THE TREES UNDERGROUND: A NOVELLA IN SHORTS
MAN ON BUS WITH BLINDSTERS
BLIND BETTY SAYS THE TOXINS ARE TOXIC and that if we breathed in our lungs would bleed out our earballs. She’s fingered all the Braille books on anatomy so she knows about these things she says. The floors though the floors would shine like pool water like a mirror ball and so that might be worth a lung or two maybe is what she says. Think of it like consumption Blind Betty says. The people they buy whatever it is the neighbors throw away. That’s consumption I say. Floors you could skate on is how Blind Betty puts it. You could see yourself in them floors she says. Then that ugly mirror over the fireplace could go into the fireplace and cook to a burnished kindling is what I say to her but she didn’t even know about that ugly mirror in the first place. I don’t know where it is this bus is going but Blind Betty says they are bussing us away from the toxins. I haven’t been home since they promised to pay me to walk these blindsters around so they won’t bump into things and crack their heads open. I haven’t seen my TV or refrigerator since the blindsters neither. Blind Betty has never been home so I tell her stories about the TV and refrigerator. How that the TV it squeals like a wounded bird and the refrigerator light never turns off. I took out all the racks once and squeezed myself in to make sure. She says I probably belong somewhere else but I’d miss it just the same. I think she means home and not the refrigerator but she’s blind so you don’t know. She says I was made to work with the less fortunate. I say unfortunately she’s true and that I could understand her mistake. They sent me here to help blindsters for which they promise to pay me for in money and food. I don’t know when they’ll send me back home they haven’t said. I don’t think they are concerned with sending me back home. Home is where the refrigerator and defective TV is and here is where the blindsters and toxins is. That’s the difference how you tell them apart. The job is easy except for walking the blindsters around and I don’t like it when they make me go out to the shed for wood to burn. They can’t ask Blind Betty or any blind boys to go so it’s me they ask. They promise me money for this but they haven’t paid me once yet. I think what it is I do here I do for free. I tell this to Blind Betty but what she says back is curse words. Nobody here likes Blind Betty and this is why I think. The last time I went out to the shed for wood to burn I hit my head on the shed door and bled all over the wood. When I got back no one could see I was maimed and I didn’t tell no one neither. So there I was with my head cracked open walking blindsters around obstacles and land mines. The land mines can be anywhere so you have to watch when you walk. Meantime the wood’s got things like termites and maggots or faggots or whatever Blind Betty calls them. Blind Betty says the neighbor was a gay faggot and that you could tell by what he throwed away. Blind Betty is blind so sometimes she says gay faggots and sometimes she says fay gaggots so you don’t know which is which. Only fay gaggots throw away imitation fox stoles and eat up firewood in the shed. Me I don’t know about these things. I don’t know what good shiny floors are to blindsters or why they pay me to fetch wood to burn or ride on buses. I don’t know when they’ll send me home but it could be when the faggots eat out the bloody wood or when the toxins aren’t toxic anymore. On this bus with blindsters I’ll likely be home when I get home.
MAN IN THE MIDDLE OF MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE
PITY JIMMY WAS BORN THE WAY HE WAS. The people around here say that sometimes and now I say it too. Pity Jimmy is one of the blindsters they pay me to walk around obstacles and land mines. The land mines can be anywhere so you have to watch out when you walk. The other day Blind Betty stepped on a roller skate and cracked her head open on the shiny new floor. They did up the floors so you could see yourself in them now. I never see myself in the floor but they said I could if I looked. They said the floors shine like pool water like a mirror ball and you can skate on them floors if you’re not careful. It’s funny they say you can skate on them floors because they don’t even mean with Pity Jimmy’s roller skates. Thing about Blind Betty cracking her head open is she wasn’t supposed to be walking around without me to walk her. Blind Betty is blind and is liable to bump into things and crack her head open without someone to walk her which is what they promise to pay me for. That and it was Pity Jimmy’s roller skate she tripped over. I don’t know why they let Pity Jimmy have roller skates because he’s as blind as the day he was born. They all of them gave me what-for when Blind Betty cracked her head open. This is not what we pay you for is what they said. I think I shook my head yes but they haven’t been paid me yet not once. So they were all angry with me except for the blindsters. The blindsters don’t like it when I walk them around and they don’t like Blind Betty even more. I don’t remember what it is I was doing when Blind Betty cracked her head open but it wasn’t my fault neither. Blind Betty knows not to walk around without me to walk her. She knows they did up the floors to shine like pool water like a mirror ball and that you could skate on them floors if you’re not careful. Out of all the blindsters that don’t like Blind Betty it’s Jimmy that don’t like her best. Pity Jimmy says Blind Betty was born an agent orange of evil. He says she was born in the fire and brimstone hour. Me I was born in the middle of monkey in the middle. Pity Jimmy says that to me but doesn’t say what it means. Pity Jimmy always talks about people and when or how they were born. Everyone thinks there’s something wrong with Pity Jimmy. They say things like pity Jimmy was born the way he was and they don’t mean that he was born blind neither. Pity Jimmy rocks back and forth like he’s in a rocking chair standing up and he’s always trying to snap his fingers but never makes any snapping sounds. He’s always jerking his head around like there’s a gnat flying in his face too. This is why they say what they say about Pity Jimmy. This and that he talks about how and when people were born all the time. It’s the only thing he says about people be they blindsters or regular. Hear tell folks born half past the witch hazel hour and born without the sense of a Cotton-Eyed Joe and born with their foot greased up on mutton stew. There’s no way Pity Jimmy can know what monkey in the middle is neither. I ain’t seen the blindsters play monkey in the middle and I don’t think they can. They can’t know who’s in the middle or how high to throw the ball so the monkey can’t get it or how to catch it even. This is why I think Pity Jimmy left that roller skate out for Blind Betty to trip and crack her head open. I think Pity Jimmy knows things about people like when they were born or how they like to walk with no one else there to walk them. I think Pity Jimmy knows they’ll send me back home for things like not walking Blind Betty around. Thing about Pity Jimmy is he was smiling when they told us the news about Blind Betty cracking her head open. He was smiling and rocking and snapping his fingers back and forth and you could see him trying to picture Blind Betty tripping and falling and cracking her head open and this is what happens to you when you’re born an agent orange of evil. He may’ve even been looking over at me and signing run monkey run with his snapping fingers. You can’t tell with him sometimes because he’s blind. Me I don’t know if blindsters can do sign language or know about how and when people were born. Maybe Pity Jimmy didn’t say or sign any of this out loud but you know he was thinking it.
THE TREES UNDERGROUND
IN CAFETERIA WHEN BLIND BETTY SAYS THE TREES UNDERGROUND ARE OUTSIDE BLOOMING ALL OVER. Blind Betty is blind so you don’t know if you should believe her sometimes. Thing about Blind Betty is she’s fingered all the Braille books on flowers and nature so she knows about these things she says. To regular people the trees underground are dandelions but to Blind Betty they’re trees. Blind Betty says when she was a kid she had a baby brother who was a retard and she’d tell him that dandelions were the trees underground. Blind Betty says this is the kind of thing you tell retards but she doesn’t say why. She’d tell him there was a world underground the opposite of the aboveground world. So if you were blind aboveground you were deaf in the underground world and if you were a retard in one you’d be a genius in the other. It don’t make no sense to me that if you’re blind aboveground you’d be deaf in the underground but I like it when Blind Betty tells us stories about her retard brother so I don’t say nothing. Blind Betty says her mother made her call the baby brother special instead but he was a retard just the same. The neighborhood they lived in was filled with old people who didn’t have the sense to move to Florida or get killed off is what Blind Betty says. The few kids in the neighborhood were all evil and Blind Betty would know since Pity Jimmy says she was born an agent orange of evil herself. All Pity Jimmy ever says about people is how and when they were born. Me I was born in the middle of monkey in the middle but Pity Jimmy never says what that means. Blind Betty never says what it means either though if anyone knows it’s probably her. Pity Jimmy doesn’t like Blind Betty so I don’t think it’s a good idea when Blind Betty sits next to us but I act like it is. My job here is to walk these blindsters around obstacles and land mines and listen to their stories about retard brothers sometimes. This is what they pay me for though they haven’t started to pay me yet. Blind Betty says the evil neighborhood kids would make Blind Betty’s brother eat doodlebugs and play with himself in front of the whole school. Blind Betty says this was before they had special schools for retards. The other thing is this all happened before Blind Betty caught the disease in her eyes and went blind. Time was Blind Betty wasn’t blind but I don’t know if you can believe her. She looks like all the rest of them boys and girls born blind even Pity Jimmy who is the blindest one of all. She says old people in the neighborhood used to wish their own evil children and grandchildren could be more like her and would tell them so to their faces. They would say why can’t you be more like Blind Betty except they probably said regular Betty back then. They used to would say this because Blind Betty was always taking care of her retarded baby brother like she was Saint Blind Betty. She says that none of them evil neighborhood children could’ve been like her anyway because that’s not how the world works. If you want a child like Blind Betty you’d have to have one like her baby brother, it’s always a tradeoff she says. Me I don’t know about these things but Blind Betty does so I keep listening. She says she thought maybe she’d put a curse on her retarded baby brother because she didn’t want one in the first place and used to would wish he’d not get born. God made him a retard as revenge but Blind Betty’s mother says it was because he didn’t eat his vegetables as a baby so you don’t know what. She says she was always getting into fights sticking up for her baby brother but it got so she was tired all the time from fighting so eventually you learn to pick your spots when your baby brother is a retard. Also Blind Betty’s brother would only want to eat cereal for dinner each night and would splash milk all over the kitchen table. It was Blind Betty’s job to clean up the little pools of milk surrounding her retarded brother’s bowl. She says her mother wasn’t a good mother to the baby brother because secretly she hated him for being a retard and wouldn’t wipe up the pools of milk for him neither. I say to Blind Betty that maybe her mother didn’t know how to be a good mother and that maybe it wasn’t on purpose. Blind Betty doesn’t even listen to me when I say this. I don’t think Pity Jimmy is listening either. He’s too busy trying to spoon-feed himself the chicken soup he’s spilling everywhere else. Or maybe he’s thinking how and when everyone underground is born. You can’t tell with him sometimes because he’s blind. Me I never think about the underground world because this is not what they pay me for. Blind Betty goes on with her story and how next that her baby brother died. She didn’t say how he died just that one day he was dead and that it wasn’t unexpected. She said that her mother seemed to turn into a different mother and the house into a different house and not long after it was when she caught the disease in her eyes and went blind. After that all she remembers is what she calls the acrid smell of flowers making her sick and that her mother never mentioned the baby brother again. Blind Betty doesn’t say if acrid is a kind of flower or what it smells like. What she says instead is she wasn’t sure if it was because you weren’t supposed to talk about dead people or that nobody missed him. Blind Betty’s mother cleaned out his room the week after and never kept any pictures around so it was like he was never even there. Right then Pity Jimmy spoons the last of the soup into his mouth and stands up. This means I have to walk him back to his room so he won’t bump into something and crack his head open like Blind Betty did that one time. I stand up to go do this. Before we go I ask Blind Betty if she can remember what her baby brother looked like and what she says back is I don’t think that was right neither.
