Waiting for Joe to bring the car up to the entrance, I just watched people come in. I saw a young couple chatting away. He was a tall black man and she was a plumpish, but not fat, white woman. They were probably in their early twenties. He was behind her pushing her wheelchair and as the passed where I was sitting, they were laughing about something she said. He stopped, leaned over, and kissed her and then they were on their way. Lovely.
The woman, maybe 50, sitting on the benches across from me said to her friend, loud enough for me to hear, said “Disgusting!” I was angered by her remark. Let’s get this straight:
Love is never disgusting.
So, as silence isn’t an option, I spoke up. I said that I thought they looked happy and that their love for each other was evidence, “What does race have to do with it?” was the question I lobbed at her.
“Race,” she said, “I am NOT a racist. I don’t care about their colour I care that he’s going to burden himself for his whole life if he marries something like that.”
“Something like that!!!” I said. So you think that people with disabilities are ‘Things.” She wasn’t even embarrassed. “And what if they have kids like her?”
“And what if they did?” Do you not believe that people with disabilities have a right to be here.
“Not if I have to pay for them.”
“You realize that you are a bigot right, please tell me that you know that.”
“I am not. I’m logical. If you contribute, you belong, if you can’t you don’t.”
“So death camps?”
“Maybe, but we’ll get to a point where we eliminate you and your kind.”
“Next week, when you fall and break your hip, when you have to use a scooter, You want to be euthanized then?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said.
“I’m not.”
And I went for the car.
