Chapter 6 #2
"Yes. I realize that to you, it may seem redundant to differentiate between verbal and nonverbal social expression, but to me, they are vastly different things.
Nonverbal expressions are largely lost on me, as I have said.
Verbal expression, however, is far more nuanced.
As you may have noticed, I am quite literal in my understanding of what is said to and around me. "
I can't help a laugh. "Yeah, I did notice."
She smiles, but it's thin. "When your friend told me to keep you out of trouble, of course he was not being literal. You are not, so far as I have witnessed in the time we have been acquainted, prone to misbehavior, legal or otherwise. But my mind does not automatically process these facts. It ignores them. I hear Sheriff Mannix tell me to keep you out of trouble and my reaction is, ‘Oh, alright. I shall keep him out of trouble. But…why, if he is not prone to troublemaking?’” She shrugs.
“The idea that he could be jesting simply does not occur to me.
It is the same with anything which may have more than one possible meaning.
It is not that I do not enjoy laughter or that I do not have a sense of humor, but what registers as humor to my brain is broad, if you know what I mean by that.
Slapstick, for example. Physical humor. Metaphorically speaking, in order to register something as humor, I need the broad wink to tell me so.
" She peers at me. "You have thoughts to share, I believe. "
“Yeah, I…" I exhale, trying to figure out where to start and how to ask the questions that are bubbling up as she explains this shit.
Before I can go further, she rests her hand on my knee.
"Before you say anything, Riley, please hear this.
I wish you to be honest. Do not seek to preserve my feelings by tiptoeing around what you really wish to know.
Whatever cruel, unkind, or mean-spirited thing could be said about me, know that I have heard it before, many, many times.
Furthermore, I believe I know you well enough to know that you will not intend anything to be mocking or mean-spirited. "
"I hate that," I say. "That people have been so fuckin' mean to you."
She shrugs. "People are frequently cruel, Riley.
It is a fact of life. And people are never quite so cruel as to those whom they do not understand, and to many people, I am so different that I may as well be an alien.
" She huffs softly, a sort of sighing laugh.
"Do you know what my nickname was, when I attended public high school? "
I groan. "Oh god, I'm scared. What?"
"Rosie."
I frown. "Um…I've gotta be missing something."
"Yes, most likely. Have you ever watched the old animated series, The Jetsons?"
The meaning of the nickname comes crashing down on me like a ton of bricks. "The robot maid."
"Correct. It began as Robot-Girl, along with a variety of infantile derivations, such as Robo-Cop, Robo-Bitch," she shakes her head, waves her hand.
"I need not list them all, of which there were many.
And then some humorous soul with too much time on his or her hands created a…
a meme, I suppose, of me. The person must have stumbled across a clip of the show featuring Rosie the robot maid, thought of me, and used computer software to transpose my head onto Rosie's body, using a previously recorded video of me taken during a school function, in which I speak as I normally do.
I do not remember what I said in the clip, and it does not matter.
It went viral throughout the entire school.
And from then on, I was never again addressed as Cadence or Cadie by anyone at the school—by students or faculty. "
I gape at her. "The fucking faculty called you that?"
"Yes. I combated the efforts for some months by simply not responding to the name, but it became so widespread that by the end of the year, I simply had no other choice but to respond to it.
To this day, if I run into someone in my hometown with whom I attended high school, they will address me as Rosie. "
"Jesus fuck, that's evil."
She shakes her head. "No, it is not. It is completely understandable. Hurtful, perhaps, but understandable." She looks at me, hard and piercing. “Can you truthfully tell me you have not had a thought along those lines?"
I can't, so I don't answer.
"Precisely." She pauses, regarding me steadily. "What was the thought, please? I shall not be angry with you, I promise."
"Cadence—"
She squeezes my knee. "I am curious. I give you my word, I will not think less of you, and I will not be offended. I like to think I have grown out of being offended by such things.”
"Something like, you sound like a robot who learned English at Downton Abbey."
