Stories (2011) (32 page)

"I wasn't saying that."

"For all I know, what's wrong with that patch there's
got nothing to do with me and my work. It could have been alien
involvement."

"Aliens with weed-eaters?"

"It could be what happened when they landed, their
saucers messin' it up like that."

"If they landed, why didn't they land on you? You was
out there with the weed-eater. How come nobody saw or heard them?"

"They could have messed up the yard while I was coming
to get you."

"Kind of a short visit, wasn't it?"

"You don't know everything, Mister-I-Got-Eyeballs.
Those that talk the loudest know less than anybody."

"And them that believe every damn thing they hear are
pretty stupid, Mister Weed-Eater. I know what's wrong with you now. You're
lazy. It's hot out there and you don't want to be here, so you're trying to
make me feel sorry for you and do the job myself, and it ain't gonna work. I
don't feel sorry for you cause you're blind. I ain't gonna feel sorry at all. I
think you're an asshole."

Mr. Harold went across the road and back to the house and
called his son inside. He sat down in front of the TV.
Wheel of Fortune
wasn't
on anymore. Hell, it was a rerun anyway. He changed the channel looking for
something worth watching but all that was on was midget wrestling, so he
watched a few minutes of that.

Those little guys were fast and entertaining and it was cool
inside with the air-conditioner cranked up, so after a couple minutes Mr.
Harold got comfortable watching the midgets sling each other around, tumble up
together and tie themselves in knots.

However, time eroded Mr. Harold's contentment. He couldn't
stop thinking about the blind man out there in the heat. He called to his son
and told him to go outside and see if the blind man was still there.

The boy came back a minute later. He said, "He's out
there, Daddy. He said you better come on out and help him. He said he ain't
gonna talk about crop circles no more."

Mr. Harold thought a moment. You were supposed to help the
blind, the hot and the stupid. Besides, the old boy might need someone to pour
gas in that weed-eater. He did it himself he was liable to pour it all over his
shoes and later get around someone who smoked and wanted to toss a match. An
accident might be in the making.

Mr. Harold switched the channel to cartoons and pointed them
out to his son. The boy sat down immediately and started watching. Mr. Harold
got the boy a glass of Kool-Aid and a stack of chocolate cookies. He went
outside to find the blind man.

The blind man was in Mr. Harold's yard. He had the
weed-eater on and was holding it above his head whacking at the leaves on Mr.
Harold's redbud tree; his wife's favorite tree.

"Hey, now stop that," Mr. Harold said. "Ain't
no call to be malicious."

The blind man cut the weed-eater and cocked his head and
listened. "That you, Mister-I-Know-There-Ain't-No-Aliens?"

"Now come on. I want to help you. My son said you said
you wasn't gonna get into that again."

"Come on over here," said the blind man.

Mr. Harold went over, cautiously. When he was just outside
of weed-eater range, he said, "What you want?"

"Do I look all right to you? Besides being blind?"

"Yeah. I guess so. I don't see nothing wrong with you.
You found the leaves on that tree good enough."

"Come and look closer."

"Naw, I ain't gonna do it. You just want to get me in
range. Hit me with that weed-eater. I'll stay right here. You come at me, I'll
move off. You won't be able to find me."

"You saying I can't find you cause I'm blind?"

"Come after me, I'll put stuff in front of you so you
trip."

The blind man leaned the weed-eater against his leg. His
cane was on a loop over his other hand, and he took hold of it and tapped it against
his tennis shoe.

"Yeah, well you could do that," the blind man
said, "and I bet you would too. You're like a guy would do things to the
handicapped. I'll tell you now, sir, they take roll in heaven, you ain't gonna
be on it."

"Listen here. You want some help over there, I'll give
it, but I ain't gonna stand here in this heat and take insults. Midget
wrestling's on TV and it's cool inside and I might just go back to it."

The blind man's posture straightened with interest.
"Midget wrestling? Hell, that's right. It's Saturday. Was it Little Bronco
Bill and Low Dozer McGuirk?"

"I think it was. They look alike to me. I don't know
one midget from another, though one was a little fatter and had a haircut like
he'd got out of the barber chair too soon."

