Window Boy (25 page)

Just to mention one example: without him, I wouldn’t have become a sportswriter for the
Boston Tribune
.

First, let me say, it wasn’t easy getting out of junior high, but with Mrs. Martin’s help in Math, I graduated. I went on to high school with Charlie, Ann, and Mickey. Ann and Charlie showed me how to use my electric wheelchair. After I got my typewriter, I used to type papers for friends, including Mickey.

I don’t remember Mickey’s grade on his paper—
A Startling Moment
—but this is still true: nothing gives me more pleasure than helping a friend. In 1979, I received a full scholarship to University of Massachusetts, and graduated
cum laude
with a degree in journalism.

Even though our lives are very different, I’ve stayed close to my friends from high school. I’ve been in all three of Mickey’s weddings. I rejoiced with Ann when she was admitted to medical school at age thirty-nine. I’m the godfather to Ann’s oldest daughter. Charlie is a sports car salesman living in Rhode Island, but every year or so, we meet in Boston and go to a Celtics game. As for Mrs. Martin, a few years ago, she was diagnosed with throat cancer. In a major reversal of our fortunes, I am the one who is able to speak to her now. We remain good friends.

Back to my point. The first time that I applied for a job with the newspaper, I was turned down.

In a last-ditch attempt to secure employment, I asked for an interview with the managing editor, Mr. Tom Rains.

Tom Rains had a reputation as a tough manager. I was just out of college, very scared, and I had no idea what arguments I was going to use to convince him to hire me. As I wheeled into his room, I happened to glance at his bookshelves and spotted two volumes of works by Winston Churchill.

I tapped on the old-fashioned screen that I used back then to communicate and wrote one of my favorite Winnie quotes: “We’re all worms, but I do believe that I am a glowworm.”
³⁵

Tom Rains leaned over my shoulder and looked at my screen. “What? What are you talking about?” he growled.

“I’m quoting Churchill,” I answered him.

“Oh, are you a Churchill fan?” Mr. Rains asked me.

We stopped talking two hours later.

I got the job and have worked for the
Boston Tribune
ever since. I live with my mother and with Miss Perkins. I’m proud to say that I support our whole family. My mother retired a few years ago when her arthritis got so bad.

I’m most comfortable with batting averages, NFL statistics and turnover statistics, but I believe that because I’m disabled I think about abstract ideas like fate more often than the average sportswriter.

If Miss Perkins had not read to me about Churchill, I doubt that I would have had the courage to go to Stirling Junior High.

If I hadn’t gone to school, I wouldn’t have written the award-winning essay.

If I hadn’t written the essay, I might have lived long enough for my mother to rescue me from the Mannville Institution, but then again… Who knows?

Although I don’t pretend to understand this, I take comfort in the fact that what Miss Perkins always told me was right.

I was meant to live and to live exactly as I am.

Diary entry 9/17/1986

Sam Davis

II. The Caretaker

To the editor of the
Stirling Banner
:

For most of us Englishmen and women who suffered through the war with Winston Churchill, he was the greatest man in the world. And we’ll never forget him or change our opinion.

Therefore, I was shocked when your paper carried news of Winston Churchill’s death at 79 on your second page and reduced his remarkable life to only TWO paragraphs. I hope that you will print my letter and allow me to remind your readers of his long full life.

Winston Churchill was born on November 30, 1874, in a palace. He talked with a stutter and was a poor student. As a boy, his parents never paid much attention to him. But he had a wonderful nanny named Mrs. Everest. Her love and support made him the great man that he was.

Your article spoke of Churchill’s role during World War II. However, even before he became prime minister, he led a fascinating life. When the Boer War in South Africa broke out in October 1899, a London newspaper hired Churchill as a reporter. He hadn’t been in South Africa long before the Boers ambushed an armored train that he was riding in and imprisoned him. He made a daring escape. Overnight, he became famous, a hero to the English people, and he was only twenty-five.

