If at Birth You Don't Succeed (27 page)

“What's the Disney College Program?” I asked one of the students.

“The Disney College Program,” she replied, “is a way to earn college credit while you work at Disney World.”

At that moment I realized that while God had not healed my legs or brain, he was in fact listening and had answered my prayers in the order that would be the most beneficial for me. After all, if I could walk
before
I worked at Disney World, I wouldn't be able to get to the front of the lines anymore. It was nothing short of a miracle. This opportunity was everything my twelve-year-old self could have possibly wanted and it ticked all the boxes for nineteen-year-old me as well. This was my ticket to get out of Buffalo and away from home for the first time; a four-month retreat fronted by an academic institution requiring absolutely none of the course work and roughly 5 percent of the accountability of your average summer school program. Not only that, but we'd be getting paid
minimum wage
for this! As I was currently making the actual minimum wage of nothing, the prospect of money in any quantity would make me the richest I'd ever been—a king fit for a magic kingdom. There was warm weather and sunny days ahead.

Within a week, I'd set up a meeting with my academic adviser and applied to be a Disney student. I waited for months to hear back and when the large, white envelope finally arrived in the mailbox, my heart jumped in anticipation. This was either an acceptance package or a very lengthy rejection with some party favors thrown in to soften the blow. I read,
We are pleased to inform you that you can now get the hell out of upstate New York, make something of yourself, and start your life of adventure with Mickey, Minnie, and TONS of chicks …
Okay, so I may have paraphrased that a bit, but that was the gist.

The spring semester flew by faster than a magic carpet ride and in August 2004, now completely on my own, I flew down to Orlando with my mother, my brother, and my grandpa to start my life as an autonomous young man. During my first foray into independent living, my mom visited three times, and my dad, my grandpa, and my uncle Rich all stopped in twice. Now a grown-up, my breakfast consisted of oatmeal cookies my grandma Sandy made and would send to me every few weeks in a big Tupperware container, and strawberry applesauce, which I'd suck through a straw to avoid my precarious relationship with spoons. Of course, I'd have this morning meal in my closet, because if I ate the cookies in the common area, my roommates would undoubtedly want some and I decided that, despite what you learn in kindergarten, real adults don't share.

I began my tenure at Epcot as the worst employee that Disney World had ever seen, and that's taking into account that I had a roommate who was fired for drinking malt liquor on the job. I was originally assigned a position selling tickets at the park entrance. Though my boss was quick to commend my ability to upsell the customer from a fifty-five-dollar One-Day Pass to a Five-Day Park Hopper Family Pack, he also noted that, due to my inability to count or even handle money without dropping it, my register never balanced out. So I was transferred to a position where I wouldn't literally lose the company money.

I was given the title of Park Clearer at the World Showcase, a role that made full use of all of my abilities and disabilities. I'd show up to the offices at Epcot at around four p.m. dressed in my uniform—a red shirt covered with flags from around the world and white pants. I'd grab a walkie-talkie and wander around the Disney version of our planet. Epcot was a place where China was represented by golden dragon statues, Germany had girls in dirndls carrying beer steins, and Canada just had people who were nice. For some reason, Norway sold pinwheels and glow sticks. This might seem culturally insensitive, but I'll note here that the employees who worked there were actually natives of the countries they were helping to stereotype. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse, but as they say in Morocco, “Who cares? There's a belly dancer!”

Part of my duties was park security, which seemed like an odd fit for a guy who twice had to be reminded not to leave the door to his apartment open with the key stuck in the knob, as his keys were also conveniently attached to his wallet. At Disney, “security” meant that I was basically an audience member for a series of concerts, which is why I can brag that I've seen Chubby Checker twelve times, Taylor Dayne eight times, and the one guy who's not dead from the original Temptations six times. Occasionally, a guest would get dehydrated and need to be handed a bottle of water, but mostly my duties were limited to lifting a rope so that guests could get to the viewing area, letting them know where they could buy beer, and consoling them when they realized beer was seven dollars.

The bulk of my job happened after sunset. Every night before they closed the park, there was an epic water, laser, and fireworks display called IllumiNations, which cost Disney fifty thousand dollars every single night. It was the best spectacle I'd ever seen and I got to see it a hundred times. My official role was to man and police one of the five disabled viewing areas around the park. This was something all park clearers had to do, and those who didn't have their own wheelchairs used the company Segways. You'd think I'd be pretty good at this job since the only responsibilities I had were to, again, lift the rope, and make conversations with guests who had canes, scooters, wheelchairs, and walkers. But the fact that my tenure at Epcot didn't saddle Disney World with several multimillion-dollar lawsuits was my main accomplishment.

As a Disney Cast Member, I was tasked with creating magical moments for the guests whenever possible. The easiest way for me to help them pass the time before the fireworks was to distract them with all the gadgets built into my wheelchair. On several occasions when park goers had small children, I'd even let them sit on my lap while I drove in circles. This seemed to be a universally enjoyed experience for my young riders and the adult onlookers alike.

On one occasion though, a particularly hyper seven-year-old yanked the joystick while I was driving and sent us careening into an older gentleman in a Hawaiian shirt and Mickey ears, the brunt of my three-hundred-pound chair slamming into his knees. He was very gracious about it considering that he already used a crutch and I all but ensured he'd be leaving the park with a souvenir wheelchair of his own. He didn't sue or even file a formal complaint. If he had, he might have saved me from committing my worst offense.

