When Manny Fell Asleep In Sex Education (Part 1 of 3)

I met Manny in year 7. We went to disabled boarding school in the English countryside in the middle of nowhere so us disableds couldn’t escape. Me and Manny were in the same form together until year 11 and still saw each other from time to time at college, even though we weren’t in the same boarding house. Throughout school we lived in rooms next to each other, ate at the same table and had most of our classes together. We had two other good friends: my roommate Mort and Mayonnaise Boy who had to have mayonnaise on all his food for some legitimate medical reason… Mealtimes were usually a roar of laughter from the four of us at the table, taking the piss out of each other and our disabilities as most teenagers do: me sounding like the love child of Scooby-Doo and the Cookie Monster, Mort walking like a thunderbird, Mayonnaise Boy with his sachets of mayonnaise… We called Manny ‘Buddha’ as he was slightly chubbier than the rest of us. He took it well and responded with a meditation sign and an “Aum…” sound.

The Culture of Disabledland

Everyone at school shared CDs and PS1 games, swapping and copying them like they were currency, everyone having something slightly different to trade. It was great to have something new at a school where some of us didn’t leave for weeks at a time. We regularly rinsed the day students for whatever new things they brought in as they desperately tried to fit in with us borders, never quite understanding the ways. A Linkin Park CD here, a Tony Hawk game there, a Pokemon card to trade for chocolate, it all became part of our weird culture, a way to not only survive school but Disabledland generally.

We were all into Eminem and D12, both a massive influence on us. Quick witty raps about anything you could think of. Everyone was equal so no one was ‘safe’ from taking the piss out of. It was the start of me and Mort telling jokes and everyone else joining in on the laughs. Christopher Reeve had a charity for disableds. There were often cardboard stands with little cartoon badges of him (or some other cripple, it was hard to tell) around the school, trying to raise money and probably to give us students a role model. But we just took the piss out of him. Who cares, he was New Crip anyway. And as Eminem points out in the song ‘Role Model’, it’s not good to have a role model. The irony made it funnier. Listening to other Eminem lyrics like “Skibbedy-be-bop, a-Christopher Reeves Sonny Bono, skis horses and hittin’ some trees, How many retards’ll listen to me”… My personal favourite song was ‘Brain Damage’. Was relatable.

Mort and I came up with a parody version of D12’s, ‘My Band’ called ‘My Class’, about our classmate we called ‘SOC’ because he was a number 1 ‘Special Olympics Champion’ and everyone wanted to know about him instead of our class which gave him a massive ego. Years later he would join a cult… The idea was that Soc would sing Eminem’s part and Manny would have Bizarre’s part because they both look like Buddha. We just had to get Manny a shower cap. We were going to do it in the talent show but because I had a speech impediment the teachers thought it would be better if I held up signs with the lyrics. Then they suggested that instead of the song, we could tell jokes with the signs. So we did that. It was exactly as you would imagine a talent show at a disabled school to be. Fucking lame. One year the teachers dressed as Teletubbies. To be fair that was actually pretty funny.

The Bigger the Wheelchair…

Wheelchairs are a big deal in Disableland and size definitely matters: who has the newest, the fastest, if it can tilt or raise, who has better lights… they are an extension of yourself. The older kids normally had ‘upgrades’, better chairs as they grew out of their old ones, so they could literally run — or drive rings around the younger students. This was clear if you got invited to play ‘Stuck in the mud’ or ‘It’ at lunchtime on the track; it was bedlam. About twenty wheelchairs going at it for half an hour, trying to tag the other team. Felt alive as you tried to get away, in fear, from the older students who would punch, kick or ram to tag you. All you could do was try to weave or hide behind another guy, using him as a human sacrifice. Once, when I was in my first chair (the Quickie F40) I got cornered and tried to escape. I actually drove up another guy’s wheel and tipped over. It was great. The teachers did not agree. But they turned a blind eye. They let us be kids.

Manny had the oldest, shittiest electric wheelchair I have ever seen. It was so shit and bulky it was hard for him to get anywhere quickly. It was red. The paint was chipped. It had tiny wheels. It was really top-heavy as the elaborate seating system that strapped him in was nearly twice the size of the base, overhanging the tiny front castor wheels. Looked like it was the first electric wheelchair ever made.

When we used to play tag Manny was in the old battle-axe so it was so easy to tag him. He always got so pissed off. On the other hand, his was the only chair I couldn’t kick into manual mode because the switch on the side was too small. This was one of my tactics.

Once, he was on his own on the other side of the school, trying to drive his chair onto the grass from the pavement and the lip was a couple of centimetres drop and the whole chair fell forward, probably because all four wheels were the same size. (On modern wheelchairs the drive wheels are much bigger to give more torque and control and to weigh the back of the chair down, helping it not to tip forward.) He was strapped in from chest to foot and the only thing that stopped him from landing on his face with the chair on top of him, was his footplates which acted like forks, and actually impaled the grass, suspending him at a 45-degree angle with his tiny rear drive-wheels spinning in the air. He was stuck there for nearly an hour before someone found him. He was late for supper and we were wondering where he was. When he came back we gave him so much shit for being late as it was his favourite food that night (turkey twizler night). We pissed ourselves laughing when he told us what happened. The only thing that would have been funnier was if we actually found him ourselves. Manny was relieved. Who knows what we would have done to him…

Later on in school he actually ended up with the best wheelchair: the Storm 3 TT. In the end, he ran circles around us and started a wheelchair football team. It was even more brutal than Stuck in the Mud because it was inside, in the main hall with way less space. With spectators, it was even more cramped and dangerous. Twenty chairs going at it with a giant physio ball as a football. You bounced off it if you rammed into someone too fast. Usually some stupid spastic with a death wish was in goal, out of his chair, on his knees because he thought it was easier to move. Twenty wheelchairs coming at him trying to score while he crawled around on the mat trying to stop them all (until he got hit and knocked to the floor) not realising his wheelchair would have blocked the whole goal anyway and kept him from being run over all the time. This was no retard, just plain stupid.

