“You like plants.”
“We get along,” I grinned.
“You a freshman?”
“Yep. You?”
“Sophomore.” He said it like ‘south-more.’
We made small talk about classes and the campus before Devon segued to his real reason for introducing himself.
“So, a couple of my friends, you know, other wheelchair peeps, noticed you.”
“Oh? How so?”
“Well, you been a little more friendly than most of the students. To us. Almost like on purpose. You in campus politics or something?”
I smiled, shaking my head, while measuring my resolve, and how much I thought it wise to share.
“No, I, uh, have a friend who’s, uh, handicapped.”
“He go here?”
“No. He’s at a rehab facility in Pittsburgh.” I swallowed, breathed. “Actually, he’s my boyfriend, sort of. We’re kind of not–”
“Oh, oh, that’s cool. You got a thing for crips?”
“What? Oh, no. No, we, we dated before. It’s not–”
“Cool. What happened to him?”
I explained Everett’s lacrosse accident, surprising myself with my compacted and outwardly emotionless account of the events.
Devon had been in a car crash in North Philadelphia late one night. He went into a lot of details about it, and his struggle to recover. He didn’t have the advantage of a wealthy family, or much of a family, and the guy driving the car had a few violations, plus lapsed car insurance, yet survived the accident with merely a few sprains. Devon was basically left with state and local services, which in themselves had been a hassle to get.
“Then my case worker found out about the scholarships here, and it’s been a lot smoother,” Devon finished his story. “Sorry, I’m talkin’ too much.”
“No, no, it’s cool.” I closed my book.
We ate our food, talked of other things that had nothing to do with wheelchairs or accidents. Devon offered to show me around the off-campus bars he liked, which meant those that didn’t have stairs. We traded numbers and left the cafeteria together. Before heading off in opposite directions, Devon said, “Good luck with your friend.”
“Thanks.”
“I hope you get to see him soon.”
“I hope so, too.”
“He’d be lucky to have you.”
Before meeting Devon, I was about to the point where I could last an entire day without thinking about Everett. At night, in my mind, I was all his.
Running had come back to me. Starting off with a few loops around the outdoor track at school, I politely declined invitations to join an intramural group of guys. Running off-campus around city blocks was just too difficult, so I branched off to a few trails that looped the campus. The autumnal clusters of trees reminded me of my summer in the state park, and I relaxed.
The good pain in my legs and lungs returned. My pacing felt steady, my mind at ease to later dive into my studies. For several weeks, I had deceived myself into thinking I could move on with my life.
Pulling my textbooks for the day from my backpack, I stacked them on my desk for another night of studying, before a hoped-for nap and before my other two noisier dorm-mates returned.
My roommate Eric and I shared a small corkboard on the wall between our desks. I saw a piece of scrap paper tacked to the board with a familiar phone number and name: ‘Holly.’
Weighing the burden of returning her call, I fought the surge of conflicted feelings that rose. Was it more bad news about Everett? Good news? Had he miraculously healed? Had he tried to kill himself? I’d read in my research phase months before that the suicide rate among some disabled people was far higher than among the able-bodied.
Did Holly want my mailing address to send more heart-wrenching photos of him, pictures that would only remind me of what I’d lost? The ones I had were filed away in a sealed envelope at the bottom of a desk drawer. Several times I had considered just mailing them to myself back home, wishing I’d left them hidden away.
Pacing around my room, unable to either study or nap, my steps turned into a walk out of the dorm, which became a run, a sloppy aimless tear. I wasn’t even dressed properly; in jeans, a shirt, a jacket and sneakers that weren’t for running. Exhausted, panting, one of my calves spasming with a cramp, I found a quiet glen of trees and lay on the ground amid a carpet of brilliant orange oak leaves.
Once I’d hobbled back to my room, I peeled off my sweaty clothes and donned a towel as I headed off to the communal showers. Letting the hot water almost scald my back, I told myself I was letting the remnants of concern for Everett circle the drain. My skill at telling minor lies, taught by him so expertly, worked best when self-directed.
Almost parboiled from the shower, I returned to my room. Eric would probably be back soon. I would have a little time for privacy.
“I should be really pissed off at you,” Holly said as soon as I found the nerve to call. Not a ‘Hello,’ not a ‘How’s school?’
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened to him, physically. He’s fine.”
“Oh, good.”
“It’s not that, Reid. He refuses to so much as look at the application forms for Carnegie Mellon. Dad’s pissed off. Mom is livid.”
“Your mother spends a lot of time being livid.”
“That’s how she stays so skinny,” she chuckled.
