the Night, a clunky movie that included a Seeing Eye dog named Friday, who possessed a large vocabulary, and could obey intricate commands. âHide behind the bed, Friday. Then open the door and go for help.â James Franciscus played a blind insurance investigator in Longstreet, a TV series in the 1980s, but I cannot recall that he had a Seeing Eye dog. In fact, he used to fight bad guys all by himself, giving a new meaning to the idea of a handicap. Those were the days when a spate of disabled cops and heroes appeared on TV: Tate had one arm; Ironsides, played by Raymond Burr, rolled around in a wheelchair. To take note of this creative nonsense, I wrote a Time essay in the form of a newspaper TV schedule that highlighted âBarkerââabout a three-legged German shepherd private eye who solved crimes with his nose. The piece was supposed to be satire. A producer phoned to ask if Iâd like to write the script.
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B ALANCING ON THREE paws, Ewing dragged himself toward me and licked my face. I watched him as I lay on the couch in our oldest son Carlâs house the other day. Carl named his yellow Lab after Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicksâa player I couldnât stand. But I always loved the canine Ewing, who seems able to stand anything, even on three legs. Bone cancer corrupted his left rear paw, and the limb had to go if the dog was to be saved. The vet told Carl that cancer was almost certain to show up in Ewingâs lungs, and that the animal had nine more months at the outs. Ewing, ignoring his prognosis, adjusted himself in a matter of days to his tripod status, and seemed just as happy with his postoperative life as he was before. I pushed my face toward his big sloppy tongue to show him nothing had changed. Do animals say good-bye?
I donât know that I always felt as accepting of things like missing limbs as I am now, when my own old limbs arenât in such hot shape either. Legs. I, too, am on my last. It is one of the things age quietly teaches you: Everyone is disabled. Time was when I might have winced at the sight of Ewing hauling his hulking body up a flight of stairs. Now I watched, not in awe exactly, but rather in an acceptance of the way the world can change on a dime and reveal a universe of missing parts.
Four legs, two legs, three legs. I never understood why that riddle was so impenetrable to everyone but Oedipus. Any average detective could solve it. Once you eliminate all other animals and start to think metaphorically, the riddle is a cinch. More interesting, I think, is the order in which the riddle is posed. Four, two, three, instead of counting down in reverse order, which might have made a better riddle. The Sphinx seems to accord a special place of honor to the crippled.
I do not mean to romanticize disabilities. No dog in his right mind would choose three legs over four. The blind would rather see, the deaf would rather hear. The paralyzed, given the choice, would prefer to tango. Yet there is value in an adjustment to the unavoidable.
At Twenty-fifth and Fifth, a beggar with eyes like rotting grapes and a leaf stuck to his forehead rolls on a wooden platform where his legs should be, and tips over on the sidewalk. I go to help him right himself. He does not thank me. When he rolls away, I follow until I see him set up shop at Twenty-fourth and Park. He stares ahead as people pass him by in the cold. Does he remember his legs anymore, I wonder. Do they remember him? I approach and offer him a twenty-dollar bill. He yells he doesnât need my fucking money.
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T OUGH GUY ? N AH. The toughest New Yorkers I ever knew were the residents of the Womenâs House of Detention, which stood between Ninth and Tenth streets on Greenwich Avenue, before it was demolished in 1973 and replaced by the Jefferson Market Garden. Tonight, I look up to where that prison was, and is no more. From the rooftop exercise yard, the inmates called to us kids on the
Â
B ALANCING ON THREE paws, Ewing dragged himself toward me and licked my face. I watched him as I lay on the couch in our oldest son Carlâs house the other day. Carl named his yellow Lab after Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicksâa player I couldnât stand. But I always loved the canine Ewing, who seems able to stand anything, even on three legs. Bone cancer corrupted his left rear paw, and the limb had to go if the dog was to be saved. The vet told Carl that cancer was almost certain to show up in Ewingâs lungs, and that the animal had nine more months at the outs. Ewing, ignoring his prognosis, adjusted himself in a matter of days to his tripod status, and seemed just as happy with his postoperative life as he was before. I pushed my face toward his big sloppy tongue to show him nothing had changed. Do animals say good-bye?
I donât know that I always felt as accepting of things like missing limbs as I am now, when my own old limbs arenât in such hot shape either. Legs. I, too, am on my last. It is one of the things age quietly teaches you: Everyone is disabled. Time was when I might have winced at the sight of Ewing hauling his hulking body up a flight of stairs. Now I watched, not in awe exactly, but rather in an acceptance of the way the world can change on a dime and reveal a universe of missing parts.
Four legs, two legs, three legs. I never understood why that riddle was so impenetrable to everyone but Oedipus. Any average detective could solve it. Once you eliminate all other animals and start to think metaphorically, the riddle is a cinch. More interesting, I think, is the order in which the riddle is posed. Four, two, three, instead of counting down in reverse order, which might have made a better riddle. The Sphinx seems to accord a special place of honor to the crippled.
I do not mean to romanticize disabilities. No dog in his right mind would choose three legs over four. The blind would rather see, the deaf would rather hear. The paralyzed, given the choice, would prefer to tango. Yet there is value in an adjustment to the unavoidable.
At Twenty-fifth and Fifth, a beggar with eyes like rotting grapes and a leaf stuck to his forehead rolls on a wooden platform where his legs should be, and tips over on the sidewalk. I go to help him right himself. He does not thank me. When he rolls away, I follow until I see him set up shop at Twenty-fourth and Park. He stares ahead as people pass him by in the cold. Does he remember his legs anymore, I wonder. Do they remember him? I approach and offer him a twenty-dollar bill. He yells he doesnât need my fucking money.
Â
T OUGH GUY ? N AH. The toughest New Yorkers I ever knew were the residents of the Womenâs House of Detention, which stood between Ninth and Tenth streets on Greenwich Avenue, before it was demolished in 1973 and replaced by the Jefferson Market Garden. Tonight, I look up to where that prison was, and is no more. From the rooftop exercise yard, the inmates called to us kids on the
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