My Lowest Point Ever - April 1991

The year after Chiho broke up with me from September 1990 until the summer of 1991, was the loneliest, most difficult and depressing time of my life. Looking back, I think I may have been suffering from situational depression, as I was never in a good mood and my only relief came from going out to karaoke bars, getting drunk and belting out tunes. However, one night in particular just took the cake as being my lowest point ever – a depth that I have not sunk to since.

Several months before this, I would sometimes meet Chiho for platonic dates – or at least, that was what I told her they were. The truth though, is that I was hoping that I could eventually win her over. Looking back, I cannot imagine what I was thinking: Chiho was clearly not interested in me on a romantic level, and I don’t think that the language barrier was the sole reason. Of course, it wasn’t – it either had everything to do with my being on the spectrum, or plain just not her type. It’s just that it took two or three weeks for her to figure out that I wasn’t what she was looking for in a boyfriend. I had tried on several occasions during these dates to make advances towards her and to otherwise convince her to get back together. She of course refused every time, much to my despair. However, I did continue to see her on these dates.

One place that she took me on one of these dates was a Japanese restaurant on the second floor of a building on Alberni Street in downtown Vancouver, in the heart of the tourist district.  It doesn’t exist anymore, but it was in business for a very long time. It was one of the best Japanese restaurants in Vancouver and you could instantly sense this the moment you walked in and saw that the clientele was almost exclusively Japanese. It was one of the few restaurants that had a Robata grill that prepared the most delicious grilled mackerel and grilled asparagus wrapped in beef that you’ve ever tasted. This stuff literally melted in your mouth. It was manned by two senior sushi chefs who were still there 12 years later, when I went back once before Kay and I moved to New Brunswick.  Chiho took me here because she said it was one of the best places to get sushi and she really enjoyed the true Japanese sushi: the stuff with cod roe on top, or eel, or sashimi. None of this California roll business with her – although this place did make great California roll.  

Anyway, there was a waitress who worked there that I found strikingly beautiful and friendly. I was just getting to the point where I was beginning to accept that Chiho and I would never be more than friends and so I was beginning to look afield for other potential girlfriends. In retrospect, this was a stage of my life where being alone was terrifying to me and I was grasping at straws to avoid having to be alone in my own skin. Of course, I had no idea that I was on the spectrum at this time and people generally had no idea either – all they knew was that I was “weird”. So being alone between the ages of 19 and 20 was really, really painful for me because my perception, from watching what other people were doing and experiencing during this time was that I SHOULD have a girlfriend and other friends. I SHOULD have someplace to be after work on a Friday night. It was under the weight of those “shoulds” that my psyche collapsed into an abyss of depression.

After that first trip with Chiho to the restaurant, and that first time that I met Nanae, I kept going there for dinner and of course being served by her. She was always very friendly and always stopped to make conversation. This brings me to what is probably the most definitive trait of us Aspies: our mind blindness. It has many facets, but one of them is we often completely misinterpret the significance of human behavior and body language. Those of us who are trained to behave properly in social situations learn to look for appropriate cues to judge a situation, but our judgement is often completely off. In this situation, I completely failed to realize that Nanae was only being friendly towards me because it was part of her job to be. She had not given me any clear cut signals that she could be interested in seeing me outside work. However, one day she did tell me that she was having a birthday party at her apartment and invited me to come. She said for me to come around 10 at night (it was a Friday) and gave me her address. I had already made advances at her before this and was rebuffed, so I was naturally wondering if she had changed her mind. See? This is what I am talking about. We aspies are very black and white in our thinking. To me this invitation had to have a significance that went past a casual invite to a party and it never occurred to me that Nanae might have other reasons for inviting me there, but it would become apparent later.

I worked on my stamps that afternoon at home and then a good 3 hours before I was due to show up at Nanae’s place I took a shower and got dressed up in my best clothes. Then I headed downtown for dinner and a few drinks before 10. I was already on my way to getting drunk when 10 rolled around, but I could still pass for relatively sober. I went to the address in the West End (where many of the young Japanese girls who would visit Vancouver on their yearly sojourns would often live) and rang the downstairs buzzer. I was let in and made my way upstairs. Once there, I found her apartment and knocked on the door. Nanae greeted me with a smile and ushered me to sit at her kitchen table, where there were four or five other young Japanese people seated. I can’t fully remember the breakdown between males and females, for reasons that will soon become abundantly clear, but they were all drinking beer. Nanae offered me one, I think it was Heineken.  The other people at the table were keen to talk to me as I drank and got more and more drunk. For much of the time they were passing around a camera and taking pictures of me. I was flattered by this attention, again completely failing to recognize that I was essentially their source of entertainment for the evening.

