Double amputee turns to vending to make a living
Published:Saturday | September 17, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Horace Fisher, Gleaner Writer
MAY PEN, Clarendon:
FIFTY-EIGHT-YEAR-old Ivan 'Chucky' May and South Africa's 400-metre athletics star, Oscar 'The Blade Runner' Pistorius, have one thing in common - they are both double amputees. But while Oscar Pistorius showcases his skills on the international athletics circuit, Ivan May ply his wares on the street of May Pen, at least five days per week.
"This is what I do every day, my boss," stated May, pointing to a number of car-care products, stacked neatly in a corrugated box, perched on his wheelchair. "I am out here every day in the sun trying to make a living because I don't want to beg," related May in an interview with The Gleaner.
Ivan May explained that he had work as a security guard before he lost one of his leg to a blood circulation complication in 1993. The loss of May's leg immobilised him for just over one year, but as the bills kept piling up, the one-legged May hit the street of May Pen, selling car-care products.
"I couldn't sit down at home doing nothing. Mi have my daughter to send go school, mi have to eat food and no one is giving mi anything. So mi have to do something for myself and juggling (vending) was the easiest thing I could do then," reasoned May.
Double tragedy
Like a boomerang, tragedy revisited May; the other leg also developed the recurring circulation complication and was amputated in 2001. The removal of May's last good leg again severely immobilised him and confined him to his Sevens Road residence, this time for over two years because of the lack of a wheelchair.
According to May, when a wheelchair was eventually donated to him, he went back to the street of May Pen, selling his customary car-care wares, but this time adding a variety of phonecards to his line of merchandise.
"What else could I do?" May asked rhetorically. "My mother and father are dead, I have no one to ask for help, so I have to make a living for my self, whether sun or rain," mused May, while dispensing two phonecards to a customer.
A second wheelchair was given to May - this time a motorised one - that added mobility for the legless man, who disclosed that his business picked up significantly. Travelling from his home at Sevens Road to May Pen, or to pick up supplies at Mack Chem, or attending church was far less time-consuming and less physically challenging.
May's motorised wheelchair has since developed some mechanical problems that has forced him to revert to the manual one.
"The chair not charging the battery any more; me want some help to fix it up because this one is just slowing me down," May declared sadly.