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Spring Training

The package is wrapped in brown paper and it is soft, like somebody’s laundry coming back. It was delivered to the Admin building by the UPS, with Turley’s name on the address label. Sometimes Turley used to get a new pair of handle grips through the UPS, with his name on the label, but this is the first package he has gotten since the middle of the winter, when Mr. Parker died.

The Cripple Liberation Front Marching Band Blues

(Part IV)

My hands begin to hurt from the constant pressure of the crutches. Jaggers of pain run up my arm. It feels as if I have bared every nerve in my arms. I am sweating, and the sweat runs down my forehead, into my eyes. I have to stop each few steps to wipe the sweat from my eyes. Then I put sore hands on crutches again, and walk a few more steps, then I must stop to wipe my eyes again.

The Cripple Liberation Front Marching Band Blues

(Part III)

After leaving Warm Springs, I will have to learn the next steps on my own. I have no compadres about me to give me the benefit of their learning. I will, alone, have to build physical and emotional resources to deal with the real world.

The Cripple Liberation Front Marching Band Blues

(Part II)

Paradise. Paradise of Meriwether County, Georgia. Warm Springs. Two support personnel for each patient. Campus of the gods. Food of humans — prepared to be eaten at civilized times.

The Cripple Liberation Front Marching Band Blues

(Part I)

They draw me into an arch so that they can run an eighteen-inch horse-needle in between the plates of my spine for an hour or so to get a copious sample of the cerebrospinal fluid. So the doctors can tell my family. What they know already. That I am very sick. That I might die.

We Killed Them

We are in a sea of color. Three thousand athletes from all over California are assembled at Drake Field on the UCLA campus for the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics. Jimmy is the shortest player on our team, so I hold his hand as waves of athletic teams move about us. Joey holds my other hand. Michael, Eddie and Audie walk ahead of us, arm in arm, like the Three Musketeers. Pride and friendship are on parade.