Around 11:30 the doorbell rang. I was in the chair closest to the door, so I got up to answer it. Much to my surprise, when I opened the door, it was Chiho, looking very dressed up and beautiful. Almost immediately I began to feel uncomfortable I still wanted her so badly, I thought. But I knew I couldn’t have her and I couldn’t have Nanae either. It seemed like I could never have anyone. So my mood began to descend into self-pity as I continued to drink with the others. The dynamic changed a bit once Chiho was there but I tried to act relatively normal. Shortly after Chiho sat down at the table, my 4^th or 5^th beer had run out and Nanae bought out a large bottle of Crown Royal whiskey. To this point, I was unaware of the expression: “Wine before beer in the clear. Beer before liquor, never been sicker”.  I would learn about it first hand though in a big way. I accepted a glass and Nanae got four small porcelain sake cups out of a cupboard.  She poured a cup for me to the brim and I drank it, much the way I was drinking my beer. I would drink four of those cups full of straight up Crown Royal before the night was out. I don’t know how much that was exactly, but I would guess now that each sake cup was probably a good half cup. So I drank 2 cups of Crown Royal – about 500 ml, or 16 ounces. Chiho had tried a couple of times to persuade me not to have more, but I just dismissed her concern and kept going.

Around 1:30 am, Nanae indicated it was time for everyone to leave. I stumbled out towards the bank of elevators. Chiho begged me to come with her to get a ride home, but I declined her offer, insisting that I would be fine on my own. I of course was starting to develop other ideas by now. One of the side effects to being drunk for me was that I did not want the party or evening to end. It was a horribly acute feeling that once started would not leave me alone until I passed out from the alcohol, or sheer exhaustion. Even in this falling-down-drunk state, I still felt that I had more in me and in my mind I still had at least another hour to grab another drink somewhere. Never mind that I had to be at work for 8:30 the following morning – I just wasn’t thinking clearly by this point.

I managed to stumble into Shenanigan’s on Robson St. , about a block away, and grab a drink before they closed and as they were ushering everybody out, I was finally beginning to accept the evening was well and truly over – a sinking realization. It was now long past the point where the last busses had stopped running, so I began the long walk up Robson Street, to Hastings Street, and then up Hastings toward Sperling Ave., where I rented a small basement suite. Hastings is the main east-west street that traverses the northernmost end of the city that is south of the North Shore (a large inlet, Burrard Inlet separates North Vancouver from Vancouver proper). The whole trip was probably between about 6 and 8km in total, but at that time of night it was a very long walk. I got as far as about a block and a half past Main St. heading east (about 1 km), when I began to notice all the street prostitutes posing provocatively. Slowly, but surely, my lust was awakened, and it grew with every step I took on the pavement. Unfortunately for me, I actually did happen to have money on me, so I was especially vulnerable. I can’t remember exactly where it happened along Hastings, but a very slender, dark haired girl approached me and offered me the “works” for $60. I accepted and followed her back to her place – a small, dilapidated house. Almost as soon as I entered the house everything went black.

The first thing I saw when I awoke was the long, thin trail of red, running along an arm. As I adjusted my eyesight to the immensely dingy lighting, I could see the girl crouching and hoisting her arm up by a long rubber hose held in place by her teeth, while she was injecting herself with a needle held in her other hand. Oh My God! I thought. “I just had sex with a drug addicted hooker”. I sat up and surveyed my surroundings – one of those dirty blue and white striped mattresses with the little pinstripes – like the kind you would see on beds from the 19^th century; dirty walls and filth on the floors. I got up and put my pants on and said “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go”. The woman didn’t even look up as I calmly walked out of there, past two or three junkie guys who were standing in the main hall. As soon as I cleared the doorway, I ran. I ran to the nearest quiet place I could find, sat down and began sobbing at what I had just done. Even in my very drunken state, I knew, just knew that I couldn’t possibly sink any lower. To this day I still don’t know what I actually did with that prostitute: for all I know, it could have been nothing at all. It is 30-60 minutes of my life that I can never get back.

By now, it was 4 am. There was no point in going home, since I would have to get up and head out to work shortly after. So I walked to 420 West Pender St. where the Weeda Stamps was, where I worked – about 15 min away and once I got there, I headed to the back of the building. There was a graveled area by the back door, which was relatively clean. I buttoned my long, navy blue trench coat up all the way over my clothes and lay down on the gravel to try to get some sleep. I set my watch alarm to go off at 7:30, so that I would have some time to freshen up before work.

The next thing I knew my watch alarm went off and I awoke to the most acute pain in my abdomen and torso that I had ever experienced. I felt as if I had been kicked by hard boots while I was on the ground. I had an ear-splitting headache and a completely dry and pasty mouth. I wanted to die. I was sure that I must be dying. I couldn’t even imagine how I was going to get through the day. I shuffled off to the café next door and ordered a cup of black coffee to try and jolt my system into functioning at least somewhat normally. I lit a menthol cigarette. These two things were not helping me” toxins on top of toxins. But they made me feel better – at least for a minute while I attempted to muster up the strength to go into work. After I sat there for about half an hour, I went to the washroom to attempt to straighten up and at least look somewhat presentable. I could barely walk without groaning, but I went into work. Chris and Bev were by now, tired of seeing me hung over and this time Chris specifically told me that I needed to get a handle on this. I don’t know how I did it, but I did manage to get my work done and serve the customers throughout the day.  All I wanted to do was go home and go to bed.