HERCULANEUM
BLIND BETTY SAYS SHE’S STARVING HUNGRY and if she doesn’t get to eat soon she doesn’t know what. Blind Betty says this all the time so you don’t know if you can believe her sometimes. Also Blind Betty is blind and blindsters lie more than regular people do I think. I’m not saying that all blindsters are born liars the way they were born blindsters but it’s something close to that. Maybe only some of them are born liars and the rest learned how from the born ones. Maybe that’s what they teach in these schools for blindsters. Blind Betty is one of the blindsters who wasn’t born blind. Time was she could see things like apples and dandelions. Blind Betty says she can remember what apples and dandelions look like but not much else. Could be Blind Betty remembers what everything looks like but you can’t tell with her sometimes because she’s a liar. The blindsters are good liars because they don’t have to look anyone in the eye when they do it. My job here is to walk Blind Betty to the cafeteria whenever she’s starving hungry so I have to listen to her when she says it even though she might be lying half the time. The one time I wasn’t there to listen was when she went by herself and tripped and cracked her head open on Pity Jimmy’s roller skate. I don’t know where it is I was when Blind Betty cracked her head open. I may’ve been out in the shed getting wood to burn. Sometimes they send me out to the shed for wood because they can’t send any of the blindsters to go do it. I don’t like getting wood because the wood has things in it like maggots or faggots or whatever it is Blind Betty calls them. Sometimes Blind Betty calls the worms faggots and calls me and Pity Jimmy maggots and sometimes it’s the other way around so you don’t know what. They never said why they let Pity Jimmy have roller skates because he’s as blind as the day he was born. Instead they gave me what-for when Blind Betty cracked her head open. This is not what we pay you for they said. I think I shook my head yes but they haven’t paid me once yet. Sometimes I think they won’t ever pay me. Sometimes I think what I do here I do for free. None of the blindsters care if I get paid so I don’t even tell them. If I did say something I would probably say it to Pity Jimmy because he won’t say nothing back. All he ever says about people be they blindsters or regular is how and when they were born and he’s an idiot anyway. This is why they didn’t give Pity Jimmy what-for even though it was his roller skate Blind Betty tripped on. Pity Jimmy is the blindest one of all these blindsters so he can do no wrong in their eyes. People around here say pity Jimmy was born the way he was and now I say it too. They say this because all he ever does is rock back and forth like he is in a rocking chair standing up and snaps his fingers without making any snapping sounds. Also he jerks his head around like there’s a gnat flying in his face. So here it is I have to walk Blind Betty to the cafeteria so she won’t trip over something and crack her head open again. Next time she trips and cracks her head open it might kill her they told me. I don’t know if regular people get killed this way but maybe blindsters do. So I walk Blind Betty to the cafeteria and she says she gets low blood sugar but she doesn’t say what that means. She’s fingered all the Braille books on anatomy and nutrition so she knows about these things she says. Blind Betty is always fingering some book when she isn’t talking about what she’s fingered. I ask her what low blood sugar has to do with the price of fish because that’s what she said to me one time. I forgot what it was I said to her that made her say what does that have to do with the price of fish back. Blind Betty doesn’t like it when you interrupt her which is probably why she said what she said about the fish. I don’t know what Blind Betty means most of the time when she talks. On the walk over she talks about how Herculaneum was just as destroyed by Vesuvius but all anyone ever remembers is Pompeii. She says it’s a conspiracy and says that the people of Herculaneum have been victimized twice. She doesn’t say who Herculaneum is or what Vesuvius did to destroy him and I don’t ask questions either. She doesn’t mention anything about the price of fish or why they let Pity Jimmy have roller skates or why she is always fingering her Braille books. I sit Blind Betty down and set her a place. There is a paper place mat and on the right side you put the napkin with the fork knife and spoon from left to right in that order. I go to the counter so I can fill a tray of food and get a carton of milk for her. This is what they pay me for when they do finally pay me. I fetch a carton of milk from the refrigerator. On the tray I put beans where the beans are supposed to go and the chicken and potatoes where they are supposed to go. This is how they said I should do it. You have to put the chicken and beans and potatoes in the same spot every time otherwise I don’t know what.
SEPTEMBER WHEN THE CICADAS DIE
BLIND BETTY SAYS WE’RE UNDERWATER NOW. After two hours riding aboveground we go underground to cross some river is why Blind Betty says what she says. We are on this train to go visit some museum somewhere but they don’t say what for. Last time it was a bus they put us on and Blind Betty said the toxins were toxic and that if we breathed in our lungs would bleed out our earballs. They did up the floors so you could see yourself in them was the problem. I never see myself in the floors but they said I could if I looked. They say the floors shine like pool water like a mirror ball and that you can skate on them floors if you’re not careful. They put us on that bus so they could do this to the floors. Me I don’t know what good shiny floors are to blindsters or why they make me walk these blindsters around so they don’t trip over things and crack their heads open instead of someone else. They all of them gave me what-for when Blind Betty cracked her head open that one time. This is not what we pay you for they said. I think I shook my head yes but I don’t remember ever getting paid by them even once. I think what it is I do here I do for free. I said this to Blind Betty once and what she said back to me was curse words. Blind Betty tries to teach Pity Jimmy curse words but it never works. Pity Jimmy didn’t come with us on the train because Blind Betty says Pity Jimmy is sick and might die soon. Part of my job now is to give Pity Jimmy his pills after he eats in the cafeteria breakfast lunch and dinner. Blind Betty is the one who taught me which pills to give Pity Jimmy and in what order. She said it was her job before it became my job to do this. Blind Betty says if you give Pity Jimmy the wrong pills in the wrong order he will fall down and have convulsions and swallow his tongue and die. I don’t know if this is true but it’s what Blind Betty tells me. Blind Betty has fingered all the books on health and anatomy so she knows about these things she says. Thing about Blind Betty is you don’t know if you can believe her sometimes. Blind Betty is blind and blindsters lie more than regular people do I think. I’m not saying that all blindsters are born liars the way they were born blindsters but it’s something close to that. It’s because they don’t have to look anyone in the eye that makes it easy. So when I give Pity Jimmy his pills I don’t know if I’m doing it right or if I am killing him. I don’t know if Blind Betty wants Pity Jimmy dead. She hasn’t said so out loud but you can tell she thinks about it sometimes. This is why Pity Jimmy says she was born an agent orange of evil. Pity Jimmy was rocking back and forth and snapping and jerking when he called her an agent orange of evil and then Blind Betty told us about her baby brother who died. This brother was a retard that would spill milk when he ate his cereal for dinner and other retarded things like that. The way Blind Betty talks about her baby brother you wonder how he died when he died. She never tells us about that part only that one day he was dead and that it wasn’t unexpected. Blind Betty used to would make up this game for her brother about the underground world. That it was the opposite of the aboveground world and so if you were blind in one you’d be deaf in the other and so forth. Sometimes Blind Betty don’t make no sense when she talks but I like listening to her stories so I don’t say nothing about her not making no sense. This happens too when I ask her if she is looking forward to the museum. I think maybe this museum is a special one they have for blindsters. The kind of museum where you can touch things instead of just look at them. What she says back is all she looks forward to is September when the cicadas die. I don’t say anything to her when she says this to me. I don’t know who the cicadas are or why they die in September. This is when Blind Betty says we’re underwater now. Blind Betty doesn’t mention the underground world when she says what she says about us underwater. I think maybe it’s because she doesn’t want to think about her dead baby brother and that maybe her baby brother died in September and his name was Cicada. When she says what she says about us underwater it almost feels like we are flying down a roller coaster but not really. None of them blindsters put their arms up in the air and scream when we go underwater and neither do I. All I feel is my ears plugging up and then unplugging and I look over to Blind Betty who is fingering one of her Braille books like it’s nothing. I move my jaw like I’m chewing gum and watch Blind Betty finger two whole pages without stopping her finger even once. I can’t tell if her ears are plugging and unplugging like mine and I wonder if this can’t happen to blindsters because they’re blind.
