Elizabeth Ellen - Gerald lyrics

Today (like, five minutes ago) I was masturbating on my bed with a hairbrush and thinking about volunteering later today at the therapeutic equestrian center where I volunteer on Mondays and sometimes Tuesdays. I was thinking about writing this story I have wanted to write for a while now, which is a story about Gerald, a rider at the therapeutic equestrian center where I volunteer. Gerald is nineteen or twenty or maybe he is twenty-one now, I'm not sure. Gerald has Down syndrome and you aren't supposed to 'talk down to' or 'baby talk' him or anyone else who rides but inevitably people do. Gerald's mother also volunteers at the therapeutic equestrian center and one day I was walking on one side of a horse while she was walking on the other and she was telling us (the horse leader and me) about a day recently in which she discovered Gerald had created a Facebook account for himself. "There were quite a few less than desirable people he had friended on there," she said. "I defriended them and explained to Gerald…and now I keep an eye on his account." I wondered what she meant by 'less than desirable people." I thought she could mean someone like me. Or me, even. (But very quickly I remembered I'm not on Facebook so I guess it wasn't me.) Later, during one of our break periods between riders, I was sitting with Gerald and a couple other volunteers. Gerald's mother wasn't in the break room with us. She was in the barn putting away a horse or talking to another horse leader. Gerald was drinking a juice box and one of the other volunteers, a young woman in high school, said, "Gerald, what flavor is your juice box?" and Gerald said, "Apple!" and the young woman in high school said, "That sounds yummy," and Gerald said, "Yes, it's very yummy," in a way that sort of ran all of the syllables of all of the words together in one robotic sound. I thought about how we had been told not to talk down to or baby talk the riders but I didn't say anything. I never said anything in the break room (or to Gerald) other than "hey" or "it sure is hot/cold/raining." Another volunteer, a middle aged woman with hip problems, came in from outside and said, "Hey, there's a double rainbow!" and we all got up from the plastic chairs and went to the windows to look at the double rainbow. Gerald came too. Someone had called Gerald over. The young woman in high school, maybe. We all stepped back and encouraged Gerald to look out the window. "See the double rainbow?" we said. "Yeah!" Gerald said. One of us traced an outline for each rainbow on the window in front of Gerald to make sure he saw. Then we sat back down in the plastic chairs. One of us went outside to get a better picture of the double rainbow on our phone. Gerald's mother came into the break room from the back. She said, "So-and-so said there's a double rainbow. Gerald, did you see the double rainbow?" "Yeah!" Gerald said. Then the rest of us echoed him. "Yeah," we said. "We showed Gerald the double rainbow." But Gerald's mother seemed like she wasn't listening. Or Gerald's mother wanted to show Gerald herself. She held open the door for Gerald. "Come on out and see the double rainbow, Gerald," she said. We watched as she took Gerald outside and traced the rainbows in front of Gerald as we had already done five minutes earlier. "You see them?" she said. "Yeah!" Gerald said. I watched, wondering again about the 'less than desirable people' Gerald had followed on Facebook. I imagined the less than desirable people were female p**n stars. I wondered if Gerald had ever watched a p**n or masturbated. I wondered if 'not talking down to' or 'talking baby talk' to Gerald included allowing him to be a pervert like the rest of us. I thought of all this with the hairbrush inside me. Now I am typing this up. In a few minutes I will take a bath so I don't smell like my s** before I go to the therapeutic equestrian facility where I will see Gerald. I will say, "Hey!"