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with me. I feel trapped. He is my boss. He can tell me what to do, but only at work. It feels wrong to hear his voice on the phone at home.
    “I—I did not expect you to call,” I say.
    “I know,” he says. “I called you at home because I needed to talk to you away from the office.”
    My stomach feels tight.“For what reason?” I ask.
    “Lou, you need to know before Mr. Crenshaw calls you all in. There’s an experimental treatment that may reverse adult autism.”
    “I know,” I say. “I heard about it. They have tried it on apes.”
    “Yes. But what’s in the journal is over a year old; there’s been… progress. Our company bought out the research. Crenshaw wants all of you to try the new treatment. I don’t agree with him. I think it is too early, and I think he is wrong to ask you. At least it should be your choice; no one should pressure you.
    But he is my boss, and I can’t keep him from talking to you about it.”
    If he cannot help, why is he calling? Is this one of those maneuvers I have read about normal people doing when they want sympathy for doing wrong because they could not help it?
    “I want to help you,” he says. I remember my parents saying that wanting to do something was not the same thing as doing… that trying was not the same thing as doing. Why doesn’t he say, “I will help you,”
    instead?
    “I think you need an advocate,” he says.“Someone to help you negotiate with Crenshaw.Someone better than me. I can find that person for you.”
    I think he does not want to be our advocate. I think he is afraid Crenshaw will fire him. This is Page 29

    reasonable. Crenshaw could fire any of us. I struggle with my stubborn tongue to get the words out.
    “Shouldn’t… wouldn’t it… I think… I thinkI— we—should find our own person.”
    “Can you?” he asks. I hear the doubt in his voice. Once I would have heard only something other than happiness and I would have been afraid he was angry with me. I am glad not to be like that anymore. I wonder why he has thatdoubt, since he knows the kind of work we can do and knows I live independently.
    “I can go to the Center,” I say.
    “Maybe that would be better,” he says. A noise starts at his end of the telephone; his voice speaks, but I think it is not for me. “Turn that down; I’m on the phone.” I hear another voice, an unhappy voice, but I can’t hear the words clearly. Then Mr. Aldrin’s voice, louder, in my ear: “Lou, if you have any trouble finding someone… if you want me to help, please let me know. I want the best for you; you know that.”
    I do not know that. I know that Mr. Aldrin has been our manager and he has always been pleasant and patient with us and he has provided things for us that make our work easier, but I do not know that he wants the best for us. How would he know what that is? Would he want me to marry Marjory? What does he know of any of us outside work?
    “Thank you,” Isay, a safe conventional thing to say at almost any occasion. Dr. Fornum would be proud.
    “Right, then,” he says. I try not to let my mind tangle on those words that have no meaning inthemselves at this time. It is a conventional thing to say; he is coming to the end of the conversation. “Call me if you need any help. Let me give you my home number…” He rattles off a number; my phone system captures it, though I will not forget. Numbers are easy and this one is especially so, being a series of primes, though he probably has never noticed it. “Good-bye, Lou,” he says at the end. “Try not to worry.”
    Trying is not doing. I say good-bye, hang up the phone, and return to my noodles, now slightly soggy. I do not mind soggy noodles; they are soft and soothing. Most people do not like peanut butter on noodles, but I do.
    I think about Mr. Crenshaw wanting us to take the treatment. I do not think he can make us do that.
    There are laws about us and medical research. I do not know exactly what the laws say,