by Robert Hoge
Number 9: Flat Nose
Origin: People opened their eyes and looked at me.
Originality: Low.
Hurt factor: Medium.
Laugh factor: Low.
How I got over it: One day I realized that for the first few years of my life I didn’t have much of a nose at all. Hence the ancient proverb: “Better a flat nose than none at all.”
Number 8: Pinocchio
Origin: The Adventures of Pinocchio was a children’s story written by Carlo Collodi in the 1880s. Pinocchio was carved out of wood and became a real boy, but not before numerous trials, including seeing his nose grow longer every time he lied.
Originality: Medium.
Hurt factor: Medium to low, especially once I remembered that my nose was squat and squashy, not long and pointy.
Laugh factor: Medium.
How I got over it: I told myself that I was a real boy, not a puppet made of wood, and that my nose would never grow.
Number 7: Go-Go-Gadget Rob
Origin: Inspector Gadget was an animated series about a bumbling detective that started in the early 1980s. He had all sorts of attachments connected to his body—a helicopter that came out of his hat, robot arm extenders, and bouncy springs in his legs that made him really tall really fast.
Originality: Medium.
Hurt factor: Low.
Laugh factor: Medium to high. It was kind of funny, after all.
How I got over it: People started to realize that my legs didn’t actually have gadgets attached to them.
Number 6: Ugly Face
Origin: A not unreasonable reflection on what I looked like at the time.
Originality: Medium.
Hurt factor: Medium.
Laugh factor: Low.
How I got over it: It was too boring to care about for long.
Number 5: Retard
Origin: From the Latin retardare, meaning “to slow down,” and, ultimately, tardus, meaning “slow.” “Retardation” was used as a medical term for quite a long while, and it was a short step to label a person a retard.
Originality: Low.
Hurt factor: Medium.
Laugh factor: Low.
How I got over it: This one held a lot of power over me for quite a while. Yes, I had an ugly face and no legs, but my brain worked quite well, thank you very much. I just had to disconnect the dots for the people who thought that being physically disabled automatically meant you were intellectually disabled too.
Number 4: Transformer
Origin: The Transformers were a series of toys first brought out in the mid-1980s by Hasbro. They were robots that changed into cars (and motorcycles and planes and trucks) and then changed back again.
Originality: High.
Hurt factor: Low. This nickname was often used with affection and sometimes accompanied by the theme song from the TV series. Probably my favorite of all the nicknames I got in school. Seriously, what young boy doesn’t want to be a robot with guns built into his arms and the ability to change into a Mack truck or a jet plane on demand?
Laugh factor: High.
How I got over it: I didn’t really need or want to get over this one, but it fell out of use.
Number 3: Stumpy
Origin: Well, yes, I had below-knee amputations on both legs and the part remaining after that surgery is called a “stump.” How very observant of you.
Originality: Medium.
Hurt factor: Medium.
Laugh factor: Low.
How I got over it: I figured it was true, so ultimately there wasn’t much to be done about it.
Number 2: Cripple
Origin: From the Old English crypel, meaning “to creep.”
Originality: Medium.
Hurt factor: High. It was the mean truth of this nickname that hurt the most. It was so broad it seemed to cover all the very worst things I sometimes thought about my disability and myself. Plus, say it out loud and listen to how it sounds. Awful.
Laugh factor: Low.
How I got over it: “Cripple” was once a legitimate medical term, like “retard.” In the 1800s and early 1900s, doctors used it to describe anyone who had difficulty walking. It’s considered impolite now to say that someone is crippled—most people use the word “disabled” instead. I made my peace with this nickname by telling myself that it was technically valid, at least in the original medical sense. I decided that I wouldn’t let this word have any power over me.
Number 1: Toe Nose
Origin: Journalist Hugh Lunn had written about the doctors at Mater hospital and how they had used bone and cartilage from my amputated toes to make me a new nose. Some bright spark read about it and then connected the dots.
Originality: High.
Hurt factor: High. Calling a six-year-old kid with glasses “four eyes” might be very hurtful and painful, but at least in some way it makes them a part of a group. There are lots of kids with glasses. They’re not alone. They belong. Most kids just want to belong. They want to be one of the tall kids, one of the pretty kids, one of the fast kids, or the ones who are good at football. Or whatever. But Toe Nose was so specific. It cut to the very heart of me, making me ashamed of the good work the doctors had done. Sometimes I even wished they hadn’t bothered. And it didn’t apply to anyone else. I owned it. At the time it felt terribly hurtful, terribly strange. Who else had a nose made out of a toe? How do you defend yourself against that when someone is using it to tease you?
Laugh factor: None.
How I got over it: I never did get over this one. To this day, it’s the one nickname that has any real power over me—the power to hurt.
16
Fitting In
I was smarter than some of the kids in the class—but not the smartest. I liked to watch sports—but couldn’t really play any. I enjoyed listening to music—but I couldn’t play an instrument. It didn’t seem like there was any way to define myself other than by what was missing—my legs—and the strange extra I had: a nose made out of a toe.
