CrippleS'EX: The Virgin Years

By Bruce Gryting

This book is an autobiography of a young man born into a family of 10 children. He played football, baseball, basketball, and track in high school. He was a member of band, mixed chorus, and boys’ chorus; he participated in class plays and was a member of the national honor society. At 17, he was in a farm accident that left him a quadriplegic. A doctor at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, thought life as a quadriplegic was worse than death and told the young man's parents, "Unfortunately, he will live."

That young man was me. I set out to prove the doctor wrong. I graduated from college and then from law school. I took and passed the Texas Bar Exam, becoming a Texas attorney. Then, I took and passed the Minnesota Bar Exam, becoming a Minnesota attorney. After working for an established attorney for two years, I started my own law firm in the "Icebox of the Nation," International Falls, Minnesota. I enjoyed hunting all by myself with a crossbow – and got six deer and eight turkeys. I loved my secretary, then fell in love with a beautiful woman who had been an exotic dancer. I realized my lifelong dream of having sex with a pretty woman who loved me just the way I was.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781435780408

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Cripple'S-EX: The Virgin Years

Cripple'S-EX:

The Virgin Years

by Bruce H. Gryting

Self-published at Lulu.com

Lulu.com

Copyright © 2022 by Bruce H. Gryting

First Edition, March 2022

Purchase at Lulu.com, search Bruce Gryting

paperback ISBN:        978-1-4583-1379-9

ebook ISBN:            978-1-4357-8040-8

This book is dedicated to all my siblings, without whom I would not have survived long enough to write this book.

Author's note: Much of this book is set in Minnesota in the late 20th century. I acknowledge that the events in this book occur on Indigenous land ceded under duress and adversity as part of Western colonization.

I have chosen to use language that was common at that time but has been largely replaced today by more accurate and respectful terms. The word Indian, referring to Indigenous people present in Minnesota long before Europeans, has been used throughout. That is consistent with the verbiage used by the characters in the book at the time and still used by some Indigenous Minnesotans today. The words handicapped and crippled are also used frequently to indicate people similar to me with a physical challenge. No offense or disrespect is intended.

INTRODUCTION

This book is an autobiography of a young man born into a family of 10 children. He played football, baseball, basketball, and track in high school. He was a member of band, mixed chorus, and boys’ chorus; he participated in class plays and was a member of the national honor society. At 17, he was in a farm accident that left him a quadriplegic. A doctor at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, thought life as a quadriplegic was worse than death and told the young man's parents, Unfortunately, he will live.

That young man was me. I set out to prove the doctor wrong. I graduated from college and then from law school. I took and passed the Texas Bar Exam, becoming a Texas attorney. Then, I took and passed the Minnesota Bar Exam, becoming a Minnesota attorney. After working for an established attorney for two years, I started my own law firm in the Icebox of the Nation, International Falls, Minnesota.  I enjoyed hunting  all by myself with a crossbow – and got six deer and eight turkeys. I loved my secretary, then fell in love with a beautiful woman who had been an exotic dancer. I realized my lifelong dream of having sex with a pretty woman who loved me just the way I was.

This is the first of two books that I wrote by myself. Since I am a quadriplegic, I could not move my fingers, so I typed everything by striking the keys on a computer keyboard holding a pencil in each hand and striking each key with the eraser end of each pencil.

Everything in the book is true with only names changed.

CHAPTER ONE

Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside

And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,

Were't not a Shame — were't not a Shame for him

In this clay carcase crippled to abide?

Omar Khayyam

Happiness is beneficial for the body,

but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.

Marcel Proust

Ah, my Belov'ed fill the Cup that clears

To-day of Past Regrets and Future Fears:

To-morrow! — Why, To-morrow

I may be Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.

Omar Khayyam

International Falls, Minnesota, was living up to its reputation. The temperature was 30 degrees below zero Fahrenheit and the wind was gusting to 40 miles per hour, producing a wind chill of 100 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. A 34-year-old man in an electric wheelchair looked out the glass doors of a new 200,000 square foot shopping mall at the snow swirling about his 1976 Chevy van parked near the building. The mall hallway was all boarded up where storefronts should have been except for an arcade, an Army recruiter's office, an office supply store and the handicapped man's law office. The jewelry store, Woolworth's, JCPenney's, Bostwick's, Red Owl and other stores were down the main hallway, along with the restaurant, flower store, drug store, shoe store, photographer's studio, and other shops and stores.

God, I hate to go out in this, said a pretty, petite young woman as she finished buttoning her long wool coat, pulled her scarf tight around her neck, and pulled on her knitted woolen mittens. Just think, if those idiot clients of yours hadn't insisted yesterday on signing their wills on Saturday morning, we could have stayed home.

Yes, I should have expected they wouldn't drive the 20 miles from Littlefork up here on a day like this. But I thought we'd better be here just in case they showed up.

Unable to move his fingers, the man reached across his leather briefcase lying across his legs and, with his left wrist, just above his thumb, hooked the edge of his briefcase and pulled it upward, making sure it wouldn't slide off his lap.

Thanks again for coming in, Donna. If it's all right with you, I'll pay you next week when I give you your check for filling in for … he paused, as he always did before saying his secretary's name, Candy Waits. I still can't get used to her name.

Donna said, I'll hold the door for you. Don't you have any gloves or mittens?

No, I never use them. They get in the way for using my hands and handling my van key.

Donna pushed the glass door open for the wheelchair to get through.

Thanks for holding the door, but I think I'll go back to the office and call my mom to let her know I'm coming home.

