Look Me in the Eye by Justin Ho

Bibliography

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-02-05 21:20:02 UTC

Robinson, John Elder. Look Me in the Eye My Life with Asperger's. Crown Publisher, 2007.

Young Death

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-02-06 18:48:05 UTC

As a child, John made his first friend with a kid named Doug when he was three years old. John would often kick him around, yell at him, and overall just bully him because he played with his toys "wrong." As someone with Asperger's, John never really saw other persepectives or realized there was more than one way of doing things, particularly playing with toys. He always tried to look at things logically and assumed that most problems don't have more than one solution. In the spring Doug "moved to Montana," when in reality he died. He fell and drowned in an irrigation ditch only six inches deep. No one ever told John until he grew up.

Rejected

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-28 04:58:53 UTC

John keeps trying to talk with Chuckie, a girl who seems to be the only one with similarities to him. He tries many times to be friends with her but all of them fail. All of these are due to a lack of empathy, like before, and is a result of his autism. He tried to pet her like a dog as it’s what he did to dogs to make “friends” with them. He didn't consider the possibility that humans responds differently than animals. He tried to show her the “right” way to play with a toy truck, without realizing there is more than one way to play with it. He talked about how much he liked dinosaurs and how cool they were without asking anything about her.

Quote 1

"People with Asperger's or autism often lack the feelings of empathy that naturally guide most people in their interactions with others. That's why it never occurred to me that Chuckie might not respond to petting in the same way a dog would." (11)

Learning

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-28 05:13:45 UTC

When John became nine years old, he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he made a few revelations. He learned how to at least somewhat properly interact with people and make friends. He understood that, no matter what was on his mind, people expected answers relevant to the conversation. People didn't want answers coming from no prior questions or statements. They didn't like it when people only thought about themselves.

Quote 2

"I figured out how to talk to other children. I sudden realized that when a kid said, 'Look at my Tonka truck,' he expected an answer that made sense in the context of what he had said...I was so used to living inside my own world that I answered with whatever I had been thinking. If I remembered riding a horse at the fair, it didn't matter if a kid came up to me and said, 'Look at my truck!' or 'My mom is in the hospital!' I was still going to answer, 'I rode a horse at the fair.'" (20)

Permanent Playmate

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-28 05:19:30 UTC

John’s mother gets pregnant and gives birth to Christopher Richter Robison. He was excited about him because now he would have a “permanent playmate.” He gives his brother the first nickname he gives anyone, and names him Snort. He would continue to use this name despite intervention from his parents, until his brother outgrew the name. At this point his father is also drinking and becoming more aggressive.

The Nightmare Years

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:18:34 UTC

John's family moves to Shutesbury, Massachusetts. During his time there is what John calls, “The Nightmare Years.” His father began drinking more, to the point where he’s drinking multiple whole gallon jugs. He even shook John and threw him into a wall because he was “too noisy,” while walking by his dad at the dinner table. Sometimes his father would whip him so hard with the belt that he might’ve killed John if he wasn’t drunk and out of shape. His mother was also not doing the best. She was slowly sliding into madness, seeing things like demons and ghosts. This slow drift into being insane is what caused her to eventually being sent to the Northampton State Hospital, deemed as a patient that was crazy.

Quote 3

"He had always been quick to spank me, but as his drinking increased, he turned meaner and nastier. He became dangerous. Shortly before we moved from Hadley, my father was sitting at the dining table drinking. I walked by him, and I guess I was too noisy, because he grabbed me, shook me violently, and then slammed me into the wall so hard I fractured the plaster." (51)

Dr. Finch

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:18:53 UTC

When John became 13, his whole family went to Dr. Finch, who was a therapist. John's grandfather always said to watch out for him because of all the rumors surrounding him. Despite this, Dr. Finch's suggestions actually stuck with them, and John’s father never hit him again after that day. John doesn't know to this day what he did to make this happen. As someone with Asperger's, John always gave his own names to people and other things. He had already named his brother Snort, and now he named his mother Slave and his father Stupid. His family also grew closer to Finch’s, getting to know each other more.

Little Bear

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:19:28 UTC

Recently, John's mom had a psychotic break. As a distraction, John hanged around the audiovisual room, learning how things work and how to fix them. Before this, he had been fixing things like guitars and amplifiers for local musicians. He even made new things and special effects like flangers and echo delays. In this room, John meets his first wife, Mary Trompke. They would talk and sit with each other very often, even fixing things like tape recorders, and at the end of the day John would walk her home. Mary was a lot like John, with a drunk father and a bad childhood. He nicknamed her Little Bear.

