And there's me thinking...

Once is an accident, twice is careless (I think it goes). Well, twice in the last week I’ve got onto a bus, both very crowded with people standing. One of the front seats is vacant. Perhaps someone saw me and stood in advance of my arrival… (?) I sat down and immediately realised why the seat was free – or perhaps not.

The first time I found myself sitting next to a guy who stank… he stank of dirty clothes, dirty body, piss and shit. He ranted to himself and then, near his (and unfortunately my) stop, stands up and squeezes in, standing right in front of me with his arse right in my face. I protest:
“Are you getting off or what?”

He responds:
“Fuck off you fucking bastard. Don’t you tell me what to do you cunt… Are you getting off here then?”

“I haven’t decided” I reply.

And then this morning on the way to work, a crowded bus, front seat vacant, I gladly take it.
Immediately, I smell the piss, that overpowering smell of stale and fresh piss on body and clothing. I immediately think that everyone will think it’s me – “oh, it’s that smelly blind man!” I retch and somehow manage to cover the inside nostril.


Isn’t it funny how it all works: people might ignore me, they might unobtrusively offer me a seat, they might make a big deal of giving up their seat to the blind man, but nobody knows how to say “I wouldn’t sit there if I were you mate”.

Maybe there’s a collective sense of relief in the seat being taken, and with it, the happy removal of that stark reality of them less than comfortably standing around one very obviously vacant seat.

And what about being them, the one who, maybe through illness, homelessness, desolation, self-neglect – the one who, through misfortune or a less than conscious intent, offends that sense that elicits the reactions that are least able to be directly talked about.

And for the (collective) bus, perhaps we go together perfectly – two problems dealt with at once. If this is the case, my aloofness, my disgust, sense of pathos are all irrelevant to them…
And ultimately to me too.

The etiquette dance

Joining a bus queue this evening, I asked the woman in front of me which bus she was waiting for – she was waiting for the same ones as me. We talked a bit.

The bus drew up and she grabbed my arm to guide me onto it.
I said “it’s OK, you go first.
She said “No you go first”.
I said “no, you were first, I’ll follow you”.

We had a protracted stand-off. She wasn’t going to give up her place in the pecking order… I got on (laughing).

Not fitting the stereotype

Standing at a bus stop on Nelson Street - one of two adjacent stops – Two older Bristolian guys ran up the 20 yards from the next one to catch a bus at mine. The driver didn’t bother to stop for them.

One says to his mate:-
“Bloody typical white english behaviour. If ee’d been a Somali eed’ov stopped, if ee’d been a Jamaican, ee’d’ov stopped. Them English drivers just don’t care, the Somalis, vey care about people.”. His mate agreed.

Dog shit

Arrived home in a cab. On getting out, the driver helpfully said:

“Stop a second, someone’s let their dog mess right outside your front gate – I’ll guide you”

It’s the third time in 4 months that this has happened – not just on the pavement, but right in the middle of my front gate. Fills me with anger and disgust – especially having the difficulty of trying to clear it up as best I can!

All or nothing

“So how can you take photographs if you can’t see?” He asked incredulously

“Oh, I’m just very intuitive”

Fear and loathing in Brunswick Square

Walking home from work, crossing the square, a guy starts shouting aggressively:

“Oi…. Oi You…. Oi you…”

I carry on walking, thinking he’s high or pissed and could be shouting at anyone or no one.

“Oi YOU… You with the white stick”

I turned round for a moment, not stopping, couldn’t see him. He shouts something slurred:

“Rhrrrhrrrh fuckin rhhrrrhhhh”

I took a different and more public route to Broadmead. Just crossing James Barton Roundabout, I heard:

“Oi YOU”.

I picked up my pace and didn’t hear him again.

Challenging the stereotype

In a taxi from meeting back to work. Guess the driver was late 50s Bristolian - 5Live on & phone-in about the new rape law. Taxi driver becoming anoyed at what he hears. I think, do I get into an argument or keep my mouth shut… I say:

“What are you thinking”

Taxi driver says:

“I think it’s all down to Thatcher’s government. It just tought people that they had a right to have what they want when they wanted it and not to care about anyone else. Some women say they’ve been raped when they haven’t but men just think that they have a right to do whatever they like with women. How old are you?”

