My knee injury was neither serious nor permanent, but it was enough to put me on crutches and earn me a key to the elevator.
The first morning I boarded the elevator, Vincent was there in his motorized wheelchair. We exchanged names and greetings before we reached his floor. We shared the elevator twice more before the day was over. Our conversation continued in short bits.
On the way to lunch, I learned not to expect him in my art class: He was more of a math man. On the ride to the ground floor at the end of the afternoon, he nodded at my bum leg. “How’d that happen?” he asked.
“I’m going to have to work up a good story, but actually I fell off a step.” I hesitated. “How about you?”
“Car accident,” he said. The door opened, but the elevator was slightly misaligned. Vincent’s chair jolted down almost an inch to the hallway linoleum, as I watched in alarm. “Don’t worry,” he said, though he couldn’t have seen my expression. “It happens a lot. This is better than when the elevator car is lower than the floor.” He waved at me and rolled off to catch his bus.
When I turned in the key for the day, I asked about the alignment problem. “Yeah, it keeps doing that,” the secretary said. “It’s old, and sometimes it just doesn’t line up. Don’t worry, it’s not a safety problem. They check it regularly.”
It certainly is a problem if you’re in a wheelchair, I thought. But she wasn’t the right person to fuss at.
The next morning I met Vincent trying to come in from the parking lot. The door’s threshold had stopped his wheels. It was slightly raised with slopes on each side to make it accessible. But that didn’t help Vincent. I had almost reached him by his third run at the threshold, but another student noticed before I could get there and provided the extra boost he needed.
I gave that threshold the extra look that I never would have before. It had come loose on one side, which probably accounted for my new friend’s problem.
I reported it to the head custodian when I saw him later. I asked about the elevator, too. He said he could fix the threshold, but replacing the needed elevator part was beyond our building’s budget. He reminded me that this school is more than 60 years old. “Retrofitting isn’t the perfect way to provide accessibility,” he said.
Soon my knee healed, but my consciousness had been raised. Now, whenever I enter a building, I wonder if someone like Vincent would have trouble getting inside.
Barriers are everywhere. Sometimes curb cuts are not quite smooth. Powered doors can be clumsy to activate and get through. Some elevators are cramped, dingy or hard to find. Sinks and water fountains are too high. Bathroom stalls are too small. Even when we think our buildings are accessible, these and many other unnoticed barriers confront people in wheelchairs or with other impairments every day.
The rest of us don’t see them, or we think they are trivial because they are not a problem to us. If we all had to confront the world from their perspective for just one day, I think we’d change our minds.
Gephardt teaches private art classes in Kansas.
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