Quote 4

"Another thing I found in the AV room was the girl who became my first wife. Mary Trompke was another shy, damaged kid like me...I named her Little Bear. Her mother called her Mary Lee--Lee being her middle name--or Baby Daughter, but those names would never do for me. For some reason, I have always had a problem with names. For people that are close to me, for example, I must name them myself." (67)

Prankster

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:20:12 UTC

John hangs a fake body on a steel high-tension tower with tar and a burning pentagram as a prank and waits for people to come. It takes a while, so he calls the police to report the hanging. One police officer came, then called another one, and then they called the fire department and now had over 20 people around the body. They also called the power line company to turn off the wires and get the body down, as well as an ambulance. This was perhaps the start of John's long line of many pranks.

Dropout Graduate

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:20:32 UTC

John had always gotten into a lot of trouble at school because he doesn't look people in the eyes, gazed off into the distance, and did back and forth movements such as head bobbing. All of these were a result of his autism and probably ADHD, and have persisted throughout all of his life. His school offered him an opportunity to take the GED to get treated as a graduate and be able to leave because he was that “bad.” Back then, schools had no supportive services or people to diagnose people like John. The vision of autism was much worse than it often was, when in reality most autistic people are like John and sometimes can even go completely unnoticeable, even today.

Quote 5

"Rather than take a close and sympathetic look at me, it proved easier and less controversial for the professionals to say I was just lazy, or angry, or defiant. But none of those words led to a solution for my problems...I was just fifteen, and it was against the law to quit school before the age of sixteen. The school had such a strong desire to be rid of me that they stepped up to the plate with a solution. 'If you take the GED and score at least seventy-five percent, we'll treat you as a graduate and you can leave.'" (90)

Jim Boughton

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:21:30 UTC

John made a friend named Jim Boughton that has similar interests to him and whose family is rich. One day, Jim shows off his new blast furnaces and they spend the day burning molten metal and pouring it into molds. Jim shared John's appreciation for machines and how they worked, knowing the ins and outs of a lot of them.

Quote 6

"Visiting my friend Jim Boughton's house was another of my escapes. We had similar interests, Jim and I. Rocketry. High-powered electricity. Explosives. Motorcycles. Fast cars...'That's my new furnace,' he said proudly. Another eighteen-year-old would have shown off his new car, or his new guitar, or his new camera. Jim showed off his new blast furnace. He had built the whole thing himself, right there in the shed." (102)

Fat

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:21:49 UTC

John joined a band called Fat after he had been helping them, and other musicians, get better music and sound quality with the use of technology. He was offered a place to stay with them, after he moved out of his parents’ house, along with $80 a week to help them. They went on a vacation to Montserrat, where the local police showed up for a drug bust. They all got arrested but one of the band members was able to bail them out, and once they returned home John left soon after.

Reunion

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:22:06 UTC

John meets up with his girlfriend Little Bear at a university after they had broken up because of the dirty rumors her friends had told her about him. He later got hired by Britannia Row Audio to fix and improve their amplifiers. Then they went around the country fixing bands’ audio and it was one of the happiest times of his life.

Quote 7

"That March, a long dark period of loneliness came to an end when I ran into Little Bear at the University one day. I was amazed to find that she was now a student there. We had not spoken in a very long time, but we reconnected right away...I got another big break two months later: a job with a national sound company. One with big equipment. The kind used in stadiums, not barrooms. The first to hire me was Britannia Row Audio, the sound company that Pink Floyd had formed to rent out their equipment when they were not on tour." (125)

KISS

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:22:22 UTC

John eventually ends up working for KISS fixing some of their sound stages. He gets tasked to build a guitar that had smoke and lights coming out for Ace Frehley. It was his first time doing special effects work, so he consults a few people including Jim and Little Bear. His guitar was the first smoking guitar in the world for one of the most popular bands and was first played during the song "2000 Man." He ended up creating many more special guitars and effects for KISS. His brother, now nicknamed Varmint, also drops out around this time.

Living the Big Life, in the Gutter

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:23:07 UTC

The Return of KISS tour in 1979, starting on June 15. This tour, KISS would be using all new equipment, all of which John had to design. He worked day and night to get it working, and when he did, everyone loved it. As it gets closer to the KISS concert, John gets more and more anxious. Once it starts, everything works. It’s the first time everyone has loved John, or at least the first time he's ever felt this way. Ace tells him to make more guitars with even more insane ideas. John gets pressured by everybody to hook up with girls, do drugs, and drink liquor, but he doesn't want to do that anymore. Everything else was great until the rocket guitar accidentally hit the smoker and caused a riot.

