#90 How Does Your Sister Roller Skate
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There is a cruel trick that middle school boys play on each other. It usually involves a bully looking for an excuse to beat up another boy. The bully enlists the help of a third person to convince the victim to ask the bully, “How does your sister roller skate?” The victim usually resists because no one wants to ask the bully anything, but eventually, the victim is persuaded by being convinced that this is all good-natured and there is a really funny joke in all of this. Maybe this will produce some goodwill or a friendship with the bully, which is always handy to have when you’re a middle school boy.
Naturally, when the victim asks the bully, “How does your sister roller skate?” the bully replies with feigned outrage, “She doesn’t have any legs,” and then proceeds to beat up the victim. Of course, the bully doesn’t have a legless sister; this was all an arranged provocation to justify a beatdown.
I never had this trick successfully played on me, although I distinctly remember this little pack of assholes headed up by Alex Garcia trying to trick me into this provocation. Alex was 13, already had a mustache, and looked like a boxer. I wasn’t about to ask this kid anything. Also, I already have a sister, Sandra, who is pretty hilarious when she roller skates because she was born with cerebral palsy.
Why do I joke about that? Well, sometimes that’s what siblings do when they have a disabled sibling. You make little jokes about it. Nothing cruel. It’s sort of a way of taking the stigma away. And I mean, we would do it right to my sister’s face. Because she’s the one who most wants the stigma to be gone. I remember my sister Sandra coming to visit me at my dorm room when I was a freshman. I was sitting on the floor with five or six of my friends when she walked in, stumbled slightly, dropped her purse, and then caught herself on the door frame.
“Oh my God, Sandra, are you drunk already? It’s one in the afternoon!”
Two of my friends were in on the joke and fell back laughing. Everyone else was shocked. They couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Meanwhile my sister was laughing so hard she wasn’t even making any noise. I started to worry she was going to collapse onto the floor. It took her like five minutes to regain her composure and speak. Now understand, it was funny to her not because I was comparing her unsteadiness to being drunk, but because there was a group of uninitiated people in my dorm room who really thought I was being an asshole. It’s second order. The in group is having a laugh at the expense of the out group. The in group being me, my sister and friends comfortable with the weirdness around the disability and the out group that is unsure how to navigate in this situation.
Now look, if my sister was severely disabled, we probably wouldn’t have teased her in this way. Nor would would we ever make a joke that was likely to really upset her. There is a line there, impossible to define, but siblings instinctively know where the line is and not to cross it.
Of course maybe this isn’t normal. Some of this may have to do with my family’s rather dark sense of humor. For instance, I remember years later when my mom was suffering from Alzheimer’s. She was living with my little sister Stephanie, and I came to visit. When I walked into the living room, Stephanie had a mischievous look on her face.
“Margaret and I are talking about that man in the picture.” My sister was pointing at a picture of my dad as a young man in his Air Force uniform. My sister was calling our mother Margaret because that day she didn’t know who my sister was.
“That’s my husband, Charles.”
“David, I told her that’s my father.”
“That’s not her father,” my mother said, a little irritated.
“Well then, who is my father?”
“I have no idea who your father is.”
“No idea?”
“NO IDEA,” she said loudly, clearly finished with the conversation.
“Well, okay then… would you like some tea, Margaret?”
“Yes, I would.”
My sister got up and headed to the kitchen, but before she disappeared around the corner, she looked back at me, mimicked snickering, and covered her mouth with her hands.
Right up to the line. Didn’t cross it. Well maybe she did but my mother was oblivious.
The dark humor was to take the sting out of the ambiguous loss of a parent who was slowly fading out. I welcomed it, even if it also made me sad.
My sister Sandra was born on my grandma’s couch in Wallace, Arkansas, in 1954. This was a very rural area, and the hospital was quite far away. The doctor didn’t arrive until my mother was deep in labor. The birth was difficult, and at some point, my sister was deprived of oxygen, resulting in brain damage that impaired her motor skills. It did not affect her cognitively, and she has lived a relatively normal life. She has a family, worked for many years, wrote a book about her life, and until recently, she drove and even managed to roller skate a bit.
My sister Sandra is a blessing to our family. Because she required special therapy and often had to attend special schools, my mom focused on her. Much of our family dynamic was built around making sure Sandra was okay. It brought us together and made us close, made us a team. There was also cruelty from other kids. Much of the time, it was directed at me and my other sisters when she wasn’t around, but sometimes it was straight to her face. It was appalling at times. She had to be strong. We had to be strong.
There was also a sort of happy accident for us. When other moms started getting jobs in the 1970s, my mom didn’t. She remained a stay-at-home mom until Sandra was in high school and could drive herself places. So, while the other kids on the cul-de-sac were coming home to empty houses, my mom had food, fresh-baked cookies, and hot tea ready. We were like the idealized 1950s sitcom house in the neighborhood. Eventually, the other kids in the neighborhood realized this, and our house became quite popular. We lived in a mostly Mexican American neighborhood, where the tradition at Christmas time is to make sweets and tamales and share them with your neighbors. My mom reciprocated by making the closest thing she could think of: English sausage rolls. Not pigs in a blanket, not kolaches, but a light, flaky English pastry. It was like something from another planet to the neighborhood kids, and we became known for after-school sausage roll snacks. My sister and her friends from the neighborhood have since “localized” the sausage roll by substituting chorizo for the English sausage. In 2064, there will be a food/travel show that rolls into Redlands, California, and the locals will insist they try the local specialty: a chorizo variety baked in a delicate, flaky pastry. It’s only found in this part of California. No one knows why.
How Does Your Sister Roller Skate
Tell me how does your sister roller-skate
It’s a cruel trick teenage boys play on the weak
When you ask the answer is
“She’s got no legs”
Then they kick your ass
So let me tell you how my real sister roller-skates
She was born in a thunderstorm on my grandma’s couch in rural Arkansas
She almost died before the doctor arrived it was a painful difficult birth
She walked with braces and sometimes crutches for the first part of her life`
So let me tell you how my sister roller skate
Tell me how does your sister roller-skate
My sister roller-skates just fine, she’s got a job a family and she drives
She won an employment discrimination lawsuit she wrote a book about her life
Tell me how does your sister roller-skate
It was a less enlightened time and she was harassed all the time
They called her retard and spastic right to her face and they generally cruel and unkind
Me and my sisters we tried to defend her but nothing really seemed to change
Until our neighbor Victor broke somebodies’ nose
Tell me how does your sister roller skate
It’s a cruel trick teenage boys play on the weak
But my sister roller skates just fine
And you can’t let the pricks ruin your life
Tell me you how does your sister roller-skate
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Bryan Howard: bass
Luke Moller: strings
David Lowery: vocals and guitar
Carlton Owens: drums
Thayer Sarrano: piano
300 Songs 
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