WHAT DOESN’T MATTER HERE
THEY HAVE ME SLEEP IN A ROOM RIGHT NEXT TO WHERE PITY JIMMY SLEEPS. Pity Jimmy is the one I have to keep an eye out special for because out of all these blindsters he’s the blindest one of all. All Pity Jimmy does is snap his fingers without making any snapping sounds and shakes his head like there’s a gnat flying in his face. This is why they say pity Jimmy was born the way he was and why I say it now too. This room next to Pity Jimmy’s has no closet to hang clothes in and no windows to look out of. Pity Jimmy has both a closet and windows but I guess they think I don’t need those things. I have to keep my extra clothes in a valise I keep under the bed. I have two extra shirts in the valise and an extra pair of pants but I almost never have to wear them because they give me clothes to wear for free every two or three days. The pants and shirt are always gray and are always too baggy for me to wear right. I have to fold the pants over and down onto my hips because I forgot to bring a belt with me and they never seem to have a belt for me to wear neither. The shirt I button up to the top button because there’s no reason not to. Most times I never button the top button of my shirt because it feels like I’ll choke to death but with these gray shirts here it doesn’t matter. These clothes would fit someone twice the size of me is the problem. Every two or three days I’ll come back to my room at night to find the baggy shirt and pants on my bed waiting for me. Sometimes I think this is what they mean when they say this is not what we pay you for. What I mean is I think they think that by giving me clothes to wear it is the same as paying me actual money. I don’t know this to be true but there’s no one to ask neither. If I asked Blind Betty what she’d probably say back is curse words. Along with no closet or windows there’s no mirror in my room neither. This is probably good because I don’t have to see how stupid these clothes look on me. Sometimes I feel like an idiot in these clothes but then I realize it doesn’t matter here. Blindsters don’t care about what you look like because they’re blind. This might be the only good thing about being here if there is a good thing about being here which I’m not sure there is. The only two things I do in my room is sleep and either put on or take off my clothes and none of that is ever good. Walking the blindsters around obstacles and land mines isn’t good and neither is taking them back and forth to the cafeteria. Going out to the shed for wood to burn isn’t good and the maggots and faggots in the wood aren’t also. What’s good is in my old room back home I had a TV that squealed like a wounded bird. I’d watch the TV and do whatever else I used to do in my room at home while watching the TV and what I think I remember is that it was always good.
THE PRICE OF FISH
BLIND BETTY SAYS ON THE KITCHEN FLOOR IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU HAD FOR BREAKFAST. Pity Jimmy is rocking in his chair like he agrees with her but I don’t think he does. Why I think Pity Jimmy doesn’t agree with her is because Pity Jimmy doesn’t like Blind Betty one bit. Nobody here likes Blind Betty but it’s Pity Jimmy that don’t like her the best. He doesn’t even listen to her when she talks which is most all of the time. Blind Betty is one of the blindsters that wasn’t born blind. Not all these blindsters were born blind. Some like Blind Betty can remember what certain things look like. She says she can remember what an apple looks like and what a dandelion looks like. One thing she can’t remember is what her baby brother looked like. Blind Betty had a baby brother who was a retard and who died back when Blind Betty wasn’t blind. I hear about her retard brother almost every day which is part of what they promise to pay me for. It’s my job to walk these blindsters around obstacles and land mines and listen to their stories about retard brothers. The good thing about Pity Jimmy is all he says about people is how and when they were born. Pity Jimmy never says what any of it means and no one tries asking him. I asked him once and all he did was snap his fingers and jerk his head at me. Out of all these blindsters Pity Jimmy is probably the blindest one of all. This is why they tell me to keep an eye out special for Pity Jimmy. The land mines can be anywhere so you have to watch out when you walk. Blind Betty stepped on a roller skate one time and cracked her head open on the shiny new floor. They did up the floors so you could see yourself in them. I never see myself in the floor but they said I could if I looked. They say the floors shine like pool water like a mirror ball and that you can skate on them floors if you’re not careful. They put us all on a bus so they could do this to the floors. Blind Betty said they bussed us away so that our lungs wouldn’t bleed out our earballs. Blind Betty knows about these things because she’s fingered all the Braille books on anatomy. They all of them gave me what-for when Blind Betty cracked her head open. This is not what we pay you for they said. I think I shook my head yes but I don’t remember ever getting paid by them even once. I think what it is I do here I do for free. I said this to Blind Betty and she told me what does that have to do with the price of fish. Blind Betty doesn’t like it when you interrupt her which is probably why nobody here likes her much. This is also why she said on the bathroom floor it doesn’t matter what you had for breakfast. She was telling us how after she’d cracked her head open she’d get dizzy in the bathroom and fall down. She said she was on the floor sometimes two hours before someone thought to come check on her. One time it was me they sent to check on her and I found her there on the bathroom floor like she was taking a nap. I splashed water on her face and slapped her cheek like I seen done in the movies. Then I walked her to bed and went to find Pity Jimmy who was probably doing something wrong somewhere and getting me in trouble for it. What I said to Blind Betty was that at least she got flapjacks for breakfast after she cracked her head open. I said at least that’s something. Pity Jimmy was next to me when I said this and was rocking in his chair back and forth and snapping his fingers when Blind Betty said what she said back. I want to think Pity Jimmy agreed with me instead of Blind Betty because I’m the one who walks him around and keeps him from cracking his head open but you can’t tell with him sometimes because he’s blind.
BLIND BETTY TO HER BABY BROTHER
BLIND BETTY IS TO BLINDSTERS WHAT HER BABY BROTHER WAS TO RETARDS. I thought this up the other day but I don’t know if I know what it means. Years ago there was Blind Betty who back then was regular Betty because she hadn’t caught the disease in her eyes and went blind yet. Also there was her baby brother who was a retard and who lived in the underground world. This underground world was the exact opposite so if you were tall in the aboveground world you’d be short in the underground and vice versa. What I think I meant was when I think of blindsters I think Blind Betty and when I think of retards I think of her baby brother. I never knew a blindster before Blind Betty and I never knew a retard neither. I seen both blindsters and retards on the TV but that was it. The TV I had squealed like a wounded bird but even still it played shows about blindsters and retards whenever that sort of show was on. I told Blind Betty all about my TV around the same time she told me about her baby brother and the underground world. The thing about Blind Betty is she’s blind now and blindsters lie more than regular people do so you don’t know if what she says about the underground world is true. The problem is there’s no telling if Blind Betty was as big and fat a liar back when she was regular Betty as she is now as a blindster. From what she tells me I think the answer is yes.
GREEN GO FAST AND BLUEBONNET HOME
PITY JIMMY SURPRISED ME WHEN HE SAID MY PROBLEM IS I GOT TOO MUCH PROTEIN. Up till then all Pity Jimmy did was rock back and forth like he was in a rocking chair standing up and snap his fingers without making any snapping sounds. He also would jerk his head around like there was a gnat flying in his face. The good thing about Pity Jimmy is all he would say about people is how and when they were born. That’s all Pity Jimmy had to say up until he said what he said about protein. Blind Betty wasn’t there when Pity Jimmy said he got too much protein. I was walking Pity Jimmy back to his room so I could give him his medication. I’m the one to give him his pills after he eats in the cafeteria breakfast lunch and dinner. We keep the pills in his room because the one time we brought them to the cafeteria I lost both bottles. There were two bottles and I didn’t have enough pockets was the problem. Blind Betty is the one who taught me which pills to give Pity Jimmy and in what order. If you give Pity Jimmy the wrong pills in the wrong order he will fall down and have convulsions and swallow his tongue and die. I don’t know this to be true but it’s what Blind Betty tells me. Blind Betty has fingered all the books on health and anatomy so she knows about these things she says. So when I give Pity Jimmy his pills I don’t know if I’m doing it the way I’m supposed to do it. Blind Betty told me to give him the green pills first and the blue pills second. She said the way I can remember it is green go fast and bluebonnet home. She doesn’t say why I should remember it this way only that it is a mnemonic device and it is the only way he won’t fall on the floor and convulse and swallow his tongue and die. This is why he has to take pills in the first place Blind Betty says. What she doesn’t say is what a mnemonic device is but I assume it has something to do with Pity Jimmy’s medicine so I don’t bother asking. Every time I give Pity Jimmy his pills I wait for him to fall on the floor and do what Blind Betty says he’ll do. I never tell this part to anyone though. I also don’t bother telling anyone what Pity Jimmy said about protein. Even if his problem is too much protein you probably can’t believe it because he’s blind.