“43”

“It’s your age group, a few years older and everyone after you”

I was shocked and moved.

Playing games

At a gig on Saturday – dark, noisy room. Walking through the audience.

A guy starts talking to me in an odd way, I recognise his voice. I said:

“Is that “X”?)

“Yes - so you worked it out in the end then”

On first meeting

Going to a friend’s for supper, he’d organised me a lift with another guest.

The stranger knocks on my door, I open it…

“Hello, good to meet you, thanks for the lift”

"Hi... So how much can you see? What can you see? Cand you see anything? Can you see me?”

“Goodness, that’s a lot of questions. Let’s get into the car first”

A nod's as good as a wink...

In the shop:

“Could you show me where the printer paper is please?”

The shop assistant points.

“I’m blind, could you show me?”

“It’s over there” he points again

Unworthy of beggers' attention

Walking through the underpass on the way home from work, passing a begger:

“Got any loose change please Sir? … Oh sorry mate I didn’t realise you’re blind, sorry mate”

Well, that put me in my place, I clearly came somewhere further down in his perception of the pecking order.

How to spot an expert

I’ve always felt uncomfortable about the way that some of those people who work with “the blind” actually interact with blind people ourselves.. However, it’s often very subtle and has been hard to put my finger on just what it is that produces the discomfort. Some of it is about the philosophy (at least the historical philosophy) of the charities, some of it is about the way that people in the “care industry” learn to view their service users and some can be directly related to the kind of information that people are given on so called vision awareness training courses.

Some indicators
v They often refer to us as Vis (visually impairds)
v They have an air of slightly over-confident familiarity
v They often speak just a little too loudly – possibly so that others won’t think that they’re blind too and will realise that they’re doing good work, possibly even that they’re wanting people to realise that they know a blind person (“some of my best friends are blind…”)
v They do everything just that bit too properly – they know how to ask you if you want something, how to describe things, how to guide you – but not in a way that shows real respect, care or interest
v They have a way of maintaining their act even when you don’t comply with it.
v They often fall back on poor counselling techniques when they feel a bit uncomfortable
v They have a way of asking in a very knowing and sincere voice “Are you partial or total?”

Right place at the wrong time/the blind leading the blind

I was walking through Stokes Croft, a young guy calls out to me, I go over, turns out he is blind.

“Mate, can you tell me where Picton Street is”
“Yeah, you’re really close, you’ve just passed the entrance, so if you turn round and follow the pavement back round to the left, it will take you straight into it.

“Cheers mate”.

He turned round and followed my directions, heading into Picton Street. I was going the same way and said:

“It’s difficult round this bit isn’t it, I’m blind too”

The guy stopped in his tracks, said
“Oh fucking forget it then”
He turned round and walked off in the direction he’d been going orriginally, away from Picton St.

Blind by association

Just read a short article by Damon Rose, who apparently edits a BBC disability web newsletter http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/columnists/damon/020206.shtml

I found the writing irritating, however I do understand something of his feelings and have had not dissimilar reactions when apparently associated with either “the stereotype” or with the behaviour of an individual blind person.

The article was telling a story of a blind man who, while shopping for clothes with his wife, apparently began to undress in the midst of the shop rather than use the changing room. I rather liked the picture that it conjured up, wouldn’t it be nice if everyone had such a low degree of self-consciousness. The inference is that the guy had such poor spatial and self-awareness that he didn’t know where he was.

The article writer was (I thought) slightly too perturbed by it and clearly worried that he too might be expected to undress next time he is in Gap.

I don’t want to disassociate myself from the embarrassment wholly though, I find myself irritated by this guy’s teenage tantrum style of writing, but I too can feel embarrassed at what I worry might be assumed of me because of the behaviour, lifestyle… whatever, of other blind people.

