America the Poor: A Wanderers Tale, Vol Two

Chapter 17:A Blind Boys's sad tale, told for all time

By this time, my blind roommate Tim and I were getting closer I suppose. He was 18, and I was a mere 13. He was much taller, but that didn't matter, but he was far more mature, in some ways, not in every way though. Another thing about him, he was often aloof, and quiet, just as much as I was, maybe more. I sat back and watched others, but Tim sat back and listened, smelled, and noticed far more than anything I was capable of ever seeing.

Tim was a complex guy, no doubt of that, and he mainly kept to himself. He was a lot like me, more than I'd ever admit at the time. He was far deeper than many knew, amazingly intelligent as well. I always suspected such, but I never knew how deep he truly was until he finally told me his full tragic story. Why he was blind in the first place, and why he was involuntarily committed as I was. Maybe all these factors came together for both of us, and we were going to meet inevitably, by design?

One boring afternoon we were both in our shared room, a few hours before dinner. I asked him in the silence while we both sat on our facing beds across the void: "I told you why I'm here Tim, can you tell me the same now?" He had heard my full story and confession in the dayroom a few weeks before, and he remembered it all, he often asked me for details even. . We were totally alone, each on our respective beds on opposite sides of the room, Tim appeared to think about it, and the resulting silence was palpable.

Looking back, my intelligence was unlike any other boy on the ward. I was no mere idiot boy. I wasn't shallow, I was highly articulate. I knew things, and comprehended events other boys dismissed and/or didn't think about. Most others on the ward watched cartoons and wrestling all day and rocked their time away. I read books, and questioned the staff too damned often.

By this time, Tim knew me a bit, and had listened to me for a while in our shared time on the ward. He knew I was different, and he decided to finally bare his soul to me, as I had to him before. We were both lost and very aware souls, and in a strange way, perhaps we were kin. Maybe he sensed this, that I would truly hear him, and not just casually dismiss his words. All my life, listening and learning was a gift I possessed, not just to nod blindly, but to understand literally everything I ever heard, read, or seen, and see things as they were, not as I wanted them to be.

Over my long life, I discovered most common humans rarely ever do this. They nod politely, and act as if they listen, and utter comfortable platitudes, and seemingly agree, but they never truly comprehend a thing, and the few that can, never make it known.

This is either by ignorance or purposeful choice, I'm not really sure which. Is being obtuse a conscious choice? If being purposely ignorant was an actual skill it was something I never bothered to learn. I listened to every important lesson I ever had (none of them came from public school sadly) and I truly heard and remembered every single story I ever was exposed to.

This puts me in yet another unique category, as if I wasn't in enough of those already, I remembered and understood the lessons of every tale I was ever exposed to.

I know no other way, I cannot choose to be ignorant, as much as I wish I could be. It's either a gift or a curse, depending upon point of view I suppose. When Tim started baring his soul in that small sad room., I listened carefully, and remembered so I could tell it here for my friend, so he is remembered as well.

"Johnny, I wasn't always blind. I was born with perfect sight, just like you. A few years ago, I could see the exact same as you, maybe better. I was in high school in Rochester Ny, and the girls all loved me. I wasn't a jock, I didn't play sports, but I love music, and I played the keyboard, I was damned good at it! I had a special gift for playing music back then. I was also in a small dedicated band with my closest friends".