Worthless Goddamn Cripple

Photo by valeosaurous

After years of substandard physical therapy at the warehouse, I enrolled in an outpatient program at the downtown rehab hospital where I did time immediately after my stroke. I remembered them treating me like a retarded gerbil; but after spending years at the warehouse, I’d physically progressed to the extent that maybe they’d take me seriously (like they should have done from the get-go). I had to admit that the majority of therapists at the rehab hospital were intelligent, well trained, and personable. Plus it was the only available game in town.

Twice a week, a cripplevan picked me up at the warehouse and lugged my ass to the rehab hospital. The charge nurse had reserved a ride for me every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon; for the most part, a different driver arrived each time. I looked forward not only to amassing long-term skills but also to the break in my daily routine. At the warehouse I dealt with a mostly disingenuous dirt-stupid staff. I’d be a lying cuss if I claimed that I didn’t welcome interaction with friendly and quick-witted young women. more »

After the administration transferred Mort to God knows where, a middle-aged schlub named Bob moved into my room. Clearly, Bob didn’t qualify as mentally disabled but demonstrated he possessed the mind of a witless child—which is a semi-polite way of saying he was stupid.* Whenever some nosy CNA asked why he’d landed at the warehouse, he‘d answer simply, “Heart condition.” (“Heart conditions” were extremely popular among male residents.)

One morning at around 6:30 Bob managed to foul up the flushing mechanism in the toilet. He and he alone would reproduce this blunder at least once a week—as a young child I’d figured out how to properly flush. 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 »

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 crip cognoscenti reeling with indignity. more »

The warehouse administration strove to methodically whittle away a resident’s peripheral reality and impose a manageable illusion of reality for the purpose of nurturing dependence and therefore obedience. Though the administration cultivated a high profile, for all practical purposes the flying monkey CNA’s ran the show.

The majority of certified nursing assistants employed by the warehouse were mouth-breathing soap-free scuzzbuckets who didn’t know shit from apple butter (though they had memorized the protocols of visiting incarcerated boyfriends and relatives). Occasionally some chirpy twat determined to save the world managed to slip through. more »

Over-educated liberals who trip over themselves to exhibit political correctness while disregarding reality routinely challenge victim blaming. Ironically, alleged victims are often anxious to find fault with those weaker than themselves, particularly the elderly or infirm—kind of like a linebacker beating up a six-year-old.

Many shitworkers at major urban medical facilities take disproportionate pride in their menial positions. These nano-wits delude themselves that a job requiring a white uniform and the use of bona fide medical gadgets must also demand extraordinary skill, and magically transform them into a “medical professional” worthy of awe and respect. Legions of these simple oafs infested the rehab hospital. more »

Freddie expected the CNA’s to unconditionally wait on him even after he’d shown the capability of performing a given task. For example, he easily navigated his wheelchair to the liquor store but took for granted that a CNA would happily drag his drunken ass to the shower room when the stench of his soap-deprived body became unbearable. If anyone questioned the annoying lack of effort he put into taking care of himself, he bellyached like a petulant child: “But I be all crippled up.” Sometimes he’d also remind them: “. . . And I’m a black man.” I never figured out any reasonable correlation between his ethnicity and his accidental injury. more »

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 »

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 »

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 »