“That’s a hate symbol, you know.”
The voice came at me like a spear, interrupting my reverie as I considered the selection of apples at the grocery store.
(Caleb loves the word “grocery”. He’ll roll it around in his mouth for hours if he’s in the mood, saying it different ways, emphasizing different parts, until he’s squeezed every ounce of juice out of it.)
“Excuse me?” I turned to the voice. A twenty-something, by the looks of it. A woman, I suppose, like me, but with this younger generation, I’ve learned to keep my suppositions to myself.
“On that child’s shirt. The jigsaw puzzle piece. Hate crime.”
She, they, were referring to the image on Caleb’s shirt. He was standing next to me, pushing his own miniature cart, even though by his age he towered over it. It was still his thing to do, and Trader Joe still let him do it.
He was wearing a dark blue shirt with a large puzzle piece and the words “April is Autism Awesomeness Month!” in a banner scroll across it.
(Caleb loves the word “Awesomeness”. When I read the shirt to him, he picked that word apart, dwelling on the sibilants and the vowel sounds. He can’t read by himself, and has trouble speaking, but he falls in love with individual words and embraces them like long-lost siblings.)
“Okay,” I said flatly, returning to my apples and hoping the person would go away. I really wasn’t in the mood for this today.
“You’re abusing your child.”
I squeezed the apple in my hand enough that my nails cut the skin. Great, now I’d have to buy it. “You don’t know my child. Please leave us alone.”
Caleb, for his part, was watching the fluorescent lights overhead, his jaw somewhat slack, as it often was when he was overthinking something in the environment. His headphones were over his ears, but they usually weren’t playing anything, and I sensed he could hear what was being said but I hoped he was enough in his own world that he wasn’t processing it.
“I’m Autistic,” she/they announced. “I know what I’m talking about.”
I looked her/them dead in the eye. “Please stop. I didn’t come here to be harassed.”
By this point, we’d gotten the attention of a TJ worker whose nametag announced “Josie”.
“Hi,” Josie said, situating herself between the two of us. “Is there anything I can help with?”
The other person scowled, cheeks flushed, but mumbled, “No, I’m fine.” and huffed off.
Josie smiled with a fake perkiness. “Enjoy your day, then,” she said, and left me with my apples.