Sassy Girl: Memoirs of a Poster Child Gone Awry

[STAGE IS BARE. NO SET OR PROPS. CHERYL ENTERS IN DARK. AUDIENCE FIRST INTRO TO CHERYL IS SOUND OF POWER WHEELCHAIR MOTOR HUM. ON 'COYOTE', BLUE SPOT UP ON CHERYL AT REAR CENTER STAGE.]

I'm trickster coyote in a gnarly-bone suit I'm a fate worse than death wearin' shit-kickin' boots I'm the nightmare booga you flirt with in dreams 'Cause I emphatically demonstrate: It ain't what it seems I'm a whisper, I'm a heartbeat, I'm "that accident", and good-bye But one thing I'm not, I'm not a reason to die.

[CHERYL MOVES DOWN STAGE FROM BLUE SPOT INTO RED SPOT]

I'm homeless in the driveway of your manicured street I'm Evening Magazine's SuperCrip-of-the-week I'm the girl in the doorway with no illusions to spare I'm a kid dosed on chemo, so who said life is fair I'm a whisper, I'm a heartbeat, I'm "let's call it suicide", and a sigh But one thing I'm not, I'm not a reason to die.

[THROUGH NEXT VERSE CHERYL MOVES SLOWLY DOWN STAGE AS BLUE AND RED SPOTS DOWN AND CENTER LIGHTS UP]

I'm the poster child with the doom-dipped eyes I'm the ancient remnant set adrift on ice I'm that Valley girl, you know, like dying of thin I'm all you got left of the Chesire Cat's grin I'm every Wheelchair Athlete; I'm every dead Baby Doe I'm Earth's last volcano, and damn, I'm ready to blow I'm a whisper, I'm a heartbeat, I'm a genocide survivor, and Why? But one thing I'm not I said one thing I'm not I am not a reason to die.

[CHERYL DOWN STAGE CENTER IN WARM LIGHT]

Hello, I m Cheryl.

I started out this Life as a regular person. But at the age of ten Fate lays its hand upon me and makes me "special".

She's small for her age moon-faced almost no breast development Notice the classic deformities of the p.i.p.'s the ulnar deviation Are her bowels regular? Are they? Have you had a bowel movement, dear? what? She's small for her age scoliosed sparse pubic growth Notice the classic deformities of the m.i.p.'s the radiul deviation Has she started menses? Has she? Have you started your period yet, dear? what? She's small for her age round shouldered almost no Rise and Shine Time for agoral aspirin benadryl cortozone darvon darvocette demeral What? She's small for her age knockneed She's small for her age pidgeon-toed Rise and Shine Time for bed rest exercise hot packs traction bed rest exercise hot packs She's small for her age Small for her age Small for her stop stop Shine Time SED rate clean catch scoop your shit Dear blood Just a little pin prick to the bone marrow to the ear drum Cut off the nodule realign the hip joint scrape cut saw stop stop Rebuild the classic deformities of the small for her age classic deformities of the small for her classic deformities of deformities small NOOOOOOOO! "Special."

My parents react to my being special the way they react to anything remotely unpleasant: Mother downs three fingers of Scotch and Daddy hops in the car and goes for a long drive. For about a week. I am left to ponder: what does this mean?

Labelling the pain certainly doesn't change it; it's still marching all over me in hobnail boots. But things do change. I get to spend a whole lot of time with doctors; my hair turns completely white, or platinum blond as Mother prefers to call it; and everyone keeps saying to me, "Don't worry, honey, everything's gonna be just fine."

At about the age of fourteen, I begin to suspect I am not being told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. These changes my body's going through, well, let's just say I suspect they're going to put a crimp in my plans to become high school homecoming queen.

By the time I 'm sixteen, every time I see this guy Stubby the Beggar, this legless Cripple man who sits on the corner of Tennessee and Jackson selling pencils from a tin cup, I get this quesy feeling. So I do what I bet a lot of girls in the same situation would do, I go to my mother for advice.

[LEANS BACK, FILING FINGERNAILS] "Well, Cheryl, if I were you, BEAT I wouldn't dwell on it. [FILING AGAIN] And you know, honey, a little make-up couldn't hurt."

A good girl, I take my mother's advice.

I pretend the gigantic orthopedic saddle oxfords I'm clomping around in are actually these hot little stacked Cuban heels, and I learn to apply make-up with great skill. It gets so I won't even leave the house without at least three layers intact. Sometimes I get a little carried away and put the mascara on so thick I actually have to physically lift [STRAIN WITH BACKS OF HANDS TO LIFT LASHES] the lashes so I can see. It's quite lovely really [STRAIN TO LOOK THROUGH FLUTTERING LASHES], going through life with this feathery veil between me and the rest of the world, and I'm going along doing quite nicely at being an ordinary girl, until one day, I'm exercising my usual clever and insightful conversational skills, 'Of course Paul's the cutest, but let's be real, John Lennon is the Beatles', when I hear, "Do your hands hurt?"

'My hands? My hands? Do they hurt? [BEAT, THEN HARSH LAUGHTER} Only when I laugh.'

