“I did,” he said, and the excitement was gone.“Two weeks after my eighteenth birthday, I got drunk, went for a spin and rammed headlong into a bridge abutment.I was driving my dad’sold shebang that time, so I didn’t get into trouble with the law.My dad gave me up for dead, literally and figuratively.I was in a coma for a month and woke up to find that I’d broken most every bone in my body.”
I exhaled.“What happened then?”
“Not much.At least, not quickly.I was in the hospital for months.There was a first round of operations, then a second round.I had surgery to correct things that hadn’t healed properly, then I had to lie there and let them reheal.When that was done, I started in on the endless physical therapy it took to get my body working again.”
My gaze dropped to his legs.Lovingly encased in denim, they were long, strong and straight.“It’s hard to believe.”
“I could show you scars,” he said in a very soft voice, one that conjured up tummy-tingling images.
“I’m sure,” I said quickly.“Still, it’s hard to believe.”
“Why so?”
“You move so well.So fluidly.You don’t have any sign of a limp.You kept up with me all the way from my house.”I felt a stab of guilt.“It wasn’t the easiest walk.I’d never have suggested it if I’d known what you’d been through.”
“What I’ve been through is over and done.I’m fine.I swim regularly.I play tennis twice a week.I ran a marathon last month.I’m probably in better shape than I’d have been if I’dnever crashed that car.”He paused before adding, “I know I am mentally.”
That got me wondering some more.“How did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Get from that hospital bed to the courtrooms of America.”
“It wasn’t easy.”
I could have guessed that, but I wanted to know the details.I raised both brows in as tempting a silent invitation as I could muster, pulling a Swansy of my own.Then it struck me that, for all intents and purposes, I’d forgotten Swansy was there.
I quickly looked to her face.She was sitting quietly in the rocker, wearing an innocent smile, as unobtrusive—and intent—as a fly on the wall.I had the distinct impression that she was pleased with the way the conversation was going.
I leaned low and murmured, “Can I get you anything?”
She shook her head, but reached for my hand.Still the focus of her attention was Peter.“How?”she asked him.
Before he spoke, he looked at me, pointed silently to the chair on which he sat, asking me with his hands whether I wanted to sit.It was a courtly gesture, but I shook my head.I felt safer standing by Swansy’s shoulder, holding her hand.She grounded me.
Peter stretched out his legs and loosely foldedhis hands over the buckle of his belt.“I had lots of time to think when I was laid up—lots of time with nothing to do and no one to see.I felt pretty low.At some point I decided that there had to be more to life than the kind of cheap thrills I’d been looking for.So I buckled down.I took correspondence courses during my recovery and graduated from high school.I was still in intensive physical therapy, so I couldn’t do much for another year.I read a lot, thought a lot.Little by little I was able to go to work.I had stacks of hospital bills to pay, and when I’d done that, I worked for another two years to stash money away for college.By the time I entered the state university, I was twenty-four.I did well, transferred to Penn, went from there to NYU Law, and the rest is history.”
He summed the struggle up so quickly that it took me a minute to ingest it.When I did, I couldn’t help but let out a breath.“That’s a wonderful story.”It was just the kind that had always appealed to me.“You fought the odds and came through on top.There must be any number of people who are sitting back, shellshocked to think that the drunken kid who went head-on into that bridge abutment is as successful as you are.”
“I didn’t have much choice.It was curl up and die or do something with my life.”
“You could have done less.You could have gotten yourself back on your feet only enough to hold down the barest excuse for a job.You couldhave been satisfied with punching in and out like your father did, then going to the corner bar and drinking your way through Monday night football.”
“If that’s the kind of life that works for a man, there’s nothing wrong with it,” he said in a voice that wasn’t quite as gentle.
“It’s a waste,” I argued.“That kind of existence goes nowhere.”
“For some people, it’s all that’s possible.”
I was shaking my head even before he’d finished.“There’s always more.Small things.Subtle things.There’s always something to work for.”
“Try telling that to the guy who can’t get a better job because he can’t read, and he can’t read because he dropped out of school to work so his family could eat.I had friends like that.They’re still back in the same neighborhood, living in the same houses, only those houses are now older and more rundown.”
There were people right here in town who fit his description.“So they keep them clean.That’s something.And they work so their children don’t have to drop out of school to earn money to eat.So their children move ahead in ways they can’t.That’s something.Upward mobility is relative.You took it by leaps and bounds, and you’re right, some people can’t do that, but neither do they have to give up and stagnate.There’s always room forsomemovement.”
The movement I felt just then was the subtlesqueeze of Swansy’s hand.Peter looked ready to argue more, but Swansy was right.It was time to move on.
“Is your dad still alive?”I asked.
