When I turn the key, nothing happens. The car will not start. There is no sound but the little click of the turning key. I know what that means. My battery is dead.
The music in my head falters. My battery was not dead last night. The charge level indicator was normal last night.
I get out and unlatch the hood of the car. When I lift the hood, something jumps out at me; I stagger back and almost fall over the curb.
It is a child’s toy, a jack-in-the-box. It is sitting where the battery should be. The battery is gone.
I will be late for work. Mr. Crenshaw will be angry. I close the hood over the engine without touching the toy. I did not like jack-in-the-box toys when I was a child. I must call the police, the insurance company, the whole dreary list. I look at my watch. If I hurry to the transit stop, I can catch a commuter train to work and I will not be late.
I take the lunch sack and the book from the passenger seat, relock the car, and walk quickly to the transit stop. I have the cards of the police officers in my wallet. I can call them from work.
On the crowded train, people stare past one another without making eye contact. They are not all autistic; they know somehow that it is appropriate not to make eye contact on the train. Some read news faxes. Some stare at the monitor at the end of the car. I open the book and read what Cego and Clinton said about how the brain processes visual signals. At the time they wrote, industrial robots could use only simple visible input to guide movement. Binocular vision in robots hadn’t been developed yet except for the laser targeting of large weapons.
I am fascinated by the feedback loops between the layers of visual processing; I had not realized that something this interesting went on inside normal people’s heads. I thought they just looked at things and recognized them automatically. I thought my visual processing was faulty when — if I understand this correctly — it is only slow.
When I get to the campus stop, I now know which way to go, and it takes less time to walk to our building. I am three minutes and twenty seconds early. Mr. Crenshaw is in the hall again, but he does not speak to me; he moves aside without speaking, so that I can get to my office. I say, “Good morning, Mr. Crenshaw,” because that is appropriate, and he grunts something that might have been, “Morning.” If he had had my speech therapist, he would enunciate more clearly.
I put the book on my desk and go out in the hall to take my lunch to the kitchenette. Mr. Crenshavy is now by the door, looking out at the parking lot. He turns around and sees me. “Where’s your car, Arren-dale?” he asks.
“Home,” I say. “I took the transit.”
“So you can take the transit,” he says. His face is a little shiny. “You don’t really need a special parking lot.”
“It is very noisy,” I say. “Someone stole my battery last night.”
“A car’s only a constant problem for someone like you,” he says, coming closer. “People who don’t live in secure areas, with secure parking, really shouldn’t flaunt having a car.”
“Nothing happened until a few weeks ago,” I say. I do not understand why I want to argue with him. I do not like to argue.
“You were lucky. But it looks like someone has found you out now, doesn’t it? Three episodes of vandalism. At least this time you weren’t late.”
“I was only late once because of that,” I say.
“That’s not the point,” he says. I wonder what the point is, besides his dislike of me and the others. He glances at my office door. “You’ll want to get back to work,” he says. “Or start—” Now he looks at the clock in the hall. It is two minutes, eighteen seconds past starting time. What I want to say is, You made me late, but I do not say that. I go in my office and shut the door. I am not going to make up the two minutes, eighteen seconds. It is not my fault. I feel a little excited about that.
I call up yesterday’s work, and the beautiful patterns form again in my mind. One parameter after another flows in, shifting the pattern from one structure to another, seamlessly. I vary the parameters across the permitted range, checking to see that there is no unwanted shift. When I look up again, it is an hour and eleven minutes later. Mr. Crenshaw will not be in our building now. He never stays this long. I go out in the hall for some water. The hall is empty, but I see the sign on the gym door. Someone is in there. I do not care.
I write down the words I will need to say, then call the police and ask for the investigating officer from the first incident, Mr. Stacy. When he comes onto the line, I can hear noises in the background. Other people are talking, and there is a kind of rumbling noise.
“This is Lou Arrendale,” I say. “You came when my car had its tires slashed. You said to call—”
“Yes, yes,” he says. He sounds impatient and as if he is not really listening. “Officer Isaka told me about the windshield the following week. We haven’t had time to follow that up—”
“Last night my battery was stolen,” I say. “And someone put a toy where the battery should be.”
“What?”
“When I went out this morning, my car would not start. I looked under the hood and something jumped at me. It was a jack-in-the-box someone had put where the battery should have been.”
“Just stay there and I’ll send someone over—” he says.
“I am not at home,” I say. “I am at work. My boss would be angry if I did not come on time. The car is at home.”
“I see. Where is the toy?”
“In the car,” I say. “I did not touch it. I do not like jack-in-the-box toys. I just shut the lid.” I meant “hood,” but the wrong word came in my mouth.
“I’m not happy about this,” he says. “Someone really does not like you, Mr. Arrendale. Once is mischief, but — do you have any idea who might have done it?”
“The only person I know who has been angry with me is my boss, Mr. Crenshaw,” I say. “When I came in late, that time. He does not like autistic people. He wants us to try an experimental treatment—”
“Us? Are there other autistic people where you work?”
I realize he does not know; he did not ask about this before. “Our section is all autistic people,” I say. “But I do not think Mr. Crenshaw would do this sort of thing. Although… he does not like it that we have special permits to drive and a separate parking lot. He thinks we should all ride the train like everyone else.”
“Hmmm. And all the attacks have been on your car.”
“Yes. But he does not know about my fencing class.” I cannot imagine Mr. Crenshaw driving around the city to find my car and then smashing the windshield.
“Anything else? Anything at all?”
I do not want to make false accusations. Making false accusations is very wrong. But I do not want my car to be damaged again. It takes my time away from other things; it messes up my schedule. And it costs money.
“There is someone at the Center, Emmy Sanderson, who thinks I should not have normal friends,” I say. “But she does not know where the fencing group is.” I do not really think it is Emmy, but she is the one person, besides Mr. Crenshaw, who has been angry with me in the last month or so. The pattern does not really fit for her or for Mr. Crenshaw, but the pattern must be wrong, because a possible name has not come out.
“Emmy Sanderson,” he says, repeating the name. “And you don’t think she knows where the house is?”
“No.” Emmy is not my friend, but I do not believe she has done these things. Don is my friend, and I do not want to believe he has done these things.
“Isn’t it more likely someone connected to your fencing group? Is there someone you don’t get along with?”