As Donna went out the inner set of glass doors at this back entrance to the mall, she said, I may be back in if my car won't start.

I've got a set of jumper cables in my van we can use if you need a jump.

OK, thanks, she said. As soon as she got out the door, she leaned her body forward against the force of the wind. Within 10 feet she placed her woolen mitten against her cheeks and turned her face away from the wind; moving sideways, and almost backing into the wind, she headed toward her car, which was parked almost in front of the doors, but about 50 feet out into the parking lot. She disappeared into the swirling snow before reaching her car.

The man in the wheelchair watched for a while until he caught a glimpse of the car as it pulled forward past the glass doors of the mall.

Then the wheelchair spun around. Spinning his wheels as he started out, the man zipped back up the hallway, stopping in front of an office with a large, round, wood-framed window. The window had been made by the man's neighbor, a local carpenter, who had sawed foot-long pieces of redwood, beveled them slightly, and glued them side by side so that they formed a circle. Next to the window was a large, oak door set in a red and white wood frame, constructed similar to the window, except made in the shape of a door, with an arched top. The outside wall of the office, facing the mall corridor, was covered with an adobe-looking material. Large round posts protruded from the wall as if there were a roof inside supported by telephone-pole-sized posts which protruded through the front of the adobe hut. From one of the protruding posts, between the window and the door, hung an expensive, hand-tooled leather sign that read vertically, LAW OFFICE.

As the wheelchair coasted up beside the door, the man saw he had miscalculated the rate of deceleration after he took his hand from the joystick controller of the electric wheelchair. Before he could try to put the chair into reverse, his right foot hit the hinged side of the door frame slightly. Although the foot did not hit the door frame hard enough to bruise it, it was just enough pressure on the foot to make his right leg spasm. His right knee jerked upward about 6 inches into the air. The sudden jerk threw his body forward and to the right. He grabbed for the left arm rest of the wheelchair with his left wrist and banged his head against the door, his brief case falling on its side on the floor. He reached his right hand back until his closed fist caught the edge of the door jamb toward the window. Slowly he strained to pull himself back so his back would rest, once again, against the back of the wheelchair. After several attempts and considerable effort, he was once again sitting upright but somewhat slouched down in the chair with his right boot almost falling off the backside of his wheelchair foot plate.

He looked up and down the hall to see if anyone was watching. The mall was almost empty, and if anyone had seen him, they had turned away before he looked. He backed away from the door a little, and then with his left arm around the hand grip on the top of the left side of the wheelchair back, he leaned as far forward as he dared, and then, with his right arm on the right front side of the chair near the seat, he gave a pull with both biceps. He slid back into the chair on the left side. Then he reversed the procedure so that he slid his right hip back some. After repeating this procedure, first on the left side and then on the right side, so that he wasn't slouched down too badly, he reached his right wrist under his thigh near the calf and lifted and pushed his right, black leather-booted foot forward onto the middle of the wheelchair's footplate.

He drove his wheelchair up beside his brief case which was standing on its end beside the door. He parked near it so it couldn't tip sideways and, holding his left arm around the back of the wheelchair handle on the left side of the wheelchair, reached forward on the right side of the wheelchair with his right hand extending toward the briefcase handle. Then he leaned back upright, put his fingers in his mouth so he could get his right thumb under his index and middle finger, then leaned ahead again, hooked the upright corner of the briefcase and jerked it so it tipped back onto its little legs, handle up, standing as if placed, beside the door. Then maneuvering his chair slightly away from it, he wet his first three fingers of his right hand with his tongue so they would grip the handle of the brief case better. The first attempt to push his fingers under the handle and lift the briefcase onto his lap ended in failure and it dropped back to the floor, landing upright. After wetting his fingers again, he pushed his fingers under the handle, gave a couple of jerks to make his fingers spasm so they would semi-close around the handle, and pulled the briefcase up onto his lap.

He pushed the snap-lock catch in the middle of the briefcase with the large knuckle on his left hand, so the spring-loaded latch popped open. Then, with the large knuckles of his index fingers, he unhooked the catches at each end of the briefcase. He found his key with the large nail (taped in the hole at the end of the top of the key at right angles to the key) and fitting the key between his second and third fingers on his right hand with the nail near the palm of his hand, he pushed the key into the lock. He pulled his fingers free of the key and, leaving it in the lock, pushed down on one end of the nail so the door unlocked with a click. Pushing down on the door handle, he pushed the door open and drove his wheelchair through the door, stopping just long enough to flip on the light switch.

The outer office was neat, but all the walls were obscured by bookshelves filled with leather-bound books containing opinions written by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Whatever wall space was not filled with bookshelves full of books, was filled by filing cabinets, the photocopier, the secretary's desk with her memory typewriter, and the computer table with the printer, and two waiting room chairs.

The wheelchair humming loudly in the key of A, sped through the open doorway, past the secretary's desk, past the large original oil painting of a small cabin in the woods beside a calm pond, and into his inner office. He stopped momentarily after passing through the doorway, so that he could reach back with his right hand and catch the light switch with the edge of his curled forefinger. He stopped in front of his large, high wooden desk and pushed his briefcase onto a clear area between stacks of plastic, color-coded files, almost obscuring his desk. He glanced at the wall behind his desk at the framed documents on the wall: his license to practice law in Minnesota, his license to practice law in Texas, his college and law school diplomas, and the certificates showing that he was a member of The Association of  Trial Lawyers of America and the Minnesota State Bar Association. Then he zipped around behind the desk, picked up the telephone with the special mouthpiece designed to detect if anyone was wiretapping or intercepting his telephone calls. He reached forward and hit the first button on the Radio Shack 16-number automatic phone dialer which he had gotten from his brother, Reggie.

