This is my entry for the
2023 April Fool's Day Contest
and is a follow-on story to my 2022 On The Job Event
Blindsided by the Blind Guy.
Tam and Jake have been married 14 years, they have three boys ages twelve, eight, and four. Tam is now chair of the Psychology Dept. and Jake teaches several literature classes and has authored several more books. If you haven't read Blindsided by the Blind Guy, there are some spoilers in this story. Both of these stories use characters and locales from the
We're a Wonderful Wife
universe.
____________________________
Blindsiding the Blind Guy
Jake Johnson made his way down the hallway of the University of Minnesota at Bemidji in beautiful but blustery Bemidji Minnesota, and right now the only sound he could hear was the tapping of his cane. If you're a friend you call him JJ or Jake, if you're a reader of his books you call him J. E. Johnson, and if you're sitting in his classroom, you call him professor or Doctor Johnson.
Jake is a professor of American Literature at a small university in Minnesota and he loves his job, the staff is good to him, his department chair gives him the academic freedom to tackle projects far outside the scope of his academic purview, he has a bevy of teaching assistants, and his home is a short walk from campus. On the downside, he is in Bemidji Minnesota and his home is too far for him to safely walk when the weather is bad, it's near impossible for him to find his way home if there is ice or snow on the sidewalk which is over half the year.
When your way of "seeing" the route home was with a cane that you use to feel the edge of the sidewalk and the curb of the crosswalk, a half inch of snow was blinding.
Outside the snow was piling up in drifts and wind chills of minus fifteen degrees made walking home deadly for Jake. The conditions would make standing at a bus stop a suicidal undertaking for him, if there was a bus that would take him home. There is Uber or taxi cabs, he could afford that, but now he says a prayer of thanks every day for having a ride home and not having to walk. He has a wonderful wife who loves him and insists every evening on driving him to their home and three boys.
The building was much newer than his previous school, so his "Nav Aides" (as his Air Force veteran brother-in-law Donovan would put it) were fewer than what he used to navigate on the old campus when he taught at Washington County College in St. Paul. But there were Nav Aides in Bemidji, and he knew how to use them. Gone were the old sheet metal drinking fountains and waste receptacles that he would tap to determine his location, everything was turn of the 21st Century new and modern yet now over twenty years old. There wasn't much for the ball at the end of his red tipped white walking stick to tap against like in the old building, but he still navigated the same way, using clues to guide him. He counted doorways as he passed the classrooms, then the kick plate stretching across the hallway floor showing the joint between buildings. Here was the connection between Stauber Hall (literature) and Finstad Hall (Social Sciences) telling Jake that he was halfway to his goal.
Now he felt a chill on his right side, it felt like he was standing next to a block of ice, that chill came from the large series of windows overlooking the courtyard. He was running a bit late, but he didn't realize how late he was, he was enlightened to the time when the hallways became a cacophony of footsteps and voices, students filled the hall rushing, walking, congregating, and it seemed to Jake that all were talking as loudly as possible. The tsunami of sound confused and overwhelmed him, to a sighted person it would be the equivalent of a series of strobe lights flashing and obscuring whatever it was you were trying to see.
He reached for his watch to check the time, in the past he had braille watches where one would flip up the crystal and read the position of the hands with his fingers. At one point he had a talking watch, it was nice, one button and he knew the time right down to the second, but then so did everyone around him. That was not a good choice for checking the time at church. He loved his current watch, an extravagant gift from his wife, an Eone Bradley Compass, it had a face with no numbers, just markers for hours, and the hands were magnetized ball bearings in recessed tracks. The "hour hand" was in a track around the outside edge of the watch, the "minute hand" was in a track on the face of the watch. A gentle touch, look for those two balls, and damn, it's four thirty, he was incredibly late, and he was not happy with his reason for being late.
All he could do was rely on his cane and he swept it back and forth, continuously tapping on the wall to his right as his guide. A change in the sound that the wall made when he tapped it with his cane told him he was at the pair of doors that would lead out into the courtyard in fair weather. As he made his way past the doors his cane struck something unexpected. It was a crowd of students who weren't moving. Most people moved out of his way knowing, or at least using a few brain cells and deducing that he depended on the righthand wall for his navigation, not this group. They were either obstinate or oblivious. He continued tapping on shoes and ankles to determine the size of the group and give them a hint that he needed to get through and in response all he got was laughter and the cry of "What the fuck!"
Dr. Johnson recognized that voice, in fact the voice belonged to the reason why he was late and now trapped in a crowded corridor. The voice and the person it belonged to was both obstinate AND oblivious. "Ahh, the eloquent Mister Demmings," said Jake parking his cane under his right arm. "So good to find you here. We were supposed to meet in my office an hour ago."