KANSAS FROM THE AIR
BLIND BETTY DRINKS WHITE WINE BETWEEN PANIC ATTACKS AND SCOTCH DURING THEM. If they knew Blind Betty was drinking scotch and white wine they’d probably send me back home so I hope maybe they might find out someday. I ain’t seen my TV or refrigerator since they sent me here to walk blindsters around obstacles and land mines. The TV it squeals like a wounded bird and the refrigerator light never turns off. I took out all the racks once and squeezed myself in to make sure. Blind Betty knows about the TV and refrigerator because I told her once. The blindsters always remember what it is you tell them. Must be because they’re blind and don’t have to remember what anything looks like. First time I seen Blind Betty drinking scotch was when she was lying in bed from having her head cracked open. Blind Betty cracked her head open on Pity Jimmy’s roller skate which he probably shouldn’t have had anyway because he’s as blind as the day he was born. Now Pity Jimmy and me have to go visit her in bed and bring her food to eat and I think Pity Jimmy likes it when Blind Betty has to rely on him for food to eat. And also Pity Jimmy is the one who brings her the scotch and wine. I think Pity Jimmy likes to get Blind Betty drunk too. Pity Jimmy won’t say where he gets the scotch and wine from and I don’t care neither. My job is to walk these blindsters so they don’t bump into things and crack their heads open and that’s it. I wasn’t walking Blind Betty around when she cracked her head open because she like most blindsters don’t like it when I walk them. Most of them know they’re not supposed to walk around without me to walk them, Blind Betty especially. This is why they pay me for though they ain’t paid me once yet. I don’t say nothing about not getting paid because I don’t think they want me to. I think what it is I do here I do for free. I said this to Blind Betty once and what she said back was curse words. Sometimes I have to bring these blindsters food if they trip on skates and crack their heads open. Every morning they tell me what it is I have to do for the day. Thing about Blind Betty is she wakes up sometimes and starts crying and shaking and hyperventilating. First time she did this I thought it might be normal for blindsters to wake up crying and shaking and hyperventilating sometimes. I figured if I was a blindster I might wake up like this every morning. I ain’t never seen a regular person do this so that’s what I thought. I thought maybe she went to sleep and forgot she was blind and when she woke up god knows what. Then I hear tell one of them blindsters call it a panic attack and it happens to you when you’re out of your mind crazy. The blindsters say you should suffocate her with a paper bag when it happens but I don’t think that’s right neither. That’s not what they pay me for when they do finally pay me. When she is shaking and crying this is when she drinks the scotch otherwise it’s the white wine she drinks. Pity Jimmy is good at calming her down. He talks baby talk to her and spoon-feeds her scotch. Time was all Pity Jimmy would say about people is how and when they were born. Then he said something to me about protein and since then he talks like everyone else does. I heard one of them blindsters say it’s a miracle Pity Jimmy can talk now but Blind Betty doesn’t think so. She says it’s a natural recurring phenomena but doesn’t say what that means. Blind Betty has fingered all the Braille books on health and anatomy so she knows about these things she says. I can’t understand this baby talk between the two of them and I think it might be something blindsters do like sign language. Me I tell her she is making a spectacle of herself. Then Pity Jimmy pours the scotch into a cup and puts it into Blind Betty’s hands and she cradles it like a cup of soup. When we’re alone and I’m walking Pity Jimmy back to his room I ask him why he nurses Blind Betty like a nurse and he says it’s like vaudeville. I don’t know what he means by that but it’s not my job to know neither. Then he asks me if it looks as good as it sounds. I tell him it does but I think I’m lying when I say that. I think Pity Jimmy knows I’m lying too. I think Pity Jimmy knows everything so it almost doesn’t matter when you lie to him. When we’re still with Blind Betty he tells her how Kansas doesn’t look like you’d think it would flying over it and that you can’t tell where it starts and stops. That Kansas from the air looks better than Kansas on the ground like a painting. I don’t know why it is Pity Jimmy tells this story or why Blind Betty likes it because neither has been on a plane and couldn’t look out the window besides. When he’s done with the story Blind Betty asks for the white wine and drinks it right up. By this time she’s almost calmed down. She’s not crying or shaking or hyperventilating no more so I can walk Pity Jimmy back to his room. All the other blindsters are in their own rooms at this time so it’s just me and Pity Jimmy walking around. I ask him why he has me in Kansas from the air with Blind Betty but he doesn’t answer. All he does is rock back and forth and snap his blind fingers that smell like scotch. If he says anything he says how and when I was born in the middle of monkey in the middle which is what he says all the time regardless. Thing is I think Pity Jimmy knows the answer because he’s blind but doesn’t tell me because I’m not.
MARES EAT OATS AND DOES EAT OATS AND JACKKNIFED TRACTOR-TRAILERS
PARTY OF MY JOB HERE IS TO TAKE PITY JIMMY AND BLIND BETTY TO THE CAFETERIA AND FEED THEM THEIR LUNCH. Time was I only had to feed Pity Jimmy lunch but now it’s Blind Betty I have to feed too. I didn’t have to feed Blind Betty before she cracked her head open on Pity Jimmy’s roller skate which I don’t know why he was allowed to have them in the first place. They gave me what-for when that happened. Blind Betty knew she shouldn’t go walking without me there to walk her but that didn’t matter I guess. This is not what we pay you for is what they said to me. I think I shook my head yes because what else was I supposed to do. Maybe if I said something like when are you going to pay me they would stick me out in the woodshed and leave me there. I think they like to give me what-for and say this is not what we pay you for and meanwhile never pay me even once. They also like to tell me what to do all the time. This is probably why they said Blind Betty is my responsibility now and why I have to take her to the cafeteria and feed her lunch. So every day I take Blind Betty to the cafeteria and sit her down next to Pity Jimmy. This is when I take their trays up to the counter to fill them. How these blindsters know which is chicken and which is potatoes and vegetables is I always have to put the chicken and potatoes and vegetables in the same spot every time. They have it memorized is another way of saying what I’m saying. This is one of the first things they taught me how to do when I first came here. The chicken goes in the slot they call six o’clock and the vegetables and potatoes go at ten and two. After I fill their trays full of food I bring them back to the table and set the trays down right in front of them. Then I go back to the counter and get a carton of milk to set down on the right hand side of the tray. The problem is these trays only have slots for chicken and potatoes and vegetables so this is what you have to do with the milk. The first time I brought Blind Betty her tray full of food I made the mistake of telling her what food was in what slot. What she said back to me was curse words because Blind Betty doesn’t like to be told what she already knows. Blind Betty fingers all the Braille books so she thinks she knows everything. This is why I try not to talk to Blind Betty much. Right after she finished cursing Pity Jimmy said mares eat oats and does eat oats and jackknifed tractor-trailers. Thing about Pity Jimmy is you don’t know what he means when he talks. Time was all he said about people were how and when they were born. Then one day he said something about protein and now he talks like a regular person except for you can’t understand him most of the time. Some of them say it was a miracle and maybe it was. I don’t know about miracles. I think the greatest miracle of all would be them paying me like the said they would. Regardless, my job here has nothing to do with understanding these blindsters when they talk. I’m supposed to walk them around the land mines and obstacles and take them to the cafeteria to feed them lunch. This is what they’ll pay me for when they do finally pay me if that sort of miracle is even possible here.
THE STORY OF WILLIE NELSON’S GUITAR
PITY JIMMY WANTS TO HEAR THE ONE ABOUT WILLIE NELSON’S GUITAR. Time was Pity Jimmy didn’t say anything except how and when people were born but now he talks like a regular person. Something happened and he said something about protein which was the beginning of him talking like a regular person but everyone still calls him Pity Jimmy regardless. Some people call this a miracle but I don’t. Today Pity Jimmy wants Blind Betty to tell the story of Willie Nelson’s guitar because he heard me talking about it with one of them other blindsters in the cafeteria. I said to Pity Jimmy one time in the cafeteria that what it is I do here I do for free and what he said back was I can buy and sell you naked as the day a jaybird was born. Sometimes I don’t know what Pity Jimmy means when he talks and sometimes I like him better the other way. Blind Betty says to Pity Jimmy that the story of Willie Nelson’s guitar is inappropriate for one such as yourself and when she finishes Pity Jimmy starts shaking his head back and forth so much I think it might come clean off his shoulders. This is when I tell Blind Betty she should tell the story to Pity Jimmy anyway and that it might not be inappropriate though I don’t know what she means when she says that. Blind Betty says she’s fingered all the Braille books on what’s appropriate and what isn’t and that I should keep quiet about these things until I do likewise. By this time Pity Jimmy is beating himself up and I have to put him in a headlock to stop him. Part of my job is to keep Pity Jimmy from hurting himself and getting me in trouble for it. Blind Betty says under no circumstances will I regale Pity Jimmy with the story of Willie Nelson’s guitar regardless of how impossible he might become. She says it will upset him and she’ll get in trouble for it. Almost everyone here worries about Pity Jimmy getting them in trouble. This is why most of the people here don’t like Pity Jimmy. I decide to tell Blind Betty that I will turn her in for illegal drinking if she doesn’t tell Pity Jimmy the story of Willie Nelson’s guitar and what she says back to me is curse words. Thing about Blind Betty is she drinks white wine between panic attacks and scotch during them but she curses all the time so I’m used to it by now. Pity Jimmy is the one who brings her the scotch and wine. Pity Jimmy won’t say where he gets the scotch and wine from and I don’t ask neither. Why Blind Betty drinks like this is because sometimes she wakes up crying and shaking and hyperventilating. This proves she is out of her mind crazy. I tell her once and for all not to make me turn her in and she starts with the story of Willie Nelson’s guitar. I release Pity Jimmy from the headlock when she begins and we both sit down to listen. The story goes on for five minutes and Blind Betty uses lots of curse words and turns out it’s true what Blind Betty said before. The story does upset Pity Jimmy and it takes twenty minutes and a tight headlock for me to calm him down again.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOME AND HERE
SOMETIMES I WONDER HOW MUCH THEY’LL PAY ME WHEN THEY DO FINALLY PAY ME. I’m not sure how much money I’ll need to make it back home because I don’t know how far I’m away from home here. Home is where the TV and refrigerator are and here is where all these blindsters are including Blind Betty and Pity Jimmy. The TV it squeals like a wounded bird and the refrigerator light never turns off and the blindsters I have to walk around land mines and obstacles so they don’t trip over something and crack their heads open. That’s the difference between the two and how you tell them apart. There are no blindsters at home and while there is a refrigerator here there is no TV. When I was first brought here I wondered why there was no TV and then I realized even if there was one who would watch it. Blindsters can’t watch TV any more than they can walk themselves around without tripping over something and cracking their heads open. I know I would watch TV but since they never seem to pay me there’s no way they would ever buy me a TV to watch. This is something you know without having to ask. If they ever did pay me I could buy myself a TV but it’s more likely if they did pay me I’d use that money to find my way home. I will probably have to take a bus home because they put me on a bus to get here. I didn’t notice what kind of bus it was or what direction the bus was driving is the problem. I think I was on the bus a long time so I think I might be a long way from home here. This is why they can give me what-for whenever they want and get away with it. They know it and I know it and even the blindsters know it. This is what I call my tragedy but Blind Betty says I don’t know nothing about tragedy. She says she’s read all the Braille books on tragedy and if I’m comparing myself to Oedipus then I have another thing coming. I don’t know who Oedipus is or what his tragedy is and I don’t bother asking Blind Betty because why bother anymore. I don’t know how much they’ll pay me when they do finally pay me but I reckon it should be somewhere between one hundred and one million dollars. Meantime I imagine what it’d be like if they did have a TV for me to watch set up in the cafeteria. I would be watching the TV with my feet up on the table and the blindsters would be all over the cafeteria with nothing on their trays doing god knows what to each other and they’d come in and say this is not what we pay you for and then I’d say which is my point exactly.
