data relating to education. The report was a recap of hundreds of pages of submitted data from the original study comparing overall population increases with those of the learning disabled.
After twenty minutes of flipping pages, Crockett found the only part of the report he could understand, a two-page summary. He pulled a calculator from his briefcase, turned the report over, and worked the numbers. Within minutes, he recognized the problem.
1960 US Population: 179 Million
Learning Disabled Population: 830,000
1990 US Population 248 Million
Learning Disabled Population: 1,997,000
General Population Increase: 38.5%
Learning-Disabled Increase: 140%
Crockett placed the eighty-two page report back in his briefcase. The results were obvious. Furlong had done his job but nobody was looking at the results. The disparity between the learning-disabled increases when compared to the general population was so out of proportion even a sixth grader could spot it. How the government could ignore a one hundred forty percent increase in the learning-disabled population in the last thirty years without asking why was even beyond his calloused opinion of governmental ineptitude and bureaucracy.
A fleeting thought came to Crockett’s mind when he went back to bed. He was about to tackle something far beyond his level of expertise but the thought perished as quickly as it came. He had never walked away from a challenge, and he was not about to change his stripes. Something was terribly wrong and he meant to find out what it was.
Chapter 21
June 17, 1992
San Francisco, California
Elena sat alone in her office, mindlessly looking out her office window on the sixteenth floor of Embarcadero IV. She was motionless, watching below as the Sausalito ferry finished docking across the street at the Ferry Building. She was concerned that her days as a practicing attorney could fast be coming to an end. What she knew for sure was that ending her two-year leave of absence in November had been a mistake. Despite her best efforts, trying of do in three days what her associates had a week to accomplish wasn’t working, and it was wearing her patience thin. Her life was deteriorating, both personally and professionally. She and Terry were coping with life with an autistic child, but leaving her son with a nanny for much of the time was taking a toll on her conscience. Their family’s financial challenges, even with a dual income, had become enormous. The mounting expenses for doctors, clinics, and special-education schools for her son were putting a huge dent in their budget and a cloud of unpredictability over their future. How families less fortunate than hers could financially survive was beyond her imagination. While others may not have yet noticed, she knew her job performance was beginning to deteriorate and her confidence was frayed. She had no solutions and not a ray of hope was on the horizon. She would stay the course. It was anybody’s guess for how long.
Watching the passengers disembark from the ferry, Elena could see a small boy playfully skipping while holding his mother’s hand. It made her think of happier days. It was nearly six months to the day that their Margarita came to her complaining that Scott was becoming difficult to manage. She remembered dismissing her complaint as just a bad day but, a few weeks later, she finally saw it first hand when she walked into her son’s room and saw Scott standing in the center of his room, spinning like a top. Just a few days before that, he started crying violently every time she left the room. Within weeks, he eventually became detached, suddenly ignoring her, treating her more as an object, like a chair or a tool, and ceased showing any emotion when she entered or left his room. He had become impersonal, obsessed with objects rather than people. His own shoes or, in some cases, a small statue of Jesus, had become his primary interests. He would sit and stare at them for hours at a time. If she tried to persuade him to play with his toys or go outside, he reacted violently with even louder screams and tantrums. When Children’s Hospital in San Francisco ordered physical and psychological tests for Scott, Elena even found them extremely frustrating. While the therapists were polite and professional, they rarely offered words of encouragement or anything that could be mistaken as positive. They were impersonal, employees simply adhering to clinic and hospital protocol. They were doing their jobs and little else.
Elena turned back from the window. She felt guilty, repeatedly rehashing her pregnancy, wondering if somehow she had done something wrong that could have contributed to Scott’s autism. She had questions with too few answers. Just getting through each day had become an ordeal, let alone trying to set aside sufficient time to research autism. For now, she could only assume that the doctors and specialists knew best. Her father taught her as a child to challenge anything she did not understand, to study it until she understood before making any arbitrary conclusions or decisions. She understood the importance of accurate thinking, but without the proper information it was impossible. She was grasping for information that wasn’t there. Even when Scott was officially diagnosed as PDD-NOS, she had to look the term up because nobody voluntarily offered an explanation. The words Pervasive Development Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified were cold and insensitive, the official scientific description his disorder. Officially, they explained that Scott had ASD, Autism Spectrum Disorder. Until that dreadful day, for her the word autism was just another word in the dictionary.
Terry made love to her that night for the first time since Scott had been diagnosed. For Elena, it was an unfamiliar chance to escape reality but, despite her multiple orgasms, their intimacies had only freed her mind temporarily. Autism was always with her, even during sex. It was hard for her to admit it, but she was at loss for how to care for her own child. She felt alone, helpless, and guilty. She and Terry were sailing an uncharted ocean and the odds for survival were not bright. They were not alone. There were others, many others.
Chapter 22
July 4, 1992
Angels Camp, California
Three thousand people call it home. Founded two years before Placer gold was discovered in 1848, Angels Camp sits buried deep in the Sierra Foothills between Yosemite and Lake Tahoe in the heart of the gold country. Still honeycombed beneath with old mine tunnels and above with many of the original buildings, Main Street once vibrated to the roar of the stamp mills and to the music of dance hall saloons. City Hall sat on the site of an old saloon that, during Prohibition, was the local source for bootleg liquor.
Not much had changed in his town since the close of the gold rush days, and Samuel Crockett liked it that way. Just after the sun crested over the mountain, he sat down alone on the outside deck, savoring a second cup of Anna’s coffee. Today was the Fourth of July, his holy day, a special day to celebrate life at home with whoever cared to join in. He moved to Angels Camp in 1955 when he accepted a job fifty miles away as the political editor for the Sacramento Bee. His daughter was born in the upstairs bedroom, the same room his wife died in after a long illness, just a week after Elena started her second year of law school. Even in times of loneliness and sorrow, thoughts of happier days always surfaced to help ease the pain. Days like today would only add to what had become a long list of fond memories.
Today was July 4th, picnic day, free food and beer for all the locals. What had started as a small family gathering had become an annual July 4th traditional assemblage for the town’s citizenry. After a late afternoon picnic in his backyard, most folks would trek down the hill to the county fairgrounds and redeposit themselves in preparation for the evening fireworks, and the traditional ceremonial explosion of the old park cannon. For the town, it was a chance to gather with others to celebrate, not only America’s independence, but the history of Angels Camp. For Crockett, it had become traditional for him to don his white linen suit, stand high on top of the brick BBQ in his