All these little special quirky things I've been pulling together forever into this one-of-a-kind package--nothing but a pair of hands. Damn. But I figure, there has gotta be a way around this. So...I come up with what I think is a tres clever plan. I carry a shawl in my lap. Lace, delicate. Ultra feminine. And then every time someone cames along and tries to engage me in conversation, I simply slip the offending creatures [GESTURE OF PUTTING HANDS UNDER SHAWL], under the shawl, and then I can go about my business of being an ordinary girl. It works like a charm. For years.

Then one day I notice: I'm not talking very much. And when I say something, I don't really say anything.

[PLEASANT PERSON VOICE] "Nice weather we're having, don't you agree, Cheryl?"

[SOUNDS LIKE 'YES', THEN 'NO', THEN 'I DON'T KNOW' AND FAKE BIG SMILE)

[PATRONISING SMILEY VOICE] "Cheryl, you have such a pretty face, but it'd be even prettier if you smiled more."

[HANDS BEGIN TO STRUGGLE UNDER IMAGINARY SHAWL TO SOUNDS OF PROTEST UNTIL GIVE UP IN SMILE-GRIMACE]

[GRUFF KNOW-IT-ALL VOICE] "Those demonstrators are just a bunch of spoiled brats, Richard Nixon would never lie."

[HANDS STRUGGLE TO BREAK FREE TO INCREASING SOUNDS OF AGITATION AND FRUSTRATION]

"Cheryl, isn't it wonderful news? They've finally nominated Jerry Lewis for a Nobel Peace Prize."

[HANDS STRUGGLE FIERCELY AND BREAK FREE, BEGIN FLYING AROUND WILDLY] 'Jerry Fucking Lewis?

[INCREDULOUS] No fucking way! Jerry Lewis? That piece of...Not Jerry Fucking Lewis. [HANDS IN AIR, UTTER DISBELIEF] Jerry Fucking Lewis?'

[HANDS FREEZE IN AIR, HUSHED TONES] The room is still except for a few [GASP, LOOK OF HORROR]. Mouths fall open, eyes are wide. Children clutch their mother's skirts in terror. As I survey the wreckage I notice: it's not my hands they're staring at, it's my mouth

[SINGING. PLAYFUL, SOMETIMES SUGGESTIVE HAND MOVEMENTS]

Doo doo doodn't do do, doo doo dee dunt di di I can probe and pry your secrets with these almost boneless fingers/With these almost boneless fingers I can hold your attention/I can stroke you with their power/With their power I command you/With these hands I'll grant you leave/With these hands I will take you home/With these hands/With these hands Doo doo doo deedn't di di, Di di di deedn't doe doe With these da da da dow dow dow hands Once my hands are free, there ain't no going back. For the first time since I became THE BODY DIFFERENT, when I look in the mirror instead of wanting to throw a black shroud over it, I think "interesting".

It's not that I look in the mirror at ME and go, 'Oh, Cheryl, darling, how terribly interesting you are'. What I do is, I put my foot up on the dressing table and I hold my hand like so, and then I look at my foot and my hand in the mirror as if they are objects in space. 'Ah, the line, the form, texture and tone--interesting .'

I am what they refer to as "homebound". After high school graduation from a Special Ed classroom in the hospital at 17, I give one semester of junior college a shot, but by now I'm in the wheelchair and I just can't hang with being hauled upstairs to class where I'm stuck until I'm hauled upstairs to the another class where I'm stuck until I'm hauled over to some other class. Stuck.

So at eighteen, I retire to my family's suburban home. Good days I sit on the front porch watching what little action there is in the neighborhood, writing in my notebooks, little oddball Cheryl the hero stories. They amuse me.

Lousy days, I'm stuck inside, but I got the TV or the stereo. Since I'm always alone, I can blast that sucker as loud as I can take it, [RAISING VOICE TO FULL THROTTLE] and I can take it loud. Then I'm not stuck here, unh uh, I'm in the guitar [GESTURE OF GUITAR PLAYING], I'm in the heat, I'm in the sweat, I'm in the beat [GYRATING WILDLY]. Rock 'n roll.

And if none of this works, I just pretend to be somebody else. Somebody with a life.

[MOVING IN SLOW TIGHT CIRCLE] Time blurrs. Days drift into years. There's nothing much to distinguish one day from another. Except weekends are for staying in bed or getting loaded. [COMPLETE CIRLCE AT CENTER STAGE] I do my best to live in the moment because if I don't, if I think about my future, my breath traps in my chest and I can't breathe. I gotta crank the music [VOICE RISING, ARMS IN AIR] way up. [FREEZE GESTURE, LOUD VOICE] It's not working.

Something changed in me when I got rid of that shawl. It's like I poked a hole in this cozy web of depression I'd managed to wrap myself up in to keep from feeling so trapped and hopeless. I'm edgy, restless. [MOVING TO EDGES OF LIGHT AS IF COMING UP AGAINST WALLS I can't bear to sit still. It's like if I sit still too long I'm gonna just disappear all together. I keep moving. And I talk to myself all the time. I sing. I love to sing. 'I am a rock, ' And I play these scenes. 'What's the matter Blanche, aren't you hungry? You wouldn't treat me like this, Jane, if I wasn't in this wheelchair. Butcha are, Blanche, ya are in that wheelchair...I am an island.' Anything to hear a human voice that isn't coming at me from some damn box or through a haze of alcohol. Nothing works. Nothing I do stops me from longing to get out. Beyond these rooms. If I don't get out of here, I'm afraid I'm going to lose it all together, just go completely around that bend and never get back.

