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(6/7) “We all go through honeymoon phases. May, May was terrific. But we’ve had our ups and downs since then. The first time we went out together, I got too intoxicated. It was a backyard BBQ. Benji was meeting my family for the first time. My whole family was there. And I tried to party like I used to, get up and dance. At first Benji was laughing. She’s like ‘look at my baby.’ But then I got too loud. Everyone was being loud, but I got super loud. And Benji asked me not to get another drink. I didn’t like that. I’m a grown man. I do what I wanna do. It got a little tense, cause I get sensitive about that. I want Benji to love me as a man. Not just as a human, but as a man. I want to provide. I want to take her out for once. Not her taking me out all the time, leading me by the hand. I know what people are saying: What can he do for you? What can he help you with? Will he be able to watch your children? There are times when Benji wants to talk about the future. Credit scores and stuff like that. She’ll say: ‘I’m in school for nursing, what are you going to do?’ And I’ll feel intimidated, real quick. I’ll feel like she’s gonna meet a doctor and leave me. But she knows that already. We talked all that out. Benji’s a great talker. In the beginning it was annoying. It was like, let me have some time. Let me have some space. But you can’t run from Benji. She doesn’t let up. One night she said: ‘Do you want me to pray for you?’ I thought she meant later that night, when she was going to sleep. But she was like: ‘No, right now. Do you want me to pray for you?’ Nobody had ever asked me that before. Maybe cause it’s the pandemic. But ever since I lost my eyes, nobody ever sat down and prayed with me. ‘I don’t know,’ I told her. ‘But I think I need it.’ We used to pray in church when I was little. But not like this. Benji came at it a little different. Or maybe I was just listening for the first time. It wasn’t magic or anything, but it felt real. This was from the heart. Benji was just talking. Talking to God. Talking to God about me. Talking to God for me. And I needed it. It wasn’t the first time I heard it, but this time I really heard it. Because I needed it.”
(5/7) “We used to work at the same steakhouse together. We were friends, just friends. Her name was Melissa, but everyone called her ‘Benji.’ And she was sweet. Our whole crew was from Brooklyn, so we were spicy. But Benji was sweet. She’s the one saying: ‘That’s not nice. Don’t do that.’ Even when she left the steakhouse, we kept in touch. Never no phone calls. But texts, I sent her texts. We hadn’t spoken since I’d lost my sight, so that morning I told my sister: ‘Send a message to Melissa. Tell her to call me.’ When the phone started ringing, I picked it up, and right off I said: ‘Did you hear? I can’t see anymore.’ Then Benji said: ‘I remember you were always squinting.’ I laughed hard at that. That broke the ice. After that it was three-hour phone calls, every night. The first time she came over was May 1st. May 1st was like a movie, a comedy about a blind guy. I asked my friend to bring me a bottle of wine, anything. I didn’t even check what it was. I was set up in my sister’s room. And there were cheetah print covers on the bed. But nobody ever told me they was cheetah print. And the bed had LED lights. Nobody told me about those either. In my head I was just sitting on a regular bed. But when Benji walked in, I was sitting on a cheetah bed. With LED lights flashing. Holding a bottle of Chandon champagne. Benji started laughing at me. She’s like: ‘What’s going on here?’ Then she pulled out her phone and put on a seventies beat. It was a great vibe. We started talking. Benji has the greatest voice. I love that voice. So sweet, and pure. Like a song from Pocahontas. Sight didn’t mean anything that night. You know how you imagine things when you’re reading a book? Well I could see her. She started telling me about all this college stuff she was doing. And I could see her. In my mind we were in school together, standing by her locker. That’s what I was seeing. I felt like asking her to go steady, but that felt too strong. So I said something else. I’m sitting on my cheetah bed, with the lights flashing. And I said: ‘Benji. You make me want to carry your books.’ That’s the day we became official. That was May 1st. It’s the day like love. May 1st is like love.”
