Wheels of Steel, Book 1 (11 page)

“You know, you and I can make this a regular gig. It’s good money in it.” Jason turned his attention back to the other man. He hadn’t actually seen Link get paid but knew that it had probably been a paying gig. Link certainly hadn’t offered him a cut, not that he would have taken it. Jason shrugged.

“It was fun. I’ll think on it.” He responded honestly.

“You are the most talented person I know.” Link said thoughtfully. “And you do this for pleasure. Think about making this work for you, Jason. Wheels of Steel…it’s ok. But we should be thinking bigger.”

But DJ’ing wasn’t his thing. He liked being behind the scene or mixing in private. Maybe if he didn’t have CP it would be different, or the seizures. But he did have them and there was a lot more to consider when you had disabilities. First was the access, second was the way people viewed him, third was the transportation of himself and the gear. For the most part people understood that just because he moved and lurched and his head flopped and jerked didn’t mean that he was mentally disabled. His slurred speech was not indicative of slow thinking.

But then there were the others; he called them the ‘head patters’ and ‘slow talkers’. Nothing much pissed him off more than these so-called ‘well meaning’ people. They got in your face and talked to you like you were mentally disabled; assuming that you were incapable of understanding.

He understood that he was luckier than some even though he was in a wheelchair. Others with CP couldn’t even talk. They were people that could think and reason just like any capable person, but were trapped within a body whose muscles could not be controlled; looking to the rest of the world like a person with a mental disability instead of a person imprisoned within flesh and bone.

When people tried that ‘head patting’, ‘slow talking’ with him he let them have it! He had once caused an aid to fall down a flight of stairs when he was 12 years old. Every day, after his mother left for work, she’d call him retard. And one day he’d gotten so tired of it that for the first time in his life he cursed. And once he started he couldn’t stop. He’d kept advancing on her, spewing foreign sounding profanities, spit flying and green eyes in a rage. And she’d kept moving backwards until she was lying at the bottom of the stairs. He wanted to say, ‘Now who’s the stupid one?’, when he’d been smart enough to stop and she hadn’t!

She had been one of the worst ones, but there had been other bad ones in his life time, especially when he was little, before he knew that it was okay to fight back. He used to get sat in a corner for eight hours while his Mom went to work, or tied to the bed. Once, an aid had slapped him in his face because he had spit up oatmeal that she’d been shoveling down his throat. His mother had seen the handprint when she returned home from work and had beaten the woman with the first things she’d picked up; a mug that said World’s #1 Mom.

Mostly his caregivers listlessly moved about their tasks, barely speaking or even considering him, but not neglecting or hurting him. And there were those very rare occasions when he’d met diamonds in the rough. One was a guy that had been old enough to be his grandfather, and who called him son and told him stories and talked to him like he was a friend and not just a client. Jason didn’t have a relationship with his own father so he enjoyed having him around. But he’d only stayed around for about six months and then had gotten a better job. He’d never seen or heard from him since.

Another time he had a therapist that had been with him since he was ten years old. She was fired when Jason was sixteen after his mother discovered that she’d recently been giving him happy endings at the end of the massages. It was one of the things that he’d never forgiven his mother for. It always amazed him that people who had made huge impacts on his life could just arbitrarily walk out of it with no second thoughts, when they would be forever imprinted there in his mind. Over the years he’d learned to condition himself not to care. Aids never stayed around; the good ones found better jobs and the bad ones didn’t have a job for longer than it took for him or his mother to discover that they were condescending, lazy, thieves, or cruel.

Jason tiredly dragged himself to bed for the night, but instead of sleeping he thought about the way he had felt DJing with Link and he thought about the taste of a woman and how nice it had all been. The next day, even before he showered or used the toilet, he hurried to the computer and checked YouTube for the numbers on More Love, happy to see the numbers steadily rising and that there were more comments. He read them quickly. Surprised, he saw that someone had even commented on the party the night before. He couldn’t believe how quickly word had spread.

“
You guys looked good, wish I was there.”

He frowned, not sure what that meant. How would she know if they looked good if she wasn’t there? He next checked the messages on his homepage and was shocked at what he saw. Someone had posted a video of last night’s performance taken from an iPhone! Anxiously he pressed play and the recording sounded pretty good…more than pretty good. It captured the crowd’s reaction and he noted that he and Link looked oddly intriguing; sitting in wheelchairs and mixing and scratching music. It was almost like a gimmick; moreso when the video showed him pushing his chair back and looking at Link as if waiting for some type of cue, and then the seizure.

Jason quickly pressed pause, his breath coming out in anxious gusts. He covered his face with his palms. Sweat had formed on his brow and he felt sick. He drew in a few shaky breaths and then when he felt calm again he pressed play and watched himself seizing. It was the first time he’d ever seen himself doing that. The guy videotaping it was repeatedly saying, ‘Oh shit, Oh shit.’ It didn’t last long, and when it was over Jason watched himself begin to chuckle. The guy had somehow zoomed in to his face and there was a peacefulness there in his expression.

Jason pressed stop and sat there quietly. He didn’t like it; that this very private moment was there on tape for everyone to see. It was yet another thing about his life that he couldn’t control. Cursing quietly he took another deep breath and then went to the bathroom to shower and to get ready for school. Maybe if his aid got here on time he’d make it to his first class, he thought this bitterly; bitter because yet again his life was being dictated by actions that he had no control over.

***

Robin was tired. She had messed up orders at work and gotten yelled at by a customer. Mama had called and instead of spending her break taking a power nap, she had spent it trying to thwart the whole vacation issue. True, she and Mama had been getting along better, but that didn’t necessarily mean that she wanted to spend a week with her.

