Halt!

It’s still unclear to me exactly when I realized Alex wasn’t going to stop running before he entered the street. For months and months he’s been excellent about this trick of survival in the streets of Manhattan, running running running right up the edge of the curb, then halting and holding out his hand for me to take when we cross the street.

Image: Sonja's 07 photostream, Flickr.com

This time, no. He sideslipped the police barricade and weaved right out into the middle of the intersection of 5th Avenue and East 96th Street. Cars were turning onto Fifth out of Central Park. Alex was laughing and laughing while while we screamed his name behind him. The wind on his cheek must’ve felt like the freedom of being a big grown-up boy until the arms of the traffic cop cocooned him.

“Sorry, officer,” I mumbled, snagging his arm. What else could I say? The guy had to get back to his turning traffic.

“We – are – going – HOME!” I snapped to Jill, Ned, and especially Alex. Jill and Ned continued on their way down Fifth Avenue while Alex and I walked home — fast and dad-mad. “You did something bad!” I kept saying. “You do NOT EVER do that!!”

“Something bad,” Alex kept repeating. “Something bad. Something bad. Bite.” He pretended to bite his arm. I’ve found the best response to this is to pretend to bite my own arm, and showing him how silly it looks. This often works; figuring out that it works took a bit of time and a bit of knowing Alex.

So does explaining why he suddenly ran into the street. For 10 blocks we’d been walking down the center of Fifth Avenue, which was closed to traffic for an early-evening festival on Museum Mile. So Alex, who knows full well you don’t walk down the middle of the street normally, had been doing so with great enjoyment — running circles, literally, around Jill at one point — and perhaps he saw no clear reason this freedom should just end at E. 96th Street. At that street, police had erected barriers across Fifth Avenue to control pedestrian traffic. But I have never thought to teach Alex what police barriers mean.

Perhaps I was too far back, perhaps I was careless. Perhaps we all were, forgetting for just one second that Alex, often sensible and willing to learn to obey, does not know all the meanings of all the possible warnings in this world.

“Did that cop say anything to you?” I asked Jill later, when she came home with Ned.

She looked at me. “What’s he gonna say?” she replied.

***

Virtual reality apps are helping autistic children learn about street safety.