The Blind Man
After a recent intervention with my mom from Delina and Julia, following her doctor’s suggestion of possible psychiatric evaluation, I knew I had to start getting creative because nothing was working. Phrases like Well, that’s life were being thrown around the house in regard to dying alone. It was getting really bad. So, when I heard that blind men make great lovers, I decided to sign up to be a volunteer at the Braille Institute.
I was ushered into the main reading room where Sandy, a busty woman in her fifties, made an announcement that I was the new volunteer. All heads turned in different directions as if someone had spotted a mouse but no one knew where to look. Instinctively, I started checking over my right shoulder, then my left, looking around for that invisible mouse with the rest of them.
‘What’s your name again?’ she asked as her brow slithered like a snake until it fully arched in repugnance. Sandy looked me up and down like I was the new girl at school who just transferred from a shitty neighborhood. I started to panic. This bitch was on to me. She knew what I was after because she wanted a blind man, too.
‘Lauren Bacall!’ I blurted out. It was the first name that came to me. As I said it, I shook my head and grinned widely as if to say, We’re all in this together! ‘I know,’ I continued, trying to crawl out of my hole. ‘It’s weird. Same name as the famous actress, but we’re not related.’ I put my hands up. ‘It’s just a coincidence!’
The room was saturated in a jaundiced glow and smelled exactly how my grandma’s house used to smell: a musty concoction of stale perfume, Ritz Crackers, animal fur and old carpet. That made me curious, though, because the floors were laminate. I was feeling really good about myself because I had stopped off at the department store on my way over and sprayed on the best perfume I could find since I knew, with these guys especially, scent would make it or break it.
‘So how does this work?’ I asked, scouting the room for eligible men. She smiled and handed me her sticky grin along with a sign-up sheet. I picked up a volunteer brochure on a nearby desk and opened it to a delightful spread of snapshots featuring colorfully dressed couples, laughing and hugging and reading and pointing at things that were outside the frame of the picture. I really wanted to know what they were pointing at. Whoever made this brochure knew what they were doing.
‘Why are you here?’ Sandy asked me, dubiously.
‘To . . .’ I stammered, searching for a reason she’d accept. Then I remembered the faces on the brochure and how happy they’d looked, ‘. . . to spread smiles?’
I wasn’t exactly sure what I could help these blind people with as far as my skills were concerned, but I could see, and they couldn’t, so I thought inherently I had something to offer. On top of the heightened-senses aspect – and what an asset indeed – was the idea that great sex happens when two people are connected in ways that go beyond the physical. Finally, a chance at meeting a man who would be able to see what’s inside me first.
I got the idea from a seemingly dull conversation with Roselyn, a chipper lady who lives at the same old people’s home as my grandma. Dull. Dull. Dull, peppered with updates about how her grandson never visits, anecdotes of her time as a backup dancer in the forties, and the ailments she now endures and how no one else notices. Dull, that is, until she told me that in her ninety-two years, her best lover was a blind Scottish man named Tom Patrick Ward.
‘Oh how he could make me dance,’ she said.
I brightened up. Intrigued.
‘He was your dance partner?’
‘How could he be my dance partner?’ she asked, exasperated. Impatient. ‘What a mess that would have been.’ Images of a swiftly moving blind ballroom dancer whipped around me, legs and arms everywhere. I learned Tom Patrick Ward was a war veteran who apparently returned home without his eyes. They were blown off, she told me, whilst making explosion sounds with her wrinkled lips. Roselyn said the blindness made Tom’s sense of touch so acute he could find her G-spot in one motion. She looked quite weird demonstrating this move to me as she covered both eyes with one hand while the other stretched out towards me, searching for what appeared to be the location of my nipple. Her pointed finger just jabbed the air in front of me without a freckle of precision. Her movements were hard to follow, but that may have been because she has Parkinson’s.
‘What are you doing?’ I eventually asked.
‘A one-jab knockout,’ she said, punching the air, still a little irritated I wasn’t following. ‘Just like my Tommy used to do.’
