Upright Citizens

I have known two different guys who only had one leg. Wait. Maybe that's confusing. They did not share the leg. It's important to be careful with your words.

Twice, in two separate places and times, I knew two different people, each of which had only one leg. If the three of us were standing in a room together there would only be four legs total. My two legs, and then one from each of them. It's crazy to think about.

I am not sure why I am telling you this. Why I'm spending my lunch break doing this instead of eating.
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The first one I met in New Orleans.

It feels, looking back, like almost all of my important experiences came from this one year. Like my youth is over now and has been for some time.

Lets call him Bill. I can't remember his real name but i'm pretty sure it's not Bill and anyways this is a fictionalization and all names, dates, & events are purely coincidental, etc. etc.

The first time I met Bill he said "My name's Bill, but everyone calls me The Ice Cream Man". I never heard anyone call him this even once. He did not wear a prosthetic, but kept the right leg of his jeans folded and pinned at the knee. He was often wearing a denim jacket. He was always holding a cigar in his mouth, wet and unlit.

In New Orleans I did not have a lot of money. I mean, I had some money but very quickly I had spent it all on weed and beer and daquiris. We smoked so much fucking weed. Dry, brittle marijuana that smelled like almost nothing at all. Getting high and writing letters, climbing on top of the levee. Getting high and taking pictures of abandoned lots. Times flies when you're 20 years old.

Bill had told me once that he had work for me. That if I wanted some, he could give me work. So one day I called him.

He would pick us up in his truck when it was still dark. He would bring us through the drive-through and order breakfast sandwiches. "See how nice I am? I bought you breakfast sandwiches. Go ahead and eat. Go on."

He would drive us to Chalmette. While waiting for the ferry he would pull out his dick, piss into an empty soda cup, and then pour it out the window. I wondered (and still wonder) about the relationship between his missing leg and the size of his bladder. Was he unable to contain himself because of his disability or was he just a disgusting human?

Bill was a disgusting human. Bill was a crooked business person. The 'work' consisted of putting lipstick onto flood-damaged homes so Bill could flip them. We installed hardwood floors over dryrot, painted over mold. While we worked, he would stand in the driveway and chew on his cigars, or sit in his truck and listen to the radio.

Bill had a helper, Dan. When I say 'we' I'm talking about myself and Dan.

Dan was in his 40s and had some kind of mental disability. He couldn't talk much but he was generally a pretty nice guy. He could lift and he could carry and he could sweep. If you told a joke he would laugh no matter what.

The first time I heard Bill call Dan a nigger, I was surprised. Dan was right there, standing right in front of him. But after a while I got used to it. He paid us $10/hour and it seemed like a fortune.

On the way home we would stop by the gas station and pick up Budweiser tallboys. I did not want to work for Bill, but it didn't feel like I had many options.

Looking back, it's incredible how many options I had, especially relative to the number of options that Dan did. I think his Mom would pack his lunch.
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What's the relationship between having legs and behaving morally? Do we store our sense of right in our calves? I'm really asking this. The sample size is small, but I think I'm onto something here.
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Kent was a finish carpenter at my first real construction job. Kent taught me how to hang a door. Years earlier, Kent had fallen off of a ladder and wrenched his knee in absolutely the wrong way. They took it off from the shin down. When he unwrapped his bandages the bottom of the stub was smooth like an ostrich egg.

Years before that, Kent had done restoration on historical buildings in France. He had lived in Marseilles for 6 years. "That's so incredible. Do you know how to speak French?" I asked him

"Fuck no I don't speak French what do you think this is"

Kent drank Diet Coke like his life depended on it, golden cans littering the jobsite. He smoked cigars constantly and wore shorts. His prosthetic gave him great heartache - he would regularly lean against walls and pump a button with his thumb, giving it air like an inflatable shoe.

"Check this one out look look look"

On the side, Kent ran a housekeeping service. - black & mexican women would come to your house and clean in their underwear. I'm not making this shit up. He showed me pictures on his phone. His breath was unbearable.

"Sometimes I take them home and they take care of me. These chicks just want a Daddy. Someone who will buy them shit."
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Dear Dick, these stories make me want to weep with humanity. I cannot believe these things happened to me. Lying here in my bed in Northhampton, it all feels so far away now, like something I remember from a book more than my own life.

You are the same way Dick, something remembered as a fiction, as a story distilled. This thing, whatever it is, has removed all of your edges. You're a cowboy in a doorway.

Stay away from landmines and ladders Dick. Watch where you step.