I eventually went home and stopped at the corner store along the way and picked up two large bottles of 7-up to ease my stomach. I also thought that drinking them would help with my hangover. I arrived home at about 6 pm on the Saturday and went straight to bed. I stayed there until the morning on Monday when it was time to go back to work.  By Sunday evening the hangover began to subside, but it was easily the longest and worst hangover I have ever had in living memory and while I lay there in bed, my mind kept racing. All I could think of was how I needed to change things drastically, or I wouldn’t make it to 30. Little did I know that in only two months, I would  meet the woman who was to become my first wife, and she would be my salvation from this pitiful existence that I led to this point. 

Getting Drunk For The First Time - Happened in Spring 1986

Although the legal drinking age in Hong Kong was 18, it was very easy to buy alcohol there even if you were underage. You could buy it at grocery stores, at 7-11 corner stores and even the leading drugstore, Watsons would have entire flats of Carlsberg and San Miguel on the shelves. What’s more, the cost of beer was on a par with pop and juice, so it was relatively easy to get a hold of. The only problem was that there weren’t many places to consume it, where it wouldn’t be noticed by other adults.  

One Saturday, a group of my friends and I decided to go to watch “Nightmare on Elm Street”.  In Shatin, where I lived was this large shopping centre called New Town Plaza. It had, what at the time was considered a large movie theatre – 6 different screens.  Back then any place that showed more than 2 or 3 different movies was a large theatre – not like the 20 screen theatres of today that show every current movie. The Plaza also had a McDonalds, several other restaurants and of course a large Watson’s on the second floor.  In our group were my friends Alex and Caroline, who you will read about elsewhere in this book, Michael and Jason – another guy I was almost, but not quite friends with.  We met up in the central area of the shopping centre at the agreed upon time and proceeded to head to McDonalds where we pigged out on many, many Big Macs and orders of fries.

After dinner it was time to head over to the theatre. Just as we were about to go, Mike and Jason suggested that we go to Watson’s and buy beer to take into the movie theatre. This sounded like a great idea, so we went to Watson’s and noticed that a flat of San Miguel was $100 HK, which worked out to be $20 for each of us. Think about this: 24 cans of beer split among 5 teenagers. We were sure to get drunk. The most alcohol I’d ever consumed to this point was a single glass of wine that my dad had let me drink every now and again. I didn’t even think I liked beer. So I wasn’t thinking at that point of getting drunk and I had no idea what the impact of drinking that beer was going to be. I would find out soon though. We bought the beer and paid for it with our pooled money, but were immediately faced with a problem. How do we get it into the movie theatre? Mike came up with the idea to ask the counter staff for extra bags. We simply took the beers out of the plastic rings that held them together and dropped them into four bags, making it look like we had simply bought toiletries and were carrying those into the theatre. It was brilliant. Although we were a bit nervous as we stood in the ticket line, nobody noticed what we were bringing in with us. We made our way over to some seats near the back of the theatre on the left side and settled in.

I barely remember the details of the movie, except that Freddie Krueger was mildly scary. The focus for the first hour of the movie became the consumption of copious amounts of beer.  By the time the first hour of the movie had passed, I’d already consumed four entire cans of beer and in the second half of the movie I began to feel the effects. I was sitting in the seat closest to the aisle, while Alex, Jason, Caroline and Mike were seated to my left. It wasn’t long before I noticed one of Mike or Jason (I can’t remember which now) and Caroline making out next to me. I started to experience the feeling of missing out that I suspect nearly all drunk people experience in this situation. Now, I had never made any moves on Alex before: we were just friends. But as the alcohol induced stupor began to take hold, I suddenly began to feel great affection for poor Alex. I leaned over and slurred something that sounded very charming in my head to Alex and proceeded to try and kiss her. I was promptly rebuffed and I got upset, to which Alex immediately apologized and said that while she liked me as a friend, she never saw me that way.  Needless to say I was mortified.

A short while later, we left the theater and went our separate ways. I was very drunk by this point and staggered home, after leaving the train station at Fo Tan, which was a good 45- minute walk from my apartment. I had decided that I needed to walk it off, because I knew that my parents would be waiting for me when I got home. My parents had this ritual. We owned two large Queen Anne Wingback chairs from the 1700’s. These things are 5 feet tall and almost 4 feet wide, and they sat in our living room facing one another. My parents would wait up for me, one in each chair and when I came home they would ask me to sit on the couch and would proceed to ask questions about the evening’s events – where I had been; who I was with; what I had been up to.  I knew that if I took the normal bus route home from New Town Plaza, I was surely a dead man.

