Upon arriving in Boston, however, they find their new accommodation less than satisfactory, as it is a rundown apartment, and the prospects of Tony’s admission to the Perkins School for the Blind are much more difficult than Janice expected. Consequently she decides to move to Boston, Massachusetts in order to enroll Tony in the Perkins School for the Blind, despite the initial opposition from Ray who is averse to the idea of leaving familiar surroundings and somewhat resentful of doing so for his brother’s benefit. Janice realizes that Tony should go to a special school for the blind where he can further develop his unique talent and the skills necessary for leading an independent life.
Although he is blind, he displays a remarkable musical talent and soon becomes a regular sensation at the bar. It’s an important moment for Janice when Tony starts playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on the piano in the bar where she works. As a single mother of two, Janice finds it extremely difficult to manage Tony’s issues as a blind child with autism, although he enjoys the close emotional support of his brother Ray. This incident results in Tony being picked up by the police and brought home to Janice for indecent exposure in public, which adds to her frustration after dealing with the pressures of work. Tony is first introduced as a child (portrayed by Jeremy Lelliott) whose blindness and autism is taken advantage of by bullies who trick him into dancing naked in the street under a running water hose, which he takes to be rainwater. The film revolves around Tony’s mother Janice (portrayed by Cybil Shephard) who lives with Tony and his brother Ray in a small Texas town and struggles to make ends meet as a bar waitress and as a housekeeper. On a recent occasion I had the opportunity to watch the 1997 television film Journey of the Heart, loosely based on the real-life story of Tony DeBlois who is a blind autistic savant and musician. “What the character of Rain Man can do with math, I can do with music” Tony DeBlois
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