Manhood

I spent five of my adolescent years as an inmate at a state-operated boarding school for cripples, which I affectionately refer to as the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (SHIT). But there’s one day I fondly recall. It was the day I took a massive dump.

It was so massive, in fact, that it clogged one of the three toilets in the community shit room and it overflowed. They had to call in a plumber. The whole area was closed down like a crime scene.

I felt quite proud of myself. I wanted to immediately claim responsibility for this legendary dump because I thought doing so might make me cool. I might achieve a level of respect that I never experienced before. But a lot of adults were pissed off about the flooded toilet, like the janitor and the houseparents, which was the job title of the people who wiped our butts. So I just laid low and stayed anonymous, though it pained me greatly to keep quiet.

To me, this particular dump felt like a landmark accomplishment, a rite of passage. I wanted to brag about it because it made me feel like a man. And crippled boys didn’t get to feel that way very often, especially back in those days.

My mother always said one good way to measure a man was by his handshake. A strong, firm handshake makes a good first impression. It’s an indicator of a study, confident man. Well, that leaves me out, I said to myself. Shaking my crippled hand was like squeezing a dead bird.

Another way to measure a man was by the type of car he drove, according to a lot of what I saw in the movies and on television. If a man drove a slick sports car like a Corvette or a secret-agent car like an Aston-Martin or an expensive car like a Cadillac, women thought he was sexy. But the only car I would ever own would be a cripple van. There’s nothing sexy about a cripple van, I thought. And I would probably never drive my cripple van. I would always be a passenger. There’s nothing sexy about being a passenger either, unless he’s a rich guy with his own chauffeur.

You could measure a man by his athletic prowess, too, or by a whole bunch of other ways that rendered crippled boys screwed. So that’s probably why that dump was so special to me. Maybe I’d never measure up in all those other ways, but I could take a manly dump. Would women find that sexy? Sadly, I’d never find out.



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Sure Thing Cripples on Television

Back in college, my roommates and I entertained ourselves by getting stoned and watching Bowling for Dollars on TV. (Yes, we didn’t have girlfriends.)

Bowling for Dollars was broadcast from a bowling alley in St. Louis. The host was a game show host wannabe. He had all the qualifications—the immaculate coiffure, the gleaming smile, the demeanor of a glad-handing car salesman.

The contestants were local Joes and Janes. Bowl a strike and win $50. Etc.

There once was a crippled contestant. She walked with two metal crutches. She said she had cerebral palsy and was a member of the Handicapped Bowling League. The host told her she was courageous and inspirational and all that stuff. Then came her turn to bowl. She dropped one crutch and picked up a bowling ball.

My roommates and I knew exactly what was coming next. It was a sure thing. You could bet the house on it.

“Gutter balls!” we said.

The crippled girl flung the ball, flat-footed. Gutter ball left. Gutter ball right. But the audience applauded anyway. The host hugged her and said she was still courageous and inspirational and all that stuff. That was a sure thing, too.

And then recently I’m watching a segment from a British TV show that was spreading like a wildfire on the internet. It's one of those singing competitions and there was a contestant who had no hands. The host told him he was courageous and inspirational and all that stuff. The cripple sang the song Imagine and he nailed it. He held the mic with his two stubs and crooned like Crosby. The audience applauded wildly. Many were in tears.

And then the celebrity judges each had to decide whether this cripple would advance to the next round. I knew exactly what was coming next. It was a sure thing. I could bet the house on it.

Each judge said absolutely, positively, unequivocally yes! No shit! What celebrity would risk ruining their career by shooting down a no-handed singer who had triumphed against all odds?

But I was disappointed. I wish the crippled contestant hadn’t let the judges and audience off the hook so easy. Instead of singing so pretty, I wish he had wailed like a moose getting an enema. I bet the judges all would’ve given him thumbs up anyway, just because they felt sorry for him for not having hands and all. It would’ve been fascinating to see how many rounds this cripple would have advanced before some judge would have the balls to put a stop to it or the audience started throwing tomatoes.

I’d tune in every week to see that.