"That's Dozer. He trains on beer and doughnuts. I heard
him talk about it on the TV."

"You watch TV?"

"You tryin' to hurt my feelings?"

"No. I mean, it's just, well, you're blind."

"What? I am? I'll be damned! I didn't know that. Glad
you was here to tell me."

"I didn't mean no harm."

"Look here, I got ears. I listen to them thumping on
that floor and I listen to the announcer. I listen so good I can imagine,
kinda, what's goin' on. I 'specially like them little scudders, the midgets. I
think maybe on a day I've had enough to eat, I had on some pants weren't too
tight, I'd like to get in a ring with one of 'em."

"You always been blind? I mean, was you born that
way?"

"Naw. Got bleach in my eyes. My mama told me a nigger
done it to me when I was a baby, but it was my daddy. I know that now. Mama had
a bad eye herself, then the cancer got her good one. She says she sees out of
her bad eye way you'd see if you seen something through a Coke bottle with dirt
on the bottom."

Mr. Harold didn't really want to hear about the blind man's
family history. He groped for a fresh conversation handle. Before he could get
hold of one, the blind man said, "Let's go to your place and watch some of
that wrestlin' and cool off, then you can come out with me and show me them
places I missed."

Mr. Harold didn't like the direction this conversation was
taking. "I don't know," he said. "Won't the preacher be back in
a bit and want his yard cut?"

"You want to know the truth?" the blind man said,
"I don't care. You're right. Five dollars ain't any wages. Them little
things I wanted with that five dollars I couldn't get no how."

Mr. Harold's mind raced. "Yeah, but five dollars is
five dollars, and you could put it toward something. You know, save it up till
you got some more. They're planning on making you a permanent groundskeeper,
aren't they? A little time, a raise could be in order."

"This here's kinda a trial run. They can always get the
crippled nigger back."

Mr. Harold checked his watch. There probably wasn't more
than twenty minutes left of the wrestling program, so he took a flyer.
"Well, all right. We'll finish up the wrestling show, then come back and
do the work. You ain't gonna hit me with that weed-eater if I try to guide you
into the house, are you?"

"Naw, I ain't mad no more. I get like that sometimes.
It's just my way."

Mr. Harold led him into the house and onto the couch and
talked the boy out of the cartoons, which wasn't hard; it was some kind of
stuff the boy hated. The blind man had him crank the audio on the TV up a notch
and sat sideways on the couch with his weed-eater and cane, taking up all the
room and leaving Mr. Harold nowhere to sit. Dirt and chopped grass dripped off
of the blind man's shoes and onto the couch.

Mr. Harold finally sat on the floor beside his boy and tried
to get the boy to give him a cookie, but his son didn't play that way. Mr.
Harold had to get his own Kool-Aid and cookies, and he got the blind man some
too.

The blind man took the Kool-Aid and cookies and didn't say
thanks or kiss my ass. Just stretched out there on the couch listening, shaking
from side to side, cheering the wrestlers on. He was obviously on Low Dozer
McGuirk's side, and Mr. Harold figured it was primarily because he'd heard
Dozer trained on beer and doughnuts. That struck Mr. Harold as a thing the
blind man would latch onto and love. That and crop circles and flying saucers.

When the blind man finished up his cookies and Kool-Aid, he
put Mr. Harold to work getting more, and when Mr. Harold came back with them,
his son and the blind man were chatting about the wrestling match. The blind
man was giving the boy some insights into the wrestling game and was trying to
get the boy to try a hold on him so he could show how easily he could work out
of it.

Mr. Harold nixed that plan, and the blind man ate his next
plate of cookies and Kool-Aid, and somehow the wrestling show moved into an
after show talk session on wrestling. When Mr. Harold looked at his watch
nearly an hour had passed.

"We ought to get back over there and finish up,"
Mr. Harold said.

"Naw," said the blind man, "not just yet.
This talk show stuff is good. This is where I get most of my tips."

"Well, all right, but when this is over, we're out of
here."

But they weren't. The talk show wrapped up, the
Beverly
Hillbillies
came on, then
Green Acres
, then
Gilligan's Island
.
The blind man and Mr. Harold's son laughed their way through the first two, and
damn near killed themselves with humor when
Gilligan's Island
was on.

