Once we were back at my cab, getting her into the back seat was pretty much the reverse of getting her out of it: awkward, something of a strain on my back, and necessitating that I put my hands places that I wouldn't ordinarily have.
After I got the cab started again, I looked at her in the mirror and asked "Where to next, Ma'am?"
She told me, and I got us moving again. Just a minute or two after I got us on the road, I heard her tell me "I can tell you aren't happy about having to put your hand on my ass. Truth is, I don't much like it, either; but I've been in wheelchairs long enough to know that there really isn't any other way to get me in and out of cars. I know you're not getting any kind of thrill or anything out of it, so quit worrying about it. Whatever the hangup is, just let it go."
I give her a quick glance in the mirror and answer "Yes, Ma'am"
Then she tells me "And quit calling me 'Ma'am'. I'm not even 30 yet, not some old blue-haired grandmother. Call me Miss Towers, if you have to, or Evangeline. Better still is just Evie."
"Okay… Evie", I answer.
As I'm driving, I start thinking about what she said to me, and how she said it. Like the concierge told me, she knows I'm pretty limited in how I can get her in and out of my rig; she's admitted she doesn't like it, but that it's about the only way to make it happen, and she's okay with it. That's how things are, and she accepts it – if reluctantly – so there's no reason for me to get 'hung up' on it. I finally decide FIDO: Fuck It, Drive On. As for addressing her by name, I get the impression that I'm being granted a certain amount of liberty and informality that she doesn't give everyone that deals with her; far from it, I suspect.
The rest of the ride is quiet, and we go through pretty much the same evolution of getting her into the chair as we did at the first place. The only difference is that it goes a little faster because I'm not so reluctant about laying my hands on her.
Inside the store, she talks to me a little more as I'm pushing her here and there and the other place so she can look things over. Again, I notice the way people are looking at us – even the sales people, who seem to be reluctant to come over and help her, as though whatever is wrong with her that she's in a wheelchair is contagious. It's actually kind of pissing me off, but I keep my cool. We're in there about half an hour before Evie decides there's something she's interested in. I finally have to gesture to a saleswoman that Evie would like some help before she's willing to come over. Evie finally decides to buy the thing, and after she gets it paid for, she tells me "I think I'm ready to try someplace else, Jim." I get her a few feet away before telling her "Would you mind if I checked something back there at the counter? It won't take me but a minute or two." She tells me that's fine, and I go back to where the salewoman is standing with another clerk, and what looks like a management type.
The saleswoman looks at me expectantly, and I tell her "I don't know what your problem is, but that young lady was in a car accident some years ago that banged her up pretty bad. She doesn't have some kind of disease that you're going to catch, and she isn't some zoo exhibit that I'm pushing around. She's a human god-damned being, and you treated her like crap. You don't think I – and she! – couldn't see that you were staying as far away from her as you could? Hell, even when she said she wanted to look at that blouse closer, you didn't get nearer than three feet! And you were talking to her like there wasn't a real, live person inside. For your information, she was in her last year of college and majoring in Economics when she got hurt – so it's pretty likely that she's a Hell of a lot smarter than you seem to be. The way you treated her, you made yourself and this store, look like crap. I doubt that she'll ever be in here again, so you've lost at least one customer; and I can damn sure tell you that I'm sure as hell not going to be telling anyone what good service you offer! Frankly, she was a hell of a lot more tolerant of your nonsense than I would have been: if it had been me, I'd have told you to stick that blouse up your ass!"
The saleswoman and the other clerk are both looking surprised and even offended at what I said; the other one says "Sir, there's really no need to speak that way."
I just looked at him for a moment before answering "There isn't? Think about how you'd feel if it was you in that chair instead of her, and say that!"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again; I just told him "Yeah, that's what I thought" before turning and going back to where Evie was. After we were out of the store, she told me "I heard what you said back there. I know you didn't mean for me to, but I've always had good hearing, and the accident didn't change that. What in Gods name ever made you do that?"
By the time she was done, we were at my cab, and she waited patiently until I was back behind the wheel and had us on our way to the next place for me to explain "Dammit, I just had to. Even in the last place, I could see how people were looking at us; well, you, anyway. Then when she started acting like you were some kind of leper on wheels, it just made me mad and I couldn't let her get away with it. I'll admit that I've never really spent any amount of time around someone that had any kind of handicap, and bugger-all if I know what the hell I should or shouldn't do or say. But dammit, you're still a person, no matter what happened to you, or how you get around!"
A quick look via the mirror let me know that she was looking at me with something akin to interest on her face. Another one a minute later, and I could see that she was deep in thought about something.
So it surprised me, a little, when she spoke up again and said "You're one of the few people that seems to get past the chair, and how I look, and really make an effort to understand that there is somebody inside. I've gotten so used to being looked at like I'm – what did you say? A zoo exhibit? – that I've pretty much given up on other people acting any other way. Now I'm surprised when it doesn't happen like that. As for how you treat us gimps, you said it yourself: we're still people. When I told you I wasn't going to explode or break, and you said that you were driving me the same way you do for everybody, that was exactly the right thing to do – and I believe what you said, too, because I've been watching you. I can see that you're always watching the other drivers, and doing everything you can to make the ride as steady as you can – you slow down instead of braking when people let you, and you're just as gentle with the gas pedal." She paused for a moment, then went on "Anyway, what you're doing is fine, as far as how you're treating me. You haven't said much to me, but then, I haven't said much to you; I'll bet you were just waiting to see how much I wanted us to interact. Us cripples, we're pretty much like everybody else, in that there simply isn't any one way to deal with us any more than there is everyone else. Some handicapped are perfectly willing to milk it for all they can get out of it; others just want to find a way of dealing with it so they can get on with things." She gave a small, wry, laugh and continued "Me, I've still got a lot of resentment about what happened, and it still pisses me off sometimes."
I catch her eye in the mirror, and ask "You've been in a wheelchair, what, seven years?"
"Actually, a bit over eight – I took classes at school even in the summer, so I was basically a year ahead. Why?"
"Well, if I can repeat something you said back to you…"
"Go ahead."
"That seems like a pretty reasonable amount of time to get used to it. I mean, it happened, and there's nothing that can be done to reverse it or make it unhappen. So like you said to me about putting my hand on your butt: whatever the hangup is, just let it go."
A quick glance to see how she's going to respond tells me that she's just sitting there staring at me. A few moments later, I hear her laugh – and keep laughing for the next couple of minutes. When she calms down again, she says "Touche, Jim, touche. I guess I have been carrying around an attitude and giving people crap for what happened to me. The only people that did anything wrong were the ones that got sued, afterwards. It's done, and over; I know I shouldn't be taking it out on other people, and now I won't. I just realized that other folks don't know any more about how to deal with my handicap than you said you did, and that they really are trying to help me the best they know how. But because I'm no more like any other handicapped person than anyone else is, it's up to me to show or tell them how I want to be treated, and how they can actually HELP me with my particular problems. How did you get smart enough to think that saying that to me would work – or even might work – and not just piss me off?"