I figured that if I walked home, somehow I would be sober when I got home, or at least sober enough that I could avoid my parent’s suspicions and just shuffle off to bed. Unfortunately as I was soon to learn, it doesn’t work that way with alcohol, and when I walked through the gates of the housing estate, I was still noticeably drunk, perhaps even more so as the physical exertion had distributed the alcohol throughout my system. I made my way into the elevator, hit “18”, and prayed a silent prayer as the doors closed. When I got up to the 18^th floor, I got out slowly, collected my composure and took out my key and slowly unlocked the front door. Much to my surprise, the only parent who was sitting down was mom. It was enough though.

Mom: “Tell me about your evening darling.”

I began to speak and after about two sentences mom stopped me.

Mom: “Chrissy, have you been drinking?”

Me: “No…. Well I had one beer.”

As I could see from the look on mom’s face that there was no way I was going to successfully fib my way through this one.  

Mom: “Christopher, you smell like a distillery. You know this means I will have to tell your father."

Me: “No! Don’t tell dad. Please. I can do something for you in return - like maybe you have extra dishes that need washing.”

As I said this she got up from the chair and begin to walk toward the hallway that led to the bedroom where dad was. I followed after her a few steps repeating my pleas, but to no avail. Resigned, I wandered back to the wingback chair and took a seat, awaiting my fate.  Dad came out with an angry look on his face and proceeded to chew me out something fierce for getting drunk telling me what a stupid thing it was and was this really how I was going to show my parents how trustworthy I was with my freedom.  After a few minutes of this he ordered me to go to bed. I shuffled off to my room and crashed on my bed, passing out almost immediately.

Within a few months, my parents admitted that it took everything they had not to burst out laughing when they saw me like that. 

Postscript to the Last Three Stories

Each of these last three stories illustrates a different aspect of life on the Autistic spectrum, as well as behaviors that would be completely normal for a neurotypical at the same time.

In Backflop!, there is nothing abnormal about using the high diving towers or even wanting to show off my diving abilities. What is unusual for that age is the single-minded focus apparent in diving again and again until I was able to perfect the technique and then never getting tired of doing the same dives over and over again once I had perfected them. A very high tolerance for sameness and routine in the things we enjoy is a very central part to being on the Autistic spectrum. Most neurotypicals will eventually grow tired of the things they enjoy if they experience them too many times without a break in between. This would seem to apply to almost everything. For example, I like to think I am a fairly good cook. I know I make a mean eggs benedict - we're talking proscuitto, tomato, fresh croissants, copious amounts of rich lemony hollandaise sauce, and capers on top. I usually like to serve this with a nice glass of lemon spritzer or orange juice. Sounds pretty tasty huh?Back when I was married to my second ex, I used to make eggs benedict on weekends, which she and my son really seemed to like - for about a month. After that time, the next time I made it, my ex looked at me and said:

Kay: "Can you please never make that again?"

I know she didn't mean it literally, but she was just that sick of it. As I turned to look at my son, his head nodded gently in agreement with his mom. But I am sure that I could eat eggs benedict every Saturday morning for the rest of my life and never get sick of it - die from heart disease perhaps, but not get tired of it. I have also noticed that I can listen to the same 5 or 6 music albums while I work, every day for months. I kid you not.

The Party, illustrates the most normal aspect of being a teenager; the overwhelming desire to be accepted by one's peers, and how far most of us are prepared to go to gain that acceptance. Most of us will go very far, even if it means snubbing those who are actually more like us than those we wish to be accepted by. I included this story because I just couldn't resist the part about Mike peeing out my 18th floor window, and because it does illustrate that while I was very different from my peers in a lot of ways, there were some ways in which I was very similar in the end. I was not always a victim of prejudice - I could also dish it out as well. I am not proud of that, even all these years later. However, it is how I was at the time, so I have to be honest about it.

Ronnie, Next President of the United States, shows an example of how I can completely fail to recognize that a person is kidding, take them literally, but react in a manner that is not socially inappropriate - a pure fluke of sorts. In this story, I laughed at the prospect of Ronnie being President, which was how most people would react. Yet Ronnie sensed that I was reacting that way for the wrong reasons and decided to pull my leg by pretending to be serious. The rest of the story is really just about three very normal 16 year old young men enjoying a night on the town in an area that is really the stuff of legend now. I hope I described it in a way that lets the reader really see what those streets looked like, and allows them to experience the atmosphere in those bars. It was really quite unlike anything I have experienced anywhere else and it was one of the memories I have of Hong Kong that I have come to cherish oddly enough.

All of the stories so far are very simple stories, but told with a lot of the extraneous details, all of which I remember very clearly, even though many of these stories were of events that happened over 30 years ago. I have always taken my memory for granted, and assumed that it is nothing special. But my partner Steph has told me that this kind of memory is not normal at all. I still remember the first and last names of all my teachers since kindergarten, and she says that this is extraordinary. I'll take her word for it, but I never thought so for all these years. I cannot comment on whether or not this is another aspect of being on the spectrum, or whether it is just one of my attributes.  I still have many stories left before I get to writing about the first of my three lives: my marriage to Lea: I have not yet written about Australia, where I lived from 1983 to 1985, and I still have a few more stories about life between 1975-1983 and 1985-1991. However, the stories so far hopefully give a good indication of who I was and what my issues were as I came up to the night I met Lea on June 30, 1991

