51 pages • 1 hour read
John Elder RobisonLook Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 12-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary: “I’m in Prison with the Band”
In 1976 Robison moves into an old farmhouse in Ashfield, Massachusetts, with Fat, a local band he’s been working with. His salary is $80 a month. He has a home and an income, and he feels truly independent for the first time. He networks with lots of local bands playing on the New England tour circuit, including Roxy Music and Black Sabbath. He soon gets calls to modify other bands’ equipment as well.
Fat takes him on an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Caribbean island of Montserrat. It’s Robison’s first real vacation, but he can’t enjoy himself because the food, the people, the sights and sounds are all different from what he’s accustomed to. Especially unsettling is the way two of the band members move in with two girls who were occupying the house before they arrived. Robison can’t fathom how they effortlessly navigate the social and sexual territory that he finds so daunting.
One morning their native guide, Willie, enters the house yelling, “It’s a bust! Wake up!” (116). Several cars carrying local police arrive searching for drugs. Although the band flushes most of their contraband down the toilet, the police still find some marijuana seeds, an indicator that the band members are not low-level users but growers, which carries a far stiffer penalty. They are arrested and jailed. The band’s lead singer has a friend on the island who posts bail, and they are out later that day, but they still have to face trial. Their attorney tells them that “certain kinds of drug possession are a hanging offense in a Crown colony” (120). At the trial, after some negotiation between the judge and the attorneys, two members of the band are fined $2,500; the charges against the rest of the band are dropped.
Later that day Robison takes their rental car for a drive along the beach, where he drives it over a sand dune and accidentally sinks it into the ocean. He secures the help of some locals, and they haul the car back on to the beach. After replacing the battery, cleaning the carburetor and ignition, and replacing the fluids, he pronounces it “good as new” (123). The band returns to Ashfield, but the discomfort of living with relative strangers ultimately causes Robison too much anxiety. He is confident in his engineering skills but not with people.
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Big Time”
In 1978 Robison reconnects with Little Bear, his high school sweetheart. By chance, they meet at a local university where she is a student. She broke off their relationship, she tells him, because a friend made up “ugly” lies about him; when she found out they weren’t true, she felt it was too late to reestablish the relationship.
Robison’s situation improves. He and Little Bear are together, and he is hired by Britannia Row Audio (Britro), a major supplier of audio systems and services. They provide equipment to major rock bands like Pink Floyd. Robison had established a connection with the head of Britro’s American division, Mick Kluczynski, years before when he helped repair their sound equipment for a local college show. Kluczynski invites Robison to Britro’s Long Island City facility in New York, tasking him with repairing “a truckload” of amplifiers. It’s a massive job, but all “fifty-two […] amps passed the test” (128). Kluczynski is impressed.
Robison’s next job for Britro is to devise a five-way crossover system for bands on tour (the current standard is three-way). A five-way system would be unprecedented, and Robison accepts the job. He and Little Bear build the new system in their apartment, and they deliver it to the New Jersey Center for the Performing Arts just in time for a Gerry Rafferty concert. The system works beautifully; the sound engineers marvel at the “clean” sound. After his successful development of the new system, Britro has abundant work for Robison. His next job is to join Canadian rock band April Wine on tour. Little Bear accompanies him, and they spend their days together on the road, with Robison repairing April Wine’s sound equipment. The day before his 21st birthday, he and Little Bear take a ferry to St. John’s, Newfoundland. He is finally content and reflects, “I couldn’t imagine a better life” (131).
Chapter 14 Summary: “The First Smoking Guitar”
Later that year (1978), while working in Britro’s Long Island City repair facility, Robison hears KISS rehearsing in the adjacent studio. Lead guitarist Ace Frehley mentions that he wants the guitar to catch fire and light up during his solo. Robison volunteers that he can create that effect. He enlists his friend Jim Boughton to help. Boughton forges the hardware, and Robison designs the electronics. Since KISS’s instruments connect to the amps wirelessly, the effects have to run on batteries, and Frehley’s roadie Tex finds a company in New Jersey that manufactures rechargeable battery packs. Robison is given a tour of the plant “like a real visiting engineer” (136). Frehley sends him a $1,000 custom Les Paul guitar as a test model, and he and Boughton—collaborating with Tex and Little Bear—create their first smoking guitar. Aside from a few broken guitar strings, the effect works as planned; Frehley wants to work with Robison on future projects.
