I'll always be a scrounger to Mr Cock

This is not a happy story for me to retell. But having had a a few years to think about the implications, I'm fairly sure there is a silver lining to be gleaned from a tale which, at the time,  was most definitely a cloud in my particular sky.

A a few years ago, I tried to have a meal in a restaurant with a friend, and get guide dog. The restaurant, was an Indian of good repute. At least when it came to its food. It's repute when it came to serving a customer with a guide dog, was far from being squeaky clean. Instead of being greeted by a friendly waiter, who then seated us and served us a meal of dazzling, intricate, spicy flavours, me and my friend, she was being with the guide dog, was told on no uncertain terms that we were not welcome, due to her being in possession of said guide dog.  Bugger off go away, don't trouble us with your hairy, biting mutt. we were told.  This  "welcome", unfortunately is a more common experience than it ever ought to be. Having found myself in this kind of situation several times before, I tried it on with the old shtick. You're breaking the law, I cried.

So? They replied.

Do you not care that you're denying service, and in fact blatantly discriminating against two upstanding members of the great blind British public?

No. We don't. And anyhow, our customers might object .

This is in effect, where campaign procedure number 2,  comes in. And it usually works, as in involves destroying this "customer might object"  nonsense. It involves asking customers around and about what they think of two blind people being kicked out of a restaurant due to there being a canine companion. And let's face it, this appeal to public decency generally works for twotwo basis reasons:

1. Because in most cases, the great British public dislikes unfairness, and this obvious dog apartheid is what many DO  see as unfair.

2. Most people like dogs. Especially cute, friendly Labradors.

On this evening though we came upon  well I'm not sure how to put it is, but I'll be generous and call him British dickhead. On attempting to appeal to his better nature , I  smashed my reeling bonce kapow into a brick wall , for he hadn't one. Instead of the usual response of  "don't be silly, of course we wouldn't mind you eating in the same restaurant as us with your lovely, golden hound", he said that we ought to leave, that we were cramping he his and his friend's style, and that really, as black people, should go and dig rubbish from the local landfill site and play in the sewage lake. Actually, he didn't refer to our colour or junkyards or anything other to do with effluent , I just made that up. It just felt like he could have. What he did say to me was that I should get off my fat arse and get a job. I replied, with my mouth at this stage touching my feet , that I owned, in fact, not one, but two jobs. 

It cut no ice.

His heart was cold.

And he was still wrong about my employment situation. I was averaging about 40 hours per week.

Failing utterly to elicit the help of a fellow customer was too soul destroying for words, and we left. We managed to eat a delicious meal  at the place next door. This is the first time, and definitely the only time being booted  out of a place has ever happened to me. And it will be the last

I stewed for months. I ranted and raged and became rather upset by the injustice and stupidity of such an individual.

And then , something happened.

I began to feel liberated. I felt free of a burden I didn't even know I carried . And I bet many disabled people, and other minorities come to think of it, share a similar burden. That of trying to live up to someone else's expectations. Someone who is worth the grand sum of jack.

You see, now I don't feel this need.

Most people I've come across all kind, decent, fair-minded individuals, who will try to offer, however completely hilariously misguided, ways, to compensate for someone's disability – to try and actually help in many cases.  To succeed fairly regularly. But however kind, fair-minded, and  altruistic members of the public can be , there is, and it's getting worse by the day, a general assumption amongst many people that disabled people are scroungers, in it for the money, lazy and generally second-class. That's being generous, third class.

Everyone needs a whipping boy, and like black people in the 60s, Irish people in the 70s and so called chavs of the noughties, disabled people are the whipping boys and girls de jour.
And so it came to pass that I stopped caring what people thought about me. Scrounge as much as I like. Work 50 hours a week. Work as a professional 50 hours a week. It doesn't matter you see, we're all scroungers. We're all blind. We're all "others". We're all worthless. And to those are aren't cocks, we're still equal humans. Or at least NEARLY equal.

