Memoir 1: Born Autistic: The Intruder

The first "chapter" of my memoir of growing up with the dark gift.

The world is an alien place to me. One full of dangers. I need to make sure they don’t catch me out. I am aware of my fragility. Does everyone feel this? I’m not sure. If they do, how do they live with those feelings? I need something to distract me. I need words. 
    .Laura James, Odd Girl Out: My Extraordinary Autistic Life

.1

I grew up in a small commuter suburb just outside of Annapolis, Maryland. Many residents of my neighborhood held government jobs (like my father, an undercover agent for the Department of Agriculture) or pink-collar jobs (like my mother, a school nurse). The neighborhood where I was raised produced a number of what used to be called juvenile delinquents.

The boy next door ended a heroin addict. Another boy, four houses down the other side, died from a heroin overdose. A kid down the street arrested for breaking and entering after he picked the lock on a neighbor’s door and walked out with credit cards, cash, jewelry, and an incriminating stack of winter jackets. Another kid arrested for positioning garbage cans in the middle of the neighborhood thoroughfare at 3 o’clock in the morning. A Pontiac Fiero crashed into the metal barrels, flinging trash everywhere and injuring the driver. One especially belligerent boy two blocks down attacked other kids with a bicycle chain and brass knuckles and was eventually convicted of first-degree murder.

He’s still in prison to the best of my knowledge though maybe he got out on parole.

.2

I share details about the neighborhood where I grew up to set the stage for anecdotes about my youth but something is wrong with my memory. I have difficulty recalling scenes involving other human beings. Particularly scenes from my childhood. Even when I can recollect an event from my past it is never vivid or sharp. I verified details about my childhood comrades from external sources because I cannot trust my remembrance.