A Cat Heals An Autistic Man

     

This is Cookie

    

          One day we found out that an autistic man was going to move in next door.  I should remind you that we live in an RV.  We rent a site with power and plumbing, but sometimes we have to compromise on privacy.  Our south side, our lounge-and-relax area under the awning, is the side we would be sharing with the new neighbor.  

          I was concerned.  How autistic is he? I asked the manager.  "It'll be fine, he's very quiet," the manager responded.  The manager often tells people what he thinks they want to hear, so I discounted this bit of information.   Autism can be a vague diagnosis.  It contains so many degrees of malfunction that it has stretched beyond its original meaning of a soul completely lost to human interaction.  "A little autistic" could mean almost anything.

          When Henry moved in he took a look at me and The Fox and literally said"whew" as if he were relieved at what he saw.

          "Whew."  Where did he live before he came here?  His former neighbors, we later learned, were motorcycle people and meth freaks.  Whew, indeed.

          Henry divulged little about himself.  He said he liked cats.  That was fortunate, because our site is something like Cat Central at Vine Haven RV Campground.  We have two indoor cats and two outdoor cats, plus a wide variety of feral visitors and neighborhood pets.  There's something about this space that draws cats.  It might be the plum trees and their abundant population of wrens and robins.  We do our best to discourage bird hunting.

          There are people who claim their pets have super powers.  When I first heard this I was disdainful, but my thinking has changed.  Our cat Obsidian is a big brown tabby with green eyes.  I've seen him tame people in that Little Prince way, literally capture their unruly spirits and put them back in a more harmonious order.  That's Obsidian's super power, the power to restore tranquility.

          He's getting old, and so are we.  He doesn't jump the fence and climb around with the younger cats any more.  He has more important work to do.

          Our new neighbor Henry is middle-aged.  He is a fearful, cranky and withdrawn man, but we barely know he's here.  His social interactions are limited but acceptable.  He can be easily upset by minor disturbances.  He is so averse to noise that he can be pushed into a ferocious sulk by the mere revving of a motorcycle.

This is Obsidian

          He has been adopted by our two outdoor cats, wise old Obsidian and his sidekick, the comical black and white Cookie.  These cats have given structure to Henry's otherwise bleak world.  By loving Henry they have tricked him into loving.            I looked out the window one day to see the elusive and feral Cookie sitting calmly on Henry's lap.  I had never seen her behave this way.  It was strangely impressive.  Henry is a cat savant, he has some magical affinity that he didn't know he possessed until he moved close to Obsidian and Cookie.   

          I assume that you, my readers, understand how easily a friendly animal, a pet (if you will) can become a tyrant who turns your life upside down.  Henry is such an innocent that he immediately began flirting with disaster.  We had to set him straight without setting him off.  If he let Obsidian into his home even once, he would become nothing but a door man, opening and closing all day, all night, at the tabby cat's demand.  I caught him just on the verge of doing this very thing and rushed to halt the action.

          "Don't let him in, Henry!  Close your door, quick!"  He was frightened and cut Obsidian off  just as he was about to slip between his feet.

          I explained what had almost happened.  I spoke towards Henry's averted eyes and raised defensive shoulders.  I spoke to him as I would speak to any intelligent adult.  In Henry's heart, the need to trust someone was rising like a powerful burst of magma from a volcano deep beneath the sea.  His need to share the cats' companionship was forcing him to emerge from his shell and talk to us.  The cats pushed Henry past his fears.  I doubt he's had this much social interaction in a long time.

          In the next few weeks we learned more about Henry.  It wasn't easy but we supported his struggle to communicate. Then something unexpected happened.  Henry and Obsidian fell in love.  I'm not being flippant.  I'm not suggesting an improper liaison.  It's just that simple.  When Henry left to visit his mother, Obisidian sat on his front step, waiting for his return.  He would emit an occasional sob.  There's no mistaking Obsidian's sob.  He has an amazing gamut of vocalizations, including a perfectly robin-like cheep that must have been useful during his hunting years.

          I can't put it any other way.  They were in love with a pure emotional connection.  Henry's autism perhaps short-circuited his intellectual activity and left his feelings to flourish without interference from the busy mind.  I don't really know.  I watched this fountain of feeling take shape between Henry and the cats.  I could feel its authenticity in my guts.

