by Robert Lopez
AT THE RESTAURANT EVERY OTHER TABLE WAS VACANT BUT SET FOR PARTIES OF TWO OR FOUR. Otherwise, there were people eating and drinking and talking like they’d known one another for years.
I think I’d misplaced Thursday afternoon the day before. This happens to me sometimes. I’ll forget the day, month, or year; how old I am, etc. Part of the problem is I don’t sleep well. I can’t sleep three hours straight without waking up disoriented.
The other part of the problem is I don’t write things down. Everyone I know is always scribbling into a calendar or a planner. I don’t even know where you can buy a calendar; maybe a drugstore would have one.
I’d been walking around all day like this, at least four hours behind everyone else. I was lucky to have found the restaurant. Over my shoulder I heard someone say they were evacuating Cuba. This was one of the people eating and drinking and talking.
There was another hurricane on the way is why someone else said this.
I wanted to comment on the hurricanes, something clever, environmental. Something about how the Caribbean was good water for fleeing through, how the Gulf Stream was to blame. What I wound up saying is, A man has no business planning a canal in Panama either backwards or forwards.
This is when the person across from me started to ask questions.
The person across from me was someone I’d gone to school with. I ran into her recently and she suggested this get-together. I think she wanted sex.
Sometimes women want to do this with you. There’s no telling why.
I answered her questions by arranging my place setting into a tic-tac-toe board. I had to borrow the person across from me’s butter knife to do it right.
What I said out loud was, If a plane crashed on the border of Cuba and Panama during a hurricane where would you bury the survivors.
After I said that I walked over to the table where people were discussing Cuba’s evacuation plans and said, This is what happens to you when you don’t write things down, when you don’t even know where to get yourself a calendar.
The Cubans looked at me and said I should get some sleep.
I walked back to my table, picked up the menu, and decided on the steak frites. I thought I might have to explain myself. I thought the person across from might deserve an explanation, that maybe she was entitled to one. This get-together was her idea and she probably wanted sex afterwards.
The person across from me pulled on her wine glass, set it back down, and feigned an indignation that was embarrassing for the both of us.
This woman was beautiful in a way that makes something like that palatable. She had hair and eyes and lips and all the rest of it, the womanly parts. Next the waiter brought us our entrees and laid them out on the table.
I told her, They should name this next hurricane after you. What made it classy is I’d raised my glass while I said this.
She responded by picking up one of her peas and holding it in the air. She rolled it between her thumb and forefinger and looked me in the eye. I didn’t know what was happening, how I should respond. I tried to listen to what the Cubans at the other table were discussing but heard nothing. I felt like I’d been on a plane for two or three days straight without landing. I felt like I could’ve been anywhere on earth. The woman across from me held the pea like that for a solid minute and then placed it in the middle square. She did this with a certain flair, panache.
This woman, she was X.
BRICKS
* * *
I AM OUT THE WINDOW TODAY.
The dog is behind me eating the raw chicken back I fed him for lunch. The woman I share the house with brought the dog home one day after work. She didn’t say where she found him or what his name is.
This is my wife we’re talking about so none of it surprises me.
It’s my job to feed the dog and take him for walks during the day. Today, though, we’re going nowhere. I don’t even want to fetch the mail.
There is no trace of life out the window.
This is when an old lady drives up and parks her car in front of the house. She has no business parking her car there so I know she’s trouble. I watch her walk and sweat the way old people do like when they are about to fall over and die in front of your house.
She opens the back door of her car and picks up the three bricks that were lying on our front walk and places them each one in the backseat. How she does this is by cradling the bricks in her arms like a baby. I don’t know how the bricks got to our walk but they’d been there a few days. This is the kind of neighborhood where this happens. Bricks. Last week it was an air conditioner. Another sort of person would’ve taken the bricks and thrown them away or maybe built something with them but I am not another sort of person and neither is my wife.
We don’t know what happened to the air conditioner but it’s not out there anymore. Maybe this same old lady took it. Maybe she drives by here all the time, scavenging like a vulture. Maybe we should thank her.
After she finishes loading her car full of bricks she wipes her forehead with a green sleeve and falls back into the driver’s seat. Then she drives off and leaves me out the window with the dog still eating behind me.
When the heat breaks I will find myself some bricks and maybe an electric fan and place them out on our walk for when she comes back.
I tell this to the dog. I tell him it’s a good idea, that something will come of this. He agrees by hovering over his bowl and lapping up blood.
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 he
ad 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.