There's gotta be something beyond these rooms.

I come up with a plan: go to the movies three blocks away. Maybe it's not much, but I've never been to the movies since I been in the chair. See we don't have a ramp. If I go out, I'm always taken. I'm never alone.

It's a balmy Friday night in June. And here I am, twenty-three years old, alone at the movies for the first time.

I am the woman in the wheelchair, who's always writing in her notebook. I know this is me because I can see my reflection in the eyes of the uniformed officer who is asking me to leave.

"You're blocking entrance to this theater," he says. 'Entrance'--

interesting word. "You are interfering with the rights of others,"

he says. I would hate to inconvenience anyone. The manager says I should come back tomorrow when there are fewer people and my aisle posititon won't be such a fire hazard. "Do you really think your cause will be helped by alienating people," he says. What cause? My cause is to see this movie. People are responsible for their own alienation. "I have to arrest you," he says. I have to sit here. I guess we both have jobs to do.

I wish I could say the story continues that I'm carted away in a paddy wagon, gnarled fist raised, 'Freedom, Freedom.' Not quite. The cop knows my father, they're old drinking buddies, and in no time at all, here comes Daddy, not in a good mood. Without saying a word, he pops back the clutches to my chair so I can't drive and starts hauling [MOVE CHAIR BACKWARD IN SUDDEN JERKING MOTIONS] me backwards down the sidewalk. Everyone in front of the theater is clapping. Now I know they're not applauding me because for the past half hour they been yelling at me, "Go home. Stop making a fool of yourself."

(JERK CHAIR BACKWARDS, BLOW KISSES TO CROWD) 'Why thank you all for coming, thank you so much. I have always relied on the kindness of strangers. Thank you all so very much.'

They say that at the instant of your death, your entire life flashes in front of your eyes, but during that infinite three blocks back to the house what passes before my eyes is every humiliation I have ever experienced.

I remember the first time I learned to put on "the face" in the face of humiliation. I'm fourteen, doing time in a teaching hospital when the head honcho of orthopedics, Zeus I believe he was called, drags me in front of an in-service to be his "show and tell". The in-service, that's where all the residents and interns gather to hear the great oracle speak. Without ever introducing me by name, Zeus grabs my leg and begins putting it through it paces and talks about it as if it's not even attached to a body much less a teenage girl. "Notice how the ankle is partially fused and subluxed, the tibia fibia nibia is showing signs of early decalsification with muscle weakness of the..."

I start my internal mantra: 'Don't you dare cry, Don't you dare cry.'

All of a sudden I get this picture in my head: a really lousy ventriloquist and his dummy in a very bad act on Ed Sullivan. I start mimicking the doctor.

[EXAGGERATED ARM AND HEAD MOVEMENTS] 'Subluxed, Subluxed. Tibia, fibia, nibia.'

It starts with a few [CHOKED SNICKERS] here and there, but in no time at all, spreads to the entire assembly. The entire assembly, laughing. One hundred and fifty worshippers laughing out loud. Everybody's laughing. Everybody. BEAT Except Zeus.

By the time my father gets me back to the house from the movie theater his head's spinning around like Linda Blair's in the Exorcist, smoke pouring out of his ears. My parents are of that generation raised on Dr. Spock so they don't believe in beating the crap out of their kids, they just talk you into submission. And Daddy's giving it to me with both barrels. "What in the hell is the matter with you? How could you? This is our home, these are our neighbors, this is your home, this is your home."

'No. This is your home.' [HUSHED, RAPID SPEECH] The words are like ice water hitting me in the face. Until I hear them coming out of my mouth, I've never admitted I feel this way, but the minute I hear them, I know I'm telling the truth. It scares the hell out of me.

Mother and Daddy moved to the house while I was in the hospital. I'm sixteen. It's the time I landed in the wheelchair permanently. Every time they visit me, they're raving on and on about the house. This great new modern one story house with huge backyard and I'm so excited, so jazzed. I can't wait to get home because I'm thinking how great it's going to be. Not like the old house with all the stairs. I'll be able to come and go as I please. I'll have all this freedom. [SLOWING TO STAGE LEFT] And as we're driving up to the house, the first thing I see [STOP, STARE AHEAD]: three stairs. Three goddam stairs.

'How could you? How could you?'

If my own parents can't bear to look at me, if I'm invisible even to these people who've known me always, I haven't got a prayer. I haven't got a prayer. And I think this is just they way they want it. Me, dependent. Them with all the power. And then it can go on forever: How wonderful you are the way you care for your poor crippled girl.

