Believe Me

She pushes too eagerly, like some idiot child first given the reigns to the empty shopping cart. We're in a rush. And in the middle of the city, a wheelchair is about as welcome as some raining jagged glass, so yes, it's the right thing to hurry along. But this is not a baby carriage and I'm hurt as is. So pounding the pavement, couched in a sagging blend of padding-stuffed black nylon flattened by piss-crusted hospital butt really sours the ride on this fucking wheelchair. Rental.

She doesn't seem to get that a broken foot doesn't give her license to re-create her supermarket racer fantasy. It's still an injury that deserves respect. She squirts me through a narrow gap between a mother and child - as if this was a passing gap. If I really wanted to, I could walk - granted, with crutches - but that would slow me to a pace ten times slower than a normal walk and the ferry was leaving in ten minutes. I wondered how hard it was to carry me through with dignity, speed and grace.

As the young women in smart skirts trotted by I straightened up, wagging my splinted foot, making clear this arrangement was temporary.