In a moment, his mother answered.

Hi, Mom. Yes, I made it in OK, but they didn't show up.

His 72-year-old mother said, What? And they didn't call you?

Well, they called, but only about a half hour after they were supposed to be here. The battery wouldn't turn their car engine over, they said. It was too cold.

His mother coughed several times.

Are you all right? Byron's tone of voice carried his concern through the phone.

Yes, it's just a little tickle. Be careful coming home. The wind is fierce. Are you just starting out now?

Yes. But it will take me quite a while because I have to let it warm up with my hands in my pockets before I start out.

I'll watch for you.

I almost fell out of my chair in the hallway outside my office door. I was just lucky.

You have to be more careful.

Yes. See you in a little while. Do you have any homemade soup?

How could you guess? I think it will be ready when you get home.

The man hung up the phone and paused to stare at one of his letterheads lying in front of him on the desk. Byron Ellingson. Attorney and Counselor at Law. International Mall. International Falls, Minnesota. Licensed to practice law in Minnesota and Texas. The letter was one of several his secretary had typed and placed on his desk for his signature. He read through it quickly and then signed his name. As usual, the envelope had already been addressed and was attached by a paper clip to the top of the letter. He placed it to the right of him and then read and signed the remaining two letters and placed them in a pile in front of him and, getting his left fingers under the top edges of the letters and envelopes, he pulled them back off his desk and onto his lap as he backed the chair away from the desk with his right hand on the joystick. He drove around his desk and into the other room where he placed the signed letters on top of his secretary's typewriter. She would take care of folding the letters, putting them in the envelopes, sealing them, stamping them, and mailing them.

He went back to the front of his desk, grabbed his briefcase by the handle with the fingers of his left hand, and pulled it onto his lap as he backed away from the desk. He flipped off the light switch and then backed through the door into the middle of the room. He turned around and drove through the door leading to the mall. He spun around in the mall hallway and drove back inside so he could grab the door handle with his left, curved fingers. He pulled on the door handle while simultaneously pulling back on the joystick of the wheelchair so that he backed out of the doorway and the momentum from the pull on the door handle carried the door closed, but not far enough so the latch caught. He drove up beside the door, and hooking his fingers over the brass door handle, pulled it shut; then he pushed on the end of the key which he had left in the lock, until the lock clicked. Then he pushed his fingers around the nail and jerked outward against the nail, so the key came out of the lock. He opened his briefcase as before and dropped the key into the briefcase. He snapped the center catch by tilting the briefcase up with a closed hand on each side of the briefcase and pushing the catch in the center of the brief case down with his chin. He pushed the latches at each end of the briefcase shut with his closed fingers and then, turning, pushed the door handle down and in to make sure the door was locked.

He paused to zip his goose-down-filled coat all the way up. Then he zipped down the hall to the back twin set of doors at the rear entrance to the mal1. He pushed through the first set of doors to the entryway of the mall's back doors. He tried pushing with his boot against the outer mall door, but the wind was holding it shut. The drive belts on the electric wheelchair squealed as they slipped on the pulleys. He peered out into the storm through the glass doors. It was just after noon, but it was dark with blowing snow.

He wondered if he should go back inside and work for a couple of hours on the lawsuit against the jewelry store in the mal1. The current owners of the jewelry store had replaced the first owners, lessees under a long-term written lease, but had never signed a new lease nor had they taken a written assignment of the prior owner's lease. Byron decided that he could enforce the existing, long-term lease against the new owners from Utah under a little-known principle of Minnesota law called equitable assignment. Because the new owners had stepped into the shoes of the prior owners two years previously, when they took over the business, and had been complying with all lease terms agreed to by the prior owner;  the law (meaning a court) would treat the new owners as if a written assignment of the original lease had occurred. Byron had been told that the jewelry store would close within a few days; further, the current store owners intended to walk away in the middle of the night, transfer all their assets to Utah, and then disclaim any responsibility to make any more lease payments. What kind of people were the Utah-resident-owners? What kind of trouble would he have helping his client, the mall owner, collect damages for their refusal to pay the monthly lease payments for the remainder of the lease term — about 10 years? Would he have to have the sheriff seize the store's bank account, jewelry, and other store assets?

Looking out at the swirling snow, he decided that the weather would probably get no better. He had better get home while he still could. Besides, his mother was going to have some of her good, warm, homemade soup ready for him when he got home. He glanced around, but there was no one in sight. He maneuvered the chair back and forth a few times so that his right boot would hit the right door near the edge of the door farthest from the hinges for better leverage. He pushed the variable joystick control all the way while turning it slightly, so the chair rotated, and the door popped open. He kept the power on full and pushed into the door closer and closer to the hinges as the door opened outward and he moved slightly forward. Finally, the door was open wide enough, and he squeezed through the door into the wind.

The wind and snow hit him hard enough to take away his breath momentarily. His chest felt as though someone had thrown a mattress filled with feathers against him. The snow, wind, and cold numbed his cheeks almost before he got completely out the door. He thought he was ready for the cold, but the moisture inside his nose felt frozen already and his lungs felt like they wanted to close off the cold air. He breathed through his mouth and white steam froze onto his black mustache. He traveled the 20 feet along the side of the mall to where his van was parked at the curb beside the sidewalk.