Robison ruminates on the advantages of being a misfit in the company of other misfits. He feels right at home. He notes: “I had a girlfriend. I had a car. I had escaped my deranged parents. I was working for one of the hottest bands in the world” (137). Despite his success, however, he is plagued by insecurity, fearing he will be discovered a “fraud.” His insecurity only causes him to work harder. Going on tour with KISS exposes him to the rock-and-role lifestyle of groupies, high-priced hotels, and casual sex. He feels disconnected from the glamor, however, and he doesn’t understand the hero worship of the fans he encounters. To Robison, a rock star is just “a guy with a broken guitar” (141).
He occasionally brings his younger brother Christopher (“Varmint”) to KISS rehearsals. When Christopher claims to know the members of KISS, his teachers and counselors think he’s lying. Robison defends his brother, but Christopher quits school a few months later.
Chapter 15 Summary: “The Ferry to Detroit”
Chapter 15 sheds light on Robison’s relationship with his younger brother Chris, whom he only refers to as “Varmint.” Chris is now 14 and eager to be independent of Dr. Finch and his family, which Robison describes as a cult. He has the opportunity to occasionally take his brother on the road and the financial means to treat him to a few luxuries he never gets at home. For Chris, this means clothes (Robison mentions feeling disappointed that Chris isn’t interested in his electronic creations). According to Robison, his brother sees him as his own personal “cash drawer” (144), and he can’t wait until his Chris gets a job.
He flies Chris to Cleveland, where KISS is performing, but he doesn’t want to keep giving him money, so he concocts a wild tale about Cleveland being an insulated, religious community with no shopping malls. He tells Chris that the nearest malls are in Detroit, and he’ll have to take the ferry there. Hoping to dissuade him, Robison cites choppy waters on Lake Erie and a “shameful scene” on the waterfront. Chris persists, however, and Robison agrees to give him $200 on the condition that he take the ferry. Chris asks the hotel staff and a few guests where he can catch the ferry; Chris uncovers the ruse when a janitor tells him there’s a mall “half a mile up the road” (149). Once again, Robison is pleased with the success of his practical joke, but he laments that his brother is getting older, and he probably won’t be as gullible in the future. He also realizes he won’t be able to call Chris “Varmint” much longer, but he refuses to call him Chris. That name, he decides, “would never do” (150).
Chapters 12-15 Analysis
In these chapters Robison begins to mature. His destructive pranks and rebellious behavior are largely products of dissatisfaction with his home life, but as with much teenage antisocial behavior, boredom is also a major factor. Once he is employed doing work that he loves, Robison embraces his new responsibilities and appears content to leave the hostility and defiance behind. He finds the perfect outlet for his passions, combining music, engineering, and the occasional explosion. He admits that having an income and a girlfriend make him happy, so he no longer feels the need for aggression.
Another important factor in Robison’s growth process is feeling part of a likeminded community. He describes the rock-and-roll scene as being full of misfits like himself who welcome him rather than judge and mock him. It appears he finally achieves his goal of making friends and being accepted for who he is—in the moment, at least. But echoes of the younger Robison are still evident. While he may not pull pranks on complete strangers anymore, his brother is still the victim of his mischievous sense of humor. The John Elder Robison who once dumped his brother headfirst in a hole has not completely vanished. The emotional connection between his actions and their consequences still elude him; he is not yet capable of true empathy. Rather than sympathizing with his brother’s plight—being left in the custody of a mentally ill mother and a criminally negligent therapist—he complains that his brother is a financial burden. He cannot see in Chris the same effects of family trauma that influenced his own youth.