And then, to make matters worse, after work, instead of driving straight home and doing a nose dive into her bed, she had realized that her tank was dangerously close to the big E mark and she needed to fuel up. She yawned as she filled the tank and by the time she got home it was after midnight. She needed to be out the door no later than five thirty if she hoped to be at Jason’s by six. That meant the alarm would need to be set no later than four forty-five and she could snooze for about ten minutes. That was the plan.

That left her four hours sleep.

But instead of snoozing for ten minutes, she slipped back into a deep sleep only to jump up at a quarter after five. She showered quickly, cursing at herself and swearing that there was nothing that would make her late. With no time to tame her hair, she brushed it quickly and pulled on a ballcap. She slipped on an Adidas jogging suit because it was quick, though not all that complimentary to her shape, and then she hurried out the door at twenty minutes to six.

Traffic wasn’t too bad and she pulled into a parking space in front of Jason’s apartment with three minutes to spare. She rang his doorbell proud of herself even though it had been touch and go for a few moments.

The door swung open and Jason wheeled around and retreated without a word.

“Good morning to you, too.” She said after a brief pause.

“I’m not a morning person.” He grumbled. “First thing first; I’m going to show you how to use the coffee press.” She followed him into the kitchen. The dishes from yesterday were still there. Yuck.

He instructed her to fill the teapot and set it to boil. Then he showed her where the coffee was located. He explained how much to put into the bottom of the glass carafe. She hadn’t had time to get her own coffee so when he showed her where he kept the mugs she retrieved two. By that time the water was simmering in the teapot and she poured it over the grounds.

“By the time you get the cream and sugar out it will be time to press it.” She smiled. Well that hadn’t been as tough as it had looked. “Now if you wouldn’t mind, I like heavy cream and sugar in mine, and I’m going to the restroom.” He disappeared and Robin made up their coffee. He used a tall plastic traveler’s mug and she made sure to put the lid on carefully. All she needed was for him to burn himself and get mad at her.

Then, while he was still in the restroom she did the dishes hoping that he wouldn’t get pissed or expect her to do them all of the time. The thing is, she felt that if he left dishes in the sink then one day she’d walk into the kitchen and there would be roaches and that was something that she just couldn’t tolerate.

In the bathroom, Jason was in front of the mirror, struggling with the hairbrush. His hair, dampened by his morning bath, was impossibly tangled. Some days he worked the knots out, some days he didn’t. It was a chore to maintain his shoulder length curls but he wouldn’t cut it. He needed his hair long in order to show his mother that he was man enough to make his own decisions. She hated his hair long and therefore he wanted it this way.

He had a brush that had a velcro strap that went around his fist so that he wouldn’t constantly drop it but he still managed to pull out more knots then he managed to work through. Eventually Robin made her way to the bathroom when he didn’t return to the kitchen and the clock was ticking. She stood in the open doorway and watched him struggle.

Fatigue took away much of her inhibitions. “Let me have that brush.” He gave her a mean look but when she didn’t retreat he handed it to her and grumbled under his breath. She realized that much of his annoyance wasn’t directed at anyone in particular; he was just a grumbler. She gripped a handful of damp curls and quickly brushed them smooth. When she had the ends tangle free, she gently worked the brush from scalp to end. She had his hair smooth in about five minutes.

“You did that quick.” She met his eyes in the mirror and then she quickly swept off her cap. Her tight curls sprung out from beneath it. “Ahh.” He said in understanding. She had hair about as unruly as his. She handed him back the brush and then quickly pulled the cap back on her head. She looked over at the toilet.

“Did you already…?”

“Yep. All taken care of.” He wheeled out of the bathroom. “I’m going to eat breakfast and then you can help me shave. After that we can hit the road.” He ate Cheerios again and was equally as messy. Robin sat at the table sipping her coffee and watching him with steadily drooping eyes. He read the paper and ignored her. When he coughed she sat up straight and stared at him as if she had gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar. If he noticed he didn’t mention it.

Just so that she wouldn’t feel the desire to continue to doze off she told him about the class. “Mary Louise set up my seizure emergency class for this Saturday.” He peeked at her over his paper.

“Yeah. She left me a message.” He folded his paper neatly. “I made you a schedule of my classes. Tomorrow is Friday and I only have two so you won’t have to get here until eight.” She almost wanted to drop to the floor and kiss his feet. “But I have massage therapy and I’ll need you to get me there and back. Still it will be a fairly short day.”

“Okay.” She wondered something. “Jason, you don’t have an aid for the evening, do you?”

“Currently, no.”

“Well…don’t you need one?”

“At dinnertime and at bedtime, yes. But most times I just have a shake or soup so I don’t have to worry about choking.” He wasn’t a hermit so if people came over or he went out then he could risk heavier food. Bathing still required some effort; not the actual washing himself, but getting in and out of the tub without killing himself. And it would be much more efficient if he had an aid that could help him with the bathroom, but he already knew that Robin was too green for something like that. He could do it, it just took three times as long.

“So what do you do in the evenings if you have to run an errand?”

He gave her a long look. “I don’t.” He sipped his coffee and saw the look on her face. It was filled with pity, which he didn’t like. “My mother helps me if I need to do things like shop. She comes over every Friday for that kind of stuff. And she takes me to doctor appointments. But I had a decision; either get an evening aid or a daytime aid. Obviously it was more important for me to have a person during the day.” She knew that Pinnacle didn’t have enough people…gee she wondered why.