or
You Have to Have Friends
© AmyC
(Note: Music & Lyrics to Driving by Braille by AmyC)
All six of us sat on a big couch. I was told which direction the cameras were. The reporter asked each of us a few questions, then he came to me.
“So, Miss Reed, how does it feel to win a Grammy?”
“Pretty good, I have to tell you.” I traced the trophy with my fingers, reassuring myself it was real.
“I’ve heard of rags to riches, but I’ve never met someone who was actually homeless once. Did you actually live on the street?”
“Yes. I slept under a bridge when it rained, curled a round a trash can with a fire inside when it froze, and slept out on top of a high rise parking lot in the heat because it was breezier there.”
“This was before you lost your vision? You could see then?”
“No, it was after I went blind.”
“You were blind and homeless? How did you survive?”
“You have to have friends.”
= = = = = = = =
My feet stink. That’s notable only because they stink worse than the rest of me. I haven’t bathed in a couple of days. I find my shoes and put them back on.
“Sara, I got us dinner!” Mitch was out of breath from running.
“Where? How?” I ask.
“The dish washer at the Italian place got picked up by La Migra. George needs someone now. C’mon!”
I got up and put my begging bucket in the grocery cart along with my folding stool. My guitar went into it’s case and then in to the cart. As soon as I had both hands on the bar, Mitch began pulling the cart and I followed.
Mitch helps me. I couldn’t do this without him - be homeless, I mean. When I lost my vision, my world fell apart and I lost just about everything else, too. As Mitch led me I thought back to when I could see - and wished I couldn’t.
It kind of started with a sexual encounter of the weird kind. A boyfriend blindfolded me and tied me to the bed, then began to touch me all over. Boy did I get off on it. Not being able to see was a major turn on. After that, the blindfold or a sleep mask became part of our sexual routine, as it did for boyfriends to come (and come and come and come). As time went by, I began to wear the sleep mask for other things as well. I did ordinary house chores, cooked, sorted laundry. My electric bill went down because I stopped turning lamps on when I got home.
A full year went by before I started simming in public using disguises and wigs. From there I met admirers and the games really began.
It was Jeff who turned me on to the contact lenses that blocked vision. I adored them, I practically lived in them, going weeks at a time without taking them out. Jeff loved having a blind girlfriend walking on his arm. I liked being blind. It was a match made... well, not in heaven.
Jeff and I were together two years. Shortly after we met, I got laid off at work, and he found me a job at a lawyer’s office on his side of town - a job I could do without vision. I scanned documents into a computer all day. It could be done by touch. All I had to do was feed the document into the machine one by one until file was empty, then return the papers to the file. Later, after the scan had been confirmed, I’d shred the paper.
Day in, day out, that was my job. I got along with everyone, and even my own family would not have recognized me with my hair dyed red and curled and the big shades I wore. Life was safe. There was nothing I couldn’t do. I was “such a brave little blind girl”.
Jeff like the way I looked when I looked more blind. He liked to take me to fundraisers and seminars. I never understood the work he did - it was for some research lab up in The Woodlands north of Houston. Very confidential. “Proprietary technology” was phrase I heard quite often. Something about patents and millions of dollars and classified defense technology.
We had a little apartment on 1960 on Houston’s north side. He’d drive up to the lab each morning after he dropped me off at the law office. Sometimes he’d meet with the lawyers and take me to lunch or dinner afterward.
Then one day, the FBI showed up and arrested everyone - including me. As soon as it became obvious that I knew nothing, I was released. Literally dropped on the street. Soon I discovered that Jeff’s condo had been seized along with his bank account, which is where my checks were deposited. My bosses were unreachable, Jeff had left the country, and all I had were the clothes on my back and the money in my purse, which wasn’t much. With no one to take care of me I had no idea what to do. Without Jeff to support me and applaud me, I suddenly couldn’t function.
There was no way I could call my family. Not without a lot of explanations that I didn’t want to make. For sure I couldn’t let them see me like this - blind, I mean. Ten I remembered. I wasn’t really blind. I had been in blind mode so long, I’d forgotten it was a game.
What happened next was the worst part. I tried to take the lenses out and couldn’t. They wouldn’t come out! In a panic, I asked someone to call 911 for me and I was taken to the ER. Once there, I told them about the lenses, about blindsimming, everything. I sat there on the table with my face burning, knowing that they thought I was a sicko freak of some kind. The doctor said that he’d heard of it, and had met people who had actually succeeded in disabling themselves to fulfil their fantasies. One person had amputated her own legs with a shotgun.
