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.