He said Hi what’s your name?

This is the optometrist.

Ophthalmologist. And I thought that this was peculiar because after all we didnt just wander in off the street. My mother had called and made an appointment. So I knew that the whole thing was completely bogus from the get-go but I told him my name and I asked him who it was that he was expecting.

What did he say?

He didnt say anything. People dont listen to four year olds. He looked at my mother and smiled but it was a fishy sort of a smile and I was wishing I could just get the hell out of there.

You thought that he should know who you were because your mother had made an appointment with him.

Yes.

And he thought there was something unusual about you.

Well. The conversation sort of deteriorated. But yes. He thought there was something wrong with me.

Was that the first time you had had a sense of that?

No. It was just the first time anyone told my mother.

What did he tell her?

I dont know. Nothing good.

Did your mother say anything about it?

She said that I was rude to the doctor. After we got in the car. She used to tell me that I needed to have my head examined. But it was just a sort of family expression. What it really meant was that I dont agree with you. But now she said that we were going to. Get it examined. She was upset.

Because of your rudeness to the doctor?

She thought he actually knew what he was talking about. I dont know why. He was a bloody ophthalmologist. But when we left I could see that she was worried. About herself mostly, I suppose. I suppose she could see herself saddled with a child who was both blind and crazy.

You thought all this?

I thought most of it. You reflect with an older mind. But the ideas are still there. Memory has substance. It’s not nothing.

She took you to a psychiatrist.

A psychologist actually.

And what happened?

Nothing happened. I was four years old. Hard to diagnose mental disorders in four year olds.

Was this a difficult time for you?

No. Just for them. I loved my grandmother. I used to sit in the kitchen in the morning while she made biscuits. She would roll them out with a marble rollingpin and I would sit there and draw and color. I loved the winters. There would be snow on the ground and a fire in the stove.

Where was your father all this time?

My father was in the South Pacific blowing things up.

You were diagnosed as autistic by more than one analyst. Before it was well understood. Well, before it was understood at all. Because of course it’s still not understood.