Ronnie, The Next President of the United States - Happened in March or April of 1988

Wan Chai was the seedy bar-ridden area of Hong Kong on the Island. It was where both British and American sailors would go out drinking at night and where they would all too often get into drunken fights. It was also a forbidden fruit in the sense that I was expressly forbidden from going there at night by my parents over concerns that it was too dangerous. In reality it wasn’t really that bad. It looked more or less like a street you would picture in downtown Hong Kong: wide, garbage on the streets, crowded and with a plethora of large, multicoloured neon signs piercing the dark of the night, with animated Chinese characters.  There was this main street in Wan Chai whose name escapes me now, but it looked just like I have just described, but in addition it was punctuated by above ground and below ground bars and nightclubs. Many of these had crowds spilling out onto the streets.

The legal drinking age in Hong Kong at that time was 18, just like in the UK. In addition, every person in Hong Kong above a very young age was required to carry photo ID on them at all times in case any police approached them to enquire about their legal status. You see, Hong Kong at that time was a very popular destination for refugees, given the political situation in China and other Southeast Asian countries in the 1980’s. This coupled, with the fact that it had a legendary reputation as the place to make it big, even though this was often far from the reality for many who settled there. Hong Kong simply didn’t have the space to accommodate all these people, so they needed to come up with a system to make sure that only those who were approved to live there actually got to stay.

That being said, getting into bars there was not very difficult for us as 14, 15 and 16 year olds. Sure the bouncers would tell you that you were too young and you couldn’t be there, but then would make no attempt to prevent you from coming in as you walked right past them. Ex-pat teenagers with nothing better to do on a Friday or Saturday night and plenty of disposable income given to them by their guilt-ridden parents were simply too good a revenue source for most bar and club owners to pass up. Indeed many of these places would entice teens with their infamous “beer Buffet” nights, where $25 HK, which at the time was about $5 CDN would buy you all the beer you could drink. Needless to say, the police would conduct regular raids to flush out the underage teens. But soon after these places would be back up and running and serving teens once again.

In my last year before I left the colony to return to Canada, I went to school at the Canadian Overseas Secondary School (COSS). On a social level it was the best time of the three years that I spent in Hong Kong. The reason was that my classmates were predominantly all local Chinese or Indian students who were there to get the highest GPA’s that they could in Canadian recognized courses, so that they would be able to go to Canadian universities. I managed to make quite a few friends there, none of which I kept in touch with unfortunately once I came back to Canada.  Two of those friends were Suhail and Gianluca. Suhail was a tall man from Pakistan, who had a reputation as a womanizer, but was actually a very nice guy when you got to know him. It was Suhail that introduced me to the amazing flavour of Chai tea, which he would always have served to him at his place with copious amounts of milk and sugar. He was at least 6 feet tall when we were 16 and looked like a fully grown man. Gianluca was also a very tall Italian guy who only spoke broken English, but enough so that we could understand each other.

One Saturday night, I was invited to Suhail’s place for a sleepover. Gianluca was to join us. Suhail lived over on the Island, while we lived in the New Territories, which was near the border with Mainland China. Mom and dad had no issues with me going over, provided that I gave them Suhail’s phone number and address, which I did. By now I had figured out that even though my parents could call the number I gave them, they never had up until now and so it was highly unlikely that they would.

I arrived at Suhail’s around dinner time after my usual Saturday routine of buying stamps, playing video games and eating out, and his mother served us a lovely vegetarian dinner with the usual Chai tea afterwards.  Unlike westerners like myself who were accustomed to eating at a dining table, Suhail and my other Indian friends usually sat on the floor to eat. It took some getting used to, but I actually came to enjoy it quite a bit. After dinner we decided that we would go out – to Wan Chai! Suhail said he could easily get us into any club we wanted. We even talked of going to hit on girls. Who knew where the night might take us? I was aware of the fact that I would be breaking my father’s rule if I went, but I really wanted to go and decided to take the chance. So around 10pm, we ventured out. We went into and out of a lot of different bars as we made our way down the main road. Then we came to a street corner that had a large underground club right at the street corner. There were large red neon signs at street level that enticed us to make our way onto the steps that lead to the club below. So after much discussion at the street corner, we decided to give this place a try.

We descended the concrete steps past a few expats, dressed in the popular 80’s garb of white slacks, button down monotone shirts festooned with slender 1 inch pointed, dark coloured neckties. I think at the time one of the most popular combinations was white pants, pink shirt and black tie. Anyway, we get to these large, heavy wooden double doors and open them to find no bouncers!  We look in and see a hazy, smoke filled room, spilling over with the sounds of dozens of conversations coming from what must have been at least 20 different tables, all packed with young men drinking. The tables were large wooden rectangular tables that looked like they sat about six or seven guys on each side.  As we made our way cautiously past the first two tables – one each to our left and right, a large group of American sailors sitting at the third table to our left called out to us and motioned us over. After eagerly introducing themselves as American sailors, they asked us if we wanted to join them at their table. We agreed and sat down. I was at the end of the table and looking right at me was a guy who looked like Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. He was dressed from head to toe in studded leather, sported a Mohawk and had several piercings in his face.  He looked right at me and a wide grin escaped his face as he held up his hand to shake mine. “I’m Ronnie! I’m going to be the next President of the United States.”. I laughed out loud at the absurdity of what he just said. “No, I’m serious!” He said, his smile gradually disappearing and being replaced by a serious look that could easily be interpreted as the look of someone who was about to take offense.

