Tourette's Brian Sep 29, 2008 - 22:58 PM
You know, I have sympathy for those with illnesses, especially the sorts that can cause tremendous emotional pain, but I have a dislike for those that use their disability to get undue attention for themselves. I know this is not something I can win, I only feel compelled to write because I felt an injustice against me. I went to the Laughing Goat poetry reading and read 8th, just after Tourette's Brian. I am calling him Tourette's Brian because he defines himself that way, and attempts to control others through his illness. If you know anything about the guy you know what I say is true. I sat down at a table at the front row with a small aisle between us. After a bit he asked if I wanted to draw something in his book. I declined. He read three poems, going way over the two-and-a-half minutes that Tom advised (because there were so many readers signed up), saying he doesn't read there that often so he felt justified in reading a third. The first two were poems about how women jilted him, and the third is where he goes into a grand mal Tourette explosion. Fine. It was loud, and people were shocked, and fine, whatever, it's his show. So he sits down and I read "Nostalgia" pretty well, and sit down in the seat at a table next to his. After a few of the readers he gets up and I lean way back to give him room. He mumbles something as I pass, something like, "If you don't lean back so far it will be easier for me to pass." I thought, huh? Well, whatever, I will still lean back as far as I can. It was packed that night, so I had no room to push my chair back. A moment later the barista comes over and starts telling me that Tourette's Brian accused me of not moving far enough even though he asked. I couldn't believe my ears, so I got up so we could talk in the hall. I told her that I leaned back as far as I could, that I couldn't lean over any farther. I couldn't slide my chair over, it was alread up against the table leg. She told me she didn't want to ask me to leave and that I could stay. I told her that I knew she was just doing her job. I knew I should have stayed, but I could feel my blood pressure rise. I did nothing wrong. I should have stayed. But with the blood pounding in my ears I just packed my stuff and started out. So, he's at the counter talking up his case and it went like this: Wang: What the hell are you saying! I moved over as far as I could. Tourette's Brian: I asked you to move over and you didn't Wang: What are you saying, I leaned back like this (I pantomime how far I leaned back). Tourette's Brian: You know I have Tourettes and you hardly moved! Wang: What! I can't believe you're doing this! Tourette's Brian: Do I have to call the police? Wang: Do I have to call the police? So I walk away from that because there's no winning against a disabled person. He wins in getting the young barista's sympathy and getting me to leave. He didn't even ask for more room to pass, just muttered his frustration. I did actually thought he said for me not to move back so far. I thought it was because he had vertigo, or something, so he wanted me to not lean over so much. But I leaned back anyway. Anyway, I know a little about this guy. I had a drink with him once, before I knew he was a jerk. He's told me stories of how he doesn't have the type of Tourettes that makes you use cuss words, but that sometimes he pretends to have that type when people annoy him so he can cuss at them. When he told me that he chuckled to himself. I know how he went to the DNote and has asked them to change their music because it could set his illness off. Well, they kept playing their music, not out of spite, but because that was the type of music they play there, if you don't like it, go someplace else. I know that there's no winning in this, that only people who have experienced what Tourette's Brian is actually like will sympathize with me. That I will appear brutish and unsympathetic. But I have seen how he obsesses over women to the point that it creeps them out. That he sometimes reads poems to the waittresses he likes in a sexualized way that's creepy. That he will throw around his illness for sympathy, and to control others. That he speaks in a whisper to waittresses so that they will lean their pretty faces in close to hear him. I don't know if it was because I declined to draw in his book, or that I was sitting with three underaged girls that he seemed to like, or that he really did think I didn't move back far enough, but it was unfair to blame me. I did nothing wrong against him, and even though I could have stayed I left of my own free will. Because there's no winning in that kind of situation. And even in writing this I know there's no winning in writing this either.
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