Free Poster Child by Emily Rapp

something's taken away. This strange word that I had never heard before and didn't completely understand made me sad. I looked out the window and watched as a truck barreled past us on a steep hill. As we passed Abe Lincoln's monument on I-80,1 stared into his bronze, deeply lined face until our car was too far away for me to see him. As soon as I had the leg, I was going to walk right up to that monument. No walkers or scooters or casts or crutches. Just me and my good and healthy stump.
    I would remember this experience later. The words themselves, "residual limb," implied lack and also—to my mind—held within them a kind of mythic power. They were labels for the body, albeit ones I didn't initially or immediately understand. Even so, in that moment in the car, I had already resolved to overcome those labels—to prove even the words wrong.
    A few weeks later, Dad and I returned to Schmidt's office. "Ready to get rid of those?" Dad asked, pointing at my crutches. I nodded.
    "There she is," Schmidt said as we walked in the door. He stood in the reception area with the leg in his arms and a cigarette dangling from his lips.
    Leaning forward to balance my weight on the crutches, I took the leg and held it in my hands. I felt inside the molded plastic socket—it was perfectly smooth. I ran my fingers over the orange, toeless foot. The wooden calf looked solid and flawless. The buckle on the canvas waist strap was silver and shiny. There was a barely visible line where the foot met the ankle. The metal hinges on each side looked sleek and mechanical. The leg was made especially for me. It was mine. Now I could walk like other kids; I could have adventures, no longer bound by any cast. "I want to wear it," I said. Schmidt carried the leg into the changing room, and Dad and I followed.
    That afternoon, I walked the runway with the prosthesis. I had discovered a treasure: this new body of mine, this new wooden leg.
    Dad and Schmidt clapped and cheered as I went back and forth across the thin strip of linoleum that ran the length of the front room. The leg made either a loud thump or a crack each time I swung it through, as if my forward motion—at last!—were special enough to make its own sound.
    "How does it feel?" Schmidt asked.
    "Weird," I said. He looked at me. "But good." It wasn't like walking with a cast at all. The leg felt like a part of me, like an extension of my flesh-and-blood stump; it was me. It did feel strange at first—and heavy—but soon it felt natural, as if the body filled it exactly the way it should.
    "Does it hurt anywhere?"
    I shook my head. "Well, it kind of rubs on the side, but it's okay." Don't take it away, I thought. "It's okay," I repeated.
    "Show me where it rubs," Schmidt said, and I pointed. "Ah," he said, and marked that area with a red grease pencil. I watched him. "Don't worry, it will rinse off," he said. I unbuckled the strap and slipped off the leg. Schmidt moved his hands over my stump, checking skin temperature as a gauge of irritation. "Come with me," he said, and Dad bent down so I could hop up on his back. I wanted to see where my leg was going.
    We walked to the back room, where Schmidt set the leg on a pedestal and used an electrically powered router—like a long arm fitted with a metal tip—to grind out those places where I'd felt pressure on my stump. Dust spun out everywhere as the socket was modified. "Makes good dust!" Schmidt shouted.
    Back on the runway, I put on the leg and took a few steps.
    "Better?" Schmidt asked. I nodded.
    I used the bars along the runway to steady me when my balance faltered. "It will help your limp if you imagine swinging the leg through as smoothly as possible," Schmidt advised. I imagined the pendulum in a grandfather clock swinging gracefully and evenly as it marked each second. I took a few more steps. "Good," he said. "Much better."
    I looked at Dad. "Looks great!" he said. "Wow."
    Schmidt periodically leapt out in front of me and bent