She blinks at me for a moment, and then…laughs, genuinely amused. "A Downton Abbey robot? My goodness, that is apropos, Riley. Very humorous." She pats my knee. "So. Questions. You may ask me anything and I will answer honestly and to the best of my knowledge."
"Why do you talk the way you do?"
"Well, first, you must know that I was nonverbal until I was five years of age.
I understood what was said, I simply did not speak.
I could, since I obviously have functional vocal chords.
The second thing you must know in order to understand my speech patterns and syntax is that I have always been academically precocious.
I was reading Run Spot Run type board books at eighteen months.
By three years of age, I was reading at an adult level—by five, I was absorbing every book I could find.
My parents are scholars and academics, so our house was and still is full of books on every subject one can think of, primarily nonfiction.
We did not and do not own a television, I have never owned a smartphone, and rarely access the internet for any purpose other than research or other such utilitarian purposes, such as booking flights or lodgings.
I read encyclopedias, histories, biographies, old textbooks, collections of essays by renowned thinkers from all ages.
So, what you must understand from this is that the language to which I was exposed from birth was largely formal. "
"Makes sense to me."
"Indeed. When I finally began speaking at age five, it was in complete sentences, using formal structure and syntax.
Then, when I was eight, my private tutor assigned a novel for me to read.
I had read fiction, of course, but unless assigned fiction for school, I only read nonfiction.
The book Mr. Craig assigned me to read was Pride and Prejudice. "
I nod. "Now that tracks. I watched the movie with Kiera Knightly in it a while back, me and the chick I was seeing at the time."
"So you are at least familiar."
"Yeah, for sure. I got the feeling that there was a lot going on, especially in the dialogue, that I was missing, though. Like, it just went way over my head."
She nods. "Oh, certainly. That is why I enjoyed the books so much.
Because it was written, I could take my time with it as I attempted to understand the difference between what was being said and what was implied, inferred, or otherwise left unsaid.
I suppose something in the way they spoke in the Regency Period resonated with me.
I became fixated, and devoured everything that was written about and during that period.
" She taps her bag. "Pride and Prejudice is still my favorite novel, and I re-read it regularly. "
"You mentioned fixation," I say. "What does that mean?"
"Hyperfixation is a hallmark of autism. Neurotypicals like yourself will discover something they are interested in—baseball, finance, chess, pornography, photography, automobile restoration, what have you.
A neurotypical brain can balance that interest or hobby with other things—eating, drinking, social events, sleep, sex, television, reading.
A neurodivergent brain, like mine, does not.
The scope and severity of hyperfixation, like everything else, differs from person to person.
My particular hyperfixation is the absorption of information—the processing of data. "
I frown. "Meaning?"
"I enjoy all topics. Science, mathematics, history, language, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, everything.
But when I was five, around the same time as I began talking, I came across a somewhat dated copy of Pearson's Human Anatomy and Physiology, a standard university issue textbook.
Why one becomes fixated on something is, so far as I am aware, inexplicable.
For me, it is human anatomy. I read that book cover to cover multiple times, highlighted and annotated it to the point of absurdity.
I memorized it, cover to cover, every word, diagram, and photograph. "
I boggle at her. "You memorized an entire fucking anatomy textbook at age five?”
She nods. "Yes. I told you—I possess an eidetic memory. I do not forget what I have seen, read, heard, or learned."
"Ever?"
She shrugs. "Not so far."
"So you still have that in your brain? The whole thing?"
"Yes."
I rock back. "Fuck me, that's incredible."
She shrugs again. “It is merely how I function.
" A wave of her hand. "That textbook was the beginning, for me.
I moved on to everything medical. Textbooks on every subject—the nervous system, musculature, veins and arteries, the brain, sedation, everything I could find in the library and everything I could beg my parents to order from .
I subscribed to medical journals. I read study abstracts and meta-analyses.
I became hyperfixated to the point of obsession with all things medical, but anatomy in particular.
The human body is a fascinating machine.
It is endlessly complex, and at once delicate and fragile yet remarkably resilient. "
"So becoming a doctor was sort of a no-brainer, then," I say.