How I Became a Human Being by Mark O'Brien

Author:Mark O'Brien
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-29918-433-9
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 2012-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

That spring I took three classes, the most I had ever taken. Because my adviser recommended it, I took a rhetoric course. Also, I took an undergraduate course in journalism because it fulfilled a requirement and because it was taught by Ben Bagdikian. I knew of Ben as the husband of Betty Medsger, a journalist who had interviewed me for a book on disabled people. Last, I picked a philosophy course, Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, but not for any rational reason. I liked philosophy, and theory of knowledge seemed especially gnarly and mind-bending. It looked as if it would be an interesting, if strenuous, quarter.

Tess had to stop working for me at the end of the spring quarter, so to get to classes I hired Emily, a stout Chinese American lady. A jazz pianist, Emily supplemented her income by working as an attendant. Emily was gentle and soft-spoken, but she never hesitated to express her opinions.

The first class of the semester was philosophy, scheduled for nine-thirty in Dwinelle Hall, a building I didn’t know. The first day, Emily found an accessible entrance, but we had to search for an elevator. She finally found one, pushed me in, and pressed the “2” button. When we got to the second floor, a back door opened, and a man in dirty green coveralls helped Emily take me out of the tight space. We found ourselves in a great, dark room festooned with thick pipes and filled with mysterious machines. There wasn’t a classroom in sight.

“Why don’t I just park you here and go see if I can find the way to the class,” Emily said. She was gone for what seemed the longest time, although it was only ten minutes. What would happen, I thought, if she got lost and I was stranded in this noisy, industrial room? I was going through my desertion fantasy (“Sir, would you do me a favor and phone DSP at 642-0518? Tell them I’m at school and my attendant has disappeared.”) when she suddenly materialized from the gloom.

“There’s no way to get directly from here to your class. The only way out is back through that damn elevator.”

The overalled man came back, to summon the elevator on my behalf. He pressed the button. There was no response. He pressed it again, several more times. I looked at the pocket watch pinned to my wheelchair. It was ten o’clock; we were already half an hour late. As I was hoping that there was another way out of the damned place, the elevator opened. Amid much thanking, Emily and I got aboard.

We moved up a hallway with clean, painted walls and busy students, a complete contrast to the factorylike room we had just left. “Well, we’ll be late,” Emily said, “but we’ll get there.”

But we found an empty classroom with a message on the blackboard, “Intro to Theory of Knowledge has been moved to Room 2506 Life Sciences Building.”

“Shit!” Emily, now perspiring, pushed her hair from her eyes, and we went in search of the Life Sciences Building.

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