LEARNING TO CRAWL

BY

BEN MATTLIN

PART 1: Friday Night

            
            It was too high.  Probably the height of a standing person's line of vision.  Barry didn't even see it at first.

            The three beers at dinner had lightened his tongue, and he was yammering to Katherine about something or other.  Then he noticed she wasn't ringing for the elevator.

            "Push the button," he said.

            She pointed to the small note taped to the elevator's faded yellow doors.

            "What's that?"

            "It says, 'Out-of-order.  Repairman has been called.'"

            He laughed.

            "I'm serious!"

            "Yeah, right.  So why didn't you tell me?  Why did you let me yak on like that?"

            "You seemed happy talking," she snapped back, like a rubber band.

            Her lips were tense, and she was looking off into the distance over his right shoulder.  Her short gray jacket was unzipped, revealing a bosom-impression under her soft white turtleneck and the silver heart necklace he'd given her their first Christmas together, four years ago.

            It must have been near midnight now, and the fixtures on the lobby walls provided almost no light.  Still, even from the low height of his motorized wheelchair, he could read her face:  She was not kidding.  She had a delicate face‑‑wide golden eyes, soft pink cheeks, short auburn hair.  She wore no makeup, or almost none.  Open, sweet, natural‑‑that's what he liked about her, that's what made it last.  Except sometimes she got in these moods.

            The one-bedroom apartment they moved into four months ago was on the third floor, the top of the building.  He couldn't walk, but no problem.  He always found a way around so-called obstacles.  Besides, it was his birthday.  Twenty-three years old tonight!

            It was a special apartment‑‑in Brentwood, the high-rent district of West L.A.  They were spending a lot more than they had originally said they would.  But they felt "settled at last" here‑‑had actually hired movers this time, and bought a new queen-size bed for the place, top of the line!  It was almost like being married.

            No, the problem was Dad was coming tomorrow morning from New York.

            "Know what I'm thinking?" said Barry now.  "I'm thinking maybe it's not really broken."

            Katherine scrunched up her face in an unattractive expression he never fully understood.

            To his left, a heavy black door that hid a stairwell bounced open.  Out flew a tall young guy with an Eraserhead haircut, Sideout Sport shorts, and a Koala Blue sweatshirt.

            "Hey!  You know the elevator's broken?"

            Katherine's expression changed.  "Yeah?"

            "Yeah!  Sucks, huh?"

            "Yeah!" she said, mimicking.

            Were they flirting? Barry wondered.

            The Dude shrugged.  "Well...bye."

            He went jogging on out without losing a beat.  Who was this guy?

            Cold air blew in as the front security gate clanged shut behind him.  The noise echoed in the emptiness.  November, and the California summer was finally over.

            "You see?" asked Katherine.  "The elevator is broken!"

            You can't be serious, he thought.  Like I always listen to Neanderthals.  "You know that guy?"

            "He lives on our floor.  I see him now and then," she said.

            "You seemed pretty chummy."

            "Jealousy is so destructive, Dear," she said.  "Now, you heard him the same as I did about the elevator."

            "Have you considered," he asked, immediately regretting the way that sounded, "it might be shut off on another floor and nobody's bothered to check?"

            It had happened before:  Somebody had switched it off when moving or something and forgotten to turn it back on.  He was upstairs that time and only going down to help carry the laundry basket on his lap, so it hadn't been very important--a momentary panic quickly forgotten.

            "Yes.  I considered that," she said now.  "Have you considered you may be a lunatic?  That guy walked down from the third floor‑‑so it can't be shut off there.  And who would call a repairman without checking the obvious first?  Honestly!  Sometimes you think I'm brainless!"

            They were fighting again.  Why?  It was the beer.  Or the fact that he'd been taught as a child he could accomplish anything if he put his mind to it.  He'd grown up in New York City, where determination and skepticism were necessary to survive.  He called the combination "enlightened optimism."

            She was from San Diego, where a different philosophy ruled.  "Mellow out!" she said, folding her arms under her breasts.  Which made them protrude more than normal.

            He couldn't quite say, "Me?  You're the tense one."  Her tits were what had gotten him in the first place.  When he met her, they called to him like an electromagnet.  They were perky and bouncy and, most of all, the right height‑‑always in front of his eyes.  He could rest his head on them when she stood close to his chair.  And if she leaned forward and removed her top, he could suckle easily.

            Every night, he liked holding them when he and she lay in bed on their sides like spoons.  She was about five-three, and he was only an inch or two taller, so their bodies fit together perfectly.

            "I'm sorry, Honey," he said.  "Nervous about Dad, I guess."

            She smiled.

            "But could you run upstairs, please, just to double-check?"

            "Suppose that's one thing I can't ask you to do," she said.

            "And don't forget the basement," he added.

            Ripples of tension charged the air between them.  A five-point-five on the seismographs at Cal Tech.

            Basement?  New York has basements.  Not here.  The subterranean level here is a garage.  Garages are important here, emblematic of the car culture.  A culture of wheels.  Wheeled mobility.  It should feel more natural to him, a more comfortable fit with his basic modus operandi than it did.

            As she vanished behind the thick black door, he said, "See you soon, Sweetheart."

            It came out like a question.