I'm not being fair. These are my parents; I love Mother and Daddy. Haven't they sacrificed so much for me? They take good care of me. I have nice clothes, plenty of food. I love my my mother and father. And besides, they're so cool, everyone says I have the coolest parents--they let me smoke and drink when I was sixteen. I love my parents.

It's a lot easier to hate a house.

After the movie theater incident, I'm inconsolable. I can't let it go. I want. I want. I want. Something. What? I don't know. My father tries to make amends. He builds a little makeshift ramp on the back of the house, but I don't care. I don't use it. That's not it.

I have all these dreams and desires. I don't know what the hell to do with them. And, god, yes, I am self-absorbed. What else is there to be? There's nothing to do but sit and think and feel and feel and think and try not to think and feel. How am I supposed to have perspective? And I don't know which is worse, sitting here alone, listening to my brain rattle its cages or going out there. Out there, the flipside of the nightmare, where I get to be the object of ardent curiosity. "Ooh, ah, lookie Mama." Smack. "How many times have I told you, don't point at Cripples, it's not polite."

'Step right up, folks, it's Cheryl the Cripple, the carnival geek. If you're really lucky, maybe she'll bite the head off of a live chicken for ya.'

I see you staring. Would you like to pluck my nubby fingers? Would you like to pluck them, tie them with velvet, place them in a vase with fresh water and aspirin, then watch to see if they bloom? I see you staring. I see you cringing. Would you like to stick your finger in my twisted spine? Would you like to stick your finger in, lift it out, then check to see if you can tell which way the wind blows? I see you cringing. I hear you laughing. Would you like to trace my scars? Would you like to trace them, connecting all the lines and bumps and blotches to see if you can decipher the code and reveal their hidden message? I hear you laughing. I heard what you called me. Would you like to kiss my pain? Would you like to kiss it and lick it and suck it and hump it? Maybe you'd like to see if you can make it come. I heard what you said. What can I say?

One day I'm sitting on the front porch. I'm watching the little girl across the street. She's running through the sprinkler. I love watching her. She's delightful, the way she dances with the spray. I can't take my eyes off of her. Her legs. The way she moves with such abandon. I can't take my eyes off of her. Her legs. The way they move. Her legs. They're my legs. They're my legs. But I can't remember having legs like that. I know I did. We have a whole album full of pictures. There's me in my black patent leather tap shoes "Tea for Twoing" in the third grade talent show; Me, high-kicking in the chorus of "Jack in the Beanstalk; Me, in the Double Dutch tournament--I came in second; Me... I can't remember those legs. I can't remember.

'Legs. Remember? [CARESSING LEGS] Legs. Remember. [SHAKING< THEN PUMMELING LEGS WITH FISTS] Remember. Legs.'

When was the last time I felt that rush, like walking?

Do you walk feeling the muscle in the back of your left calf tightening loosening tightening loosening as you step lightly on grass cement run upstairs downstairs jump over curbs Do you walk to school in the morning moist air sneaking up your skirt damp cool air on a schoolgirl's knees Do you walk Do you shinny up trees Do you walk slipping off rocks to reach the rushing rushing of a hidden brook Do you pause one foot in the air reluctant to startle a little brown bird Do you walk till your thighs are hard Do you walk till the balls of your feet blister Do you walk Do you dance Do you dance on table tops Do you dance on table tops in spike heeled-boots till dawn Do you dance till dawn when you limp home your heel cords on blissful fire Do you walk Do you run Do you skip Do you jump Do you walk Do you walk Do you drag bare feet through worn shag carpet Do you walk Do you stand on tiptoe outside your daughter's room listening for her breath Do you walk Do you walk feeling the muscle in the back of your right calf tightening tightening tightening loosening as you walk.

The memory of walking is replaced in my body by grief. The grief, in time, becomes sorrow. A mellow sorrow. Soft. And I feel [BEAT] better because, dammit, that's what belongs here. The sorrow fills up this space inside me that's been occupied for far too long by, "Don't worry, everything's gonna be just fine".

I begin to feel this relaxation, this ease in my body I have not felt in years. It's like I've been living outside my body and finally, finally I get to move back in. And I notice my body in the chair. It's not all bad. And I notice my feet on the metal of the pedals. And that's not all bad. And I notice my butt on the cushion of the chair. Not bad. And I can feel the rhythm of the tires, the rhythm, the rhythm. Not bad.

And, no it's not like walking. But it is...interesting .

Some time later, I'm sitting in my bedroom, getting ready for bed--the most ordinary of events. I'm struggling to wriggle out of one T-shirt and into another when, from the corner of my eye, I catch a flicker of myself in the mirror. Here I am, this vision, all hunched over with my arms inside the shirt. I don't know whether it's the light, the big metal chair, my shape inside the shirt: 'Cheryl. You are handicapped.' That was the word in those days.

Strange, I know. Bordering on the unbelieveable. Although I had been called many things in my life, handicapped was never one of them. I was just sick or broken and I was supposed to get fixed and when I didn't, well, we all just stopped talking about it. And so here I am, all these years later, looking in a mirror, naming myself handicapped for the first time.

Handicapped. Sounds official.

If there's one thing my middle-class upbringing has done for me, it's taught me: if it's official, there's bound to be a government program for it.

