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.

Busted by a Dog

My friends the Brices, who live in Maryland, let my crew and me spend the night in the guest room in their basement. In the morning, their happy dog bounced in and greeted everyone, tail wagging. He looked like an animated mop. But the dog saw me sitting in my wheelchair and he instantly transformed into a snarling, insane monster. His bark was that shrill yap that makes you jump out of your skin if you don't see it coming, like stepping on a squeak toy in the dark.

It’s a good thing Marian Brice was there to hold the dog back or he might have torn my face off.  “He thinks you’re a vacuum cleaner!” she laughed. The vacuum cleaner, she said, is this dog’s self-declared archenemy and nemesis. It brings out the beast in him. He attacks it. She wrestled the furious, snapping hellhound out the room.

But it shook me up good for the whole day. It wasn’t so much that I nearly got mauled to shreds in a case of mistaken identity. It was more the sudden, psychologically humbling effect of being busted by a dog. It again reminded me that no matter how hard you try to rise above it all and play the role of the independent, self-sufficient, overcoming cripple, sooner or later something happens to make it clear that on some inescapable, primal level you’re still a cripple after all. And you always will be.

You can never dodge all the slings and arrows that come with crippledom, unless you hide under your bed. The rich cripples try to buy their crippledness away. They know that the best insulation from the cold realities of being crippled is a thick layer of money. If you can pay cash for your wheelchairs and equipment, you'll never have to flagellate yourself at the feet of a bureaucrat. If you can hire enough goons to carry you around, even the Taj Mahal is accessible. You can go everywhere and do everything just like the uncrippled. You can buy total acceptance. But inevitably, regardless of who you are, you’ll be put in your place.  A cab driver will see your wheelchair and blow past you. A passerby will drop change in your lap. A waitress will ask your date what you want to eat. And you suddenly remember where you came from.

I suppose these encounters are good for us in the long run. They keep us from getting too big for our wheelchairs.

That same day the mop dog nearly killed me I went to the FDR memorial in Washington. Now if there ever was a cripple who could totally leave behind his crippledness and every indignity that accompanies it, surely it was him. He had everything the independent, self-sufficient, overcoming cripple needs. Not only was he rich but also he had a loyal, well-paid crew of servants and luxury housing all provided at public expense.

 But at the feet of a sculpture of Roosevelt was a sculpture of his beloved Scottie dog, Fala. And so I wondered what happened when Fala first saw Roosevelt in his makeshift wheelchair? Did he bark frantically like some dogs do when they see wheeled vehicles? Did the upstart canine treat the president of the United States like a common vacuum cleaner?

My morning dog showdown reran through my head. But this time the cripple was Roosevelt instead of me and the dog was Fala. The setting was the oval office and restraining the dog, instead of Marian Brice, was a secret service agent. I was mucho amused.

I doubt that this happened but I like to imagine it did. I like to imagine Roosevelt could still relate to cripples like me.

The Latest Research on Crippled Bees

Wow! More groundbreaking cripple research has come out of the renown Department of Cripple Research at John Hopkin’s University. You may recall, as previously reported exclusively here in Smart Ass Cripple, these same researchers studied the DNA of millions of cripples and proved scientifically that the reason people are crippled is because God is punishing them for something evil they did in a previous life. (See Evil Bastards All, August 19, 2011).

Well for their latest project, these researchers crippled up a bunch of bees by giving them spinal cord injuries. (Bees have spinal cords? Who knew?) And then these crippled bees were put back into their colonies. And the scientists learned from observing the bees that bee society treated the crippled bees in the same way that human society treats their cripples. (Pay attention. You won’t hear about this in the corporate media.)

The crippled bees were outcasts. They couldn’t get jobs and they couldn’t get laid. And that made the crippled bees very depressed.  Because bees, like humans, have two main functions: they work and they screw. But the crippled bees were considered by the other bees to be incapable of performing either function. 

The bee caste system isn’t so bad if you’re born a drone because your job is to screw the queen and die. But it’s really fucked up if you’re born a worker bee because all you do is bust your ass all day.

Well the queens didn’t want to screw the crippled drones. They just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. The queens said they loved the crippled drones, but not in a sexual way. They loved them more like a brother. And the worker bees shunned the crippled worker bees altogether. They said they had a lot of work to do and they didn’t have time to stop and wait for the crippled worker bees to catch up.

Soon, as you would suspect, the presence of cripples drove the orderly, organized colony into a state of unrest. The worker bees became resentful because they had too much work to do in the first place and now they had to take care of a bunch of cripples on top of it. And the crippled drones were growing more and more ornery because they weren’t getting laid, which meant they had no purpose in life. Who among us can’t relate to that?