THE COMPRESSOR
IN THE HALLWAY THEN THIS DANNY BOY COMES IN LOOKS AROUND AND WALKS OUT LIKE THAT. We call Blind Betty because Blind Betty knows this Danny. None of them other blindsters knows this Danny and I don’t neither. Blind Betty is in bed from having her head cracked open again when we call her and meanwhile the compressor’s broken. They all of them gave me what-for when Blind Betty cracked her head open again. Thing about Blind Betty cracking her head open again is this time it wasn’t even my fault. What happened was she got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and cracked her head open on the sink but I don’t bother telling them this because why bother. Pity Jimmy is standing next to me in the hallway when this Danny boy comes in and walks out the way he does. Thing is this Danny came in to work on the compressor but walked out without a word without so much as even looking at the compressor which is in disrepair. Betty supposedly is friends with Danny’s girlfriend is how we got Danny’s name in the first place. We only know him as the guy who’d come in and fix the compressor cheap. He was going to come in fix the compressor maybe an hour we’d throw him a twenty and feed him. This morning they gave me a twenty dollar bill to give to this Danny after he was to fix the compressor. I thought about asking when they were going to pay me but I decided against it. They were still sore about Blind Betty cracking her head open again so it wasn’t a good time to ask I don’t think. Then they said it was my responsibility to make sure the compressor got fixed. This is when Blind Betty told them about Danny and they told me to call him up on the telephone. I dialed the number Blind Betty gave me but then she took the phone from my hand before it rang once. Next thing we’re in the hallway when this guy Danny that none of us but Blind Betty knows comes in looks around and walks out without a word. How we knew that Danny was Danny is because Betty said Danny had a crew-cut and a goatee and an earring and no one else that comes in here ever looks like that. I don’t know how Blind Betty knew this about Danny because she’s been blind for years now. Time was Blind Betty could see but that was before she caught the disease in her eyes. I ask her if she can remember what anything looks like and she says she can still picture a dandelion and a Victrola and her brother’s retarded face. Time was she used to would say all she could remember were apples and dandelions so you don’t know what to believe. Blind Betty has told us many stories about her mother and her retarded baby brother so it feels like we know them sometimes. So now I have to walk over to Blind Betty’s room meanwhile the compressor’s broken. I have to take Pity Jimmy with me because if I don’t he’s liable to crack his head open on something and he’s been sick lately and Blind Betty thinks he’ll die soon. I have to give him pills each morning so he won’t have convulsions swallow his tongue and die. I ask Pity Jimmy about this Danny boy but what he says back is he was born a cold brick in an ugly shithouse eighteen years ago. This is all Pity Jimmy ever used to say about people be they blindsters or regular until the miracle happened and he said something about protein. This is why it’s no good to talk to Pity Jimmy because sometimes he still talks the way he used to. I take out the twenty from my pocket and hold it under my nose. I like the way money smells sometimes when it’s dry and crisp like this bill is. I put it under Pity Jimmy’s nose but he jerks his head away before he can smell it. I don’t know about this Danny boy. Maybe he’ll come back and this time come in and fix the compressor. Maybe he remembered something he had to do and had to go do it and’ll be right back. It’s not my job to know this Danny boy but I’m sure they’ll give me what-for regardless. They’ll say the compressor’s broken and that it is my responsibility and then I’ll say that Blind Betty said she knew someone who’d come in and fix it. Someone named Danny.
THESE THINGS WILL SOMETIMES HAPPEN
PITY JIMMY LIKES TO SNEAK WINE AND SCOTCH into Blind Betty’s room at night when everyone is asleep. Blind Betty drinks wine or scotch depending on if she is panicking or not. She drinks one for the panics and another between them but I forget which is which. The reason she panics is she is out of her mind crazy and this is what happens to you when you go blind as a kid instead of being born blind as a baby. How we know Blind Betty is out of her mind crazy is she wakes up sometimes crying and shaking and hyperventilating. Every time I see her do it it makes me want to go home on the first bus that’ll take me there. The problem is I don’t know where I am here and I don’t have any money. They haven’t paid me yet and I haven’t asked them when they plan to neither. I don’t think they think it’s any of my business. When I tell this to Pity Jimmy he says these things will sometimes happen. Time was all Pity Jimmy ever said about people is how and when they were born but now after the fancy miracle he talks like a regular person does. I heard him talking to Blind Betty like a regular person one night when he was in her room. Blind Betty was in her bed crying and shaking and Pity Jimmy was talking about some story about Kansas. He had a paper bag in his left hand and there was a bottle of scotch on the nightstand next to the bed. I don’t think either of them knew I was in the doorway watching. That’s the thing with these blindsters, you can spy on them and get away with it most of the time. The only thing you have to do is make sure you don’t stink from the cafeteria food or make any noise. I couldn’t tell what Pity Jimmy was doing with that paper bag and I didn’t want to know neither. I think I thought if he was going to suffocate her I would probably have to stop him. They’d give me what-for if Pity Jimmy suffocated Blind Betty. This is not what we pay you for is what they’d say. I would probably shake my head yes but what I’d think is something else altogether.
DON’T MIND DYIN’
BLIND BETTY SAYS IF HER MOTHER WAS DEAD she would roll all over her grave but she might be lying about this because she’s a natural born liar. It’s because she don’t have to look anyone in the eye that makes it easy for her. We are spread out on a blanket in some park listening to music when Blind Betty says what she says about her mother. They put us on a bus so we could do this. This is the second time they put us all on a bus since they sent me here to walk these blindsters around land mines and obstacles. Last time Blind Betty said the toxins were toxic and that if we breathed in our lungs would bleed out our earballs. I am supposed to make sure these blindsters don’t crack their heads open but someone else could do this much better I think. Thing about blindsters is they like music more than regular people do I think. Some of them shake their heads and stomp their feet when they listen. They look like Pity Jimmy who always looks like he’s listening to music. He is on my right side and Blind Betty is on my left. It’s best when they don’t sit next to each other because they hate each other’s guts and like to fight sometimes. When they put us on the bus they said it was for music appreciation but they didn’t say what that means. I don’t think they can make all these blindsters appreciate this music if they don’t want to. Half of them look like they don’t care. Blind Betty is one of them talking over the music which she says is an abomination. She’s fingered all the Braille books on American music so she knows about these things she says. She says that country blues should never be played with electric guitars. She says that the worst thing ever to happen to music was when they plugged guitars in for electricity. She says if you don’t come from the Delta ain’t poor black or blind you don’t got no business playing blues. This is when she says what she says about her mother. Blind Betty has told us many stories about her mother and her brother growing up so I almost feel like I know them. Except that her brother died and I think what Blind Betty says about her mother means she is still alive somewhere. Nobody ever comes to visit Blind Betty so you don’t know for sure. Blind Betty’s mother used to would play old blues records on the Victrola for Blind Betty after she went blind. Time was Blind Betty could see like regular people but then she caught that disease in her eyes and went blind. Blind Betty’s mother told her there was plenty of blind people who made something of themselves. She would play the music of blind singers and make Blind Betty listen. Blind Betty told us names like Blind Willie McTell and Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Willie Johnson and the Blind Boys of Alabama and Ray Charles who Blind Betty says she liked best. Blind Betty says her mother went out and bought an upright piano for her not long after she went blind. I want to ask her what an upright piano is compared to a regular one but Blind Betty doesn’t like it when you interrupt her. She says she would try to play along with the music but it never sounded right. She says she had a tin ear and she thinks the piano was never in tune anyway. She says her mother wanted to disown her but didn’t because she was blind and that it was bad luck to disown a blind person. There are four men and a woman on the stage playing the music while Blind Betty talks about her mother like this. Blind Betty says she can tell one of them is playing a dobro. I don’t know what a dobro is but I think it might be the guitar that looks like it’s made from tin like Blind Betty’s ear. There are other people sitting on blankets too. None of these others are blind I don’t think. Blind Betty says that her mother was a blues singer before she became Blind Betty’s mother. She says her mother toured the country and played in honkytonks and beer joints. She says she was a traveling minstrel. Blind Betty then tries to sing like her mother used to but it’s hard to listen with the other music going on at the same time. Blind Betty sings something about leaving this morning to ride the blind and then something about feeling mistreated and she don’t mind dyin’. This is the first time I’ve heard Blind Betty try to sing and I’m glad because I don’t think she’s good at it. Pity Jimmy don’t like Blind Betty’s singing neither. He starts hitting himself in the head and crying which makes Blind Betty sing even louder. I think of asking Blind Betty for help but it’s no use. She’s singing louder and louder and I don’t understand a word of it. It’s like she’s trying to sing those musicians off the stage they’re on and back to her mother’s upright piano. The people on the other blankets are looking at us but don’t say anything because Blind Betty and Pity Jimmy are blind and they feel sorry for them. This is when I wish I was back home with my TV and refrigerator. Me I don’t know what an upright piano looks like or how someone can ride a blind or if Blind Betty’s mother is rolling all over her grave. I decide to let Blind Betty sing her blindster heart out even though I’m probably more mistreated than she is and I slide over to where Pity Jimmy is beating himself up. Part of my job is to make sure these blindsters don’t hurt themselves so I grab Pity Jimmy’s arms and soon it’s like we’re wrestling all over the blanket.
