These Things Will Sometimes Happen

by Robert Lopez


Pity Jimmy likes to sneak wine and scotch into Blind Betty's room at night when everyone is asleep.  Blind Betty drinks wine or scotch depending on if she is panicking or not.  She drinks one for the panics and another between them but I forget which is which.  The reason she panics is she is out of her mind crazy and this is what happens to you when you go blind as a kid instead of being born blind as a baby.  How we know Blind Betty is out of her mind crazy is she wakes up sometimes crying and shaking and hyperventilating.  Every time I see her do it it makes me want to go home on the first bus that'll take me there.  The problem is I don't know where I am here and I don't have any money left either.  They haven't paid me yet and I haven't asked them when they plan to neither.  I don't think they think it's any of my business.  When I tell this to Pity Jimmy he says these things will sometimes happen.  Time was all Pity Jimmy ever said about people is how and when they were born but now he talks like a regular person does.  I heard him talking to Blind Betty like a regular person one night when he was in her room.  Blind Betty was in her bed crying and shaking and Pity Jimmy was talking about some story about Kansas.  He had a paper bag in his left hand and there was a bottle of scotch on the nightstand next to the bed.  I don't think either of them knew I was in the doorway watching.  That's the thing with these blindsters you can spy on them and get away with it most of the time.  The only thing you have to do is make sure you don't stink from the cafeteria food or make any noise.  I couldn't tell what Pity Jimmy was doing with that paper bag and I didn't want to know neither.  I think I thought if he was going to suffocate her I would probably have to stop him.  They'd give me what for if Pity Jimmy suffocated Blind Betty.  This is not what we pay you for is what they'd say.  I would probably shake my head yes but what I'd think is something else altogether.  
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