Carry On

by Lisa Fenn

  Liddie discovered that not only did Dartanyon’s hips swing like hinges, but his mind sucked in instruction like a magnetic force field. “We showed him a throw. He absorbed it. We showed him another throw. He absorbed it.” Though Liddie had dumbed down the drills for Dartanyon’s safety, Dartanyon exhibited a feel for the basic movements. Liddie likened it to a young kid who picks up a baseball for the first time and throws a curveball into the strike zone. “He wanted to see another throw, then another one. I was like, jeez, who is this kid?”

  But Liddie knew that judo is largely a pedigree sport in which children between the ages of six and ten years old are ushered in by their judo-loving parents. Only on rare occasions does anyone start in his late teens to emerge as a dominant force. Still, Liddie went home scratching his head that night. “Had I not been there to see it myself and someone later told me that this kid had potential, I would have said, ‘That’s great, but it’s too late to start in the sport.’”

  Paralympics officials had been impressed with what they saw of Dartanyon’s athleticism on ESPN, but in question was whether he was blind enough to participate in blind judo. He needed to fall into one of three categories: B1, B2, or B3. Athletes with a B1 impairment suffer from complete or near-total blindness. B2 athletes possess a constricted visual field of less than ten degrees. B3 athletes present with a visual field of less than forty degrees. By comparison, one needs a clear field of vision of at least one hundred degrees to qualify for a driver’s license.

  Dartanyon was scheduled for an appointment at the United States Olympic Committee’s (USOC) Director of Vision Services, which is charged with classifying Paralympians for competition. The optometrist put Dartanyon through an hour-long battery of tests. Her commands were rushed and curt. If Dartanyon said he could not make out a letter, she insisted he try harder. Dartanyon began to feel attacked and overwhelmed. And then he began guessing. His waffling caused the doctor to wonder if he was faking his condition—an idea utterly inconceivable to Dartanyon, yet a legitimate cause for concern, particularly in Eastern European countries, where Paralympians are paid handsomely. Finally, and with no warning, the optometrist announced her conclusion: “Dartanyon, you are a borderline B3, if that. You will never be cleared to participate.” With that, she left the room, leaving the news to burn in Dartanyon’s chest.

  “My whole life I’m too blind to do much of anything. Then I find something that is designed for the visually impaired, and I can’t do it?” Dartanyon said to me. He had let himself imagine, if for just one night, that perhaps his physical disability had not been a defect, that perhaps it was intended as his ticket down this golden path toward athletic glory. Instead, he headed back to the airport, and the experience faded behind him like a mountain mirage.

  ULTIMATELY, LEROY DECIDED that he identified as an artist, not an athlete. His veins did not pulse with competitive juices like Dartanyon’s did. He wanted to develop video games, and he wanted to do it in a region where his wheelchair would not get stuck in snow. Leroy quietly selected Collins College of Design in Phoenix, Arizona to pursue his studies. Together we filled out the application, and I coordinated details with the admissions counselor.

  Throughout our visits and phone calls that fall, Dartanyon was full of thank-yous and hugs, broad smiles and slow exhales. But Leroy’s apathetic posture never budged. Even when I called to congratulate him on his acceptance to Collins, he grunted, unimpressed.

  “Leroy, if at any point you don’t want this, you need to speak up,” I said. “The last thing I want to do is inflict my desires on you.”

  “No, it’s all good,” he replied.

  “But usually when it’s ‘all good,’ people smile or say something,” I said. “Each time I call you with good news, you are so quiet. I am not even sure you are on the line.”

  “No one’s ever called me with good news before. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.” Just as Leroy had not learned the language of lament, he lacked the prose of pleasure as well. “But I am happy inside,” he finally said. “My dreams might come true.”