“The last time I visited, he said he had doubts about college. You think he’s just afraid?”
“No, he’s not. He just doesn’t want to stay here in Pittsburgh, or go back to Greensburg.”
“And how is that my fault?”
“Have you talked to him recently?”
“No. He…” He drove me away, I wanted to say. “I thought that was up to him.”
“Well, it is, sort of,” she agreed. “And I understand. I even offered to move to another apartment, you know, first-floor without stairs, so he could live with me. Mom said she’d already made sure they had an accessible dorm room for him. But she’s planning –get this– to move to Pittsburgh if she sells the house.”
“I bet your dad’s thrilled.”
“Well, we all want to be near him and support him.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“It would be, if it would help him, but he’d just … He needs to grow the fuck up.”
“And being surrounded by his family isn’t–”
“Exactly,” she said.
“You want him around, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. But he needs … Look, I don’t know if I should tell you this.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect from a woman who considered her abortion to be an appropriate breakfast conversation topic.
“I visited him a few days ago, and he’s really getting himself together. But we were gabbing away, it was getting late, and I mentioned you, and he just cracked. He’d been holding himself together, being brave, but he just started sobbing out of nowhere.”
“Was it his meds?”
“No, Reid. It was you.”
“Me?”
“He’s really sorry about the fight you had,” she said. “He misses you a lot. A lot. When you guys visited me, it wasn’t just some mini-vacation. He was bringing you to meet me for approval, something he could never do with our parents. He’s never done that before.”
I wondered how many other events we’d shared meant more to him, and why I hadn’t seen behind his casual attitude.
“You have to understand,” she said. “From here on, people are seeing the wheelchair first. You’re not like that. We’re not.”
At that moment, as the expected rush of emotion and the fought-back tears emerged from months of bottled-up longing, my roommate Eric bounded into our room. I didn’t even need to signal him. Seeing the phone in my hand and the contorted look on my face, he just plopped his backpack on the floor and closed the door behind him as he retreated.
“Sorry,” I sniffed.
“What did you say?”
“If he asked for you, if he wanted to be with you, would you? Would you be there for him?”
Hadn’t I already shown that? Hadn’t I, with my nearly incompetent romantic skills, done everything I could to love him?
“I… I have to think about that.”
“Okay. I’m not going to push it. But can I at least give the little brat your address?”
A few days later, a card arrived in the mail, one of those corny store-bought themed cards with a bashful cartoon character holding a tiny bouquet of flowers.
Folded into the envelope was a flyer for ‘The Fourth Annual Thanksgiving Weekend Wheelchair Basketball Tournament.’
Beside the date and address was scribbled:
Please visit. Miss you.
XO, Monkey.
PS: I’m much better! No more rage fits.
And bring a swimsuit.
Chapter 32
Greg tossed the basketball with a flair some NBA players might have envied, considering he had a few feet more to reach. His shaggy brown hair clung to his brow with sweat. The tattoos on one arm, exposed by his sleeveless jersey, and his Doobie Brothers mustache added to his handsome charm. The way he wheeled himself across the court with such flair and abandon drew me to him.
A Vietnam veteran who had started the roving basketball league years before the rehabilitation facility even existed, Greg was clearly the most experienced player on the court. With only four men for each team –actually one of them a woman, Grace, whom I would also meet that day– the competition was more compressed than those I’d watched in high school, and the game was accented by the tire squeaks and metal clash of wheelchairs.
Grace was one of the few players who fell hard during the course of the game. When it happened to Everett, I felt a lurch in my chest.
But each of them struggled, then finally got back up, and the game continued. The few times Everett got the ball, he sped up, fumbled, but improved as the game continued.
The game over (Everett’s team lost by a few dozen points, but didn’t seem to care), they wheeled themselves over to various friends and family members who sat on the bleachers. Several other outpatients, who had formed a loose line along the front row, wheeled into smaller congratulatory circles.
Everett and I high- or, more precisely, mid-fived, but his arm caught my side and pulled me lower toward him. I attempted a hug, but he held me closer and pushed a sweaty kiss that landed closer to my neck than its intended target. His scraggly attempt of a beard itched, but felt good.
I hadn’t realized or even considered the possibility of being openly affectionate with him in front of others there. With sweat clinging to his hair, which had grown out into curly ringlets, his face beamed, despite his team having been thrashed. He grabbed me closer and gave the kiss a do-over.
“So, is this the biped you’re dating?” Greg teased as he toweled off near us while sizing me up.
“Yep,” Everett grinned.
