Riding Rockets

Finally, he tossed the bottle from the window and steered the car toward home, turning the drive into a carnival ride. He would race the car and then jam on the brakes so my brothers and I would tumble over the seats and come up giggling. Again and again he would accelerate and then skid to a stop. By some miracle we made it to my grandmother’s house uninjured. Dad rose onto his braces and crutches and was singing an Irish ballad with a drunken slur as he slowly made his way up the sidewalk. He threw his crutches forward and dragged his useless legs behind. Yard by yard the rhythm took him toward the front door. Then my grandmother burst from the house and began to beat him with a broom, screaming that he was a drunk and should be damned for it. He tried to grab her weapon but missed and toppled onto the cement. I had never seen adults behave this way. My brothers and I began to cry. Neighbors rushed out to watch the spectacle. My mom was screaming. My grandmother, a teetotalist, strict German woman, was a demon from hell. In her mind there was no excuse for drunkenness, even if the drunk in question was struggling to come to grips with polio. Dad cursed and grabbed at her but his useless legs were an anchor. She easily kept out of his reach. The broom came down on his head and his glasses spun off. She circled to his back where he couldn’t defend himself and beat him some more. My mom herded my brothers and me inside so we wouldn’t witness any more of the mayhem. We left Dad facedown on the sidewalk bawling like a child while my grandmother continued to punish him with the broom.

Several months later I caught another glimpse of how polio was torturing my dad. My mom was grocery shopping and as I wandered the aisles of the store I encountered a man showing a friend his artificial legs. I overheard him speaking: “Lost both my legs in the war.” He punctuated the comment by rapping on each shin with a cane. I was fascinated at the freakishness of the injury and stared. The men separated, the veteran walking away with the aid of his cane and a hip-swinging gait. For a moment I was struck as still as Lot’s wife. The man had no real legs but he was walking. I broke from my shock and ran after him. “Mister!” I called. He stopped. “Mister, how can you walk? You don’t have any legs.” He smiled at my innocence. “Son, a German mortar blew off my legs. The doctors strapped on these pretend legs.” Again he slapped his cane against one of the limbs. It made a hollow sound.

I smiled. “Thanks, Mister.”

I sprinted past my mom. “Where are you going, Mike?”

“I’m going to see Dad.”

I ran to the parking lot and climbed into the front seat of the car and breathlessly explained to my father what I had seen. “Dad, there’s a man in the store who doesn’t have real legs. They got cut off in the war. The doctor gave him pretend legs. But he’s walking!” I blurted out the news while wearing a huge smile.

My dad stared at me, total confusion written on his face. He didn’t get it. He didn’t understand the significance of what I had just discovered. But I would be the hero and explain it to him. “Dad, all you have to do is ask the doctor to cut off your legs and then he can give you pretend legs and you can walk again, just like that man in the store!”

Immediately tears welled in his eyes. He tried to smile. “Mike, thank you for that idea, but it’s not my legs that are the problem. It’s my nerves. The polio germs ate them up. Cutting off my legs wouldn’t help me.”

My face fell in crushing disappointment. I was certain I had stumbled on the secret to putting my father back on his feet. Dad hugged me and cried into my neck. I was so confused. I didn’t understand germs or nerves. I only understood what my eyes had told me, that it was possible to walk without real legs.

“You go on and help your mom with the groceries.”

I climbed from the car and walked backward a couple steps, staring at my dad. His head was resting on the steering wheel and he was sobbing.

This was the last time he ever revealed to me or my siblings what must have been a titanic struggle to adapt to life without legs. But he did. Within a year he had returned to being the man I remembered before polio. His Washing Machine Charlie imitation got even better.

After several months of recovery in Texas my parents were faced with the decision of where to settle the family. Wichita Falls was not an option. It was an oil and cattle town with limited employment opportunities for the handicapped. And there was no thought given to returning to my dad’s hometown, New York City. The vertical landscape there would make a wheelchair life difficult. So they picked Albuquerque, New Mexico, as their post-polio home. During our travels we had driven through the city a couple times and Mom and Dad had always liked it. There was a VA hospital, work opportunities, and a climate that made wheelchair life a little more tolerable.