But here’s the most amazing thing the researchers observed: The uncrippled bees were so confused about what to make of these crippled bees and where their rightful place in bee society should be, that in an act of sheer desperation they did something truly unbelievable. They organized a telethon! Some uncrippled bees convinced the others that if everybody hustled up enough money all the crippled bees would be cured and then there wouldn’t be any cripples anymore and everything would be neat and orderly like God intended.

Of course, the telethon idea didn’t work. It raised a ton of money but all the crippled bees are still crippled. And the rest of the bees still don’t know what to do with them. For now, all the uncrippled bees are just going about their business, secretly hoping that if they ignore they crippled bees long enough, they’ll all just quietly go away.

Vassar Clements Sure Didn’t Know Much About Cripples

Vassar Clements was a kick-ass bluegrass fiddle player. He played with such strength and vigor it’s a wonder his fiddle never burst into flames. And he was versatile as all hell. They called him the father of “hillbilly jazz” because his rich brand of bluegrass often crossed way over into the realm of jazz.

But he sure didn’t know much about cripples. I figured this out shortly after I talked to him backstage after one of his concerts. Cripples are big time backstage crashers.  The security goons are quick to unhook the velvet barricades when sad looking cripples come by, especially in a big group. My cripple credentials have gotten me backstage to meet, among others, Jim Croce, Marie Osmond (don’t ask) and Itzhak Perlman.

So if you want to get backstage to meet your favorite performer, fake like you’re a cripple.  I went with a pack of friends once to see Arlo Guthrie at Ravinia, this outdoor venue where you can picnic in the grass and listen to live music. So some of my friends picked me up out of my wheelchair and put me on a blanket on the grass. And later on, Loretta Martin takes off with my chair. And the concert ends and the security guys are telling me it’s time to go. I tell them someone took off with my wheelchair but they don’t believe me. I guess they think I’m drunk or something. They’re threatening to call the cops. I’m freaking out. Finally, Loretta returns with my chair, triumphant. She says she used it to get backstage to meet Arlo. She got his autograph on a playing card.

I was with my college roommate, Mike Bachstein, when we crashed backstage to meet Vassar. One of us said something brilliant to him like “nice fiddle” to which he replied “thanks.”  Vassar said the fiddle was 400 years old. Then he said, “You want to see it?” And he handed the fiddle to Bachstein. Now Bachstein had cerebral palsy so he was all spastic and shit. And the more that spastic people try  to be cool under pressure and not spaz out, the more they spaz out.  One time Bachstein’s power wheelchair broke down so the repair shop gave him a loaner. Bachstein had enough trouble driving his own chair straight, let alone a strange chair. So he managed to drive this chair to a building for class and inside there was a charity bake sale set up in the hall so nice and pretty. Bachstein said to himself, “Oh shit. I’ve got to concentrate real hard when I drive past that bake sale so I don’t spaz out and crash into it and wipe the whole thing out!” And when Bachstein drove past the bake sale, he spazzed out and crashed into it and wiped the whole thing out.

That day must’ve roared up in a flashback in Bachstein’s brain when Vassar handed him his priceless fiddle, because his face tightened with terror. I thought sure he would have the mother of all spasms right then and there and launch the fiddle into outer space.

But Bachstein quickly passed the fiddle to me like a hot potato. I tensed up!  Now I’m not spastic, but I’m  also not graceful. When I was a kid, I was merrily splashing through street puddles after a rain with some walkie friends.  I pushed my chair into a puddle that turned out to be about two feet deep. I was submerged up to my knees. If it had been power chair, I might have fried! That’s how I developed my first wheelchair rule of the road: never drive through a puddle if you can’t see the bottom.

I thought sure I’d drop the fiddle and make international headlines: FAMOUS FIDDLER STRANGLES CRIPPLE. So I passed the hot-potato fiddle immediately back to Vassar.  He accepted it back, all calm and gentlemanly. He never came to realize the sort of bullet he dodged that night. If he knew the first thing about cripples he would have known you should never pass us your heirloom fiddle. Good thing he didn’t find out the hard way.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

I know your dilemma. I feel your pain. You’re sick to death of always working your ass off, so you want to get an education and better yourself. But you don’t have time to get an education and better yourself because you’re always working your ass off.

That’s why I founded my new online college:  the University of the Crapper. It’s especially designed to meet the educational needs of ordinary, everyday, oppressed victim of raw ass capitalism. Because if you’re working your ass off, about the only time you have to yourself is the time you spend on the crapper. And that’s precisely the point. No matter how oppressed you are, there’s one thing THE MAN can never completely take away from you. HE can never completely take away your crapper time. No matter how much it pains HIM, HE has to permit you to periodically take a break to excrete. Otherwise you’ll die and you won’t be able to keep working your ass off.

