Brilliance and Luck

For millions of cripples like me, Stephen Hawking was an example of how even a really really crippled person can rise above all obstacles and achieve great notoriety, as long as they’re the smartest person in the whole fucking universe.

But actually, even that wasn’t enough. No one would have known or cared how smart he was if he hadn’t been lucky, too. He was lucky that he wasn’t born as crippled as he was, or else he would probably have been sent off to a place like the state-operated boarding school for cripples I attended, which I affectionately refer to as the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (SHIT). There were lots of kids there who couldn’t walk or talk or move much, like him. Nobody took them seriously. The staff gave them the basics— dress them, feed them, hose them down, place them in the TV room during idle hours.

None of his fellow inmates would’ve taken him seriously either. In fact, we would have avoided him. I know I would have. There were no big-time cripples like him in my clique, just like there were no cripples like me in the clique of the crippled jocks. In gym class, no one would have chosen him for their team. But eventually the staff would have compelled us to include him in our games. So I guess if the game was wheelchair soccer or hockey, we would’ve parked him in front of a net, called him a goalie and hoped for the best.

The teachers wouldn’t have taken him seriously either. He probably would’ve spent the day in a time-killing classroom learning about colors. No one ever would’ve ever suspected that a kid like him could be pondering the cosmos.

The doctors wouldn’t have taken him seriously either. They would’ve all said he’s going to die any minute now. Oh wait, the doctors said that about him anyway. Never mind.

And the social workers also wouldn’t have taken him seriously. Once he reached age 21 and could no longer stay at SHIT, they would have sent to a nursing home, where he would be fed and dressed and hosed down and placed in the TV room during idle hours.

But Stephen Hawking was a lucky man. By the time he became crippled, everybody already knew how fucking brilliant he was. So he could not be denied. Everyone had no choice but to take him seriously, whether they liked it or not.

Lucky for all of us it worked out that way. But too bad for those cripples who went to SHIT who weren’t the smartest person in the whole fucking universe. Or maybe they were. Who knows?


(Smart Ass Cripple is completely reader supported. Purchasing Smart Ass Cripple books at lulu.com, subscribing on Amazon Kindle and filling the tip jar keeps us going. Please help if you can.)

ANNOUNCING: Smart Ass Cripple's Little Chartreuse Book. A new Smart Ass Cripple book hot off the presses at lulu.com. It still has that new Smart Ass Cripple book smell. Get yours today! Help keep Smart Ass Cripple going!

If I Only had a Son

There are times when I really regret that I never had a son. I feel it most we I see one of those videos all over the internet where a high school football team lets a local crippled teenager score a touchdown.

You know how it goes. The kid usually has Down syndrome or autism or something like that. He’s the mascot or the water boy or something. And at the end of the game they give the kid the ball and the other team agrees not to tackle him and he runs for a touchdown while all the players on both teams escort him like a convoy of bodyguards. I’ve even seen it where the kid is in a motorized wheelchair. And the crippled kid is usually the brother or neighbor or whatever of a player and after the game that player says that’s what inspired him to arrange all this. He says he did it to bring the crippled kid joy and to make the important statement that cripples can do anything if they have enough determination, just like everybody else.

And whenever I see that I wish that just once just one player had the balls to treat that kid like a regular human being and tackle his ass. And that’s when I really wish I had a son. And I wish my son was a player on that field. Because I know no son of mine would ever patronize a crippled kid like that by letting him score a touchdown. I’d raise him better than that. He’d have enough respect for that kid to flatten him, even if he was on the same team. Or if the kid was in a motorized wheelchair, my son would sneak up behind him while he's barreling toward the end zone and flip the lever that disconnects the motors. Being my son, he’d know where that lever is.

And after the game, my son would say that his father is crippled and that’s what inspired him to tackle the kid or disconnect his motors. He’d say he did it to bring me joy and to make the important statement that not even a super determined cripple can do everything, just like everybody else.

I’d be so proud of him.



(Smart Ass Cripple is completely reader supported. Purchasing Smart Ass Cripple books at lulu.com, subscribing on Amazon Kindle and filling the tip jar keeps us going. Please help if you can.)

ANNOUNCING: Smart Ass Cripple's Little Chartreuse Book. A new Smart Ass Cripple book hot off the presses at lulu.com. It still has that new Smart Ass Cripple book smell. Get yours today! Help keep Smart Ass Cripple going!

Can Smart Ass Cripple be Rehabilitated?

Pretty much every cripple sooner or later deals with the Department of Rehabilitation. I know I have. But I wonder if I can be rehabilitated. Because in order to qualify to do business with the Department of Rehabilitation, must one necessarily have achieved a state of habilitation at some previous point in their life? Because it seems to me that to rehabilitate someone is to return them to habilitation. And if that’s the case, it makes me wonder if there was ever a point in my life when I was habilitated. And what event unhabilitated me so that I need rehabilitation?