A few weeks after I started at the new school, I was given a chance to distinguish myself. One of the priests who taught at the school turned up at our classroom door and talked to our teacher for a minute, then started taking students from the classroom three at a time. I was in the second group, so I didn’t have a chance to find out what was going on when the first group returned fifteen minutes later.
“Robert, Matthew, Paul, please go with Father,” our teacher said.
We were taken outside, downstairs, and into one of the wide grassy areas at the back of the school.
“Sit in a circle, please,” the priest said.
I had no idea what was going on and started wondering if we’d done something wrong.
“Okay, boys, you’re here to audition,” he said. “As director of the junior choir, I’m listening to all the new students this week to assess their talent.”
This should be fun, I thought.
Matthew went first. The priest gave him a piece of paper with the words to a hymn on it and asked him to sing. Then he asked him to sing some scales—up, down, up again. Then, for good measure, he asked him to sing the first few lines of the national anthem.
“Good, Matthew,” he said. “Good.”
He made some notes on a sheet of paper, turned to Paul, and ran through the same routine. More nodding. More notes.
Then he asked me to sing.
Everything sounded fine, in my head. I was a bit quiet at first, nervous, but I built up the volume as I hit the second verse of the hymn. Father had closed his eyes when I started singing but opened them again suddenly.
He tilted his head and curled the corner of his lip into a strange shape. I faltered for a second, but he waved to me to keep going. My voice went up and got crackly, then it went off-key.
“Just try to hold a note—any note—st
eady.”
I settled on a tone I thought matched my speaking voice but couldn’t hold it for long. The poor priest grimaced. I looked at the other kids. Matthew looked slightly disturbed. Paul was trying not to laugh.
I started the national anthem, but the priest waved his hand quickly in front of my chest. If there was a more universal sign for stop, I had yet to encounter it. He looked at me.
“Robert,” he said, and then paused for what seemed like an eternity, “you’re free to go.”
I was already convinced I wouldn’t find a place on any of the school sporting teams, and now it looked like choir was out of the mix too.
• • •
A few months later we were told we were about to head off on a big adventure—school camp.
Our camp that year was at Tallebudgera Creek on the Gold Coast. The campground was nestled between the beach, a creek, and the highway. It was only an hour and a half from Brisbane, but for a boy whose time away from home had been spent mostly in a hospital, it felt like a whole other world.
Camp was a combined outing for grades five and seven, designed so us new kids could spend time with some of the older boys. We weren’t given any say in whom we bunked with and I didn’t know too many of the kids in my hut.
I didn’t even realize until we were on the bus and making our way noisily south that there’d be a whole group of unfamiliar boys who would see me with my artificial legs off for the first time. I figured they’d probably know I didn’t have real legs—they would have seen me around the playground or maybe heard about it from someone else. Staying together in a hut would be different, though. It meant dealing with my disability in ways that were quite real.
Every day when I arrived home from school, I’d bolt up the stairs as fast as I could, hobble through our front door, sit on the couch, and rip off my artificial legs because they’d gotten sore. They came off before my school uniform, before I had a snack, before I switched on the television. Other kids came home and threw their schoolbags in the corner. I threw my legs.
I had taken them off and put them on in front of family, in front of friends, in front of doctors, but never really in front of strangers. Especially other kids I didn’t know well. But at camp I’d be doing that every morning and afternoon.
When we arrived at Tallebudgera we scampered off the bus, grabbed our sleeping bags and clothes, and walked across the patchy grass to the shabby huts that were home for the duration. We waited nervously as the teacher opened the door for us, then peered inside.
There were bunk beds against all four walls and a nest of them in the middle. There were no windows except for a thin strip above one of the bunks. Beside the beds were tall, thin cupboards in which to stow our gear. It wasn’t luxury, but for four days it would be our kingdom.
The kingdom, however, lacked secret places. The bunk beds all faced each other. There was nowhere to hide. The boys I hardly knew would be able to see me as I took off my legs and put them back on again. I chose a bottom bunk across from the door and plonked down my gear.
That first night, worried about taking my legs off in front of the others, I took my time wandering back from dinner. Of course that meant most of the other kids were already there when I arrived. I sat down on the bed and watched the other kids change into pajamas, swapping random camp tales. I held my breath and slipped off my legs.
No one saw me! Until I dropped my legs on the concrete floor.
At home, I’d take my legs off in the living room and leave them near the television.
There was carpet there. It didn’t make much noise.
The design of my left leg had changed, and the metal poles and clump of metal for a foot had been traded in for fiberglass. When I took them off, both legs were just hollow fiberglass tubes. Dropped on the hut’s concrete floor, they clanged and clattered like leg-shaped drums. Conversation in the hut stopped and everyone looked at me.