To understand why I had laughed, you have to understand that Ronald Reagan was the President at the time Ronnie uttered those words. That, and the fact that this guy basically looked like a punk rocker and not the clean cut, immaculately uniformed guy from “An Officer and a Gentleman” that we all imagine when we think of an American sailor. Oh No! I thought. I’ve just offended this guy. I hope this doesn’t start a fight. As I think this I imagine the ensuing bar room brawl, just like you see on the movies, with bottles being broken on people’s heads and chairs being smashed on people’s backs. I am looking right at Ronnie’s now serious expression as I imagine this. Within a few seconds, his serious look turns to a smile again as he says. “I’m only kidding man!  Do you really think anyone would vote for me?”.  Then, over what seemed like pint after pint of beer, Ronnie proceeded to regale me with tales of his exploits as a sailor. I was fascinated as I listened to him tell me about the places where he served, which among other places included the Philippines, South Korea and Hong Kong, where he was now.  

After he was done the guys at the table asked us what we were doing out in the bars given how young we were. We told them about what it was like to live in Hong Kong, and how there wasn’t much to do there except go out and drink.  The guys were quite sympathetic, saying that they enjoyed visiting but didn’t think they could handle this place as teens. Pretty soon the conversation turned to what we were doing later on and were we planning on picking up any girls. I’m not sure what Suhail said, but I know he would have quite confidently told them about his prowess with the women. Gianluca just sat there smiling and chiming in occasionally when his broken English would permit.  I got ready to try and fake a confident response, but Ronnie picked up on my lack of confidence and reached across the table and grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me as he exclaimed “We’ve got to get this boy laid!”. Yeahhh sure thing, I thought. Little did they know...

As much fun as we were having, we eventually decided that it would be best for us to go, as the guys were getting very drunk now and we did not want to find ourselves in the middle of any fights. So we thanked them for their friendliness and for the drinks they bought us and got up to leave. We would  visit one other bar before we all got tired and just decided to go back to Suhail’s to crash.  It was one experience that changed my perception of the sailors from a bunch of aggressive rowdy men to fun guys who were also friendly to a group of teens who they knew were not supposed to be where they were.  Ronnie never did make president, but every now and then I have found myself wondering what became of him.

The Party - Spring 1986

When I lived in Hong Kong and was going to school it was common for my classmates to host dance parties. These could be for someone’s birthday, but quite often, they were held for no reason at all other than to have fun. Invitations would be sent out and they would generally consist of lots of dancing and consumption of junk food and pop. For many of these, the parents would be present in the house or apartment, in which case, the party would be a “dry” party, in which no alcohol would be served by the hosts and only a few people would sneak alcohol in. But if the parents were not present, as was often the case, then there would be a large amount of alcohol consumed, along with everything else that accompanies teenagers and booze.  You know those teen movies that show wild house parties? These parties were not far off the mark, with the only differences being the lack of property damage, and open teenage sex. Your popularity and social status within the school community was influenced in large part by how good your parties were. There was no official roster of who would or should host what, and it often seemed like most of the parties were hosted by only a handful of the students. The best ones were those in which many of the guests would sleep over at the host’s place afterwards because then we would often wake up late, have breakfast and then hang out for a good portion of the day.  I remember that one of the best parties I attended was at Caroline W’s place. She and another girl, Alex W. are the subject of another story in this book, but I digress.  Caroline lived in one of the few housing estates in the outskirts of the New Territories, rather than a high rise apartment, like so many of us did. Her place was a split level condo that had a back yard with a pool, and her parents were never home during the parties. My first kiss actually was with Caroline herself, sitting on the patio beside her pool. The weird part was that I was not a virgin when I did this, having passed that milestone almost two years before.

In my first year at Shatin College, I struggled socially, as could well be expected of someone on the autistic spectrum. I remember being so overwhelmed with all the new stimuli around me that I often shut down. Most of my classmates would have seen a young man who was tired all the time and seemingly “out of it”, as I tried to make sense of everything going on around me. I had also lost my virginity under circumstances described in another story and the emotional aftermath of that was weighing heavily on me for those first four months. After Christmas had passed during that first year, we had our first major set of exams, which I did not do too badly in. I started to get invitations to parties, started to attend them and slowly, but surely, I began to gain what I perceived to be a modicum of acceptance from my peers. I had a kind of mischievous friendship with Alex and Caroline, and had formed a fairly close friendship with a guy by the name of Mike R. Eventually, some six or seven months into the school year, I decided that the time had come for me to host a party of my own.

