Dog Day Afternoon
My young adult son Jason and I cross Riverside Drive to get to the park on the other side.
This section of Riverside Drive consists of four lanes separated by a median that is too narrow to serve as a stop; the whizzing cars and buses make you feel like your toes or heels are being damaged as you wait for the light to change in your favor. I always plan to make the trip in one go.
However, Jason has non-speaking autism and we don’t know why he does some of the things he does. Sometimes we get to the other side, and just as I breathe a sigh of relief, he turns and runs back to the middle of the street.
Today we managed to complete the crossing safely.
Jason’s form of autism involves sensory dysregulation. One day, the sound of a motorcycle might cause him to collapse, screaming and clutching his head. The next day, the same imperturbable helicopter elicits no response.
He can talk, but most of what he says is ‘Hi! Hi!” and “Duck in water” – is usually not functional speech. However, he will shout the word ‘loud’ if a noise bothers him. And if he is afraid something will hurt him, he will shout: “Hurt you!” (He mixes up pronouns.)
Dogs, a common trigger for many autistics, provoke the “hurt you” response. Fluffy or fanged, it doesn’t matter. When we lived in Rhode Island, he bit an assistant after just seeing a dog on the street – from the house.
When Jason was twelve, we moved to New York. He had better schooling options, but we were concerned about the increase in possible triggers, including dogs.
I wonder if city dogs are different. Friends who have moved from the suburbs to Manhattan report that their dogs paradoxically become calmer in their new environment. Instead of having to guard a house and yard dark with bushes and their mysterious rustles and smells (“a perimeter,” as a friend describes it), dogs in New York apartments have to deal with just one entrance and no perimeter: Being high in the air even exempts Spot from squirrel surveillance.
Since our move to the city, Jason has generally become unresponsive to dogs when they are on a leash, which gives him the easy visual reassurance that they won’t run up and touch him unexpectedly.
When the pandemic hit, Riverside Park was a godsend. I started running there to burn off the stress, and one day I decided to let Jason come along. A win-win situation: he could get some exercise and Karl, my husband, could get some work done.
Unlike Central Park, with its winding paths and lanes, Riverside is straight, visually simple, and closed to cars. But the first time Jason went running with me, he ran away when we reached our turning point. Karl was with us for this first outing and he had to sprint to catch up. We figured out that if I made Jason run maybe ten feet behind me, he would stay the course.
It is cold and cloudy today. Three in the afternoon, between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., when leash laws are in effect in the park. It’s 2021 and the mass return to the office is months in the future.
Jason, at age 21, has had a resurgence of his dog phobia. Part of the problem is that, despite the generous free time And four dog races in the park, a number of dog owners have started letting their dogs off the leash.
My son attracts attention when we are running. He has an unusual gait. He wears basketball shoes, jeans, a baseball hat placed at a cheerful angle, and industrial noise-canceling headphones.
As we enter the park, a woman walks her unleashed dog toward Jason, but he doesn’t respond, not even a “Hurt you!” So I let it go. But five minutes later I look back and don’t see him. A little later I see him at the place where we encountered the dog. I run back to him.
“Do you want to run?” I ask.
I start jogging again, hoping he will follow. He does not do that.
“Want to go home?”
I walk towards the apartment. He doesn’t follow this path either.
I don’t know when the noise starts, but it takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from Jason. In extremis he can let out a deafening screech. Once he made a group of lemurs cry in a zoo.
While we are standing in the park, he is also crying and holding his ears over his headphones. Is there a plane above? He once bit my hand as we crossed a street under a low-flying plane. I look around, but can’t figure out what’s causing his reaction.
He rips the headphones off his head. I tell him he needs them to protect his ears. He bends them until they snap. Then he starts screaming.
He holds the broken pieces with visible sadness. Then he drops them, runs to me and grabs me by the hair. He tries to bite me, his jaws coming inches from my face.
It takes a lot to get the attention of New Yorkers, and now people are starting to gravitate toward us. Some have their phones off. I don’t know if they’re trying to help or if they’re making videos to post on TikTok with the caption “Person going crazy in the park!” Or maybe they’re collecting evidence to show the police. When I think about the police I panic.
There are too many stories of autistic people being violently arrested and even killed by law enforcement officers. In Rhode Island, someone once called the police in a Whole Foods parking lot when Jason was in the middle of a tantrum. A bystander allegedly saw a white teenager attack a small Asian woman.
In the park I explain that Jason is my son and that he is having an autistic meltdown. He covers his ears, runs to the nearest tree and starts hitting his head on it, causing his forehead to bleed. I call my husband.
I realize we are standing in the middle of a path where people are walking their dogs, some of which are off leash. I stand in front of Jason like a hockey goalie. I try to fend off the unleashed dogs while yelling at the owners to take them away.
I push Jason to a bench, hoping he can sit down for a moment and collect himself. I’m becoming more and more afraid that he will grab or hit a passerby.
By the time Karl arrives, Jason has calmed down. Luckily no one called the police. But his forehead is bleeding and his headphones are broken on the floor. He holds a strand of my hair in his fist.
Delayed responses are common in sensory dysregulation. The dog owner who left her poodle off a leash probably has no idea she’s caused a meltdown. Leash laws protect people (and other dogs) and wildlife, but only if dog owners comply.
After that day at the park, I buy a rebounder, a kind of jogging machine, that Jason can use in the apartment. Our joint running sessions in the park have unfortunately come to an end.
Marie Myung-Ok Lee is the author of the novel “The Evening Hero” and other books.