The Handicapped Convert

Larry Nevell was driving pretty well for a blind man. “Frrrrrrrrp” meant he was too close to danger on his right. “Fudup, fudup, fudup” meant he was straddling the center line. Silence indicated smooth sailing.

He’d had trouble finding the car without drawing attention. The “bwwap, bwwap, bwwap” from the third button in the middle of the key’s remote seemed loud and incessant. The car was over to his left, down about 20 fenders. As planned, he’d left his cane and eye wear in his brief case and pulled his ball cap down over his eyes to avoid being noticed. At first he’d worried that finding the vehicle would pose the greatest challenge. It proved to be only the first of many.

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen … he let his right hand brush past each auto. He had to be getting close. Tapping the middle button one more time, “bwwap,” proved sufficient. Thank God for remote keys!

He was shaking as he sat behind the wheel. Blind from birth, he’d had lots of experience sitting behind the steering wheel, playing. It would take the fingers of both hands to recount the car batteries he’d drained to listen to the radio. He knew every announcer, every song. He’d even memorized commercials over the past 16 years. Now, on his 21st birthday, he was finally going to take the car for a spin. Scared and excited, he wondered how it might end …

First he drove down to the car wash. It was only one block from his dad’s favorite parking spot. Down the hill, to the left; he drove extremely slowly. If he bumped someone, it would not really matter. Turning left over the small entry road proved no trouble. Besides, from the gentle clicking noise, he knew that he’d engaged the flashing emergency lights.

The entry to the car wash was, as he’d suspected, idiot proof. You’d have thought the designers had the blind in mind during construction: narrow curbing, sensory activated, automated voices, bells and whistles. Dad liked a clean car and Larry knew all the sounds by heart. Having activated the machinery with his dad’s code, Larry sat back and enjoyed the whirring and whooshing amid the flip, flap, and drizzle …

“Ding!” As the car wash ended, Larry was exhausted. Less than thirty minutes into his big tour, he needed some rest. He eased back onto the service road and headed down to the gas station on the right …

This week, a page right out of One Flew Over the Onion Dome …

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