In 1901, Churchill took his seat in the House of Commons—his first political success. In 1911, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and began working to strengthen England’s navy. In August of 1914, due to his efforts, England entered World War I, better prepared.

In your article, you mentioned that Churchill made a terrible mistake in World War I and resigned in disgrace from the Admiralty. It is true that as a way to break the World War I stalemate, Churchill urged an attack on the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Peninsula, both controlled by Turkey. He was hoping to open up a route to the Black Sea. However, I do not believe that Churchill should have been blamed for the disaster. The plan of attack that was followed by England was very different from the plan that Churchill had approved. In any case, his exile from mainstream politics just makes his comeback all the more remarkable.

During the years between World War I and II, unlike the rest of the world’s leaders, Churchill paid attention to the Brownshirts marching through Berlin. He listened to Hitler’s speeches urging all Germans to revere the Fatherland. Even though few people paid attention, Churchill gave talks and wrote articles about the need to stand up to Nazis. While Great Britain’s own prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, urged appeasement, Churchill was a lonely voice warning of the dangers posed by Hitler.

Unfortunately, as we all know, Churchill’s predictions were right. On September 1, 1939, German troops marched into Poland. On September 3, England and France declared war on Germany. In April 1940, when Germany attacked Denmark and Norway, Neville Chamberlain lost his job. The whole country breathed a sigh of relief when Churchill took Chamberlain’s place. Churchill was sixty-five. He wrote: “I felt as if I were walking with destiny and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.”
³⁶

It was a terrible time. Great Britain was underequipped, not ready to fight the war. We all were secretly afraid we were going to lose. Churchill perfectly captured our country’s plight when he said, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
³⁷
Soon Belgium surrendered to Germany, and we were certain that France was going to be defeated. Churchill made us all feel brave when he told the House of Commons that even though all of Europe might fall, “….we shall not flag or fail. We shall fight in the seas and oceans...we shall fight on the beaches…”
³⁸
On June 22, France surrendered to Germany.

We all expected the Germans to cross the English Channel. But first they had to defeat the Royal Air Force. In July, the German Luftwaffe began to bomb British shipping and ports—the Battle of Britain. In September, the Luftwaffe began nightly air raids on London. I myself am one of the lucky ones; I lived through those raids. My next-door neighbors were not so fortunate.

While the Battle of Britain raged, Churchill traveled everywhere. He went into the streets as the bombs fell, holding up two fingers in a V-for-Victory salute. I actually knew people who saw him with their own eyes. By ignoring the danger, he gave us all courage. Although the Royal Air Force was outnumbered, our pilots fought bravely and finally defeated the Luftwaffe. Churchill praised the Air Force for all of us when he said, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
³⁹

During these years, Churchill developed a close relationship with President Franklin Roosevelt. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the United States finally entered the war. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. There were parties in the street, parades, strangers kissing strangers on that joyful day, almost five years after Churchill became prime minister.

Soon, an election was held in Britain. It was a terrible thing the British people did to him. We voted him out of office. Churchill lost his post as prime minister.

Churchill came back to power though, six years later. He became prime minister again when he was almost 77 years old.

I am now a proud American citizen, but at heart, I will always be a Londoner. As you can see, Winston Churchill was much more than England’s prime minister during World War II. He was our strength, our spirit, our bravery. I deeply mourn his death. Please print this letter and pay proper respect to this great man.

Respectfully yours,

Abigail Perkins

III. The Teacher

I didn’t understand how backwards our schools were in educating kids with disabilities until I met Sam. He was in a wheelchair, and I mistakenly thought that he couldn’t talk. I was a new teacher with thirty kids in my class. I felt panicked. I didn’t think that I could teach him anything. Of course, once I got to know Sam, I found out how bright he was. He was like a sponge, soaking up information. I was so moved by Sam’s situation that I did some research and found that he was not alone. In 1968, only one out of five children with disabilities went to school. Three and one-half million children were warehoused in places like Mannville Institution. Many states even had laws that prohibited children with certain types of disabilities from attending public school.