He reached down for his key, attached to a piece of aluminum. The aluminum bar had round metal rings at each end which helped him to handle his keys with his fingers even though he had no voluntary control over finger movement. However, when he pulled his wrist all the way back, his fingers tended to form into a fist and when his wrist was dropped way down, the fingers tended to straighten out somewhat; this wrist action allowed him some limited use of his hands. The ignition key was on one end of the aluminum bar and the key to operate the toggle switches on the front fender of the van was on the other end of the thin bar.

His fingers were pink and red. They wouldn't work right. He had no feeling in them anyway, but usually they stayed bent enough so that a little wrist action made them go toward his palm somewhat. Now they were too cold to work as they usually did and they tended to clamp into a tight fist. He blew on them and pushed them against his cheek and tried again to grasp the key attached by a loop of metal to his extended wheelchair brake lever. He still couldn't get it, so he put his right hand in his right coat pocket.

After warming his hands a few seconds, he succeeded in getting his fingers to grasp the key bar, remove it from the extended brake lever, and put it on to his briefcase by balancing the key between his forefinger and thumb even though they weren't together. He resisted the temptation to put the key into his mouth to hold it until his right hand could get around the bar, as he frequently did in the summertime. He knew it would freeze to his tongue or lips if he put it in his mouth. With both hands, he managed to push the key bar into the fingers of his right hand. He reached over to the lock on the front fender, but there was ice keeping the key out of the keyhole. He jammed it into the lock several times as hard as he could so that it finally stayed partially in the keyhole. Then he hit it with the heel of his right hand. This broke the ice enough so that the key slipped the rest of the way into the keyhole. He twisted the metal bar so that the toggles that operated the side door's lock, door opening motor, and wheelchair lift would be live. The side-door lock unlocked OK when he pushed the toggle-switch up, but the door wouldn't budge. He tried flipping the switch up and down, but the door wouldn't move.

He looked at his hand where it had pressed against the cold steel of the switch on the fender of the van. His hand was completely white where it had touched the metal. His cheeks were feeling more and more numb over a wider and wider area, and he was glad he had worn his wool, French-style hat, and that he had the ear flaps down covering most of his ears. He was also glad that he had a woolen muffler wrapped around his neck. However, his exposed hands and cheeks would soon freeze if he sat out there very much longer with the wind chill at 100 degrees below zero. He backed the wheelchair the 20 feet back to the doors of the mall, parking in front of the left door.

He reached his left hand to the cold metal door handle of the right door. He reached his right arm around the right handle on the back of his wheelchair to hold himself into the chair as he pushed with his left arm as hard as he could against the door handle in an attempt to open the right door. He succeeded in getting it open only an inch or two before the wind slammed it shut. He tried it again, but again was unsuccessful. He maneuvered the chair back and forth to get a better angle and then, holding on to the back of the wheelchair with his right arm, he again pushed his left hand as far into the door handle as he could before exerting every ounce of strength against the door with his weakened left arm. The wind, blowing in gusts, slackened slightly, and he was able to get the door approximately 6 inches open. This was enough, so that with one quick movement, he pulled his hand out of the handle and stuck it between the door and the post which was located between the two doors. Then, maneuvering with his wheelchair, he tried to hold his arm stiff against the inside of the door and push the door open with the wheelchair motors providing the force. However, the wheels spun and slipped on the icy sidewalk. Also, the wind held the door tight against his arm. He finally let the wheels of the wheelchair continue to spin until they had gotten through the slippery snow and ice and gotten some grip on either the sidewalk or found some sand in the compacted snow so that the chair moved ahead somewhat with the belts squealing. He was able to push the door open enough with the motors of the wheelchair working at full strength so that he could, with a sudden change in the direction of his joystick, back the chair through the open door.

Inside the entry way, in the mall, was a heater which, before he went outside, he had thought was blowing cold air. Now it felt like very warm air indeed. He breathed a sigh of relief and drove the wheelchair over in front of the heater where he sat warming his cheeks and hands for several minutes. Before he had a chance to get very warm, a man came walking down the corridor and pushed through the inner set of doors to the entry way. Before he went through the second set of doors, Byron asked him, Would you mind trying to push the side door of my van open? It's frozen shut.

The man said, OK, and went out into the wind toward the van. Byron wheeled his chair around and, after struggling against the door with the belts squealing on the wheelchair, pushed back out into the cold, wind and snow. The man had already been over to the van and tried to pull on the side door.

Hoping the man wouldn't give up and leave, Byron yelled, Wait. I need to press a switch on the front fender. That will help to try to open the door if you can pull on it. He could hardly make himself heard above the roar of the wind.

Again, he said, Will you pull on the door handle while I push the switch on the fender?

The man simply nodded and went over to the side door of the van and began pulling and jerking on the handle. Finally, as if in slow motion, the door began to creep open.

The man was about to leave when Byron said, Will you push on it to make sure it goes all the way open?

The man, again, returned to the van door and leaned all of his weight against the door. It opened a little bit faster and, finally stopped when it was wide open.

Thanks, Byron said to the man, who hurried off and disappeared into the blowing snow.

Byron looked again at his hand where it had been against the cold metal toggle switch. It was white again. He turned the key and, sticking his middle finger into the round piece of metal at the top of the key bar, pulled it out of the lock in the fender and put the other loop around the extended brake lever on the side of his wheelchair. He pulled his finger out of the key ring with some difficulty since the cold had made his finger contract and, he found he was gripping the metal tightly, as if he was trying to squeeze it in his fist. After getting his hand free from the key ring, he maneuvered his chair toward the lift which he had lowered prior to taking his key out of the lock. The wheels on the wheelchair spun as it tried to get on top of the lift. The lift was held an inch or two above the sidewalk by the snow. After several attempts, he was able to get the front wheels to bounce on top of the lift by taking a run at the lift and letting the momentum of the heavy electric wheelchair carry it up onto the lift. He still had to spin and maneuver around to get the rear wheels up on the lift, but they finally caught on top of the platform of the lift and Byron pushed the toggle to raise the lift.

