I Think You're Right
A Parenthood One-shot fanfic by SJO
Note: Parenthood is owned by NBC Universal, not me. This is the moment I was hoping to see the most this past season, and it didn't happen. It might happen next season, if we get one, but here's how I'd write it.
"What were you doing at Dr. Pelikan's?"
Max asked Hank this while working on some photography project at his studio. He didn't make eye contact. Hank ran into him at the end of his session in the waiting room. He put on a smile and greeted the kid, but Max plainly looked confused, and kept asking, "Hank? What are you doing here?" His parents just ushered him into the room.
Hank knew this conversation was coming, and he knew it was going to be awkward. He tried to dodge the issue. "Sorry?"
"What were you doing at Dr. Pelikan's? He won't tell me. I asked him, and he said something stupid about 'patient confidentiality.'"
"Well, you know, he has to do that 'cause some people don't want everyone to know about everything. Some things they wanna keep secret."
"Well, that's stupid 'cause people shouldn't hide things. Besides, we're friends, and friends don't keep secrets from each other. You'd be a bad friend if you kept this a secret."
"Alright, alright. Well, I don't wanna be a bad friend. OK, here's the thing—Dr. Pelikan is, like, one of the smartest people in the world, I mean, crazy-smart, and all kinds of people all around come to him to ask him questions. And I've been having a lot of questions lately about certain . . . situations I don't really wanna talk about right now, so that's why I went to him, so I could talk to him about—"
"Do you have Asperger's?"
Hank really hoped the kid wouldn't go there, but he wasn't surprised. He sighed. "Why would you say that, Max?"
"'Cause Dr. Pelikan works with people with Asperger's. He's the world expert. So, if you're going to him, it's gotta be because you have Asperger's. Do you have Asperger's?"
"Here's the thing—I don't know for sure. Not even Dr. Pelikan can tell me. But as I got to know you, I learned more about this thing. And your dad let me borrow one of his books, but when I read it, I didn't see you, I saw me. But Dr. Pelikan won't diagnose me; he said it was too close to call. So I don't know. I don't know if I'll ever know, but . . . I think I do. I really think I do." There was a long pause while Hank waited for Max to react, but he kept working. So he prompted him. "Max? What do you think?"
"I think you're right."
Hank wasn't expecting that. "Really!"
"You do things that I haven't seen anyone else but me do, like perseverating."
"Oh yeah, that thing with the long name."
"And sometimes you stim, I noticed, like tapping your pencil and—"
"Yeah, I do that. Right."
"But you do a lot of things that I don't. Like you keep asking people how they feel, and I don't know how they feel, and I don't really know how it matters."
"Right. Yeah, I know we're not quite the same, and I asked Dr. Pelikan about that one time. He told me, 'Well, if you've met one person with Asperger's, you've met one person with Asperger's.'"
"That doesn't make any sense. As a sentence, that's completely null."
"Yeah, I know, but I think it means we're all individuals. There's no cookie cutter with autism."
"See, that's another thing you do that I don't; you use metaphors. What does autism have to do with cookies?"
"Yeah, well, when you use a cookie cutter, like one shaped like a star, ever cookie you make looks like a star. You don't get any triangles. You don't get any circles, just stars. Well, people aren't like that. We're not all the same; everybody's different, and that doesn't change even with autism and Asperger's. We're all different people. We like different things. We dislike different things, and we're not the same."
Max looked a little confused but answered with a tone that sounded like that should be obvious, "Well . . . yeah."
Hank nodded. "Yeah. Hey, can I ask you something? Do you mind? What were you doing at Dr. Pelikan's?"
"Some kids at school—"
"Oh, right! The canteen thing. Yeah, I heard about that. You aunt said something about it one time."
"Mom and Dad thought it would help if I talked to Dr. Pelikan about it."
"Did it?"
"No. He couldn't make the kids stop being mean."
"Yeah. I know how it's like. You know, when I was your age, I felt very alone. I felt like there was nobody like me, and there were a lot of mean kids who did awesome stuff to me too."
"Like what?"
"Well, they called me names and . . . I don't really wanna talk about it. But I did some things I'm not really proud of, thinking back on it, just to be accepted, just to be cool."
"Did it work?"
"Yeah, it kinda did, but still it's not stuff I'd recommend. You know, coolness is overrated. But you know what, Max? I don't want that to happen to you. I don't want you to ever feel alone. So, you know, if anything like this happens again, just know you can talk to me about it. You know, I like you the way you are. I mean, obviously, you can work on some things. Me too, nobody's perfect. But I think . . . you're good, and I think we should look out for each other and support each other, you know, since we're both 'aspies.'" He didn't like that word, but he couldn't think of another way to say it.
"OK."
That wasn't the response he was looking for either. "Max, what do you think about that?"
"It's fine. I can do that."
He knew he wasn't going to get anything else out of the kid. "OK. Well, tell me when you're done." He started to go elsewhere to do something else.
"Hank?"
"Yeah, Max?"
"I don't ever feel alone when I'm here."
Hank smiled. "That's good. I guess I've done something right. Yeah."
"Yeah," Max said at the same time.