Mr. Harold learned the Professor and Ginger were the blind
man's favorites on
Gilligan's
, and he liked the pig, Arnold, on
Green
Acres
. No one was a particular favorite on the
Beverly Hillbillies
,
however.

"Ain't this stuff good?" the blind man said.
"They don't make 'em like this anymore."

"I prefer educational programming myself," Mr.
Harold said, though the last educational program he'd watched was a PBS special
on lobsters. He'd watched it because he was sick as a dog and lying on the
couch and his wife had put the remote across the room and he didn't feel good
enough to get up and get hold of it.

In his feverish delirium he remembered the lobster special
as pretty good cause it had come across a little like a science fiction movie.
But that lobster special, as viewed through feverish eyes, had been the closest
Mr. Harold had ever gotten to educational TV.

The sickness, the remote lying across the room, had caused
him to miss what he'd really wanted to see that day, and even now, on occasion,
he thought of what he had missed with a certain pang of regret; a special on
how young women were chosen to wear swim suits in special issues of sports
magazines. He kept hoping it was a show that would play in rerun.

"My back's hurtin' from sitting on the floor," Mr.
Harold said, but the blind man didn't move his feet so Mr. Harold could have a
place on the couch. He offered a pointer, though.

"Sit on the floor, you got to hold your back straight,
just like you was in a wooden chair, otherwise you'll really tighten them
muscles up close to your butt."

When
Gilligan's
was wrapped up, Mr. Harold
impulsively cut the television and got hold of the blind man and started
pulling him up. "We got to go to work now. I'm gonna help you, it has to
be now. I got plans for the rest of the day."

"Ah, Daddy, he was gonna show me a couple wrestling
holds," the boy said.

"Not today," Mr. Harold said, tugging on the blind
man, and suddenly the blind man moved and was behind him and had him wrestled
to the floor. Mr. Harold tried to move, but couldn't. His arm was twisted
behind his back and he was lying face down and the blind man was on top of him
pressing a knee into his spine.

"Wow!" said the boy. "Neat!"

"Not bad for a blind fella," said the blind man.
"I told you I get my tips from that show."

"All right, all right, let me go," said Mr. Harold.

"Squeal like a pig for me," said the blind man.

"Now wait just a goddamned minute," Mr. Harold
said.

The blind man pressed his knee harder into Mr. Harold's
spine. "Squeal like a pig for me. Come on."

Mr. Harold made a squeaking noise.

"That ain't no squeal," said the blind man.
"Squeal!"

The boy got down by Mr. Harold's face. "Come on,
Dad," he said. "Squeal."

"Big pig squeal," said the blind man. "Big
pig! Big pig! Big pig!"

Mr. Harold squealed. The blind man didn't let go.

"Say calf rope," said the blind man.

"All right, all right. Calf rope! Calf rope! Now let me
up."

The blind man eased his knee off Mr. Harold's spine and let
go of the arm lock. He stood up and said to the boy, "It's mostly in the
hips."

"Wow!" said the boy, "You made Dad squeal like
a pig."

Mr. Harold, red faced, got up. He said, "Come on, right
now."

"I need my weed-eater," said the blind man.

The boy got both the weed-eater and the cane for the blind
man. The blind man said to the boy as they went outside, "Remember, it's
in the hips."

Mr. Harold and the blind man went over to the church
property and started in on some spots with the weed-eater. In spite of the fact
Mr. Harold found himself doing most of the weed-eating, the blind man just
clinging to this elbow and being pulled around like he was a side car, it
wasn't five minutes before the blind man wanted some shade and a drink of
water.

Mr. Harold was trying to talk him out of it when Sonny Guy
and his family drove up in a club cab Dodge pickup.

The pickup was black and shiny and looked as if it had just
come off the showroom floor. Mr. Harold knew Sonny Guy's money for such things
had come from Mrs. Guy's insurance before she was Mrs. Guy. Her first husband
had gotten kicked to death by a maniac escaped from the nut-house; kicked until
they couldn't tell if he was a man or a jelly doughnut that had gotten run over
by a truck.