#luckyfin

hey. long time no arm story. sorry for being such a flaky writer. but don’t fret, the universe has given me plenty of gems in the past couple months. i also haven’t even gotten to older (arguably crazier) stories from high school and college and such. 

but today. today we’re gonna talk about how i almost got in a fight with a group of older Asian men at Seaworld, San Diego. 

THE CONTEXT: 

a couple years back, circa 2014, I was contacted by a mom and her son, William. William was (is) a young boy with a disabled right arm. Off the top of my head, i can’t remember the technical diagnosis. Basically his arm is shorter and his hand is very small, without any bones in it. Through the magic of the internet, and perhaps some sprinkling of fate, William had found my songs/videos. There is no fucking way I’ll be able to articulate here how much this meant to me (and still does), so I’m not even going to try. But, it will always be one of the biggest and most beautiful things in my life. Anyway. His awesome and super badass mom, Carrie, reached out to me. I sent William a pic of me performing from a show in STL (shout out Cory) and wrote some stuff on the back. 

For the next couple of years, I followed William’s life via his mom’s Facebook. He kept listening to my songs, and occasionally I would get a picture from his mom of him watching one of my videos. Dope. 

THE SET UP: 

Flash forward to the near present. In an attempt to quell the ever pressing anxiety attack of OHMYGODYOUHAVEDONENOTHINGWITHYOURLIFEYOUHAVENTSEENSHITORDONESHITORBEENSHITYOUAREAFAILURE i decided to use my newfound income and take a trip. an old partner of mine used to talk about how much she loved San Diego and spoke of it as some quasi-paradise. “Ok Lewis,” i thought, “go see san diego.”

So I take days off work, book tickets and an airbnb, and go to San Diego. I actually went to Denver first for a few days to kick it with Eli and his ego (shout out Eli). That was super dope, but unfortunately, we were around too many dope and good people (shout out Assetou) and so no good arm stories :(

I say goodbye to Eli. I really do love that dude, and I continue on to SD. 

Turns out, William and his family stay only about an hour away from SD. His mom and I make plans to have a day where we can all hang out. Awesome! 

THE DAY OF: 

On my, idk, 3rd day there, I link up with William and his mom. This day starts off with a crazy hipster dude legit YELLING at me while I’m with William and his mom. The dude is going, “HEY MAN, I’VE SEEN YOU SOMEWHERE, WHERE HAVE I SEEN YOU????” - over and over with an increasing amount of aggression. “I don’t know where you’ve seen me breh but I definitely don’t recognize you.” This angers him, but we drive off. I wonder if he actually had seen me somewhere before. That’s the gift and the curse of being deformed/disabled. MFs really do remember me from Tuesday, October 17th, 3:47PM, at the Dunkin Donuts on Canal in Chicago where I ordered a medium black coffee and 2 sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches and paid with a blue debit card and coughed twice but only covered my mouth once and.........you get the idea.

Any who, we let William pick: Legoland or Seaworld. William says Seaworld. Seaworld it is, and off we go. We get there, cop tickets, I buy a cookie the size of my head, William pets some like eels or something, talks me into petting them, I pet the like eels or something, realize I probably just contaminated my cookie with deadly eel-itous, weigh the pros and cons of becoming radioactive eel man, eat cookie anyway. 

The day is dope. The weather is perfect, the sun is out, my skin burns clean off, William is awesome, my Bred 1s become mostly fish based, his mom and I chat a lot about growing up with a disabled arm, we see lots of stuff. 

Dope. 

But then, lol.

THE PART YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT:

So, the last activity we do is this sightseeing ride (the Skytower, i just googled it) where you board this big, encased ride that lifts you way into the air, from which you can see the whole city and everything. You get it. 

So we’re in line for the ride. William’s mom and I are chatting, William is being a kid and just kinda looking around, lost in his own thoughts. In front of us is this group of middle aged Asian men. They’re all kind of talking and minding their own business. But there’s this one dude. This one dude at the back of the pack, near us. 

I notice he’s looking at William. He’s looking at William with a big, goofy smile painted across his face. William is holding a stuffed seal I had bought him earlier and kind of switching it from arm to arm. The old dude starts kind of giggling while looking and smiling at William. He turns and makes a comment to another one of the dudes near him. They weren’t speaking english so I don’t know what he said, but based on his body language, I could guess. 

At this point, I’m side eyeing this dude fucking hard. Obviously he’s already on some super bogus fuck shit to laugh at a little kid with a disability. I can feel myself boiling. Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd then,

Then the dude takes a step or so towards William. With that same fuck ass smile on his fuck ass head, he reaches a hand out and tries to lift William’s right sleeve up to get a better look at his arm. 

Nah.

That’s when I lose it. I grab the dudes arm and push it away. I step close to this fucking dude. Like every story so far, I don’t remember exactly what I said here, but it was something along the lines of, 

“YOU BETTER GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF HIM AND TURN THE FUCK AROUND.” 

I raise my arm and snap in his face and point the other direction and tell him to look the fuck over there. I don’t know if he spoke english or anything but based on my body language, he could guess. William’s mom kinda jumped forward to be like, “Woah woah Lewis it’s okay, it’s okay.” William is too deep in his own world to even really notice what’s happening. 

The dude doesn’t really say much, he still has kind of a goofy smile on his face, but he turns around and looks the way I told him to. He definitely hit the, oh tee hee oops lemme just play this off real smooth. 