  CHAPTER 11

  THE GENTLE WAY

  Ed Liddie could not shake Dartanyon’s demo out of his head. The kid threw me, he thought. Liddie knew that visual acuity testing involves a degree of subjectivity in interpreting the classification boundaries. Failing one eye exam did not technically disqualify Dartanyon. He could try again. Perhaps he had gotten lucky enough guessing letters that he’d failed himself. Still, attempting additional testing was fine for young kids and weekend warriors who wanted to compete as a hobby, but the stakes were higher for Liddie. If Dartanyon’s vision was truly borderline, and he managed to pass a domestic eye exam, he could still be in jeopardy of failing one in international competition, where classification protocols are stricter. Liddie couldn’t be on the hook for spending USOC development dollars on a kid who had a high likelihood of being ruled ineligible two or three years down the line, when he was being counted on for results. And of course, these issues hinged on the biggest question of all: Could an eighteen-year-old kid be taken, quite literally, off the streets and transformed into a formidable judo player?

  Liddie didn’t know the answer. Though he had coached thirteen Olympians since 1996, he had only absorbed the resident Paralympic responsibilities one year earlier, in 2008. The competitive landscape and the vision testing were still murky to him. All he knew for sure was that he’d inherited a roster with a gaping hole at −81kg, and Dartanyon could fill it pound for pound. Liddie decided to approach it like a chess match: make one move at a time, and see what ensues. He told me to find Dartanyon a beginner judo class in Cleveland, just to see if he liked it enough to follow through.

  THE JAPANESE CHARACTERS for judo represent two ideas. The ju embodies “yielding or giving way.” The do means “the way.” When translated into English, the name of this sport that allows one to literally choke the breath out of another is commonly referred to as “the gentle way.” In a technical sense, the principle of “giving way” applies to how one responds to a stronger challenger. For example, if one is pushed, the instinct is to push back, leading to a strength-against-strength confrontation, with the stronger challenger emerging victorious. However, under judo principles, the win would not necessarily go to the more powerful athlete. The weaker judoka, when forcibly pushed, could give way—yielding to the energy by turning or dropping low. The challenger’s momentum in turn would go through or over the judoka, leaving the challenger off balance and the weaker but more skillful judoka in optimal position for a takedown.

  In the philosophical sense, “giving way” is also a life application, emphasizing maximum efficiency in the art of refining and perfecting daily life. “Take the energy the world is sending you—good or bad—and use it to your advantage,” explained Shane Hudson, master instructor at MaxOut Sports, located on the southeast edge of Cleveland. “Don’t fight back. Take the energy and adapt to it. Do you understand?”

  Few understood better. “I’ve been adapting my whole life,” Dartanyon answered.

  I had cold-called Hudson the week before, giving him what was becoming my standard spiel about a blind boy, a train accident survivor, and their uniquely inspiring friendship. As long as I got an even marginal sports fan on the phone, those four letters I gave after my name—E-S-P-N—opened nearly every door I approached. In this case, I needed a judo coach, and Hudson was the first one to pick up the phone.

  Like Coach Liddie, Hudson grew up on military bases. His father served in the air force, and every base had a mandated judo club. As a teen Hudson briefly encountered a blind Vietnam veteran on base in North Carolina who coached and made an indelible imprint on him. Hudson was fascinated by how this man maneuvered by feel, and he often found himself doing his own drill work with his eyes closed to mimic the sensation.

  Hudson fit Dartanyon’s needs with the perfect trifecta of qualifications: a third-degree black belt, a bachelor’s degree in business management, and theologi
cal training in biblical studies. He had skills, smarts, and sensitivity. He saw his dojo not just as a business but as a ministry. For two decades he had been donating training fees for underprivileged children and working side jobs to raise money for their uniforms and tournament expenses. He believed in the power of judo to combat the rough edges of life with a more wholesome way. And he radiated the Zen-like gentleness he espoused. A trim white man in his early fifties, Hudson had soft graying hair and kind, welcoming eyes. After watching Carry On, he wasted no time phoning me back to say that Dartanyon was welcome any time, free of charge.