CONGRATULATIONS, PITY JIMMY
PITY JIMMY SAYS THERE’S NOTHING SEXIER THAN A PREGNANT WOMAN. He says this all the time these days so you don’t know if you should believe him. Time was all Pity Jimmy used to say is how and when people were born but then there was the miracle of the protein and from then on he talks like a regular person now. He never did say why his problem was too much protein and I never asked neither. He still rocks back and forth like he is in a rocking chair standing up and he still snaps his fingers without making any snapping sounds even though he talks regular now. Why Pity Jimmy says there’s nothing sexier than a pregnant woman is because one of them other blindsters the one named Janie turned up pregnant last week. They gave me what-for when Janie turned up pregnant which is another reason I don’t like it here and might leave. No matter what happens here I get in trouble for it. This is why I think I might leave in the middle of the night when everyone’s asleep. I would’ve done this already but the problem is I don’t know where I am. They put me on a bus to get here and I didn’t notice what direction the bus was driving is the problem. I think I was on the bus a long time so I might be a long way from home. The other thing is I don’t have any money. If I had money I could find my way home and this way get to watch my TV and eat food from my refrigerator like before. I think they think I had something to do with Janie getting pregnant or else they think it was Pity Jimmy who had something to do with it. Pity Jimmy is always getting people in trouble so it wouldn’t make no difference if it was me or him. In the cafeteria I heard some of them blindsters talking about Janie which is when Pity Jimmy said what he said about pregnant women. I don’t know why Pity Jimmy thinks there’s nothing sexier than a pregnant woman. I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about half the time. If he could see pregnant Janie then he wouldn’t keep saying what he says about her. Pregnant Janie is so fat it looks like she was born pregnant. I don’t know how anyone can tell she got herself pregnant in the first place, Pregnant Janie included. I’ve never seen any blindster have anything to do with Pregnant Janie but I didn’t know I was supposed to keep an eye out for anything neither. Sometimes they don’t always tell me what it is I’m supposed to do. Like when all them blindsters made a big sign in Braille bumps that says Congratulations Pity Jimmy all across it. They made this sign in the cafeteria and spread it out across one of the tables there and it turns out I wasn’t supposed to let them do that. I ran my hands across the sign once to feel what it feels like. I made sure to do this when no one was around even though I knew none of them blindsters could see me anyway. The Braille bumps didn’t feel like anything to me and I couldn’t tell where one letter stopped and the next one started. The sign could’ve been Braille mumbo jumbo and I wouldn’t know the difference. I don’t know if Pity Jimmy is the one who got Pregnant Janie pregnant and I don’t care neither. Although I don’t think he even knows how to get someone pregnant is what I think. Regardless, my job here has nothing to do with anyone getting pregnant. Next day they told me to take the sign and throw it in the fireplace but I took it out to the woodshed instead. I hid the sign behind an old stack of wood against the back wall. Eventually something will happen to Pity Jimmy so we can hang it up somewhere.
MICE GETTING THE POINTS
BLIND BETTY SAYS IT’S SUNDAY NIGHT AND ALL OF US ARE POOR. She says this sometimes when we are in the cafeteria trying to eat. No one here likes Blind Betty which is why no one answers when she says things like this. What the blindsters do instead is keep eating and hope she doesn’t say anything else which almost never happens. Whenever no one answers Blind Betty will talk about her mother the traveling minstrel or her retard brother and the underground world. Everyone here knows these stories backwards and forwards so I don’t think anyone listens anymore. Pregnant Janie keeps feeding herself chicken and potatoes and Pity Jimmy keeps shaking his head like there’s a gnat flying in his face which is why I think they’re not listening. Out of all the blindsters that don’t like Blind Betty it’s Pity Jimmy that don’t like her best. Pity Jimmy used to would get Blind Betty drunk on white wine and scotch but that almost never happens anymore I don’t think. I’m with Pity Jimmy day and night it seems so if he was still getting her drunk I’d probably know about it. I never knew where Pity Jimmy got the wine and scotch and he never told me neither. They never said nothing about keeping the blindsters from drinking or keeping them from getting pregnant but of course they still gave me what-for when Pregnant Janie turned up pregnant. This is not what we pay you for is what they said but I haven’t been paid by them once yet. I think what it is I do here I do for free and I think there’ll come a time when I’ll sneak off at night when everyone’s asleep so I won’t have to do it no more. I don’t know how I’ll get home because I don’t have any money which is probably why I haven’t snuck off yet. I figure sooner or later they have to give me some money otherwise they might get in trouble. I think what it is they do to me here is illegal. I asked Blind Betty if what they do to me is illegal because Blind Betty fingers all the Braille books on law and order but what she said back was curse words. Then she said that illegal was a sick bird and there wasn’t a hospital for miles. Thing about Blind Betty is you don’t know what she is talking about half the time. Like when she says it’s Sunday night and all of us are poor it’s because she bets money on football games. So in this case everyone includes only Blind Betty herself. I think I heard her on the telephone one time placing a bet. She said something like give me Chicago twenty times and then the person on the other end said something and then Blind Betty said thank you Danny and hung up. I think the Danny she was talking to on the phone was the same Danny who came by to fix the compressor that one time. How Blind Betty knows Danny is she’s friends with Danny’s girlfriend. Danny never said he was a bookie when he was here fixing the compressor but I don’t think anyone asked either. Blind Betty says someday I might have to shoot her in the back of the head for her own good just like George did to Lenny after he killed the rabbits. She says if it ever comes down to it I should take the mice getting the points because men never cover the spread on the road. I don’t know what she means by the mice or the points or who George is and why he shot Lenny but I decide not to ask questions. I tell her that is not what they’ll pay me for when they do finally pay me. This is when she’ll call me a fay gaggot and I’ll tell her that some of us are poor and can’t help it but what I’m thinking is she probably doesn’t mean for me to shoot her anyway.
ENTROPY AND ATROPHY
PITY JIMMY SAYS HE WANTS TO FATHER A DOZEN CHILDREN BEFORE NIGHTFALL and doesn’t care how many mothers it takes to do it. Pity Jimmy said this in the cafeteria yesterday in front of both Blind Betty and Pregnant Janie. Come lunchtime every day I have to bring Pity Jimmy and Blind Betty and Pregnant Janie to the cafeteria to feed them their lunch. Time was I only had to feed Pity Jimmy and Blind Betty lunch but now it’s Pregnant Janie I have to feed too. I didn’t have to feed Pregnant Janie before she turned up pregnant which is why I think they think I had something to do with it. Otherwise they think it was Pity Jimmy had something to do with it which amounts to the same thing. Anything Pity Jimmy does around here it’s me that gets in trouble for it. This is probably why they said Pregnant Janie is my responsibility now. I’d just come back from filling their plates full of chicken and vegetables when Pity Jimmy said what he said about fathering a dozen children. This is probably why all the blindsters think it’s Pity Jimmy who got Pregnant Janie pregnant in the first place. He also said once there is nothing sexier than a pregnant woman which is probably another reason they think it was Pity Jimmy did this to Pregnant Janie. The thing about Pregnant Janie is I don’t know how anyone can tell she’s pregnant. What I mean to say is that Pregnant Janie has always looked pregnant so I don’t know how anyone can tell the difference. I always have to put more chicken and potatoes and vegetables on her tray and sometimes I have to fill it up two or three times. Seems she eats twice as much as Blind Betty and Pity Jimmy put together. When I tell this to Blind Betty she says it’s normal. She’s fingered all the Braille books on pregnancy so she knows about these things she says. I don’t tell her how Pregnant Janie has always looked pregnant because I don’t like to remind these blindsters they don’t know how anything looks. I made that mistake once when I told Blind Betty where the chicken and potatoes were on her tray. What she said back was curse words and what she said after that was she knew where everything was and she finished by cursing me again. How these blindsters know which is chicken and which is potatoes and vegetables is I always have to put the chicken and potatoes and vegetables in the same spot every time. They have it memorized is another way of saying what I’m saying. This is one of the first things they taught me how to do when I first came here. The chicken goes in the slot they call six o’clock and the vegetables and potatoes go at ten and two. When I tell Blind Betty to leave me alone that I have to make sure to put the chicken and potatoes and vegetables in the proper time slot she says a monkey can do it. This is why I don’t like Blind Betty and why I secretly didn’t mind it when she cracked her head open. Pity Jimmy probably didn’t mind it either but you can’t tell with him sometimes because he’s blind. He used to would bring Blind Betty scotch and wine for when she had her panics. I never did ask him why he did this and I didn’t want to know neither. My job is to walk these blindsters around obstacles and fill up their lunch trays at lunchtime. After Pity Jimmy said what he said about fathering a dozen children before nightfall Blind Betty said he should name two of them Entropy and Atrophy and raise them up in Istanbul Turkey. In between spoonfuls of potatoes Pregnant Janie said Greek names in Turkey would never fly. This is when all three of them started laughing like they had no control over themselves. I don’t know what Braille books Pregnant Janie fingers to know this because she doesn’t brag about it the way Blind Betty does. I also don’t know what Entropy and Atrophy have to do with Istanbul and Greece but they kept on laughing for twenty minutes and I thought maybe I should laugh too but I didn’t. I think you had to be blind to think this was funny.
