I unwittingly kicked the gravel in the path as I moved my crutches forward and paused, watching a few pieces spray ahead, barely missing the ankles of most of the students walking in front of me. One, a red headed freshman who I didn’t know by name, reached down, hopping on his left leg for a bit and rubbed his right ankle.
As I passed him, he said “Hello, Damien.”
“Hello,” I replied, forging ahead of him.
“Do you know my name?” he asked, sprinting to catch up and thrusting a hand to shake toward me. He stared at my arms, well ensconced in my forearm crutches and dropped his arm by his side. “Well, no matter. I’m Satch.”
“Satch?” I repeated. I thought perhaps I’d heard wrong. It was an odd name.
“Short for satchel. You see my mom loves purses – satchels. So when I was born – they gave her lots of drugs so she wasn’t herself- and when they asked what name she wanted she thought they asked her what she wanted as a gift and said –“
“Satchel,” I filled in, as we reached the bottom of the steps to the Higgins Dormitory Building.
“Right,” he said, standing and looking at me. He held a stack of books under his left arm and I noticed that many of the titles were from the library, not course books. This intrigued me since most of the students at our school rarely cracked open anything but a required text.
“Interesting reads,” I said, gesturing toward the stack with my crutch.
He shrugged. “For the weekend. I don’t really find the work here that challenging. Do you?”
“No,” I said, grinning.
“Didn’t think so. Would you like to come up to my room? We’ve seen each other around, but haven’t really had a chance to talk.”
“Sure,” I replied. I’d been at the school for two weeks now and this was the first invitation I’d had to anyone’s room.
“Good, that’s good,” he said, heading up the stairs uncertainly, looking behind as if to see if I could or would follow.
I was following, placing my crutches rapidly on alternative steps, well used to traversing all types of unlevel surfaces. I was waiting for the inevitable comment along the lines of “You’re good on those things” or “Bet you go faster than I do” but instead Satch strode ahead of me into the dormitory hallway and past the cafeteria where they were busily preparing our dinner. He started climbing upstairs toward the second level where freshmen were assigned rooms.
I caught up with him at the top of the stairs as he was pushing his room door open and waited a moment while Satch tossed his books on his desk, then laid down on his back on the bed. “A single room?” I asked, shoving my backpack off.
“Make yourself at home. There’s a chair there that’s quite comfortable,” Satch said, pointing at a striped Yankees beanbag chair in the corner.
I shut the door and made my way across the room to the beanbag chair. I suspended myself in midair for a moment, then did a freefall down onto it , uncertain of how far I’d sink. I no longer wore leg braces as I had for the first two years after my accident when both my legs were broken, but was protective about injuring them. Luckily the chair was solid and I landed on it uneventfully.
Satch was propped up on his left elbow, watching me as I laid the crutches on the floor. “Do you mind me asking why you use those?” he asked.
“Had an accident and injured my legs,” I replied briskly, well used to curious questions.
“Will you – get better?”
I shrugged. “I am better than I was.” I looked around the room. “So why do you have a single?”
“That wasn’t the plan,” Satch said, pointing at the side of the room where I sat. “I mean, it’s a double usually but my roomie dropped out.”
“Oh, that kid with the black hair?”
Satch nodded. “Homesick. Cried all night. Finally they sent him home. You ever been at boarding school before?”
“No but I’ve spent a lot of time away from home. Hospitals, things like that.”
“That must suck.”
I shrugged. “I got used to it.”
Satch swung his legs around and sat up. “A couple of the guys were wondering – I mean they asked me to ask you – if you would mind if we borrowed your crutches.”
I looked at him, then shook my head. “For what?”
He stood up, then leaned over and picked my crutches up before I reacted in time. He held them in midair, then began twirling them as if they were batons. “Just to play with.”
I watched him uneasily for a moment, then noticed that the door to the room was ajar and heard others snickering from the hallway. I knew that protesting wouldn’t do much good, since I wasn’t able to get up without the crutches. A few moments passed while Satch juggled my crutches. I felt my face redden, but made no move.
The dinner bell rang. Satch gave the two crutches a final toss and then let them fall to the floor, clattering loudly. They landed on the other side of the room from me, far out of my reach. I heard laughter from the hall as he said “Oops. Gravity sucks.”
I made no reply as the door opened and a few of the guys from our class motioned for him to come down to dinner. Satch laughed and followed them, leaving me alone in the room.
For a moment, I felt hot tears behind my eyes but swallowed. I knew I could get to the crutches. I’d just have to crawl which , distasteful as it was, wasn’t the end of the world. I pushed forward from the chair, using my elbows to catapult out. I landed on my stomach, my left leg splayed out.
“Hey, hey – I’ll help you!”
I looked up and saw Caesar, the dorm proctor, cross the room. He picked up my crutches and handed them to me, then offered me his arm.
“Don’t mind them, they’re idiots,” he said.
I grabbed the crutches, ignoring his arm. I was too angry to take it and wanted to get up alone. After three attempts, I finally stood, shaking.
“Okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “Sure.”
“We’ll go down to eat then.”
I gestured with my crutch. “Go ahead. I need to hit the restroom.”
“I’ll wait.”
“What are you doing, working overtime?” I asked angrily, reaching for my backpack. I tripped slightly and almost fell.
Caesar shook his head, then said “Those guys are jerks, Damien. Don’t let them get to you.”
I followed him out of the room and went down to my own room to drop off my backpack. I could hear the muffled sounds of laughter and dinner conversation from below. For a moment my eyes rested on the picture of my twin brother, Eric, which was on my desk. Eric, who died in the accident.
“Miss you,” I said. Now I was feeling homesick. No wonder Satch’s roommate had fled.
I knew I had to go downstairs. I absolutely couldn’t miss dinner or let on that what Satch did bothered me. So I went out into the hallway and started toward the stairs. Gravity, I thought.
Then, suddenly, I detoured back and went into Satch’s room. Grabbing the stack of books from his desk, I crossed the room and opened the window. It was right above the dining hall. Carefully I dropped each of the books from the stack, one by one, watching them flutter down slowly toward the ground below. As the last book fell to the ground, I heard laughter from below, then saw Satch run outside and look up.
“Gravity does suck,” I said, and turned back toward the hallway.
I was suddenly feeling hungry.
Copyright 2007 Ruth Harrigan