  Hudson may have been moved by Dartanyon’s plight, but he was nonplussed by his athletic abilities. “When he first came out, he was getting thrown all over the beginner class like a rag doll,” Hudson remembered. “I wasn’t sure why the USOC was interested in him. There was nothing that made me say ‘This guy is going to go far.’” Hudson pulled Dartanyon off the mats and put him through a series of skill tests instead: Sprint work to check his fast-twitch muscle groups. Vertical leap and broad jump to look at his explosive abilities. Clean and jerks to assess his strength. Core stability, endurance, upper back—everything from soup to nuts. “Judo relies on coordinated, explosive motion, all within a self-contained sphere,” Hudson said. “And as it turned out, Dartanyon had it all. He had the tools to be the real deal.”

  Hudson continued, drilling Dartanyon further than he would drill anyone else. “I was looking for the point at which Dartanyon’s intensity would wane. It never did.” Hudson knew he had a true fighter—the kind who has nothing to lose and everything to prove. But in order for his physical tools and his interminable will to work together, Dartanyon needed to accomplish two difficult, somewhat contradictory goals: unlearn wrestling while learning judo. Hudson likened wrestling to a commercial airliner—wide in the base, giving one a longer setup time and a broader stance from which to throw. Judo is the jet fighter—a tighter, dynamic stance from which to twitch and quickly turn with your opponent. “In wrestling, you can just heave-ho someone. Judo is about timing and finesse,” Hudson said. “Dartanyon quickly realized that overpowering people wasn’t working. He had to learn the technique.”

  Hudson focused on Judo 101—hand placement on an opponent’s gi, bowing to authority, how to take a fall. He pounded Dartanyon with rudimentary skills, over and over, until his muscles could remember them without his head having to try so hard. Hudson was encouraged, but he didn’t have much to report when Ed Liddie called in early November, after just a handful of sessions, to check on his prospect. Hudson believed Dartanyon’s greatest asset was the one quality he seemed to be missing—arrogance. “There is no belligerence or sass in him,” he told Coach Liddie. “He’s teachable.”

  DARTANYON HAD BEEN enrolled at Cuyahoga Community College for a month when the first crisis arose in October 2009.

  “They’re gonna drop me from school tomorrow because I can’t get financial aid,” he said.

  “Who is going to drop you?” I asked. “Why can’t you get financial aid? I thought we signed everything last month.” He didn’t know who had called him, and he hadn’t asked for any further details. He seemed resigned that he would have to leave. I spent the next hour on hold with the school before sending Dartanyon to sign consent forms so the financial aid department could speak to me, and then languishing on hold once again. The simple answer: the school needed Arthur’s 2009 tax returns to process Dartanyon’s aid.

  “Can you just call your dad and ask for his taxes?” I asked Dartanyon.

  “His phone is off,” Dartanyon said. “I won’t find him by tomorrow.” I called the school again to explain the dilemma and request an extension. We would have the taxes within a few days, I promised. The days turned into weeks, with Arthur saying he was just about to dig those up each time he saw his son. Finally, one weekend while Navid was on call at the hospital, I flew to Cleveland to find Arthur myself. I had promised the boys’ trio of donors that I would handle these bumps in the road, and I could not in good conscience squander their money when this appeared to be an easy problem to fix. Besides, I told Navid, it was a good excuse to sneak in a visit with Jayda as well.

  Arthur met with Dartanyon and me during his break at Applebee’s, where he worked as a server. He had never heard of financial aid before. “I thought you said in that meeting that Dartanyon’s college was paid for,” Arthur said. I explained that it would be, but the benefactors were expecting us to take advantage of government grants to lower the costs, and these were dependent on parents’ tax returns. “They are generous families, but I can’t ask them to spend more money than they need to,” I said.

  “I didn’t do my taxes last year,” Arthur said.

  “I can help you get those done pretty quickly,” I said. “There might be a small penalty for being late, but it shouldn’t be much.”

  Arthur looked down and picked at his thumbnail. “I haven’t done my taxes in more than ten years,” he confessed. Arthur had been evading child support payments for his kids, and since he made most of his money in undocumented tips, he had double cause to steer clear of the IRS.

  “How much do you owe?” I asked.

  “Lost track. Probably twenty or thirty thousand dollars. Let’s just say that if I do my taxes now, I could go to jail,” he answered solemnly. I looked at Arthur, and then at Dartanyon. I didn’t know who to fight for in this situation.