I had hit a goldmine here and she was just waffling around the room like a drunken mime. When I told my grandma Roselyn’s story, I thought she’d scoff at it and tell me she was losing it, that her Parkinson’s had gone to her head, shaking things around too much or maybe it was the dementia setting in, confusing her. But she didn’t. She just looked at me, cocked her head and patted me on the back.
‘Roselyn’s right, dear,’ she consoled me as my concentration drifted to the bingo game going on behind her. ‘The catches are the ones who aren’t easily distracted.’ One day I’d be old, too, with the highlight of my day being a bingo game. I was running out of time. I asked her how old she was when she met Grandpa.
‘Twenty-one,’ she said. Well, shit, I thought. That’s young. ‘It’s okay, pet,’ she continued, knowing I needed some tenderness, some reassurance that everything would be okay. ‘As long as you keep looking for it, you’ll find it.’ The dementia helped her to remember things from when she was younger, but she couldn’t recall much in the middle, like raising my mother and when everything went pear-shaped. She forgot about becoming a fanatical Christian when my mom was uncontrollably wild around fourteen. Now she rarely brings up Jesus. I was the only one who’d see her; my mom still blamed her for how she turned out and my sister was too busy. I wanted to tell Grandma about Moses but thought it might trigger memories of Jesus somewhere deep in her subconscious. If I did that, Mom might never visit her. It was exhausting trying to navigate around all the possible scenarios that might make my mother disappointed.
I took my grandma’s advice, blindly. I know I’m not supposed to listen to her because of her dementia but my grandma and Roselyn are reliable confidantes in many ways. Not only have they been through the hoops of life themselves and have all the time in the world to just sit and listen, but they have sieves for brains so I’ll never have to worry my secrets will get out. She told me love is always where you least expect it to be, so I’ve been expecting to find it hiding in some corner of a desolate alley or at a funeral. Her advice proved slightly dangerous when I mistook the attention of a crack addict for affection but this is how we learn.
Before I left, my grandma grabbed a hold of my jacket collar quite firmly – which both surprised and impressed me because I had no idea she was so strong – and told me she was going to hang on as long as she could, until she saw me married.
The stakes were high. And I’ll admit it: I was nervous, hanging on to the hope of a forecast less dreary and blustery than predicted. But thanks to Roselyn I might be on the right track. Blind men were like artists. It’s a girl’s dream to be with an artist because they only see shapes and shadows, not flaws. You’re a work of art, not a mess. The Institute was bustling with visually challenged men. I wanted to get a sense of what it would be like to make love to a blind man so I closed my eyes, right there in the room, and imagined myself spread out on a red satin bed while Stevie Wonder and Andrea Bocelli sang to me as Claude Monet painted my portrait, the vibrations of their notes and strokes hitting my heart over and over like an automatic weapon. If I died right there and then, the newspaper would have titled my obituary, ‘A true victim of blind love.’ I loved that title and thought it sounded like a romantic way to go but then the thought of all those sexually charged blind men became too intense so I opened my eyes again.
I looked around the room, hoping for a connection, but every eye was still facing a different direction, staring at something in the bl
ackness. Sandy told me to feel free to wander around and make myself familiar with the premises while she processed my volunteer form. Everyone seemed to be quietly studying the shapes of letters in their Braille books. The floor was mine. I started to dance very subtly to test their reactions but not an eyebrow was raised, so I let it all pour out of me. I spun around with my arms lifted high above my head until I was spinning like a human dreidel.
The first person I approached was named Thompson. ‘Is that a nickname?’ I asked.
He shook his head, ‘No.’
I searched for a better pick-up line. ‘How do you know when it’s night-time?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘The time. Can you tell when it’s dark outside? Do you feel more tired? Is it a temperature thing?’
‘Are you stupid?’ Thompson replied.
I had more questions.
‘Can you get vertigo?’
He just shook his head again, more annoyed than confused, as if he gets that a lot.
