In Macy’s I made the mistake of talking to a mannequin. Every blind person has done this. A woman said, “that man won’t be talkin’” and laughed and walked with me to the Mens department. Bonding meant I couldn’t be embarrassed—I felt it, as if some essential part of my delicate self-regard had been fired in a kiln. “Thank you Corky,” I said. “Thank you, girl!”
I felt like Charlie Chaplin—easy, loose jointed, mistake prone and strong.
**
Little things: she walked me around a sidewalk elevator, its doors stood open revealing steep stairs. New York: the city of ominous basements.
She stopped at a curb, then backed up. A double decked tour bus was drifting, scraping the street signs, the people up top laughing—the whole thing was like a boat load of drunks. Good girl.
We walked past odd little shops, their doors were open, releasing the Victorian odors of commerce—New York is a city of smells—many are unidentifiable—the scent of earth from one door; fragrance of plums from another. On sixth avenue a woman ran out of a shop, grabbed my arm, “you must taste,” she said. “Taste?” I said. “Yeah, you taste!” She dragged us into a Chinese bakery and offered us a Chinese cocktail bun, filled with coconut. Corky and I rewarded her with a little dance. New York. Everyone feels vaguely as if he or she is in a circus. What can you do? You chew, dance, and walk. You thank strangers who suddenly appear. Do they appreciate your soul? Do they have pity for you? You don’t know.
Planet of the Blind 