  “Arthur, I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’m just going to lay out the choices and the consequences. The decision is yours,” I said. “If you work with an accountant, which we can cover, your son can be assured a college education and you may go to jail. If you decide not to pay taxes, I can’t be as sure of Dartanyon’s future.”

  Arthur pondered his next move for an uncomfortably long time. He no longer wanted Dartanyon to be a better man than himself. Instead, he wanted to be the man Dartanyon needed. He steeled himself, summoning every ounce of courage to face the challenge at hand. “I’ve put this boy through hell and back, and somehow, the love never left,” he said. “You know you can only should’ve, could’ve, would’ve so many times. It’s time I do the right thing for my son.”

  THE CALL CAME on November 13, 2009—a week earlier than we expected. I paged Navid in his morning meeting: “Our son has arrived.” I threw together our suitcases, and we sped to the airport, calling for open flights to Cleveland as we drove. “Come on, Mommy!” “Hurry up, Daddy!” we sang as we danced to the boarding gate. We had been counseled to guard our enthusiasm throughout the pregnancy in the event that Jayda chose to keep her son. But now he was here, and Jayda had bid us to come.

  We had also resisted finalizing a name, not wanting to personalize the process before knowing the outcome. But once on the plane, we pulled out our pared-down list of boy names. At the top of both of our lists was Saxon, the Germanic name for “warrior.” Somewhere over Pennsylvania, we settled on the middle name Azariah, a Hebrew moniker meaning “with the help of God.” After the pervasive struggle I had witnessed in Cleveland, I wanted my son to grow into a man of conviction who would defend goodness and justice, and who would speak for the downtrodden, all the while relying on the long arms of heaven. We wanted to brand a special purpose on this child’s life, one that reflected how Leroy and Dartanyon had shaken my perceptions of race and class, reshaped Navid’s notion of family, and led us to this baby—not just any child but this child, this boy for whom I’d felt destined since my own youth.

  Those lofty ideals quickly melted into pools of butter once we laid eyes on our ruddy, wrinkly little boy. This future warrior looked straight out of the land of dolls. He had ears as tiny as my thumbprint and a head of silky black hair so full that it looked like a toupee. As he yawned, I caught a hint of Jayda’s darling dimples buried deep in his disproportionately large cheeks.

  “I’d like you to meet your son,” Jayda said, her voice catching. She offered him up into my arms, resolved to be brave even as her quivering lip betrayed her.
She had known her son for just twelve hours. Why must she say good-bye so soon? How dire must her circumstances have been? And how deep her love, that she would not subject this child to hardship undeserved? Nothing had prepared me for the crushing sadness involved in taking a child out of the hands of the woman who had given him life. Saxon began to writhe and wail. I didn’t know who to comfort first, this fragile baby or his broken young mother. To gain a family, my son had to lose a family. Grief twisted my insides, and yet on the outside, Jayda needed to see me welcome her child with joy.

  The hospital staff, sensitive to the complexities of adoption, allowed Navid and me to stay in the adjoining room to maximize our time with Saxon and Jayda. We took turns feeding him, changing him, and trying to offset Jayda’s sadness with conversation about Saxon’s perfection. Navid was instantly enamored of this child, and of fatherhood, while I fixated on Jayda’s solitude. She remained uncertain of the birth father, had hidden her pregnancy from her family, and had delivered without anyone by her side. Soon she would have to walk out of the hospital, alone. But Jayda sat in her bed, drawing strength from her son’s trusting gaze. She stared at him like he was her soul mate, and the longer she absorbed his love, the more convinced she became that she would do the right thing for her child.

  I had prepared for Saxon’s arrival by reading books on organic nutrition and classical education philosophies. I intended to be the perfect parent straight out of the box. But watching Jayda, I began to see that parenthood doesn’t demand perfection. It demands grace—for the complexities of the journey, for resolving to be the hero a child needs, and for the letting go. This revelation softened me toward Saxon’s first visitor as he walked through the hospital door.

  “Congratulations, honey,” my father said. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m here.” I was genuinely glad he had come.