Indeed. A multitude of programs. Programs, agencies, charities, industries-- all these businesses in the business of "helping the handicapped".

Through a series of adventures and misadventures in the land of bureaucracy, far too mundane to chronicle, I finally end up at The State Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. Rehab. Rehab. That's that place through which all Cripples get funneled on our way to the real world.

The manual dexterity tests: [STRUGGLE TO LIFT PEG] round peg, round hole; round peg, round hole-- Well, let's just say they indicate assembly line work is probably not my forte so it's decided I should go to college. The aptitude tests seem to indicate I have some abilities in the creative arts and, to a lesser degree, the behavioral sciences. So naturally, I am encouraged to become a computer programmer.

I'm pushing for the creative arts and the counselor's working overtime extolling the virtues of the computer when a deal is cut: I shall become a psychologist. I wonder, is this what they mean by "reasonable accommodation"?

At long last, Cheryl goes to college. Nine to five, five days a week: LIFE.

[LIGHTS UP TO GIVE MORE STAGE SPACE. DANCE AROUND STAGE]

I am THE disabled student spokesmodel. Well, I am a kind of natural photo op. As a peer counselor and President of the Disabled Student's Union, I have an opportunity to express my opinions, constantly. And I love it. All those years, and now I have the politics of disability as a framework in which to bitch.

During this "into everything" period, an enterprising reporter from the local paper decides to do a feature on "the activist among us"--moi. When the article comes out, it's one of these "Super Crip Girl: Cheryl, the disabled hero we all aspire to be."

I am just about to cop an attitude when I get this phone call: someone wanting to contribute to my accessible van fund. And then I get another phone call: another somebody wanting to contribute to my accessible van fund. And I get these calls, inviting me to speak at luncheons-- the Lions, the Elk, the Moose, the Geese-- all the local animal groups, $150 bucks a pop. One hundred and fifty bucks just to talk.

My first official gig is the Elk. I admit, I'm a bit thrown--the room is full of middle-aged and older able-bodied white men. There's not even anyone here with a good tan. By the time I get to the speaker's mic, I'm "My deared" and patted on the head and patted on the head and patted on the head so many times I'm about an inch shorter.

I've worked up this talk I think covers the basics--all the things I think they ought to know, you know, the Independent Living Speech, emphasizing how without access and services like attendent assistance, you don't even have a chance for a life. And, of course, I use my own story--the personal angle--to drive it home. And it's working. I'm going over bigtime. They're about ready to make me an honorary Elkette, when I just can't resist:

Cripple jokes, Dial-A-Come, and the "I ain't a number" blues speedballin' through my brain. In nightmares cold white hands rip feathers from my wings, crack fragile bones; thin pale lips smile and suck. How do I roll into a Star-spangled-warm-summer-night, soft-cool-breezes dream-- The kind guaranteed in the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and on baseball cards in the back pockets of young boys everywhere. I want my All-American-Born-In-The-U.S.A. dream and I want it fat and sassy, Not battered and abused by the latest Dr. Fix-It who cops a cheap feel every chance he gets so I'm forced to edge backwards down the alley, clutching my skirt to my knees. Where's that "The Doors Are Wide Open, Go For It" dream? Where's my American dream? The able-bodied white men's chorus sings: It's in committee. It's in committee. It's in committee.

There's some part of me that always knows exactly what I'm doing. I know what was expected: a nice "how I triumph over my disability" story. I know it's perfectly acceptable to include some pain and struggle as long as I'm willing to put a positive spin on it. I understand the social contract, trust me on this, I do. And I would've been very willing to live up to my side of the bargain, I really would've, if they just hadn't patted me on the head.

n most ways I am a sterling example of the well-adjusted disabled person. I get good grades, hold two part-time jobs, and I am civic minded and politically involved. I'm a credit to my people. But no matter how dedicated I am, classes, work and politics are not the only things on my mind. Increasingly, thoughts of romance enter my consciousness, sex. Not just sex. I want fun, I want excitement, I want adventure, I want....well, you know.

As luck would have it, on a particularly warm day in May, as I'm sitting at my desk in the Student Center with my Peer Counselor Open for Business sign before me, in walks The Dude. He's hard not to notice. Maybe it's the leather jacket or the high-heeled cowboy boots. Maybe it's the T-Shirt that reads "Born To" and then he leaves it up to you to fill in the blank. But most especially, it's how with each stride his long blond hair rides the rim of his gravity-defying levis.

I must be putting out some extra heavy duty pheromones because with all the women in the room to notice he walks right on over to me as if I'm the only one alive. He sits down in the chair in front of me, leans back, looks me straight in the eyes, "So...counsel me."

A short time later, out on Lucas Valley Road, on a night with no moon, we have our first...counseling session. I'll admit that in fantasies, I've moved way over the edge of anything remotely related to polite sex, but in real life, in the deep heart of the matter, I am shy and nervous. Oh, I want it all. I just don't want it all right now. And I certainly don't want it all in a parked car on a public road. I just want...a taste. Lips and fingertips.

The Dude definately has some mighty talented lips and fingertips.

