Worthless Goddamned Cripple

CNA’s indifferently accepted that some residents pissed onto the linoleum floor while lying half asleep in their beds because they were too lazy to get up and baptize the porcelain catchall. It never crossed their pea-brains that such a resident might be wildly ill-bred. Most parents teach their small children appropriate toilet habits; therapists were supposed to teach such skills to absent-minded patients. But the therapists often sloughed the responsibility off on the charge nurse, who delegated it to the CNA’s. The dullwitted CNA’s proved themselves incapable of any action beyond summoning a member of the housekeeping staff and telling them to mop the floor.

To be fair, it was hard to tell at first glance who suffered from physical dysfunction and who chose to conduct themselves like a fucking animal. more »

Most residents excelled when glomming public aid checks¹ and securing government “benefits” i.e. handouts to which they were entitled (as opposed to petitioning for “assistance” which by definition requires effort). But when it came to bathing or digesting text full of big words and unaccompanied by colorful illustrations, they couldn’t understand why they should be bothered.

On three occasions the administration designated an HIV-positive resident as my roommate.² They realized I was probably the only denizen of the warehouse not so dirt stupid as to believe that you would “catch them AIDS” from doorknobs or airborne cooties. And I’m not some Neanderthal homophobe who assumes that all HIV-positive men are gay and therefore subhuman pariahs anyway. more »

The Torah teaches tolerance. It appeared that the old school Jews who owned the warehouse never got the memo. Or maybe they equated the tolerance of non-Jewish individuals with apathy because some out of touch old fart scholars decreed it so.

Whatever the case, Mr. Gold projected an irritating moral superiority that he claimed Judaism had bestowed upon him. It was obvious that the pint-sized administrator of the warehouse embraced the Jewish faith as a business strategy, only because the owners were devoutly Jewish. Mr. Gold often referred to Judaism as “weird,” and once remarked that he appreciated a faith that demanded frequent days off work to acknowledge holidays. more »

The clueless administration of the warehouse equated holiday celebration with normalcy. They put substantial effort into decorating for the major holidays, which means they occasionally ordered the mouth-breathing activities staff drones to adorn the warehouse with colorful and shiny festive crap (which no doubt mesmerized the housekeeping staff). more »

The warehouse administrator, Mr. Gold constantly proved himself an amoral subhuman. He had gained the physically and mentally infirm residents’ trust by tacitly claiming to have earned a degree that made him a medical doctor. In fact some community college had merely awarded him a certificate that qualified his sawed-off shyster ass to work as a garden-variety pharmacist. He might not have even done that—I don’t remember and anyway I knew him to be a pathological liar. more »

In some older Chicago neighborhoods there’s a ditch in front of residential buildings. Freddie, one of my roommates, claimed to have been sitting on a lawn chair in front of his house when an old friend burst into the yard and slapped him on the back. The force of the slap sent Freddie headfirst into the ditch; the impact broke his back.

He’d demonstrated the capability of walking behind his wheelchair while gripping the handles to support his towering frame, but most of the time chose to plant his skinny ass in the seat. I overheard a therapist ask him why he didn’t walk more often. He whined his answer: “Because I be all crippled up.” Plus he couldn’t stand upright when he was crocked—every day he knocked back plenty of cheap vodka. more »

Up until I finished the sixth grade, the decorations in my classrooms reminded me and the other students of approaching holidays. Most of my teachers decked out their rooms with cardboard die-cut characters and tableaus: gold and red leaves welcomed fall; skeletons and jack-o’-lanterns meant free candy; two-dimensional Santas evoked unspoken greed; stereotypical leprechauns rollicked until St. Patrick’s Day; a few pompous-looking fancy boys or a damaged bell served as an all-purpose reminder of “patriotic” holidays about which nobody gave a crap, except those grown-ups who got the day off. more »

Some of the staff referred to Jake as “Santa Claus”; his visage and demeanor inspired the nickname. His longish white hair and full beard contrasted with his omnipresent gray knit cap. He carried his bulky frame with assurance though old-age sluggishness had begun to slow his movements. Jake’s arsenal of charm included a dazzling smile cracked as a prelude to friendly conversation punctuated by good-natured chortles. He claimed to have at one time been financially comfortable and married to a stunningly gorgeous Asian woman—he made a big deal about her ethnicity. Once I asked him why he had been relegated to the warehouse. He mumbled something about his heart, then quickly changed the subject. more »

Read Part 1
“Caring staff” — One of my roommates, a friendly and gentle middle-aged man, suffered from Elephantitis. He harbored an uncommon variety of the disease that merited his lecturing at out-of-state medical schools. Classic Elephantitis causes extreme swelling of the victim’s limbs or genitals; my roommate’s manifestations weren’t readily visible. Though his body remained normally proportioned, his unique version of Elephantitis had rendered him legally blind and extraordinarily weak, and had usurped control of his bladder. Unsteady on his feet, he shuffled like the Mummy after downing a handful of Quaaludes. He spent his last days confined to a wheelchair. more »

In the weeks following my release from the warehouse, I discovered that various administrative secretaries had wildly fucked up the paperwork associated with my case. This came as no surprise given the treatment I received while a resident. Faced with the almost impossible task of lighting fires under unconcerned asses, I phoned the warehouse office several times and attempted to perform the administration’s job for them. Whenever a clueless staff member answered the phone and put me on hold, I heard a pre-recorded advertisement for the warehouse. more »