I shuddered, then asked him to help me with the lenses.
“But, ma’am, you aren’t wearing any.”
“Of course I am. I put them in.”
“Well, the last time was almost six months ago.”
“You wear them that long?”
“Yes.” I was so embarrassed. I needed my head examined.
“Ma’am, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you aren’t wearing them now. I’m going to get the Opthamologist who’s on call. He’ll examine your eyes and we’ll go from there.”
All in all, six different doctors examined my eyes. It was the last one who found the explanation. “Miss Reed, the boyfriend who gave you the lenses, did he do work with experimental lasers by any chance?”
“Yes, he said he was working on a new design. He was trying to sell it to the government.”
“Uh huh, in the last six months have you gotten extremely drunk or perhaps used any kind of recreational drugs?”
“No, but I take a prescription allergy medicine and some vitamins. My boyfriend always filled the prescriptions. Why?”
“At some point in the last few months, possibly while you were drugged and unconscious, someone used a very high powered laser and destroyed your optic nerves. Miss Reed, your blindness is permanent.”
I remember the icy cold fingers that wrapped around my heart when I heard those words: your blindness is permanent. The game was over.
That was a year ago. I was taken to a social worker who helped me get O&M training - more than I had - and found me a place at a women’s shelter where I lived for 90 days before being told that I had to leave. Someone had goofed my SSI paperwork, and my claim had been denied. Since then, I’ve been back to several agencies, and each time they say the forms are in the system and that I need to check back in 30 days. Until then, I’m on the street. Every minute on the street was filled with terror. Any moment, I might be raped or beaten up, robbed for the few coins I might have or the blanket I carry. I wander aimlessly around downtown. Hoping that the high number of people will deter daytime violence and hoping each night for refuge at the shelter. At the shelter the minister makes sure I get a corner where I can huddle. Every movement, every sound makes me jump until I’m too tired to stay awake.
Thank God for Mitch.
We met at a mission shelter. His mother had been blind and he knew some of what my life was like. When we left the next morning, he led me to a good corner and when we weren’t begging, we talked some more. That night we kept each other warm. He helped me with the fear of the street. I helped him stay off booze. As time went by we formed a kind of symbiotic relationship that lasted until the day we found jobs.
After several minutes of walking behind the cart, Mitch led me to the Italian restaurant where we sometimes bought slices of pizza for a buck. To make that money, I play a guitar that I got at Salvation Army on the sidewalk where Westheimer meets Hillcroft. The people who go to Starbucks like my voice and toss coins and bills in my bucket. While I do that, Mitch cleans windshields and shines shoes. The current trend toward sandals and flip flops makes that hard.
Mitch introduced me to George, who had a problem keeping help. The problem was called La Migra, or The US Immigration and Naturalization Service. George couldn’t afford to pay much, hence the need for cheap south of the border type help. I was led to a counter and Mitch placed my hands on the sink, the sprayer, and the dish racks, then showed me how to load the dish washer. When a bell rang, I took the hot dishes and silverware and sorted them into bins on a counter behind me. Easy enough. Once I began scrubbing, Mitch got busy with a mop.
George agreed to pay us together what he’d been paying his regular dishwasher. We didn’t complain. We were out of the hot Texas sun. a fan blew on me and I was content. At the end of the day, we got some cash, square meals, and we were both allowed to clean up. Heaven for the homeless.
Then came the unexpected: George told us to be back at nine in the morning. We had a job.
Mitch and I celebrated our good fortune by taking the bus to a shelter and standing in line for a place to sleep. When the doors opened and the line started moving, we got in before the doors closed again. Hurray!
As the next two weeks went by my job expanded to napkin folding and then to food prep. George taught me how to help him get ready for the lunch and dinner rushes. I began to help out more and more. Soon Mitch and I were both drawing pay, not splitting it. One day George put me on the sidewalk pizza duty. With a microphone, I hawked customers with offers of pizza for a dollar. George explained how that brought him more business than coupons in the paper. People who tried the pizza loved it, then came back for dinner later. Slowly, George was building a good stable customer base. Yes, a few people cheated me on the change, but most people had too much pride to do it. People came to see the blind lady selling pizza.
One day, I was taking a break between rushes and I took my guitar out, tuned it and began to sing. It was the first time George had heard me sing and he asked me how many songs I knew.