Out of the Gutter

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:23:22 UTC

When John wasn’t doing KISS events, he was broke. His family wasn’t doing good at all. He moved in with Little Bear who was going to UMass, who was also living with two roommates. With Jim, John gets a “job” installing light and sound systems at nightclubs. Eventually, John gets an actual job as an electrical engineer for an R&D group. He works for Milton Bradley, a company that makes games like Dark Tower and Operation. He created most of the sound technology for those games. There he makes a friend named Bob Jeffway, who’s also a lot like him. Just from that first week he works, he decides he’s never going to “work in the gutter” ever again.

Hard Marriage

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:23:49 UTC

John got married to Little Bear in the summer of 1982 when John was 25. However, many bad things began to cascade down shortly after. John got laid off from Simplex, and as the only moneymaker while Little Bear was going to university, this was not great. Little Bear’s little brother, Paul, also got into a car crash, which caused them to drift apart. By 1988, he had gotten 3 more jobs and was sick of all the constant criticism of his autistic qualities. He also came down with asthma and had asthma attacks frequently.

Cubby

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:24:09 UTC

In 1990, John gets a son named Jack who he nicknames Bear Cub, Cubby for short. Little Bear and John haven’t had the best relationship since Paul’s death, so he thinks the kid will change that. After Cubby is born, all of their parents and step-parents come see the baby. John teaches Cubby his ways and likes to trick him like he did his brother, but didn’t work quite as well as he grew older. He taught Cubby how to be more “normal” as he was probably like him, and he didn’t know this at the time but Cubby was also autistic. He gets Cubby interested in machines and trains, like John himself.

Diagnosis

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:24:30 UTC

At forty years old, John makes friends with a therapist named TR Rosenberg. Over time, TR notices some things about John but doesn't decide to tell him about it yet. Eventually, TR tells John that he likely has Asperger’s syndrome. He shows him a book of the criteria and symptoms of having Asperger's, and it fits John perfectly. John contemplates what life would’ve been like, and probably how much better it would have been, if he had been diagnosed at an earlier age.

Quote 8

"Over the years, TR had noticed certain odd things about me, but he never said anything. One day, having known me about ten years, he decided to tell me about his observations...One day he said,'Therapists learn not to analyze their friends if they want to have friends. But there is a condition in this book that fits you to a T. I'd like you to read this and see what you think.' And he handed me a book: Asperger's Syndrome, by Tony Attwood." (235)

Divorce

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:25:15 UTC

After drifting apart for many years, Little Bear and John got divorced. John got remarried to someone named Martha. Martha made life the best it’s ever been for John and was very fulfilling, something he didn’t find much with Little Bear. Martha knows how to read John really well, even though he doesn’t display much emotion.

Quote 9

"I liked the fact that she paid close attention to me and was always kind. She never seemed to get tired of me. It seemed like a good match. With the passage of time, I began to feel good about my choice. I think she did, too, because she stuck around. Now that she's here, life is the best it's ever been for me. There is a joy and tranquility that I never experienced before." (248)

Death of the Cycle

hojus000_2_1 — 2024-03-31 05:26:08 UTC

John's dad gets bitten by a brown recluse spider that gives him a nasty infection and sends him to the hospital. A little bit later, he also falls down some stairs and has to go to the hospital again, for longer this time. His father's internal organs, due to drinking and smoking so much, weren't in great shape. He was going to die soon. He wanted to die in his own home on his own bed, so he got to go home. He got to reminisce with John on all the good times he actually had with him, despite all the bad ones. He dies at 2:30 PM while John is at work.

Quote 10

"As he told his stories, things I had forgotten for almost fifty years suddenly came into focus, clear as day. I remembered the spring I learned to ride a two-wheel bike on the paved walkways outside the Cathedral of learning in Pittsburgh." (276)

"There had been fun times, after all. When we left that day, he could see I was sad. He smiled and patted me on the head and said not to worry about him. He said he would be okay, but inside I knew he wouldn't. I wished I were small again." (277)

"In place of my father, I have my memories. For so many years, I could not recall anything about him except the bad and the ugly. Now stories and memories that were lost to me for thirty years have taken on life. I hope they stay." (280)