Branded

I live in constant fear that someday I will lose my pit crew. Those are the people I hire to drag my ass out of bed every day, make my meals, do my laundry, scrub my toilet, wipe my butt, etc. The state pays their wages. And we all know what the legislature giveth the legislature can just as easily taketh away, especially these days when they’re privatizing the everlovin' hell out of everything.

If that ever happens, in order to meet payroll by my own devices, I will probably have no choice but to do something that is against all my moral and political principles. I’ll have to either 1) turn tricks or 2) wear a t-shirt with a corporate product brand on the front.

To me, wearing a Budweiser shirt or McDonald’s boxer shorts makes the following fashion statement: “I’m a chump.” I’m paying a humongous corporation to advertise their product. Pretty good scam they’ve got going on there. If I was the Super Bowl, I could charge them 1.5 skillion bucks to flash their silly little brand for 30 seconds.

But if cripples are left to throw ourselves at the mercy of the Fortune 500 to fund our butt wiping escapades, these shrewd capitalists will seize the opportunity to traffic in the seedy business of human billboards. Cripples like me will be assigned a corporate sugar daddy to pay for our pit crew and in exchange we will have to wear a shirt emblazoned with one of their brands everywhere we go. And we’ll have to hang around whatever strategic locations the corporations send us to reach the target demographic. Like for instance, if you’re wearing a Viagra shirt, you’ll have to hang around golf tournaments.

It might not be so bad, especially if I end up with a brand that makes me look cool, like Jack Daniels or Harley Davidson. It might even turn out to be my dream job. My dream job has always been whatever the easiest job in the world is at the time. Right now it seems like the easiest job in the world is sign holder. But human billboard would surpass that as the easiest job in the world. You don’t even have to exert the effort it takes to hold a sign. You are the sign. It’s the perfect job for cripples.  Even the comatose can do it.

But it could also be a nightmare. I don’ think cripples will have any say over which corporation adopts and brands us. So it will be a real crap shoot and I could be sentenced to a life of wearing an embarrassing brand that turns me into a laughingstock, like American Girl or the New York Mets. And there’s no possibility of parole. Branded cripples will be like branded cattle. There’s no turning back.

So maybe I should be proactive and issue what the bureaucrats call an RFP (request for proposal). I’ll auction off the advertising expanse of my chest and see if I can get a corporate bidding war going.

I shouldn’t allow myself to take part in such a degrading practice as becoming a human billboard. I have to salvage at least some of my pride. So I think I’ll just turn tricks.

Street Crimes

I don’t know if cripples are more susceptible to street crime or not. All I know is I’ve been a victim of a street crime twice. And the second instance was far more traumatizing than the first.

The first might technically be categorized as a zoo crime by those who keep crime statistics. I was at the zoo with my late wife, Anna. We were checking out the Birds of Prey exhibit. I felt someone bump hard against my wheelchair and then a loud voice said, “EXCUUUUUUUUUUSE ME!”

At the time I had a leather tool bag hanging on the side of my chair, the kind people who work with tools hang on their belts. It was a good receptacle for the things I carried around, like pens and writing pads and a comb and gum and stuff like that.

On this day I got careless and tossed a five-dollar bill in there and there it was as plain as day. A male hand reached in and snatched it. Why he felt obliged to politely and loudly excuse himself before stealing from me I don’t know.

The guy took off running. Being that it was only five bucks, I should have just let it go. But when these things happen, you don’t think straight. You feel so insulted and violated.

So I screamed, “STOP HIM! HE TOOK MY MONEY!! And it just so happened there were two nearby guys who must’ve been professional linebackers because they were big and they were fast. They ran after the perpetrator and were closing in fast when he threw down my money, held up his hands to show they were empty, and ran off. One of the linebackers picked up the five, looked at it and then looked at me with a combination of bewilderment, irritation and pity. All that for a lousy five bucks? The way I was screaming like a little girl with her ponytail caught in the car door, you’d think that guy had snatched the Hope Diamond from my tool bag.

The linebacker returned my recovered funds. The end.

The second street crime occurred in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It unfolded in much the same way, except this was more like an assault.