Afterwards in that eternal silence that I have a throbbing need to fill with words, well, what I want to say is, what I want to say is:

when you kiss me my lips ooh my lips, babe and then my larynx like a cat in my throat purrin' prrrrrrrr my esophogus, liver and spleen begin trioin' the blues in a low moan and my belly, inside and button start talkin' low, dancin' slow makin' sweet rhythm until my thighs the ones you call cotton candy delights hum, and each cell harmony

Of course, what I say is, 'Oh, that was nice .'

Every day for about two weeks, The Dude swaggers into the Student Center to regale me with some new erotic fantasy in which I am the star. I hate to admit how flattered I am. I enjoy his stories--the boy is remarkably good with details, but I still can't stop myself from wishing, 'Just once can't you deliver a single rose instead?'

I wish I could say The Dude reveals himself to be Prince Charming in disguise. But not every man with a leather jacket and an air of danger turns out to have a heart of gold. So, let's just put it this way--the Dude is not the man to unchain my melody. But if not him, then who? And what if I can't? Maybe I can't...Maybe there's some fundamental difference between me and other women. How would I know? My entire understanding of crip sexuality, so to speak, comes from watching the movie, "Coming Home". Don't get me wrong, I love that movie--I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jon Voight go down on Jane Fonda's body double. He gave that woman an orgasm like no orgasm that has ever been given since the dawn of man, and I have no doubt that when the movie played theaters nationwide, quad men had a lot easier time getting dates, but I still left the theater going, 'That's cool, but what does it have to do with me?'

Fortunately, the teachers I work with at the Special Ed classroom where I'm an assistant decide that since we're working with a bunch of crip teenagers whose hormones are going full tilt boogie, we should all have some practical information at our fingertips. So we go to this Disability Sexuality conference at Cal.

The conference is mostly movies. They get off to a great start with this animated feature of bean bag frogs doing it from every angle. But by about the fifth film, I am getting disheartened. It appears that the only crips who have sex are paraplegic and quadreplegic men and the only people they have sex with--able-bodied women who are both attractive and active. Oh, I do see one film that's relevant to my life: "The Art and Craft of Masterbation", starring the remarkable Anna K., a disabled woman with amazing agility. I have to admit I am grateful to pick up some new techniques to add to my limited repertoire, but, I don't mean to be picky or anything, as much as I admire technology, I'm still hoping I might have at least one or two sexual partners in my lifetime whose momentum is not dependent upon batteries.

I get so desperate, I turn to these guidebooks and manuals. Forget it. The more I read, the more disembodied I begin to feel as if what's required of me is to somehow move outside of my body and look back on the proceedings to make sure everything's happening on schedule. This is not heading me into the direction of a scintillating sex life. But then it occurs to me, don't all great discoveries happen because someone is willing to go exploring?

What do I like? A lot of things. There? That's nice. There? That's nice too. There? That's very nice. And there? That's even nicer. There? Ooh, that's nice. There and there Yeah Oh yeah, there Unh uh, not there. There. YES, definately there. That tickles there. It tickles, yeah, there. A little softer there Softer there. Really, there? Oh really there. So that's what it's like there Wow. Yes there. Yes there. there there there there there Yes, oh my god YES THEEEEEEEEERE Ah...there That's what I like.

I drive Big Blue, my new wheelchair accessible van, into the parking lot of the dorm at UC Berkeley. This is so fucking incredible. I've wanted to come to Berkeley ever since the sixties when I saw Joan Baez on the news, singing "Joe Hill" on the steps of Sproul Plaza.

The dorm I move into is only a half block from People's Park. People's Park: THE symbol of the struggle for freedom and individual choice. When I put my feet on the grass, I feel as if I'm touching sacred ground. It gives me goose bumps.

I head on down to Telegraph Avenue, and here's the Center for Independent Living. My god, CIL. Talk about freedom and choice. I sit in the parking lot staring at the sign: C.I.L. 'Oh my god, I'm here. I can't believe I'm really here.'

I head up Telegraph Avenue. 'There's The Med and The Reprint Mint, I saw them in "The Graduate".' And I can feel the rhythm of my wheels turning on the sidewalk: The Ave, The Ave, The Ave, The Ave. 'This is the same place not that many years ago there was a war, tear gas and bullets. I saw it all on the news. And there's Sather Gate, the arch, the tower, whoa, this is amazing. Oh my god, this is Sproul Plaza [UPSTAGE CENTER], those are THE steps. I swear, I can hear Joan Baez singing. Uh oh, maybe this isn't real. Maybe I'm not really here. Maybe I'm dreaming and any second I'm going to wake up and I won't be this woman in a big powerful wheelchair tooling down Telegraph Avenue, I'll be this girl in a rickety push chair [JERK CHAIR BACKWARD] stuck in a livingroom in an inaccessible house in Marin , no way out, [JERK CHAIR] stuck forever...What's that Dylan line, "when you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose", but when you got freedom, you've got everything and there's everything to lose and it's so fragile, freedom, my cheeks are all wet, I feel so stupid. Here it is my first day in Berkeley and I'm having a goddam panic attack.'

