7.26.2006

Thunder over Louisville

I flew into Louisville from New York around 8:30 pm on July 4th. Dave picked me up curbside at baggage claim and drove madly in the direction of downtown. He barely said hello. The sun was dipping low and god damn it if we weren't going to see the fireworks show. Besides being a patriot and a fierce traditionist, Dave needed things to go according to plan. If we missed the fireworks (or even late for them) my itinerary would derail and we'd never get it back on track. He was speeding and cursing, weaving through the traffic on I-64, nervously looking over his shoulder every 5 seconds at the setting sun. Whenever traffic slowed he'd pound his fist on the wheel and curse, "f*ck!" This was a race - man against sun. man against the roation of the earth,man against time. He was not going to lose. In the distance Dave nodded toward our destination - The Galt House Hotel.

We screeched up to the valet, Dave tossed the keys to a bored looking guy in a red vest, and we raced through the grand lobby of Louisville's oldest hotel. The fireworks were to be launched from barges achored in the Ohio River. The bar on the top floor of the Galt House would provide the best view in the city - practically eye level with the exploding rockets.

We headed toward the elevators. As we waited Dave pushed the "up" button several hundred times. Straring up at the illuminted floor numbers I was hit in the back of the heel by a metal cane. I turned to see a blind man in his late forties on the other end of the stick. "Sorry," he said with a practiced tone that made me think that he'd said "sorry " a lot in his life. "No problem," I said. He was wearing a denim shirt, a denim jacket, blue jeans, and generic white tennis shoes. His name tag said Ron. "Denim on denim" I thought. Its a tough combination but I guess he's blind and he really doesn't care if he's wearing a denim suit. Looking to my left I noticed another blind person. A woman in her mid thirties. Also unstylishly dressed in a slick purple track suit. How odd - 2 blind people in one hotel lobby. As the elevator doors opened another blind person popped up behind her, a black guy in a Carolina Panthers jersey, and next to him 2 blind people pushing a baby stroller. A quick scan of the lobby revealed - holy shit - everyone in the hotel was blind.

Dave and I entered the car, followed by Ron and purple track suit. Black blind guy followed, along with the blind parents and the stroller. I pressed everyone's requested buttons and we all stood waiting for the doors to close. It turned out to be one of those elevators with an exceptionally long delay before the doors close. As Dave and I stood there, packed rib to rib with blind people, we were frozen with both fear and delight. We stood in silence as more and more blind people began packing onto the elevator. Everytime the doors were about to close a cane would stab into the door, triggering the laser eye and the doors with drag open. As a person with sight - I take for granted the fact that when i see a packed elevator I simply wait for the next one. This is where I realized that being blind could be a real nuisnace. Blind people can't tell that an elevator is full. They note that the doors are open and they charge forward into the car. So for the next 2 minutes I wistneesed blind people piling into the elevator like a clown car.

We managed to get the doors closed. After several akward stops we reached the bar on the top floor. It was loaded with blind people getting drunk. Dave ordered some bourbons - the state drink. We kicked back to watch the fireworks. They exploded all around us for 30 minutes. It was an incredible show. The blind people went on talking to each other.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home