"Yeah, well I had things to do," sneered Bart Demmings, a junior year football player with all the academic acumen of a small newt. He reads at a sixth-grade level, clinging to that level by his fingernails and he shows no desire to improve his standing. Some joker convinced him that Doctor Johnson was an easy A because he was blind, and the oblivious fool believed him!
"I hope one of those things you were doing was looking for a part time job," said Jake. "You will soon have the opportunity to invest your new free time in that. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm trying to get through."
"What do you mean by that?" shouted Demmings.
What Jake meant by that was Demmings' position of the football team was in jeopardy due to his poor academic standing. Intentionally Jake turned his body a bit, so he wasn't facing Demmings directly when he spoke. Jake never knew why but it drives sighted people crazy when you do that. "Trying to get through means that I'm trying to travel from here, to..."
"Look at me!" shouted Demmings.
"Mister Demmings, you just told a blind man to look at you, are you going to cure me?" that brought forth a few giggles so there were girls in this group. Jake realized that he was embarrassing the star football player in front of a bunch of giggling girls. It was wrong to do, but opportunities don't present themselves like this often enough. Sometimes life is very sweet.
"I mean the job!"
"By saying that you are going to have plenty of free time for a job, I was indicating that you're not going to be spending your time at sports. You may want to talk to Coach Herrell about that, I let him know that you missed our meeting today and he was not happy. Something about a required academic standing for his players? The coach knows more about that than I do."
"Aww God damn it you son of a BITCH!" The laughter and sound of retreating footsteps told Jake that Mr. Demmings was now sprinting toward the athletic side of campus.
A touch on his arm was followed by young female voice that came from Dr. Johnson's left side saying, "These halls are pretty crowded, would you like an assist?"
"That would be most helpful miss...?"
"I'm Victoria Baird, everyone calls me Vicky."
"Do we know each other?"
"No, but my boyfriend Shane is in your second period study of Mark Twain," said Vicky. "Here, take my arm, my grandpa is blind, he taught me how to guide him," and with that she began to guide Jake through the crowded halls.
"He taught you well Miss Baird. I take it that your boyfriend is Shane Yarmuth. The swimmer?"
"Yes, I'm on the girl's team myself."
Jake chuckled; it sounded like Shane was going ahead of them moving people out of the way. "I could always count on swimmers," Jake said.
"How is that?" asked Vicky.
"My wife's youngest sister was timekeeper for her high school swim team, and she coached two swimmers to state records. Then she married one of them, and her older brother married the other."
"Sounds like Diddy Mao," said Shane. "I swam against Grant Valley, and they still call out her name when they race."
Now Jake was having a hard time keeping from laughing. "Diddy Mao... exactly." Jake was sure that this would continue because "Diddy Mao's" brother was going to be coach of that swim team next year.
He allowed himself to be guided through the throngs of students whose only thought was to get out of the building because class was over for the day. Vicky did a great job of guiding him through the horde that truly began to panic Jake. With Shane running interference Vicky led Jake confidently through Finstad Hall, informing him of everything, "Coming up on the right will be the men's room followed by the drinking fountain... the fountain is recessed into the corridor wall about two feet... now here is the ladies' room... the stairs are across the hall to our left..." she made sure to keep Jake close to the wall so his cane could tap against the wall giving him a sense of location.
"Here you are Doctor Johnson, we're at Doctor Nguyen's office." Both students have taken sociology 101 and were used to the staid and serious Doctor Tam Nguyen, the iron maiden, a woman who wouldn't crack a smile if you tried to chisel one on her face. She stepped out of her office a breathtaking Asian beauty, from her thick ebony tresses to her tiny feet she was perfect, a tight athletic body, her skin clear, wrinkle and blemish free. As usual the look on her face was an expression of bored annoyance, but when she saw Dr. Johnson she
melted!
She suddenly became all smiles, and he was touching her! Gently tracing his fingers over her face before they kissed. It was a complete shock for both sophomores. The terror of every psychology student in the university was smiling and laughing like a schoolgirl in love.
"I was so worried that you got turned around!" she gasped.
"Miss Baird did a remarkable job guiding me through the crowd. Darling, this fellow here, Mister Yarmuth says they memorialized your sister at Grant Valley."
"Which one?" Tam could just imagine what kind of memorial they would erect for Kim-ly, she was only there for two years and left a legacy of practical jokes that lives on until today.
"Diddy Mao!" said Shane brightly.
