Yesterday was International Day of Disability. I was the headline act in a group showing of artists. There were three of us. They showed mine, the art of a polar bear with only one paw (I mean it was missing three) and the art of an aardvark with no snout or ears. I didn’t want to go. I knew there was something rotten in Denmark. Not only was there something rotten, there was no Denmark. The flyer for the showing said there would be a breakfast and a lunch provided. I couldn’t be ****** turning up for breakfast and was about to go to the gym when I received a phone call from the person who’d organised the exhibition asking where I was? I asked if it was actually necessary for me to be there? I was told it would be beneficial if I were. I rang a car. When the driver turned up I tried to make conversation. He ignored me so I started taking to myself. He eventually told me to shut the hell up so I pulled my pant leg up and started pissing on the floor of his car. He shouted, HEY, and called me a dirty-rotten-dog cunt. He’d already undone his seatbelt before he’d pulled up a distance from the curb. He flung his door open, opened the backdoor and pulled my wheelchair out and threw it to the ground. The wheelchair bounced on the asphalt. I said, Hey! He went to the boot and got the wheels out and threw them to the ground. I said, Hey watch it! I asked him to bring my wheelchair closer so I could assemble it. He said, no go suck a fart, and walked back to the driver’s side. I thought about being petulant and refusing to get out of the car but thought better. He was a hot head. He was obviously capable of anything.

I pulled my legs out of the car and transferred down to the road. I sat on my bum and assembled my wheelchair while cursing the driver as he drove away. I shook my fist at him, gave the bird, and used my arms to get into it. I wheeled my chair up onto the footpath and into the building. The building was right downtown. The flyer for the exhibition said it was on the thirteenth floor. I should have known better and gone straight home. I wheeled to the lift and pushed the button to go up. When the lift finally arrived I pushed my chair into it and looked at the buttons but couldn’t find one for the thirteenth floor. They stopped at twelve. I studied the buttons for a good thirty seconds hoping I‘d overlooked it. I couldn’t find it. A woman walked up to the lift like a power walker. She was all arms and legs. I said, hey. She looked at me and said, straw’s cheaper and grass is free. I asked her if she had any. She said, any what? I said, grass. She rolled her eyes before she said, all you cripples are the same. I said, possibly, but could you please tell me how to get to the thirteenth floor? She rolled her eyes again before leaning into the lift. Her arm shot out around the door and she pressed the button marked one and then the button marked three. Both of the buttons back-lit and she sighed as her hand went to her hip. By the way, I said, I’m not a cripple I’m disabled. What’s the difference, she asked? I said, the spelling. She yawned. I asked if she was going up and wanted to get in with me? We were on the ground floor and there wasn’t a basement. She said she would rather wait till the lift was free. I asked her if she meant till the lift was free of me? She said, exactly. I wished I’d saved some of my piss to throw on her.

There was a piece of A4 paper taped to the inside of the lift. Someone had written Art For Arts Sake in crayon on it. I wondered why there weren’t any signs on the outside of the building. The door opened and I saw my fellow contributors. The polar bear was sitting in a corner being guarded by four keepers wearing faded blue overalls and the aardvark was standing in the other corner with its head down. The polar bear and the aardvark were both virgins. They stunk of the innocence of virginity. I could tell and I was jealous. It really is something to have then have-not. Ignorance is bliss. I have only had sex once since the accident. I thought of how my girlfriend left me as I lay in a hospital bed and my face burned. The way she left me turned me into a person I didn’t want to be. The way she left me made me desperate and unsure of myself. I was sexually desirable to her before the wheelchair and brain injury. As far as I could see it I would never have anyone find me sexually desirable again. That bitch. The polar bear and the aardvark had never been seen as sexually desirable to anything. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. How can you miss something you’ve never had? I wheeled up to the polar bear and the aardvark and introduced myself. The polar bear was wearing a tuxedo jacket, no pants and a pair of cheap black sunglasses. The polar bear was trying to hard. I asked it if there were any peeled grapes to eat? It showed me its teeth. I was frightened but I laughed. The aardvark squealed at me that men in wheelchairs shouldn’t make fun of polar bears. I asked the aardvark what the smell was? The aardvark cried a single tear of blood and gulped air.

