Me and Charley

Epilogue

I don't know what would have become of me if Charley had not come into my life when he did. Had he not walked with me for those few weeks in the summer of my tenth year, and through that awful time three years later when Robbie died, and through the tragic events that followed, I think might well have wound up as that strange solitary hermit brooding his life away in that old house down by the river. Over the years many, many people benefitted, but none more than I, from Charley's talent for sizing up the players in any drama and leading those involved to create the best outcome for everyone.

It was sad that it took Charley a long time to achieve for himself the way with girls that he instilled in me. His disability was issue enough, but the real problem seemed to be his size. All through school he was the shortest boy in the class and shorter than most of the girls as well. By the time we graduated he was singularly handsome, but he carried an upper body proportioned to a hearty six-footer on legs that could have belonged to an eleven- or twelve-year-old. He only ever grew to five-foot-six, with his right leg extended by an inch and a half buildup on the orthopedic boot he still needed. Most of the girls were friendly and kind but just could not seem to get past what they saw in his body to the person I knew to dwell within. Those few who were as short as he seemed as sensitive as he to the issue and sought out taller boys. I also think some suspected that he could not "do it." A series of jerk-off competitions between us in our very early teens certainly disproved that notion for me. They came to an abrupt halt one day when Ms. Rhoda walked in on us. That evening we got an earnest talk from the Reverend.

Charley never got any more mobile than he had been in our school days, although improvements in mobility aids over the years did improve his life somewhat. He always much preferred to stand and walk, but in middle school when we began to move from class to class he reluctantly found advantage in wheeling on the flat, hard-surfaced, obstacle-free spaces the school offered. He carried his crutches in a rack on his chair, though, and always walked into the classroom or wherever. He never ever babied himself and remained ready to meet any challenge head-on if he could. He himself rarely thought he could not. Sadly, as middle age set in, muscles that took up the slack of those that polio left idle began to deteriorate. By his middle forties he was left full time in the wheelchair he so detested at the time we met.

Charley's career was pretty much set out for him by his particular blend of talents. His psychology degrees were summa cum laude. He could have settled into a cushy academic career, but he was determined from the start to follow a clinical path. He soon found his niche in child and family practice. He surmised that kids found him less threatening because of his size and their curiosity about his difference. He answered their questions with simple frankness, and assured them that what had happened to him would not happen to them, thanks to Dr. Salk.

Charley was twenty-eight when Norma, a newly divorced Filipina secretary in the large Chicago practice where he worked at the time, suggested that they go to dinner. They did, and one thing led to another. It helped that in flats she was just Charley's height, but beyond that she seemed to know how to touch Charley's heart in the way that he himself always had for so many others. She soon convinced him to travel halfway around the world to meet her family in the remote village where they lived. He spent a two weeks with them, and a year later he and Norma went back to tie the knot in the village church. Their first, Robert, was conceived on the honeymoon, and in the next six years a daughter and two more sons followed. Charley made enough money that Norma could become a full-time homemaker and they could send something every month to Norma's family in the village. Thanks to wise investments Mr. Bob had made in his engineering career, he and Ms. Rhoda were in a position to surprise Charley and Norma, on their first Christmas as a married couple, with round-trip tickets to the Philippines. Charley and Norma and baby Robbie spent two weeks there the following February. Once Scotty, the youngest of the four, turned a year old, the whole family would take off right after Christmas each year and spend the month of January there.

Charley made it to age sixty. His body, devastated in infancy, just plain wore out and succumbed to an avalanche of ills in mid-February. We buried him in the old village cemetery, in the family plot near ours that his parents purchased at the time Charley and Norma married. Reverend Bob had retired when he turned sixty-five, after twenty-eight years in the pulpit of the Valley church. He and Ms. Rhoda moved to the Chicago suburbs to be near Charley and Norma and the grandchildren. By that time the grandchildren were young adults well launched in their careers. Only Robbie had married, the year before. The others, though, were at various stages of progress to the altar. At eighty-seven, Mr. Bob seemed to sink together with Charley, and he passed two months after Charley did. Ms. Rhoda lives with Norma and carries on bravely, but it's clear to everyone that she is failing too.

David Stoltzfus, with the blessing of his mother as well as his father, and the tacit consent of the Amish higher management, moved in with Charley and his parents when he finished eighth grade at the Amish school. To say he was an eager learner would be a serious understatement. When he still lived with his family he would get curious about something and ask Charley or me to find what we could on the subject. A remote corner in the loft of the new barn had become his study nook, a secret that everyone knew, and knew to leave strictly alone. I'd often join him there. In the first couple of months Charley would now and again struggle himself up the ladder as well, and we'd study away. One day David found a rope rigged with a block and tackle and a board like the seat on a swing at the end of it, that had appeared sometime in the night. David never said anything about it to anyone, nor did anyone to him, but it made it infinitely easier and safer to get Charley into the loft. In high school David cut a spectacular swath through the academic sky, but at heart he always seemed rather lost. After high school he hitchhiked to California to "find himself", as did so many young people of that time. Last I heard, several years ago, he was hanging out as a handyman at some kind of monastery high above the Big Sur coast.

Sammy and Simon, when they finished high school, went to work full time at the nursery, keeping the accounts and doing this and that, whatever needed doing. Nonna died peacefully at age 89.

Luanne became a degreed R.N. and got her first job at the city hospital. Shortly before I finished my professional qualifications I got wind that the resident nurse at the blind school was about to retire. I encouraged her to apply and she was accepted. Reverend Bob tied the knot on us shortly after I finished my training. Once I took up my job we became houseparents to a dozen resident boys. We settled into a rather different kind of married life. We tried and tried for children but none came. Finally a thorough gynecological workup in St. Louis disclosed a medical challenge that meant that Luanne could not conceive. We sorrowed over that for quite a while. In the end though we decided that we could love the kids put in our care as though they were our own. In short, we're blessed enough.