Wheelchair Basketball
July 2005
When I reconnect with Lee and
check out the Paradevo website after falling out of touch for over four years,
I'm pleased to notice that he's attached a message board to the website. I
remember back when he first put the site up there were a bunch of people
posting messages on the guest book, some of them more than once, using the
guest book as a kind of impromptu bulletin board, trying to connect with each
other. I'm glad to see a few names from the guest book show up on the new
message board as well.
As I'm scrolling through the posts
on the new message board, I'm stunned to see a thread titled, Devo Girl?
Someone asks,
Just wondering about this elusive individual. I've read and re-read and
re-re-read "Devo Diary" and I was wondering if I was getting my hopes
up in thinking that there might be something new to come.
Way back when I first posted that chapter about hooking up with the blind guy, I had intended to write more Devo
Diary, but somehow never got around to it. Now there's so much more I hardly
even know where to start. But it's so nice to know that even that one short bit
was appreciated. I make an account on the message board and say hi to the
group.
I also confirm with The Mantis
over email that he's ok with me posting his photos on Paradevo. He writes,
Ahhh... such sweet memories, makes me pine for the days when I would
grovel before you and drag myself about your apartment. If you want to
photoshop my tattoos out of any where they're showing and do the same with my
face, I don't have a problem with you posting them so deranged perverts can get
their jollies jerking off to the sight of atrophied legs.
He also has some suggestions for
captions:
The Mantis loves to be called disgusting and vile. He also likes long
walks on the beach, jogging and pole vaulting, but he can't do any of those
because he's paralyzed from the waist down.
I have to laugh when I read his
message. Always the comedian.
I pick out a few photos where his
face is covered or out of the frame, ones of him handcuffed to his chair, tied
to my bed, with a bandage over his eyes, and with needles stuck all over his
chest. Lee puts them up on the website, but the response is not, I think, what
The Mantis was hoping for. No one really comments on the photos. I try to get
him to make his own account and join the conversation on the message board, but
he doesn't want to. I think he's slightly disappointed that devs aren't
flinging themselves at him, although he doesn't say anything. Anyway, between
Titania and the Sub Rosa Society BDSM events, he gets plenty of action.
Weirdly, though, he's not the only
guy on his wheelchair basketball team with a photo on Paradevo. As The Mantis
is checking out his own photos, he mentions to me that there is a picture of
his teammate, who just left to train for the Paralympics. It's an action shot
of the guy playing basketball. I ask Lee about it but he doesn't know; someone
just shared the link with him. Even stranger, the link points to a domain that
has nothing to do with wheelchair basketball. What was that photo doing there?
It's like someone working for that domain just parked the photo there because
there wasn't a better place to store it. It's so strange to run across the
photo of someone I've met in person, but I guess the world of wheelchair
basketball is not that big.
Aug 2005
The run of La Traviata is lots of fun. I love the music, the costumes, and I
love how much the chorus has to do. The backstage drama has settled down for
the moment, and we all just enjoy hanging out and joking around together. I'm
slowly getting over my heartbreak with Sean, and trying to accept that whatever
his deal is, I won't be hearing from him again.
Lulu is dating some new guy,
although honestly she doesn't seem that invested in him. She agrees to
accompany me to a matinee screening of this new documentary about wheelchair
rugby called Murderball. It's so nice
to be able to go with someone who knows that I'm a devotee, so I don't have to
hide my reactions. The movie is incredible. I love how badass all the guys are,
and they are all so hot. It's so exciting to watch these guys portrayed on the
big screen as real, desirable people, not as objects of pity or inspiration
porn.
But at the same time, watching it
increases my frustration. I want a guy like this so much it hurts. With their
tattoos and trash talk and stupid stunts, they remind me a lot of Sean. Dammit,
why did he have to disappear on me like that?
Watching Murderball also reminds me of Rollerboy to an almost painful
degree. He was on a rugby team, and I watched him play just like in the film.
But it's more than that. the way they move, the way their arms look, with the
skinny flat forearm, the limp hands, the way they cock their hands back to hold
a bottle of water, brings me back to that feeling when I was with him. It's a
weird sort of nostalgia tinged with regret for how bad that relationship was.
After the movie, Lulu agrees with
me that the guys are hot, even though she's not at all a devotee.