The polar bear’s art was three pointed wooden stakes set in a triangle formation. The stakes sat on two red milk crates on top of each other. It had three fish heads stuck on each of the stakes. I liked it. The heads looked like Atlantic salmon. The stakes had pierced through both eyes of the fish heads and the eyes appeared to be bleeding a clear, gelatinous substance. It looked like petroleum jelly. The bear snarled at me as I entered the room. I looked at the wall and saw my photo up there. I smiled at the bear and asked it how it was? It showed me its teeth then shuffled on its bum and tore my piece of art off the wall with its teeth. It turned to look at me before sitting on it. It rolled onto it’s left side and started pissing on my work. Polar bear piss isn’t like human piss. It’s a dark orange and smells like a rusty ship. The piss collected in the middle of the canvas before running down over the sides. I wanted to punch the bear but was scared of it. Even though it only had one paw it definitely still had its teeth. I wheeled up to the bear and said, thank you sir for doing that. The bear snarled then rolled onto its right hand side and started poohing on my canvas. The polar bear’s pooh was bright orange and circular. It looked like big cumquats. Five or six turds dropped out of its backside. It sat up and started squishing the turds onto my canvas with its bum. I asked it if it wasn’t afraid of getting shit stuck to its fur? The polar bear showed me its teeth again.

The aardvark seemed happy to see me. It walked up to me and started talking. It pointed to its art. It had glued a dozen or so pieces of different broken plates together for one piece. Another was made up of vacuum cleaner heads. There were nine of them. They were all pointing with the inlets of the heads outwards. They looked like a beehive. The aardvark had also set up four mannequin heads. The heads had black Afro wigs and were dressed in whorish makeup. There was a big hole in the ears of each and they were tied together using bloodied tampons. I told it I liked its art. I lied. It talked small talk with me for about two and a half minutes. It sounded nasally. It sounded like it was holding the nose that was no longer there. The aardvark came up closer and told me that it was horny. It asked me if I could do with a blowjob? I said definitely, who from? It said, from me. I said, on second thoughts I’m okay. The aardvark leaned in and whispered, you don’t look like you’re gay. I scratched my head while thinking of what to say in response. I said, I didn’t say I was gay I said I was okay. Oh great, it said. I’m glad you’re not a fag. Where shall I give it to you? Do you want to pull your pants down here or are you bashful? If you’re shy I’ll lead you to the toilets. No I said; I would love a blowjob but just not from you. Is it because I don’t have a nose, it asked? Not really but kind of, I replied. The aardvark said to me, you know that you’re in a wheelchair and you wear hearing aides don’t you? I said, of course. And you think you can afford to be picky, it asked? I can’t afford anything, I replied.

I was bored of talking to the aardvark so I looked around for the lunch. I saw four long trestle tables in the corner so wheeled my chair up to them. I saw a pile of laminated sheets of A4 on the first. I grabbed the one off the top. It mentioned all three artists. My name was the first on the list. I wondered why I was mentioned first? There was a pile of Styrofoam plates so I picked one off the top and headed towards the middle table. There was one plate with a pile of cheeses on it, one plate with a pile of water crackers and a plate with Christmas mince tarts on it. I thought it was strange to have Christmas mince tarts before Christmas but grabbed one anyway. There was a bread and butter knife next to the cheese. I grabbed it and took a big chunk of cheddar. The cheese was warm and crumbled against the knife’s edge. I kept looking around for people but there was only myself the bear and the aardvark. I wondered why there wasn’t a sign outside the building as I kept hacking away at the cheddar. The water crackers were stale and soft. I ate all the cheddar cheese while wondering if it would constipate me? I hoped it would. Nobody likes watery poohs. I turned around and saw the polar bear staring at me. I waved at it. It showed me its teeth again. I wondered why the bear instinctively didn’t like me? What had I ever done to it? It reminded me of a neighbour. She was an owl who had given birth to a titmouse. Every time I looked at the titmouse she looked like she would cry. I never found out what it was about me that made her so sad. I could never understand why I brought her to tears so easily.

It didn’t feel bad. It felt uncomfortable. The woman who had arranged the event kept coming up to talk to me. I didn’t want to be there. There was nobody there. Not one single person came inside to look at the art. I asked her why there was no sign outside to let the passing suits know there was a showing inside? Is that what you would have done, she asked? I told her I don’t know what I would have done. I told her I probably couldn’t have been bothered to do anything. All of you cripples are the same, she said. That’s the second time I’ve heard that today, I told her. Don’t you agree with the statement, she asked? No I don’t, I said. I’m sitting in a wheelchair, the bear doesn’t have any legs and the aardvark can’t even smell it’s own shit. Can you smell your own shit, she asked? That’s all I can smell, I replied. And where are all the people, I asked? What people, she questioned? Exactly, I said. It’s like having a box of condoms in a monastery. What do you mean, she asked? Well, I said, it’s like having lots of condoms but nobody to fuck. That would make a great title for our next exhibition, she said, nobody to fuck. There won’t be a next exhibition, I deadpanned, and if there is it won’t include me. You should call it watery poohs, I said as I smiled at her. Do you think people will come then, she asked? I don’t know, I replied, all you people are the same anyway.

Andrew Stuart Buchanan