          Henry leaves the campground for treatment four days a week.  When he first went away, Obsidian was inconsolable.  He went into a paroxysm of grief.  He stared into space for long periods.  He moped and cried.  But Obsidian gradually learned that Henry ALWAYS comes home.  Thus our cat friend's tranquility was restored.  He knows Henry will be back and that's enough to comfort him.  It took him a few weeks to get this; I watched him unwind and relax.  I watched his attention return to his world: the falling leaves and the showoff Cookie with her bounding up and down fences and trees.  Obsidian resumed his lordship of his domain.  The lost baby possum was under his protection.  The upstart kitten Stinker was not welcome and he meant business, even if he had to hire Cookie to teach Stinker a lesson.

          Now Henry has left for two weeks.  He has gone to Connecticut to visit his sister.  Three thousand miles! cried Henry in terror before he was picked up by his ride.  The enormity of this journey, its scale and distance, were almost paralyzing.  I shared with Henry my own fears about travel: the feeling that I'll never get home, I'll be trapped in some alien environment without the solace of my place and my people and animals and the routines that keep me from flying apart.  Henry and I aren't so different.  This bit of one on one engagement gave Henry something to take with him on this unprecedented trip.  He had shared an emotional link with another human being.  And he had given his heart to a big brown cat with green eyes.

          How different is Henry's world today?  That's not for me to say, but I suspect that it's just different enough...enough to make a difference.

Let's Start With Crazy

The U.S. Of A resembles one giant dysfunctional family.  Those on the left regard their cousins on the right as ignorant boobs.  Those on the right regard their cousins on the left as stuck-up nincompoops.  The squabbling is endless.  Tempers flare, voices are raised.  So long as we avoid doing violence to one another, this is a healthy condition. It's the Great American Discussion.  Sadly, History has shown that we are capable of doing terrible violence to one another.  The extremist talk that's making its rounds scares the hell out of me.  When a spokesman for a powerful gun association accuses "Liberals" of brainwashing and manipulating high school students, I wonder if he actually believes what he is saying, or whether he is saying these things as part of a script.  Either way, such ideas reek of malignancy. I don't trust extremists on either end of the spectrum.  We're losing the moderate center, and we're losing it to those who have some concealed reason for inciting animosity between Americans. I don't know what a functional family looks like, but I imagine it's one in which members support one another with compassion and generosity.  This is not what today's America looks like.  Instead of mutual support  I see separation, hostility, contempt and rancor. I see blame and a failure of individuals to critically examine their own thinking, just in case they might be wrong about some of their beliefs.

One of our greatest disasters is the connection between politics and money.  Only the rich can afford the towering cost of running campaigns.  Thus we are dominated by the agendas and tactics of the rich and powerful.  We ARE an  oligarchy.  If we need a reform urgently, before we reform gun laws, before we reform immigration policy, before we change ANYTHING, we need to reform campaign finance.  We need to bring a new method of choosing the people who make the laws by which we are governed. We need to get money out of politics.  I don't know how we'll achieve that.  The fox is already guarding the hen-house.  We need something akin to a revolution, one that is miraculously shorn of bloodshed.   

American culture is a multi-headed hydra.  It's brilliant and it's toxic. Over the decades, life has become more and more expensive in the U.S.A.  This "free" country charges an exorbitant price. The complex demands of a consumer society weigh heavily on its citizens.  Young people are especially vulnerable when they feel an avalanche of expectations laid upon them.  If they're to have a decent future, if they're to 'get ahead' they need to have stellar grades, be models of civic action, join clubs, demonstrate competence in multiple disciplines and volunteer to help the afflicted. It doesn't hurt if they're also athletic and good looking.  Who can fit into that template?  Who can get into an Ivy League school and graduate with an MBA and show the drive that's required in our heated business world?  What about the average kids?  It's said that everyone is good at something but the complexity of our culture is robbing ordinary people of a future  All the while a torrent of image and information comes pouring through the Internet, television, movies, radio, advertisements and smart phones.   This information chaos skews our perceptions and encourages depression and confusion.  Take a look at any waiting room or bus stop..  The people aren't talking to one another.  Their eyes are glued to the screens of their phones.  Americans may be the loneliest people in history. 

