Quasimodo

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5

Sometimes on Sundays after Church, I take my family out to Lunch. Now this doesn’t happen every time, but it does happen enough that I would call it common for us. We don’t always go to the same place. I like to mix it up a bit. On this last Sunday we went to the local A & W.

A & W is one of those places that never disappoints. The ambiance is as important as the food. The one that we go to is not a drive in. There is however enough memorabilia and pictures on the walls that it does hearken back to the days when such things were still common. I can clearly remember afternoons with my parents when we would drive up to one. Dad would roll down the window, push a button on the light up menu and place our order; shortly there after a cute young girl, sometimes on roller skates, would arrive with a tray to hang on the window. It would be laden with burgers, fries, Coney dogs and of course the requisite frosty mugs of root beer.

The experience for us is not quite the same; you go in rather then order from your car. Even though that key ingredient is gone there are enough similarities to make the experience nostalgic, one I look forward to. When you walk in you are immediately assailed with smell of fries and onion rings cooking in hot grease. Underneath is the sweet scent of root beer. The floor is linoleum and is polished to a high shine. The sound of a diner is every where, the pleasant hum of conversation mixing with the clink of utensils on glassware. A large flat screen TV hangs on the wall helping to not quite hide the kitchen. All of these things combine to make you very aware that this is not exactly a restaurant; but it is not fast food either. It is something between the two.

A sign sits between the cash register and dining area and reads in large friendly letters “Please Seat Yourself”. We do and I refrain from looking on the back side of the sign; not wanting to break the illusion that there are times it might actually be turned to “Please Wait for Hostess”. I use my hands to guide my two boys deeper in to the interior, following the lead of my wife who is carrying our 11 month old daughter. She weaves her way through the mostly filled booths and tables to a large round table near the TV and kitchen. The sounds and smells of people preparing food in an organized sort of chaos drifted out of the kitchen. Lisa sends me for a highchair for our daughter and begins to get our boys situated. As I go to retrieve the highchair, I notice that there is a very severely handicapped man sitting at the table next us under the TV. I brush him off as merely a curiosity, something of no consequence; I was wrong.

Sometimes it seems that life likes to take person and slap ‘em around bit; rough ‘em up just to see what kind of stuff they are really made of. A test of sorts, to see if for all their rhetoric, that cloak of heroism they wear is real. Or if it is just bullshit. I didn’t know it yet but that Sunday was to be just such a day.

We had ordered our food and had fallen into a family discussion about things familial when the gentleman at the table next us made himself noticed. I say gentleman but I am really only using that term in the politest of ways, my mind was using adjectives from the more vulgar recesses of my intellect. He certainly was a noticeable fellow; he would have been tall save for the awkward slouch that shortened him and tilted him to the side, giving the impression of every thing being just slightly askew. His head seemed only partly attached and lolled to one side bobbing around like a broken bobble head doll. His face was covered with a three or four day growth of stubble. Perhaps the effort to find the motor control for regular shaving was too much of chore to be a daily activity. This stubble surrounded a slouching malformed mouth whose teeth were jutting at irregular angles. One eye moved independent of the other in an incoherent fashion and the side of the face which held it was disfigured or ruined through some unknown trauma. Running down his legs was pair of metal braces that connected to a pair of brown leather shoes. Those shoes were so hideously ugly, so devoid of anything to be considered fashionable that it could only have been from a deliberate effort to ignore form in favor of function. Leaning against his chair was a white cane with a red tip. Apparently even vision was a struggle. Behind him was a mobility device that contrasted starkly with the leg braces. Where the braces had an air of antiquity this device was clearly twenty first century. Something of a cross between a wheel chair and a walker it was designed so you could lower yourself down onto a flat black seat, grab the handle bars and shuffle along with your feet. It was bright red and equipped with a hand brake; a cruel joke that screamed speed would never be a consideration for the individual condemned to use it. Everything about this person caused the negative part of me to react strongly, revulsion rising in me like bile. Take every cruel gesture and harsh word you used in high school to ridicule the kids on the short bus and you will be close to what was going through my mind.

He hauled himself to his feet and with a Herculean effort began shambling toward us. Loathing flowed through me as this creature began his journey, a reincarnation of some monster from the movies I used to watch on Saturdays as a kid. Only this time there was no monster hunter to save me, no Vincent Price to leap in front of the fell beast, drive a stake through its heart sending it back to hell. I was on my own. Outwardly you would never guess these thoughts were at the forefront of my mind, but inwardly I was reacting as one would to a leper. Fear screaming at me to run, to run the other direction fast as possible in an effort to avoid the taint. I felt that he had some contagion, a malady that would in some incomprehensible way pass to me.

As fortune would have it he made his way to my wife. I did not intercede. Rather I sat like deer in the headlights with only look passing between myself and my wife. A look that clearly said “you’re on your own.” Every man for his or her self, no heroism from me today, least I become tainted. He began to speak to her. His voice was hushed, subdued and barely articulate. Words were replaced with animalistic guttural sounds that only vaguely approximated speech. If you strained hard enough and used enough imagination you could sort of understand what he was saying. As my wife leaned in to hear and understand what he was trying to communicate I found my self wondering what had happened to him. Was this some birth defect, or was it some sort of accident that put him in this state?