After much wrangling with my mom and dad, they agreed to allow me to host a party at the apartment. They agreed not to be in the apartment during the party, but would go stay with their friends in their apartment, 3 floors below us. So after making sure that the Hi Fi set was working properly and that we had adequate music, I went about buying pop and chips and other goodies as well as actual invitations for it, which I distributed at school the following week.  I honestly had no idea what to expect in terms of attendance and its ultimate success and I sent the better part of two weeks eagerly anticipating and hoping it would go at least OK. I had invited pretty well everyone in my form as well, except for a few of the kids in my class – something I very much came to regret later.  So the place would be completely packed if everyone that was invited actually came.

Much to my pleasant surprise everyone came and had a fantastic time. To this day I am not sure what it was that made everything go so well. For just a few hours, my normal social awkwardness was replaced by a great sense of confidence and belonging that I’d not felt up to that point. I didn’t spend a lot of time partying, drinking or dancing myself, but rather I attempted to play the dedicated host to all who came. I had hoped for a slow dance with the one girl in the class that I had a very strong crush on, Gina, but alas while I exchanged smiles with her in the hall, I never did get to dance with her. That would not come until a few parties later. One problem did quickly become apparent and that was the bottlenecks around the bathroom. Even though our apartment did have a second ensuite bathroom off my parents bedroom, it was off-limits to my guests. So everyone had to be content using one bathroom, which was fine until 2 or 3 hours into the festivities, after people had consumed a lot of pop of alcohol. Indeed the defining moment of the party was still to come.

I had gone to the back of the apartment to check on people and the state of the bathroom and was just coming down the hall back into the living room, when my best friend at the time, Mike stepped off the concrete window ledge and zipped up his pants. The bugger had gotten tired of waiting in line for the bathroom and so he simply stepped up onto the window ledge in the living room where the party was, opened the window and took a piss from 18 floors up. I never did find out whether anyone was coming into or out of the building at the time, as our living room apartment faced the front of the building.

Shortly after that, the party wound down. People started going home and a handful of my guests who had brought sleeping bags rolled them out onto the living room floor and we all laid down to go to sleep. I slept out there with them of course, rather than staying in my room because I didn’t want to miss out on my newly elevated social status, which lasted for about a month or so afterwards. After that, it gradually went back to me being awkward with most of my classmates, except for my friends. It was good while it lasted, but one of my regrets to this day is that I did not invite some of the less popular kids in my class – kids who I actually had a real shot at making friends with. Such are the lessons that are lost on a teenager who is trying so desperately to fit in. 

Backflop! Happened in Spring 1981

SFU had a large aquatic centre right in between the bus loop and Louis Riel House where we lived with our parents. My brother and I would often go there to swim and to dive off the large diving board that they had. There was a separate diving tank where all the diving boards were. This special pool was very deep – almost 20 feet, to provide adequate safety to divers using the very large towers. The pool had a 1 metre, and 3 metre spring board on one end of the tank, and on the other end of the tank were the massive 7 metre and 10 metre diving towers. Surprisingly, there were no restriction on who could use these boards – another fact that I am certain would not be the case today.  I remember thinking that I could not imagine how anyone could be brave enough to jump from such a height, let alone dive.

When we first started using the pool, my brother and I were quite happy to limit ourselves to the 1 metre board, doing all kind of different dives and backflips. We did manage to do a few bellyflops, which hurt like hell and deterred us from even attempting to use the higher boards. The massive towers were completely out of the question of course, and we could not possibly imagine who could jump, let alone dive from such a height.

Then one day, brotherly competitive spirit being what it is, my brother decides to start jumping off the 3 metre board. Of course, not wanting to be left behind, I went to the diving board to jump. I ascended the ladder and walked with trepidation to the edge of the board. As I reached the edge, I froze in fear: It felt like I was 20 feet up. The waters of the 16-foot diving tank were crystal clear, and you could see to the bottom of the pool. This gave the illusion that you were really higher off the ground than you were when you stood on the diving board looking down. My brother had to continually reassure me of this before I felt comfortable enough to jump – holding my nose. When I jumped, the descent was fast and very exhilarating – like nothing I had felt before. I did not take long for me to become hooked on the feeling, and soon my brother and I were jumping off the 3 metre board only, to the complete exclusion of the 1 metre board.

But soon we got tired of this, as it just didn’t feel that exciting anymore. So again my brother took the lead and began to dive. He managed to make many successful dives before I could even work up the courage to attempt mine. However, I eventually did find the courage to attempt a dive. I positioned myself at the end of the board, stretched my arms out in front of my head and pointed my hands straight out. With a sharp thrust from my toes, I was off. I glided through the air for a few seconds before slicing through the water. It felt amazing! I was so pleased with myself for being able to complete this dive. I just had to try it again, and again.