Mid-panic, along comes this woman. She is one of the most striking women I have ever seen. She rolls up next to me in this big purple wheelchair. Her neon orange hair is out to here and falls in magnificent waves. She's got on thigh high black suede boots and a Stetson. She is making a definite statement. I don't know what it is, but I am impressed. She pulls out a long, thin brown cigaret from the black leather pouch beside her in the chair. She lights it, takes a drag and passes it to me. "Girl, you have got to stress down."

I take a drag. And another. [LONG PAUSE, LAUGH]

I look at her. She's flashing me this smile, this "Welcome to the community" smile. Welcome to the community of Cripple Women with Attitude.

[SINGING, DANCING AROUND STAGE]

Like Clubfoot Annie wearin' bright red shoes Like Harriet the Hairlip deliverin' the news Like Spastic Jenny strokin' the cat on her hat And One-Legged Ruthie, She teaches tap

Ya clap hands Ya shimmy, Ya shout Ya rock ya tired ideas right out Like Sassy Girls, Sassy Girls, Sassy Girls, unh huh

Like Old Blind Wilma readin' a novel a day She's a doin it the fingertips way Like Capucine the Deafie and Deaf Lily Rue Betcha cain't keep up with all the talkin' they do Now who ya callin' crazy, Mary Louise?

Hey, she's the one knows how to talk to trees

Yeah Ya clap hands Ya shimmy, Ya shout Ya rock ya tired ideas right out Like Sassy Girls, Sassy Girls, Sassy Girls, Unh huh

Like Mumtaz, the Mute One, preachin' the word And Diana, the Cripple: She flies like a bird Like all us crips who sing a strugglin' tune And at midnight Together HOWL at the moon

Ya clap hands Ya shimmy, Ya shake Ain't nothin' but worn out notions at stake Skip-a-rope, hear the sound? Just a bunch o' stereotypes hittin' the ground Ya clap hands Ya shimmy, Ya shout Ya rock those tired ideas right out Like Sassy girls, Unh huh, Sassy Girls, Yeah Sssssssassy!

I have to remind myself: I am in Berkeley to attend the University of California as a Psych major. I try my damnedest to stay focused during class. The professor's up there at his podium giving an undoubtedly brilliant lecture on the effects of sleep deprivation on the maze-running abilities of lower division psych students when it suddenly hits me: 'Uh oh, I have not heard a word the man has said for over a half hour.' In my notebook: nothing. Seems my mind keeps drifting, mulling over some heated conversation I had with a crip in the community about this thing called Cripple, what it means to a society that has such a fear and loathing of different.

Of course, just as enthralled as I am with these conversations, I am even more enthralled with my own personal freedom. I am, after all on my own, in control of my own life for the first time. Even though I'm at an age when I am beginning to no longer be trusted by youth, I am in many ways, still a teenager. I want to do what most teenagers want to do: defy authority and party.

As much as I love hanging out with friends and partying, I do not love the single life. Casual sex just ain't my thing. All those years of involuntary exposure before strangers dulled my appetite for being naked in front of anyone who isn't, at the very least, a good friend. Now I may be a teen queen in some ways, but I am also a thirty year old woman, getting older.

I move into a sweet little two bedroom house with my attendent. I am loving my life, but a lot of nights as I'm laying in my double bed, drifting off to sleep, I'm thinking, 'God, it'd be so wonderful to have someone to share this with.'

In the morning, with the sun seeping into the breakfast nook, and I'm sitting at the table slugging back that first lethal cup of coffee, I can't help but think, 'It'd be nice to have someone to share a first morning conversation with. Someone who isn't employed by me to be here.'

There is one teensy impediment to my plans for nesting: I have never been really intimate with anyone. The idea of letting some man see me, the real me, wounds and all, sans repartee. That's a lot of trust.

Kind of sad, isn't it? How much easier it is to admit you want to get laid than that you want to be loved.

[SINGING] Will you hold my sorrow in your steady hands Will you sit in silence with my pain Will you dream dreams with me tomorrow Will you sit in silence with my pain I will hold your precious precious sorrow I will sit in silence with your pain I will dream grand dreams with you through all tomorrow I will sit in silence with your pain [END SONG]

He is wilty muscle sack and sharp bones fitting my gnarly paws. I am soft cellulite and green eyes of middle-age memory. We are side and belly trading dreams and fantasies of able-bodied former and not real selves: high-heel booted dancers making love from black rooftops and naked dim doorways.

He is Irish tones and Catholic sorrows needing my tough willow. I am faceless hands in the endless night of a child crying save me save me.

He is Yeats aloud through hash to my tamborine jangle.

Contradictions in the starry night of wars within and being not quite whole together and whole. Together in sighs we say yes broken and fire and yes singing.

Life feels so full. [ Who'd've ever thought you could find true love while chaining yourself to a bus?

I finally do manage to get my Masters degree in Psychology, although I'm absolutely convinced they gave it to me as a consolation prize for crapping out of the Phd. program.

