Juan

I’m wide awake and light as air. Why am I racing out of the house and into the twilight? I don’t know. I can’t remember. It’s beautiful weather, though. One of those balmy evenings where there’s a gentle breeze and the night feels soft. 

A few houses down a car pulls into the driveway and Juan, the man with the checkbook, gets out and starts talking to one of his relatives, a much younger man.  Their voices carry on the wind as I run towards my house. I’m almost to my own driveway when I hear this:

“Do you think we’re clear or is somebody gonna drop a dime on us?”, asks the younger man.

The CIA is fond of autonomic puns. The moment I hear the word ‘dime’, I stop. I stop on a dime, but do I pick it up?

Juan moves up the driveway with his characteristically awkward gate. He’s like a penguin or someone trying to manage two sprained ankles.  I manage to unfreeze and find a hiding spot behind the family car.

“No, there aren’t gonna be any dimes dropped. That’s what the meeting was about. I just talked to Oxana and Pam. They’ve got a test for people who drop dimes.”

“Ok, then what are we doing with the gun?”

“We’ll get the Miller kid, Charles, to run it.”

Oh my god! They’re talking about my brother! I don’t think this is right. I think this is something my parents need to know about. I’m only around 5 years old and my perspective is that our situation is gradually worsening.  My brother was only a teenager but was already being used as a courier. He had shown me a black velvet sack full of stolen diamonds that he had to deliver to someone. I didn’t approve of that either, but diamonds are not as scary as guns. Kid logic. 

This memory isn’t clear at all, but I know that I said to one or both of my parents that I heard “the people up the street talking about forcing Charles to deliver a stolen gun to somebody.”  I don’t remember their reaction. It must have been lukewarm because I decided to corner my brother privately and tell him what I heard. He seems annoyed and tells me not to worry about it. 

About a week or so later and at approximately the same time of night that all of this transpired I’m told by my mother that the man with the checkbook needed to have a word with me. Her face was filled with concern and anxiety. “I’m sorry”, she said, “but you dropped a dime.”

I didn’t understand the turn of phrase when Juan said it and didn’t understand it when my mom said it, either. I interpreted it literally. I asked her why anyone would be upset with me for spilling change onto the ground.  She tries her best to explain it without giving too much away. “His dimes are his secrets. He doesn’t want people knowing where his money comes from. He thinks you’re spilling his secrets out in the open.”

“Can’t we just explain to him that I didn’t know dimes have two meanings?’, I plead. 

“No, that’s not good enough for him. You were outside. You heard him having a private conversation. You stopped and listened. He wants to make sure that doesn’t happen again or he’s going to kill you. He’s protecting you through the secrets of his business. If he weren’t then the Humero people would probably have already kidnapped you from us and sold you into slavery overseas by now.  He’s not a good guy but he does believe that family should stick together.”

I’m beginning to understand that Juan is some type of criminal. He’s no better than the rest in terms of sexual perversion yet he doesn’t believe child victims should be taken from their parents. I guess in a situation like this you learn to redefine the meaning of the word ‘blessing’. I now know that dimes and blessings have two meanings. 

When Juan enters the house, I feel like it’s the first time I’ve really met him and seen him up close. I’ve dealt with him elsewhere but can’t recall him ever coming inside. It’s time for a formal introduction. 

He walks through the door with one of his associates and lumbers past me towards the kitchen. I can’t hear the conversation he’s having with my father and brother as I sit and wait in the living room. Time passes, and I see him walking down the hallway towards my bedroom.

He’s shaking his head and repeating himself: “No, no, we can’t have any little tape recorders or video cameras in the mafia.”   I understand on a gut level that he’s referring to me. It’s the first time I’m aware of how others viewed my gift of eidetic memory. I knew I was different, but I didn’t understand how. I didn’t understand why people viewed me as abnormal. 

My mom walks me into my bedroom. Someone has placed a tape recorder under my bed. Juan walks in and says “You know, kid, we weren’t talking that loud. How the fuck did you hear me over 25 feet away? I don’t know but apparently you did, and you felt like telling other people my business. See, I’m in the business of nobody knowing my business. Unless you want me to sell you to Osama bin Laden then you need to get into the business of nobody knowing my business.”

He tells me to press ‘play’ on the tape recorder. I do and there is no audio. Just a blank tape. He tells me to press stop and rewind. I do. He tells me to press record. I can’t remember what else he said but in a few moments he tells me to stop the tape again, rewind, turn the volume down and press record again. Erase the tape. 

“Now”, he asks, “what did I just tell you? Did I say anything to you, little tape recorder?”

Here’s where being on the autism spectrum was frequently almost the death of me:  I say to him “You said something to me but not to the tape recorder because we erased that.”

He gets agitated. “YOU are the tape recorder! What did I say?!”

“You said you’re protecting me, but I need to shut up.”

“Wrong answer.”

He tells me to put away the tape recorder. He looks directly into my eyes and says “Well, I guess I’m gonna have to fix you myself.”

I used to have all  this memory intact when I was younger. Now all I can remember is screaming “No!”