I was thinking about the worst day of my life (so far). It was sometime in the nineteen eighties. I was flat broke and had been evicted from my apartment behind Sandy's on Barton Springs Road. I'd been so broke, and out of work for a month, that my electricity had been turned off twice. First, when I couldn't pay the bill and again when I was caught tampering with my electric meter. Just to run a table lamp and a 12" t.v. I then used one of the prong adapters that you screw into a light socket. I had an extension cord plugged into the apartment complex walkway light fixtures that were switched on and off via a light sensor.
It was eviction day and I needed boxes to pack my crap into, even though I had nowhere to go but the street. I walked to some store near the corner of Barton Springs and South Lamar and got a couple of empty boxes. I was headed back home with them when I slipped on some sand and twisted my ankle so bad that I thought I'd broken it.
I was nevertheless ambulabory, limping and writhing in pain.
I happened to look across the street, to the parking/drive-thru area of KFC there on Barton Springs Road. And there I saw a young man. It was moving day for him, too, because he had a cardboard box with him, full of stuff. But he wasn't carrying it. He was pushing it along with his feet. His feet weren't feet, though. They were protrustions from a pair of artificial legs. And these weren't "nice" prosthetics like the ones in the picture. They were mere sticks.
It was gut wrenching. I cried. Again. During a period of my life when I often cried in public, in broad daylight.
It was truly the worst day of my life - not because I was in such straits, but because there was nothing I could do to help that young man. On any other day, at any other moment, I would have gone over to him and asked if I could carry that box full of stuff to wherever he was going. But on this day, at this moment, there was nothing I could do. Nothing.
It truly was the adage come to life: I was sad because I could not walk and then I saw a man who had no legs.
It was eviction day and I needed boxes to pack my crap into, even though I had nowhere to go but the street. I walked to some store near the corner of Barton Springs and South Lamar and got a couple of empty boxes. I was headed back home with them when I slipped on some sand and twisted my ankle so bad that I thought I'd broken it.
I was nevertheless ambulabory, limping and writhing in pain.
I happened to look across the street, to the parking/drive-thru area of KFC there on Barton Springs Road. And there I saw a young man. It was moving day for him, too, because he had a cardboard box with him, full of stuff. But he wasn't carrying it. He was pushing it along with his feet. His feet weren't feet, though. They were protrustions from a pair of artificial legs. And these weren't "nice" prosthetics like the ones in the picture. They were mere sticks.
It was gut wrenching. I cried. Again. During a period of my life when I often cried in public, in broad daylight.
It was truly the worst day of my life - not because I was in such straits, but because there was nothing I could do to help that young man. On any other day, at any other moment, I would have gone over to him and asked if I could carry that box full of stuff to wherever he was going. But on this day, at this moment, there was nothing I could do. Nothing.
It truly was the adage come to life: I was sad because I could not walk and then I saw a man who had no legs.
My own lot in life changed by the end of that awful day. An anonymous person gave me enough money to find a new place to live. But I couldn't walk. My friend Jack Kinslow let me stay at his place on West 34th street until I could walk again. Then my friend Laurel got her dad to let me stay in her recently-deceased granmother's house on Robinson. I soon was working again at Capitol City Playhouse, after that hellatious hiatus.
2 comments:
That's pretty damn bad Chris! But at least it hasn't been topped for a long time? :D *hugs*
Can you tell me how to get in touch with Jack Kinslow? Is he the photographer? I used to play with the Skunks and was looking for some old pictures he took of us.
Glad he was able to help you out. He's a great guy!
Thanks,
Bill Blackmon
wgblackmon@yahoo.com
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