(4/7) “I think a detective called my mom, right after it happened. He said something about a ‘grand jury.’ And me needing to testify. But then he never called back. There was no paperwork, nothing. My mom and aunt made a lot of calls. They were asking questions. They were pushing. But nothing was moving. This was the pandemic, so they were just letting people out of jail. And I think they let the guy out. But I wasn’t even thinking about that. For all of 2020 I just wanted to get a bottle of something and stay by myself. I hated people seeing me as weak. My entire life I’d been a father figure, to everyone. I’m the oldest of seven kids. I’m the emergency contact for everyone’s school. But now I’m back home, sleeping in my sister’s twin bed. I didn’t like it. Every time I came out of my room, the entire house would be on pins and needles. One night I started arguing about something. Something that happened a long time ago. I’d been drinking. I was an asshole that night. But the next morning when I came downstairs, nobody mentioned it. I thought I was in the clear. I went outside to have a smoke. But when I came back in, something felt strange. The air felt different. I heard my mom’s voice: ‘K, come in my room.’ She closed the bedroom door, and said: ‘I’m happy you got a chance to be regular last night, I really am. But you’re being too regular. You need to humble yourself, or nobody’s gonna care anymore.’ All I could do is cry. Not a loud cry, but a hurt cry. Cause when you’re grown, and your mother has to sit you down, and really tell you something, it hurts. I told her I’m sorry. She said don’t apologize, just change. A few nights later I was up late listening to TV. It was 4 AM or 5 AM. And one of those preacher things came on. I’m not church heavy, but I started listening. It was a whole book they were trying to sell. It had seven key points. I only remember one of them: ‘Life comes in seasons.’ That’s the one that hit me. I remember thinking: this season is done. No more staying by myself. No more drinking all the time. This season is over. When I woke up the next morning, I asked my sister to get on my phone. ‘I told her: ‘Send a message to Melissa.'”
(3/7) “In the beginning I thought I was gonna see again. I thought the doctors were going to do this flashy thing, and I was gonna see again. Those first weeks I had hope. I kept a smile on my face. I was laughing. I learned how to use Alexa on my phone. Alexa was my girl. She’d tell me the weather. She’d tell me what day it was. National cupcake day. National cookie day. There’s a holiday for everything, and Alexa always told me. I didn’t lose hope until February 19th. That’s the day Pop Smoke got killed. I remember riding in the back of the car to my doctor’s appointment, and the radio said that Pop Smoke got shot. It was the morning the doctor looked at my eyes, and said: ‘The optic nerve is severed. There’s nothing we can do.’ He said: ‘Just make sure he’s comfortable.’ Right there I went cold. Comfortable? Comfortable? What does that even mean? I’d only heard that in movies, when someone’s dying of cancer. ‘Comfortable’ means put him a room, and cook him food, and let him sit there.’ That’s the moment I cried. When the doctor said: ‘Keep him comfortable,’ I lost hope. After the 19th I just wanted to get a bottle of something and stay by myself. Me, Alexa, Hennessey, and Jameson. I didn’t go anywhere. Maybe I’d come outside and sit on the top of the stairs. But never at the bottom. Cause the bottom’s too close to the street. People get robbed on this street, people get jumped. I didn’t even want to go to the corner store. What if someone walked in with a mask on? I wouldn’t even know. And suddenly I’m a victim all over again. I’m not trying to deal with that. So I just stayed put. I was lying in bed all day. I was only sliding up to eat. I felt dead, worse than dead. For awhile I thought: Maybe I’m in hell. Is this how hell is? Cause I’m up. I’m walking around. But it’s pitch black. And there’s fire all around me. It was the pandemic, so it felt like the world was on fire. I don’t want to move cause I don’t want to get burned. I want to take a peek first. But I can’t peek, so I’m too scared to move. There’s nobody here to lead me. If somebody offers to lead me, it’s like: are you gonna be the one to burn me? Are you the devil? Is that you again?”