“I do all sorts of songs. Country is easiest because most songs are simple three chord progressions, I do pop, a little gospel. Sometimes I can do a few tricky licks.”
I proceeded to do a few. It was Carlos Santana by way of Stevie Ray Vaughn with a little Chet Atkins thrown in for variety. When I was done, George said something as wonderful as it was unexpected. “How would you like to stop washing dishes and make some real money?”
“How?”
“How would you like to perform on stage? My sister has a band and she needs a new guitar player. I can arrange an audition.”
“Well don’t just stand there, George! Arrange, arrange!”
Four nights later, After George’s wife took me shopping for clothes, got my hair done for the first time in over a year, and applied makeup to my face. I was led to a little impromptu stage and microphone there at George’s. I played soft blues and sang, I took requests, and unbeknownst to me, I auditioned for Jean. Customers listened and lingered over dinner, had an extra round of drinks, dessert. In between sets, patrons came by and thanked me, posed for pictures with me, and asked for autographs. It was the first time in a long time I’d signed my name on something other than a government form.
After the restaurant closed, Mitch came to me and hugged me. “Sara, you were great!
A hand gently touched my back - a polite way to get my attention - and George said, “Sara, I’d like to introduce you to someone.”
I took his arm and was lead to a table. I found the chair and sat down, then settled my skirt. “Sara,” I heard George say, “This is my sister, Jean.”
I held out my hand and it was taken. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, Sara. Nice set.”
“Thank you.”
“George tells me you’ve never played professionally.”
I laughed at that. “Not unless you call singing for loose change professional, no.”
“Would you like to - sing professionally, that is? We used to be local only, now we’re hitting the road. We’re on the road six nights out of seven. Five of us - six with you - share a bus where we sleep some nights. We play a lot of hotels during the week and we get rooms comped. Weekends we play dance halls and we usually have to sleep on the bus in order to get there on time and then get back to the next gig. Your meals are included and there’s a clothing allowance. Pay is sometimes variable because we work for a piece of the gate. The bus is what keeps us from being homeless.”
I tried to keep it light, but there was an edge to my voice. “I know homeless. What you’re describing isn’t it. I’ll take it.”
“You’re in the band, then. Grab your gear and come with me. We’ve got to get down the road for tomorrow night’s gig.”
“When will we be back?”
“When our agent can’t book us anywhere else.”
“I have a friend. He’s helped me survive this last year. Do you need a roadie, a driver?”
There was a pause. “Sara, we’re an all-girl band. That’s our shtick. We don’t exactly sit around nude on the bus, but we get pretty comfortable. We can’t have a guy on the bus. The other girls wouldn’t go for it.”
“Can I have a few minutes?”
“Sure.”
I felt her stand up and walk away. George said, “I’ll get Mitch. Wait here. I’ll help Jean gather your things. Sara... trust me. As long as Mitch works as hard as he has been, he’s got a job here. I’ll help him find a place, a room, a garage apartment or something. Any time you want to, you call here from the road. Jean comes through here three or four times a year. When you hit town, Mitch will have time off to be with you, okay?”
“Thanks, George.”
“Hey, employees come and go, but friends, they take care of each other. You and Mitch, you’re friends. You helped me get this place up and running. You guys stayed when others moved on.”
Which was true. George had some lean months at first and lot of employee turnover. I waited as George went to get Mitch. We really aren’t in love or even lovers, but we’ve been partners for over a year now. We help keep each other alive and sane. We’ve held each other on long nights when we were too afraid to go to sleep. Mitch taught me how to survive, and I taught him how to have hope.
“Hey, kid, I hear you’ve fallen into butter.”
“More like low-fat margarine, but it beats the street.”
“Most things beat the street.”
We talked for a few minutes, made some undefined plans and then we said good-bye. He helped me get loaded into Jean’s car. I would say that I never saw him again, but I’d never seen him in the first place.
= = = = = = =
The next reporter sat down and the cameras were adjusted. I felt the heat as the lights came back on and she did her little intro and started asking questions. Finally, it was my turn.
“Sara, you were the last person to join the group. How did you adapt to life on the road after life on the street?”
“I had a lot of help from my new friends.”
= = = = = = = =
Jean drove me to a Holiday Inn (or so she said) where the bus was waiting along with the friend who had loaned her the car.