My wife straightened out and looked at my boys. She had deciphered what he was trying to say. “Did you hear that?” She said to them. He began to speak again now looking at my boys. My wife translated. “He didn’t listen to his to Mommy,” She said her words echoed by him in an eerie sort of way. “He rode his bike in the road when he was fourteen, his Momma told him not to and he got hit by a car.”

She gave them a look and he continued, louder and clearer now, making a desperate effort to be understood. “So you always listen to your Mom,” he finished. The boys nodded and murmured ascent. I had my answer now, this was no birth defect; rather it was a simple case of Johnny getting his gun. A horrible accident that relegated him to this fate. That’s when I stared to think about the irony. One split second, one moment of poor decision making had sentenced him to a lifetime of ridicule. I started to feel something for him then, no longer was he monster. He was person trapped in what was once the shell of person. I started in vain to look for a way to justify my reaction, put reason to prejudice. Perhaps it was biological, the natural tendency of the group to leave behind the weak and infirm; ostracizing them to guarantee that the strongest and fittest will continue the line, a small sacrifice of one for the good of the whole.

While I struggled to put reason to reaction, this person continued to talk to my wife. He asked her something unintelligible to me. I then saw them embrace. It was a long hug that was at once somehow offensive and desperate. I wondered how much this man had endured. This man who could barely communicate and move. How often was he ostracized? How often dismissed and cast aside. How often was he ridiculed as circus side show freak? Was there some part of him that wanted to cast aside those braces, stand and yell in a clear voice for the entire world to hear, “I am not a monster!”?

As I struggled with these thoughts he said to my wife, “you have a good heart,” then returned to his seat, his gait as awkward as my feelings. Our food arrived and outwardly I continued the small talk that families engage in. Inwardly, however I was questioning the perception I had about myself. It gnawed at me and would preoccupy my thoughts for the next few days.

Partway though our lunch he rose again, one of the waitresses passed by him and smiling said “Hello Robert.” Robert. He now had a name and it somehow made him more human. Robert approached my wife again and spoke to her. She looked at me in the questioning way that wives look at their husbands. That universal rule that says if I don’t have the answer I know you will provide it for me. I shrugged my shoulders. He mumbled something that again I didn’t catch. My wife said “I’m sorry I don’t think we have room to give you a ride.” Robert shuffled off into other parts of the A & W, presumably in search of a ride.

I worked at finishing my meal part of me thinking that I had somehow dodged the preverbal bullet. The other part of me however was wondering what had brought Robert to this place on this day. Was it some hand of fate or mere coincidence? Did Robert come for similar reasons? I came here not only because I like the food but I also like the atmosphere. I like the memories that this place brought back to me of my child hood. They are rarely at the fore front of my mind preferring to remain hidden in my subconsince on most trips here. Rather they stay just below the surface creating a pleasant sense of well being in me. Was this the same for Robert? Did he come here to escape the harshness of the world? Did this place remind him of his days before the accident? Was A & W some sort of weird common denominator for us?

Fate was not finished with me yet though. Robert had returned after making a circuit of the restaurant and now turned his attention on me. I resisted the urge to recoil as he leaned toward me. Grunts that passed for language passed from his lips forming themselves into something remotely recognizable. “Could you give me a ride?”

My moment of truth had arrived. Was I to be hero or villain? Would I say yes? Would I say no? Would I stand and take one hand and bang it against my chest in a limp wristed fashion while screaming in an animal sounding voice “get away from me freak! Animal!”

I looked at him and calm as possible said “I’m sorry but all my seats are full with my family.” True. Relief welled through me, I had ducked this test. There was no room for Robert. Logic, reason and simple physics had provided an escape from this predicament. I could go secure in the belief that I treat the disabled in a heroic manner. I would not have to pony up. Not today anyway, there was no room. Robert said “thank you,” and began the arduous trip back to his table. His problems his own.

That’s when my five year old soon slid his chair over toward his mother a foot or so. He looked at me and said “Daddy there’s room right here,” gesturing toward the space he had created. Child like innocence and an ability to look past the superficial and see the whole had conspired to slap me in the face. This simple gesture made without judgment or prejudice, a simple act of heroism had shamed me.

I looked at my boy and said “that’s not what he meant, but it was very nice of you to make room. You’re a good boy.” We finished the last of our meal and prepared to leave. On the way out I realized I was left with lingering questions. Was I as non judgmental as I had believed? What would I have done if I had been by my self or not had the kids with me? Would I have stepped up the plate and been a hero to this man? Is it what a man thinks that makes him a hero or is it his actions? Is action driven out of guilt or fear of being labeled a bigot heroic?

I made my way back to our car with my youngest son while my wife other two children took care of the bill. It was sunny and warm, a beautiful day that brought no warmth to the dark corners of my mind. It was the fourth Sunday after Easter precisely three Sundays after Low Sunday or Quasimodo Sunday as it is known in France. I’m not an especially religious man but I found the coincidence strangely disturbing. Victor Hugo delivers his broken man to Frollo on Quasimodo Sunday on the foundling’s bed. Frollo names him Quasimodo for it. Robert is “delivered” to me three Sundays later at A & W.

What if Shakespeare is right? What if life is just a “poor player”? What then is my role? Robert is Quasimodo. My Wife is Esmeralda. Who then am I, what part do I play? Frollo or Captain Phoebus? Villain or superficial hero?

cdl