The normal school P.E. benches were repurposed as barriers — no one could sit on them anyway because we were too disabled. They only came up to the spectators' wheelchair footplates which gave them no protection from the carnage and led to frequent head injuries.

Boarding Life

Every break time Manny used to play ‘Girl All The Bad Guys Want’ by Bowling for Soup, in his room. We all knew it was about the girl in our class that he had a crush on for years, but with no luck. Our rooms shared a toilet. I’d always hear him singing away as I was taking a piss, smirking to myself.

Most of us stayed weekends, especially as we got older. Manny’s mum used to pick him up every holiday and drive him back home. Always smiling, laughing and taking the piss out of him. Very nice to see that kind of relationship, she obviously cared about him very much. I always got picked up by the school bus. The driver was nice but the diesel fumes made me sick.

At the boarding house, we’d watch TV, play Playstation in our rooms, talk, tell jokes. Manny had an electric adjustable bed that could raise the back forward and the feet up. So me being the prick I am, used to take the bed controller and fold him in half, him shouting at me to stop. I got my own karma back though when we were messing with the hoist. The staff hoisted me up and left me there swinging for ages because they knew I kept folding Manny in half. The switch was fingertips away as I swung but I couldn’t reach it. I kept calling out, “Ok guys, I’ve learnt my lesson now,” but they pretended not to hear me.

We were all massive Green Day fans. We knew all their albums. We listened to the American Idiot single on repeat and couldn’t wait for the album to come out. When it finally did, we all sat and listened from start to finish. We couldn’t believe how long ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ and ‘Homecoming’ were. Every time it changed to a new section we wondered if it was a new track, our minds blown as we couldn’t believe it was still the same song.

On our only school trip (every other trip got cancelled for some reason, our class was cursed) we went to Cornwall on an adventure holiday for disabled people. What could go wrong? Of course, something bad happened every day… One of them, me and Manny went on a speed boat with three members of staff. Got about a mile out to sea and suddenly the engine cut out and we were stuck and sinking, with the occupational therapist freaking the fuck out. Me getting seasick, our Hungarian DT tech more worried about his boots getting wet, my form tutor trying to hold on to me while telling the OT, politely, to shut the fuck up. Manny at the back, calm and composed like Buddha… But that’s another story. It wasn’t as bad as when I got attacked by that dick of a goat…

In year 10 Manny wanted to show me ‘Football’ which was weird because he knew I hated football (he was a big Man United supporter). So I kept fobbing him off but he wouldn’t stop pestering me until I finally gave in. Turns out the fucking genius found a way to get ‘porn’ (really just pictures of topless girls) through the heavily parentally-safe school system! Think I actually kissed him. Couldn’t even get on Hotmail let alone see some much-needed boobies. You heard boarding school’s shit? Try disabled boarding school! Most of us had coordination problems… Bunch of horny motherfuckers I tell ya…

Sex Education

Sex education is usually taught over two classes: science/biology to learn about mechanics of the body, and PSE (Personal and Social Education) which teaches the sexual health stuff.

Side note: we didn’t have PSE because our teacher fell out of an aeroplane during a sponsored parachute jump that the year below us organised. It did not go well… Landed badly. Broke her legs, face and other important things that you need to teach. She became one of us! (Weirdly enough this wasn’t the first teacher that crossed over to our side whilst teaching there…) We had our Scottish Design and Technology teacher fill in, poor bastard. He didn’t know what to do. In front of the class with a banana in one hand and a condom in the other, awkwardly mumbling, “So the… which goes on…” His eyes flicking back and forth between the banana and condom. “So who likes hacksaws?!” That was the extent of our sex education in that class. But don’t worry, some of us were taking extracurricular activities.

Back to biology class.

After studying how the sperm enters the egg in textbooks and all that crap, our science teacher wheeled out the massive old cathode-ray tube TV in front of the blackboard, put in a VHS tape and pulled down the blinds; unknowingly, we were about to watch a horror show.

We are all fixated on the TV as we watch the ‘miracle of life’, from conception to birth, following this couple’s journey through every graphic detail. Clearly filmed in the 70s or 80s as it was bushy… We are all engrossed from when the head goes in, to when another is pushed out: jaws open, minds breaking with horror as we realise why our mothers hate us.

At the most climactic moment of moaning and groaning, when the head is crowning and we’re all holding our breath, teeth clenched, we suddenly hear another sound that isn’t in sync with anything on the video. It’s coming from the back of the classroom. Everyone exchanging looks with the person next to them and shrugging.

It gets louder and louder. We look around in unison and see Manny snoring at the back of the classroom. Fast asleep in the dark, head down with his mouth open, slightly drooling.

We burst out laughing, breaking the awkward tension… pausing the mental scarring.

He won’t ever live this down. Comments such as, “Manny got bored because he obviously knows it all,’’ were regularly heard till the end of school life.

In the evenings, you could have a full-on conversation with him when he was asleep in bed and he wouldn’t wake up. You could ask him things and he’d give weird answers. Was so funny. Until he fell asleep in English and the teacher couldn’t wake him up for 5, 10 minutes… He seemed to be fine after he went to the medical centre.

He’d probably been watching too much ‘football’…

(to be continued…)