Because of the cold, the lift moved very, very slowly upward. The grease on the screw-type lift was almost frozen and the two batteries were at very low strength from the cold. Finally, the lift was high enough so he could swing it into the van. He backed off the lift and drove the wheelchair up under the steering wheel where a clamp automatically attached to the right arm of the wheelchair, locking it into place. He put his fingers into his jacket pockets to warm them. Then, after a few minutes, he pulled them out. They didn't seem to be much warmer, so he put the fingers of his right hand into his mouth to warm them. His index finger was white; he was alarmed when the finger felt hard and cold when he placed it between his front teeth. Finally, he dried the fingers on his trousers so they wouldn't freeze to the key bar when he pulled it off the extended brake lever on the side of the wheelchair.

He was able to grasp the key ring and get the key onto his lap. Then, with some effort, he forced it between his thumb and fingers so that he could hold it at the correct angle to put it into the keyhole located on the console between where he was clamped down and the passenger's seat in the van. He raised the hand control lever twice to be sure the choke was set. Then he turned the key. The van barely rumbled. U-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. He stopped pushing on the key and began muttering to himself.

Jesus Christ, this weather isn't fit for a dog to be out in. If this thing won't start, it won't take long to freeze to death. If it doesn't have enough juice to start the engine, it probably won't have enough juice to operate the lift to allow me to get out of the van and back onto the sidewalk.

He pushed the key again. The engine responded again with a very slow U-r-r-r-r-r, U-r-r-r-r, sound. It seemed to barely turn over, but suddenly, one of the pistons exploded and the engine roared to life. Byron glanced at the rear heater lever and the front heater levers to make sure they were all on high, as he had left them. Then he pushed the toggle switch on the console to close the side door and, after it had closed, he pushed the lock lever to make sure it was snugly shut. Then, breathing steam through his open mouth, he pushed his hands into the pockets of his down-filled coat and, pulling his neck down further into his jacket, sat huddled for about 15 minutes.

Finally, he pulled on the hand-control levers so the engine would idle down and, after checking his right hand by placing it against his cheek, determined that he could start out for home. He pulled on the light switch on the console, hooked the gear shift lever with the top of his right wrist and yanked it down into drive. Then, placing his right hand on the cold plastic of his tri-pin steering device attached to the steering wheel, he gave the van some gas by pulling up on the gas lever with his left hand and gradually pulled away from the side of the mall. Visibility was still very poor as the snow swirled around in front of the van. There were no tracks in the parking lot, since the wind would erase a car's tracks within a matter of minutes.

That homemade soup will sure taste good, if I can get home to enjoy it, he said aloud to himself. I could easily have frozen to death if I hadn't gotten back into the mall or if my engine hadn't started after I got into the van, he said through a cloud of steam. Next winter I am going to have a new van with a propane gas furnace in the back so that if I can at least get into the van, I will have the furnace to keep me warm and I won't freeze to death even if the van won't start.

As he headed out onto the highway, his right wrist began to spasm and shake, and his fingers clamped down hard on the hand control. He knew that the cold was causing them to spasm. He was afraid that he would have frozen flesh on the inside of his fingers where they were gripping the cold plastic so tight. He only had to drive three miles after getting to the other side of International Falls in order to get to Ranier, where he lived. However, he would have to concentrate as hard as he could to make sure that he didn't get stuck in a snowdrift, slide off the roadway on the ice, or drive off the side of the road because of poor visibility. He wasn't too worried about getting stuck in the snow, because he had Positraction and 200 pounds of water softener salt in the back to give him traction in the snow.

Highway 71 north leading into the center of International Falls had been recently plowed so there was little danger of getting stuck, at least until after he left International Falls to drive the three miles to Ranier. Ranier was a small community located on the shore of Rainy Lake. Byron drove past K-Mart, Pamida, Rainy River/Arrowhead Community College, and the Holiday Inn before glancing at his gas gauge. He noticed that it was half full. He decided to stop to have his tank filled so that if he got stuck somewhere, he would have enough gas to keep the engine running and the heaters heating for several hours. Also, the additional weight of the gas in his 36-gallon tank would provide additional traction to the rear wheels of the van.

He was going to stop at the Phillips 66 station where he normally got his gas but noticed that there were several tall snowbanks which would make it inconvenient to turn into the driveway. Also, there were a couple of cars at the pumps so that he would have to wait to get his tank filled. He continued into the center of town and stopped at the Standard station. He pulled up beside the full-serve pumps, and then stopped and put the van into park by taking his right hand out of the tri-pin steering device and grasping an extension lever attached to the gear shift lever and pulling back and throwing it up until the indicator showed it was in park.

He left the engine running so the heater would continue to heat the inside of the van. He glanced into the station through the glass on the front of the office. The service station attendant was pulling on his wool-lined leather mittens and zipping up his down-filled coat. Byron reached over to the toggle switch in the left front corner of his console and pushed on it several times. His window attempted to open but was frozen shut. It moved only a quarter of an inch. He switched the toggle switch back and forth so that the window moved up and down, first a quarter-inch and then a half-inch, then two inches, and then finally went down about 6 inches before stopping. By that time, the service station attendant was standing outside the window. Fill it with regular, Byron told him. His 1976, three-quarter ton van had a large engine which, by design, could run on either leaded or unleaded gas. The attendant hurried to the back of the van and removed the gas tank cap, stuck the nozzle of the fuel hose into the gas tank and, after setting it to continue pumping, rushed back inside the station to warm up.

