Growing - Innit [mp3]
The blind man, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the vision loss industry, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of general disabilities, said, “We’re landing now, I can feel the angle shifting.” The plane was landing, out the window I could view the bay nearing the belly of a whale, our training wheels popped out and wetted, “We’d have fine weather in San Francisco if I were mayor!” The blind man yelps. He could hear the voices of three young women in front of us, so he asked me to judge their attractiveness for his benefit. He speaks quite loudly in the first place so probably they heard him and in the second place, how can I possibly understand the aesthetic standards of a blind man. I told him that they were underage and anyway, we landed so time to go.
He and I, we met in Seattle, on an airplane. By sheer chance, we were randomly assigned seats right next to each other, he in the center seat, me in the aisle. I knew immediately that he would be my partner for the duration of the flight when I saw him at the gate. He was stumbling about without guidance, making inappropriate comments to the stewardess in charge of supporting those customers with special needs, and generally exuding exuberance expecting to be seated next to a guy like me. We made our introductions, his a rambling sort and mine the standard yuppie run-down. It turns out that we are both from the Twin Cities and that by some unfathomable coincidence, we were both in Seattle for only a short time, maybe 45 minutes, a simple connection, as it were, to our true destination. He was in search of a new guide dog to replace the deceased Betsy, I was on business, it was tepid conversation at first sight.
He asked me once, when I was first getting to know him, “So son, what do you do?” I told him I was in the internet game to make money, I told him, “That’s where the big bucks are these days.” He was a programmer once, he would say with his trademark stupor, and in his day, he programmed using a screen-reader. “At the end of the day, I tell a bunch of Indians how to program anyway,” I’d retort and so we shifted gears and began talking about the baseball team. Before you knew it, it had been an hour since we had last received complimentary beverages and pretzels and there still remained an hour of flight.
Growing are a rhythm and blues band from Brooklyn. The featured song is from the album All the Way. Purchase the music at Amazon | Insound | eMusic.
