Friday after work, some young guy (early 20’s) tried to chat me up on the bus ride home. I had my headphones on and reading Hot Water Music, usually that’s a good indication to anyone that I don’t want to be fucking bothered. This guy just didn’t get the hint. He asked me what I reading, I told him it was Bukowski. He gave me a “who the fuck is Bukowski?” look and asked if I was reading for pleasure or for school. LOL, I almost laughed in his face. I wanted to tell him that I was 37 and the last time I was in school was when I graduated from college in 97. I just told him it was for pleasure and ignored him from there. I’m such a bitch sometimes.
Past
When I was 24 I moved into my first apartment located just south of downtown Denver. Prior to that I had lived with my best friend and her husband for about 6 months, then for a few months with a man I was seeing at the time. The independence I felt with having my own apartment and living by myself for the first time in my life was amazing. I know that 24 is an advanced age for someone achieving autonomy. Keep in mind, my mother had forced me into a life of servitude at a very young age, so breaking free from her grasp and getting out on my own was a huge task for me.
I didn’t have much when I moved in. Just two suitcases full of clothes, a couple of CD’s, a CD player, a towel, some toiletries, a blanket my friend gave me and an inflatable mattress which later ended up with a huge hole in it after a long night of aggressive sex. I had no groceries, no furniture, no TV, no phone…just an empty apartment. But I didn’t give a shit. There could have been a crack dealer living next door and I would have cared less. Which by the way, ended up happening about a year later.
The night I moved in I decided to celebrate by going down the street to 7-11 for a diet coke and a magazine. It was a Sunday so no liquor stores were open, otherwise I would have been drunk already. As I was walking past a car wash I noticed an old man in a wheelchair pushing himself backwards with one foot. As I got closer, I noticed the old man was probably in his 70’s, both of his arms and hands were curled up to his chest and it was obvious that his other leg was nonfunctional. His presence definitely threw me. I knew I was living in a bad neighborhood to begin with, so seeing druggies and homeless folks were no big deal. But to see an old cripple pushing himself down the street late on a Sunday night just seemed so bizarre and out of place. I immediately came up to him and asked if he needed help. I asked where he lived and offered to push his wheelchair home. His reaction to my hospitality didn’t seem to go over well. His body began to jerk and twist and I heard him mumble something along the lines of “fuck off”. At that point I decided to leave him be and watched him push himself across the street towards a run down apartment complex just up the street from my own apartment.
For the next couple of years, I would catch the old man here and there around the neighborhood. He spent most of his time at the car wash bumming cigs from the Mexican attendants. I also saw him at the Walgreens down the street one day, cashing in his monthly disability check. A friend of his was there to assist with the transaction. I stood in line behind them, watching the piss slosh around in the portable urinal hanging off the back of his wheelchair. All I could think was how much of a fucked up life this poor bastard must have had.
Two years later, I got married and moved into a new apartment north of Denver. One night my husband and I were watching a documentary on HBO called Without Pity: A Film About Abilities narrated by Christopher Reeves. The old man was one of the people featured on the doc. I couldn’t believe it. The old, crippled man was now a celebrity of sorts. I watched the documentary, listened to his story and learned his name for the first time. His name was Frank McColm Jr and he was born with cerebral palsy. At the age of 13, Frank’s father institutionalized him in the State Home and Training Center in Wheat Ridge, CO. Frank lived in that facility for over 40 years and was subject to physical and mental abuse throughout that time. Through the assistance of a disability advocacy group, he was able to move out of the facility and into his own apartment. He was always terrified that someone would send him back to the institution and he constantly feared social workers that came to visit. He lived on his own until his death at the age of 84 back in January of 2007.
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