Beans for Breakfast

I talk to Jesse in the hallway as I’m leaving. I hold the door open and he wheels his chair outside and over to the van that’s waiting for him at the curb. The driver says hello and helps Jesse onto the wheelchair lift. Our conversation trails off as Jesse gets himself situated in the van. I wave good-bye and push off on my bicycle. But the timing of it is weird – Jesse looks out, waves and laughs at me a little. I’ve been in the habit of hiding the (mostly healed) wound on my hand whenever I gesture with it. So I sort of waved with my hand closed in a limp fist, which came across as kind of a loose Black Panther salute somehow. And that, of course, looks just ridiculous on me.