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GREENSBORO

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The plastic tip of a slim, metal rod strikes the keyboard.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The rod is connected to a helmet that rests on a young man’s head.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

And slowly, something is taking shape on the screen. A Web site.

* * *

The first thing you notice when you enter Carl Haislip’s room is that he might be the biggest Philadelphia Eagles fan in the world.

The place is covered with Eagles paraphernalia. It’s on the bed, on the walls, on Haislip.

The allegiance came naturally. He grew up in Philly before moving to North Carolina as a teenager.

“If you ever cut me, I bleed green,” he says.

Even his computer, which sits on the floor by the window, is green.

That’s where the 33-year-old works his magic on Web sites, including one for the Bell House, where he lives with 21 other adults with serious physical disabilities.

The blue gymnastics mat on the floor creates a place where cerebral palsy can’t stop him from doing what he wants.

He’s been into computers since he was a kid, working his way through the intricacies of DOS on an old 386.

“Messing it up,” he says. “That’s the way you learn.”

Graphics. Games. Homework. He did it all on the computer.

Then a friend wanted to build a Web page. The idea captured Haislip’s imagination.

“I went online and looked at every guide I could find,” he said.

His first site was for a nonprofit called “Virtual Buddies,” a group that helped North Carolinians with disabilities connect with others. Since then, he’s created others. He also volunteers at a local nonprofit.

It’s not always easy. Haislip has both spastic and athetoid cerebral palsy, which causes both sudden and constant movement and affects his speech.

Even though he seems to relax when on the computer, his work still involves constant motion from much of his body.

“Now you know why I’m skinny,” he jokes.

* * *

Norah Haislip knew her son had talent early on.

Before he got his first computer, he used an electric typewriter.

“He would draw pictures on it, on the typewriter. It was kind of amazing,” she said.

He created them all with strategic use of the “S” key.

“He wore that one key out,” Norah Haislip recalls.

He switched to computers and became an expert.

But growing up was tough, particularly after they moved from Philadelphia to rural North Carolina, and he was placed in a mainstream class with the rest of the students. That had its good points, but it also meant he often found himself left out.

“He had nobody like him,” his mother says. “As much as they liked him, they weren’t going to just drive up to the house and say, 'Come on, let’s go to McDonald’s.’ I know that made him miserable.

“But he dealt with it. He always dealt with it.”

After school, he spent all his time at home, never leaving the house. Though he had friends online, the isolation began to take a toll.

He wondered what would become of him if something happened to his mom and dad. Some days, he thought about going back to Philly.

It was time to leave.

* * *

More than a decade ago, Haislip came up with a plan. He’d heard about Bell House. He decided it was time to head out on his own.

“It was his golden opportunity to get out of here,” Norah Haislip says.

He applied and waited. And waited.

It would be eight years before the call came. That was four years ago. He was ready. So he packed up his computer and his Eagles gear and moved to Greensboro.

And life changed.

He can hang out with friends, go to Target or Walmart.

He can form long-term relationships, although sometimes the social atmosphere takes on the slightly claustrophobic air of a freshman dormitory.

“I know them too well,” he jokes. “It’s a small building.”

He can catch the bus to get where he wants to go. Sometimes, that surprises people.

During a trip to CompUSA one day, some of the employees wondered what he was doing as he browsed in his motorized wheelchair. They asked who was with him.

“And I said, 'Nobody,’” he says.

Haislip explained he needed to exchange a hub for a wireless network adapter. And then, with a sales rep, there was understanding.

“He knew my language,” Haislip says.

* * *

Living in Bell House meant new worlds opened.

He likes to hang out with his girlfriend, who lives across the hall on the second floor.

They’re both big football fans, but they don’t watch games together — she’s a Cowboys fan, complete with a Tony Romo poster on her door.

“If we did, we would hate each other,” Haislip says.

A few years ago, Haislip was looking for volunteer work when he heard about the HandyCapable Network, a nonprofit that takes donated computers, refurbishes them and provides them to low-income families.

Technicians with various disabilities perform the work, which involves wiping the hard drives, installing new programs and generally ensuring that they work well.

One day, Haislip paid them a visit. He loved the idea of working with computers and making them accessible to those who otherwise might not have one. He knew he wanted to work there.

But there was a catch.

He told the group’s director he would need to work on the floor, explaining that it was easier for him to use the computer on a mat, rather than in the wheelchair.

He worried they might not let him do that, might see it as a liability.

“She told me no problem, and I thought I was in heaven,” he says.

* * *

On a recent morning at Bell House, Haislip pilots his chair out the door using head motions. Green jacket on backward over his arms, he motors into the parking lot, lunch hanging from the back of his chair. He boards the SCAT bus.

Once at work, he lies down on the mat on the painted concrete floor.

Time for work. It takes a few moments for him to get turned the right way on the mat, the computer just the right length away.

Helmet on, he begins the painstaking job, the pointer clicking across the keys.

Instead of a mouse, he uses the number pad to navigate the screen; arrows for movement, No. 5 for the click.

As he works, his hands clench in fists, arms close to his side.

His body movements on the mat are sudden, but his touch with the pointer is precise and controlled.

The work alternates from setting up programs to waiting for them to load, the green bars slowly creeping across the screen.

As he waits, he cleans icons off the desktop.

After a lunch of a barbecue sandwich from Bell House, he lays back down with a groan. It’s painful sometimes.

Finally, he goes through a checklist, making sure everything is installed properly.

He types in a number for the computer — this one is 2,755, the number HandyCapable has refurbished so far — and puts his name in as the technician who did the work: Carl.

“I’m done,” he says. Grinning.

* * *

Haislip has plans.

He’s thinking about going to community college to get a certificate. Maybe that could lead to a paid position somewhere.

He talked to someone at GTCC, but right now, there are obstacles. His only option would be to take courses online, because otherwise he would need someone to go with him, and that’s not possible.

But those who know him have zero doubt that he will reach whatever goal he sets.

“He’s just extremely determined, and he knows that’s the way to get it done,” says Carrie Cummings, Bell House’s director of support services. “He’s never done it any other way.”

Haislip knows reaching all his dreams won’t be easy.

He also knows that not reaching for those dreams is not an option.

“I talk to a lot of people who are very depressed about having a disability,” he says. “I tell them, 'you’ve got to make the best of what God gave you.’”

Tap. Tap. Tap.