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Harvard Square is a couple of years after I am out of the hospital, I had been for a
lot of time in Massachusetts General Hospital and, I would head back over to Harvard Square
sometimes. On the summer I was back for a follow-up, you know, chopping and cutting
a little bit of surgery here and there and then, over to Harvard Square and I remember
it as a hot day in Harvard Square and a friend wants to go to the book store which is that
back of the harvard co-op is across the street, and I am a little worn, so I said, I just
wait for you up here in that main entrance to the Harvard co-op, the big student store
there and, I am sitting in there, you know, sitting back and just trying to gather my
energy a little bit and someone comes by and I feel a little hand come down and across
my face, and I hear something, and I look up at [unintelligible] and this woman has
passed, and I say, pardon me, I guess I had some manners on those days, pardon me, or
excuse me or something. That woman says, what, excuse you for loving me. And I say, lady
you are behaving a little weird. This is a little inappropriate and too strange for me,
you know, and she got herself up in a nice huff and climbed on a horse and rode away,
but again there’s so many of those moments, Laura mentioned airplanes; we all had stories
about airplanes, and actually I’m going to quote a friend of mine, as he said once,
he was getting off a plane when a stewardess yelled out, he is the last person as we usually
are and the steward person yells, we have carrion, and, we have carrion, and he knew
the inflexion, and she knew the inflexion, carrion is dead meat. We did not have, we
have a man here who is going to need some assistance in a wheelchair, we have carrion,
we have dead meat, then the next part of the problem that he describes was, she wouldn’t….
she realized that she had done something really stupid, so she proceeds as he gets off the
plane, and in his chair and is out moving across the airport. She wants expiation from
her gaff, and so she persistently comes after him time and again, oh I am so sorry, oh I
am sorry. I think again this is something an awful lot of black folks. Americans from
African descent can relate to, is that people wanting them to forgive them. There is a time
to do that and there is a time we just get out of my way folks. I think one of the things
about creep humor, you know, we get say the word, you know, folks who don’t the have
disability don’t get to use it unless they are close enough and part of the family and
lovers and friends, but we get to use the word creep, and a lot of creep humor is stuff
that some other folks, you know, will not get the point. I remember when coming home.
I have another movie reference. When John Voight is coming home and the early scenes
are John Voight is in the hospital. He is this Vietnam vet. He’s in the hospital and
his pee-bag fell under his chair and he is so pissed-off and no hiding his anger and
is flailing at one point, and what do they do at the next scene. They have him strapped
into bed and loaded upon with ***, and he is kind of ganzo into tranquilizers, the
whole theater is quiet and I am roaring. I am roaring, because of the truth, because
of the truth of it, of the recognition, oh yeah, give then the plug, and what they’re
going to do is pump you up with a prescription for your own good.