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MD + CP = CD

There was this U.S. Supreme Court case in 1927 called Buck versus Bell. It challenged a Virginia law that required the involuntary sterilization of certain cripples so they wouldn’t produce more grotesque versions of their twisted selves.

The esteemed Justices decided 8-1 that not only was it okay to sterilize cripples, it was a jolly good idea. Writing for the majority, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote, “We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Nowadays it’s pretty much impossible to find a cripple, or anybody else for that matter, who doesn’t think this ruling is Grade A bullshit. But I’m not so sure anymore. I look around me and I see so much of human society going to shit that I can’t help but wonder if it’s the result of horny cripples inbreeding.

Because among the many subspecies of cripples are the muscular dystrophies (MDs) and the cerebral palsies. (CPs) If you have muscular dystrophy, your muscles gradually atrophy. If you have cerebral palsy, a certain part of your brain is fucked up and that might make you walk and/or talk funny, if you can walk and/or talk at all.

So maybe after many decades of MDs and CPs fucking each other and mixing their polluted humors they have created a monstrous hybrid condition called cerebral dystrophy (CD)—which would be a gradual atrophying of the brain. The effects of CD could be devastating. For instance, if an arrogant rich fuck runs for president and tells all the broke-ass unemployed people that he is their best friend and savior, someone with CD might actually believe it and vote for him. And when that rich fuck becomes president and gets together with other rich fucks to steal all the money for themselves and their rich fuck pals, someone with CD might actually be surprised that happened.

This is the most logical explanation I can come up with for what has been going on.

I fear that I may have unwittingly contributed to this demise. I have muscular dystrophy and the odds are good that at some drunken cripple orgy somewhere along the line I fucked somebody with cerebral palsy. If so, I sincerely, profusely and profoundly apologize to everyone. If I only knew then what I know now.





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A Real Kick in the Balls

It’s a real kick in the balls when you feel like you’re being penalized for being different. (You don’t have to have balls to feel it.) Needless to say, cripples feel this way all the time. And I bet amputees are the subspecies of cripple that feel it most often. If a person with one leg goes to buy shoes, they are forced to buy a second shoe they will never need. The same goes for one-armed people buying gloves.

I mean what the fuck, eh? Shouldn’t amputees get shoe and or glove discounts? Or how about a tax break? Blind people get tax breaks just for being blind so why not?

As far as I know, the glorious free market has not responded to this injustice with a chain of specialty boutiques that sell shoes and gloves by the each. Historically, when the glorious free market doesn't give a shit about the piddly little troubles of certain groups of people, those people often take matters into their own hands. So probably some enterprising amputees have formed shopping clubs where, for instance, a guy missing his left arm goes shopping with a guy missing his right arm and they go halvsies on a pair of gloves.

At least people missing one leg get a chance to feel superior when they buy socks. Since you can wear a sock on either foot, a pair of socks lasts them twice as long. I bet the smuggest amputees of all are the ones who are missing all four limbs. They don’t have to be bothered with shopping for gloves or shoes at all. They can spend their time, money and energy on more important pursuits. They scoff at us sad little losers with the proper allotment of limbs who are slaves to our hands and feet. I bet quadruple amputees are insufferable to be around. That’s why they have no friends, except each other.

There’s a guy rolling around my neighborhood in a raggedy wheelchair and I call him the asymmetrical beggar. I call him that because he’s missing an arm and a leg on opposite sides and he panhandles. His life must really suck. Even if he joined the amputee shopping club, he’d have to hook up with someone missing a leg on one side to split a pair of shoes and then someone else missing an arm on the other side for gloves. Or he'd have to find an amputee who's his asymmetrical mirror image. What a pain in the ass!

One day the window of the 7-11 downstairs was boarded up. The guy with the patchy beard who panhandles outside 7-11 told me the asymmetrical beggar smashed the window in a fit of anger. “He dranks that gin and it makes him crazy,” the guy with the patchy beard said. “And he crazy anyway.”

I think the asymmetrical beggar just snapped. He was probably fed up with being kicked in the balls.




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