2005-10-29 - 9:46 p.m.
The other day, Nya�s visiting family and I had stopped while walking down Michigan Ave., Chicago�s �Magnificent Mile� of fancy shops. I think we were on our way to the Art Institute. They had just come back out of a shoe store that didn�t have a wheelchair-accessible entrance and met me waiting on the sidewalk out front.
Just then a somewhat addled-seeming and apparently homeless man came up to me and poked me several times. Poked is perhaps too strong a word. It certainly didn�t seem malicious. He almost looked curious as he reached out and touched me on the head and then on the chest, making a soft sound like �whoot� as he did so.
I looked up at him to see if he was quite finished. Our eyes met briefly and he poked me again on the side of my foot. The people I was with were rather bemused by this. Nya said the only thing that came to mind, perhaps the only proper response to this interaction. �Hey!� He looked at her and with quiet surprise said �oh�. It seemed as if he�d remembered that proper behavior involved not randomly touching people. He wandered off.
Everyone shook their heads. What was that all about? What had he meant? But probably what made it so amusing was that I took it as a fairly normal interaction, a day-to-day part of my life. Being randomly poked by someone for no apparent reason, well yeah, that�ll happen.
See, I�ve become a magnet for weirdos. Half the time I�m out in public or even just sitting on a bus, Who�s Who in Mental Illness will try initiating a conversation with me. Well, really they don�t so much want to start a dialogue as just blather to me. The religious nuts, the emotionally-as-well-as-physically challenged, the muttering conspiracy theorists. They all have something to say. To me.
Fortunately they usually talk low enough that I can�t really hear them. I just smile and nod. When their voice gets inflected up, suggesting they�ve asked me a question, I take the safe response. �Oh yes, certainly.� Most of the time they don�t wait for my answer and continue their soliloquy.
These people are mostly harmless. Mildly annoying, but with a minimal impact on my life. I can usually just tune them out. Nya also allows me a convenient out or even precluding measure. Most wacky people can read that, if I�m wrapped up in a conversation with her, I probably don�t have time for them.
(Of course, I�m afraid that some of my weirdo-magnet effect rubs off on her as the companion of someone with a disability. Sometimes within my hearing, people will tell her she�s a saint for being with me or that they�ll pray for me. I should keep track of how many random strangers� prayers I�m in. I�m sorry she has to put up with that.)
The really scary ones are those too far gone to even notice that I�m in a wheelchair. When really fried-out beggars drunkenly ask me for change, I sometimes have to resist the urge to point out that this situation is backwards. The poor crip should be asking you for change, not vice-versa.
And menacing skulkers, hopped up on God-knows-what and hating everyone within eyesight? I want to point out that beating me up or accosting my girlfriend is just too easy and isn�t really going to prove how tough they are, but they�re too fucked up to notice. It�s simpler to just cross the street and be thankful we�re not in a dark alley.
The other day as we were leaving a bar, another patron started screaming at Nya because she�d bumped him and he had a broken foot. She apologized profusely, but he kept drunkenly screaming (not that she�d actually stepped on his foot; he just seemed to feel that his bad luck gave him license to berate others).
Interestingly, he completely ignored me. Buddy, I wanted to say, she�s really tired and I have to go to the bathroom. We all have our problems, but most of us manage to act civil. Take a number and get in line before you start bitching. Again though, we just left the situation. Nya�s prudence probably keeps me out of a lot of trouble.
Of course, it�s certainly possible that the odd and deranged were drawn to me even before I became visibly disabled. I really can�t remember. But I�d like to think I�m serving the public interest now. After all, if these people weren�t prattling to me, they might be irritating you.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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