Our hotel doorman warned Anna to hold on tight to her purse since Bourbon Street is infested with pickpockets and snatchers. So Anna stuffed her purse up under her legs and literally sat on it in her wheelchair.

We rolled down Bourbon Street. A man ran toward us through the crowd. We knew we were his target. It all happened so fast, yet it seemed to happen in slow motion. The man reached toward Anna and we were horrified when we saw what he had in his hand! It was a five-dollar bill! He dropped it in Anna’s lap and took off running.

This heinous crime occurs every day somewhere, but it only happens to cripples so nobody keeps statistics on it.  You’re sitting minding your own business when somebody suddenly drops a buck or two in your lap or some change in your coffee cup. They strike without warning. And before you can say, “Hey, I’m not a beggar, dammit!” they’re gone. And the pain of your victimization is accentuated by the fact that it’s always such a pissy little amount of money. Like scoring some spare change is supposed to make your day!  I’m not saying I’m so pure that I don’t have a price. Maybe if someone dropped three or four grand in my lap, I wouldn’t bitch. I’d swallow my pride for the greater good. But the problem is, no one has ever remotely put me to the test. It’s always a pissy little insulting amount.  I’m hoping someone someday will present me with a real moral challenge.

Being that it was only five bucks, I should have just let it go that night on Bourbon Street. But when these things happen, you don’t think straight. You feel so insulted and violated.

So I screamed “STOP HIM! HE GAVE US MONEY!!” But there were no linebackers this time. The perpetrator disappeared into the crowd.

I still haven’t recovered. I know that sicko is probably still out there somewhere, lurking, biding his time, waiting to similarly assault another unsuspecting cripple.

Ask Smart Ass Cripple Volume IV

 The best of the inbox:

Dear SAC,

What was your proudest moment as a cripple?

Warmly,

WPL

Dear W,

My proudest moment as a cripple happened when I was in the office of the dentist who removed all four of my wisdom teeth at once.
 

The dentist leaned down to lift the armrest of his cushy torture chair so I could park my motorized wheelchair smack up against it and he could help me transfer over.  But as I backed my chair into place I heard from behind me a man bellow in pain.

“Ow!! SONUVABIIIIIIITCH!” And then the dentist darted out from behind me, flapping and squeezing his hand and doubling over like he’d smashed his fingers with a hammer.

“Sonuvabitch that hurt!”

It seemed that when I backed in I accidentally mashed his fingers between my tire and his torture chair.  Watching him hop around in pain, I realized I was living the fantasy of millions by putting the hurt on the dentist. I felt especially gratified when, as I later left his office,  there was no one in the waiting room, not even the receptionist.   I pictured  a pack of patients hearing “Sonuvabitch that hurt”coming from the torture room and shooting out of there like the place was on fire, even the receptionist.

Never have I felt more powerful!

Dear Smart Ass,

There's something I'm dying to know. How do blind people keep from brushing their teeth with Preparation H? How do they tell one tube from the next? You're the closest thing I know to a blind person so I thought I'd ask you.

Please help.

Sincerely,

Man with Sight

Dear Man with Sight,

Wow, it’s like you can read my mind! I’ve been dying to know the answer to that exact question since I was a wee tot, but always was afraid to ask.

When I ponder this question my mind runs wild with speculation:  Maybe guide dogs are trained to help along these lines—one bark for toothpaste, two barks for Preparation H, three barks for rubber cement. I mean, why not? As dogs go, guide dogs are fucking geniuses.

By stepping forward and asking this question, you gave me the courage to finally do the same, since if blind people call me an insensitive ignoramus I can blame it on you. I sent your question to several blind people. I received this response from Mr. Lynn Manning of Los Angeles, California, which I assume is the official reply on behalf of all blind people everywhere.

The esteemed Mr. Manning writes: “If you can't smell the difference between Prep H and toothpaste, you've got more than a problem with your eyes.”

               -- Blind Man with Nose

Dear Smart Ass Cripple,

I’m delighted to see that you are now the official site of bitter cripples. At last I feel as if I’ve found a home!

But the problem is, whereas I feel like a bitter cripple and enjoy the camaraderie of bitter cripples, I am not now nor have I ever been crippled.