I didn’t believe Thompson was his real first name and I couldn’t work with liars, especially aggressive ones, so I moved on to the next one: Dwight.
Dwight had great hearing. He knew I was coming for him before I even pulled up the chair. He got up and bowed to me, his hand holding on to his invisible cowboy hat as his head dipped. Hearing well meant he had heightened senses, but I deduced that if his hearing were extraordinary, then his sense of touch would skate in around average. Dwight would make an excellent detective or best friend to talk to, but the best lover? I couldn’t count on it. Despite Dwight’s obvious interest, I had to remember why I was there. I needed to find my own Tom Patrick Ward. My decision-making had to be ruthless.
Musical chairs led me to my next bachelor, who introduced himself as George K. Not entirely sure why he didn’t want to tell me the rest of his name but I understood his preference for anonymity. At first I thought George K was playing footsie with me under the table. Naturally, I smiled, flirting, tossing my hair back and forth over my shoulders with considerable ease for what seemed like an unusually long time before realizing that this would all be wasted on George K, the blind man. His cane moved around my foot under the table so fast I could barely keep up. It was like riding a bicycle downhill when your legs cycle faster than your brain can compute. Thinking about it too much ruined my rhythm and, before I knew it, my foot got caught in the spokes and I crashed. I had moved too quickly with George K. I realized it was strange he was using a cane since he was sitting down. He told me it was because he has vertigo.
‘So you can get dizzy!’ I said, excited, wanting to go run up to Thompson to tell him he was wrong.
‘Vertigo has nothing to do with eyesight,’ he said. ‘I feel dizzy even when I’m sitting down.’
Poor guy. ‘Sorry about the foot thing,’ I said. George K reassured me that, ‘These things happen,’ and not to worry about it, but I had lost my cool and gotten carried away and now there was too much water under the bridge. I realized that maybe that’s what I had been doing wrong when I was a kid and would crawl under the table to play footsie with my mom’s visitors. My good intentions had ruined it.
I got up, turned around quickly and accidentally stood on the paws of a giant, slobbering German shepherd who had somehow snuck up behind me while I was fooling around with George K. The dog’s consequent yelp ricocheted off the hardened walls so fast I ducked to avoid it hitting me on its swift return. I was a little embarrassed that my reaction was so severe, like when you see a bird’s shadow and put your hands out in self-defense before realizing it is, in fact, just a shadow. But in this place of clouded vision, I was safe from ridicule. The dog’s owner was tethered to him a few feet back. I had no idea how long they’d been there . . . Blind people are so quiet!
‘Sit, Charles!’ the owner said sharply. ‘He likes you,’ he said as the dog leaned his curious nose towards me, sniffing away like a truffle-hunting pig.
‘Oh, hello, you!’ I said, giggling – a reaction of the unavoidably ticklish. The shepherd’s cold nose on my legs rekindled a slew of delightful images. I cycled through them quickly like an impatient kid views a flipbook, only this time, I was seeing snapshots of Andrea and Claude, painting and singing away. The dog stayed there sniffing for a while until his owner pulled him back. I had to continue this somehow; it was like the dog knew we needed to meet.
‘You know what has the most discerning sense of smell?’ I asked the man before me. ‘Ants.’ He looked at me, puzzled. ‘I know you’d never think it but it’s true,’ I continued. ‘You should watch this great documentary on it.’ The man was silent. Oh right, I thought. Shit. Blind men!
‘Want to sit down for a minute so we can chat?’ I asked, but then Sandy came over and started hitting on him before I got too far. She was cock-blocking me!
‘Richard! You’re looking great today,’ she said. Charles, sensing commotion, immediately lost interest in me and went to her, wagging his tail and proving to be just like all the other dogs and Dicks I’d met. She started to giggle. Richard and Sandy were both smiling and the dog’s tongue was out of its mouth, happy. It was at that point that I knew I had lost my chance with the lover and the truffle hunter.