Recently a depressed and unstable eighteen year old murdered seventeen high school students with an AR-15 assault rifle.  Today  I heard the tape of a 9-1-1 call  made by this child about a year ago, just days after his mother died.  I felt such pity for him.  I couldn't help it!  I'm outraged at his evil, but I imagine that he felt abandoned and terrified.

In a nation of more than three hundred million people, there are millions who aren't being seen and cared for.  So many people fall through the cracks, yet we are armed to the teeth and waiting for some catastrophe so we can discern which are the good guys and which are the bad guys.  We are better than this.  Our soon-to-be fomer president suggested that we give weapons to school teachers, that they may protect their students.  This epic dumb idea will create a new class of suicides.  We'll be adding Death By Teacher to the already climbing incidents of Suicide By Cop.  We aren't going to purge this nation of firearms.  Guns are deeply embedded in our national DNA.  There are immutable historical reasons for this situation.  Guns will always be a part of our cultural nervous system. 

It would be better to try to stop being crazy.  Because we are...crazy...we're bat-shit crazy.  Our minds can only cope with so much signal intensity before they start to smell like fried wiring inside the walls.  That's where I would start, anyway.  I would accept the fact that I am crazy, I'm disturbed and I need to look for someone who can help me. If I were to pin a diagnosis on Americans it would be that we suffer Bi-Polar Disorder wrapped up in a mantle of PTSD. Maybe I'll call the Norwegians.  Or the Dutch. 

Does My Writing....Suck?

Maybe my writing sucks.  Maybe it's that simple.  Maybe my writing is trite and boring. I must pose this question if I'm to be rigorously honest: Am I that bad?  My books, are they not worth reading?  They don't sell.  Not even a little.  They just don't sell.  I did some marketing.  I won an award and a beautiful review from Writer's Digest. I was reviewed numerous times, and reader response glowed with love. It didn't help.

Has this huge effort been my escapist fantasy? 

I don't accept that idea.  But I wouldn't, would I?  Otherwise how did I put in the decades of practice, the repetition, the  rejection?  A compelling artist needs to work at the craft passionately and beyond reason.  A hundred drafts of one page? I've done that as a matter of routine.  I've  re-written each of my books five times, ten?  I've lost count.

This epic failure is a case of falling through the cracks.  I may be the Van Gogh of modern writers.  If you thirst for vivid emotion and wild color, it's there in my stories. The catalog of books on Amazon is bloated by a million titles.  Why should anyone pay three bucks to download a bit of my life's work?  How do I get the attention of readers, of my natural audience?

My books are wonderful books.  If you value originality, skill, vision and perception, you should read what I've written.  Read "Confessions Of An Honest Man". It's my autobiographical novel.   When my book placed in their competition, the editor from Writer's Digest wrote "I don't usually read this kind of book but I feel better for having read it. I will carry this novel with me for a long time."

Read any of my books. If you get bored, you're not my audience.  I write for artists, therapists and their clients, boomers who used acid, the curious, the addicted, the recovering, the failed, the intelligent and the sensitive ones...and I don't suck.  In my modest human way, I'm glorious.

"Confessions Of An Honest Man:" the link.   Confessions Of An Honest Man

My Blog etc

Lost: One Male Libido

LOST: ONE MALE LIBIDO

This libido (center figure) was last seen on December 31, 2016.  It is approximately ten feet tall, six feet wide and four feet deep.  It has between twelve and twenty horns of various descriptions.  It's covered in long brown fur and has eyes all the way around its cylindrical body.  The number of fingers, tentacles and hands it may possess are unknown as it can sprout extra limbs at moments of high stress.  It is not very intelligent but possesses a wild cunning that can catch pursuers off guard.  If you see this libido DO NOT APPROACH IT.  DO NOT ATTEMPT A DIALOGUE.  IT IS NOT AMENABLE TO REASON.  Call the local sheriff's department, dial 911 or email me at artsdigiphoto@gmail.com.

 There are commonly available and well known techniques that calm this libido but I discourage their use except in extremely dangerous situations.  Under proper conditions this is a highly trained and valuable libido.  I am reluctant to cause it damage or harm. You might call it by one of its names: Thor, Zeus or Johnny.  This tactic may backfire, however, for if it is Johnny and is called Thor or Zeus it gets very upset.  Likewise if it is Thor and is called Johnny, etc.  The best approach is simply to say, "Hey big guy.  How's it hangin'."  It has been trained to recognize this as a non-threatening mnemonic.  It may trigger my libido's desire to return to its so-called master.

