Archived Article
Summer Camp, 1984
By Amy Machnak
The first day Alan always dressed himself in what he thought was his very best outfit, usually black pants and whatever was his nicest shirt. Sometimes he wore a tie, knowing it was a symbol for something important. He packed his lunch the night before and had it ready in the refrigerator. While most people might lie out clothes to be ready in the morning, Alan thought that was a little chancy and dressed the night before, lying on his bed completely clothed, waiting for the big day to arrive. Most kids look forward to summer camp, but for Al, it was more than that. At age 18, with cerebral palsy, retardation and being deaf, summer camp meant everything.
The special summer camp, or as it was called, SCAMP, was the highlight of my brother's summer. For four days a week, six weeks of the summer, hundreds of deaf and disabled children living in an upper-middle class county in Michigan would be bussed into a chosen school, usually a junior high, for summer camp. All the medical and special services, excitement, and summer-time fun that a child with special needs could ever ask for were provided at camp.
Alan started talking about SCAMP weeks before it started. Throughout the rest of the year, he went to school September till June like everyone else, but this summer school was fun and entirely made up of handicapped children like him. All the teachers there were either deaf or slightly handicapped themselves, or were one of the few special education teachers that truly loved there jobs so much that they did it in the summer. Only now, they didn't have to worry about tests, homework or grades. They got to go swimming, make crafts and play games with the students. Every year it was the same routine before the start of camp for Alan and our family, but one time was particularly memorable for us.
1984 started out like the previous years. Throughout the night before the first day, Alan went excitedly into my Mother's room to ask her a question that had already been answered or tell her again what time the bus was coming -- a fact that she had told him originally days before.
Mom would always try and be patient at first, knowing that her son was looking forward to something wonderful and since those times in life rarely came for him, she wanted to let him enjoy it to the fullest. But after days of talking about it and then being woken up multiple times, her patience ran thin. Somewhere around 4 a.m., he woke her up to tell her he was going to have breakfast, so he would be ready when the bus came at 9:30. "Fine, Al, fine, just let me sleep already," she said. After he notified Mom of his plans, he turned and trudged down the hall.
Our home was a long ranch style house with the bedrooms at one end and the kitchen and living rooms at the other. Alan was severely handicapped but by no means immobile. He had figured out a walk all his own and although it was a lot of effort compared to a healthy person, it got him where he was going. He would move his body forward pulling his first foot from behind him, dragging the toe on the ground and noisily placing in front of the other foot. Then he pulled the other leg from behind, again dragging the toe until it was past the first foot and loudly dropping it down. He kept up this dragging and stepping with a steady pace, his hands touching both sides of the walls for balance. When he would leave the comfort of home, he used a cane on his left arm. It wasn't to help him walk as much as it was to help him keep his balance--made evident because he would only place it on the ground every third or fourth step. His system puzzled even his doctors, and was certainly noisy, but it worked for him.
Alan went to the kitchen, and after making sure his lunch was still there and ready to go he poured a bowl of cereal. After breakfast he woke my mother again to remind her the bus was coming at 9:30. She told him to go to sleep, because he still had five hours until the bus arrived.
He went back to his room and laid down, but after some time got up again to repack his bag for the day, just to make sure he was ready. This went on for hours, up and down the hallway with his large feet dragging on the carpet until he decided somewhere around 7 a.m. to wake my mother up again to tell her he was going to wait outside for the bus. This way he could see it pull up and would be sure not to miss it.
Maybe it was frustration, or maybe the lack of sleep, either way my mother's patience had run out. She sent my brother to the porch with his bag and packed lunch in tow, and locked the doors behind him. Exhausted but probably knowing it wasn't over, she slid onto the couch and pulled an afghan over her shoulders. I had gotten up by this time to see what was going on, but quickly decided to go back to bed and try to sleep.
Whatever the reason, either boredom or the chilly morning air, or maybe he had to go to the bathroom, after 30 minutes of being out on the porch, Alan decided he wanted to come back inside.
At first he politely knocked on the door, somewhat surprised the knob was locked. Then when there was no answer, he knocked harder. He always thought because he couldn't hear very well, neither could anyone else, so he kept knocking, annoyed that we couldn't hear him. The thought that he wasn't welcome at this point never entered his mind. After awhile his temper and impatience grew and he started banging on the door. He was angry now.
My mother went to the door and signed to him through the glass. She always did both, verbally stating her sentence while making the words with her hands. She thought it was the best way to communicate with Alan, "strengthening both skills," she would say.
Despite her always wanting the best for her child, there was no Mother's mercy that summer morning.
"I haven't slept all night Alan," she shouted while moving her hands rapidly. "Now you can sit out there and wait," she said. The curtain covering the window fell back in place again, blocking my brother's view inside.
She stood on the other side of the curtain listening to him, while my brother banged on the door. He ordered her to open the door. "NOW!" He repeated again and again. She ignored him, until the house started to move. I was certainly up now. My mother and I both pressed our bodies against the door, trying to prevent what we thought might be him breaking down the front of the house.
