LOL!!!
reminds me of a dude who used to go out to a ton of shows around here.... he had serious, real disablities, but would get wasted....
let me see if i can dig up a story i wrote about him one night after seeing a show he was at.....
ah yes.... here it is. i apologize in advance to anyone it offends.
So, I\'m at Garaj Mahal last night with my friend caroline. As we walk in (just after the opening band), i notice a really big "special guy" shuffling his way through the crowd, on his way to the bar. Now, i\'m normally the first person to point and laugh (or at very least snicker loudly) whenever i see "special" people (midgets, too), but i\'ve seen this guy at shows before (especially at the state theatre) and even conversed with him a few times. That makes him a real person, and no longer an object for mockery.
So caroline, upon seeing the "retard wobble", looks immediately at me for some sort of inappropriately humorous remark. But i gave her the run down, and we both spend the rest of the evening noticing, but not commenting on, him.
Until the end of the night. I went off to get another beer, since i knew they were probably going to end soon. In my absence, Hobble McGee decides to sit in my seat. Now, these are long, communal tables so it really wasn\'t a big deal. Caroline didn\'t even realize it was him who had sat down. When i returned, i very politely asked if he would mind giving me back my seat, to which he very politely tried to focus his eyes, then lurched out of the chair, in an effort to accomodate.
Have y\'all seen The Score? With edward norton and bobby deniro? You know that stereotypical retard walk norton does? With one arm crooked against his chest, one leg inexplicably dragging along behind?
Ok, well, this guy\'s Icky Shuffle was even more pronounced, and now, it seemed, he was completely hammered! I mean if he wasn\'t already differently abled, he sure as hell was now!! I\'m serious, as he hoisted himself up and out of my chair, he did this backwards stumble-spin with a spastic arm flail (difficulty rating 8.7) right into me, but more dispondantly, right into my beer.
That\'s right, a spastic, drunken behemoth of a tard doused me in my own beer! To which, sheerly out of reflex, i snapped "fukk man!!!". He pirouetted about and, with the grace and agility of a drunk with serious motor skill degradation, tried to get his head to stop bobbling long enough to stare at me and demand, "What?!"
Have you ever had a drunken gimp try to pick a fight with you? What the hell do you do?! Sure he had some bulk, but even i can beat up a cripple! I mean, i certainly didn\'t want to get into anything with a dude who might just drool me to death, ya know?? But I was soaked in beer, and he was instigating.... And as a man, you can\'t just back down from a fight.... But it was a palsy-stricken drunken lout, not just a drunk....
In the end, i backed down; punked by a retard... I\'m sure it was the high-road right thing to do, but man, it was tough. I sat there, kind of glowering and sullen, hoping no one saw me get stared down by a "special needs" bully....
But karma is a good thing, and i think the universe and i have a similar sense of humor. Because, as he was walking out, swaggering and dragging the leg all at the same time, i saw him lurch towards three steps. Not very high steps, not very narrow steps, just three little ol\' steps. And then i watched him bite it. The good leg didn\'t get high enough, the bad leg decided it didn\'t want to help, and downs he went, sprawled out like boneless mongoloid.
As quickly as was possible, he got himself back up, quite embarassedly, and hobbled on out, leaving a swath of people biting their lips, trying desperately not to laugh. And i, i just sat there basking in the humiliation of Schwilly the Gimp*. It was a good night.
* = new edit!