HOW TO MOP A KITCHEN FLOOR
BLIND BETTY SAYS SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT TO HAVE FOR DINNER IF THE TV ISN’T WORKING. Then she says this is what it means to be destitute and that all of us are poor here. She’s said this sort of thing before, that we are all of us poor here. I’ve stopped trying to understand what Blind Betty means ever since she cracked her head open that one time so what she says about being poor or about dinner and the TV doesn’t really bother me. The thing is there is no TV here and it’s a tragedy. So she doesn’t have a TV in her room and there’s no way it can’t be working. There’s no explaining this to her because she doesn’t want to hear it. I know this because when I started to explain that she has no choice about dinner and has no TV either she stopped me halfway through saying she didn’t want to hear it. Then she tells me she wants to write a poem called How to Mop a Kitchen Floor. She says there will be words like sponge bucket and grandiloquence in there. She says after that she will do one called How to Shower without Soap that’ll be construction boots and lunch pails. I’ve never seen her try to write a poem before but this is how she is after cracking her head open again. Although I don’t really know how she was before cracking her head open so maybe she’s always been this way regardless. I’m just glad they’ve never asked me to mop the kitchen floor on top of everything else I have to do around here. I don’t bother telling Blind Betty that I’ve never seen a poem the same as construction boots and lunch pails and I don’t think there’s any such word as grandiloquence either.
CONFUSING THE ROACHES
BLINDY BETTY SAYS DON’T TURN ON THE LIGHT YOU’LL CONFUSE THE ROACHES. Why she says this is because there’s always roaches here and you can only see them late at night when you turn the lights on. When I say you only see them late at night when you turn the lights on what I mean to say is I’m the only one who can see them late at night when I turn the lights on because everyone else in here is blind. This is one way the blindsters here are lucky. They can’t see the roaches on the walls standing still like they are frozen in time. They also can’t see the roaches crawling fast across the bathroom floor. Trouble is you can’t step on the roaches because you aren’t supposed to make noise late at night while everyone is trying to sleep. The first time I tried to step on the roaches I woke Pity Jimmy up and he cried like a blind baby. They gave me what-for when that happened. They said this is not what we pay you for even though they haven’t paid me once yet. I think what it is I do here I do for free including not stepping on the roaches. I think I must’ve told Blind Betty about the roaches one time because the roaches don’t make any sound when they are crawling across the bathroom floor or hiding frozen against a wall. I don’t ask Blind Betty why she doesn’t want to confuse the roaches because what she’ll say back is curse words and I don’t think she even knows in the first place. I don’t think Blind Betty has ever fingered any Braille books on roaches so there’s no way for her to know about them. This is how I have the power over Blind Betty maybe for the first time ever. There’s no way for her to know about the roaches unless it’s I’m the one who tells her.
THE MIDDLE OF TIMBUKTU
I AM ALMOST FINALLY ASLEEP when I hear Pity Jimmy say he’s gonna whittle me into kindling come morning time. My room is right next door to Pity Jimmy’s which is why I can hear him say things late at night when the both of us should be sleeping. This room next to Pity Jimmy’s has no closet to hang clothes in and no windows to look out of. The only thing you would see out of a window is the woodshed so not having a window to look out of doesn’t bother me too much. I hate it when they send me out to the shed for wood to burn and Pity Jimmy knows it. This is why he says he’s gonna whittle me into kindling late at night when the two of us should be sleeping. He says this also when I come in from the shed with a pile full of wood in my arms. I’ve never seen Pity Jimmy whittle anything into anything so this is almost like when he says how I was born in the middle of monkey in the middle. Time was this is all Pity Jimmy would ever say but since the protein miracle he talks like a regular person now except for you can’t understand him. What Pity Jimmy never talks about is his room which is bigger and better than mine. Pity Jimmy has both a closet and windows but I guess they think I don’t need those things. I have to keep my extra clothes in a valise I keep under the bed. I think I have two extra shirts and an extra pair of pants in the valise but I never have to wear them because they give me clothes to wear every two or three days. I haven’t opened up that valise since that first night I put it under the bed. The pants and shirt they give me are always gray and are always too baggy for me to wear right. I have to fold the pants over and down onto my hips because I forgot to pack a belt in my valise when I left home. I never needed a belt before because my old pants always fit me right which is why I forgot to pack a belt in the first place. The shirt I button up to the top button because there’s no reason not to. Even buttoning the shirt up this way leaves my neck plenty of room so it could never feel like I’m being strangled. I tried to trick Pity Jimmy once into wearing these clothes but it didn’t work. What I did was I went into his closet and took his shirt and pants from their hangers and hung up my baggy shirt and pants in their places. Pity Jimmy is even smaller than I am so he’d look like an even bigger idiot in my clothes which isn’t why I did it I don’t think. I wanted to wear my own clothes and thought maybe I could get away with it since most everyone here is blind. After I made the switch I went back into my room and waited for Pity Jimmy to get himself dressed. The problem is I chickened out before I could see if he would know the difference. I didn’t want them to give me what-for when they saw Pity Jimmy in my idiot clothes. They might think I did this as revenge on Pity Jimmy because he keeps me up at night. This is not what we pay you for is what they’d say and I’d have to shake my head yes and look sorry. I’d rather have Pity Jimmy whittle me into kindling than have to hear them tell me this one more time. That’s the thing with Pity Jimmy, no matter what you do with him you get in trouble for it. This is one of the maybe ten thousand reasons home is better than here. Another of those reasons is how cold it is here all the time. Back home we never had to burn wood to keep warm and we didn’t need a shed to keep wood in neither. Back home it was never cold like this. This is why I think I might be at the North Pole up here. Or else it’s Timbuktu and nobody knows it. That’s where people on my TV always were when they didn’t know where it was they were. One of them would be lost and another would say they were in the middle of Timbuktu. I don’t know if it is supposed to be cold in Timbuktu but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is. This is what makes me wonder how long I was on that bus for when they first brought me here. It probably takes days to bus all the way to the North Pole or Timbuktu. I should’ve paid attention is what I think. I should’ve realized this was something I’d need to remember because if I knew for sure I was in Timbuktu then I might know how to get back.
