Darwin: Scientist or Philosopher
an interview of Blind Carbon Copy by a fictional Tonya Judy

When Blind Carbon Copy stopped into Flush Fiction's offices to transcribe "Comedy of Errors" for the November issue, I asked him if he'd like to do something for December. Mr Copy has been blind from birth and doesn't read or write, though after talking with him at some length I was surprised to learn that he's had no formal education. My challenge for December has been met with some, uh, resistance, to say the least. Blind's response, however, made me fall off my chair so I thought it would be fun to share the interview with my readers:

tj: The topic for December is "Darwin: Scientist or Philosopher?".

Bcc: Scientist or philosopher? Hell, Darwin weren't nothing but a smartass kid.

tj: Smartass kid? Care to back that up Mr Copy?

Bcc: Well, I knew him since he was a kid, that's a fact. And he was a little smartass most of the time.

tj: Are we talking about the same Darwin? I'm referring to Charles Robert Darwin: born in 1809, died in 1882, wrote Origin of the Species and The Descent of Man.

Bcc: Yes, little Bobby Darwin. That's what I called him – he seemed like a Bobby to me. His sisters called him Charlie and his mother most often yelled out the ten dollar name: 'Charles Robert Darwin, what have you done to the cat?' I lived two doors down and he was always poking around in my back garden, so sometimes I paid him to do the weeding.

tj: You're ragging me on, Blind! How old are you, anyway? You can't be much older than seventy?

Bcc: No, seriously Miss Judy, I lived down the street from the Darwins when Bobby was just a smartass kid.

tj: Please, call me Teejay.

Bcc: OK, Miss Teejay. I been around a long, long time. Don't rightly remember how long anymore. People, they come and they go. Lots of people. I get restless if I stay too long in one place and sad when people I get close to grow old and die, so I usually just move on before it happens. Gas.

tj: Before gas happens?

Bcc: [laughing] No, Gas. That was what they called him in school, cause he was always experimenting on something scientific.

tj: Scientist, then, you think? So, you're saying you knew Darwin long before he formulated his theories for Origin of the Species.

Bcc: Actually, I think it was called On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. He was never one for taking the short way round to say something. But I'd say the kid was born wondering about things. We had many long conversations while he was weeding my vegetables.

tj: Not to change the subject, but you don't seem to be limited too much by your blindness. You had your own garden, for instance. How did you plant it – or did someone else do it for you? How could you know where to dig, what to plant, what to pick?

Bcc: Bobby asked me the same kinds of questions. All the time. How do you know which seed is which? What if they got mixed up, how would you know a potato plant from a tomato plant? What if I left the weeds and pulled the turnips? How would you know?

tj: Honest questions. I had a friend who lost her sight and it took ages before she could learn to find her way around her own apartment. Somebody would move a chair and she would trip over it. You don't use a cane or anything. A casual observer wouldn't know you were blind at all.

Bcc: It's like this – your friend always could see so she came to depend on the information she got from seeing – she had to lose a big part of what she previously took for granted. Me, I never had any sight, in fact the concept of sight is almost too abstract to grasp. I had to learn the world through my other senses: hearing, smell, taste, touch and my own instincts. Blindness wasn't a loss for me. I just didn't see. People ask me, aren't you sorry you can't see this or that? What's the point of regretting something you can't change. I wouldn't trip over that chair. I have a kind of feeling about these things – some folks say it's like radar. I can sense when I'm getting close to something. You don't know how many times I've smiled when someone waves their fingers in front of my face to taunt me or check if I'm really blind.

tj: I never thought of it like that. We'll have to talk about this more later, but let's get back on track now. What did you tell little Bobby Darwin about the vegetables?

Bcc: I told him if he spent half as much time weeding as he spent wondering, my garden would be in better shape. And that anybody who couldn't smell the difference between a potato or tomato plant shouldn't oughta have a garden in the first place. I think he could smell the difference. Yeah, he could definitely smell the difference.

tj: Did you still know him when he went off on the Beagle? Is it true that he named his ship after a favorite pet?

