The Bone Man
John L. Waters
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The Bone Man
John L. Waters
Submitted as Paper Number Two to Jerry Martien
For English 499
September 24, 2000 and
Revised October 9, 2000
Copyright 2000 by John L. Waters. All Rights
Reserved
Joe's childhood development wasn't normal. He rarely
remembered in detail what he'd seen. He could only
look at an object with one eye at a time. He had no
depth perception. For Joe, seeing was a strain and an
effort. As Joe got older, seeing became more
difficult for him.
Joe could hear, but what he'd heard was soon
forgotten, unless he wrote it down again and again or
spoke it repeatedly. His memory was mainly
skeleto-muscular. To some people, Joe seemed really
stupid.
As a student in elementary school, Joe presented a
mystery. He often performed well in written work.
But sometimes he didn't perform at all. Joe often
stayed home. School was very stressful for him. Some
teachers and many of the children expected way too
much from Joe.
Joe also had autism. Joe's autism made him unable to
communicate effectively with his peers who used
gestures, facial expressions, voice modulations, eye
movements and his hands to imitate the movements other
children made. This handicap made some children so
uncomfortable they picked on Joe. Most children just
paid no attention to him. The young man was
accustomed to being ignored.
Joe did listen and talk. But when people talked at a
normal pace, Joe couldn't process all the words and so
he just couldn't follow a conversation. And when Joe
spoke, he spoke slowly and sometimes people were
annoyed by this. Perhaps they thought Joe was talking
down to them. People didn't understand Joe's
handicaps and most people just didn't care.
Joe had an inner escape route from the world of
callous and cruel "sociable" people. When life got
too stressful, Joe withdrew into his own realm. He
was highly responsive to auditory and visual
stimulation, as well as to skeletomuscular
stimulation. Joe would look at a scene or an object
intently for a long time, with a blank expression on
his face. Or Joe would play the same phonograph
record over and over. Whenever there was a hard
rainstorm, Joe would spend hours outdoors just walking
around and listening to the sound of the rain. His
family was tolerant. For Joe, home was a sanctuary.
Other places were not so safe for the boy. Joe's
handicap made him vulnerable.
Joe's major gift of birth was skeleto-muscular. He
rocked himself, swung himself, twiddled his fingers
and spoke nonsensical words and phrases. Joe repeated
these movements, sometimes for hours at a time.
At home Joe rocked on his bed from three in the
morning until about seven in the morning, before the
rest of the family was awake. And Joe hummed little
tunes to himself. He really had a singing heart.
Joe spent a lot of time with animals. From the age of
three he enjoyed watching spiders and handling them.
Joe also handled worms, beetles, and grasshoppers a
lot every day. For hours each day Joe wandered about
in the garden, touching and examining twigs, leaves,
branches, flowers, and critters. The animals, too,
had a healthy kinesthetic sense, and so Joe
communicated effectively with them. But children
didn't let Joe touch them. And some children were
mean to Joe. This meanness in people made them very
difficult for Joe to understand and regard in a
positive way.
Joe grew to be a man who felt all the needs of
manhood. In college Joe expressed a talent in
science, in language, and in mathematics, but mainly
in his written work. Sociable people dismissed Joe as
stupid and inept; a simple bore. But in some school
classes Joe ranked in the top five percent. So
really, Joe was an enigmatic young man. He baffled
even smart people.
No teacher or doctor really paid special attention to
Joe, and his autism was never medically diagnosed.
This was partly because Joe was born in 1939, five
years before any doctor had ever used the word. And
it wasn't until 1979 that "autism" became a really
familiar word in homes and in schools. That was the
year the popular book "Sonrise", about a severely
autistic boy, was published. But Joe not only had
autism, he also had an eyesight handicap which
glasses couldn't correct. And Joe had metabolic
difficulties and other chronic physical problems. And
Joe's family was poor. So he wasn't seen by any
specialist who could help him get better.
As an adult out of school Joe's problems worsened.
People expected Joe to be a normal man. But autistic
people truly are handicapped. And after 1968 Joe just
couldn't hold a job and support his wife and son. He
couldn't find an employer who would hire him. Work
environments tended to be much too social and too
stressful. At work people expected Joe to be a
lively, talkative extravert and a good joker. But
this was far beyond his ability. So there was nothing
Joe could do but withdraw. People just didn't
understand his handicap.
Gradually Joe's physical pain and weakness increased.
By 1978 he was desperate and confused. By then he was
getting one hour of free psychotherapy twice a month.
But psychotherapy doesn't treat physical illnesses.
Joe began to focus on his own inner intelligence and
knowledge. He began looking into medical books and
other books. Joe let his body lead him into an
unconventional bright new world of spontaneous natural
movement, therapy and potency.
This healing treatment didn't make Joe into a carbon
copy of Charles Atlas, Mickey Mantle, Frank Sinatra,
Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, or John F.
Kennedy. Joe's not the ideal mate, scholar, or
teacher. But the treatment did amazingly improve
Joe's physical health and mental health. For example,
in 1980 Joe often went into town and talked with
people he'd never met before. Joe could go all day
without eating. His mood was elevated. He no longer
had fits of destructive rage. His arthritis,
bursitis, fainting spells, nosebleeds, and irregular
heartbeat vanished. The cure seemed miraculous.
Skeleto-muscular intelligence is a prenatal,
preverbal, precultural proto-hominid intelligence
which many autistic children exhibit. But
skeleto-muscular giftedness isn't emphasized as much
as the verbal gift which impresses so many people.
And most autistic people don't discover the energy Joe
discovered and used to become more articulate, more
healthy, and more mentally and physically integrated.
Joe was unusually fortunate. And for decades, Joe was
kept in a sheltered environment at home where he lived
with a number of unusually patient and good people.
If Joe had been your son
What would you have done?
10:30PM Sunday, September 24, 2000
John L. Waters
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