Dwarf: A Memoir (21 page)

It wasn’t long before I decided that I wanted revenge on the one person who had told
me I
didn’t
belong: Ms. Hart. And I was going to recruit for it. I posted a battle cry on the
boards, and the response was nothing short of awesome. Many joined in with their take
on what would be funny and “equally as mortifying” to do to her. Before I knew it,
I had assembled a miniature army. Our battle plan included something we’d seen in
the movie
Hackers
: listing her office phone number on shady sex sites (it was a little scary how easy
it was to do that) and constructing advertisements that would humiliate her. Of course,
there were ways around paying for these advertisements, too. In cyberspace, there
were ways around everything.

One of my online friends spent time creating a program that would infect her office
computer and cause the printer to go crazy.
Pages upon pages would be printed that read: “Ms. Hart is a diseased cow.” I laughed
at the image and fell asleep fantasizing about how embarrassed she’d be— even more
than I had been.

None of this came together overnight, of course. First I needed her phone number,
I needed to figure out what type of network MHS was running, and I needed a physical
body to upload the virus into the system. This would require the help of someone at
school. To my surprise, I found a good friend who agreed to do it— one who hated her
computer class— and anything to get out of doing actual work sounded great to her.
I had finally found a way to bridge the gap between my high school and me.

One of my online friends also suggested going beyond the boards and seeking out an
elite hacking group. During one midnight conversation, I was directed to a Boston
hacker organization. Excited and motivated, I wrote them an e-mail and told them my
story. It was a while before I received a response, but when I did, two words jumped
out at me right away.

Sounds fun.

But in the end, I found my hacker in Florida. In the mail, I received a square red
disc with a message written on it in black marker. It read: “LiveWire, here is your
disease.” I had made a risky move, giving my home address to people I had never met,
but I didn’t care. Oblivious, Dad handed me the package, but Mom had grown very suspicious
about what I was doing on the computer late at night and demanded to know what the
disc was for. I refused to show her, fearful that if I put the disc into my dad’s
computer it would become infected. I couldn’t think of a decent lie, either, so the
truth came out.

Dad stood in the doorway with his evening rum and Coke during my admission. Tilting
his glass and stifling a smile, he looked at me with what I could only interpret as
an expression of approval.

“I like my martini shaken, not stirred,” he said with a wink before leaving my room.
Mom immediately threw out the disc and issued a singular warning.

“If you abuse the computer, you won’t have a computer anymore.”

I was stuck, and whether I liked it or not, she had the upper hand. I could not get
to the computer on my own if she decided to take it away. I removed the programs that
locked my dad out of his own PC and gave her my programming, operating system, and
online security books that I’d picked up at the bookstore when we went to the mall.
I even forfeited my personal notebook filled with IP numbers.

The game was officially over.

I never found out whether anyone actually made phone calls to Ms. Hart’s office. It
was frustrating to be left without answers, so I fantasized about what may have happened,
hoping that Ms. Hart was embarrassed in the sports medicine room the way she embarrassed
me. I wished my mom hadn’t caught me, but I wasn’t ashamed of what I’d done.

I turned my attention to catching up on sleep, exercising, and cleaning and turning
my pins by day. I even found motivation to stay awake long enough to sit through an
entire tutoring session with my new homeschool teacher, Sandy. I was hell-bent on
graduating with my class.

“Do you have a fascination with meat or cake?” I asked her when she settled onto the
couch with a stack of books and notepads during our first session.

“Um, no.” Sandy stared at me, perplexed. Young and enthusiastic, she had a pleasant,
casual way of speaking and reminded me of an older sister.

“Are you in pain right now?” she asked.

“No, I’m good. Now, what about the meat and cake?”

“I’m not sure what that has to do with your graduating on time,” she said. Then it
was Sandy’s turn to question me. “If you’re in pain, will you tell me so we can take
a break? That’s all I ask, that you’re honest with me about how you’re feeling.” She
smiled, studying my face. Sandy seemed to be unmoved by the sight of my pins. At least,
she didn’t let it disrupt our time together. I felt like she understood me.

By night, if I couldn’t devise plans to embarrass Ms. Hart anymore, I decided I would
write stories on the computer about humiliating her. There was so much I wanted to
say to her but never did. Suddenly, I no longer felt confined. I had my own private
world, free of the pain, prejudice, and ignorance I had come to know in reality. This
was a wound that would not heal. I no longer cared to keep silent. My writing was
my vengeance. So I stayed up late at night, writing a murder mystery involving the
untimely passing of a high school teacher whose body was found in an ice machine,
pounding away at my keyboard like the piano I never had.

Typing faster and faster with each minute that ticked past, I channeled Papa, mumbling,
“That’s good,” at the end of a line that I particularly liked. I could barely maintain
control of my fingers. It was as if I had an imaginary coach standing over my shoulder,
dictating all of the experiences I had gone through and reminding me of the emotions
attached to each one.

Write! Tell the world!
I imagined him shouting as the words poured out of me. I was unstoppable, slamming
down on the keys as if I were playing before a packed concert hall.

Write! Write! Write!

It was a rush that affected me more than any drug. I got a high off each sentence.
The hairs on my arms stood tall as the
paragraphs poured out on my screen. It even took away those persistent muscle spasms.
Above all, it took away the painful memory of being humiliated in the sports medicine
room.

That night, for the first time, time flew by. Minutes turned into hours. Before I
knew it, the sun was coming up, and my father was getting ready for work.

