Chapter 12: The Matte-Black Motorcycle Waiting Beyond The Wrought-Iron Gate
The rain had weakened to a steady fall, but the courtyard still held the storm in every stone. Water ran in narrow channels around my wheelchair, carrying grit toward the drain near the gate. My shirt clung coldly to my ribs. The lobby doors stood open now, yet the warmth inside felt less like shelter than a place I had been permitted to enter after everyone had seen me suffer.
Garrett remained beside me instead of moving ahead. His broad shoulders blocked part of the wind, but he did not touch the chair. He had learned, or was trying to learn, that helping me did not mean taking control of every motion. The dead joystick sat beneath my hand, its casing beaded with water. When I pressed it, the chair answered with one faint click and nothing else.
Beyond the wrought-iron gate, the matte-black motorcycle waited under the gray sky. Fifty Harley-Davidsons lined the curb and the drive beyond it, engines silent now, chrome dulled by rain. The riders had formed a loose corridor between the gate and the covered university walkway. Their presence made the route visible, but it did not make it accessible. The courtyard stones remained uneven. My chair could not steer itself across them, and no motorcycle could carry the chair safely without a plan.
Garrett studied the distance, then looked at the chair's wet console. He crouched and examined the front wheels, the battery compartment, and the straps beneath the seat. He used his phone to photograph each part before anyone moved it. The action mattered. The chair was no longer only my failed way out; it was evidence of what the rain had done and what had been left unprotected.
Inside the lobby, Trent stood behind the glass with the antique brass key still in his hand. The yellow rain cover lay across a table near him, bright against the dark wood. Sigma Zeta members had stopped watching me like an entertainment. Some stared at the floor. Others watched Garrett's phone. Trent did neither. He kept his chin lifted, but the key had disappeared into his fist.
A university staff member arrived at the threshold with a clipboard and a clear plastic sleeve. She did not cross the courtyard. She photographed the open doors, the cover on the table, and Trent holding the key. Then she placed a printed form against the glass and pointed to a blank line. Trent looked at it without signing.
Garrett turned his phone toward me. He had marked two destinations: an accessible campus health office and a transportation service that could move both me and the wheelchair. The service required an hour to arrive. The health office could receive me immediately if someone could get me there without damaging the chair or worsening my condition.
I pointed toward the covered walkway, then to the chair. Garrett nodded. He removed a folded transfer board from a saddlebag on the motorcycle, but he did not try to use it in the open rain. He showed it to me first, then pointed toward the lobby's dry threshold. The choice became clear: we would move me inside under supervision, keep the wheelchair where it stood until it could be examined, and wait for accessible transport rather than improvise with the motorcycles.
The riders shifted away from the gate, making room for a service vehicle. No one revved an engine. The motorcycles became markers around the route instead of a dramatic escape.
Garrett returned to my side. For several seconds, neither of us looked at the other. His arrival still had no explanation I could trust. Mine was not a question I could ask with the cold tightening my throat and the staff waiting for a decision.
I placed my hand on the transfer board and then on the armrest of my chair. Garrett understood the order. First, I would decide how I moved. Then he would help only where I allowed it.
May you like
Behind us, the staff member lifted the form again. Trent finally reached for the pen.
The gate remained open, the transport request was being placed, and the chair waited in the rain while the first official record of the night took shape.
