Autism Answer: Were We Supposed To? A Story of Rye's Rape

April is both Autism Awareness Month & Sexual Assault Awareness Month - As you know my mom,  Dr. Lynette Louise (aka "The Brain Broad") is an expert in both, and she even has a birthday on World Autism Awareness Day (April 2), but what you probably do not know is that my youngest brother, Rye, is also an expert (albeit, a different kind) in both, and he too has a birthday in April.

Today, April 27th, is Rye's birthday. Happy birthday, little brother!! He will be coming over in the afternoon to use my wifi and to pig out on pie with whipped cream. I'm looking forward to it!

In the meantime, here is an important true story that incorporates both sexual assault awareness and autism awareness. It is not an easy story to read and was far more challenging to live through. But, we did. Because I believe, we are supposed to.

Were We Supposed To?

A Story of Rye's Rape

The camera was on me, the officer was waiting for my reply, I was holding back tears wanting oh so bad to be strong for my brother. This was his hurt, his horrible horrible hurt, the crime committed to him, his body and safety, but in that moment I just couldn’t hold back the pain of my own guilt.

“He wanted to stay at our house, he asked if he could sleep on the couch,” the tears are escaping now, but only such a small percentage, I am able to hold back the neverending flood that pulses behind my eyes and throbs in my head. “I told him to go home, he has his own apartment, I made up something about not wanting to start a habit of him sleeping here at our mom’s house, but the truth is I just didn’t feel like hanging out with him anymore. And then,” I look at the officer, he too wearing a touch of hurt and guilt, and say it: “And then he went home and got raped.”

# # #

It was late but I was still awake. The phone rang and I saw on the caller ID that it was coming from the gas station in town. Rye. 

I considered ignoring it, but that might give him reason to have a temper tantrum in the store which might lead to him not being allowed back there for a while, which would lead to me having to help him more often.

So, I answered.

“Uh, hi,” he stammered, “I was raped. I escaped out the window, he might still be at my apartment.”

Blood left me so fast I nearly passed out. Had I heard him right? “Wait, what Rye? What?”

“Some guy came in my apartment and raped me. He made me go in the shower after so I snuck out the back window and came here to call you, I’m only wearing shorts. I can’t stay.”

“Oh, my god! Rye, really? Oh my god. Okay, are you okay? Did you call the police?” I was trembling now. 

“No. Should I? Am I supposed to?” Rye asked, unsure. He sounded out of breath and scared. 

Am I supposed to? 

“Actually, Rye, let me call my husband and have him pick you up. I’ll call the police. We’ll go from there. Just wait at the gas station. Hold on, the guy that raped you might still be at your house?”

“I don’t know,” Rye admitted, “I just snuck out the back but I think I heard him go out the front door.”

“Okay, you wait there if they’ll let you. Milton will be there soon and I’m going to call the police now. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

We hung up and I called my hubby. We were happily married but living in separate homes. 

“Ya.” He answered.

“Rye was raped in his apartment and is waiting for you at the gas station. Can you go get him? I’ll call the police.” 

I heard my hubby jolt. “Uh, okay. I’ll call you when I’m with him.”

I called the police. A woman answered.

“What’s your emergency?”

“Yes, hi. My brother lives in Teague and someone just broke into his apartment and raped him.”

“What?” she asked.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Someone just raped him and he escaped out his back window. My husband is picking him up from the gas station and will be with him. Can someone go there and, I don’t know, take a report?”

“Yes, we’ll send an officer. What is his address?”

Do I give Rye’s apartment address? Do I send Rye and my hubby back to his place to meet the officer, back where the trauma literally just occurred? But where they may have a better shot of catching the rapist? 

Am I supposed to? 

I give her my brother’s address and call my hubby. 

“How is Rye?”

“He’s here with me. The front door is open, I think the person ran off and left the door open.”

“Can you please stay there with him until the officer arrives? Thank you, and can I talk to Rye?”

So I talked with my brother while he waited to tell the story to the police. I apologized for sending him home, he said it was okay, I apologized that I didn’t have enough gas or gas money to come see him, he said it was okay. He told me what happened and I cried.

