SUNDAY JULY 22, 2012 CHECK IN ROW80 DAY 13 - I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

One day back in June of about 2004, I noticed my vision getting a little blurred. I chalked it up to allergies, and kind of forgot about it, as there was a ton of other shittery going on in my life that I sort of alluded to a couple of posts ago. So, let me chuck any semblance of narrative flow into the shitter and cheerfully skip ahead several years to about, oh a year ago:

This is me, sort of; divide by 3, add some hair and clothes, lose the fur and voilá!

People shy away from this. Before I went through my second eye surgery and Dr. Eyeball told me he would not do any further surgery on my eyes, I just went around and bumped into things and people. And people bumped into me. A lot. I found I did not like this at all and because I couldn't see them coming, I appeared to be rude and I really couldn't blame them for being upset with me.

When Dr. Eyeball and I had our talk, he suggested the stick and glasses. "It's rough out there." Point taken. I should mention he and his brother are the official opthamalogists to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, so they do know a bit about rough. I can't tell these two apart, aside from the fact that one of them hates computers and is the internist and the other is okay with computers and is the surgeon. If I mention computers to one of the brothers and frothing at the mouth commences, I know I've got Bernie the internist, not Donnie the surgeon.

So, off I go in my bumbling way, dragging my whack-a-mole stick and wearing these glasses, per Donnie. And... I'm still getting stepped on, bumped into and now it's getting a bit annoying...to me. I believe I've mentioned before I do not live in the best of neighborhoods. In fact, I live in an area that is dangerous. It's a simple matter of economics. So, I find myself telling people who step on me that if they don''t want to get the shit beat out of them to back off. Sometimes I have to say it 2 or 3 times. Sometimes, I have to say it loudly and profanely, while brandishing whack-a-mole. It leaves an impression, and not one has threatened me... yet.

Eventually, around here in the neighborhood, people began to get the idea that I might not be someone to fool with, that I might not be quite right in the head. This idea was reinforced when it was "leaked" (by my PR group) that I spent some time in the hospital, courtesy of the State of Florida. I'd never been known to be dangerous, but peace is tenuous here on the Avenue. The "communication" system on Nebraska is interesting to say the least. Fueled by a combination of sterno, radiator fluid, 10 dollar crack hits, meth, heroin and just plain delusion and lack of sleep, one is apt to hear of the coming of Elvis, Judge Crater and Britney Spears in Concert Together Again at Checkers. Tomorrow is the Apocalypse! 2 for 1 Spliffs with every 8-Ball purchased!!!

So, it's fairly easy to convince most of them that I have some kind of evil visitation going on and am not quite in control of my impulses. And even though I don't see well and am legally blind, I can tell when people are trying to come up to me on the street. I can stop that shit in a heart beat and have done so with a flick of my head and a whisk of old whack-a-mole in their direction. It scares the hell out of people. They mostly just stay away. I think there really is something superstitious about the whole dark glasses and cane thing, although a rigorous 15 minutes spent on Google and LOLcats found nothing of the sort. The closest thing I found that made me have the heebie-jeebies was when I Googled "eyeless." Gah! The pictures alone will keep me awake.

That shit really creeped me out. But it didn't creep me out nearly as much as that damned thing, "The Man With the X-Ray Eyes" directed by Roger Corman. That movie was and still is, one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen. I think sometimes, that kids sense things that will happen to them later on. As impossible as it seems. I saw this thing on the KTLA Creature Feature when I was about 11 years old. I remember thinking then that the man could still see, even after he had torn his eyes from his sockets. I was freaked out. But that was not the ending shown, unless I am mis-remembering it, which is entirely possible, because Stephen King in his excellent book, "Danse Macabre," writes that the original ending with Ray Milland screaming "I can still see!" was deemed too horrifying for the viewing public. So, I probably just have it all mixed in my usual Mary Confuse-a-story. But, I honestly think it's a truly terrifying movie to this day. That horror has never worn off. Oooh! Fun! Now, I'm off to see what Chupacabra tore up in the back yard.