she was a keen judge of character. Unfortunately, it would be another few years before I listened to her.
Getting and Losing Jobs
I was 30 years old when I got my first “real” job, working for a lawyer in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The year I spent working in Atlantic City was the happiest of my life since junior high. I had gotten the job entirely on my own merits—no one had called up a friend of a friend. No agency sent me. I had not even responded to an ad. I had just knocked on the door of an attorney who happened to have an important brief due the next day, which he had not even started to compose. I was so proud to be employed. I felt authentic, legitimate, and grown-up. People no longer walked through me. They talked to me with respect. Atlantic City was a good fit for me, too; it almost felt like home. In those days, the city was transitioning from a quaint, rundown, seaside resort to the bustling “Las Vegas of the East” that it is today. There was enough of the quirky old town left to make me feel that I belonged, while I could enjoy the adventure and excitement of venturing into the sparkling new casinos that sprung up at an amazing rate. For the first time, I had money of my own; I no longer had to beg my parents for every dollar. My boss’s secretary and I developed a friendly working relationship. I located an apartment with a landlady who was sympathetic and kind. I made up my mind to stay and practice law in South Jersey for the rest of my life. That summer, I took the New Jersey bar exam. When I passed, my boss threw me a little party. My commitment to my new career was so strong that I put down 2 months’ salary on a secondhand Chevette, which I could drive to the courthouse on the mainland.
I Never Saw the Social Warning Signs
Like many Aspies, I never saw the warning signs, which, in retrospect, I am certain were there. Perhaps my boss was growing irritated with my quirky behavior. Perhaps I was tardy once too often. Perhaps I dressed too casually in his eyes. Maybe it was not all my fault. My boss was a lone wolf himself and simply may have had no desire for a permanent associate that he had to pay week in, week out, no matter what the workload. One Friday afternoon, my boss handed me my paycheck and announced, “This isn’t working out.” I was stunned and completely blindsided.
A Kick in the Pants
Losing that first job sent me into another tailspin. I hopped in my Chevette and headed west, looking for another place where I might feel that I belonged. I spent the next year on the road, sometimes picking up work along the way. For 6 months, I worked for a small-town lawyer in Colorado. He asked me to stay, but the twin demons of loneliness and homesickness landed me back on Aunt Rose’s front porch, begging her to take me in again. She agreed, but on one condition. Aunt Rose gave me what she called “a kick in the pants.” This time, there would be no “moping around.” I would have to work. Even though I experienced depression and anxiety, when I was working steadily, the depression receded. I am glad I found work and actively developed the skills that steady employment requires.
My first job upon returning to Aunt Rose was my worst. I was hired by the collections department of a magazine in lower Westchester County. The work was borderline scummy—extracting money from struggling start-up businesses who could not afford to pay their advertising bill. The owner of the magazine treated everyone very unkindly. She ranted and raved and made demands that could not be satisfied. She spread stress around like butter on toast. No one lasted very long in that office; the turnover was phenomenal. She hounded people until they quit. I gritted my teeth and hung on for a year and a half, until I too could take it no more.
Two weeks after I left the magazine, I ran into a local attorney who said he might have some work for me. He did not mean putting me on the payroll or giving me a regular job. He wanted me to help him on a per diem basis, whenever his workload became overwhelming. This finally opened my eyes. I did not have to squeeze myself into that “windowless cubicle,” corporate-type job after all. I had marketable skills. I could freelance. In every small town, there is at least one solo practitioner who has neither the money nor the inclination to hire another full-time employee but who will invariably have special projects from time to time for which assistance is required: filing papers, serving process, answering the court calendar, conducting legal research (my specialty), and drafting briefs. I even helped one attorney supplement a legal treatise. I had a business card printed up, and, before I knew it, my phone was ringing.
Now, this was not “career success” in any conventional sense of the word. My income was erratic and modest at best. I did not have benefits. However, at long last, I was being productive, exercising my skills, and performing tasks at which I excelled, while avoiding undue stress and office politics. I had found my own comfort level, midway between the prestigious, high-salaried law-firm job that my father desired for me and the “no-good lazy bum” that I had been on the road to becoming.
A Strong Attachment to Familiar Places
I did not yet know what was “wrong” with me, but over the years, I came to recognize and accept certain autistic traits in myself, chief among which was a strong attachment to familiar people, places, and things. I felt safe and secure living back in my hometown, even though my childhood friends had long since grown up and moved away. Walking down streets on which I had biked as a child and shopping at stores where I had shopped for years kept my inner chaos at bay. When people asked me why I did not go back to the city to look for a “real” job, I replied that I was needed here to care for an elderly aunt. In truth, it was the other way around. My elderly aunt was taking care of me.
I supplemented my income with colorful, quirky part-time jobs. I was a night clerk in a motel. I handed out coupons in the supermarket. I worked on village elections. My all-time favorite job, prior to my present one at Kykuit, was as a photographer’s assistant and order taker for a studio that photographed high-school proms. For 20 years, until the company folded, I worked at the proms from April to June. For those 20 years, I lived for the spring. This job provided me with the opportunity to dress up and visit places I otherwise would never have seen—country clubs, fancy hotels, and catering houses—while listening to music and watching the young folks in their gowns and tuxedos. Best of all, it had social benefits. I met people, and I fraternized with other crew members.
Work Filled a Void in My Heart
Work filled the void in my heart where a social life should have been. After moving away from Alexis, I never made any close friends, with one exception. One of the small advertisers that I had to visit for the magazine collections department was a young attorney who had recently opened her own law office. We got to talking, and we ended up working together for more than 12 years. She acted as a public defender—the court would assign her as appellate counsel for persons convicted of crimes, and I did the legal research and drafted the briefs.
Attempting to free someone from jail seemed a worthwhile goal. I liked the moral purpose of it. The attorney and I went to visit our clients in prison, and we had “power lunches” at a diner, where we would spread the case record out on the table and hash it out over a burger. We also got together socially on occasion, visiting each other’s homes or going shopping or to the beach. Eventually, she moved on with her career, and as a result, I found my present job at Kykuit.
RELATIONSHIPS
My Relationships with Men
My relationships with the opposite sex have been strange to say the least. I rarely dated in the conventional sense. Instead, in my younger days, I often engaged in an activity that today would be called “stalking.” While I truly intended no harm, I experienced unbearable loneliness, and if a handsome young man appeared on the periphery of my solitary life, my better judgment deserted me. I was drawn toward men who seemed to possess all the attributes I would have wished for myself—charm and popularity or a talent for singing, acting,
