Out of Step

I heard it before I saw it.

I was standing just inside the Central Reading Room in our university's main library waiting for my 101 students to attend our library orientation. Then I heard it—that erratic, yet oddly rhythmic fall of footsteps that echoed in the open stone lobby.

I lifted my head, irrationally expecting to see Bobby, my former student, when I of course glimpsed another young man with cerebral palsy and a similar gait.

Bobby was in my most troublesome class to date: a standard ninth grade English class at the end of the school day my first year teaching. The roster comprised not only Bobby, but a student with an IQ of about 50; a student with an emotional disturbance; a half dozen overstimulated, undermedicated ADHD teenagers; and about as many repeaters. I would like to attribute my difficulty with this group to my inexperience as a teacher, but I'm confident I would flounder about as much now as I did then. While combating apathety and misbehavior, I also had to contend with Bobby, who, when I asked why he wasn't doing his work, replied, "leave me alone—I'm a cripple."

This was obviously unacceptable. What followed was a long private conversation with Bobby: his physical disability had nothing to do with his mental ability.

Bobby was one of those students—and help me, there are many—who made my life difficult from August until June, but the following fall became my best friend. (This may have been influenced by my teaching his doll of a sister Jackie in my English 12 class the following year.) Every time Bobby saw me in the halls—or even as he passed by my door while I was teaching—he'd say hello. He showed a chordiality in those who years I would never have guessed he possessed.

About two years ago Bobby began a series of surgeries to correct his walk. The surgeries would cut and then fuse the muscles in his legs, relieving the tension and allowing him to walk more normally. The last time saw Bobby was this past spring. His legs had healed enough that he had graduated from a wheelchair to a walker. He was substantially taller—not only the result of puberty, but also because leg muscles no longer wrenching his body together, creating a labored, staggered walk.

I won't say that Bobby's attitude toward me has anything to do with his corrective surgeries; I think it's mostly owing to his emotional maturation. In any event, when I heard the troubled walk of a college student—a walk no longer characteristic of my Bobby—I couldn't help but think of him and smile.