"The movie does such a good
job of overturning stereotypes about quadriplegics," I say as we exit the
movie theater into the late afternoon sun.
"They're quadriplegic?!"
Lulu looks confused. "But they can move their arms...?"
Oh my god, I thought the movie
explained this so clearly, but if she didn't get it after two hours, also after
knowing me and having met Rollerboy, what chance is there of anyone in the
general public ever understanding SCI? I try to explain about injury levels but
she continues to look blank. I give up.
I go back to see Murderball a few more times on my own,
just to have the full dev experience. I also look up every review and interview
I can find and watch the guys guest star on Jackass.
I know they all have girlfriends but man I am crushing so hard on all of them.
Sept 2005
In an effort to forget about Sean,
I spend more time on Craigslist and other online personals sites looking for submissive
guys into BDSM. Dan Savage always says kinky people have to advertise if you
want to find someone into the same kink as you, so here I am. There are plenty
of sub guys advertising online and I message a lot of them, but our email
exchanges go nowhere. Either their photos are not attractive to me, or they
stop writing back, or whatever, but nothing leads to even a phone call, never
mind actually meeting in person.
Anyway I can't get too excited for
these lukewarm dudes on the internet when I'm meeting so many real life wheeler
guys through wheelchair basketball. Since The Mantis introduced me to the
coach, I've been going to the practices for the Lester State University team
which meets in a gym just a few blocks from my house. I also drive the two
hours south to The Mantis' games when he invites me. Everyone is very friendly
and no one questions why I'm there. They seem glad that anyone is taking an
interest in their team.
Hanging out with all these guys is
like an object lesson in everything your mother ever told you. Yes, you will
fall off the roof and break your back if you're not careful. Also the racial
divide is stark: the white guys were in motorcycle accidents, and the black
guys got shot.
There's this one guy in particular
on the Lester State team who I develop a serious crush on. His name is Eitan.
Obviously he's Jewish like me. He seems much younger than I am but he's so
beautiful I can't help myself. He has a mop of dark curly hair and big brown
eyes. I think he looks like Judah Maccabee. Is it too weird to find that
attractive? Lulu always teases me for only dating goyim, but now I have finally
found one Jew I'm attracted to. He's lean and wiry. I don't know anything about
his injury but it must be low because I see him turn all the way around to look
behind him during practice one day. The Mantis couldn't do that. You need abs
to turn yourself like that.
Titania helps me out, making sure
to invite me when the two teams are playing each other, talking me up to him,
helping me to find time to chat with him during time outs. It takes me over two
hours to decide what to wear to practice. The weather is turning chilly but I
don't want to cover up in a bulky sweater. Dammit, why don't I have any sexy clothes
that aren't fetish gear? In the end I decide on jeans and a tank top with a low
plunging v neck, covered by a down jacket I leave unzipped. There--warm but
lots of cleavage.
I must be doing something right
because Eitan seems happy to talk to me. The game is in the afternoon, and
afterwards a bunch of the guys go out for burgers and ask me to go with them.
As we walk through the parking lot to the restaurant, I'm surrounded by eight
sporty paras in their low-slung chairs, all wheeling around me. I feel so
fucking sexy it's like I'm walking on air. How did I ever get so lucky?
I spend the meal chatting with
Eitan, and he agrees to meet me for dinner before his next practice, although I
can't really say it's a date since two more of his teammates will be there.
We meet a week later at an Italian
restaurant near the gym. It's an old school type of place, with red checkered
tablecloths, half curtains in the windows, and nothing on the menu but
spaghetti and meatballs in serving sizes from large to gargantuan. When we come
in the door, there's a flurry of activity as the servers leap forward to clear the
chairs away from the table. It seems they come here often before practice,
because the servers know them. I have no idea how they can put away so much
heavy food then go to practice but they are all young guys.
Actually Eitan is even younger
than I suspected, it turns out he's only twenty-three. Shit! That's ten years
younger than I am. But he seems mature for his age, not like the average frat
boy at Lester State. He has this very serious, soft-spoken way about him, like
he's always thinking deeply about everything.
After practice that night, I ask
Eitan if he ever wants to come to my place for a visit, and to my delight he
says yes. He lives about an hour north of the city, in a fancy rich suburb, but
we agree that he'll drive into town a few hours before the next practice to
meet up with me. I give him directions to my house.
