I Heart Epileptics

When I was a kid growing up in the small town of Lawton, Oklahoma, my family lived in a three bedroom house across the street from the local playground.

Located in the middle of a rectangular one acre plot, this recreational wonderland consisted of two swing sets, a see saw, slides, jungle gym, and merry go round. The perimeter was surrounded by thin, elongated logs, and the inside was filled with rocks. (A strange filler to choose--it would seem to me that grass would be far safer for small children than thousands of tiny sharp stones. But I digress.)

Most days, a trip to the playground was uneventful. On this particular day however, that would not be the case.

It was a typical Saturday morning. My brothers and I had just finished getting our dose of early morning cartoons and decided to go to the playground to play a game of cops and robbers. I rode over on my bicycle, my brothers walked. Making sure that it was in plain sight, I leaned my bike against a nearby tree where I could keep an eye on it.

About fifteen minutes later, I noticed a strange girl in a blue dress attempting to get on my bike. Thinking that she was trying to steal it, I began picking up large handfuls of rocks and pelting her with them. This caused her to lose her balance and fall off of the bike and onto the ground. I continued my rocky assault, while she shielded her face with her arms.

Then without warning, the girl began to convulse violently and started foaming at the mouth. My youngest brother looked at me in panic and said "WHAT DID YOU DO??" I just shrugged my shoulders unsure of what exactly was going on. At this point, a crowd had begun to gather around us. A dark haired woman and man ran up from a nearby house and tried to calm the girl down. They said they were her parents and that she was an epileptic.

My father showed up just as the paramedics arrived. I couldn't understand why he was so angry at me. "But she tried to steal my bike daddy!" I kept telling him. I was still holding a big handful of rocks when he came to drag me away. "That girl is very sick," he told me. "You don't throw rocks at people. It's not very nice. " No matter how much he tried to explain it to me, I was convinced that the rock throwing had been justified.

It wasn't until years later that I would understand what it meant to be an epileptic, and would sheepishly realize that I threw rocks at an epileptic while they were seizing. Pretty fucked up, huh?