I repeat: DO NOT APPROACH THIS LIBIDO. CALL THE AUTHORITIES OR NOTIFY ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE at artsdigiphoto@gmail.com.

REWARD OFFERED: I will give you, free of charge,  my guaranteed technique for healing all stress, depression and emotional trauma.

SPECIAL CAUTION: Do not mistake this libido for the so-called Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti or Skunk Ape. It is not a primate and is immune to veterinary drugs. Rather than seek out police or Forest Rangers it may be more useful to find an old shaman from the Chumash or Miwok tribes. A qualified shaman will likely be more useful in the safe return of this treasured libido.

The Ironic And The Absurd

March 9, 2017

            We were watching TV and there was a commercial for the network series The Bachelorette.  The ad featured three girls, three Bachelorettes.  Girl One said, "I love horses." (video of girl with hair blowing in wind, saddled on a gorgeous animal). Girl Two said, "I rescue animals and I rehabilitate Rottweilers." (Footage of tender treatment of big dog's wounds) Then Girl Three said, "I haven't had an orgasm in my life." (Footage of her from the waist up, simply standing there in a suburban back yard).

            Wait a minute.  Run the DVR backwards a bit.  She actually said, "I haven't had an orgasm in my life."  I could almost hear the stampede of men.  It was going in two directions: half the men were running away from this girl, they were terrified by the pressure.  And half of them (the cocky douchebag half) were running towards the girl.  Each of the latter bachelors was sure he could open the floodgates of orgasm for this attractive cherry-picked TV crash- test dummy.

            I turned to my partner and said, "I guess honesty is the New Honesty."  I considered for a moment, then amended my perception. "Or is it honesty is the new Authenticity?  Or maybe Authenticity is the new Honesty?  Something like that."

            My partner, Fox, is accustomed to my sense of the ironic and the absurd.  She knew I was reaching, perhaps over-reaching into sheer nonsense. Still, I'll let it stand..

            I am aware that there is a wide spread  hunger for experience that can be perceived as Authentic.  Why?  Do people feel that they are synthetic beings, that they're so coddled and softened by living in this affluent civilization that they've lost an essential component of human experience?  Do people feel unreal?  I think so.  That's why there's such an appetite for TV shows about people living off the grid in Alaska, or marooning themselves, naked and afraid, courting utter misery for the sake of "testing their limits".  We are the species that has come from competing with hyenas for fresh kills to the species that is sending spacecraft to other galaxies.  We've done this in a breathtakingly short span of time.  In achieving this magnificent push, upward and outward, some people have been left behind in their sense of self-worth.  They don't feel brave, tough, worthy.  They've lost their warrior spirit.  And they feel this emptiness every time they go shopping at Target or Walmart, every time they exploit the incredible ease of getting the groceries and the hair gel.

            "Girl-without-orgasm" was simply following the cultural norm as it excavates this new authentic territory, this candid self-disclosure that, to her, wasn't even embarrassing.  She was just letting the world know: she's in search of an orgasm. She needs a partner who can help her master new skills in erotic communication.  She needs a soft slow hand from a tender buddy to help her over the hump.

            I was embarrassed for her.  No doubt it will make good television for those that are into that sort of thing.  I cringed.  What naivete!  How many years will this stuff follow her around?  She'll be "no-cum" to her grandchildren.  It's out of my hands.  I won't be watching the show.

             

The First Time I Cried In Ten Years

Rahsaan Roland Kirk in all his glory

When I was sixteen years old, I was passionate about Jazz.  Passionate! 

My passion for jazz was so crazy that I left home the day after I graduated high school   I was going on a quest.  I had two hundred dollars in my pocket when I stepped onto the  ramp of I-80 and stuck out my thumb. My plan was to hitch hike from St. Louis to New York City,  in order to find a musician who may not want to be found.  I had to talk to him!  I had to meet him!  Ornette Coleman had liberated my creative vision.  

