Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Mainstream
Publisher: Self via Createspace and Amazon
ISBN-10: 1546461191
Type: Fiction
Pages: 240
Copyright: July 19, 2017
ISBN-13: 9781546461197
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Just Finn is about a brilliant autistic young man that goes out into the world, alone on his 18th birthday to find a better life.
Meet Finnegan MacManus, or just “Finn” as he prefers to be called. His life began when he was 18 years old. He was born 18 years earlier, but he had never truly lived. Since birth he had been different and his parents were indifferent toward him. His mother never bonded with her infant son. He never cried or smiled. As he got older he would scream and throw his arms around when something did not go his way. And nothing ever went his way. The world was a series of confusing sounds, uncomfortable situations, unbearable textures and complete chaos. His father could barely stand the sight of his son and as a young boy he was sent to hospitals and group homes for the mentally disabled. He spent his childhood between strangers and a house of strangers.
In the midst of a panic attack Finn runs into a diner where he will meet a man that will change his life forever. Finn had gone from institutions and his dysfunctional family home to a homeless shelter, but that would soon be his past as he begins to build a life, step by step, one day at a time. He learns that he is not mentally disabled and fights for a ‘normal’ life. While he cannot change who he is, he finds people that are willing to make his world easier as he slowly adapts to the world around him. He learns that he is autistic but quite gifted. Finn’s life is rapidly changing and his talents are intriguing to intelligence agencies that begin to seek him out. But Finn resists pressure and opts to stick with choices that make him comfortable and he continues to surround himself with people that care for him and have given him a chance at a real life.
Excerpt
“One, two, three, four, three, two, one.” “Heel to toe, heel to toe, heel to toe, heel. And spin left then right, then roll to toe, heel to toe, heel to toe.” Beads of sweat were now forming on Finn’s brow. He had to get the next part perfect or he would have to start from the beginning. “Close eyes. Left hand. Thumb touch index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinkie finger. No mistakes! No mistakes! No mistakes! Now right hand. Thumb touch index, middle, ring and pinkie fingers.” “Got it!” A nervous smile slowly crept on his face. He was almost halfway there. Now he just had to repeat it backwards and he would be at the bathroom door. Once there, it was simple, turn the knob to the right 11 times, taking a step back, returning to door knob and turning knob another 11 times with the opposite hand, which was the right, since he always started with the left hand. Inside the bathroom there was a game of hopscotch the duration of 8 square foot tiles to the sink.
“I have to be at work in 3 hours. No mistakes allowed or I have to start over.” Mornings were the longest part of Finn’s day. They had to start off perfectly. He could only manage a day of uncertainties in the real world if he could shield himself with his carefully structured patterns. The patterns would be effective against accidents, confrontations, and surprises if his ritual included perfectly executed patterns, in precise order. After 18 years between living with his parents and going from group home to group home, he had only ever known chaos, fear, and disruption. The universe had always cloaked him in noise and panic attacks. He was convinced that he was meant to be lost in his own private hell until Dr. Vincenzo threw him a life preserver. They had met at the Hilltop Diner, a greasy burger joint that had been a fixture in Birchwood, New Jersey since 1929. It had been moved and renovated a few times but it maintained its charm and history.
It was October 17, 1986, the day Finn turned 18 and ran as fast as he could to freedom. Freedom that day… looked like a diner. He was compelled to turn away at the door, but he braved the jingle of the bell as he opened the door and the smells of fries, eggs and burgers attacked his senses. By the time he had shut the door behind himself, he was feeling light-headed, and he realized he had been holding his breath after he opened the door and continued to do so. A kaleidoscope of colors and shapes zoomed in and out of his line of sight. The sounds of utensils scraping against vintage ceramic plates, the buzzing of chatter from customers, and the orders being called to and from the grill swirled around his head and made him feel like he would faint. Not that he had ever fainted before, but he felt himself falling away into a safe zone within himself.