Eventually the novelty of this board too wore off and it wasn’t long before my brother had his sights on the lower of the two diving towers: the 7 metre tower. Again, I did not want to be left behind and after watching my brother complete several jumps, I made a successful attempt after promising myself not to look down. The feeling of free-falling through the air was jut incredible and soon, we were doing jumps from the 10 metre tower as well. Eventually, the fear of heights started to dissipate as we completed more and more successful jumps. I started looking down, and I started wondering what it would be like to dive.

So one day, I decided to try a dive from the 7 metre tower. I placed myself in the same position and stance as on the 3 metre board, took a deep breath and thrust myself off. I sliced cleanly through the water as before, much to the amazement of a growing group of spectators, which consisted mainly of the men’s swim team. I was hooked on the feeling, and every day when I went to the pool I would attempt several dives. My brother eventually dove as well and it wasn’t long before I was regularly diving from the 10 metre board. I found the stationary dives harder to judge, so eventually, I started running off the board and getting into diving position just as I was reaching the edge. This helped ensure that I would fall in a way that would allow me to slice through the water. Occasionally though, I would still dive from a standing position at the edge of the board. I continued to dive alone, long after my brother had stopped coming to the pool with me, and I really enjoyed it – partly for the exhilaration of the dive and if I’m being completely honest, partly for the attention, which I got a considerable amount of. I must have completed over 100 successful dives, when one day I told mom that I wanted to show her my dive.

She came with me to the pool and waited anxiously for me on the wooden bleachers as I changed and emerged from the pool entrance. I made my way over to the tower and climbed up to the 10 metre tower. The men’s swim team was practicing in the main pool and their captain Roscoe waved to me and I waved back. I made my way confidently to the edge as I prepared for a stationary dive. I positioned exactly as I had so many times before and thrust off. Immediately I knew something was horribly wrong. Instead of falling outward toward the water, my body rotated around so that I was now facing the ceiling and falling straight down. I felt like I was falling for an eternity. I knew it was going to hurt – I just didn’t know how bad. Eventually I hit the water with a very loud crack. The pain that shot through my body was overwhelming and I was overcome and in tears as I gently swam to the ladder and hauled myself out of the pool. Roscoe and a couple of the other members of the swim came to see if I was okay and to help me over to where mom was sitting. She tried to comfort me and assure me that she would come and watch me the next time. Eventually the pain had subsided enough for me to leave the poolside and descend into the change room.

I had a bruise that extended all the way up the side of my right leg up to my waist and it took almost two weeks for it to go away. I went back to the pool again within a few days much to Roscoe’s surprise, and was told by him that I was the bravest little guy he’d ever seen, which was some consolation I suppose. I continued to do jumps from the towers, but I could never bring myself to attempt a dive ever again. Years later in 1983, when we moved to Perth Australia, we went to a community pool that had these same towers. I was able to jump, but again, could never bring myself to reattempt the dives.

Again, I would doubt that 9 year old kids would be permitted to use those towers these days. 

Postscript to These Next Three Stories

The reason for including the first story, Stamps in this book should by now be self-evident: most of us on the spectrum have things that we are passionate about and tend to obsess over. This story was told to explain the origins of my obsession of choice, while at the same time making no apologies for it.

The next two stories at first appear to be similar, but they are different in several important ways. In The Snowball, similarly to Arrested!, I am so desperate not to risk losing the acceptance of my friends, that I am willing to go along with a course of action that I know is wrong. I knew that it was wrong to hoist that large snowboulder off the roof of a nine storey building. I did not know exactly why it was wrong, but I knew we would be in trouble if we got caught by our parents. This goes against a commonly held perception that many people have of us, in which they assume that we are incapable of willfully breaking the rules, or at least doing so because we value our relations with others over compliance. In actual fact, we value our relationships with others just as much as other Neurotypicals do, and I may boldly suggest that in some cases actually more, for we know how difficult that acceptance is to obtain in the first place. So we are very careful not to lose it from those whose opinion we value.

On the other hand, in The Cutting Board, the story is about an actual accident, rather than a willful act. Fortunately for me at the time, David was not the sort of lad to shy away from facing responsibility for his actions. So that when we discussed what to do after we heard the cutting board fall out the window, we both came to the conclusion that we needed to head down to the courtyard to take responsibility. There isn't really anything specifically Aspie about this story. I have included it simply because it was interesting and there will be other stories that collectively show that my behavior was not always that different from other people. David was one of several connections I made while I lived in Hong Kong that allowed me to forget, even if for just one night, that I was different. David did not treat me as though I was different. Unfortunately it would be the briefest of friendships, lasting only 1 day. However, I would go on to form other friendships that would last for two years or more, and would have last much longer had I grown up in today's world where long-distance communication in cheap and easy. In those days - the days before Skype, Facetime and unlimited long-distance plans, potential life-long friendships were often lost due to the inability to stay in touch easily. At that age we were too lazy to write letters, so when one of us moved away, as was inevitable in the ex-pat community, those friendships simply faded into obscurity, like ghost towns.

Today, thanks to Facebook, it has been possible to re-kindle some of those friendships, though in most cases, they would never be what they once were.