Word on the jazz grapevine was that  he was "taking a sabbatical".  In the jazz world this is sometimes shorthand for kicking a bad habit.* When jazz players take breaks from their careers it can mean they're in rehab. I was hip to drugs: I was an all-grown-up weed smoker.  Whoopee. I didn't  understand addiction the way I would understand it in another ten years.  I didn't know why so many musicians fell down the abyss of heroin.. I would know, later in my life.  Oh, I would know, I would understand, far better than my sixteen year old self.

 This is all in my novel, "Confessions Of An Honest Man."  It's a three dollar e-book and more people should read it.  End of promotion.

I wanted to share an experience I had this week, an experience entirely related to my love for jazz in the 60's. First, let me tell you that I can't remember the last time I cried.  It could be eight or ten years. That's a long time to have a Pandora's Box of emotion  locked up inside my soul.  This part of my life has been one of silent agony.  There have been times when I wanted to die, but I am resolved to not be a suicide.  I saw a therapist for several months.  I managed to squeeze out a few dinky tears.  It wasn't the catharsis I'd hoped for.  It was better than nothing.

I first heard Rahsaan Roland Kirk when I was fourteen.  This was in 1961  I was crazy for Roland Kirk. (the Rahsaan name came later). The moment I heard his record I was so smitten that goose bumps climbed up my spine.   Wow!  This was a musical three ring circus with elephants and zebras.  It had midget cars out of which climbed dozens of quarreling clowns.  Roland Kirk was technically masterful, innovative, insane and very funny.  Roland Kirk was a grade A bona fide original

Thanks to streaming sites like Spotify I can listen to anyone I care about.  Rahsaan has been gone for thirty years, but his albums are still here and I settled in for a visit to my past, to the passionate sixteen year old  who couldn't get enough music.  I was listening to an old standard, "I've Got Your Number", from Kirk's superb collaboration with Benny Golson.  It's an amazing album, as good now as it was in 1964. I was sitting in my chair in front of my computer and I started weeping.  This was a real shoulder-heaving sob session, a huge catharsis.  My spouse saw my hand covering my face, saw my body lurch..

 "Are you crying?" she asked gently.  "It's all right, boo," I said, "it's good, it's very good." 

The music came through the speakers and I felt as if the sound of Rahsaan's saxophone was tapping at my chest, as though it held a key to open my heart.  It got through to me.  All my frozen emotion came welling up.  I saw my life in its difficulties and frustrations.  I saw myself at sixteen, I saw what an extraordinary person I was.  My New York quest was lonely and unlikely to succeed, but I found Ornette Coleman by the craziest accident.  I was getting on the subway at Forty Second Street.  There was a man getting into the next car, a black man attempting to carry five or six instrument cases.  I rushed up and tapped him on the shoulder.  I wanted to offer my help.  I knew from his knit cap and his attire that he was a man of Jazz.  So, this stranger turned around  There he was.  Ornette Coleman.  I had spent the last ten days searching up and down Manhattan looking for this man.  "I can carry some of these horns if you..." and then I realized who it was and I stuttered, "You..you're Ornette Coleman!" We got on the subway together.  Hardly anyone else was in the car.  It was headed downtown. 

           

I hadn't rehearsed a speech or anything. I told Ornette how much I loved his music and how profoundly it had influenced my own work.  I told him how far I had traveled.  He gave me his phone number and the rest of my experience in the world of avant garde jazz unfolded, just like in my novel. 

That was a long time ago.  In the present, the important thing is that I regained connection to my emotions.  I'm a psychological person.  I know what it means to be shut down, to have no feelings, not even feelings of love.  It's an inner act of self-preservation.

It's a response to trauma.  It's better, more joyful, to feel sorrow and love, to be alive to emotion.  I accepted being numb.  I didn't recriminate myself.  I allowed the numbness and the mental torture to unfold and do their job.  Pain is always telling us to change things.  "Change things!" pain screams, and so I began to take action.  I began changing my life, one tiny bit at a time.  I'm feeling more creative.  Art worked its magic on me; it healed a child who was in mourning for a man who seemed to have failed.  Music helped me revive the most important part of myself.  Here I sit, right now, at my computer, sharing this personal and private story.  I'm grateful that I can, grateful that I'm alive when a few months ago I thought I would die of sheer misery.

I'm still here.  