I'm not saying I believe any of this horseshit. I'm a proud, arrogant, bastard in many areas.  I have a very strong opinion of my strengths and weaknesses. I know I'm never going to assemble an IKEA wardrobe or drive a lorry, or make a soufflé that doesn't bellyflop. But I know, but that with a combination of humour, forcefulness, and evidence , I can crack a job interview I'm remotely qualified for. I know that I'm nobody's fool. I know that amongst those who care about me, and who I care for, I'm an equal.  But in the mind of a certain section of the great British public, I'm a no-one. And these, ironically, are EXACTLY the kind of individual who would turn me down for an interview even with peerless qualifications behind me. Because they are cocks. And it is near nigh impossible to change the point of view of a cock.

And that is fine. Mostly. Because now I don't have to live up to their expectations of me, which I'm certain were laughable and unrealistic in the first place.

I just hope that someone like Mr Cock Isn't in my next interview panel. He might be. And he'll not employ me. But would I wish to work with him?

Probably not.

The parable of the clown - part 2

So then.  Back to our clown.

It turns out he’s not ha-ha funny, weird, scary, a psychopath of the sewers.  He’s a bloke, just an actor. Maybe between “real” jobs.   He’s on a zero hours contract.  He’s wet, because it’s been raining on and off for hours.  He’s tired because he was worrying about how he’s going to afford to feed his girlfriend and one year old and pay his gas bill, and as a consequence, slept poorly.  Toddlers have screamed when they’ve seen him.  Older kids have poked him and tried to pull off his red nose.  The outfit he’s wearing is uncomfortable and ill fitting, and belongs to a well-known burger company, who’ve previously employed legal warfare (so I won’t name them).  And his job today is to hand out fliers in the high street promoting the new Vege HealthBurger.  Tonight he will go home, watch Casualty with his partner and feverish kid, and worry about the same things many of us worry about.  Tomorrow, he’ll stand outside another branch of the burger joint, and do more of the same. 

Terrorising kids or throwing two boomerangs simultaneously while whistling Yankee Doodle will not be on his agenda.  Because he is a clown but not a real clown.  A mere pastiche of a clown.

Right uniform. Wrong stereotype.

Being disabled can sometimes be like this.  A recent example from my world.

We went to a shop selling fireplaces nearby.  We wanted a flueless gas fire, but were told by the assistant that this might not be suitable because…(you could hear the sound of cogs spinning and desperate sound of back-peddling at this point) it might be danger….and here she stopped as it was obvious by our faces that a) what she was about to say might get her a response she mightn’t want to hear and b) she’d mis-read our uniform.  Blindness to her, possibly having never met anyone who is, did not involve bullshy, confident, competent, and forthright us, Blind implied incompetence with fire.  It might have also meant “a bit simple round the edges” too.  It might have meant: “aah, they’ve come all the way to the shop without a carer…how brave”. It might have meant none of these. The assistant’s attitude suggested I’m not too far off the mark and I’d lay money on me being close to the truth here.  Anyhow, the gas fire was duly paid for with no further mention of what dreadful, flame-induced accidents might be told in a future disaster-filled newspaper headline.  Hard cash talks, thank goodness.   

When you are disabled, you carry your clown uniform with you, like it or not. And the clown uniform may not be such an inept analogy since disability and clowns are both something to be both mocked and feared (with certain people, and not all of the time).  However, the potential to inadvertently be the symptom and object of someone else’s fear, dread or humour is always a potential phenomenon you’re aware of as hovering in the periphery, like a dog who has eaten some rotten meat and might cause an almighty stench with the sort of power puff that could cull a hippo.   Additionally, what a lot of disabled people have noticed, since time began, but even more so now with the right-wing agenda being purveyed as only, or at least main gig in town, is the level of hatred against us is rising.  Even clowns don’t get egged, kicked, verbally abused and reminded by clueless Neanderthals how much of a “drain of society” we are.  