As Christmas neared, park attendance soared. My manager worried about the growing crowds and was concerned that able-bodied guests were sneaking into the disabled viewing areas and hindering visitors with disabilities from having a place to watch the fireworks display. Asking someone directly whether or not they are disabled is legally and socially challenging. My boss theorized that, given my own impairments, I'd be particularly well suited to tastefully navigate this sensitive task.

He said, “Just ask them very politely what their disability is if you think they might be trying to sneak in to get a good spot.”

That night, at 8:00 p.m., in the viewing area located in Mexico, I spotted just the type of reprehensible lowlifes my boss had warned me about: a family in the disabled viewing area with no wheelchair, no crutches, not even a stroller in sight. Just a mother, a father, and an eight-year-old son sitting on his dad's lap. After overhearing their conversation I could tell that they were from jolly old England and probably didn't respect the guidelines us Americans had put forth in Mexico. Those limey little bastards!

It was a chilly evening, so the kid had cleverly stuffed his arms inside his short-sleeve shirt to keep warm. I'd gained a reputation for being a pushover, but this threesome from across the pond had crossed the line. I went up and exchanged pleasantries, but then my tone shifted and I asked them point-blank, “Excuse me, what exactly is your disability?” The man was clearly taken aback, probably because I'd just caught him red-handed. Indignant, he asked, “Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” I shot back, and as soon as I said this, I realized my mistake. The boy, as it turned out, did not have his arms tucked into his shirt to keep warm, because he had no arms at all. Then, glancing downward, I saw what could only be described as an absence of legs. I had just audaciously demanded that a small boy with zero limbs prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was, in fact, disabled.

These are just two examples of the plethora of poor judgment I exercised while employed by the House of Mouse. Other shining moments include the two times I fell asleep at the entrance to the World Showcase during the morning shift, only to wake up and realize that a handful of guests were wandering the park unsupervised forty minutes before it was officially open.

There were only a couple of jobs I can actually say I excelled at. One was making the guests I didn't run over or inadvertently discriminate against feel very welcome, and the other was diplomatically telling those same guests at the end of the night when the park was closing to get the hell out and have a magical day. That's the main thing a park clearer does. When the fireworks are over, he or she is responsible for escorting all stragglers to the gates and sending them on their way home. Every night I got the unique experience of seeing Disney World completely empty. I was the one responsible for closing down and locking up the most magical place on Earth.

While I may not have been a star employee while I was on the clock, in my leisure time, I was determined to make some personal strides. The Disney apartment complex was named Vista Way but had gained such a reputation as a hookup mecca that it was nicknamed Vista Lay. Rumors were circulating that there was so much sex going on that people had gotten STDs just from swimming in the pool. Ever the hypochondriac, this unpleasant thought prompted me to call my uncle Rich, a pool chemical salesman, to ask him if you can get AIDS from a swimming pool.

“From fucking in pools you can,” he replied.

“Oh,” I said, relieved, now certain that I didn't have anything to worry about.

All I knew about sex at the time was that I would like to have some. This was my first chance to play the field without parental supervision or personal aides. Unburdened by the experience of the dearth of experience that was to follow, I was optimistic. Every cute girl felt like an opportunity. I was never again gonna get the chance to score with so many real-life versions of cartoon characters I'd found confusingly hot as a boy, so I resolved to make myself the most accessible Prince Charming I could be.

First, I set my sights on a girl named Cherry, who was Hawaiian but had been deemed Chinese-ish-looking enough to play Mulan. That is, until it was decided she was too short to play a princess and was recast as Stitch. Cherry seemed like a promising lead at first. We set up a movie day to watch
Lilo and Stitch
so that she could tell me everything about the film that offended her culture and heritage.

“They make all the characters have stumpy legs and big noses. We don't ALL look like that!” and she showed me her ankle to illustrate how it was decidedly thinner than the ones on-screen.
An ankle! That's basically like seeing a leg
, I thought,
which is basically like seeing her naked! Vista Lay, here I come …

Moments later, my optimism toward this Hawaiian, sometimes Chinese princess, sometimes blue space alien, was crushed when she casually remarked, “My boyfriend does look like that surfer dude though. So I guess they got some stuff right.” After the movie, we bid each other aloha, and unfortunately never hung out again. I recommitted myself to finding a girl at Disney World who didn't already have a boyfriend.

I found exactly that in Allie, a girl I met as she was hopping off the bus from Pleasure Island, which is not, as it sounds, a Disney-themed strip club but rather a boardwalk with bars and shops where adults can unwind and drink after the parks close. On a Friday night, the people who didn't go to Pleasure Island were comprised of the sizable Mormon population and me, as I was the only one who took the program's zero tolerance underage drinking policy seriously.

I was zooming around the parking lot, waiting for the people who had had fun that night to come home and tell me about it. So when a girl bounced up to me covered in glitter and sweat after a hard night of dancing and matter of factly stated, “You look cool, we should hang out,” I was more excited than I had any right to be. As I was wearing shorts, knee-high argyle socks, and Velcro shoes at the time, even I thought her assessment of my coolness was a stretch, but who was I to argue? Allie introduced herself and scrawled her number out on my arm and I called her the next night to see if she wanted to hang out in an environment I considered subtly romantic—a hot tub. Never mind that the hot tub at Vista Way was so heavily chlorinated it could burn the skin off an elephant, because that's a small price to pay for STD protection.