Story Forty

That time I searched for freedom.

I made it just over 24 hours into my first trip alone before I was hit by a car. I'm in Washington DC and I was crossing at a crosswalk with the light in the zebra stripes. That is to say that I wasn't jaywalking. I was allowed to be where I was, and I had the right of way, but what I didn't have was height. So I'm crossing the street, and this SUV decides to take a right turn at no little speed. He was in a hurry. I was in his blind spot, so he hit me in my wheelchair and dragged me a couple of feet. He felt really bad and said that he thought he had hit a rock, which didn't precisely make me feel better, but also didn't make me feel worse. As far as things one could be compared to a rock seems kind of in the middle.

People tend to think of people in wheelchairs as inanimate objects. He was in a hurry and I seemed fine and my wheelchair worked so I took his information and carried on with my night. I was due to meet a friend for dinner and I was hungry and if anything was going to swell, it would take a couple of hours anyway, so there was no point going to the ER right away. It was about an hour later that I realized that my wheelchair was kind of fucked. It drives just fine, but the base has been twisted. What was a minor squeak before is now a constant scream of metal on metal in the foot plate. It's bent to a degree that I can't keep it down while I'm traveling over any surface less even than marble or cobblestone, else it scrapes across the ground with a screeching that would make any blackboard or banshee proud. So that'll be a fairly expensive repair, if it isn't one of those situations where something works but is totaled because fixing it to standard would be more expensive size than simply replacing it. I'm kind of hoping for the latter, because I'm betting some kid in the high school welding class could fix it and then I can give it to someone who can't afford one.

A consequence of disability is that paradoxically, people expect you to be in pain in ways that you don't experience but tend not to believe you about the pain that you do feel. I knew something wasn’t right with my foot.I don't know the word for not right and also not wrong, but that's me, apparently. It looks as though I'll be a plaintiff again, which is the one experience in my life I'd most hoped to not repeat.

I'd nearly prefer being shot again rather than sue anyone. It is singularly horrible, to the point that I'm nearly inclined just to pay the bills myself. Add them to the pile, what's another ten grand or so? The man was driving a vehicle that had no scratches or damage visible, and anyone who has driven in DC for long knows that an undamaged vehicle is a sign of wealth here, because it means that when someone opens their door into your car or rear ends you gently while parallel parking, you can immediately take it to the shop.

So I found myself smoking outside my hotel which is located in a gentrifying part of the city, meaning that there's a Starbucks and a nice grocery store and a Potbelly and a brewery but after dark one doesn't keep one's phone out. I am exempt from that bit of worry, as my phone is securely strapped to my wheelchair so a one trying to steal it will grab it and run a step or two before being yanked back cartoon-style as it takes a fair bit to drag me and my wheelchair anyplace I don't want to go. All told, in my chair I weigh in at nearly 250 pounds, plus whatever I happen to be carrying in the basket which is usually books and liquids. So 270lbs and my chair can't be pulled off balance or lose its grip like I could if I were standing and caught unawares. You'd be mad to try to rob me anytime day or night.

Anyway, so I was out front smoking and noticed a woman nodding off. She was clearly unhoused and so many people might assume she was simply sleeping in a well-little area, but if you know opiates you can spot someone doing the nod a mile away. She was doing the nod. I do it too sometimes, when I'm tired and have to take a painkiller, I'll fall asleep midsentence sitting up. Hell, I did it in the hotel bar not two nights ago, in a haze from the pain and the brain fog and the drugs, and because I'd only had an iced tea and some fries and I'd been there for hours working, the bartender just let me doze. Nodding off from drugs is either a crime or a pitiable condition, depending on whether one is inside the hotel or on the cold street looking at a building full of empty warm rooms. So when I saw the woman, I went in and asked the desk clerk for Narcan. It's over the counter and $40 and addiction hits all classes so it seemed reasonable to ask. The clerk is very nice, he's been on night shift three nights I've been here and has gotten used to my coming and going at all hours. He asks about my writing, although it's clear he doesn’t quite understand why if I can write anytime, I stay up all night. But he doesn't ask questions because I am polite and he feels bad for me. He knows my room  number and sometimes asks if I want him to make me some tea because the hot water dispensers are too high for someone who's sat down instead of standing like most patrons.

Asking for Narcan is a chancy thing. Half the time, people don't know what you're asking for, and when they do it sometimes makes them wonder how you know about it and why you need it. I had to explain overdose reversal to the nice clerk and told him there was a woman out front who might be dying. He shook his head and apologized for the riff-raff which is a term i haven't heard lately, so it took me a second to understand that he thought I might be offended at the existence of the poor in their own neighborhood, that I might be afraid or otherwise bothered. I wondered what about me said that I might agree with him, why he'd think I was asking for Narcan if I thought the woman should just do the decent thing and disappear. It turns out that the lady didn't need the Narcan. She was nodding, for sure, but wasn't otherwise in danger. Her name is Pamela, and over a cigarette she told me that she wasn't always like this, that she used to work until she got screwed by worker's comp and lost her job and then her apartment and then her car, and now she used whatever she could find on the street for pain relief of both the physical and emotional sort. I told her to be careful, and she shrugged and so did I, because we both knew she'd die soon from a bad bag but there wasn't any point putting that into the air, spoken and inescapable. Better to just leave it at well wishes and a referral to a drug clinic where she could maybe get some testing strips for her next few bags. It's difficult to feel too sorry for oneself because of a swollen foot and squeaky wheelchair when repairs and healing are a possibility. I remember the days where they weren't, when those things were for those who were better than me. Pain with dignity is infinitely preferable to pain and insult. And at the end of the day, I carry Narcan in case I ever need it, it's just that I'm willing to share in an emergency. There's no moral difference between Pamela and I, it's just that my drugs are guaranteed to be clean and unadulterated and of a predictable dosage, so when I feel noddy I can take a nap instead of hoping I am left alone on the streets for long enough to feel better. But we're both addicts, because we both need this medicine to survive, and it's only circumstance that makes my addiction noble, a badge of what I endure every day, instead of a shameful indulgence.

So I have been in DC searching for freedom and I have found pain. Perhaps they are the same thing, maybe freedom costs something of oneself.

I will keep looking. Maybe it only costs a shared cigarette in the cold with a stranger.