Jean and I transferred my stuff to the bus. I got drawer number four for my personal stuff. The rest - she told me - went “below”. It helped that I didn’t have a lot. Jean said she and the rest of the band could loan me a few things until I got paid. Jean explained how, once a week, she took all the money they brought in and put so much to fuel and maintenance, so much to food and incidentals, so much to costuming and wardrobe, then split the rest (when there was anything left to split) among herself and the band. No one went hungry, she said, but sometimes, the cash was lean. Other times there was plenty and everyone was encouraged to save.
It was time to meet the other members of the band: Jean’s “girls”. One by one, they trooped aboard and I was introduced
Jackie and I became friends the quickest, partly because Jackie was one of those women who has no enemies. She’s a sweetie, all right. Jan said the least and I learned later that she was opposed to me joining the band. Raye and Charlotte were “together”, and as long as that was understood, we’d have no problems. Raye was somewhat territorial about Charlotte. Jan and Jean excused themselves to do some errand (argue about me, I was to discover) while everyone else told me stories about the road and what to expect. By the time they returned, I had my guitar out and Jackie had her bass out and we were working some licks. Jan decided to drive and Jean sat by me as we headed out for Austin.
Once we were on the highway, we discussed what my “special needs” would be.
“Okay, the answer to that is: let me try first before helping me. I’m not likely to walk into walls and once I know my way around the bus, I’ll probably stop using my cane. Let me know if there’s stuff on the floor, but beyond that, I’m okay. On-stage, cables need to be taped down and if I can get someone to walk me onto the stage before a show so I can establish my area, I probably won’t fall off the edge. When we’re in a new place, I’ll need someone to guide me around once, then I’m good. Restaurants and road stops, if can stay with the group, I’m good. If everyone goes in separate directions, I’d appreciate it if someone will stay with me. Loading and unloading: I can carry my own stuff if I can follow some who likes to whistle or hum. Or I can pass stuff up or down as needed. If you need to leave gear in one place, you can use me as an anchor. I’m also a good door holder.
“Bottom line: tell me what needs to be done, and I’ll find a way to do it. If I need help, I’ll speak up. Otherwise, assume I can hack it.”
We stayed up and talked until we got to Austin, where I drew Jackie as a room partner. I slept in a real bed with clean sheets after taking a long hot shower. George had let Mitch and me sleep in his garage on a couple of army cots and we’d thought that was nice. This was paradise. I slept until noon, when Jackie nudged me. I got dressed and we met the rest of the band in the hotel’s coffee shop. Jean briefed us on the gig. For the next four nights, we’d play from eight until two. Fifty minute sets with ten minute breaks. One round of drinks per night was comped, the rest we paid for. We’d set up and rehearse after we ate.
It was a long rehearsal. They had to get used to me and I had to learn how to play with a band instead of by myself. Talk about starting from scratch. Jan gave me a hard time about my timing until Jean told her to back off.
Jean said, “Sara, we have a pretty tight sound and we like it that way, but no one expects you to fit in perfectly on day one. For tonight, listen to Jan give the count after I say which song we’re doing next and do your best.”
“Got it.”
“Okay, everyone break, get a shower, get dressed and made up. Be back in one hour. Sara, I’ll walk you to your room if you’ll wait a minute.”
Everyone wandered off and I sat, waiting. Jean spoke with the hotel manager, then came back. As she led me through the lobby and to my room, she said, “Sara, you’ve got some talent. It needs polish and practice, but you’re going to get that. Hang in there. For now, let’s focus on the music, but once we get that where we want it, I’m going to give you some chores. We’re a team and everyone has responsibilities beyond playing.”
“Sounds fair. Who does laundry?”
“Funny you should ask. Your predecessor did.”
“Does the hotel have a washing machine?”
“Yes.”
“Then get me some quarters and have everyone bring me their laundry tomorrow. I’ll do it.”
“Day after tomorrow. Tomorrow, I need to take you shopping for some clothes.”
I laughed and pretended horror. “Oh, no! Not that! Anything but shopping!”
We both laughed.
I’d like to say we killed that night, but the truth is, we were just this side of adequate. The Dixie Chicks were in no danger from us. I kept up and my harmony was good, but we were restricted to what we had rehearsed. Still, we got applause from the travelling businessmen and the local cheaters who watched us.
The next day, Jean took me shopping and got me some everyday clothes, and two outfits for the stage. We all tended to “borrow” and swap, but that first night mine had all been borrowed. Once we were done, I asked Jean to take me to the Lighthouse there in Austin so I could acquire a few things. I got a labeler, some cards and some dominoes. Jean asked if there was a Braille to Music dictionary, and the lady at the Lighthouse told her where something like that could be bought.
