No one pushed
"Hey, would you get my book? It's in my bag, on the back of the chair." "Yeah, sure." "My paper should be in there somewhere, too. You wanna grab that . . ." "Yeah, OK." "Good, that's it. Just set the book open in front of me. A little higher . . ." "Your wish is my command." "Don't make me come over there." Ed was not a stellar student, but he was determined to get an English degree. He wanted to teach at a junior college. It was something he figured he could make a living at, and being self-sufficient was his holy grail. He liked to study out on the plaza near the student union where he could flirt with girls and take shots at the guys. "You really should wear a hat, Ed." "They make my head sweat . . . Hey pinhead! Haven't they locked you up, yet?" "Ed, cut it out. He's a lineman, for crying out loud. He'll come over here and kill us both." "I could grind him into dust. This chair weighs half a ton." "Oh, great. I feel safe. Here, Mr. No-neck. Hold still while I back over you with my chair." "What you need is a real man, sweetheart. I could take care of that for you." Ed was irascible for a guy who spent his every waking hour in a chair. He showered in the chair. He danced in the chair. He threatened to kick the behinds of national championship athletes from the chair, and those of us who knew him were not so sure he couldn't do it. It was a battery-powered sip-and-puff chair, sip for backward, puff to go forward, with a chin lever for turns. Books, keys, wallet - all his personal effects Ed kept in a bag strapped to the back. He couldn't buy a soda, crack a book or scratch his nose without asking for help, but he did so with such complete absence of self-pity and with so much self-acceptance that no one turned him down, not even big beefy guys he just called sister. Ed was sentenced to the chair one beautiful spring evening after he graduated from high school in Cedar Rapids, Neb. Ed and his buddies were quaffing cold ones out by the sand pit when one of them dared him to dive off a 12-foot embankment into the muddy water below. Never one to shirk a dare, Ed took a swan dive and landed head first on the roof of a car concealed inches below the surface of the dirty water. From that point forward, his body from the neck down never again obeyed his will. The friend who dared him walked away that day and never came around again. He never called Ed. Never looked him in the eye, which would have been enough for Ed. He never blamed the guy. He never started whining for lawyers and lawsuits. Everyday that he spends strapped in the chair and every night when two people to lift him onto the bed, Ed knows one thing for sure. He made the decision to jump. No one pushed him. He didn't blame his buddy. He didn't blame the beer company for robbing him of his common sense. He didn't blame the outfit that made the car that broke his neck. He didn't blame whoever dug the sand pit. He didn't blame anyone. Blame was for babies, Ed figured. Blame says I'm not responsible for myself. He wasn't about to play that game. For Ed, there was only one reality, and he lives with it, every single day, strapped to a chair. Monday, June 15, 1998 |