything. And take everyone out on an activity. Anything. We’ve got a report due at the end of the month and we’ve got to show more spending.”
I don’t think she really wanted to say it exactly like that. She was thinking out loud. She caught herself and looked at me like we were standing next to a cookie jar and she was holding a macaroon.
“You know what I mean.”
Yes, I knew exactly what she meant. Feed at the trough. Keep the slop coming. Oink. Oink.
So we little piggies went to market. High-end market. The Guthrie Theater, in fact. Tyrone’s palace across the street from Loring Park and next to the Walker Sculpture Garden. It was December, and at the Guthrie December means A Christmas Carol, as it has for something like twenty-five years now. Zillah and I had season tickets for the Guthrie for the first stretch of our time together. It was a nice break from a troubled marriage to go see something like The Oresteia or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (This is called irony. I learned it early and it has been my loyal companion lo these many years.)
I’ve been thinking about Zillah a lot lately. It’s easier to keep away from someone physically than to keep them out of your thoughts. I haven’t seen her for more than a year, closer to two, but she pays regular visits to all three sections of my Freudian brain—id, ego, and superego. The psych folks have pretty much junked Freud, but I still like the simplicity of the cancer-jawed old geezer. (Did the gods afflict him for telling us lies, or was it just random bad luck?)
How is it that I miss being with a woman with whom I mostly gave and received pain? (“Why should I blame her that she filled my days / With misery?”) Maybe it’s that the pain did not lessen when we parted, but the sense of being in something significant together did. Or maybe not.
We arrive for our matinee performance. (Specials, with a lifetime of scheduled bedtimes, tend to turn into pumpkins at around 9 p.m., so afternoon activities work better.) It’s crowded in the big lobby, which serves both the Guthrie and the Walker Art Center. Dickens’s occult, moralistic thriller is the Guthrie’s dependable cash cow. Parents love to bring their children to it (moooo!), never mind that it scares the bejesus out of the younger ones and bores the older kids (who consume slasher movies like popcorn).
The residents stick close to each other and to me, the primal herd instinct when danger (read “the unfamiliar”) is in the air. Bonita stirs things up a bit.
“Watch out!”
She’s points straight up and everyone follows her finger and then crouches down as if death is descending from the sky.
“What the hell is that?”
That, it turns out, is art. An Oldenburg to be specific. A huge, plasticky, leathery, saggy, artsy rendering of an everyday three-way electrical wall plug to be exact. It’s the size of a minivan and hangs over the crowd from the ceiling, looking more than a little forlorn.
“It’s art,” I say.
“Noah’s ark?” Jimmy asks.
“No, art. With a ‘t’.”
It’s Judy’s turn.
“Why, why, I . . . I should say, I like ar . . . art, Jon. It’s . . . it’s very pretty.”
Billy is looking up, but then Billy is always looking up, so I don’t take it as a sign that he has suddenly developed an interest in oversized aesthetic wall plugs. Billy is as Special as they get, and he communicates, if at all, with things beyond the ken of Normals and Specials alike.
Ralph, as usual, is unimpressed. He shoots a glance and sums it up for the group with a wave of the hand.
“Ah phooey.”
Everyone seems satisfied with that and we move on.
Moving on means getting in line at the Will Call window. I’ve made reservations but there wasn’t time to mail the tickets, so we have to pick them up. It’s a long line.
I place myself in the middle of our group, all of us single file. I’d have them wait for me separately but there’s no telling where these sheep will go if the good shepherd ain’t among ’em. I’m a little self-conscious about having brought them all to the Guthrie. A ballgame or bowling alley is one thing. But a squad of Specials is more than a little unusual at a chic cathedral for the performing arts. (Not that the management wouldn’t be thrilled at this unplanned diversity moment. Play it right and we could end up in an ad campaign—“Differently Abled Enjoy a Night at the Theatre.”)
I’m looking back toward Judy and Ralph holding hands at the back of our little group when I hear a familiar voice and sounds of commotion in front of me. Bonita has gotten tired of waiting and is suddenly pushing her way through the people ahead of us in line toward the ticket window, Jimmy right behind her.
“Let us through, we’re retarded,” she yells, her head down like a running back plowing into the scrimmage line, looking for a hole.
People are parting like the Red Sea.
“Let us through, we’re retarded!” she repeats.
My God, the R word. In public. And in the mouth of one of my charges. My career with the Specials is hanging by a thread.
“Bonita! Jimmy!” I bark. “Get back here!”
I take a couple of big steps and grab the back of Jimmy’s shirt. Bonita continues pushing ahead, delighted with how well things are working out. I am trying to reach for her with my other hand when a purse bounces off the side of my head.
It’s an old woman.
“Young man, you leave these people alone! It’s wonderful that they are here, and I will not have you bullying them!”
Others nod and shoot me Medusa looks. They all step aside and wave for the rest of us to pass up to the front. I am speechless but caught up in the tidal movement of our group toward the window. When I get there, Bonita is waiting for me with an expression of patient resignation.
“Stick with me, Mote.”
We’re in the cheap seats, though none of the seats are actually cheap, which I assume Cassandra will be happy about. Oink. Oink. I wasn’t able to get us all in the same row, so J.P. is by himself in the row ahead of us, right in front of me, so I can keep an eye on him. We’re early and there’s no one else in his row at the moment.
All is well. Everyone localized in a seat. Everyone having gone to the toilet before we left the group home. Bonita calm and satisfied after her Pickett’s Charge to the Will Call window. Jimmy peering all around, sizing up the possibilities. Ralph and Judy blinking rhythmically. Billy starting to hum.
I see a young woman standing in the aisle at the end of J.P.’s row, looking at her ticket and then at the row number. She’s a good twenty seats away from J.P., but hasn’t looked up either at him or at the rest of us in the row behind.