Even under martial law they have to let you have time to excrete. Therein lies the beauty of God’s creation. That’s the way to beat THE SYSTEM. That’s the one loophole THE MAN can’t close. And so it’s important that we live those precious moments to the fullest. The secret to overcoming oppression is to use that time efficiently.  Every trip to the crapper must be a multitasking experience.  I think my greatest thoughts during my sacred time on the bowl. I think up a lot of these blog entries on the bowl. (Sorry, dear reader. Now you know how the sausage is made.)

So if you enroll in the U of C, you receive 15-minute lesson plans that enable you to incrementally earn a degree while you sit. You can view them on your laptop or smart phone. And in just 10 short years, you'll have an associate’s degree! And there’s no limit to what you can learn from the comfort and privacy of a bathroom stall. You can even learn how to play a  musical instrument, like the French horn! However, I am aware that some of you may have to pursue your studies surreptitiously, while sitting in the stall at work. In that case, you might want to learn how to play a musical instrument that emits sounds that don’t arouse suspicion when coming from a bathroom stall, like the tuba.

Some cynics say virtual universities are inferior to actual universities because they don’t have a football team. But at U of C we do have a football team. They’re called The Plungers. I’m sure you can picture their logo. And The Plungers can be the greatest football team of all time if that’s what you want them to be. They can be whatever you want them to be, since they’re strictly a product of your imagination. That’s the thrill of virtual football.

U of C is an equal opportunity institution of higher education. We discriminate against no one. If you have tuition money, we’ll take it.

When you receive your virtual degree from U of C, you’ll be able to land a high-paying and prestigious job, virtually. Your degree will be suitable for framing. And don’t let anyone tell you that it’s worthless. You can always use it to wipe.

Insults

There’s this homeless guy who’s always outside my building. His presence disturbs me. Whenever I pass him he insults me.

He hangs around outside the 7-Eleven, sitting on an upside-down plastic milk crate. There’s no cushion. His butt must look like a waffle. He has a patchy beard, random tufts of white hair sprouting from his face. And when people come out of the 7-Eleven he says,”Spare change?” But he never says that to me. When I pass he just says, “Hey, how you doin'?” or “What’s up, big guy?”

Isn’t that insulting? What’s wrong with my spare change? I mean, I wouldn’t give it to him anyway. I keep my money in a bag attached to the side of my wheelchair. I can’t reach the bag so when I make a transaction the other party takes the cash out for me. So giving money to the homeless on the streets is too labor intensive and time consuming. But that’s not the point. Why doesn’t the guy perched on the milk crate not even give me the opportunity to turn him down? Does he not want to stoop so low as to ask a cripple for money? That’s not fair. When I pass a homeless person, I’m the one who’s supposed to feel a satisfying rush of condescending good fortune.

There’s another homeless guy outside the Starbucks across the street. He sells this weekly newspaper called Streetwise that homeless people around here sell to make a few bucks. At least this guy tries to get me to buy his paper. So I often oblige. But he still insults me. When he extracts the cash from my bag, he makes it a point to show me he’s taking only what he’s owed and nothing more. He does this, he told me once, because “God will never forgive me if I steal from the handicapped.”

What the fuck! It takes all the joy out of charitable giving when you can’t even feel superior!

But I’ll tell you who insulted me most of all. It was the guy at the disco. Some people believe God makes people crippled to keep them from doing something bad in life. The one time I started to believe that theory might be true was the one time I went to a disco. Because if I hadn’t been crippled I would have punched the guy at the disco in the head. But then again, if I hadn’t been crippled, he wouldn’t have insulted me so I would have had no rationale for punching him in the head.

 But anyway, I went with some other cripples to a disco. Don’t ask me why. We must’ve been delirious with cabin fever. Jim Liptak was our token vert (which is short for vertical, which is slang for people who can walk). So the guy at the disco sees us when we enter and immediately plays that insulting game called Address the Vert. He spoke only to Liptak, as if he was our translator. “Bring your friends over here,” he said. “If your friends want something to drink, tell the server.” He kept playing Address the Vert and just when I was ready to punch him in the head, he said something that acknowledged my humanity and restored my sense of equality. He said to Liptak, “Ask your friends if they want to go in the office and do some cocaine.”

We all said no thanks, but often I regret it. It would have been interesting to follow him to the office and see how long he stuck with the Address the Vert bit. “Tell your friends it’s top shelf stuff from the Caribbean.” Or maybe he would’ve gotten high with us and said something to Liptak like, “Ask your friends if they ever wondered what it's like to live on Saturn and see 60 moons in the sky.”

But at least he recognized us cripples as human beings who might want to wrench up our brains with coke, like the other people at the disco. I didn’t want to punch him in the head anymore.