I stood up and headed towards the last blind man in the room: Sam. Sam is such a concrete, grounded name. You know what you are going to get when you get a Sam. There are no surprises with a Sam. Sams don’t lie. They don’t cheat. Your dad’s name is probably Sam.
Sam was younger than the rest with a full set of coarse, black hair and unruly eyebrows. Eyebrows so wild I felt compelled to pluck them, one hair at a time. I’d be the remora fish and he’d be the shark in our symbiotic relationship. He also wore sunglasses, which made looking at him less intimidating. He also had a beautifully big Texan smile. All the arrows were pointing to him as the one.
‘Hi, Lauren,’ he said as I sat down next to him. (Who’s Lauren? Oh yes! He remembered my name!) ‘Want to go over some Braille with me?’
I was so excited I basically levitated as I reached across the table to grab The Burns Braille Transcription Dictionary. When I leaned over, I grazed his elbow with every ounce of seduction in me. I apologized profusely when he jumped in shock at the touch, even though we both knew it was no accident. I took his finger between mine and began at the top of the page, tracing letters and uttering their sounds. I started to breathe deeply and told myself, Go slowly, Lauren. Go slowly. If it’s going to be forever, we don’t have to rush.
It was evident Sam liked this combination of finger tracing and heavy breathing because he just sat there limply, letting me lead. ‘This is an R,’ I said, rolling the R as long as I could before I ran out of breath. It felt like we were playing on a Ouija board and I was the ghost. I didn’t know love could be this much fun. I moved his finger across raised letters and spelled out, D-O Y-O-U S-E-E M-E? Sometimes I’m so romantic I even shock myself.
He quickly retracted his finger.
‘Too much, too soon?’ I said, secretly hoping he’d interject and tell me he sees in me what’s invisible to everyone else. Sam took off his sunglasses and let me look into his grey eyes before giving me back his finger. I wondered if this was the moment he would use his hands to search my face and identify my shape as the woman of his dreams.
I think Dwight overheard our conversation because he scoffed at us from the other side of the room. I felt sorry for Dwight and hoped he would one day find what we had found.
I knew my window was closing, especially with Dwight’s rising jealousy, so I had to think of something quickly. I needed to get him to touch me so he knew how buttery my skin was.
‘Play a game with me?’ I asked Sam, whose gaze was still on me, steady. ‘I’m going to put my arm out like this,’ I said as I flipped my forearm over. ‘Then, when my eyes are closed, you’re going to walk your index and middle finger up from the inside of my wrist and I’ll scream “Stop” when I think you’ve reached the crease in my elbow. Okay?’ This is on
e of my favorite games.
He nodded and placed his two fingers at the start line. I closed my eyes to meet Sam in the dark. I wanted to live in that space with him forever. I could hear everything better all of a sudden, especially George K’s cane still rummaging through the space on the floor under the table. Then it began. Sam’s fingers commenced their creep. I could taste the salt in the misguided beads of sweat that ran down the sides of my temples. Good thing Sam was blind.
I thought he was nearing my elbow but I wasn’t quite sure. It felt so close but love has felt close in the past and never been anywhere near it. It was hard to trust myself. My breathing pattern started to become irregular. I wanted more than anything to peek but I refused to. I couldn’t. Not this far in. His fingers climbed further and further. My toes curled. The space behind my ears tingled and my spine arched in the wooden seat as if someone had poked me in the back with a needle. He was almost there. My left leg started to shake. I couldn’t take it anymore.
‘Stop!’ I screamed. ‘Yes! Stop! Yes! Yes! Stop!’ Euphoria lapped through my veins. When I opened my eyes, I saw my very own Tom Patrick Ward before me, smiling contentedly as if he’d been watching me the whole time.
My heavy breathing started to settle but when I looked down at where his finger stopped, it was only halfway up my forearm, a good three inches from my elbow. I wasn’t even in the ballpark.
Sam grabbed my elbow with his free hand and, gauging the gap between where his finger still lingered and my elbow, I thought he was going to say, ‘If it felt like it, that’s all that matters.’
The Optimist Page 17