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.