Byron closed his window to keep the cold out. He stuffed both his hands into the warm pockets of his jacket and, pulling his neck down into the jacket, sat and stared straight ahead at the wall of the Daily Journal newspaper building, a brown, nondescript, cement block building.

Gradually, Byron's eyes seemed to glaze over and soon his thoughts were of his childhood. The temperature was 95 degrees. The sky was clear, and Byron was standing on the hot sand near the clear, green-tinged waters of Green Lake in southern Minnesota. At the age of 9, he was slightly chubby, but it was already apparent that he would be strong and solidly built. His sister, Harriet, two years younger than Byron, lay on a beach towel soaking up the sun. His sister, Andrea, the baby of the family of 10 children, at 5 years of age, was looking for shells in about two feet of water. Byron walked down into the water to cool off his feet, which felt as if they had been burned by the hot, white sand.

Do you guys want to fish for bass or sunfish under the raft? Byron asked. He glanced out at the homemade, white, wooden raft with an orange painted 35-gallon oil drum under each corner. It was sitting perfectly still on the exceptionally smooth surface of the lake. There wasn't a ripple or a wave except for some smooth irregular waves which were the remnants of motorboat waves begun several miles away on the lake.

The youngest, Andrea, said, Not me. I'm looking for clams and snail shells.

Rising from her beach blanket, Harriet walked down until she was waist deep in the cool, clear water. It’s too hot. The worms would rot before we got them on the hook.

Suddenly, Byron took several steps into the lake and dove under the water for Harriet's legs. She tried to run but the waist deep water restrained her. Byron grabbed her legs and pulled them out from under her so that she submerged briefly under the water. Byron tried to swim away under water but, as soon as his face came up out of the water, Harriet gave the surface of the water a quick push with the heel of her hand, her fingers extending forward. A jet of water shot into Byron's eyes, temporarily blinding him.

Stop it! Leave me alone! Harriet was screaming. As soon as he could see, Byron planted both feet in the sand on the bottom and made a jump toward Harriet. As he came down, his right arm shot out and his fist made a thwap sound as it struck Harriet's upper arm.

Ouch! You bruised my bone, she cried. Leave me alone!

I didn't hit you that hard. Besides, you can't bruise bones.

Well, it hurt anyway.

You kids quit fighting. The voice was their mother's and came from the picnic table on the lawn under the tall trees near their blue, frame, cabin.

Byron, come away from the girls. Come up here right now.

Byron washed his feet off in the lake and then stepped up onto the dock. He walked up the sidewalk to the grass and continued walking past the picnic table where his mother was knitting to the door of the cabin. Before opening the screen door, he rinsed his feet off in the small pan of water which was sitting on the step for that purpose. He went into the cabin and headed straight for the refrigerator. Mr. Ellingson had brought the used refrigerator to the cabin only the year before to replace the ancient wooden icebox. The electric refrigerator was a luxury, but Byron missed hauling ice blocks from town to put in the old icebox. He liked chipping the rock-like blocks of ice with the sharp ice pick.

He found watermelon, cookies, and Kool-Aid in the refrigerator. After eating a slice of watermelon, crunching several cookies, and drinking the Kool-Aid, he ambled back out through the north door to the lawn and over to the table where his mother was still knitting.

Mrs. Ellingson was 47 years old; she had dark brown hair and a small 5-foot 2-inch build. Her hips were large enough to have allowed her to give birth to her 10 children without any difficulty. All of the children, except Harriet and Andrea, had been born at home. Harriet and Andrea had been born in a nearby town at the home of a midwife. Mrs. Ellingson continued to knit without looking up. Harriet and Andrea ambled up toward the picnic table. They appeared to be arguing. Their feet and legs were covered with sand. Harriet's hair was slicked down from the dunking she had received, and her two pigtails stood out on each side of the back of her head. Harriet walked up to Byron.

Do you know what Andrea said? She said the minnows were biting her legs so hard that she had to get out of the lake to keep from getting eaten up.

Byron, who had never been able to laugh heartily and loudly, chuckled softly. It sounds like she's making a mountain out of a molehill.

I was not, Andrea said haughtily. The minnows were biting me and it did hurt.

Mountain out of a molehill, mountain out of a molehill, Harriet taunted Andrea.

Shut up, don't say that! Andrea shouted angrily.

Seeing this rise in temper in the small 5-year-old, Byron joined in, Mountain out of a molehill, mountain out of a molehill, he said in a singsong voice. Andrea pulled up the top of her small one-piece swimsuit. The string which ran from the front top of the swimsuit around the back of her neck and back to the right front side of her swimsuit was tied somewhat loose. Suddenly, she darted after Harriet and tried to hit her. Harriet was thin and quick. She easily avoided the younger Andrea. Andrea switched tactics and attacked Byron, who began chanting Mountain out of a molehill, mountain out of a molehill, to distract her from her attack on Harriet. When Andrea couldn't catch either Byron or Harriet, she ambled off into the cabin.

Byron and Harriet sat down on the bench of the picnic table across from their mother. All of a sudden, they jumped to their feet and scrambled around to the other side of the table behind their mother. Andrea came charging out of the house carrying an ax. She was brandishing the ax over her head and running as fast as her little legs could carry her toward the picnic table.