There is of course a societal dimension to this. Blind people have traditionally been kept out of the way in special schools, colleges, residential homes, workplaces (or types of work), social activities – in many ways, those less advantaged blind people still are and I think that it is those groups that give weight to the stereotype. For those of us who aren’t or hope that we’re not like that stereotype, what’s the embarrassment about? I think it’s about non-acceptance of our own blindness, these people who are on the edge, who don’t really seem like they are very aware of the world represent the thing we most hate in ourselves – blindness.

It’s the same at special schools, far from being places of support, mutual understanding, learning how to be “blind and strong” they are places where there are strong hierarchies of sightedness, even amongst totally blind people there’s a hierarchy of mobility (spatial awareness, confidence, training really).

It would be nice if we were all so used to seeing disabled people around, that the strange behaviour of one had no impact upon the external or internal expectations of others. It worries me most though when people like this guy who wrote the article unselfconsciously have such a big reaction to it without wondering where he is in the picture.

Which is more embarrassing I wonder, being associated with someone who (apparently) accidentally drops his trousers in public, or some loud mouthed over-self-conscious little guy having a tantrum in public. I know which of these two I’d rather be associated with.

At the supermarket

Going round Tescos. In the wine section, Assistant said: “Oh, you like a drink do you?” Strange how I Don’t get the same response (“Oh, you like a shit do you?”) when looking for toilet rolls!

One bus stop episode

“Excuse me, would you tell me when you see the 48 or 49 coming please?”
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Yes, I need the 48 or 49”
“Where are you going?
“Easton”
“Now, you need the 48 or 49. You stay there and I’ll tell you when I see it
..Are you going to be alright?
..Stay there, it’s not coming yet…
..It’s alright, don’t panic, I’m not going anywhere..
..Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when it comes…
..Oh, my bus is here now… you’ll have to ask someone else..I’ll tell this lady..
Excuse me, this blind man doesn’t know where he’s going, he needs a 48 or 49, could you look after him, make sure the driver knows about him”

Get off the pavement!

The radical cycling lobby group – Bike First - are in the news today claiming their first victories in their “Off the pavements” campaign as two major cities bar pedestrians from certain sections of pavement.

Their spokesperson, Debbie River, said “Yeah, this has been a long and planned campaign to force pedestrians off the pavement and onto the road where they belong. They’ve cluttered up our rightful cycleways for too long, so our campaign has been to slowly and deliberately force them off. Our policy has been to ride straight at them, or to catch them as we speed past. We just tried to scare them for years, but recently realised that it was getting us nowhere, so we upped the anti and have had some very successful injuries and one fatal heart attack”

The local councils though, in the two cities that have closed some of their pavements to pedestrians claim that the group’s campaign has had no influence over their decisions. “We’ve purely based our new policy on a mixture of natural selection and new environmental theory. “So called pedestrians make a choice to walk and we view their apparent problem with doing it at the side of the road as rather exaggerated.”

Then 3 come along at once...

Busses-1
It strikes me as bizarre that, so often you stand at a bus stop with a white stick, assuming that if a bus comes, the driver might make the connection between what he can see you’re holding and the probability of the holder of the stick having something slightly amiss in the sight department.

But no, so often they just drive on by. Occasionally you might spot the bus at the last minute, stick your hand out, bus irritatedly screeches to a halt. And you walk 20 yards up the road, get on and say to the driver:
“You weren’t going to stop for me were you?”
“It’s a request stop, you should stick your bloody hand out shouldn’t you”
“I’m blind, can’t see you till you’re nearly past”
“I can’t help that; you still need to stick your hand out”

Busses-2
Conversely, the bus does stop and your life goes into slow motion for a couple of minutes:
“Careful now, there’s a step, you be careful”
“What number are you please?”
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Yes, What number are you?”
“Where are you going?”
“Easton”
“You’re on the wrong bus, you don’t want this one, you want a 48 or 49”
“I know I do, so which bus are you then?”
“No,it’s alright, you’re on the wrong bus” (turns round to other passengers) “He’s on the wrong bus”

Words

How bizarre it seems that he would catch the word "blind" appearing to slip and tumble out of conversations in public places. Would this happen were he not there? His mere presence seems to trigger something, to connect with so many berried and unexplored feelings that, given just the slightest prompt, could not but emerge and do so without self-consciousness or even attempts at restraint.