Stuck in Neutral Read Online Free PDF Page B

pants. We smack ourselves upside our own heads. We take headlong swan dives into the floor. We eat dirt and eraser dust and hunks of old crayons and chalk, anything, actually, that we can get into our mouths. Those of us who can walk, walk into walls and doors and one another; those of us who can’t walk just sit around “ahhhhhhhhhhhing” all day long. Teachers call this “vocalization.” And when you’ve got half a dozen retarded teenaged vocalizers all “ahhhhhhhhing” at once, the noise is pretty unbelievable.
    In order to qualify to be in our class, you have to demonstrate lack of continence, meaning you can’t control your expulsion emulsions; in other words, you’re too messed up to know how to use the bathroom on your own. The smells in the room are pretty amazing; Lysol Meets the Pigpens in Beyond Thunderdome .
    I’m pretty sure I’m the only secret genius in our group. Pretty sure. You never know. It probably sounds like I think I’m better than the other retards. Maybe I sound cruel to talk about us the way I do. Well, I absolutely don’t think I’m better. I don’t think there’s some kind of retard ranking, with me on top and all the little stupids below me. I use the word “retard” the way I use any word or words: dolphin, racehorse, sandwich, sidewalk, and apple. Is a dolphin better than a racehorse? A sandwich better than a sidewalk? An apple better than a whatever? Words just stand for the things they are and for what people mean them to stand for. A retard is not a normal person. Putting us in baseball caps and Reebok high-tops and teaching us to connect bolt A to nut B, to count back change, to stack plastic-covered packages of pork chops, none of these things will make us normal. Making us try to copy normal people’s values, habits, hobbies, and traits will not change the fact that we retards are not normal folks. We are different! I call my classmates retards because that’s the word people use when they look at us. Retard means “slow,” but it’s also a word used for a whole class of human beings who are only slow because normal people try to make everybody do things in the same ways and at the same pace. We retards are retards only because normal people call us that.
    I actually enjoy the weird irony of the fact that I’m considered the dumbest kid in my retard class. Most of the others can talk a little, some walk a little. All but me communicate at least a little bit. One guy, Jimmy, walks around saying “honey” all the time. Several kids are able to ask for cookies. Another guy, Alan, constantly grabs his crotch and says “winky” over and over.
    Our classroom looks like a torture chamber or a weirdo’s playpen. Of course there’s all the useless standard school crap: pictures of presidents, big alphabet letters, maps, a chalkboard, a closet, a Kleenex box. But if you look a little closer, you can’t help but notice the number of leather straps on odd, rack-looking wooden contraptions, soft cords (used to hold us kids in place), some beanbag chairs, a large couch mysteriously stained, and a wide variety of bizarre objects used for “educational purposes.”
    My school. And darned proud of it. Fight on, you mighty Spartans! Fight on! Rah! Rah! Rah!
    I was having a pretty good morning yesterday until my dad showed up with a video cameraman from Channel 7, the local PBS station.
    Although I’m sure my dad would have preferred to talk with Becky, he walked into the room and over to Mrs. Hare. He introduced himself and they chatted. It looked like Mrs. Hare had been expecting them. She smiled and he smiled and my classmates and I drooled.
    The tall cameraman guy with a beard, who had come in with Dad, began setting up his video camera. Dad glanced around the room, then started a little “Testing, one, two, three … testing one, two, three” routine into