Cripple/ Becoming

   He spent years pretending to need aluminum braces to walk.   He would sit on the bus and roll his eyes back into his skull so only the whites would show out to those siting around him.    He created an unsavory external expression of himself to project, so when rejected he did not have to feel like the 'real he' was rejected.

   Like I said,  he did this for many years, first as an experiment, then out of spite, later out of habit or addiction to the behavior, and finally because it was the 'real he' who he became.  This was an important lesson he never forgot : Pretend something long enough, and it will become real, will become who and what you are.

   Some people who met him avoided him because of his apparent disability, others were drawn to him, wanting to help him, or to elevate their own opinion of themselves.   Some people DID help him.    Most people were transparent at first, their motivations cliche, and later all lazily lumped into some category according to hair color and physical height.

    People to him were no longer mysterious at all, his 'condition' would allow them to  lower their own defenses and egos, and the 'real them' could spill forth.   After years of being treated to people's uninhibited behaviors and actions,  he could predict the scant several categories of displayed behavior before it ever began.

     He once was on a train in St. Louis Missouri, and became convinced he could make lightning appear in the sky by closing his eyes, wishing hard enough and clenching his lying hands.    Three times in a row he tried to do it, three times in a row it worked.   He began to feel he had an extraordinary gift the first time this afternoon.    He looked left and right to his sides to see if anyone noticed his power.   They did not, but they noticed the lightning displayed through the windows of the coach, and this was a satisfying enough start for him. 

    Another time in Chicago, he discovered a dead man in an alley, apparently homeless and expired from some non-violent means and he knelt over the body and laying his crutches down on either side of the dead man, leaned his face in close to see if he could feel breath issue from his nose or mouth.   He touched the cold cheek and knew.   He opened the half-closed eyes all the way and looked in them earnestly, trying to find some answer.  He tried to will life back into this body, but he could not.   He closed his eyes, wished, and clenched his cheating hands.    Nothing changed, the body remained still.   He quickly stood up and installed the braces again and shuffled quickly along his way.   He tried to forget this episode of impotence.

   There were times he would begin to enjoy a person, enjoy their company, and he would  teeter on the edge of telling them his secret, he would want to make this particular connection 'special' with his admission.   He came close once or twice, but as luck would have it, something would go wrong soon before he followed through.      Long lean necks and throats pulsed within inches of him so many times and he could feel a naked honesty there, carrying oxygen-rich blood to the cortex,  voices -  the expression of thoughts and wants - issued from those narrow tunnels of vessels, cartilage and glowing skin.    He felt that place was an especially reverent one in these humans.  A fragile tube ferrying life and truths (and sometimes lies)  and often so wonderful to admire and fantasize of caressing.

   His fingers ached for something more than his soul told him he could ever have.    This was his future which was fortified almost everyday.    HE began to wonder if his actual vision was necessary anymore, maybe it was becoming a disadvantage.  Should he wear an eye patch?   Thumb out his vision?   Wrap his head in gauze like the end of a Q-tip?

    Beauty was a curse, he always believed this, even before.     To have things given too easily was to ruin the recipient.   People are lazy.   People take too much for granted.   People should experience as much pain as possible, to provide a contrast for when things are good.   When things ARE good, you should be anticipating 'the catch', bracing for the floor to fall out away from under you, never get too comfortable,  these are the things he believed.