“Sorry,” I said.
A few of the kids laughed, but most just went back to talking. There were bigger issues to deal with, like how to hide our contraband candy and stop other kids from stealing it. I faded off to sleep and dreamed of a kid stealing my legs and using them as bongos.
We spent our four days at camp doing camp things. We’d wake in the morning, grab our bowls and cups, and make our way to the big dining hall. After breakfast we’d take a short walk through the forest down to the creek and back again, followed by team-building games.
Afternoons we swam in the creek or sometimes in the surf, then wound down before a dinner of steak with steamed carrots and peas one night and chicken with steamed carrots and peas the next. After dinner, we’d wash our dishes and gather to watch the least offensive movie the teachers could possibly find. We’d sit in a small hall with a rickety projector showing some family-oriented fare on a white pull-down screen. Normally the films had talking dogs or kids who were younger—but already smarter—than us. The worst movies had both.
We were usually done by 8:30 p.m. and sent to get ready for bed and lights-out. At the end of the first night’s movie, one of the teachers stood at the front of the hall.
“I have good news,” he said.
Maybe we were going to watch a movie without talking dogs tomorrow night, I thought.
“On Wednesday night, instead of watching a film, we’re going to have a talent show.”
There was a confused and disappointed silence.
“It will be fun,” he said.
“What do we have to do, sir?”
“You might want to put on a little skit or a scene from a play,” he said. “Or maybe you can do magic tricks. Here’s an opportunity, if you’re not very sporty, to show us your stuff. You need to decide what to do by tomorrow afternoon and we’ll give you some time to practice. Make sure you’re ready.”
Silence gave way to grumbling. We had not been warned we’d have to perform. No one in my hut had any ideas that night and we moved on to discussing more important issues of state before sleep.
The next day, we woke up and swarmed to breakfast. Around the breakfast table we started discussing some options.
“Let’s just do something funny,” one kid said.
“Yeah, yeah. That would be great.”
Everyone nodded. Then one of the older kids, Paul, turned to look at me.
“Robert, can’t you do gymnastics or something?” he asked.
“Gymnastics? No,” I said.
“Yeah, you know, handstands and stuff?” Paul asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
I’d told the other kids that I couldn’t really do any sports but was okay at handstands. Cassandra and I did them all the time when we were playing.
“Why don’t you do some handstands as part of our show?”
“What, in front of everybody?” I asked.
“Sure, why not?” Paul said.
“Onstage?’
“Sure.”
Not only would it mean having my legs off in front of teachers, my grade-five classmates, and kids in grade seven, I’d also have to perform.
I said the only thing I could possibly say: “Ummm, okay.”
It was settled. The act for our hut would be me getting up onstage and doing a handstand with my artificial legs off in front of the whole camp.
That afternoon we had time for practice and I found a patch of grass to try my handstands. A handstand requires strength in the arms to hold yourself up, strength in the torso to hold yourself steady, and strength in the hips to hold your legs still. Stumps instead of proper legs meant I had a lower center of gravity. That kept me stable and allowed me to stay upside down longer.
I took my prosthetics off and, with the other boys watching, I hoisted myself up on my hands. For a moment, I held myself still, then revealed my special trick—walking on my hands. I took a few steps forward and then gently lowered
myself to the ground. At home it was easier, because I was letting gravity drag me down the hill, but I’d still only ever walked four or five steps in a row before.
The other boys were quiet for a few seconds.
“Well, it looks like we’ve got our act,” Paul said.
The night of the talent show we ate dinner and tumbled into the hall, ready for some entertainment. We sat down, row after row of small boys in our shorts and T-shirts, messy hair and messy smiles, not really knowing what to expect. I hoped I’d have time to work up my nerve, but our hut was told that we’d be second up. I wondered if anyone would think to confiscate my legs if I got up and tried to run.
The first act was two kids doing card tricks. The last trick was just them throwing all the cards in the air. It didn’t seem very magical, but it got a good laugh. Then it was my turn.
I took off my legs and gently lowered them to the floor at the side of the stage. Suddenly I was onstage with my legs off and dozens of kids staring at me. There wasn’t much set-up required, so I planted my hands on the stage and pushed myself up. I locked my shoulders and elbows and hips into place and steadied myself. Blood rushed to my head.
I held myself there for a few seconds, staying steady, then decided to walk on my hands across the stage. The audience gasped when I took my first few steps. Once I was moving, it was actually easier to keep going than to stop and stay still again. So I kept going.
About halfway I started to overbalance and swung my legs backward to keep from tipping over. I regained my balance and kept going—six steps, seven. It was farther than I’d ever walked on my hands, even when I had gravity on my side going downhill at home. I was starting to feel confident that I could reach all the way over the other side. I sped up a little. My arms were aching, but moving faster meant switching from one to the other sooner. Nine steps, ten steps. I craned my head forward a little and realized I was really close, only a few more steps to go.