People who don't know my brother would think he was a helpless cripple upon first glance. But believe me, when he was mad, he could move mountains with his determination--not to mention his anger. His body appeared to be broken, but he had a well of strength that could surprise you. And while his cerebral palsy caused him to have involuntary movements and jerking motions, it also caused him to have incredibly strong muscles. His body was awkward and askew, but amazingly solid.
My mother and I stood there with morning breath, in our pajamas, curly hair a mess, holding the door on one side while my brother did his best to punch and kick through. My ten-year-old feet were cold on the slate tile that covered the entrance to the house. I always wore slippers, usually a pair my grandmother had crocheted with horribly bright colors, but I hadn't thought to put them on when I awoke to the noise of my brother's tantrum. I was eight years younger than Al, and much shorter then at my pre-teen age. As the door shook and rattled, I couldn't help but giggle at what I perceived as the silliness of the situation. I looked at my mother for some sort of confirmation and she was squeaking out a small laugh while shaking her head at the absurdity of what was happening.
The door was solid wood and heavy, except for nine small panes of glass, each about the size of a large greeting card. I suppose it was only a matter of time, but eventually, with one angry punch, Alan sent his fist through one of those glass squares and the shards came shattering down on my mother's toes and mine. We were shocked. The sound and the glass on our feet snapped us a little more awake than before, but we didn't take our weight off that door.
Alan had decided that was a final moment as well and announced through the door that he was going to call the police on my mother. At some point in his life he had decided that the police were a source for help, but hadn't figured out that it was when you were actually in trouble rather then when you weren't getting your way and wanted to get your mother arrested.
So at 8 o'clock in the morning, sun shining, hand cut and bleeding, he walked down to the corner store that was at the end of the road to use the pay phone, with change he didn't have, to call the police on my mother for locking him out. We watched him go, yelling at us still, turning every few feet to look back and yell some more.
While he was gone, my mother's nurturing side came through and she got towels, water, Band-Aids and antiseptic ready and laid them on the porch, so he could clean himself up when he inevitably came back. It took about 10 minutes.
He came back, without the county sheriff of course, and sat on the porch. He cleaned himself, and secretly peering through the window, my mother looked at his wounds to see that they were only scrapes and nothing major. But she still didn't open the door.
Again, my brother is retarded, not stupid. After the force didn't work, he tried another tactic. He announced to the front door of my childhood home that he loved my mother.
"Mom," he said. "I love you," with a very stern voice. "I," "love," "you," he carefully and articulately said to the door again. "Do you hear me?" he questioned. All the while, using the towel and Band-Aids to patch his battle wounds.
Alan's speech wasn't the best, except for when he was mad. Most of the time, only my mother and I could make out what he was talking about when he pieced together the nouns and adjectives that he used to make a sentence. Dad, blue, truck, 4 o'clock, meant that our father was coming to pick him up at four and he would be driving his blue pickup. He could also articulate himself when he really wanted to get a point across, but when a word wasn't understood he would often relent and finger spell the words out. He usually knew how to spell the words even if he couldn't say them.
But that morning he had no problem stating his message of love for mom, slowly and clearly for her to understand. This went on for about 10 minutes with my mother laughing at his manipulation strategy from behind the curtain on the door. But still, she had made up her mind that like any child, my brother had a lesson to learn and he would have to learn it by not being allowed back into the house.
Our next-door neighbor Mike was an early riser and a huge fan of my brother. My brother was always spending time in Mike's garage whenever Mike was working on a hobby or project and he had seen first hand how intelligent the neighborhood retard really was.
"That kid surprises me everyday," he would tell my parents.
Mike and his wife Pauline were from Malta, a small island in the Mediterranean, which on a map looks like a piece of forgotten pebble after Italy kicked Sicily away. But he was always quick to say that he was not Italian, although he spoke Italian, looked Italian, and his last name translated to the word STAR in Italian. "We've got our own flag and our own stamps," he would say, as if that was all that was needed to prove a country's independence.
So around the time my brother was shouting his love for my mother at the door, Mike had started his day and had walked into our yard to see what all the commotion was about. As soon my brother saw Mike, the crocodile tears started to flow. Mike thought my brother was really locked out and asked him to come back to his house.
My mother was watching through the door and realized that Mike wouldn't understand what was going on. So she called him. Mike had a phone in the garage, and as he and my brother walked up to his house, he answered it. My mother explained the whole thing to him: having not slept a wink, Al putting his hand through the glass, and the attempted police call. She told him that at this point, the bus would be here in about half and hour and that he had everything he needed. When she finished talking, she paused for a moment then replied with a laugh. "Yeah, Mike. He had breakfast already, but that was almost five hours ago."
In the end, Mike gave my brother another bowl of cereal and when the bus pulled up in our driveway, (right on time) the driver honked the horn. My brother came eagerly galloping in his own 'pull and drag' awkward fashion, his crutch touching the earth every few strides, smiling ear to ear, moving diagonally across the lawn, packed lunch in tow.
"Great," Mom said as we headed back to our beds. "Only six more weeks of this 'fun' to go."