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.