Book-Students

( Place om page 49, after para 6 still shy..)

I distinctly remember two of these guys. One was named  Pat, a young guy in his late 20's. He used to play high school football,  a wide receiver and corner back. He had broad shoulders and a massive upper body, which looked even bigger when compared to his thin legs.  He  looked more like a surfer dude, with long , dirty blond hair. He could do tricks with his extra-light wheelchair, like jumping curbs and spinning on a dime.

Pat was a very positive guy, always talking about what he was going to do with his life after completing the course. He already had a handicapped adaptable van, knew how to drive with hand-controls, and  did things like date girls. He had a good attitude and was eager to tell anyone who was willing to listen  what put him in a chair about seven years earlier.

"A linebacker and a safety collided in the fourth quarter of a tie game. I happened to be in the middle. I broke my neck but damn if I still didn't catch the ball for the game-winning touchdown." Pat said, his eyes staring ahead, his face grinning slightly. Now he was paralyzed from the waist down. He had gained feeling in his hands and upper body  with intensive rehabilitation. His  legs never did come back.

 The settlement he received from the football injury helped to pay for his van. Now all he needed was a good job.

 We sat side-by-side one morning riding into the city."I was good enough to be an All-American," he claimed. "I guess you never played football?"

"No way. I have brittle bones. I would've been toast," I said, half-joking. "But I watch a lot of football. "

"That's too bad, " he replied. "Football  is a great sport. I miss not being able to play it. "

"You're not bitter about playing football?" I asked.

"Why should I be bitter?" he replied "Shit happens. It's all in how you look at it. Besides, I'm gonna walk again someday. I work out all the time. Once I get a good job and start making money, I'll marry my girlfriend .  I'll have my life back again. What about you?"

"I'm used to it," I said, looking down at my legs. " I'll never walk. But that's okay. Some things you just gotta accept."

"You have a good attitude,"he said."It could always  be worse. Look at that guy over there."

Pat gestured to the second fellow I recall from the Penn van rides. He was exactly the opposite of Pat. I never really talked to him much, mostly because he hardly ever looked at me, like I didn't exist in the van, like I wasn't worth the time of day.

George was a stocky guy who seemed  heavier,  crammed into his too-small  of a wheelchair. He often dressed in black.   He wore dark tinted glasses with round frames, sort of like what Elton John would wear in that era.  His balding  hairline gave away his age, most likely in his 50's .

 George  seemed to be mad at the world. He wasn't afraid to comment on anything and everything discussed in the van. He was clearly the older but wiser ( or so he thought) member of the group, offering his opinion   even if it wasn't  needed.

He talked about  smoking "joints"  a lot, maybe to seem cool?  His hero was "The Fonz" from the TV show "Happy Days."

Without warning  he hummed or sang songs from the 1950s, old classics like "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" or  "Sea Of Love."   loud enough so everyone else could hear.

"Remember 'The Platters?' Now that was a fantastic group," George  murmured . Of course, no one remembered The Platters or cared.

George  didn't talk much about his private life. From what I gathered he was a lost soul, never having a real job. He begrudgingly  gave the course, and  employment,  another shot.

 He didn't like being in the cab. He complained all the time: about the weather, or how  the cab was too cold, or  how the cab was too hot, about our lessons or that the van wasn't  going fast enough, or how he wished he was back in his warm, toasty bed ( as we all did).

I also gathered that his reason for being in a wheelchair wasn't an accident but a lifelong disability, maybe Multiple Sclerosis or Muscular Dystrophy. I think it was the latter because he talked about Jerry Lewis and his MDS Telethon.

"Do you think Jerry Lewis gets a cut outta hosting that gig?" George wondered aloud.

George got into it with Pat one  cold morning when everyone was cranky and couldn't take the weather or each other anymore. "That's like the ninety-eighth time you've talked about catching that  friggin' 'game-winning touchdown' in the Rose Bowl," he moaned to Pat.

"Hey, man, at least I got memories to talk about," replied Pat."And I never played in the Rose Bowl, jackass."

   It was like being back in the cab again, ten years earlier, with Timmy, Donny and Sy.

 When George started singing "The Great Pretender," while staring at Pat,  Pat gave it back to him.  "Don't you know any new songs from this year?  Like 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart?" That was an obvious reference to George looking like Elton John.



"Leave me alone," George  grumbled,  sulking/ "You don'y know classic music.. The music now sucks. So does everything else."

George wasn't the most positive guy in the world. Maybe that's the real reason he dressed in black.  Even though he never spoke to me, let alone looked at me, I felt kind of sorry for him. He probably really did wish it was the Fifties again, back when he was younger and  healthier. Maybe he seemed angry all the time because he had reason to be angry- with himself, with his circumstances, with the world, and damn...with all the wasted time between the Fifties and now?

   I didn't want to be  another George in  thirty years .Pat showed me what I could be, while George showed me what I possibly could be.

Other than talking to Pat, who seemed like  a good guy,  I still felt like an outcast around most of these guys. I sure wasn't as independent or world-wise as they were. So I mostly kept to myself, in and out of the van.

Most shared what they would do once they got off Social Security Disability and made some real money. From Pat's wish to start a new life to George's wish of "having a few bucks in my pocket to see a movie sometime," we all had dreams, some more lofty than others. What we all had in common was a longing and a need  for respect and dignity, no matter the age, no matter the social level in life- and especially no matter the disability.