A man had knocked on his door, late but not impossibly late. It was only a little after ten PM. Rye opened the door a crack, sort of recognized the guy from here and there, and told him he didn’t have time right now. The guy said something about wanting to see or buy CDs or movies or something, Rye talked for a bit, opened the door wider, and the man pushed his way in, said he had a gun, made Rye lie on his stomach on the bed. Rye couldn’t see a gun but there was something in the man’s pocket,  he couldn’t see the man now, but heard him get a condom. The man raped Rye, my baby brother, who was oh so scared and it hurt, and then told him to shut up and get in the shower. Rye got in the shower and soon, too scared to stay in his apartment, left the shower running and snuck out the back window. 

Then, he phoned his sister. A sister who had told him to go home because she didn’t feel like hanging out with him.

Was I supposed to let him stay that night?

Rye is not diagnosable as autistic anymore, my mom and he have done so much work on his social skills, behaviors, and brain change that he is not considered on the autism spectrum anymore. But he still is a strange, quirky guy. He still struggles with a lower than average IQ, and issues from before my mom adopted him (Fetal Alcohol Syndrom, for example.) He is a guy easily (and often) taken advantage of, largely because he does not want to be cruel and judgmental in the ways so many have been to him. So he is welcoming to strangers at ten o’clock at night.

The police officer took Rye’s statement, and then called me.

“We will take him to Waco for an examination, do you want to come?”

“I want to,” I admitted, “but I don’t have enough gas money.” 

I hoped the officer would offer to pick me up, at which point I would ask my hubby to stay with our sleeping children, but he did not.

“Okay, I’ll have Rye call you when it is all done and I have him back here in Teague.”

I thanked him, I told Rye I love him, I hung up and called mom.

# # #

The police officer nodded in understanding. I looked at him, sitting slightly behind and to the right, my right, of the camera.

“I saw that guy, just some guy, knock on Rye’s door. I was patrolling the block. But I didn’t recognize him. I don’t know who he is.” The officer looked young and a little shaken, but he was mostly professional. I don’t know if he was trying to justify himself to me or give me a story of understanding, so I would not be entirely alone in my guilt. Or maybe he was just talking, thinking out loud, remembering that night.

So many little things that could have changed the story. Why hadn’t I let Rye stay? Why hadn’t we been better at teaching him it’s okay to say no, it isn’t judgmental to say no? Why hadn’t the police officer taken more notice of a man at Rye’s door late at night if he was on patrol?

Was he supposed to?

# # #

I spent the night after Rye’s rape sleeping on Rye’s couch. Rye and I agreed that he wanted to get comfortable in his apartment and so we worked on a plan. I stayed there, visited more often, and remained particularly available to him. He agreed to keep his door locked and just pretend he isn’t home if someone knocks, he listened when I explained why that’s not mean or judgmental, and he has since then done his best to always have a phone so he can call me or our mom in an emergency. He can call the police. 

He still lives in that apartment and he likes his life.

Today is his birthday. 

He is 35. 

Rye comes to visit me most days and we enjoy each other’s company. I help him often with things online, and he helps me sometimes by lending me his car. We are a good team.

And when I visit him he is generally ready for me to leave after about twenty minutes. When he visits me, it’s about the same. 

He goes to his home and I go to mine.

We are a team, but the trauma of his rape did not leave him – or me – dependent or desperate. We have learned ways to stay safer and grown smarter, but we have not given in or given up.

Were we supposed to?

# # #

Me and Rye at my house

Short Story: Clara

Clara 

The first time The Power happened to Clara she was rocking in her chair, tiny toes barely able to touch the ground, dark eyes closed to the mean world. And though The Power built up in her and felt directly connected to her imagination, the imagining of horrible things happening in return to the man who had been hurting her, she hadn’t made The Power happen. The Power happened to her, she was pretty sure of that. Like so many things happened to her.

She hadn’t been rocking in her chair, though, when the news of what The Power had done found her. She had been hiding at the top of the stairs in her dress, little legs hugged to her chest, head down on her knees, the dress hiding as much of her as possible. She was often hiding in her clothes but they had proven to be an easily penetrated fortress. The news of what had happened to her uncle floated up the stairs dressed in her mother’s grieving voice. “He’s lost his ability to move his entire body?! How? How? How did he fall down the stairs? He lives alone for crying out loud! No toys to trip over, no people to push him! He says he was pushed? By who? The ghost of our father? Well, I suppose I wouldn’t put it past him.” And then the sound of grown-up whispers and talk. Clara had stayed at the top of the stairs a little longer before retreating to her bedroom where she stood motionless for a while longer in her doorway, staring at the small rocking chair.