Stop! Put that down, Harriet shouted. Both Harriet and Byron ran around and around the table as Andrea chased them with the ax.

When they took refuge on top of the picnic table, Mrs. Ellingson said, Quit jumping around on the table. I can't see what I'm knitting. She hadn't noticed Andrea running around with the ax.

When Andrea got on the lake side of the picnic table, both Byron and Harriet made a dash for the cabin. They just got inside the screen door and got it hooked when Andrea got there and yanked on the handle of the screen door. There was a little give in the bottom of the door and, as she yanked and yanked, the door went, Whap, whap, whap, whap, as the bottom of the door struck the frame each time she let up on the handle. Finally, she made a beeline around toward the other door of the cabin. However, Byron was too fast for her and got there and got it hooked.

Mountain out of a molehill, mountain out of a molehill, Byron taunted Andrea through the screen door.

Mountain out of a molehill, mountain out of a molehill, Harriet shouted at Andrea.

When Andrea began chopping and chopping at the screen door with her ax, Byron said, Stop or you'll wreck the door. Mom will be angry.

Byron hollered at his mother, Andrea's breaking the back door!

Mrs. Ellingson shouted angrily, You kids let Andrea in. When the ax banging against the wood of the door continued, Mrs. Ellingson yelled again, You kids unlock the doors and let Andrea in—right now! She still hadn't noticed that Andrea had an ax.

Byron whispered to Harriet, You go and unlock the lake side door and I will unlock this one and once she comes in this door, we'll run out the other door.

They executed this plan perfectly and, once again, hid behind their mother as Andrea made a beeline through the house after them. As Andrea began brandishing the ax over her head and chasing them around the picnic table, once again Byron capitulated, Stop! Stop! he said, holding his hands up like a policeman stopping traffic. We won't call you that anymore. Just put down the ax.

Andrea, realizing she had won, walked over to a tree and set the ax against the tree and then walked back toward the picnic table.

Mrs. Ellingson continued with her knitting. Finally, she glanced up and said, See? You kids don't have to fight all the time. And you older kids should know better than to pick on the youngest. I want you older kids to play nicely with Andrea.

The memory faded and as Byron sat there shivering in the blizzard, his attention was drawn to a car rocking back and forth, half-stuck in a big drift at the place he had planned to drive to get back onto the street. As he stared through the icy windshield, the rhythmic movement of the van's windshield-wipers had a hypnotic effect and another memory popped into his head. This memory was of a scene at Como Park Zoo in St. Paul. His grade school class had been taken to Como Park for a picnic. The class had already been to see the animals, had ridden on the giant land tortoises, and were now about to ride in the small mini-railroad cars on a small track which wound around a small area in the park and went through a short, dark tunnel which everyone knew was a tunnel of love. Byron had wanted an extra ride on the land tortoise, so he was one of the last ones to get to the train cars. Most of his classmates had paired off and two-by-two occupied most of the cars of the train. Hope, one of the more forward and more developed girls in the class was standing beside one of the few remaining empty train cars. As she climbed into the far seat, she said, Come on, Byron, you can ride with me.

Byron looked around desperately for someone else to ride with, but saw that there appeared to be only a couple of other vacant seats in a couple of other cars and there appeared to be a couple of girls waiting near them also. Reluctantly, Byron took his seat beside Hope. He tried to sit as far away from Hope as he could, and when the train went through the tunnel, he even leaned out over the edge of the train car to put more distance between himself and Hope. When they got back to the station and all of the students were getting out of their little train cars, the other students began teasing Byron, who had not been known to associate with girls, much less ride with them in a train. Several classmates teased and teased him about going through the tunnel of love with Hope.

Did you kiss her? Jerry asked.

I didn't know you liked Hope, Belinda said to Byron.

I don't ... nothing happened ... I didn't touch her. Byron could feel himself blushing. He felt as if the redness extended from his cheeks all the way into his crew cut hair. The boys in his class, who were jealous that he got to ride with the smiley, worldly, and well-developed girl, continued to razz and tease Byron. The girls in his class also continued to tease him because they wished they had been the ones who had ridden with Byron through the tunnel of love.

The gas nozzle gave a loud clinking sound, and Byron could hear some of the gas slosh out of the gas intake pipe onto the ground. He shivered involuntarily. The snow was still swirling about in front of his van and the wind was rocking the van back and forth causing more gas to run out upon the ground near the rear wheel of the van. The gas station attendant came out and removed the hose, put the gas cap on and shut the door to the gas cap.

Byron opened his window by pushing the toggle switch on his console. The window moved slowly down about halfway before it stopped. The cold was apparently affecting the window motor or the cold rubber around the window was resisting it so that it couldn't go any further. Byron hooked his thumb under a string around the right handle on the back of his wheelchair and lifted the string with the attached billfold off the handle. He laid the billfold partly on the steering wheel and then, lifting the billfold to his mouth, he bit his credit card and pulled it out of the credit card pocket. Laying his billfold back down on his leg, he handed the credit card through the window to the attendant. As the man was hurrying toward the station, Byron hollered at him, You can sign it for me, so you don't have to bring it out to have me sign it. The man hurried in to the building.

Soon he reemerged and, without saying a word, stuck the credit card and the signed credit card receipt through the window. Byron reached up with both hands and clasped the credit card and the credit card receipt between the fingers of his two hands and then brought them back down to his lap. Using the sides of his bent little fingers, he folded the receipt and stuck it in the back of the billfold. Then he grasped the credit card in his teeth and, lifting the billfold up to his mouth, he pushed the credit card down in to the credit card pocket with a forward and downward thrust of his head. Then, taking the string attached to the billfold around his right thumb, he reached back and hooked the string over the right rear handle of the wheelchair back.