I apologize to William’s mom. She’s super cool about it. She jokes about William getting to see his hero go to jail. lol. When it’s our turn to board, we realize we’re supposed to go sit right next to these dudes. Thankfully, William’s mom intervenes and asks if we can sit elsewhere. Thank god for moms man.

-----

We board the Skytower. We shoot up 320 feet into the air. I sit next to a kid with a disfigured arm, who looks up to me, who I was ready to fight for. The ride rotates slowly. It’s a clear day. I look out onto a city I never thought I’d see, next to a person I never thought I’d meet. It’s about 5pm. William holds onto the stuffed seal I bought for him.  The sun poses for us over the San Diego skyline.

i moved to Austin, texas in june. for a job. the job is borning. i am boring. the job is more boring. (but it pays well) anyway. i had always heard folks from texas, or southern states in general, were a jolly people filled with pork belly and southern hospitality. 

survey says: kinda. idk. i’ll tell you one thing - people in austin are certainly bold as fuck. not necessarily in a good way. important to note that austin is a heavily gentrified, hipster and young, swanky professional type crowd. probably not representative of all of texas, but nonetheless.

so there’s your context. oh and i have a disabled/deformed left arm. not like a cute one that rounds off just before the hand or at the elbow. my arm is short, twisted, backwards, with a claw like, 3 fingered hand hanging off the end. it is not something you see everyday. unless you’re me i guess. or my coworkers. 

ANYWAY - i like to lift weights and i do so for between 2-3 hours 5-6 days a week. i joined a pretty fancy gym down here - a lifetime fitness to be exact. i pay 70 fuckin bucks a month for this health club. but, it has all the weights i need, 2 backetball courts, and is 24 hours - so i pay it. 

there’s this one dude at the gym, i won’t say his name, but he’s a trainer. he offered to spot me while squatting a few times and i was honestly a little annoyed, but i appreciated the offer and i indeed needed a spotter for my heavier sets. 

it became a sort of quasi gym friendship. you probably know the type. we would say wut up and engage in casual chit chat from time to time. 

a couple weeks into our relationship this man comes up to me and starts talking. he starts talking about my arm. this i’m used to and it usually consists of some “wow ur so inspirational” type shit. 

but nah

no

nuh-uh

this man

this

fucking

dude

this is what this dude says to me. this grown man with a job and a bi-weekly income and a mother, father, some type of transportation, a favorite food and a favorite color says to me.

he says: “have you ever considered just cutting that thing off?”

bruh lol

me: “wut”

him: “yeah like, chopping it off and getting a prosthetic or something”

me: “uh idk man that sounds....complicated (?? one of many words i could have used there)”

him: “oh man it’s probably not that complicated, technology is crazy now, they can do all kinds of stuff!”

me: “aw yeah that’s true man, but uh idk that would probably be expensive, plus it’s my arm, plus like...”

***now here’s where i made the mistake of trying to use a rational argument with this bloated crepe face ass instead of realizing anyone who has known you only a few weeks and casually suggests you chop a whole ass part of your body off is probably not the right person to use logic against***

crepe face ass: “NAH MAN, IT’S EASY - PLUS YOU’D BE SO MUCH MORE OF A BEAST! SERIOUSLY MAN LOOK INTO IT!” *eyes shimmering with childlike wonder of helping me become 1/6th robocop*

me: honestly idk what i said here, probably just more of like ‘but bro i don’t think that’s as easy as you’re making it seem’ 

crepe face ass: NAH BRO - YOU KNOW WUT, I’LL LOOK INTO IT FOR YOU! DON’T WORRY MAN I’LL LOOK INTO IT!

*****this is where the conversation effectively ended so that crepe face ass could presumably go google “ROBOT ARM” so i wouldn’t have to. what a weight off my back. 

now i’m not sure but i’m pretty sure i could hear my soon to be bloody stump of an arm looking up at me like “so ur not gonna hit this mf huh?”

crepe face ass walks away - a soft smile on his face after a long 7 minutes of helping a poor crippled boy realize his robotic potential. i sit there on the bench, shocked, muscles slowly getting colder and stiffer. i think i messaged steve about it. 

---------------------

so that’s more or less it. this real ass human being suggested i frankenstein my shit in hopes that apparently free, fully functional robotic prosthetic technology that, and i can’t emphasize this enough - does not fucking exist yet, will help me deadlift 45 extra pounds.

it felt weird. my arm is a part of my body. it’s the same arm my mom had to cope with, had to teach me how to tie my shoes with. it feels and aches and stretches and scratches and picks shit up and puts shit down and goes around your girls shoulder (i kid). and this dude was so quick, so quick, to just suggest i cut that mf right off. like it wasn’t part of me. like i wouldn’t feel it. like i wouldn’t have to know that the lower half of my arm was being processed down or put with whatever happens to other now unusable, discarded body parts. idk. that feels shitty to be dehumanized like that in such a blatant way. 

woo - ok - that was long but we made it. this is the first installment. if you actually read this far i will venmo you 50 cents. anyway - that sucked. but. at least at the end of the day. i’m not a grown man. working at lifetime fitness. telling a 23 year old kid who is 1.5x my size to chop his arm off. 

and then i left the gym and went home to my newly fat bank account. yuuugghhhh.