HALFTIME NO HEAT HALFTIME NO HOT WATER
BLIND BETTY SAYS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY DIAL 9-1-1 and then when no one answers she says exactly what is my mother going to do. Blind Betty isn’t talking to anyone in particular which almost never stops her from going on and on with herself regardless. She and the rest of the blindsters are fingering papers on the cafeteria table and I am sitting between her and Pity Jimmy while they do this. I don’t know what the papers are for but they have the same Braille bumps that are in the books Blind Betty is always fingering. Pity Jimmy doesn’t have any papers to finger which isn’t unusual. I think I understand the Braille bumps as good as he does which is probably another reason I have to keep an eye out special for him though they never said anything about that being another reason. What they tell me is I have to walk him around obstacles and take him back and forth to the cafeteria and give him his pills so he won’t fall on the floor and convulse and swallow his tongue and die. The way I remember which pills to give him in what order is green go fast and bluebonnet home which is a mnemonic device Blind Betty taught me. I don’t know if it was her job to give Pity Jimmy his pills before it became my job to do this but she knows about these things regardless. Another thing she knows is about betting on football games. I think she calls that Danny boy on the phone every weekend to bet on the games because the one time I heard her on the phone she said thank you Danny right before hanging up. She said things like give me the Bears twenty times and give me State and the over for a nickel. This Danny boy was the one who came in to fix the compressor last month but left without so much as even looking at the compressor. They said the compressor was my responsibility and I know I haven’t done anything about fixing it which is why I think it’s probably still broken. They haven’t said anything about the compressor for a while now so I don’t even care about it anymore. Blind Betty is friends with Danny’s girlfriend is how I knew about Danny in the first place and how I called him to come over and fix the compressor that one time which he never did. This Danny boy had an earring in his ear and a crew-cut and a goatee and looked like the way bookies do though I didn’t realize it at the time. I never seen a bookie in real life but on my TV the bookies usually looked like this Danny boy with the goatee and earring. I ain’t seen a bookie or anything else on TV since they sent me here. Blind Betty has a radio in her room so she can listen to the football games but it isn’t the same as a TV. This past Sunday Pity Jimmy and me was in her room listening to the game between Dallas and Chicago. I think Blind Betty bet money on Chicago because she was screaming and yelling every time they did something good. Whenever Dallas did something good she’d curse them and throw something at either me or Pity Jimmy. I’d tell her to stop it even though it was only a pillow she’d throw most of the time. This is when she called us both fay gaggots and Pity Jimmy started to shake his head to kill the gnats flying all around there. Right then the radio announcer said something like we go to halftime with the score tied and Pity Jimmy said halftime no heat halftime no hot water. Both Blind Betty and me laughed when Pity Jimmy said this but I don’t know what for. I don’t think he meant it to be funny but you can’t tell with him sometimes because he’s blind. Blind Betty went into the bathroom because it was halftime and I stayed with Pity Jimmy. I didn’t ask him what he meant by halftime no heat halftime no hot water because why bother. What I think he meant is that it’s always cold here and half the time there’s no heat and the other half the time there’s no hot water. I’m not sure this is exactly true but it’s probably close. This is why they always send me out to the shed for wood to burn and why they wanted me to get Danny to fix the compressor which I think is still broken anyway. This is also why I think Blind Betty says in case of emergency dial 9-1-1 because we might all freeze to death here. I’m not sure why she said what she said about her mother the traveling minstrel but that’s not unusual either. Blind Betty talks about her mother and the underground world and her retard brother whenever she feels like it. I always like to hear about the underground world even though I don’t think it’s the opposite of the aboveground world and I don’t even believe in it either. There’s no way dandelions are the trees underground and if you were smart in one world you’d be a retard in the other. But sometimes I think if it is true then it might explain what I’m doing here. Maybe underground there’s someone walking me around obstacles and taking me back and forth to the cafeteria every day for breakfast lunch and dinner. Maybe it’s Pity Jimmy who has to go to the shed for wood to burn and Blind Betty has to give me green and blue pills. Pregnant Janie is the one who fixes compressors and is a bookie on the side and Danny boy shakes his head like there’s a gnat flying in his face. This is when I wonder if the papers they’re fingering are supposed to be a last will and testament of some kind because we’re all going to die here. I also wonder what’s the opposite of freezing to death and maybe this is how Blind Betty’s brother died in the underground world. When I ask Blind Betty how her brother died all she says back is that it wasn’t unexpected. She never says how he died which makes me think she probably killed him and got away with it. Me I don’t think it matters if it was expected or if it was Blind Betty who killed him and got away with it. We are all of us here freezing to death so it doesn’t even matter what happens. I think the underground me probably doesn’t think it matters neither.
YES AND NO AND MAYBE SO
BLIND BETTY SAYS YES MARRIED NO INSTEAD OF MAYBE SO. She says this around midnight which is when the roaches haven’t come outside to play yet. You can only see the roaches late at night when you turn the lights on. When I say you only see them late at night when you turn the lights on what I mean to say is I’m the only one who sees them late at night when I turn the lights on because everyone else in here is blind. This night it’s my job to bring Blind Betty her medicine so she can go to sleep before the roaches come out to play. There’s no way to hear the roaches when they are out playing but even still they don’t want Blind Betty up late regardless. When the roaches are hiding they hide behind the walls and this is why I’m supposed to spray all over and between everything. I do this even though this is another thing they don’t pay me for. Another thing they don’t me for is to bring Blind Betty her medicine so she’ll sleep through the night the same way the roaches sleep through the day. What’s funny is I spray the roaches during the day but they don’t want me to spray Blind Betty during the night. I think I’d do that for free if they asked. I don’t know what she means when she says Yes married No instead of Maybe So but I think I can almost make sense of it.
CHOP SUEY
BLIND BETTY SAYS PEOPLE IN NEW YORK CITY used to would call Chinese food chop suey instead of calling it Chinese food like everyone else in the world. She says one New Yorker would say to another you want to go for chop suey and the other one would say sure and they both knew what each other meant. Blind Betty doesn’t say when people would say this but I don’t ask about it because Blind Betty doesn’t like it when you interrupt her. Blind Betty’s fingered all the Braille books on Chinese food and New York City so she knows about these things she says. Why Blind Betty is talking about Chinese food is because we are in the cafeteria for lunch and she is sick of the food here. If they ever did have Chinese food up at the counter I wouldn’t fill up Blind Betty’s tray for her regardless. I wouldn’t put the chop in the six o’clock or the suey at ten and two. I wouldn’t give her chop suey even if they gave me what for about it because what does it even matter here. Maybe if they ever paid me I’d do it but probably not even then. Even then I think I’d give her the chicken and potatoes and vegetables instead of chop suey.
ME CHINESE
SOMETIMES I WONDER WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF PITY JIMMY DIED. Out of all these blindsters it’s Pity Jimmy seems likeliest to turn up dead which is probably why they tell me to keep an eye out special for him. If you give Pity Jimmy the wrong pills in the wrong order he will fall down and have convulsions and swallow his tongue and die. Every time I give Pity Jimmy his pills I wait for him to fall on the floor and do what Blind Betty says he’ll do. Sometimes I think if Pity Jimmy died they might let me go home. I haven’t been home since they sent me here to walk these blindsters around obstacles and take them back and forth to the cafeteria. Yesterday it was in the cafeteria when Pity Jimmy tried to kill me himself. I think maybe he thinks if something happens to me then he’ll be better off. I was coming back to our table after refilling Pity Jimmy’s tray full of French fries and Blind Betty’s full of vegetables when I saw him holding my drinking glass. I sat down next to him and he put the glass down and started shaking his head to kill the gnats. I waited for him to say something about protein or monkeys but instead he eats his French fries one at a time like it’s nothing. This is when I asked him what he did and what he said back was me Chinese me play joke me put blue pills in your coke. Things about Pity Jimmy is I seen him try to kill before so none of it surprises me. I caught him trying to smother Blind Betty with a paper bag one time when she was drunk. Pity Jimmy used to would bring Blind Betty scotch and white wine for when she had the panics. That one time he tried to kill Blind Betty I stopped him by yanking the paper bag from his hands and off Blind Betty’s face. I didn’t tell them that Pity Jimmy was a killer because it’d be me that would’ve been in trouble for it. This is not what we pay you for they’d say. This is what they always say even though they haven’t even paid me once yet. They’d say this if Pity Jimmy killed someone else or if he got killed off himself so it wouldn’t matter is what I think. Pity Jimmy is always getting people in trouble which is why it probably doesn’t matter what happens to him and why I might never get back home again either way.
THE TURN WORMING
LAST NIGHT WHEN THEY SENT ME TO THE SHED FOR WOOD TO BURN I ALMOST DIDN’T COME BACK. I stayed out there in the shed and wondered what would happen if instead of going back inside I kept walking in another direction home. I’d already had a pile full of wood in my arms and was halfway out the shed door. This is when I heard Pity Jimmy screaming from his bedroom window and when I thought I should maybe run away and what difference would it make if I did. Pity Jimmy was screaming the turn has wormed the turn has wormed which is what he always screams when he knows I’m out in the shed. Time was you knew what Pity Jimmy had to say before he even said it and that it had nothing to do with you but those days are over now. I told him one time about the maggots or the faggots or whatever it is Blind Betty calls them and how that’s why I hate going out to the shed for wood to burn. These blindsters always remember whatever it is you tell them Pity Jimmy included. Must be because they don’t have to remember what anything looks like. Me I don’t know if I can remember what anything outside of this place looks like anymore. Blind Betty says this is what happens to you when you don’t eat your vegetables. She fingers all the Braille books on vegetables and memory so she knows about these things she says. She says by this time next month I’ll probably forget how to tie my own shoes. I have never forgotten how to tie my own shoes but have always had trouble keeping them tied. Sometimes I’ll look down and find the laces loose and have to bend down to retie them. This is why I don’t think I’ll forget how to tie my own shoes because I probably do it three or four times a day. But if Blind Betty says I’ll forget about home then she might be probably right given all the books she fingers. What I think I can remember is how the TV it squealed like a wounded bird and the refrigerator light never turned off. I took out all the racks and squeezed myself in once to make sure. I remember doing that as sure as anything. I don’t tell this to Blind Betty because why bother but I’m almost totally sure about the TV and refrigerator. I don’t know if it’ll be the same when I get back there but if it is then I’ll likely be home when I get home.
ТЕЛЕГРАМКанал с обзорами, анонсами новинок и книжными подборками
Книжный Вестник
Бот для удобного поиска книг (если не нашлось на сайте)
Поиск книг
Свежие любовные романы в удобных форматах
Любовные романы
Детективы и триллеры, все новинки
Детективы
Фантастика и фэнтези, все новинки
Фантастика
Отборные классические книги
Классика
ВКОНТАКТЕБиблиотека с любовными романами, которая наверняка придётся по вкусу женской части аудитории
Любовные романы
Библиотека с фантастикой и фэнтези, а также смежных жанров
Фантастика
Самые популярные книги в формате фб2
Топ фб2
книги