Day after day, I began to find myself excited to do pin care at night, because it
meant that, within the hour, it would be computer time. I forgot about taking pain
pills altogether. They were out of the question, because I couldn’t type or read the
text on the screen when I was on them. I would cope with the pain, even throughout
the grueling therapy, without the meds, because my new coping mechanism was writing.
Despite being weighed down by rods and metal, I had finally found a way to be free.

Victories

Graduating from Marlborough High.

S
IX MONTHS INTO
the bone-lengthening procedure with my shins, I woke up one April Saturday around
noon. I cleaned my pins and craved a bowl of Blueberry Morning cereal. My formerly
feeble appetite was back with a vengeance and it made my mom smile when I asked for
seconds. After breakfast, I lifted my legs and swung them over the bed as I had done
so many times before, gripped my walker, and began my long journey to the bathroom.
It was an average Saturday morning.

At first.

I fixed my gaze on my feet as I slowly passed the blue recliner Dad had brought upstairs
from the living room. Eventually I made my way through the door frame and into the
hallway. Noticing that I was once again looking down as I walked, Mom yelled at me.

“Stop looking at your feet! Look in front of you!” It was just her helping me with
my physical therapy now, and during times of frustration I called her “G.I. Jane.”
Standing up straight was the least of my concerns, but a major one of hers for the
sake of the rehabilitation process. I had to relearn proper posture, but making it
to the toilet on time was a much higher priority.

I wiggled and pushed my clunky walker through the narrow doorway. The wooden doorjamb
was riddled with deep indentations from my many trips to the bathroom. As I neared
the toilet, I lifted my eyes, maneuvering my body in that direction. Then I saw it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something that literally stopped me in my tracks,
bringing the wheels on the front of my walker screeching to a halt. In the mirror,
I saw a girl— I took in her torso, then her shoulders, her neck and head. It took
a moment to realize that girl was me.

It was the very first time I saw the reflection of my upper body in the mirror.

My shoulders looked so strong, I thought, as I stood gaping at my reflection for several
moments. I had seen myself in full-length mirrors before, standing next to a friend
of mine or passing by a fitting room at Macy’s, but I had never seen the reflection
of anything below my neck in my own bathroom mirror. It was as if I had switched places
with someone else, swapped bodies somehow with someone taller. But it was
me
.

The pain I faced every day in my legs, the burning and the tight, stinging aches that
crawled up and down my shins— it was worth it.

Then the craziest idea occurred to me— what would happen if I tried to turn on the
water? Anxious, I lifted my walker and pivoted toward the sink. My walker smashed
into the under-sink cabinet, denting the wood. I didn’t care. I reached out and gripped
the knob for hot water, then the cold, turning them on and off individually and then
together.

Giggling to myself, I traced my fingers across the deep belly of the sink. I could
reach it
all
. Everything! The blue Rubbermaid stool sat in the corner alone— I didn’t need it
anymore. The soap, the towel hanging above the rim of the sink, the plastic container
stuffed with Q-tips— nothing was off-limits.

Then Mom’s reflection appeared in the mirror behind mine. No words were exchanged.
There was nothing we could say that would adequately express the joy we both felt
at my discovery. It was like I had glitter pulsing through my veins, tickling my insides,
and without warning it burst out of me. I laughed with such reckless abandon and glee
that my mom couldn’t help but join in, laughing hysterically until we were both wiping
away tears.

I couldn’t wait to call Mike, but when he answered, he sounded distracted, like he
was somewhere else. I begged him to come over.

“You have to see this!” I shouted over the phone, gripping it tightly.

He promised to stop by.

My world had changed overnight, even though it had actually been six long months of
turning pins, therapy, and struggle. That Saturday, I lost myself in the mania of
my excitement and moved all around the house to see what else I could reach. Mike
never did come over, but I hardly noticed in the excitement.

Light switches were next, and I found that I could turn them on and off with ease.
Towels were within reach, too, and I could use them in both the bathroom and in the
kitchen, or even fluff
and fold them, draping them over the rods. No longer did I need them as lassos to
extend my reach. I could now use towels the same way everyone else did— to dry my
hands after washing them in the sink. Overjoyed, I hollered to my dad for him to carry
me downstairs to see what else I could do. I made my way to the coffeemaker, where
I found that I could grip the handle and pour a cup, but the buttons and the filter
were all still a bit too high for me to reach. This would come later, I thought, as
I gained more height. I still had my thighs to lengthen.

Before long, that time had come. In my bed one afternoon, I realized something was
wrong. Each time I turned the L-wrench, it pushed back against me. It was as if my
body were issuing a bold, loud warning.

Normally, turning my pins felt like nothing at all; the quarter-millimeter turn was
too small to feel. But this time I felt a strange pressure in the center of my shin
and the muscles on the bone felt tighter the more I tried. It became too painful to
turn.

“Something’s not right,” I told my mom. “It’s harder to turn.”

“Does it hurt?” Mom looked concerned and then motioned toward the pins, asking if
she could turn them. I nodded.

Slowly she pushed downward on the wrench and her eyebrows centered in the middle of
her forehead. She felt it, too. She took out the wrench, set it on my lap, and looked
at me.

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s time to stop. Can I have the phone? I need to call Dr. Mortimer.”

I was never so happy to go to UMass for surgery. It was time for the second phase
of gaining my independence.

The battle plan: to remove the pins in my shins and, in the same operation, break,
drill, and insert new fixators and stainless steel pins into my femurs.