lewis vs kids
like the world’s foremost degenerative gambler once said, “i’m back.” but enough about michael jordan. holy shit. it’s been almost a year since my last post. the thing is, nothing arm-related has happened to me in that time.
HAHAHAHA *laughing trails off*
i’m playing. i’ve just been slacking. how have you guys been? i hope you’ve been good! or, well, i hope at least medium.
man, a lot has happened in the in-between. i have a different job. i’m still in austin but moving in a couple weeks. i’ve bought shoes. i’ve sold shoes. i’ve started eating oranges. a lot has also stayed the same. i still don’t own a pair of jeans. i’m still not wearing no fucking button up shirts. still doing anxiety ridden push ups at 3am. still laying in bed every night googling pictures of doughnuts. such is life.
there are a bunch of stories i still need/want to tell you. i keep a rolling tab in my phone and we’ve knocked out 4 of 19. today we’re going to ease back into things with 2 short stories with one overlapping theme: kids. did my title give it away?
kids! everybody fuckin loves kids. kids kids kids. so nice! so sweet! so pure! may god in his all knowing, arm designing wisdom bless the youths.
i like kids.
however.
kids don’t have filters. this is one of the reasons you cornballs love them. this is one of the reasons i’m still a little more on the fence. obvious physical disfigurements and young, full of wonder children are a volatile mix. we’re going to do 2 real quick stories, one from the past and one from the present, to demonstrate. let’s get weird.
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#1 - AHHHHHHH!
my junior year of college i pledged Phi Beta Sigma. part of the, uh, joining process (Phi Beta Sigma is a non-hazing organization) was volunteering at the local Boys and Girls club where an older Sigma brother worked as a director (shout out Josh!). face value, this is a pretty sweet deal. volunteering is good, kids are cool, and this was certainly a welcomed reprieve from the rest of the joining process.
however. (this the same however from before ^ good dude, but moves around a lot)
like i may have mentioned, i have a disfigured left arm. me and my disfigured left arm (and my 4 line brothers) took the bus out to the Boys and Girls club for our first session. mind you, this is wisconsin in like, february, so we’re all in multiple layers of coats and hoodies and all that shit.
so, we get there, meet up with Josh, get shown around, meet some kids, yadda yadda. now, at this point we’re starting to step into a very nuanced part of my life. one of the reasons i don’t like wearing layers of clothing, or jackets, or button ups, is because i’m not a goofy cornball, but also because long sleeves often mean my left arm is covered and more or less camouflaged. this means i enter some place and the other humans in that place see me and process my existence as one thing. then, i have to go through the fucking shit awful experience of removing the camouflage and re-presenting myself as far from that original thing. people’s responses vary from really shocked to really fucking shocked (they don’t vary). this sucks 1000% of the time. actually one of my biggest arm stories is about this exactly. we’ll get there another day.
ANYWAY, we start hanging out with some of the kids to get to know them. eventually i get hot (shout out all my fellow thicc n sweaty folx). i make the decision to remove my camouflage. i take my jacket off and almost immediately this young boy, probably around like idk 10?, we were playing ping pong with let’s out a shout.
AHHHHHHH!
him: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR ARM?
me: ahhhhh yeahhhhh it’s a birth defect man. i was born with it
him: (again) AHHHHHHH!
me: hmmmmm
him: AHHHHHHH! YO PUT IT AWAY
me: this is fun
him: OH MY GOD YO PUT IT AWAY PLEEEEEASE PUT IT AWAY PUTITAWAYPLEASEPUTITAWAY
me: well shit
i tried to talk with dude but he was pretty out of pocket and was not listening. i eventually just put my jacket back on. i did not go back for the next volunteering session lol.
#2 - Shhhh, Katy STOP
this one’s from a few weeks ago. it’s a lot less outrageous than the previous story, but it will bring up an interesting point.
i was at a coffee shop near my crib on a saturday afternoon. this is april in austin, tx (the kissing dogs in the mouth capital of america) so no jacket camouflage for lewis.
i’m sitting next to a mom and her daughter. the daughter quickly notices that i’m wearing very rare raging bull 5s. she asks me how much i got them for. i tell her $260 shipped in vnds condition! she says no fucking way dude great pick up. we do a mid-air high five while throw some d’s blasts in the background, shout out rich boy. always shout out rich boy.
the end!
ok. maybe that’s not exactly what happened.
maybe she noticed my arm and backed away. maybe she started whispering to her mom. maybe i heard her say,
“what’s wrong with his arm??? does it hurt??? do you think he’s mad???”
i remember the mad one made me lol. i’m more mad that every day people choose to wear birkenstocks but yeah, 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
her mom, more conscious of the fact they were 30 inches from the man they were talking about than the daughter was, was beginning to hit a state of suppressed panic. i couldn’t hear all of what they were saying, but the mom was desperately trying to get her to be quiet. eventually culminating with a louder than intended,
“Shhhh, Katy STOP.”
Katy did indeed stop. the mom took a big sigh of relief and a big gulp of coffee. I stared straight ahead thinking about how $260 shipped for raging bull 5s is a fucking lick. a. fucking. lick.
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And that’s it. Important to note that I wasn’t mad at the kids in either story. They’re kids. My arm looks a lot different than theirs do. I get that. I wasn’t thrilled with the first dude, but ah, what are you gonna do. I’ve spent most of my life coping (whether through jokes, fighting, writing, whatever) with the othering that comes with being disfigured/disabled.
I think what I want to end this post on is the question of how do you teach your kids to treat people with disfigurements or disabilities. Seriously, how the fuck. I’m actually asking because I’m really not sure. I’ve seen parents encourage their kids to come right up to me and ask. That’s like, ok, but also pretty presumptuous and kind of bogus. What if I don’t want to talk to you or your sticky handed kid. I (or anyone) should have the right to not be bothered just because you’re curious. I’ve seen parents tell their kids to shut all the way the fuck up. This is fine too. Tbh, I kind of appreciate those parents. Tho, is that just shutting down what could be a developmental moment? I don’t know.
I will tell you that I don’t miss being a kid. I’ll never connect with people who long for the days of their childhood. Being disfigured as a kid is fucking hard. Like, really fucking hard. I have the marks on my hands (and probably the deep-seeded emotional trauma) to prove it. Like an ex-gf’s mom once said to me when meeting her for the first time (she was a physical therapist and somehow noticed this upon shaking hands), “oh you’ve broken a few of your knuckles before, huh?” Life is much better as an adult.
I don’t plan on having kids, but if I did, how would I teach them to treat disabled people? And at what point would they realize their father is different? Will it be when some kids at school start giving them shit about their father with the little arm? Then my burden has become theirs through no fault of their own.
Idk. I don’t have the answers, Sway (2014 was fun, wasn’t it?). Just tell your kids, your little cousins, your friends and family, not to be dicks. I know that’s reductive, but yeah idk man just don’t fucking suck. And try your best to make others around you suck less, too.
Life is weird and stressful but it has doughnuts and cool grey 11s so i think it mostly evens out. Talk to ya’ll soon. Shout out Rich Boy.
*1 free donut if u read this far*