section one

“I’m a merry-go-round! I’m a merry-go-round!” My brother’s shaggy brown hair flings out in all directions as he turns himself in circles repeating his mantra.

Mrs. Cooper is at the grocery store and she has contracted me to watch her son Andrew. At least, that’s how I see it. Mrs. Cooper is actually my mother, but when she asks me to watch Andrew (and she does all the time) I feel like we are business associates. She the powerful Mrs. Cooper, running the busy Cooper Inc. Corporation, and I, Brigitte Cooper, the lowly assistant with the unfortunate happenstance of having the same last name as her and Andrew. As if that commonality makes me the automatic babysitter. Like it came on my birth certificate, attached like some extra appendage. Like a virus in your email; you don’t really want it, didn’t see it coming, but you got it anyway.

I brought my homework with me. I have to write an essay for the family unit of my home ec class. It was the cherry on my sundae, really proving the point that my whole entire life is a joke in the eyes of fate. My family is… I only got a whopping three words down before Andrew required my attention. Not that he asked for it. It was just that I was so scared he was going to run off again. All it took was five seconds of not keeping an eye on him and it was all missing child reports and police interviews. It had happened more than once. It was why it was so hard for him to actually keep a caretaker for more than a few weeks. All it took was them to answer a call or go to make a sandwich for him. He would then be out the door and down the block and then they would be canned. It was like he didn’t want someone there to look after him.

Andrew has a very systematic way of getting rid of the people my parents hired to take care of them. It was like he had a checklist scribbled somewhere on his walls, in between the indecipherable drawings and sentences that only made sense to him, there must have been a precise and detailed outline of things he could do in order to get them fired. Spitting up all his food, scribbling on the walls (which was only permitted in his room where the walls were painted with a special paint that allowed them to be scrubbed down), smearing his poop all over the walls. The last one was saved for the really tough ones. The ones that knew to hold his hand where ever they went and follow him in to every room in the house, the ones that were smart enough set him on the counter when they made his lunch and go to the bathroom with the door open. Feces on the wall got everyone.

I’m not sure what my parents wanted. Well, that’s not true. They wanted someone who could make Andrew not autistic. Or a better kind of autistic. If they could take Andrew to Vegas and win millions things might be a lot easier. We might be happy family.

“Andrew!” I called out to him. It was a little pointless, just like taking my homework to the park while I was watching him, Andrew never came to his name. He was like cat or a fish. I pulled my stuff together and went over to where Andrew was, standing still in the middle of the park. Oblivious to the game of ultimate Frisbee being played by cute senior boys next to him. Ultimate Frisbee was something Andrew would never do, people with autism rarely ever participated in sports like ultimate Frisbee or badminton or football or basketball or cricket or whatever. They didn’t socialize. Andrew was in his own little world and we weren’t invited in.

“Andrew, come on.” I grabbed at his wrist and he flailed away, shrieking. The boys in the game stopped and stared at us. I took a deep shuddering breath, years ago this would have brought me to tears. I hated being different. I toughened up though. Not a lot made me cry now.“Andrew, we need to go home for dinner. Mom’s probably back from the store, we need to help her with bringing in groceries.” Of course by we I meant I needed to help her bring groceries in to the house, once I got Andrew home the first thing he would do is yell and scream till he calmed down from his tantrum. Mom would look at me exasperatedly, like I had failed to do something right, and go and console him. And I would have a peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich for dinner again. It was how I stayed so dainty.

Andrew started flapping his arms and grunting. The guys in the game moved further down the field and continued their game. Chivalry is dead. “Andrew, come on. We need to go home now. It’s five o’clock. Wheel will be on soon.”

“Channel Five. Channel Five at 7:30?” Andrew asked in concern. Andrew pushed me down the stairs once because I was blocking the way to the TV room, he didn’t care that I broke my arm. He was more concerned that he had to miss Wheel of Fortune while I was taken to the hospital.

“Yes, Channel Five at 7:30 but we have to go home.” I signed home to him in some pathetic attempt to get the point across. When he was really little we used to sign stuff to him because the doctors thought that would help. Nine years later and there was still no real way to get through to him. I had a better relationship with my dog Flopsy, which we had to get rid of because he was allergic. It was like Andrew came in to the world just to ruin my life.

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