(2/7) “When I woke up I couldn’t see. It’s like: why can’t I see? Eyes open, eyes closed. It’s the same thing. And I can’t move. My hands are cuffed behind my back. I can’t even touch my face to find out why I can’t see. Where am I? Why am I shackled up? My feet are shackled to the bed. What did I do? Did I kill someone? Am I going to jail? What if I’m going to jail and I can’t see? I started to panic. But then I heard my mom’s voice. She said: ‘Calm down K, you’re in the hospital. Calm down.’ So I calmed down. I got real quiet and listened. There was beeping all around me. All of these voices started asking me questions: ‘Do you know what happened? Do you know your birthday?’ I was answering them. I kept telling them my birthday, but they were asking me again and again. For a second I thought that maybe I was slow. Am I slow? Is something wrong with my brain? Is that why I can’t see? I can’t see. I kept telling them, I can’t see. And they were like: ‘You’ve been stabbed in your left eye with a screwdriver. That eye doesn’t work.’ And I’m like: ‘No, I can’t see. At all. At all!’ The doctors were confused by that. They were like: ‘We don’t know, we don’t know.’ That’s when I got scared. I knew right then something happened to me crazy. I was the victim of something, but why was I in handcuffs? They took off the cuffs later that night. The officers were acting like they felt bad. They kept saying: ‘It wasn’t us. It wasn’t our shift. You gotta talk to the people who’s shift that is.’ I never got an explanation. It bothered me. Even today it bothers me. Why did they put me in handcuffs? I’m the one who got robbed. I’m the one who got stabbed in the eye. Why was I shackled up like a prisoner of war? I never got an answer for that. I’ve asked myself a million times, what if hadn’t been in cuffs? Would the doctors have treated me different? Did they really do their best, for this John Doe, with no family around? When I was on the operating table, what if my hands hadn’t been cuffed behind my back? What if I hadn’t been shackled up? Like a criminal? Would they have tried harder? Would they have tried harder to save my eyes?”
(1/7) “I have a thing for Tuesdays. I was born on a Tuesday. And January 14th was a Tuesday. It happened to be my day off, so I decided: Today’s for me. Today is gonna be the official start of my new year. I spent a little of the money I’d been saving. I went to Nordstrom’s and got a new jacket. I got some new Jordan Thirteens. That was Tuesday. Tuesday was a good day. It was Wednesday when everything went wrong. That was the worst day of my life. I slept late. My cab was late. I almost called out. I should have called out. If I’d have called out, it would have been an entirely different day. The bar was busy, so I was in the weeds my entire shift. Everything was off by a second, that entire day. After work I drank a little bottle of 1800, then I headed to my girlfriend’s place. She was going through her own stuff. She sorta gave me the cold shoulder. So I was like ‘That’s it. I’m leaving.’ I gathered all the clothes I’d bought on Tuesday: my Jordans, my jacket. I didn’t want to carry the bags, so I just put it all on. That was my first mistake. It was too late to be that bright. After I left the apartment, I realized that I didn’t have my cell phone. I couldn’t call a cab. I should have gone back. I should have knocked on the door, but I was too proud. That was my second mistake. If I had knocked on the door, it would have been an entirely different day. I started walking to the train station. And that’s when it starts to get fuzzy. I heard the train coming so I started to run, and I stumbled. I remember thinking: ‘Straighten up, look right.’ In this neighborhood you’ve got to look right when it’s late at night. The train pulled into the station, and right away it’s a bad vibe. The first car I chose had a bunch of guys, grown men. I should have waited for the next train. But I just chose another car. That was my third mistake. This car was empty. This car was calm. But as soon as the train pulled away, the emergency door opened. And a guy walked in. I never should have been there. Sitting on that train. I was too bright, too late. I looked like a come up. A lick. I remember thinking: I’m about to get robbed. And I did get robbed. For my eyes.”