Considering we hadn’t seen each other in months, dating wasn’t exactly the best definition. While I was hoping for a passionate reunion, I had prepared myself for a disappointing shift of our bond to being mere friends. But I didn’t correct him.
“Well, to each his own,” Greg sighed. He caught me looking at his flexing tanned arms as he raised one, then the other, switching hands with the towel as he wiped his pits. “Better keep him on a short leash,” Greg said as he tossed his towel at me. I caught it as I chuckled, a bit embarrassed.
“Quisque comodeus est.”
Everett was showing off again. I knew my line. “Which translates to…?”
“Everybody’s a comedian.”
“So, why didn’t you invite your family?” I asked.
“Holly’s been up before a few times. Took some great pictures. Gotta show ya.”
“Sweet.”
“She and the parents were up here on Thursday for Thanksgiving; took me out to some fancy restaurant. God, the waiter made such a fuss. What a queen. He probably would have cut up my food if I’d asked. Besides, I wanted to save today for you.”
His invitation had brought such a surge of anticipation into me that the seven hours spent on a train from Philadelphia to home that week put me in such a hopeful mood, my parents mistook my joy for a cured bout of homesickness.
I’d waited until after Thanksgiving dinner to tell them of my weekend plans. The series of expressions my mother made at the table had shifted from confusion to dismay to a resigned false indifference. It was clear she wanted to protect me from any pain, but knew I’d go anyway. My dad merely offered his car, saying, “The trains are probably too slow over the holidays.”
After I got to Pittsburgh, we’d only had a few minutes to talk and re-establish some kind of connection before Everett had to take to the court for his eventual joyful defeat. He’d met me in the lobby of the facility and I’d followed him across the street to the gym. He had acted more open and energetic, but the situation prevented any closer connection.
“I need a shower,” Everett said as he placed his small towel in his backpack, then reached around to hang it on his chair.
This wasn’t the depressed, angst-ridden soul who’d dismissed me only a few months before. His body pumped with vitality and color. It was sexy, life-affirming. He was transformed.
“A shower?” I asked. “What do you do, just ride under them in the locker room?”
“Bad joke,” he said in mock disdain. “You’ll have to do better. Why don’t you come up to my room and help me?”
And then I saw that flirtatious glint in his eyes. Before I was able to ask if he meant what I’d hoped, a short young Indian woman approached.
“Oh, this is Daya, my physiotherapist.”
“Reid.” We shook hands.
“Pleased to meet you.” She knelt down to inspect Everett’s arms, then his legs. “How are you feeling? Do you think you got any injuries?”
“No, I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“Okay.” She didn’t seem convinced.
“You don’t have to go back with me,” Everett said.
“You’re going to dinner, yes?” she insisted, giving me a look, as if requesting consent.
“Yes, Daya,” Everett said. “I’ll be alright. Lemme hang with my guy, okay?”
His guy. That was a good sign.
“Remember; exercise tomorrow, and swimming.”
“Yes. Thank you, Daya.”
“It was nice to meet you,” she nodded before leaving us.
“See?” Everett smiled. “You’re staying over, right?”
“Uh…”
“We’ll take care of you at reception. I get a free room pass a few times a month. You probably have to sleep in a guest room, though.”
“I could just take the bus back to Holly’s,” I said, my expectations on hold.
“Suit yourself.”
Following him across the campus and up to his room, it seemed obvious that he had come to terms with his situation, even if I hadn’t.
After we’d closed his door, he tossed off his sweaty jersey, at least making that shot into a laundry bag. The weather that day had been warm for November, and late afternoon sunlight gave the room a golden tint.
“This is new,” I said, gesturing toward a pull-up bar that had been installed over the bathroom doorway.
“Oh, yeah. Check it out.” He turned and backed under the bar, then pulled himself up and down more than a dozen times before plopping himself back down to his chair. His chest muscles, tightened from the exertion, glistened with sweat.
“Damn.”
“Yeah, it’s good for the guns.” He flexed his arms. As my memory flashed back to that first Polaroid he had sent me, he leaned down and removed his shoes and socks with some minor effort.
“You might as well get naked, too,” he smiled as he wheeled into the bathroom. The wide door led to an even wider bathroom and toilet with steel bars at each side. “Gimme a few minutes. I gotta emp
ty my pee bag and stuff.”
“Doesn’t that … hurt?”
“What?”
“Taking it out?”
“Well, no, since I can’t feel my dick,” he called out from the bathroom. “Besides, I got a different one, called a Texas catheter. It’s like a rubber; doesn’t go inside. Wanna see?”
Every Time I Think of You Page 18