INSOUCIANT

I am weary to bathe, to dress, to find my hat and gloves. I am reluctant to leave the safety of my apartment.
I'm off to the Cupcake.

I know the outside world can reshape my dismal outlook.
I have learned it's good to get out. My troubled thoughts, my cranky body, my withering energy ... are not me.
(The busy city can be medicinal). I order myself to leave. I'm going to meet Olivia at three at the Cupcake.

Jackie is over from down the hall playing Thelma Ritter to my Jimmy Stewart. She gathers my coat, my keys, my messenger bag.

"I feel terrible."

"You'll feel better once you get out."

"How's my hair, Jackie?"

"It's good. It looks nice in the back. Did you wash it?"

I rake my hands through it like it's a full and thick.

"How's that?"

"Good!" says Jackie.

I haven't any vanity (or not much). I don't look in the mirror. I shave in the tub, (once in a while).
I use organic "Dr. Bronner's for everything. I wear what's easiest ... the clothes on the floor. (I wore a bathing suit for two days straight). I can't suck in my stomach, or stand up straight. I can't pull off confidence or cockiness. (I've always liked the word "insouciant"). Insouciance is not possible for me.

But I am determined. So I'm out the door, on the elevator, in the lobby. I'm outside flagging a cab with my cane.
(I can't ride my bike. It's too cold).

Spiro (my doorman) tucks me in a cab. He lifts my legs into into the cab (without asking) and shuts the door.

"You're welcome sir, have a good day, sir" he sings in his (Irish sounding) Albanian accent.

We drive three long blocks and take a right on ninth.

The driver feels sorry for me. (I can tell). The implicit hostility between driver and passenger quickly becomes undoable with my Tiny Tim posturing. The rude cabbie is undone by my dear convalescent. When we pull up to the Cupcake (at 39th and ninth) the driver gets out of the car to help me out of the cab.

As I swing my legs out of the cab, my pant leg gets hiked up above the leg brace I wear on my lower right leg exposing the black carbon splint that holds me up. I ask (with improbable immodesty - I am getting insouciant with my disability - there! I CAN be insouciant! - I ask the cabdriver to roll down my pant leg before I land on Ninth Avenue. There is some small embarrassment for the driver, but I am too insouciant to care.