Picking on Retards

 We are most shaped by the things that we are ashamed of.

   I’m pretty certain of that.

   The thought occurred to me one night a few weeks ago while I was sitting at the door in Gazonga’s, watching a new stripper do the chicken walk. All new strippers do the chicken walk. It is a combination of nervousness, high heels, and the alcohol that they have to drink to work up the courage to dance naked in front of strangers. When they walk around the stage, they stretch their legs out in front of them extra far and bring their body up to the leg. They think they are being sexy and alluring, but it really resembles a chicken strutting in a barnyard, hence, the chicken walk.

   But the chicken walk was not what brought on the thoughts of shame and its effect on shaping man. It was the presence of the club’s new deejay, my old friend, Ethan. The club’s new owner, a former regular who just happened to have hit the lottery a few years back, had hired him as a favor to me. Ethan had trouble finding work due to his…  disability, so I was always keeping an eye out for a job he could handle. When Ricky, our old deejay, got fired for smoking crack in the deejay booth, I called the owner and asked him to give Ethan a shot.

   “Lenny, we had to fire Ricky,” I said, holding a napkin to my bleeding knuckle.

   “So, do we have anyone to deejay? Any applications?” Lenny asked.

   “Well, yeah. Ever since you fixed this place up we have had no problem getting people to work here. We have a big stack of apps in the back.”

   “Then pick somebody and put ‘em to work. I trust your judgment.”

   That was true. Lenny did trust my judgment and that of Devlynn. We were all old friends. But it was more than that. Lenny was too busy to come down and put things in order himself. Gazonga’s was a toy for him. Lenny Kapowski was the master of a small media empire, and he couldn’t be taking time out to handle every little thing at a little hometown strip club. After all, he’d only bought the place to keep the former owner from closing it and putting us out of work. We were a profitable business, but when you deal with the kinds of numbers that Lenny was used to dealing in, our profits were negligible.

   “I have a guy in mind,” I began tentatively. “But I’m not sure if you’d want him.”

   “Why? What’s wrong with him?”

   “Well, he could do the job, no problem. But he’s a little slow,” I answered honestly.

   “How slow?”

   “Not that bad, really. But he isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer,” I said, trying to decide if I should let him know who it was I was talking about. Then I just said it. “It’s Ethan. Ethan Miles.”

   Lenny didn’t say anything for a few moments.

   “Lenny? Still there?”

   “Teeth?” came the reply. “You want to hire Teeth?”

   I didn’t like it when people called him that, but I wanted to get Ethan the job, so I didn’t say anything about it. Besides, I knew Lenny didn’t mean anything by it. Teeth was a name they used to taunt Ethan with in high school. Not only was he retarded, but he had these really horrible teeth, all snaggly and yellowed. Hearing Lenny call Ethan that had been like a knife in my heart. It reminded me of when everyone used to pick on Ethan and I hated it.

   “Yeah. I want to hire Ethan,” I said, acting like nothing Lenny said had bothered me. “I think he could do the job. There aren’t a lot of places that would give him a chance, but I really think he might be good at this.”

   Lenny was silent for another stretch of seconds.

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