When we got back to the hotel, everyone was headed to the pool. Jean asked Jan to loan me a swim suit and bring me down to the pool. I could tell that Jan had no desire to do either, but she complied. Once I had changed and said I was ready, Jan tried to take my hand and tow me to the pool. I stopped her and showed her how I needed to place my hand on her arm.
“What’s the difference?”
“This way, I can feel you step up, step down, or turn before you do it. that way I can follow easier.”
“When did they start doing that?”
“How do you mean?”
“My little sister just had to be dragged everywhere.”
“Your sister was blind?”
“Yeah. I was about seven when she was born. She could never see well, but when she turned eight, she went all the way blind.”
“What training did she get?”
“Huh?”
“Did she go to a school or did someone come to her?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Orientation & Mobility, Braille... basic skills. Who taught her?”
“Well... no one. Daddy whittled her a walking stick. We ran a rope line from the house to the barn and Daddy put a fence up around the house so she couldn’t get far if she took a wrong turn. Beyond that, she just sat around mostly.”
“There were no social services where you lived?”
“Not on our mountain. The nearest paved road was a three hour walk.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“West Virginia.”
That explained a lot. Instead of swimming, Jan and I sat and talked, which is what Jean had wanted us to do, I think. I told Jan how I lived pretty independently on the street with just a little help from Mitch and how I’d worked in a law office before that. Needless to say, I didn’t tell her how I’d become blind. I never told anyone that.
Jan had no idea that a blind person could do much of anything for herself. Her sister had never tried and no one had ever tried to teach her. Instead, Jan had become her sister’s keeper until she ran away to start a new life away from the mountains.
That night we all played better. I was moved a little closer to the drum and Jan worked with me a little more. The next day, I showed Jan how I intended to do the laundry, using individual laundry bags, a needle and thread, and Braille labels. As I did the ironing, Jan watched and told me how her little sister had never even dressed herself.
“Come here.”, I said at one point. She did and I told her to close her eyes. Then I took her hand and gently ran it over the blouse I had on the board. I showed her the wrinkles, ran the iron over it, then ran her hand over it again.
“It’s not that hard, Jan.”
“Wow. When Jean hired you, I thought I’d have to do everything for you. I never dreamed you’d be able to carry your own weight.”
“Surprise.”, I sang softly.
The band’s sound improved and I learned more material. One day, while Jean was driving us to the next town, Raye asked me to play some chords in various sequences. I complied and I slowly realized she was working on a new song that had been in her mind. Raye played her fiddle and we slowly hit upon a good rhythm. That was when Jean’s attention drifted and we began to hit those little highway bumps that separate lanes.
“Hey!” I called out. “Are you driving by Braille up there?”
Everyone laughed at that as Jean got the bus back in it’s lane.
Suddenly Jan softly sang out a verse.
“I’m just driving down life’s highway,
between the bumps and the rail.
I can’t see my destiny -
I’m just... driving by braille......”
I don’t know where it came from. I just sang the words to the next verse.
“I don’t know when I’ll arrive,
I might be there soon,
or I might just keep on driving
for many a moon.”
Raye tossed in a line, and Charlotte changed a word. We worked on it for over an hour, but by the time we hit Ardmore, Oklahoma, we had a song with words and music that were smooth enough to introduce to our audience that night. They loved it.
Ardmore, Norman, Oklahoma City, then Tulsa. We crossed the Missouri line to Joplin and KC. The song got polished and improved. A new verse got added. After Kansas City we headed west across the Rockies. Charlotte tossed out a verse one day and we started playing with it. It was three days before we got that one smooth enough to perform, but it served as proof that Driving by Braille wasn’t an accident or a fluke.
We worked our way through Jackson Hole, Salt Lake, Billings, Sun Valley and Carson City. Bakersfield, Kingman, and Barstow came next and then we started working our way back along I-10 to Houston town by town, hotel by hotel. By that time we’d added six other new songs to our unnamed CD project. When we hit El Paso, Jean called a band meeting at an IHOP. She proposed something risky. She said that our cut of the gate had been growing and she wanted us to start saving more and taking less in the weekly split. She wanted us to save up enough to pay for some studio time so we could produce a CD to sell on the road.
“You don’t plan to stop there, do you, Jean?” I asked, knowing the answer already.
“No, I don’t. I want to have our agent push it in smaller markets as we travel on tour and get airtime. That way people will have heard of us by the time we hit each town. There’s one more thing: this next trip, I want us refine our look, our costumes, and our stage presence. We need to do a little grooming... and then we need to head to Nashville and take our best shot.”