That’s why I worked to pass the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. Although by then Sam was about to graduate from high school, I wrote letters to my congressmen and senator and spoke a few times to teacher groups. Thankfully, the law was enacted in 1975.

I was watching the television when I heard the news. I called Miss Perkins and told her.

“It’s about time,” Miss Perkins said.

Since the passage of the 1975 law, the tide has turned and the American educational system has come closer to the ideal of providing opportunities for all children. As of 2006, more than six million children in the United States receive special education through current laws.

I know that teachers are supposed to teach students and not vice versa, but Sam Davis taught me more than I taught him. He taught me about determination and about courage. I have been very ill for the last few years, and not a day goes by that I don’t think of Sam’s example. When I want to whine or complain, I think of Sam stuck in a wheelchair, without the ability to communicate. When I want to give up, I remember that Sam never did. And when I feel pessimistic, I pick up the newspaper and read one of Sam’s sports columns.

Sometimes people do beat the odds.

Sam Davis—the boy who I thought was hopeless the first time I saw him—is now my most successful former student.

Mrs. Judith Martin

IV. The Friend

A Startling Moment

by Mikhail Kotov

I was in the sixth grade with a boy named Sam Davis. He was in a wheelchair, and I didn’t know that he could talk. I’m ashamed to say that one day I was taunting him, egging him on to arm-wrestle or something obnoxious like that. The captain of the basketball team, Charlie Simmons, came in, and Charlie and I started fighting. In the middle of throwing each other around, Sam shouted two words at us. “Point guard.” It was the most miraculous moment of my life. I thought anything might happen. Like Sam might fly around the room in his wheelchair. Like my father might not make me do chores every morning, and like I might manage to be on time for school. At my old school, I had been the star of the basketball team. A point guard. Until that moment, I didn’t even know that Sam Davis could speak. Not only was Sam talking, but he was the one kid in the whole school who knew me, who I really was. Sam and I are good friends now, but I will never forget that startling moment—the most surprising in my life.

V. The Author

A few years ago, I was reading a biography of Winston Churchill. One sentence in the book that caught my attention said that Churchill had no problem standing up to Hitler, because he had already done the hardest thing of all: he had overcome the despair of being a child whose parents didn’t love him.

I decided to write a book for young adults about Churchill. But I didn’t have a character or a plot. Then, one Sunday afternoon, I picked up a
New York Times Magazine
. On the cover was a photo of a boy in a wheelchair with sparkling, interested eyes and a droopy wet smile. When I read the moving article by Lisa Belkin about Thomas Ellenson, I had found my character.

Our son, Stephen, is a dedicated basketball player. For Stephen to be interested in my book, I thought, it should be about basketball. But if my main character was in a wheelchair, how was he going to participate in this sport? As I answered this question, I discovered my plot.

I could never have written this book alone. Thank you first and foremost to Lisa Belkin for her inspiring story. Although Sam is fictional, Lisa’s article illustrates that there are many kids like Sam.

If you lift the rock of so many good deeds in Houston over the past thirty years, you find the imprint of Dr. Maconda O’Connor. Her life of service has been a great example to me.

Sis Johnson got a phone call, and the next day began teaching advanced high school English after a hiatus of over ten years. She has a remarkable intelligence and diligence besides being a true friend.

Franci Crane has read many drafts of this book, and each time she has offered valuable and insightful suggestions. My life has been blessed by her generosity in too many ways to detail here.

Michael Zilkha is the most discerning reader of cultural trends whom I have ever known. He is also among the most supportive and generous of friends.

The amazingly competent Elena Marks wrote me a note after I sent her the first draft. She said, “If your agent doesn’t like this, get a new agent.” I keep it pinned over my desk.