Can I call myself a bitter cripple? Please say yes!

With admiration,

Bitter Cripple Wannabe

Dear Wannabe,

The term bitter cripple does not refer to a physical condition. It is, rather, an advanced state of consciousness. It is an exquisitely indefinable stage of enlightenment that is attained by freeing one’s self from the tyranny of bull shit.

A bitter cripple, essentially, is a cripple who is pissed off about how cripples are treated. There is no single path to becoming a bitter cripple. I view achieving enlightenment (religious or otherwise) in the same way I view achieving orgasm. Who cares how you get there, just so you get there.

However, to truly understand what it means to be a bitter cripple in all its many dimensions, one must actually be crippled. But the good news is the enlightened uncrippled like you can become honorary bitter cripples. All you have to do is convince an actual bitter cripple to bestow that title upon you.

I must warn you though that even being an honorary bitter cripple is a lot of work. Bitter cripples and our allies are on the frontlines of the ongoing War on Bull Shit. The allure of bull shit is relentless. It’s always trying to win you back, always trying to convince you that you shouldn’t be so upset so much. Bull shit wears many disguises. You must be vigilant.

It's much easier to just give up and be a sweet cripple or, even worse, a bittersweet cripple. Being a bitter cripple is a lifelong commitment. It can really wear you down. I hope in my lifetime the forces of bull shit will be vanquished to the point where I can ease up a little and retire to the status of bitter cripple emeritus.

Life Lessons Learned at SHIT

I don’t mean to give the impression that I didn’t learn a damn thing during my five years as an adolescent inmate at the state-operated boarding school for cripples, aka the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (SHIT). Of course I learned life lessons there that I remember today. Here are two off the top of my head:

Life lesson 1: Not all penises are alike. The only penis I ever saw in person up until I was about age 13 was the one belonging to yours truly. But then this kid in a wheelchair lined up next to me by the urinals in the boys’ room and I couldn’t help but notice there was something terribly wrong with his. It was wrapped in a husk or something. It looked like it was wearing a flesh-colored scuba driver suit. I didn’t know that for a penis to look like mine required surgical intervention. I mean, my family wasn’t Jewish or anything so we didn’t make a big deal about it.

And so I wondered if this kid had been sent away to SHIT for a deeper, darker, unspoken reason. Was this the real freak feature for which he was being banished and the wheelchair was just secondary?  It reminded me of how I felt about this kid who rode the special bus with me a few years earlier when I went to the public elementary school for cripples. His name was Fabio (Smart Ass Cripple Alias). He walked with a walker and he looked just like Babe Ruth. He had a turned up nose and pudgy cheeks like Babe Ruth. Whenever the special bus went to Fabio’s house his dad came out to meet him. And dad looked like Babe Ruth, too. And one day Fabio’s baby sister came out with dad and she looked like Babe Ruth, too. And one day Fabio’s mother came out with dad and baby sister and even she looked like Babe Ruth!

Seeing Fabio’s live, animated family portrait jarred me as a young boy because I wondered if this was a real live case of that hillbilly inbreeding stuff adults whispered about in the darkest tones. I always assumed Fabio was sent to the cripple school because he walked with a walker. But now I wondered if his “primary diagnosis” was that his whole family looked like Babe Ruth.  But maybe it wasn’t necessarily what everybody automatically assumed. Maybe Fabio’s parents met at a support group for people who get dealt a lot of shit because they look like Babe Ruth and they fell in love and got married. Or something like that.

But anyway, because of the episode in the SHIT boys' room, I soon learned something new about penises and, most importantly, about myself.

Life lesson 2: Don’t pretend you know about something when you don’t, especially when it’s chitlins. One day Miss Etta, one of the houseparents, announced that on Saturday night, she would bring in a batch of chitlins and cook them up as a treat for any inmate who wanted some.  She asked for a show of hands so she’d know how much chitlins to cook. All the cool kids waved their hands. So I waved my hand. I just looooooooooooooove them chitlins, I said. Everybody was surprised that a pimply white kid could be so worldly.  But really I didn’t know a damn thing about chitlins. I just knew they were some exotic food that cool people ate.

