In which Noah, a mentally retarded man and a
pizza delivery come together at the wrong moment.
Disclaimer: In this story, I will both describe and
discuss abnormal actions of a person with Down syndrome. Yes, I know this is normally verboten, but I
am going to do it anyway. The official
reason will be because I work in biomedical research, and can say things about
neurological disorders because I’m the guy who’s working on trying to fix them. Of course, the main reason you’ll still read
this is because stories involving the mentally compromised are often fraught
with unintentional hilarity. Skip this if you’re sensitive.
May, 2007. I’m living on the South Side of Chicago with
two roommates who hailed from Nebraska. My roommates happened to be sisters, and
this particular week they were being visited by their mother and brother. The mom was standard issue, but the brother
was (no pun intended) something special.
He had, to put it indelicately, Down syndrome up the wazoo. Mom had obviously
not read the novel Flowers for Algernon[1],
as she’d named her severely retarded son Charlie.
As a scientist, I found Charlie fascinating. Down syndrome is attributed to having three
copies of the twenty-first chromosome, creating a genetic imbalance that
manifests itself through mental retardation, shortened stature and congenital
heart defects. Despite the relatively
straightforward genetic cause, the disease penetrance (how severely the disease
manifests) varies dramatically between individuals. Already in his mid-twenties, Charlie was
pushing the envelope in terms of lifespan, and was not in the best of
health. While Charlie’s mother and
sisters stepped out, I performed a couple of rudimentary neurological tests on
Charlie, which suggested his IQ was in the fifties. This suggested Charlie was fairly affected by
his condition, an observation that was at odds with his preternaturally long
lifespan.
While they visited, Charlie and his mom stayed with us. For those who have never had the pleasure of
a mentally retarded housemate, I can tell you that it has its good and bad
points. One morning, I woke up and
headed around the corner for my morning pee, only to discover the door wide
open and Charlie, pants around ankles, taking a leak with the door wide open
and his bare ass blowing in the wind.
Despite Down’s patients suffering from poor muscle tone,
Charlie was amazingly strong. One of my
roommates’ favorite games was to play horsey with Charlie. One of the girls
would yell ‘Charlie… horsey time!” at which point Charlie would put his palms
on the floor (a gymnastic feat made rather elementary by his stunted stature)
and mimic a bucking bronco. I was not allowed to play this game. In fact, mom
and the sisters got pissed off when I asked them if they’d ever tried to see if
one of them could stay on the full 8 seconds during “horsey time.” After that,
I was careful to watch my mouth.
Everything was carefully filtered and censored. It was draining. Of
particular difficulty was communicating: Charlie could not speak, so I was
often forced to ask others about the finer points of the random shit he would
do. “Why is he flashing me the peace sign?” I asked one of Charlie’s sisters as
the three of us watched track and field.
“It’s not the peace sign,” the sister explained. “He’s telling you he came in second at the
special Olympics this summer.”
“What sport?” I asked.
“Rhythmic Gymnastics,” she replied. At great personal
cost, I kept a straight face and refrained from comment.
Although impossible to confirm, it appeared that Charlie
liked me. In fact, Charlie liked
everyone. No doubt due to his impaired
social inhibitions, Charlie had a penchant for issuing hugs to anyone he could
get his hands on. His caretakers did
nothing to prevent these spontaneous bursts of affection, laughing each time
Charlie latched onto an unprepared victim.
It reminded me of new mothers and/or
dog owners, who seemed to think everyone rejoices in the slobbery affections of
their charge. The day after Charlie arrived, we found a wallet on the street. When
the owner (a petite Asian girl) came to collect it, I could only watch in
horror as Charlie handed her the wallet, then bear-hugged her, scaring the shit
out of her in the process. Seriously,
unleashing your twenty-five-year-old retarded son on complete strangers? Not cool.
The next day, around dinnertime, Charlie was left alone
with me while his mother and siblings ran an errand. There was no way in hell I
was making him dinner, so I ordered a pizza. Twenty minutes later, our doorbell
rang. The delivery man was twenty years old, black, and clad in a ‘do rag and
jeans that sagged low enough to make the three flights of stairs to our door a
challenge. From his vacant facial
expression, I judged that delivering pizzas was not among his life goals.
Our apartment complex was a converted mansion that had
been built around the turn of the century.
As a result, the floor layout was odd, with one of the bedrooms opening
on the entry vestibule. Charlie happened
to be in that bedroom and, upon heard the give and take comprising any pizza
delivery transaction, he apparently decided to pop in and spread a little love
around.
I’d just said, “how much do I owe you,” when Charlie made
his move, darting into the vestibule and blindsiding the delivery man with a
fierce bear hug.
The wannabe-gangbanger delivery guy looked down to see a
small man hugging him. Homophobia kicked
in. Big time.
“Get the fuck off me, faggot! I ain’t gay!” he blurted out, as he attempted
to scrape Charlie off of him while still balancing a pizza.
Charlie looked up, tears of rejection welling in his
eyes. A thin sliver of drool spilled
from the corner of his mouth, complementing his vacant countenance.
The delivery guy’s face morphed from anger to
remorse. “Awww, man; I didn’t know you’s
fucked in the head,” he said, extending his free arm in a halfhearted request
for another hug. “Rock on, my gay
brother.”
An uncomfortable moment followed. Charlie was frozen, dumbfounded, and in that
moment, the delivery guy realized he had just belittled a small retarded man
over his sexual preferences in front of his caretaker. He turned to me, doubtlessly looking to smooth
things over. “’S OK, dude,” he said to
me, thumping his chest twice in a gesture of solidarity, “my cousin got the
palsy too.”
Less than a minute later, the delivery guy left with a
30% tip (for the show), and I found myself back on the couch, splitting a pizza
with Charlie. It occurred to me that,
since Charlie couldn’t really talk, this politically incorrect monstrosity of
an incident would probably never be mentioned again.
It also dawned on me that, in this consequence-free
environment, truth inevitably trumps political correctness. I took my shot: “Hey Charlie, I didn’t know
they let guys compete in rhythmic gymnastics.
That’s a special-Olympics-only thing, right?”
Charlie didn’t speak, but set his slice of pizza down and
flashed me the peace sign again.
[1]
For the uninitiated, Flowers for Algernon
is the fictional account of a severely retarded man named Charlie who undergoes
an experimental treatment and becomes a genius before gradually slipping back
into the chasm of mental retardation.
Come to think of it, the movie Lawnmower
Man pretty much ripped this idea off.