I have three short stories published, but I still think of writing as a hobby, even though it is my passion. I was raised on the mythology of writer as artist with a capital A, a rare being, special, touched by the gods. You know, somebody like Jack Kerouc who could write a whole novel in a single draft or Alice Walker who has voices that guide her pen with magic, not me, one of the ordinary mortals of the planet.

One day I'm dial-flipping in search of the juiciest tabloid talk fest, when I happen upon an interview with three world famous writers. I don't know who two of them are, but it doesn't matter because the one doing all the talking is Norman Mailer. I know it's been said many times that television is a vast wasteland, but I'm here to testify that it is a profound medium, because right here, in the comfort of my own livingroom, it is revealed to me that not only do writers not necessarily have to be touched by the gods, they don't even have to be coherent.

At the exact moment that the mystique of the grande artiste is crumbling before my eyes, arising from the community is a new idea in theater. Three disabled women get together and decide what the world needs now is a disabled women's theater group. They invite me to come along for the ride.

Ah, just what I have been waiting for. All my years of training are about to pay off, all those years of sitting in my parents' livingroom mimicking Barbra Streisand, acting out all the parts to "King Lear" and "Bye Bye Birdie". I can picture it so clearly: The Disabled Women's Theater Group proudly presents Cheryl Marie Wade in "A Streetcar Named Desire". I know I have it in me to be a Blanche De Bois like no Blanche De Bois that has ever gone before. Or Stanley.

"Not that kind of theater, Cheryl. Reader's Theater. You play yourself."

'oh.'

WRY CRIPS invites you to an evening of Hors d'oeuvres.

It's a rainy night in San Francisco. Over 200 women brave the trecherous elements to come out and launch us on our maiden voyage. And here we are, twelve Cripple women in the spotlight. As it was always meant to be. Wall-to-wall Cripple women. We are a magnificent sight. Fat women, skinny women, tall women, short women, gay women, straight women, bisexual women, and women who don't even want to discuss it. In the spotlight, twelve Cripple women. And as the lights come up and the sound begins to crackle, 200 women move forward in their seats, breathless in anticipation of what they are certain is going to be the most profound statement on disability that has ever yet come forth on Mother Earth. And here we are, twelve Cripple women, without a clue what we're doing. But being the troupers that we are, when we here the downbeat, "One, two, three, hit it girls,", the Wry Crips Offkey Chorus breaks into song.

[SINGING AND DANCING AROUND STAGE] We've got body parts, wonderful body parts, fabulous body parts Really we do Body parts, body parts, ooh body body body Body parts, body parts, ooh body body body, body parts (Then Peni's got the solo) I've got blue eyes, I've got blue eyes, I've got blue eyes Just like you (Then it's Naja) I've got brown eyes, I've got brown eyes, I've got brown eyes Just like you I got hands like starfish I got feet like moons I got ears like little bitty roses in bloom I got toes like oysters Elbows like spoons I got a body that can rock out a tune We've got body parts, wonderful body parts, fabulous body parts Just like you Body parts, body parts, ooh body body body Body parts, body parts, ooh body body body, body parts, Body Parts!

And with this, the world is forever changed.

Well, maybe not the whole world.

But my world.

Because as the applause washes over us, I move on down into the solo spotlight and perform my very first poem.

Mine are the hands of your bad dreams Booga Booga from behind the black curtain Claw hands The ivory girl's hands after a decade of roughing it crinkled puckered sweaty and scarred A young woman's dwarfed knobby hands that ache for moonlight that tremble and struggle Hands that make your eyes tear My hands My hands My hands that grace your brow your thigh My hands

I so wanted my first poem to be a masterpiece, to say everything I have ever wanted to say about disability, and then some. But all it's willing to be is this tiny little booga booga poem.

It does encourage the another poem, though, and another and another, and in a couple of years I have enough poems to leave the mother ship.

A little gig here, the next one there, and the next and the next and the next, and before my hair is totally gray, I have enough material for my own show. And this show leads to the next and the next and another and another and then before you know it, [CIRCLE STAGE] I'm touring the country, and then before you know it, [WIDE FAST CIRCLE OF STAGE] I'm touring the whole world, and then, before you know it, [FAST MOVE DOWN STAGE CENTER] I am starring on Broadway.

[SUDDEN STOP] Well, not quite. Not yet.

First we have to make Broadway accessible.

Well, this may not be Broadway, but it is...interesting.

[BLUE AND RED SPOTS UP] I am not one of the physically challenged-- I'm a sock in the eye with gnarled fist I'm a French kiss with cleft tongue I'm orthopedic shoes sewn on a last of your fears I am not one of the differently abled-- I'm an epitaph for a million imperfect babies left untreated I'm an ikon carved from bones in a mass grave at Tiergarten, Germany I'm withered legs hidden with a blanket I am not one of the able disabled-- I'm a black panther with green eyes and scars like a picket fence I'm pink lace panties teasing a stub of milk white thigh I'm the Evil Eye I'm the first cell divided I'm mud that talks I'm Eve I'm Kali I'm The Mountain That Never Moves I've been forever I'll be here forever I'm the Gimp I'm the Cripple I'm the Crazy Lady I'm The Woman With Juice [BLACK OUT]