Funny how The Power had found her there, rocking in that new chair. The chair given to her by the man who had been hurting her. “Just for you, because you’re special. I don’t give gifts but you’re so special, Clara.” That had confused her at the time.

Well, now she understood what was special. The Power.

But that was almost two years ago. The Power had found Clara several times since then, always when she was rocking in the chair, and always when she was imagining a scene that returned the hurt to them. She would rock slowly, close her eyes and first remember the things they did that hurt her, and in remembering she would hurt again, but then she would flip the scene and find a way for the hurt to be happening to them. Like how she had imagined her uncle reaching the top of the stairs but instead of him coming to her in her room, she imagined him tripping at the top and falling backwards, falling and banging painfully each step downward, and downward a long way because in her imagination she was enjoying each painful hit and smash on the stairs, and then she imagined him laying at the bottom crying up in pain but no one could hear him – no one would hear him – and she imagined he couldn’t move to defend himself as bugs and worms and parasites and all kind of tiny monsters crawled all over him.

She did that after the other men had hurt her, too. Different accidents, but always ones that returned the hurt and left them feeling trapped in some way.

So far, it had been only men that hurt her. Though when she had reached out to her mom for help, telling her that her uncle touched her button (that’s what she was told the private place nobody was supposed to talk about was called) her mom had laughed and said, “Too bad he doesn’t take care of his own buttons. I end up mending his clothes as well as yours.” So, no ladies had hurt her but they hadn’t helped her either. Only The Power helped when the men hurt her.

Well, no. It hadn’t been only men. Sometimes it was boys that were almost men.

Once she realized The Power wanted to use her she had tried to encourage the men and boys. Trick them, sort of. Using the things taught to her by the mean men, using the things they did to her and noticing when they would want to do it, she started trying to make it happen. Instead of only hiding in her clothes (she still hid in her clothes often, wrapping herself up and keeping herself buried away) she now also used her clothes as props when playing the game. It was a game. It became easier for her when she thought of it that way. She would play sometimes when at the park or in church. She played the game at her school and with the neighbors. If the men or boys didn’t leave her alone, they lost.

It was pretty easy to win this game. But even though she was winning every time they touched her, she also felt like she was losing. It scared her and hurt her and filled her with hate and anger at herself for playing the game. The problem was that when she didn’t play the game she was still scared that they might play the game with her. She was always scared. When she played on purpose, though, even though she didn’t like it, she was prepared and at least a little bit important. She was making something happen.

When it did, she would go to her rocking chair and let The Power come. But even there, she was beginning to wonder how much was her own fault. She didn’t feel bad when the people got hurt the way she imagined, that was part of the game. But she realized that The Power only happened to her in her rocking chair, and it was her choosing to go to the rocking chair and imagine the accidents happening.

But if it wasn’t the right thing to do, The Power wouldn’t have come to her.  Isn’t that true? Clara would wonder. At seven years old she had learned that what she used to think when she was only five – that you can’t help what happens to you – was childish thinking. We almost always have some sort of power.

And since The Power was happening to her, maybe it would be right for her to use it to help others.

That’s when she had an idea.

Perhaps The Power was given to her – a small girl, so young – in order to stop all the boys before they became men, before they hurt the girls.

She thought of Todd, the boy who lived next door. He was her age and they had played together since before she could remember. His dad had an accident only a few months ago; an axe had gone straight to the bone of his thigh while in his tool shed and the infection had set in strong and fast. He’d lost his leg in a matter of months. But Todd had always been nice

and never acted like they were boy/girl. He instead acted like they were just friends. Yet, one day he would get older. One day he might turn mean like so many of the others.

Clara decided she would watch him closely, play the game with him, and if he ever did anything at all, anything that was like the others, she would see that as a sign. She would use The Power first on him, and then on all the boys in the neighborhood. Before they could hurt someone.

Why wait until they had done the worst of it when she could stop it before anyone got hurt?

Now that she had a plan, a feeling of knowing what her role was, Clara skipped into the living room and asked her mom if she could go outside in the summer heat to play with the boy next door.