On Saturday night there was a horrid smell coming from the kitchen. It smelled like someone boiling raw sewage. And there was Miss Etta standing over the stove and stirring a pot. She smiled and gave me a big thumbs up. I was seized with regret. What had I gotten myself into with my big show-off mouth?

 Miss Etta served up the chitlins. The cool kids gathered around.  There was no turning back now. I’d already proudly proclaimed myself a chitlins aficionado. I couldn’t bare the shame of exposing myself as a fraud.  And there were no dogs around to slip my chitlins to on the sly. So I ate. I had no choice.  And they tasted like they smelled. And I told Miss Etta they were the best I ever had.

A Perfect People Magazine Death

I hope to hell I’m never terminally ill. I can’t think of anything that would suck worse than that.

I'll be the whiniest, most obnoxious, most bitter and demanding and unlovable terminally ill sonuvabitch that ever lived.  By the time it’s all over, I won’t have a single friend left. One of my hospice workers will probably get pissed and strangle me. You won’t see me on the cover of People magazine if I’m terminally ill because in order to make the cover of People magazine you have to die with dignity and grace.  Screw that. If death is sadistically unleashing a tidal wave of pain on me, I’m sure as hell not gonna sit there and be gracious about it. Who the hell made that rule up? Probably not somebody who was terminally ill. The only way I’ll die with grace is if there’s a woman dying next to me named Grace. The only way the word noble will be associated with my death is if her name is Grace Noble.

I know I couldn’t be all stoic and strong in the face of death even if I wanted to because I hate pain. I’m such a fucking baby when it comes to pain. I’ll do anything to avoid it. I used to see this grief counselor named Frank. Frank was super cool but he always told me I should “walk into” pain. When he said that, it made me think of the outhouse on my grandma’s farm. I have warm childhood memories of shitting in that outhouse. Grandma had a perfectly fine  and functional bathroom in her house but for some reason her husband always went out to shit in the outhouse, even if there was a foot of snow. So when we visited, I really looked forward to going out there with him and shitting like a real man! It was so cool. There was even a girly picture centerfold tacked up on the back of the outhouse door. And it was especially cool to shit in cold weather because the shit steamed.

But I was also afraid of going to the outhouse because I feared I could easily fall down the hole into the bottomless quicksand pit of waste below. The hole was man-sized and I was just a boy. Walking into pain, it seemed to me, would be like willfully jumping down into that hole just for the fullness of the experience. Thanks but no.  I ‘m more comfortable executing a purely defensive strategy of avoiding falling down the hole in the first place.

If I was terminally ill, I would probably be insanely jealous of the healthy. Because when I was an inmate at the state-operated boarding school for crippled children, aka the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (SHIT), I was jealous of the free. I envied the employees, the visitors, the delivery guys. I envied anyone who could just walk out the front door with no pass, no doctor’s permission, no escort, no questions asked.  Consequently, I signed up for any lame-ass field trip opportunity that came along just to get the hell out of there. I must’ve seen “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” and “Up With People” on stage 50 damn times, though it was probably just once.

That’s the kind of crazy shit jealousy will drive a person to do.  So God knows what I’ll be like if I’m terminally ill. But I know myself well enough to confidently predict that I’ll be a real douche bag. So you should start thinking up polite excuses to avoid me, just in case.

When Cripples Get Arrested

Some people think I’m a badass because I’ve been arrested a bunch of times for protesting. But I don’t know. 

My friend Ed, now he’s a badass. He sometimes introduces himself as Ed of the Chicago 15. That’s because in the 1960s, during the Vietnam War, he and 14 others broke into a draft office in Chicago, seized the draft records, took them out in the alley and burned them. They were arrested and tried. Ed not only spent 18 months in federal prison, but the prison was in northern Minnesota! American Siberia, eh?

Ed is a badass. And he has a bunch of badass friends. I know they’re badasses because they too have a city and number after their names: Pete of the New York 9; Sally of the Chattanooga 12. That means they all did something politically badass, like chain themselves to a nuclear warhead, and stood trial for it.