Eitan has no trouble getting
himself up the three red painted concrete steps to my front door. Unlike Sean,
who dragged himself up ass first until his pants fell down, Eitan is downright
elegant. He takes one look at the stairs, then grabs the metal railing along
the side of the house and hoists himself chair and all up the steps, casters
first, like it's nothing. I gape at him in amazement.
"Wow, that's so cool!" I
say, inviting him to sit next to me on the couch.
He shrugs modestly, then transfers
in one smooth motion onto my tiny couch. "They taught me in rehab."
I seize on this opportunity to ask
him about his injury, and it turns out it was just over a year ago. Shit shit
shit!! Not only his he way too young for me, but his injury is much too recent.
I have a personal policy not to mess with guys so soon after SCI. They are
still adjusting, and psychologically it's just too intense--most of them are
not ready for a serious relationship until at least a few more years out. I was
correct though that his injury is very low, L4. Not only was his injury very
recent, but the story is so tragic. He was riding his bicycle on a road near
his house and was hit by a truck. Most of the SCI guys I know were injured
doing stupid shit like drunk driving, and some like Rollerboy have only
themselves to blame. This was just a case of being in the wrong place at the
wrong time.
But I don't dwell on any of this. I
try to just listen and nod politely. I also don't let on to being a devotee.
Something tells me he wouldn't be too into the idea. Anyway he knows I'm friend
with The Mantis so that's enough reason why I am more knowledgeable than
average about SCI. Anyway despite being injured so recently, Eitan seems pretty
accepting, not sunk into depression or holding out futile hope for recovery or
a cure. The accident happened just after he graduated from college, though, so
now he's still living at home and hasn't got a job yet.
We talk for a while about our
families. I thought that might be a point in common between us, both being
Jewish, but I realize as he talks that our families could not be more
different. What's up with these West Coast Jews? Like Lulu, I come from a long
line of New York Jews--Manischewitz drinking, endlessly kvetching, Seinfieldian
stereotypes all. At our synagogue every Saturday morning, the old ladies would
fill up their handbags with the stale rugelach and butter cookies purchased the
day before at the kosher deli. But as Eitan describes his parents, they seem
like hippies, or back to the land hipsters. His father bakes challah for
Shabbat dinner every single Friday afternoon. Who even does that? When I was a
kid I tried baking challah once and it came out like a braided rock.
But it's not just the wholesome
family activities. Eitan does not have the same sarcastic, cynical worldview
that I do. Even Lulu, who is much sweeter than I am, is always quick with a
one-liner. But Eitan is completely, one hundred percent earnest and serious
about everything, but in a laid-back kind of way. It makes talking to him
faintly exhausting.
I also start to realize, as he's
sitting there on my couch, that he's deeply uncomfortable, and not just because
of my crappy Ikea furniture. I desperately want to kiss him, but he seems so
much like he doesn't want to be here that I don't even try. It's getting close
to practice time, so I suggest getting dinner. We go together to the same
Italian restaurant, but conversation is even more awkward there. At the
restaurant, he chides me for putting my elbows on the table. What the hell is
that about?
Ok, I get it. Eitan is not
interested in me. So then why did he even agree to come over to my house in the
first place? Why not just say no from the start? I hate to feel like the creepy
stalker dev, forcing my attentions on guys. But honestly, this kind of
situation hasn't happened since I met Tim, the museum volunteer with
arthrogryposis. Every other guy who I have met has no problem saying no to a
come on if he isn't interested. Unlike women, most guys just say what they
want, yes or no.
Maybe Eitan is just fatally
polite. But really, saying yes to everything then expecting the other person to
pick up on your lack of enthusiasm is its own kind of rudeness.
The next time I see Titania, she
asks me, "How's Eitan?"
"I'm done with him," I
tell her. "I'm going to leave him alone."
"That's for the best,"
she replies. "You two are too different, personality-wise." Well, it
would have been nice if she had shared that insight earlier rather than
encouraging me, but I guess she was trying to help.
A few weeks later, I see Eitan
again at another basketball game, and this time he's there with a girlfriend
his own age. She is objectively hot: tall, thin, very stylish. She doesn't seem
like his type either--too mainstream, not intellectual or hippie-ish at all,
but whatever. I say hello and make some small talk just to let him know there's
no hard feelings. He smiles politely. But that's it, I don't see him again
after that.