Ornette Coleman in 1960

*I never saw any evidence of Ornette Coleman using drugs.  He was taking a sabbatical because his music had incited a furious controversy and that scared away promoters.  Ornette couldn't find work. He passed at age 85, world famous and widely respected as one of music's most important innovators.

 Confessions Of An Honest Man, my autobiographical novel

About My Book, CONFESSIONS OF AN HONEST MAN

 Old School. That's what this is, this book about a dysfunctional family that begins in 1957 and carries the reader through to the present day. I started this book in 1976. In '78 I made a splash by winning Best Short Story Award from Playboy Magazine. I signed with an agent and there was a lot of interest in this book. I had lunches with my editor in New York City. It was classic author-stuff, from another era. I had an opportunity but I wasn't ripe, the book wasn't ripe and I didn't finish it until 2014. I had to do some living before I could write the stories in this book.

            I've drawn a lot of autobiographical material into this narrative. I was the kind of kid that Aaron Kantro is in these pages. I was still in grade school when I first heard jazz on a recording by Louis Armstrong.   Can you imagine a twelve year old closeting himself in his bedroom and listening to Charlie Parker and John Coltrane? Can you imagine that today, or fifty years ago? This is a precocious lonely child.  He doesn't fit in well with his class mates.  He gets bullied but he doesn't cringe easily, doesn't give in.  

            Aaron's mother, Esther, is horrified. She regards any deviation from her plans as personal attacks. Her sons will become professionals.  They will be doctors or lawyers. Her daughters will marry socially prominent men of wealth and have two or three grandchildren apiece. She gets, instead, a dreamy musician who listens to what is called, in Yiddish,"Scvhatze music". She is convinced that her oldest son will become a bum playing at Bar Mitzvahs and her younger son...well...he's crazy, he goes into trances and hurts people and then he can't remember what he's done. Esther's dreams are fueled by a pathological insecurity that develops into full-blown Manic Depression, today's bi-polar disorder.  On top of her clinical disturbances, Esther is flat-out mean. She's sadistic and clever.

            This is starting to sound a little depressing.   I promise you, it's not. The book has darkness, of course. But it tracks the development of two creative children who get no support. They need determination and strength to follow their dreams.  The other two children are interesting in their monstrousness, their violence and greed.  By splitting the four children into two teams I've created a laboratory, showing the corrosive effects of parental abuse.  The outcomes depend on the child's innate moral nature.  Aaron and Sarah survive and become productive only through enormous courage and tenacity.

            This is the Kantro family. A father, a mother and four kids.  Two of the kids are sweet and two of them are monsters. Max knows that something is wrong in his family. It is the 60's and he has few tools available.  He's trying, but it's hard to maneuver through the family's emotional problems.  There's always trouble.  Aaron may be experimenting with drugs.  Somehow that's not so bad as Mark's propensity to collect weapons and lurk on the outskirts of thuggish mayhem.  The world  has yet to fill with more sophisticated knowledge. There are few books to be had  about family dynamics. Eating disorders are unknown. When Sarah dives into Bulimia, she hasn't a clue, nor does anyone else, about this compulsive behavior.  It's a total mystery and the only option is to put her in a mental hospital for a month or two.  

            In "Confessions Of An Honest Man" we travel the Hero's Journey with Aaron. He's brave enough to defy his mother. He goes to New York City at the fresh age of sixteen. He's searching for his jazz hero, the legendary Avian Coulter.

He finds Avian.   The man is Avant Garde, a polarizing figure in the jazz world.  He's also an addict.  Avian takes Aaron under his broken wings and turns him in the direction he needs to go.   He introduces Aaron to the successful blues n' bop saxophonist, Zoot Prestige.  Aaron needs to play Black, Aaron needs to be in Chitlin' Circuit clubs in Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis.  Avian trusts his friend Zoot more than he trusts himself.  Zoot will watch over Aaron and keep him from getting into too much trouble.  The gigs with the Zoot Prestige Trio are wonderfully goofy.  

            This is a fairly large book and it goes a lot of places. We meet Jimi Hendrix and we fight the Soviet Army with the Mujahiddin in the Eighties. Read the book.  F'god's sake, it's $2.99. Then leave a review.   Every author needs reviews.   Thanks for being here.