is the kind people look at, and when they look at the car, they see us,” she said.
I was glad my car wasn’t the kind people looked at. I didn’t want to be distracted by people’s looks. I wanted to fully enjoy the freedom I experienced behind the wheel. It was the same sensation I experienced when rolling in my wheelchair, multiplied ten times, a hundred times. In my car, I was completely independent. There were no steps, no stairs, no barriers on the road. Once in the car, I never needed anyone’s help, never needed to be pushed or lifted. I was equal to every other driver in every other car. I could go anywhere, go everywhere. With nothing to stop me. On my own. On my way.
In college, I began to understand what Audrey had been going through trying to fit into “the real world.” There was no “handicapped homeroom” at St. John’s. If there were disabled students, I didn’t see them.
I was eager to make friends. But none of the college students seemed interested in me. The guys ignored me. The girls were nice enough, smiled and asked how I was or if I needed help. Sometimes I sat in the lounge with girls I knew from my classes and listened to them talking about their boyfriends. They never tried to include me in those conversations. Sometimes they looked at me, as if suddenly realizing I was there, looked at one another, and stopped talking. Just like the neighbor girls back in Sicily.
I spent the long breaks between classes in the ladies’ room, or sitting in my parked car if the weather was good. I’d started smoking, thinking it would help me fit in. But I never liked it. I lit a cigarette, took a few puffs, and put it out.
I was exhausted all the time. Since the campus was not very accessible, I left my wheelchair in the car and walked with my braces and crutches. I struggled up and down steps. I walked slowly in the long corridors, praying I wouldn’t get knocked down by a student hurrying to get to class. I fell at times, nearly dying of embarrassment. Halfway through the semester, I fell going up the steps to the library and hurt more than my pride. I broke my knee and ended up in a hospital in Queens.
This hospital was nothing like HSS. There were no children or teenagers. I was the only girl on the floor. The men there—the orderlies, the janitors, the interns, and some of the patients—all seemed quite appreciative of my youth and prettiness. I mentioned that to Audrey when I called her to tell her what had happened.
“Of course, they don’t know you’re handicapped; they think you just have a broken leg.”
I didn’t care what they thought. After being ignored by the college men at St. John’s, it felt good to get some male attention. I flirted shamelessly.
I was in the hospital for just five days. The last night I was there, I woke up from a deep sleep, to see a man standing at my bedside. He had pulled the curtain halfway around my bed. But the light coming in from the open door was enough for me to recognize the good-looking orderly I’d flirted with in the evening. His penis was out of his pants. It seemed huge. He was holding it in one hand and his other hand was at his mouth, his index finger pressing against his tightly closed lips.
I was too shocked to utter a word. He smiled at me when he realized I was going to keep quiet, but he kept his index finger in front of his lips. He was stroking his penis faster now. I watched, not sure whether to be frightened or fascinated. Then he grabbed his penis with both hands, arched his back, and semen squirted over my bed.
Oh no! How was I going to explain the sticky sheet to the nurses? He smiled as he put his shrunken penis back in his pants, pulled up his zipper, and went out the door.
I was discharged the next morning. The bed was left unmade. No one noticed the spots on the sheet. I called Audrey as soon as I got home.
“He didn’t make you take it in your mouth?”
“No!”
“Or even in your hand?”
“No!”
“Would you have done it?”
“Audrey! Of course not! I didn’t want him to do what he did!”
“But you didn’t scream. You could have screamed.”
She was right. Why hadn’t I screamed? Had I liked watching him? Would I have taken his penis in my hand had he asked? I had flirted with him, after all.
“That’s true; I could have screamed.”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to feel guilty on top of it.” Audrey’s voice was suddenly soft and comforting. “It’s okay. Men usually don’t even see us. They don’t think of us as women because we’re handicapped. So we have to be glad for any attention we get.”
I went back to St. John’s in my wheelchair, with a cast on my leg. I needed help getting the chair in and out of the car. I waited by many doors, sometimes in rain and snow, for someone to get me up the steps. Certain buildings I just couldn’t get into. I couldn’t use many of the rest rooms. But at least I could zoom up and down the corridors and didn’t have to be afraid of getting knocked over.
Because I wasn’t exhausted all the time, I was able to try harder at making friends. I became more outgoing. I didn’t wait to be included in conversations, but joined in at the right moment with an appropriate remark. Men weren’t standing in line to ask me out on a date, but they seemed to notice me now. I didn’t have to wait long before someone volunteered to get me up or down steps.
One guy often appeared at the right time, when I needed help. I figured we had the same schedule. He was nice-looking, with dark hair and brown eyes. His name was Paul.
“Ready to earn your brownie points?” I joked as he grabbed the push handles of my chair.
“How about a kiss instead?”
“Okay. But you’ll have to take an IOU, because I’m late for class.”
I kept using the wheelchair after the cast came off. If asked why I wasn’t walking, I had lots of excuses: I was afraid to fall again; the weather was nasty; my leg still hurt. I didn’t mention that when using the wheelchair, I had more energy for socializing.
I made friends with a girl from my English class, Jenny. We had lunch together at least twice a week. She was pretty and popular, and had a gorgeous boyfriend named Tom. Jenny loved to talk about their relationship, which was a stormy one—lots of fights and reconciliations. I listened patiently, nodding a lot and being as sympathetic as a friend should be.
Once, after a long lunch, which ended with Jenny crying over her strawberry ice cream while I patted her arm with sisterly affection, she asked, “Aren’t you glad you don’t have to deal with this stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“You know, this boyfriend stuff!”
“Well, since I don’t have a boyfriend right now, I don’t have to deal with it. But I’m sure I will in the future.”
She looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. “Do you think you’ll ever get a boyfriend?”
Like everyone else, Jenny believed relationships were not possible for me. She had generously told me about hers, so I could have some vicarious experience. We left the cafeteria without speaking.
I stopped having lunch with Jenny and started having lunch with Anna. She was friends with Paul, the guy who was collecting IOUs from me. She’d come along one day as Paul was getting me up the steps to the library, and she casually grabbed the footrests of my chair to help. Anna was the opposite of Jenny—not that pretty, and though she had friends, male and female, she wasn’t popular and didn’t have a boyfriend. Nor did she show much interest in being popular or having a boyfriend. We talked about serious issues—civil rights, women’s liberation, the war in Vietnam… I was reluctant to end our conversations.
Anna also loved folk music, and we planned to go to a concert together. “Maybe we can ask Paul to join us. Does he like folk music?”
Anna didn’t answer.
“Paul, your friend, do you