With crutches it’s a funny story. With a cane, it’s a sad story.
-George Costanza
26 years of playing sports will take its toll on a body. I am 26 years old, and yes, I came out of the womb throwing a mean spiral. I could skate before I could walk. I was the homerun champion of tee ball. But my athletic ability would lead to my share of injuries. As a youngster most injuries would heal overnight and I would be back out as reckless as ever the next day. As I got a bit older injuries would heal with a bit of rest, and maybe a beer. But at age 25 I dislocated my kneecap. It is exactly as painful as it sounds. I did it three times in nine months to be exact. Once playing hockey, once playing soccer, once playing baseball. There are few things I have experienced as painful and terrifying as looking down and seeing my kneecap on the outside of my leg. These injuries would lead me to a necessary decision. I had to endure the three words and eight syllables any athlete fears; reconstructive knee surgery. The recovery would be six months of boredom and daytime television, only made more interesting by ingesting Tylenol 3’s.
The first devices I was given during recovery was a pair of aluminum crutches and a knee immobilizer. Immobilizing, as in cannot move. The device was so long it felt like my leg was strapped to a canoe paddle. I was forced to crutch myself along with an unbent left leg. It is not the easiest action to coordinate. Sitting was no easy task either, since my leg would stick straight out.
For the three weeks I was using crutches, I tried to go about normal every day activities, like getting on the bus, and going to the grocery store. While waiting for the bus people at the stop would eye me up and down, whisper something to their friend, then laugh. They would all hustle to get on the bus before me, even though I was clearly not very graceful with crutches. While boarding the bus, the driver would lower the front, a feature usually reserved for the elderly and the handicapped, but fuck you, that is not the point. This inconvenience would inevitably start the bitchy sideways glances. People on the bus would look at me as if to say, ‘Oh look at this jackass who probably hurt himself doing keg stands while 4x4ing in the back of a pickup.’ If the seats were full, my useless ass was going to stand. Basically since I was a biped using crutches, I had four means of supporting myself. Everyone else had only two legs, therefore they got the seats and I would stand. And you better believe the bus driver was not waiting for me to find a seat or to get a good handhold, he was on the gas, and I was left clanking around like a drunk hobo with a shopping cart trying to get my shit together. I would wind up with my limbs spread out like Bambi learning to walk trying to keep myself upright.
As for my appearance, my attire was that of comfort, so I wore mesh basketball shorts, a hooded sweatshirt and running shoes. I am in decent physical condition (minus the knee injury), so seeing an athlete pathetically limping around is what all the nerds on the bus have been waiting to see since they first realized they throw like a little girl. They would look at me with their smug satisfied look, as if their prayers of a crippling knee injury had been answered. Once I got to my stop I would hobble my way to the door and there was no way the driver was dropping the bus twice for me. He would roll his eyes and look at his watch and look at me as if the crippled wonder is messing up the entire bus schedule. I would say, “Thank you” as I walked off, but the bus door was already closing and the driver was pulling away from the curb. I would stumble out onto the sidewalk and do the aluminum spread eagle to maintain my balance.
Once in the grocery store, I would have to limp myself along with 2 crutches under one arm, and hold a basket with the other hand. This was not only annoying and awkward, it was also noisy. I would hobble my way down the isles trying to be as unnoticeable as I could, but it was impossible. People would hear the sound of clanking aluminum and shuffling feet, see me, roll their eyes and give me just enough room to squeak through. Then if I would bump their cart, they would grumble something under their breath at me, grab their kid by the arm and hustle away.
Going through the checkout I would get spurts and huffs of angry conversation from the clerk, as if I had totally ruined her day. I would be lucky if she put my stuff into bags for me. I would thank her as I collected my change, but she was already helping the person in line behind me with a nice welcome and smile. Good thing she makes as much as a good paper route. I would get dirty looks and hear the whispers on my way out of the store. Then it was back on the bus for another aluminum rodeo.
Fast forward 3 weeks, and I had upgraded from crutches to a cane. Well fuck me running. This was a whole new world. I had a free hand. The massive immobilizer could be taken off. While I was not about to set any high jump records, I was more mobile. The bus and grocery store would be tackled in a new way.
While at the bus stop the people waiting would look at me, see my cane and give me one of those tight lipped, tilted head smiles. A smile like the ones you give at funerals, the kind that say, “How unfortunate, but nice to see you.” Everyone would move out of the way to the side when the bus pulled up, allowing me to be first to get on. While boarding the bus, the front would drop precisely to curbside, and the driver would open the doors and throw a cautionary arm out to anyone exiting or boarding, “Hold it! Wait please...Wait!” Then I would limp onto the bus. The general population would board after all was clear, and the cane was safely aboard. Once on the bus, if the seats were full, the front half of the bus would scatter to the back, freeing up about eight seats. Some people got off just to make more room even though it wasn’t their stop. The driver would wait until I was seated and comfortable, basically waiting for me to give him the thumbs up. Once the bus was underway I had about five seats to myself, and there were 23 people sitting in the ten seats in the back. My style of recovery clothing had not changed, but now instead of being perceived as a beer-chugging frat-boy jock, I was the athletic hero, whose promising young career was cut short by an injury.
When we arrived at my stop, the driver would do his stop-in-the-name-of-the-bus-driver voice, and direct everyone to wait. He would lower the front of the bus and thank me as I shuffled off.
Once in the grocery store, I would grab a basket, and sometimes a nice young lady would approach me and tilt her head at a 45-degree angle and ask me if I needed any help with my shopping. I’d say, “No thank you, I am able.” But I would be thinking, ‘Here is the list, get to it. And don’t forget my cheddar goldfish. I’ll be waiting at Starbucks.’ But I was not looking for a handout, so I would do my own shopping.
Since I had one free hand, and just the cane, I did not sound like a car accident when I walked. Now it was just the sound of off-time shuffling and my cane. People would see me limping down the isle and see the cane and give me a sympathetic smile and plaster themselves to the shelves to give me all kinds of space. Some people would climb straight over the shelving to the other side to get out of the way.
While going through the checkout I would take 25 items through the express line and act like I didn’t know any better, you know, on account of the cane. The clerk would just tilt her head and say, "Is plastic ok?" I would tell her plastic is fine. And then I would recklessly stare at her rack because I didn’t know any better. You know, cane and all. I would get a polite conversation on my way through the line, usually followed by a nice, “Take care sir.”
While leaving the store, I would get several nice goodbyes and the sympathetic head tilted smiles. I always wondered where these nice compassionate people were when I was on crutches. Maybe it was their day off. Thankfully, I was able to stop using the cane after another month. After that, I was just another regular biped. There was no hilarious drunken story to go along with the crutches. There was no daring tale of last-second heroics to go with my cane. I was just regular Joe Athlete again. People no longer rolled their eyes and whispered when I walked by. Nor were they tilting their heads in an overly sympathetic manner. They were indifferent.
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