I don’t have a city and number after my name. When crippled protestors get arrested, it ain’t the same. Just last month I witnessed about 40 crippled protestors get arrested right outside the White House. Now back in the good old days it was easy. Any old mope with a beef and handcuffs could walk right up to the White House gate, lock himself to it and get arrested. No questions asked. But now they’ve erected a “security perimeter” around the White House. There’s a line of yellow DO NOT CROSS police tape stretched from tree to tree across the street and it runs about a half block around in all directions.  Cross that line and it’s prison in northern Minnesota for you, pal!

Well these 40 cripples crashed through the tape like runners at the finish line when the cops weren’t looking and they got all the way up to the White House gate and whipped out the handcuffs. At first the cops were furious. They wrestled down all the verts (which is short for verticals, which is slang for people who walk). The cops huddled. How should they handle these disobedient cripples? They broke huddle. An ominous van pulled up. It said Department of Homeland Security on the side. Uh oh! Could this be the infamous Dick Cheney Torture-Mobile?  The cops opened the back doors of the van. They took out a folding table and chairs and set them up on the street. They lined the cripples up, wrote them tickets and let them go. Catch and release, like a fishing outing for pacifists.

Now suppose 40 verts brazenly crashed the White House “security perimeter” like that. First they would have been tasered then bound and gagged with duct tape and hauled off to Guantanamo, never to be seen again. But cripples get tickets, like common jay walkers, because tasering cripples don’t look so good. It plays right into their hands. Plus, hauling off 40 cripples is a pain in the ass. Cops can just fling 40 verts into a paddy wagon. But for 40 cripples you need a fleet of school buses with wheelchair lifts.  And it takes about 20 hours to transport them all. So the cops say screw it.

So about all I have to show for all my arrests is a bunch of carbon copies of tickets. I suppose that’s a good thing. Spending 18 months in prison in northern Minnesota probably isn’t nearly as glamorous as it sounds.

Untitled or What if I Was Just Another Standard White Kid in the Neighborhood?

Sometimes I wonder what terrible tragedies might have befallen me if, by some cruel twist of fate, I wasn’t born crippled.

It gives me a cold chill to think about it. What if I was just another standard white kid in the neighborhood? Somebody might have made me take accordion lessons. The first time it really hit me how lucky I was to be crippled was when I fully comprehended what it means to have to take accordion lessons. Those poor kids always looked so bitter and forlorn. I often wonder what became of them.  Whenever a story pops up in the news about an ax murderer, I wonder if it’s one of them.

I felt such pity for those kids because they weren’t nearly as fortunate as I was. When you’re a criplet, nobody makes you take accordion lessons. And that wasn’t the only time I felt like counting my blessings. For the most part, being a criplet got me out of going to church, too. So I didn’t have to live if fear that someone might make me try out to be an altar boy. Have you ever seen an altar boy in a wheelchair? Or a blind altar boy being led around by a guide dog?

And later, in high school and college, I felt the full glory of my cripple privilege. All the uncrippled mopes jumped through hoops and twisted into contortions to avoid being drafted into the military. But because I was crippled I didn’t have to run off to Canada or pretend I was gay. I had an automatic exemption. All I had to do was stay crippled. I was the only guy I knew who wished real hard he would receive a draft notice. I wanted to report to the draft office with my notice and my crippled ass, just for a laugh.

Yep, and being crippled also saved me from the becoming a jock. That’s the kind of crowd I would’ve hung out with. And I would’ve been the kind of jock that looks down hardest on cripples. Actually, I would’ve been worse than a jock. I would’ve been a failed jock, reliving my high school glory days as a second string kick holder and waiting for my big break. I’d be living in a shabby attic, getting stoned, watching tons of daytime television and wondering what God has planned for me. And someday I would come to the realization that living in a shabby attic, getting stoned and watching tons of daytime television IS what God has planned for me.

I try to remember all this when some uncrippled people act like they do sometimes around cripples. When they act all superior or patronizing or freaked out or put upon or jittery or whatever, I try to give them a break. I remind myself that the uncrippled are under a lot of pressure in this world and sometimes my presence makes it worse.  They see how easy I’ve had it and they feel jealous.

I understand. So I pat them on the head and move on.