So I looked up the various definitions of habilitate. One thing it means is to clothe or dress. Well if that’s the case, then yes, I am and have often been habilitated. In fact, I spend most of every day habilitated. The only time I’m not habilitated in that sense is when I bathe, sleep, take a dump and write my Smart Ass Cripple stuff. But I don’t think that’s the definition the Department of Rehabilitation applies.

Another definition is to fit or equip a mine for operation. Well, seeing as I’m not a mine, that probably doesn’t apply either.

But another definition is to make fit. Hmmm. So then rehabilitation would be to make fit again. So then the question is, was I ever fit in the first place? I think the premise that the Department of Rehabilitation must operate under is that all humans are fit until they become crippled, which then renders them unfit and in need of refitting. But in my case, the event that rendered me crippled was being born. So maybe the last time I was fit was in the womb. But maybe not even then. Because my crippledness is a genetic condition, which took effect the moment my mother’s egg was raped by my father’s sperm. So maybe I’ve been unfit since conception.

Don’t get me wrong. The Department of Rehabilitation has done right by me, in general. They paid for my college education. They pay the wages of the members of my pit crew who get me dressed every morning. So maybe I should go back to that first definition. Maybe when one of the guys puts clothes on me, he is returning me to my previous state of habilitation.

So maybe I can be rehabilitated after all.


(Smart Ass Cripple is completely reader supported. Purchasing Smart Ass Cripple books at lulu.com, subscribing on Amazon Kindle and filling the tip jar keeps us going. Please help if you can.)

ANNOUNCING: Smart Ass Cripple's Little Chartreuse Book. A new Smart Ass Cripple book hot off the presses at lulu.com. It still has that new Smart Ass Cripple book smell. Get yours today! Help keep Smart Ass Cripple going!

The Face of the Facially Disfigured

Mom was excited when she came home one day from her job with the federal government. She said a new janitor came in today to empty the office trash cans at the end of the day.

She recognized his face. She recognized it because it was scarred and smeared. She knew he just had to be the kid who attended that segregated elementary school for cripples with me in the 1960s. His name was Kareem Abdul Jabbar (smart ass cripple alias).

Legend had it that when Kareem Abdul Jabbar was a tiny kid, he was sitting in a car as some dumbass adult was smoking a cigarette while pumping gas. A fire broke out and the rest is history.

That was the only reason he was banished to the cripple school- because he has a disfigured face. There was nothing else crippled about him.

My mother said Kareem Abdul Jabbar was a very nice guy, very soft-spoken and mild-mannered. Mom said she felt happy for him that in spite of it all, he had the gumption to land on his feet.

But I wondered if Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s aspiration was to be a janitor on the night shift. Maybe so. But if not, I don’t know if he had much choice. Suppose he showed up at my mom’s office as an executive. A lot of people might’ve been uneasy with that. It’s one thing when a guy with a disfigured face takes out your trash. It’s quite another when you have to take orders from him. And if he was an executive, somebody would have inevitability grumbled about affirmative action. “He only got the job instead of me because of his face! Quotas! Reverse discrimination!” But nobody bitches about affirmative action when you’re a janitor.

And did Kareem Abdul Jabbar also aspire to be soft-spoken and mild-mannered? Again, I don’t know if he had much choice. Suppose he had a bent for flamboyance. Suppose he wore Hawaiian shirts that drew attention to him. Suppose he was opinionated. That would’ve been way too much for some people.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar was the face of the facially disfigured. He was their ambassador, if you will. And with that came tremendous responsibility. Don’t push it. Don’t overstep the unspoken bounds. Don’t blow it or they might not ever give another facially disfigured person a job. Mind your business. Do your job, efficiently and quietly.



(Smart Ass Cripple is completely reader supported. Purchasing Smart Ass Cripple books at lulu.com, subscribing on Amazon Kindle and filling the tip jar keeps us going. Please help if you can.)

ANNOUNCING: Smart Ass Cripple's Little Chartreuse Book. A new Smart Ass Cripple book hot off the presses at lulu.com. It still has that new Smart Ass Cripple book smell. Get yours today! Help keep Smart Ass Cripple going!

Before I was Invested

Ah yes, I remember back in the days before cripples like me were invested. What heady times those were! Like back in the 1970s, when I was still living in my mother’s house and there was no such thing as cripple-accessible public transportation, at least not in these parts. At one point there were big headlines about how the bus drivers and other public transit workers were threatening to go on strike. Everybody was all panicky, but I just sat back and laughed. Let ‘em strike ‘til they’re blue in the face, I gloated to myself. I’ll still get around just fine, thank you very much. I’ll still have my cripple van and my mother to drive it so screw all you all pathetic, interdependent suckers! Who’s the one getting left behind now? Ha!

