Worthless Goddamned Cripple

When I came out of the coma I lie strapped to a gurney in the intensive care unit of an urban hospital, literally unable to move or speak. I possessed a vague instinctual understanding of my condition and surroundings, but my perceptions were filtered through a haze of dream-like subjectivity. Any grounded impressions flickered in and out like the light from a bulb being screwed into a live socket.

Nurses casually conferred with one another regarding my situation as if I weren’t lying in the same room. When one of them bothered to speak directly to me, they cooed baby talk point blank at my face (I could tell which of them didn’t brush their teeth). Invariably a nurse “familiar” with my case would shake her head, smugly snort and advise the one trying to communicate with me: “Don’t bother. He can’t understand anyway.” (They always spat the pronoun “he.”) more »

My one-time roommate Bobby led a pointless life—unless you consider taking up space, pissing on the floor, and fouling the atmosphere with a pungent reek worthwhile endeavors. But when his crackwhore sister visited him, their prattling vaguely amused me. That and his comically inept burgling provided marginal worldly value to Bobby’s existence.

Particleboard nightstands stood next to each warehouse bed. (A few years into my stay, the administration tried to buy my testicles with a cheap desk from the basement. Their strategy failed but I thoroughly enjoyed my new furniture.) A hinged latch had been screwed to the top of the nightstand, and fit over a metal hasp protruding from the drawer (as was the case with my desk’s main drawer). The administration sold padlocks. Mr. Gold advised residents to buy and use the locks, store valuables in the secured drawer to thwart thieving staff members and dodgy roommates. more »

Read Part 2
Many warehouse residents were elderly and/or near death. The chintzy bastard administrator, Mr. Gold couldn’t justify paying a trained therapist to work with a resident, only to watch that resident waste any newly learned physical strategies by dying. The warehouse bosses promoted easily manipulated CNA’s who excelled at making beds and emptying bedpans to revered positions as physical therapists, much like teacher’s pets are chosen to clap erasers. Stupendously lazy young residents didn’t care about the administration’s tacit ban on competent therapists; they rationalized that their own lack of ambition demonstrated a mature acceptance of their bodily deficits. Or maybe they realized physical independence meant an end to their mooching. more »

Back when I almost languished in the warehouse, paratransit companies expected their drivers to follow stringent rules when serving the infirm and disabled—at least that’s what they wanted everybody to believe. (This may have changed, but I doubt it.) The reality of high employee turnover for an underpaid and largely unskilled position (though many unsophisticated drivers insisted otherwise) forced urban paratransit companies to shitcan reasonable standards when hiring workers.*

Cripplevan companies trained their drivers to assist elderly customers as they shuffled up or down the van’s ramp, and to always back wheelchairs in or out of the vehicle—never to push except on level ground. A driver who followed proper procedure used heavy nylon straps to secure the wheelchair to the van’s floor, then fastened a seat belt around the passenger. (I remember once when I reached for the safety strap; the driver ordered me not to move, to let him do it because “I be a trained p’ofessional.”) more »

Cripples and retards are not worthy of respect solely by virtue of their deficit(s). They can be just as amazingly stupid, petty, and annoying as able-bodied and sound-minded members of society. For example, gimps acknowledge a silly hierarchy among themselves: A person born disabled enjoys a higher position on the gimp totem pole than a person fucked up by illness or injury. Christopher Reeve’s antics left the self-righteous in-crips reeling with indignity. more »

A clumsy and unsophisticated nine-year-old controlled Josh’s gnarled body though he biologically approached middle age. I had only seen Josh from afar and, based on his diminutive frame and immature behavior regarded him as a vaguely simple-minded young adult. His spasmodic pigeon-toed gait and palsied gestures advertised his physical condition before he opened his mouth. We met when he moved into my room. Up close, his weathered face revealed his age. I also realized that he smelt funny and wore an elastic band around his head to keep his generic black glasses in place, just like the pussy kid in your grade school. He immediately started jabbering, tried to introduce himself. I guess he got sick of my repeatedly begging his pardon, so he finally used a twisted finger to point to the nametag on a pair of his briefs. more »

Immediately after I entered the hospital, my doctors spewed their quarter-assed diagnosis at my parents who passed it along to my grandmother. She (like most people) regarded the conclusions drawn by white male doctors beyond reproach. News of their—and in fact everyone’s—irresponsible speculation prompted her to write a letter to me, her ill-bred wicked grandson. In it she expressed her hope that enduring this stroke fiasco would somehow “save” me. The correspondence caught me off guard because though she counted herself as a devout Catholic, she had never impressed me as a woman inclined to use what amounted to a popular catchphrase.

* * *After I’d emerged from the coma, I remember lying on some sort of stationary gurney in the ICU of an urban hospital. more »

The security people who worked at the warehouse established themselves as two-bit blundering oafs whose previous employers never entrusted them with any genuine responsibility—imagine a small handful of lobotomized Mr. T’s who formerly blew leaves. They wallowed in impotent authority by bullying and browbeating clearly innocuous residents, visitors, and medivan drivers.

I don’t mean the residents Mr. Gold had stationed behind a table in the lobby. The handpicked batshit fossil on duty would motion to a guestbook while politely but sternly ordering residents and visitors to sign in or out. Mr. Gold and an array of visiting psychiatrists had stressed the importance of this “job” to appointed residents and reminded them that people at their age needed to keep busy. more »

In 2001 after waiting almost two years, my name crept to the top of a waiting list and I finally skipped the warehouse. I moved several miles and neighborhoods south into a conventional high-rise full of squeaky-clean Nigerians. On my own at last, I decided that I should stock up on office supplies so I phoned the cripplevan phone-lackeys one morning at 6:00 am. more »

I’m annoyed but mildly amused when slow-witted asshats assume I’m retarded and speak freely in my presence. They delude themselves into believing that I can’t fathom their piddly conversations.

While I was stuck in the warehouse I scheduled a dentist appointment for myself. The staff could only be bothered with the needs of near-death patients and then only to head off criticism from the chronically bitchy head nurse. The nurse on my floor heavily sighed at the inconvenience of doing her job, then scheduled a ride to my dentist with a Medivan. Medivans are designed similarly to the vans intended to augment handicap accessible public transit but are dispatched exclusively for transportation to and from medical appointments. Use of medivans for any other purpose is officially prohibited. more »