We all sat stunned. We had all talked, fantasized about hitting it big and yet never imagining that we ever would. At length I said, ”I’m game. Who else?”
Everyone else, that’s who. We all jumped on the bandwagon, so to speak.
= = = = = =
The lights went off and I lightly dabbed at my face with a tissue so as not to mess up my make up. Jan does my make up before appearances and I do her nails. We’re room partners now.
The next reporter was print so the lights stayed of and the cameraman took a break. Raye passed me a magazine and I fanned myself.
Once again, the reporter started with Jean and worked his way to each of us in turn.
“Ms. Reed, a lot of people credit you with the publicity blitz that got you noticed. Do you think the band would have made it so far so fast without that publicity?”
I laughed. “You say ‘so far so fast’ like it happened yesterday. I’m reminded of Willie Nelson, who once claimed to be an overnight success that took twenty years to happen. We’d been in Nashville for a little over a year when that so called publicity blitz occurred.”
“Still, it didn’t hurt.”
“No, it didn’t hurt, but according to Raye, I started needing hair color after that night.”
= = = = = = = =
Our CD did well in the heartland and in the south. Instead of working hotels, we became the opening act for a bigger group at concerts. The Dixie Chicks were still safe, but we were closing the distance. One night we met them at a package show and to my surprise, they had heard of us.
Driving by Braille wasn’t the breakout hit we’d hoped for, but it was a start. People were taking our calls now. After a falling out with our agent, Jean took over the booking and producing. It cut our expenses and helped our income because she was better at it than the lawyer who’d been doing it.
We finally decide to base our band out of Nashville. We rented a big house with a large garage, leased some recording equipment and worked up a new CD. Instead of months on the road, we’d go out for two weeks, come back and work on the CD, promote the band, then go back out.
We needed a break and one night it came - in the form of Charlotte's leg. She slipped off the stage one night while wearing heels and snapped both her tibula and fibula. The thing was, it happened to be caught on tape and it made the local news. The next day I was carrying Charlotte’s gear to the bus, following the click, click, thump sound she made with her cast and crutches. Since every step hurt, we took a shortcut past the pool where Charlotte slipped on the late February ice, screamed, and then fell in the pool.
Ever try to swim with a broken leg? Don’t. It doesn’t work very well.
I realized what had happened and when I didn’t hear Charlotte’s voice, I screamed as loud as I could for Jan who was supposed to be coming right behind me with another load. Then I jumped in and tried to find Charlotte, who had sunk to the bottom.
The water was freezing cold and I came up for air twice before I found Charlotte and brought her up. Each time I surfaced, I screamed for Jan. Everyone else was on the bus. No one came because Jan had made a last minute phone call, and the other hotel guests had no way of knowing I was blind. They just thought I was being loud and obnoxious.
Charlotte wouldn’t answer me. I had no idea why. Later I was told she’d hit her head on the edge of the pool when she slipped and fell. With no idea which way the steps were, I just tried to tread water until help came.
Someone finally heard and helped me get Charlotte out. By a coincidence, the same ambulance crew arrived and took her to the same ER. One of the hotel guests had taken video of my rescue from the 14th floor. It got on the news and then there we were. Two news stories in two days. The story went from the local affiliate to the national desk. While Charlotte recovered in the hospital, we got airtime on the radio and some b-roll on CNN. AP carried the story on the wire and we got ink.
Out of pity and curiosity, we drew a large crowd at our next gig. When the show was over, a producer came backstage and wanted to talk to us. A publicist came next and suddenly Driving by Braille was getting lots of airtime again. Internet sales went up, a recording label wanted to reproduce the CD and Driving by Braille became the band’s new name. The CD went national and so did the band.
= = = = = = = =
The next reporter, and thankfully the last, was a woman from a Houston news station. She had done some research and had gone to George’s Pastaria, where my life had made such a drastic change. George had covered one wall with one of our tour posters, autographed pictures from each of us, and shelf-full of our CDs. George’s head waiter, a guy named Mitch, had told her about the year we had spent on the street.
“Mitch saved my life, all right.”
The woman replied, “According to him, you saved his life, over and over.”
"Life is that way. You wind up affecting lives in a major way without even knowing it.”
“So what did you learn from it all?”
I reached out and took the hands of Jan and Raye. “I learned that you have to have friends.”
© Sara by Amy Casseaux