Bcc: The Beagle, Bobby's ship? That's rich. He was only 22 at the time and his daddy almost prevented him from going at all. But he was stubborn and fought till he got his way. He dropped out of medical school after two years cause he couldn't stand blood, but he continued to hang with scientists. He'd gone on to Cambridge for divinity studies but was still hung up on the sciences. One of his professors, a Reverend Henslow, used to invite all the sweet young boys on what he called 'beetling' excursions. He's the one talked Bobby into going on the Beagle with Fitzroy, a damned creationist. I often wondered about the company he was keeping and was a bit surprised later when Bobby announced that he was going to marry his cousin.

tj: Hmm. I guess it is pretty weird to think about all those years at sea with a bunch of geek guys. Did you ever see Cabin Boy? Oops, sorry. Do you go to films?

Bcc: I do on occasion, but I missed that one. Was it good?

tj: Not really, guess I was just being a smartass.

Bcc: Yes, you can get a lot from the dialogue and soundtrack and its surprising how much you can pick up from the reactions of the people around you. I hate to go with someone I know – they are always trying to help me out, by saying stuff like "Now here comes so-and-so, she's wearing a long red dress and has shoulder length blonde hair. Nice tits, too." While they're filling me on all this crap, I'm missing the important things. I prefer books.

tj: But you said you can't read?

Bcc: I can't see the words on the page. But the pages are there. You can turn them, you can stop them. You can feel them in your hands. In my long life I've never had any difficulty getting someone to read for me. My granny used to read to me before she died – Shakespeare was her favorite. And the Bible. I loved the Shakespeare – he really had a way with words.

tj: I suppose you knew Shakespeare, too!

Bcc: How old do you think I am? Seriously, I've been to the theater hundreds of times when Shakespeare's plays were performed. It's almost impossible to get someone to read him to me anymore. People are uncomfortable with the language when it changes.

tj: So who is it that does all of this reading for you? Do you look in the Yellow Pages? Sorry. Do you know how hard it is to avoid making references to sight?

Bcc: Oh, don't I know, dear! People are always uncomfortable at first. It's best to be yourself and say what's on your mind. I'll know what you mean – if I don't I'll ask. As for the readers, I don't have to 'look' far. For some reason, the sweet young things are queued up for the opportunity to do the honors. My selection is based on a number of things, but mostly I like to have someone whose reading tastes have developed and who enjoys the process herself.

tj: Herself? Are all of your readers women? Is there a particular reason?

Bcc: Yeah, mostly. Let's just say there's a reason I've been alive for such a long time – when something ain't broke, don't fix it.

tj: Did Bobby Darwin ever read for you?

Bcc: Are you asking if I know his work or whether he has in some way contributed to my longevity?

tj: [blushing] I'm asking if you are familiar with his theories, like firsthand. I am not interested in your personal life.

Bcc: If you're ever going to read for me (and I can tell that you want to) we are going to have to establish a certain level of trust. I can tell a lot about people from what they say, but also from how they smell, how they fidget in their chairs, how they breathe. I smelled a hint of double entendre in your question. As for the answer, he told me about some of his books through the years, but he wasn't that interesting as a writer so I never let him read for long. We usually found ourselves getting into arguments about natural selection.

tj: Arguments? About what, specifically.

Bcc: Well, he used to say stuff like how if some poor cave guy had bad eyesight, then he would get stepped on by a mastodon and wouldn't get the chance to make any more cave babies. So only the cave people with good eyes would reproduce — cause they were the most fit. I told him fitness had a lot more to do with intelligence than physical attributes and that some smart cave guy would figure out how to see better or develop his other senses and that he would live long enough to stay out of the way of mastodons and live long enough to make cave babies that had poor eyesight, but who were clever enough to stay out of the way of mastodons. He said fitness didn't mean physical fitness, necessarily, but fitness for a particular set of circumstances.

tj: Sounds more like dialogue than an argument.

Bcc: Well, it does, yes. But it always got heated, cause eventually he'd bring the subject around to blindness as a weakness. I told him there are different kinds of blindness and one of them was not seeing that fitness is relative; a state of mind. Then he'd say it didn't matter for me anyway, because I was a blind old fart and wouldn't be making any more babies.

tj: Well, Darwin had ten kids – I guess he was trying to prove something. Have you ever had any babies, Blind?

Bcc: Let's just say I've had a lot of birthdays to remember over the years. And funerals to avoid going to. None that I know of were blind.

tj: Well, I think we should wrap this up – so what's your conclusion about Darwin: scientist or philosopher?

Bcc: Definitely, smartass kid!

© Blind Carbon Copy/Carrie Berry 2001

Darwin: "Scientist or Philosopher" first appeared in the December 2001 edition of Flush Fiction Magazine and is dedicated to the non-fictional FFM editor, Tonya Judy.

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