Ooh, I'm down for all of these but especially the latter two, Alice! I think a play sounds the most fun but I'm game for anything.

I said so in chat, but I'm in Excited for play or Doctorow as well - I haven't read any Doctorow but I've always meant to.

It hardly ever comes up.
I'm oldest of 3 brothers, born '74 '76 '78.
Andrew, Benjamin, Charles.
Ben is a new father & union stagehand who directs the building of sets and whatnot for TV, film & Theater.

Charlie had his first seizure as a very new infant while my mother gave him a bath in the kitchen sink, my memory is of being in the next room and hearing her hysterically calling 911. You can't really tell in childhood photos of Charlie that there's anything unusual about him, but he never progressed beyond mental infancy. "Agenesis of the corpus collossum," is the concise description of the birth defect that causes his disability. He's heavily dosed with anti-convulsant barbiturates at all times. After a concerted, years long effort of ad-hoc physical therapy, he learned to walk (with an uncannily zombie-esque shambling gait) at around age 8, against the predictions of doctors.

When you encounter him in person, he presents as a deeply autistic man with crippling cerebral palsy, somewhat wiry and small in stature. Most individuals with CP are mentally and cognitively normal. Charlie does not speak or understand language, feed himself, or provide for his own hygiene.

40-something now, he is technically a ward of the state, lives in a group home a few towns over. Our parents visit him regularly. Food, music, warm sunbeams & jingly-squeaky-noisy toys make him happy. We have him over for holidays. He has a job, as required by law, but it involves sitting in a bean bag and staying out of the way of the other, less profoundly disabled, folks in the workshop.

Gilbert Grape, Mice and Men, The Goonies... these stories hit me differently than they do other people.

Drew, thanks for writing that. (I tried eight different additional sentences. I've got nothing.)

Thanks. Complicated situation, well and empathically explained.