But now I’m invested. The outside world isn’t the outside world anymore. I no longer live with mom and all the buses are accessible. So now a strike by transit workers would make me panicky as well because what if I want to go somewhere? Or what about the people who come get me in and out of bed? I call them my pit crew. If public transportation is shut down, how are they going to get to me? I’ll shrivel up and die!

Sometimes when I look out of the window and I feel dread because the weather is brutal as hell, like there’s an apocalyptic blizzard and it 900 below zero, I wonder how I’d feel if I was sealed away in some climate –controlled nursing home where it’s always 72 degrees, just like on Leave it to Beaver. I think it would be de ja vu. As I looked out of the window at those bundled-up losers, the exhilarating smugness would return at last! Don’t you frost-bitten sheep wish you could be like me, with nowhere to go, no one to see, nothing to do 24/7 except watch Columbo (where it’s always 72 degrees)? This is like Club Med!

But I’m invested. I’m not sealed away it a climate-controlled nursing home. So when I look out the window and the weather is brutal as hell, I get panicky because what if I want to go somewhere? Or what about the people who come get me in and out of bed? If there’s an apocalyptic blizzard and it’s 900 below zero, how are they going to get to me? I’ll shrivel up and die!

I am no longer sovereign and strong, immune from that which befuddles the masses. I’m invested.



(Smart Ass Cripple is completely reader supported. Purchasing Smart Ass Cripple books at lulu.com, subscribing on Amazon Kindle and filling the tip jar keeps us going. Please help if you can.)

ANNOUNCING: Smart Ass Cripple's Little Chartreuse Book. A new Smart Ass Cripple book hot off the presses at lulu.com. It still has that new Smart Ass Cripple book smell. Get yours today! Help keep Smart Ass Cripple going!

Ambush of the Cripple Paparazzi

The anchorman said to stay tuned for a story about a special young man who received a big surprise today when he met his favorite football player.

And when I heard that, I said to myself, “Oh shit! Cripple paparazzi ambush!”

The kid looked to be about age 12 or so. He didn’t look crippled but the reporter said he was dealing with some kind of quirky malady. There the kid was, going to the children’s hospital for what he thought was a medical appointment. But when he got there the place was crawling with reporters and TV cameras. And when the poor kid realized what was going on, he stood there with a twisted grin on his face like he walked into a surprise party with his fly wide open or like he got caught picking his nose on the jumbotron.

And I knew exactly how he felt. Most every crippled kid gets ambushed like this at some point. I still have nightmares about it-- business execs standing beside me holding a gigantic cardboard check while we all smile for the flashing cameras. I’m grinning that same grin.

And then someone asked the kid who his favorite football player was. And the kid said who his favorite football player was. And then someone asked if he’d like to meet his favorite football player. And the kid shrugged and said sure. And as the kid and his family were escorted to a bus, he was followed by a parade of reporters like he was some sort of Kardashian or something.

And the bus took everybody to the football stadium, where the kid met his favorite football player. And the football player gave the kid a jersey. And the afternoon surprise played out exactly according to plan, just in time for the evening news.

But I knew what that kid was thinking when I first saw that grin. He was thinking, “Oh my God! Where’s the nearest fire escape?” But then he felt the pressure. He saw the faces of the reporters and their crews, so full of hope and expectation. He couldn’t let them down, not to mention all their viewers. He couldn’t send them home without a story. So he marched ahead.

And when someone asked him if he wanted to meet his favorite football player, I knew what he was thinking then, too. He was thinking, “What if I say no?” The temptation to do so and thus pull the plug everything was probably delicious. But again he felt the pressure. A lot of people were counting on him to see this through, including his favorite football player. If he didn’t react according to plan, he’d ruin it for everybody. To not consent would be like leaving them with blue balls.

So he marched ahead.



(Smart Ass Cripple is completely reader supported. Purchasing Smart Ass Cripple books at lulu.com, subscribing on Amazon Kindle and filling the tip jar keeps us going. Please help if you can.)

ANNOUNCING: Smart Ass Cripple's Little Chartreuse Book. A new Smart Ass Cripple book hot off the presses at lulu.com. It still has that new Smart Ass Cripple book smell. Get yours today! Help keep Smart Ass Cripple going!

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.



(Smart Ass Cripple is completely reader supported. Purchasing Smart Ass Cripple books at lulu.com, subscribing on Amazon Kindle and filling the tip jar keeps us going. Please help if you can.)

ANNOUNCING: Smart Ass Cripple's Little Chartreuse Book. A new Smart Ass Cripple book hot off the presses at lulu.com. It still has that new Smart Ass Cripple book smell. Get yours today! Help keep Smart Ass Cripple going!