Jerry Maxwell and his good friend Roary are both handicapped. They divide their time between Max's bar in San Francisco and the bleachers of the Oakland Sports Complex to cheer on the Golden State Warriors. Together the two set out to make Jerry's dream of playing professional basketball a reality.
Inside Moves is an off–beat, exuberant and extremely emotional novel focusing on the bonds of friendship between two men brought together by physical and psychological challenges, and their dreams of creating more meaningful lives for themselves and their friends. Often classified as a sports novel, basketball is merely the backdrop to this human comedy of love and sorrow and the healing powers of friendship and community.
Released to wide critical acclaim by Doubleday in 1978, Inside Moves went on to sell over 160,000 copies through numerous printings. A motion picture of Inside Moves was released in 1980, directed by Richard Donner with a screenplay by Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin.
1
My name is Roary and I’m the kind of person that scares people just looking like I do. I’m the kind of person people see coming and lots of times they’ll cross the street rather than walk by me, or if they do walk by me it’s quick and nervous, like they’d walk by a dog they weren’t sure of. I don’t blame them at all because I am pretty gross-looking and I walk funny because I’m a cripple.
I got hurt in Vietnam. This land mine blew a hole in my upper back and destroyed some vertebrae and part of my spinal cord and part of my brain. I was paralyzed for about a year. Then one day I was talking to this guy Schulz, who was just an orderly, and I told him I felt okay, that I was pretty sure I could walk and use my arms. Next thing I know, this psychiatrist is there telling me that I’ll just have to accept the fact that I’m gonna be paralyzed for life. He was trying to help me face reality, which I suppose was his job, but since I knew I could walk he just irritated me. Sometimes you just know something, no matter what anybody else tells you.
So I told him, “Really, Doctor, I can walk.” He’s a young guy, luckily, so he still has some energy and curiosity. He goes off to talk to a surgeon to find out if I can be disconnected from the bed and the tubes they had going into me. He wanted to let me try to move so I’d know I couldn’t, which he figured would help me accept my paralysis. So the surgeon comes back with the psychiatrist and a couple orderlies and a couple nurses and some patients come in too. It was a big event. I could write a whole book on that hospital, but they’ve already written so many like it, there wouldn’t be much point.
The surgeon says go ahead, unhook him. The nurses pull my tubes and then very dramatically this one nurse throws back the covers and there I am in my crummy, piss-stained bedclothes. Nobody’s changed me in over a week. Like I said, I could write a book about that place, but don’t worry, I’m not going to. It wouldn’t be worth the trouble.
Anyway, after the surgeon says what a disgraceful situation it is, me not being changed and my tubes not functioning properly, and the nurses and orderlies get done passing the buck to some boy who works the graveyard shift, I swing my legs off the bed, push off with my hands and stand up for a few seconds before my legs, which I haven’t used in a year, give out and I sit back down on the bed.
I’d give a hundred dollars right now to have a picture of all those people staring at me.
But I can’t really blame them for not changing me. What difference does it make when you think somebody’s just a vegetable anyway? I was just a raspy voice coming out of a scarred-up face to them. Most of them didn’t even know I had a body.
So that’s why I shuffle when I walk and why my head leans to the side a little. I grew a beard and let my hair get long because that covers my scars front and back, and also my head leaning isn’t so noticeable with all that hair. I guess I’m fat because when I’m lonely I tend to eat to fill in for whatever I’m lonely for. Sometimes it’s a girl, sometimes I just need somebody to talk to. So I eat.
But I don’t want you to get the idea this book is about me, because it isn’t. It’s about Jerry, but I thought I’d better say something about myself so you’d know what kind of an angle you were getting. In a way, you’re getting a cripple angle, but then again I wasn’t born a cripple. There’s a big difference between a born cripple and somebody who gets crippled. The main difference seems to be how bitter they are. That isn’t always true, but take Jerry, he was born cripple and he’s the sweetest guy in the world. Me, I was born straight, played fullback in high school. Me, I’m bitter. I’m no sweetheart.
Release Date: December 19, 1980
Release Time: 113 minutes
Director: Richard Donner
Cast:
John Savage as Roary
David Morse as Jerry Maxwell
Diana Scarwid as Louise
Amy Wright as Anne
Tony Burton as Lucius
Bill Henderson as Blue Lewis
Steve Kahan as Burt
Jack O'Leary as Max
Bert Remsen as Stinky
Harold Russell as Wings
Pepe Serna as Herrada
Harold Sylvester as Alvin Martin
Arnold Williams as Benny
George Brenlin as Gil
Gerri Dean as Hooker
William Frankfather as Fryer
Awards:
53rd Academy Awards - March 31, 1981
Best Supporting Actress - Diana Scarwid - Nominated
Todd's latest novel THE FARM AT THE EAST COVE HOTEL is now available from Amazon and good bookstores everywhere! And Todd's beloved novel GOOD WITH DOGS AND CATS: THE ADVENTURES OF HEALING WEINTRAUB and the sequel POOCHES AND KIDDIES: THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF HEALING WEINTRAUB are also available from Amazon and Audible! Todd’s latest CDs of original songs AHORA ENTRAS TU, THROUGH THE FIRE, LOUNGE ACT IN HEAVEN, and DREAM OF YOU, are available from Amazon and Apple Music. Todd's collection of short stories WHY YOU ARE HERE is available from Amazon along with OASIS TALES OF THE CONJUROR and LITTLE MOVIES. Todd's first novel, INSIDE MOVES, was published in 1978 by Doubleday and made into a motion picture in 1980. INSIDE MOVES, BUDDHA IN A TEACUP, RUBY & SPEAR, UNDER THE TABLE BOOKS, and LOUIE & WOMEN are available as audio books, and many of Todd's books are now available from Penguin Bantam books.
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