Regan - Shorts

Shorts

of related interest

Pretending to be Normal

Living with Aspergers Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder)

Expanded Edition

Liane Holliday Willey

Foreword by Tony Attwood

ISBN 978 1 84905 755 4

eISBN 978 0 85700 987 6

Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate

A User Guide to an Asperger Life

Cynthia Kim

ISBN 978 1 84905 757 8

eISBN 978 0 85700 949 4

Shorts

Stories about Alcohol, Asperger Syndrome, and God

Tessie Regan

Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia

This edition published in 2015

by Jessica Kingsley Publishers

73 Collier Street

London N1 9BE, UK

and

400 Market Street, Suite 400

Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA

www.jkp.com

First edition published by Tessie Regan in 2013

Copyright Tessie Regan 2013, 2015

Illustrations copyright Tessie Regan 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright owners written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.

Warning: The doing of an unauthorized act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 84905 761 5

eISBN 978 0 85700 951 7

Dedicated to Joshua and Caleb

C ONTENTS

A BOUT THIS B OOK

I love to write and recently (as in the past five-ish years) love to read. However, in both cases I find that after about a page or so I am so distracted that I cant finish a sentence. Thats when I became satisfied with writing shorter pieces. Pieces that could be read in ten minutes or less. That could be written on a napkin, a receipt or in worst case scenarios, on a real piece of paper. I gave up pretending to read 800-page novels because I was really just impressing myself by holding them. I stopped thinking about writing a novel with one plot and became relieved to know that I could write a novel of short pieces with about 100 plots or 150 if you read it drunk. It was a prayer answered for the lovely combination of having a short attention span and a lot of stories to tell. Stories about addiction, God, and being slightly south of sane. All of these pieces were written somewhere between 2001 and 2013. Some names have been changed because I dont want to be sued and because I respect their privacy.

Ass Burgers

The first time I heard the term I was sitting in the office of a very wise and patient psychologist. She also had red hair so I thought there was a strong probability that she might be Irish, and naturally I thought we might be dear friends in the real world. Except for the minor detail that I was institutionalized in her institution and I was a bat-shit crazy alcoholic. But besides that, we would probably be friends. Except I later found out she doesnt drink and then I thought we might be very bored in the real world.

Have you ever heard of Asperger Syndrome? she asked casually. I had never heard of this except that it was trending and would maybe be fashionable like ADHD in a decade or so. Before I answered I turned the word over in my head: Aspergers. In the very creative and picture-filled world between my ears I saw the word as it sounded: Ass-Burgers. Then I pictured an industrial factory line bringing hamburger patties down a conveyor belt and at just the right moment a large ass clad in a sterile white apron would sit on the burger. Ass Burger. This made me grin and I forgot to answer.

What? she asks grinning because obviously something very funny has happened.

Nothing, just thinking. No, I dont know about Aspergers.

I would slowly gather information and was largely unimpressed by the diagnosis. I know that historically people stop and ponder the finer things of life when receiving a diagnosis. It wasnt like I was going to die. It wasnt spreading and eating my flesh. I had very little to be upset about. This seemed much less like a diagnosis and much more like an explanation. Peculiar and difficult blocks of my life started to fall into place with more grace and more understanding. A collective sigh of relief plumed from my sisters and friends. I felt vindicatedit was real. I wasnt completely out of my mind. The ugly and fruitless cycle of Was her head screwy and that led to drinking? or Did drinking make her head screwy? seemed to finally be pushed aside as a pointless debate. It no longer mattered if it was the chicken or the egg; it was quite simply a nest from which both beautiful and damaged things came.

The first time I acknowledged to myself that something was different with my mind was when I was in the sixth grade. I was in class staring at the word Apostrophe written on the chalkboard. The word seemed too big and elegant to represent such a tiny little slip of the pen. The letters didnt look right and the fact that it was capitalized was disconcerting to me. The capital letter threw me off so significantly that I did not know what the word was until I later asked the teacher after class what the A word was on the board. But during this class, as I was deep in thought over this word, I was suddenly struck with a direct and frank conversation. I said to myself that something was wrong with my head and that it was okay and no one should panic and that it would be okay eventually.

Eventually turned out to be a very precise date when I was 13 and I found alcohol. The bitter magic seemed to grease the squeaky and rusty cogs and wheels in my head. Things ran smoothly. Things got quieter. Things in the world seemed more approachable and real. Less like the fragile, sensory-imploding world that went unchallenged when dry and sober. At the time, it didnt even seem like I was choosing between one lesser evil over another. The mind seemed disconnected at the stem of my spine and whirled on and on to its own rhythm, I was just a random human attached to the other end of the stem. The beer rose to action and did what I could not and did what others could not because I could not figure out how to describe what was hurting. Looking back, I see that with the limited logic and articulation of a teenager, I had only one option. And that was to wait until I could explain the devils that came with me and the ones I invited in. As years would pass and the drinking and drugging became center stage, all other human parts of me would become obscured and hidden.

This great packing up would include the hiding away of all the things that drove me mad with anger and self-loathing. Why did my mind do these things? Why does this drinking betray me like this? I had energy for one thing and that was addiction. Then you find yourself on the outskirts of Amish country in the cold hills of Pennsylvania and people begin to probe and measure and count the ways in which you are still human. Those people begin to breathe life back into the dead things like a resurrection of zombies because some of them wed wish would have stayed dead. First they fed me. Then gave me warm water and clean towels. Then I followed people around who did normal people things and I mimicked their normal people ways. And right about the time my organs began to deflate and fall back into their assigned locations my mind perked up with renewed vigor and love of blood that is rich with caffeine and nicotine, but, praise God, no alcohol.