The car he had been watching had finally spun and slid itself out of the snowdrift across the driveway. The 1976 Chevrolet G20 van felt like it was frozen stiff as Byron pulled it away from the pumps. It creaked and groaned and felt like a lumber wagon as he put the left turn signal on, crashed through the drift, and pulled out into the street. The stop and go light at Fifth Street was on stop, so he gradually braked to a stop. Thinking back to his daydream of his classmates teasing him for riding with Hope, he thought, That must be when I learned to be so shy of girls. I hadn't thought of girls being much different from boys until I was 11. Even when, at the age of 10, I first learned that a penis was good for something besides urinating from, I still didn't immediately relate it to females, necessarily.

Byron still remembered vividly the day when the devil entered Eden. Sigmund Freud would have said that he became partially fixated at the genital stage of his development and that this would explain his preoccupation with thoughts of sex. Byron thought back to the day he lost his innocence. The day he first tried to conceive of the almost incomprehensible idea that two separate human bodies could merge together in an act where one body would place part of his body inside of the other person's body. He was 10 years old, and once again, at the lake cabin where Andrea had been chasing him and Harriet around with an ax.

The Ellingsons lived most of the year in a small town of less than 500 people, approximately 60 miles away from the lake cabin. Mrs. Ellingson spent the summers with the younger children at Green Lake at their leased cabin. Mrs. Ellingson had begun staying all summer at the lake with the younger children at a time when air conditioners were not prevalent. She could not stand the heat and her husband was probably glad to have some peace and quiet around the house during at least part of the year. Mr. Ellingson usually came up to the lake every weekend during the summer.

The day Byron lost his innocence (i.e., his ignorance of sex) was a hot summer day and a neighbor family stopped to visit. The neighbors, the Werners, had two children then. The oldest was a boy one year younger than Byron named Devine. They had a daughter two years younger who was in Harriet's class at school whose name was Midge. Mr. Werner was a short man with bulging, round cheeks and a permanent smile. He worked as a janitor at the local school in the town where they all lived. His wife, slightly larger than him, with black, curly hair, taught school in a nearby town.

At that time, 1957, there weren't many people from Belview who could afford to have a summer cabin for the whole summer. Mr. Ellingson's farm machinery and appliance store had allowed him to provide adequately for his 10 children, as well as satisfy the one demand that Mrs. Ellingson made, a demand that he lease a cabin on a lake for the summer.

When the Werners pulled up behind the cabin and got out and walked around to the lake side where Mrs. Ellingson and the children were, they exchanged greetings with Mrs. Ellingson. Then Mr. Werner said, We were just out driving around, and we were almost past your cabin before we thought we would stop to see if anyone was here and say hello. Even at the age of 10, Byron could detect that this sounded false. It seemed more likely that they had planned to drive directly to the Ellingson cabin so that their children could swim in the lake on this very hot summer day. It wasn't uncommon then in southwestern Minnesota for poorer people without lake cabins to sometimes drop in on the people who did have cabins. Two or three days at a cool lake on hot summer days could almost make the summers bearable even without air conditioners.

Come on, come on and sit down. I'll put the coffee pot on, Mrs. Ellingson said as she beckoned them toward the picnic table and lawn chairs and then scurried into the house to put the coffee pot on the gas burner. As Mrs. Ellingson emerged from the house a short time later with a platter full of homemade cookies, bars, and coffee, Mrs. Werner said, We didn't mean to have lunch. You shouldn't have gone to all this trouble.

It's no trouble, said Mrs. Ellingson. She put the large platter on the picnic table. Run in and get some glasses, she told Harriet, who quickly complied.

It's so hot; you'd better let the children go swimming. I'm sure my kids would love to swim and play in the water with Devine and Midge. Did your children bring their swimsuits?

They've got them in the car, said Mrs. Werner.

Well, if they want to go swimming, they can change in the bedrooms upstairs.

Mrs. Werner asked, Do you want to go swimming, Devine?

Yes, he replied.

Yes, said Midge.

They ran quickly to their car, got their suits, went up to the upstairs bedrooms and changed into their swimming suits. After the swim, Mrs. Werner announced that it was time to go home. Devine made such a fuss that Mrs. Ellingson asked if Devine could stay since it was Saturday and since Mr. Ellingson would undoubtedly be driving back to Belview Sunday afternoon so that he could return Devine to the Werners. Devine thought that was a grand idea and Byron thought it would be all right to have a boy approximately his age to play with for another day.

After running in and out of the lake, rowing the boat, and building sandcastles on the beach until dark, Devine and Byron went up to the ''boys' bedroom on the south upper story of the frame cabin. It was then that the partial fixation took place. When Byron removed his wet, cold swimsuit and began toweling himself off prior to getting into his pajamas, Devine noticed that Byron's penis was erect. As Devine was finishing drying himself off and slipping into his underwear and T-shirt, which he was going to sleep in, he said, You look like you are ready to fuck someone."

What? Byron asked. He had never heard the word before and had no idea what Devine was talking about. What did you say?

I said it looked like you are ready to fuck someone.

What does that mean?

I just heard about it a few days ago, the younger boy said. It’s when a guy shoves his 'thing' into another person.

Byron was astounded. He had never heard of such a thing as two people joining their bodies together. Why would a person want to push his 'thing' into another person? and, Why would the