Corky

I know I am going to Hell for this story (and a million other things just like it) but contact with the disabled have left a deep personal scar on me and its cathartic somehow to write about it. Seriously, you will think this is mean and you should not read it.

There are archetype 'looks' for retarded people and I will use them here as a shorthand. I wouldn't want anyone to think I was disparaging something other than what I am.

I was walking through Sergel's Torg (the main commuter square just outside the central subway station) when I heard music type sounds. I walked by to investigate and when I realized it was retards playing I was in quicksand.

The back row from left to right was anchored by a tall Mexican Herman Munster looking guy. I couldn't see that he was singing but was doing the Herman Munster dance and scowling at the crowd. His visage was a mix of SAT concentration and rap word-emphasizer guy (not sure the technical term but the guy who stalks menacingly around the stage and shouts the last line of each lyric to put em-pha-sis on it). To his left was the singer who was 'reading' the song lyrics from a music stand and shout-singing earnestly while strangling the mike stand. He was in a pose like about to take off running, left foot slightly forward. He was rocking back and forth violently. I don't know music technically at all but if the song was in 3/4 time he was oscillating in 10/4 time. Finally, an overweight mongoloid was 'playing' the drums like Animal from the Muppets, they must have fed this guy 18 Red Bulls.

The front row from right to left was led by a really old looking guy who was probably 20. He was standing and had a can of something clutched in his left hand that he was waving slowly and out of time like he just don't care. Standing next to him was a retarded version of Ron Jeremy playing a bass guitar that was the only thing keeping it all actually moving. Seated next near the center of the stage was a woman with a tiny shrunken head and that gummy overbite old people get when they don't have their dentures in. She barely moved and certainly wasn't singing or playing an instrument. On the far end was a fat guy with almost no neck sitting and playing a tambourine. He had his eyes screwed up tightly and looked like a blind blues piano player, swaying irregulalry and singing in bursts. After a while he decided he wanted his mic turned up so he jumped to his feet and began gesturing to the sound dude that he wanted the volume turned up so his voice could be heard. He did this by pointing at the sound man, at the mic, at his throat and pointing up. Repeat. Repeat alot. Growing frustration. Repeat emphatically. He then begins pounding his tambourine on the wall beside him. This went on longer than I could bear to watch. Time slowed like Kelvin seconds and finally totally stopped with only fatty banging his tambourine harder and louder in slow motion. Finally the inevitable old lady with spiky gray hair and loose, hemp clothing came up to hug him and he finally sat down and time began again.

I was probably there 30 seconds but it felt like a week. The guy next to me asked me first in Swedish and then in English if I was ok. I think I had turned green and looked like I had seen a ghost.

Sometime I will tell you about the summer I spent with my grandmother who took care of 2 retarded women in the house. It affected me profoundly.