“Are you alright, sir? Sir! Let’s get him a seat.” Slowly, things came into focus and Finn found a petite gray-haired waitress hovering over him looking very concerned. She is too close. Too close. “Can you please step back. I am fine. Please step back!” Finn could hear the beat of his own heart pounding in his ears, feel cold sweat running down his back, and his knees shaking so much that they hurt. Every muscle in his body was contracting, his mouth was dryer than a cotton ball, and his breath was shallow and quick. The petite waitress brought him a glass of ice water and he surprised himself by grabbing it and drinking every drop, without any thought of following his usual methods for ingesting any drink that he, himself had not poured. He realized that the diner had become very quiet and all eyes were fixed on his every move. The silence seemed to be relaxing him and he had stopped sweating and shaking. “Thank you. Thank you for the water. The water was good,” he said to the waitress that had already walked away and was tending to one of her tables. Slowly, the diner was coming to life again, but Finn remained still and focused. The ice in the glass had begun to melt and move and crack within the glass. He held up the glass and carefully moved it and swirled the ice around and around. As Finn sat there meticulously playing with his glass of nearly melted ice, he felt he was being watched. He whispered under his breath, “I won’t look up. I will not look up. I must not look up! They will go away if I don’t look. They will go away.” But as Finn soothed himself, his mantra was interrupted by a middle aged stranger wearing a geometric patterned sweater vest. “Hello. Sir, my name is Dr. Massimo Vincenzo.” “Don’t look up! Do not look up!” Finn was feeling very self-conscious. The man was not going away and he had to get rid of him. Should he run? Should he stay, listen, get the uncomfortable conversation out of the way and then go? As if reading his mind, the strange man in the ugly sweater vest said, “I know you probably would prefer to be left alone but I may be able to help you.” Without looking up, Finn replied, “I, I, I don’t, I don’t need help. I do not need help.”
“Here is my card.” The man put a business card in front of Finn. “When you are ready to talk, you call me. Would you please tell me your name?”
Name. Name. Name. “Finn. F-I-N-N. My name is Finn.” And he was suddenly running for the door, with the stranger’s business card crumpled tight in his right fist. He did not notice grabbing the business card, but for some reason he had to have it. He needed it. He wanted it. He could not leave without it.
It took almost 20 years for Finn to break out of the prison his parents and institutions had formed in his mind. He had been without the guidance of Dr. Vincenzo for over ten years now. The doctor had taught him ways to cope with the unfriendly world he had been born into. Where his parents and psychiatrists only sought to hide him within institutions and protect him from ‘normal’ people, Dr. Vincenzo gave him tools to maneuver through his very own mental labyrinth and live within society. Although it was a long, round-about road, lacking many comfort zones, Finn was able to maneuver in the strange world he was born into regardless of the barriers within his own mind, and those his parents enforced and enabled. He kept that crumpled business card in his front, right jeans pocket for two months while he went from a shelter, and cardboard boxes, to a group home. He moved from place to place struggling to find somewhere he might belong. But he was not surviving as well as he would have liked. Freedom was painfully noisy, uncomfortable, and awkward. He fought the urges to rock back and forth, let his arms flail wildly, and talk to himself. He felt like he was fighting the devil himself with a plastic sword. Finn started to wonder if that doctor in the ugly sweater vest could really help him somehow.
“I need to talk to Dr. Vincenzo.” “Are you a current patient, sir?” The woman who answered the phone asked. “I need to talk to the doctor with the sweater vest. He gave me his card. He told me to call him.” There was a long silence, and the woman simply replied, “yes, sir, one moment.” Finn wanted to hang up. “This is dumb. I should not talk to the stranger. I should not have called. I should hang up. I should really hang up. His geometric shapes did not follow a pattern that makes sense. It did not make sense!” But he could not hang up. It had taken two hours for him to find a phone he felt comfortable using. He then had to disinfect it with alcohol swabs he had swiped from a hospital. And he practiced dialing the number to call the doctor exactly 18 times. He had too much time invested to hang up now. But as he waited an unnerving piece of music started playing, letting him know that he was ‘on hold’ and a voice would occasionally come on to let him know how important his call was and that someone would be with him in a few minutes. “I have to wait.”
“Excuse me? Mr. Finn?”
“Finn. Just Finn. No mister.”
“Thank you for being patient, Finn. This is Dr. Vincenzo. I am so glad you finally called me! When can we meet?”
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