The boys and I went out to the nearest farm to tip some wheelchairs. They told me it’s best to sneak up on them while they’re sleeping and give them a big push from the side; otherwise, they’ll just roll forward, and that’s not as fun. I’d never gone wheelchair tipping before but always wanted to, so when they invited me, I laced up my boots, tip-toed out the back porch door, sprinted across the yard, hopped over the fence, and ran down the road.
The night was warm and misty after an afternoon of thunderstorms. Mud sloshed underneath my feet as I hurried down to Old McGregor’s farm on the corner of Huckleberry and Sunset, a part of town no one drives through to avoid hitting deer and loose cattle. I met up with Samuel, Chester, and Mac on the edge of the farm before sneaking into the field and trekking through private property.
The moon shone above us like a seashell. Our wet footsteps were the only noise but the distant shrill calls of wildlife and the occasional roar of a speeding car. The wheelchairs were in the center of the field, clustered together for warmth. We approached them slowly, quietly, trying not to spook them.
Mac found his first target on the outskirts of the group. He snuck up on it, and then in a sprint, rushed the chair and sent it careening onto its side. We stifled our laughter to not wake the others and cause a stampede.
With caution, I approached my first target. It was a lightweight, black wheelchair with mud caked to the castor wheels. Must’ve been in the rain all day long. I slammed it from the side and watched it fall into the wet grass, unable to balance on one wheel. Startled from a deep sleep, the wheelchair user yelled at me, his head pressed against the ground.
“Excuse me! Would you like to be pushed like that?”
I snickered and spun around to find a new victim when to my surprise, he grabbed my ankle and stopped me. I turned back, dumbfounded; I had never heard of a wheelchair user fighting back before. I thought they were just supposed to lay there, braying like donkeys.
“How would you feel if I tipped you, huh? I was just like you before I wound up in this thing!”
I stopped and stared down at him, confused. Honestly, I hadn’t thought of it like that. I just assumed wheelchair users . . . came with the chair. But he had a point: he was just like me before his chair, hopping fences and breaking hearts.
The boys began to stare at me. They’d knocked down several wheelchairs themselves but weren’t being scolded by the wheelchair users they had targeted. It seemed I got unlucky and chose wrong.
“What? You think you’re above me or something?” the wheelchair user yelled.
“Well . . . yeah. I am above you.”
I wasn’t lying—he was in the rain-soaked field, flat on his side, his chair pinning him down, and I was looking down at him from my own two legs.
“So what?” he snapped. “I hope one day, when you’re in a wheelchair, someone tips you over into a pile of cow shit.”
It was a threat—and a damn good one. I had never thought a wheelchair user could ever talk back like that; I just thought they spun around in circles and swallowed chud.
The boys stared me down, and even though I figured it was the wrong thing to do in their eyes, I decided to amend my mistake. Knowing I would eat shit for it later, I hastily helped reset the wheelchair I had tipped to its former position. The wheelchair user huffed and turned his wheels to face me. I was so afraid he’d run me down that I almost bolted. But all he did was holler.
“Jerk!” he exclaimed. “I’ll push you next! See how you like that, biped!”
I couldn’t even respond. I didn’t exactly know what a biped was.
“Get out of my face, you freak, or else I’ll run you down!”
I began to regret my decision to go wheelchair tipping that night. “Uhh, sorry. Won’t happen again. Uhh . . . take care.”
I retreated to the edge of the field and watched the boys tip chairs for the next hour. Something about it didn’t feel right anymore. It felt . . . like I had done something wrong.
That night changed something inside me, and I’ve been working on myself ever since, trying to be a better person. It might’ve taken getting a library card, learning how to listen, and finding a better group of friends to get there, but I’d like to think I’ve evolved beyond the pathetic guy I used to be. The new me is the good me. I respect women, never forget to flush, take the Eucharist, and don’t tip wheelchairs anymore. Instead, I push them. Maybe I’m just growing up from a teenage boy into a real man, but to me, there’s no better feeling in the world than getting to wrap your hands around your girlfriend’s handles.
We met in the bar last year when she accidentally rolled over my foot. I was angry and almost told her off until I noticed she was a pretty lady. I hadn’t realized wheelchair users could be hot before then—I just hadn’t considered it. But she was smokin’, and from that night on, I was smitten. I’ve been with plenty of women before, and yet, it took until I turned the ripe old age of twenty-two to find the right girl. She’s shown me what compassion, communication, and care look like, and I can only hope I am giving that back equally, if not more.
I want to be a better man for her. I cook her dinner, pick her bouquets of wildflowers, write her love poems, and carry her up flights of stairs. I’ve learned a lot about wheelchair culture, like why people would rather be called “disabled” instead of “crippled” and how wheelchair tipping is considered a hate crime in almost all fifty states. Her lifestyle is important for me to understand so I can be a better partner; I love her with or without the wheelchair, but because she has one, it has to be with it. Wherever she wants to go, I’ll push her—up hills, through meadows, over mountains—anywhere she wants. She is the sun I follow to bed, the earth I walk until my legs give out and I’m forced to wheel beside her.
Sometimes I think about telling her that I’ve tipped a wheelchair before, but I don’t mention it. I know she won’t judge me, I know she’ll say that was the old me and I’m no longer that awful person I once was, but I don’t like thinking about how stupid I used to be when I was a teenager, all the people I used to hurt and all the cars I used to crash. It’s guilt, I think.
I’m committed to making her life better. Men are protectors, providers, and for her, I’d harvest a whole acre of corn by hand. When it’s daylight, I am her shadow, and when it’s night, I am her bodyguard, following her wheels so I know she is safe. “Baby,” she always asks me before bedtime, “can you wheel me back to my field?” And for her, I always do.
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