It would actually be better, and easier to deal with situations where people *are* more up front and personal.  I can argue and fight with the best of them, and sometimes even get a kick out of taking down bullshit when I smell it coming from someone courtesy of their ill-informed, spurious idiot babblings.  It’s the situations when gut instinct tells you that you are about to be discriminated against, or somehow treated differently, but have no idea why, because you’ve no idea what’s going on the other person’s head, that  problematic scenarios occur.  How can you fight against an invisible gas which you cannot locate and can’t identify but one whose suspected existence you know will guarantee you aren’t invited for that follow-up job interview?  A sense of humour and a confident outlook can go a long way (and I’ve fought off many a doubting Thomas with both, simply but both smiling and being simultaneously no-nonsense.  Not each and every time though, it’s mentally draining and sometimes you’re just not in the right frame of mind to take on such a seemingly invisible but undeniable foe.   

At a recent job interview I where I failed to obtain the post, I was, on the one hand, convinced I wasn’t being fobbed off when I was told they had found a better person to fill the post.  Instinct told me the interviewer wasn’t faking sincerity and interest.   I knew during the hour’s grilling that I’d hit a couple of fairly minor weak spots in my previous experience and cursed myself at some of the questions I could have answered with more oomph.  On the other hand, was me not getting the post as a result of my partial sight?  Knowing the reasoning behind me not getting this job is the kind of *potential* discrimination we face every day – and its soul destroying.  Did my interviewer have an enlightened, or heaven knows realistic view of my “uniform”?  Did they make all the right noises in the knowledge I might kick off if I it was plain I was being treated as a second-class candidate? 

I reasonably sure I was beaten by someone more experienced than me – so I don’t have a problem with not getting the job. 

Being disabled is like being famous.  You get noticed, pointed at, trolled, abused, ridiculed, told your face doesn’t fit and your presence is equally unwelcome.  However, unlike a celebrity, you don’t get a greasy fat cheque after each theatre appearance, snooker game, book you write, or TV show you rock up to. 

Next time:  My double personality – blind or not?

The parable of the clown

Hang on in there a second or two while I put to you a scenario, or if I am to be grand about this, a parable.  There is a point to this mini-allegory.  The moral of this multipart entry is quite a heavy one, so I thought it would be more entertaining to set it up it with some light cartoonish imagery.

Imagine, for one second you are in a café.  You’re just tucking into your thoughtfully chosen snack when from the corner of your eye, you see a clown pass by outside.  Your next instant thought might be one of these:

“Clowns – funyy”.  Being funny, is what clowns were supposedly put on earth to be – so why not?

“Clowns – so mobile, so clever”.  Often clowning involves being able to mime, manipulate the body and performs illusions involving sleight-of-hand and magic tricks.  It’s not easy for everyone to do this well, and no doubt an effective clown is either gifted, well trained, or both.

“Clowns – scary.  Yes, everyone’s seen It, but I personally was scared , as a wee lad, of my toy sock puppet clown (to the point where I “lost” him), and my kid sister had a phobia of them which makes her petrified, even today, long before Stephen King’s famous resident of Derry and evil sewer-dwelling jokester made his literary and cinematic appearances.

“Clowns – saddos dressed up”.  As with Morris dancers, you may see these guys as embarrassing costumed beardy-men trying to remain 20something forever.  Maybe clowning is a sex replacement activity? By the way, I like Morris dancers, though you don’t see many of them here in Northern Ireland.

“Clowns – circuses” – your feelings from then on will depend on your feelings towards and experiences of the circus, and your empathy toward animals doing tricks or being kept in cages…etc.

“Clowns – satanic”.  I have this view expressed, honest. And the fact that they are so often associated with horrific incidents in films probably means others have made what I reckon personally to be a daft link.

OK – if any of these thoughts sprung into your mind (or similar – let’s not get over-pedantic) then you are somewhat inaccurate. Or rather, I haven't told you whole truth.  If I had you may have got it straight.  But not being given the whole truth is sort of the point of this set of blogs.

The whole truth?  I’ll fill you in tomorrow.