We Are the Employees of Tim’s World

To begin with, I needed a summer job. My parents hooked me up and I’ve done my best not to appear grateful. The center for the blind has a youth camp and the recreation director needed an extra pair of energetic eyes. That’s the way it was phrased to me—energetic eyes—to keep track of the blind kids. My mother, a low vision specialist, assured me our paths would not cross and I’d likely get a tan.

The job has so far included field trips like riding the Swan Boats in Boston, which was fun, or walking the Freedom Trail, less fun, although the kids enjoyed using their canes on cobblestones. We even went to Wingaersheek Beach, which was awesome if you like horror shows. Now I understand the job description—energetic eyes. Blind kids on a beach won’t sit quietly on towels and daintily trace their fingers across a Braille page. They’ll be in the water trying to drown each other. Try supervising a game of Marco Polo with kids who couldn’t cheat if their lives depended on it. The recreation director asked me to take it down a notch when I screamed at them, “Polo! What are you, deaf? Polo! Polo!” They were heading from the sand toward deeper water, away from my voice. These are no blind mice, though. They were having fun toying with me, an older girl, and I treated them the same way I would if they’d scored 20/20 off an eye chart. The kids have taken to me like a favorite older cousin, obeying my loose authority because I don’t abuse it, and because I let them swear when no one else is around.

Today, we’re canoeing the Charles River. Before any of the small, skinny girls claims me, I pair myself up with the biggest kid, Tim—thinking he’ll do the work of canoeing and I’ll sit back and enjoy the ride. I put my paddle in the water, but Tim is the one who propels us all over the Charles, far more than any other pair, and it’s the first time Tim has ever been in a canoe. It’s an early August morning, not too hot, and with a gentle breeze the mosquitoes are forced to be kind. Everyone thinks the Charles River is going to smell bad because of that famous song, “Dirty Water,” but combined with the bleach scent of a life preserver, it isn’t too bad—kind of like you walked into a kitchen where they cooked fish a few days before.

“Did you toot?” Tim accuses. Though the size of a man, Tim has the high-pitched voice of a kid who hasn’t crossed the finish line of puberty yet.

“If toot means fart, then no, I didn’t.” Show me a teenager and I’ll show you a wiseass. After working at the center for two months, I’ve learned being blind is no exception to that rule. But sometimes the innocence of the kids surprises me. Maybe Tim doesn’t know accusing an older girl of farting is impolite. “You’re smelling the Charles River,” I tell him, in case it hadn’t been a joke.

Tim paddles us fast and further from other canoes, like we’re in a race or being chased. He’s a strong kid. The kind that would make a football coach weep upon realizing Tim is totally blind and thus useless to his cause. I’m thinking how, if I have to choose this fall, I’ll date a UMass basketball player over football, due to their winning record, when we end up tangled in the arms of weeping willows along the bank.

“You suck at navigating,” Tim accuses me. “Are you taking a nap?” But he likes the feel of the soft branches, so we stop to rest within them. “The trees are hugging me,” he says.

I hear a whistle from the recreation director, meaning we’re supposed to go back to the dock for a check-in. I put my paddle in the water, but Tim asks me to wait. He leans over the side of the canoe, outside of the willows’ shade. I get scared, thinking he’s getting ready to make another joke, this one: I’m a big-blind-kid-in-the-Charles-River type of joke.

“What are you doing, Tim?”

“Can you see my reflection?”

“Yeah, I see it.”

“What’s it look like?”

I take my time to answer; the director’s whistle can wait. Tim can get us back quicker than weaker-manned canoes closer to the dock. I tell it like it is and don’t ask how much he remembers of color and light. “Water’s a little cloudy,” I say. “Kind of brown and green, the color of trees. But I can see the shape of your head. Couldn’t use it as a picture in a mug book, that’s for sure. You look like you but blurrier. The details of your face are erased. And sparkly. No, not sparkly—like shimmery. Hey, you know how it feels when you’re in a car that’s driving fast, and you put your hand out the window? That’s what your reflection looks like—soft and strong.”

I take the opportunity to look at my own reflection, hoping I look skinnier. I don’t. And I notice that the shimmery outline in the water could be mistaken for my mother’s.

Tim settles back in the boat. “What’s a mug book?” he asks me.

“Mug’s another word for face. When someone gets arrested, the police take their photo, their mug shot. One picture is straight on, and another is in profile. Victims get to look through books of mug shots to see if they recognize … you know, the bad guys.” I give a world-weary sigh. “Repeat offenders are a problem in the American judicial system.” I don’t know why I’m trying to sound worldly to a blind kid four years younger than me. All my knowledge of mug books comes from marathon-watching seasons of Law and Order.

“Man,” Tim says. “Of all the things I’d give an eye to see, it’d be a mug book.”

I readjust the life preserver from digging into my neck. “Seeing as your eyes don’t work, giving up an eye doesn’t seem much of a trade. How about something you do use, like your ears or your nose?”

“Then how would I know if you farted and I was breathing it in?”

“I told you! That’s the Charles River.”

“Sure, boss,” Tim laughs, quoting from Cool Hand Luke. The camp has art, music, and sports clubs. Tim joined one that listens to old movies with descriptive video. Days before, he told me he related to Paul Newman’s character. I’d found it hilarious that a teenage camper would think he and a chain-gang prisoner would have something in common. For laughs, I rewatched the movie myself. It kind of shook me. Maybe Tim was saying blindness is his prison. Especially as a kid. To have so much of his life controlled by others.

I nudge Tim in the chest with my oar, splashing water on both of us. “What we have here,” I say, quoting the warden from the movie after he whips Paul Newman, “is failure to communicate.”

“Have you ever seen a mug book?” Tim asks, having lowered his voice as if we can be overheard in the middle of the Charles River.

“I haven’t had the pleasure,” I tell him. The director blows the whistle again. We have to move.

Tim lifts his oar but eases it back down, psyching me out. “Is every criminal in one?” The water is still and so am I, fearing where this is heading. “Do you think my father’s in a mug book?”

In the nurse’s office of the camp dormitory is a file on each kid. It has basic stats so the peripheral staff, like me, can find out if someone is allergic to bees or is a type 1 diabetic. In the sixteen files I perused, Tim was not the only camper whose blindness had been caused or exacerbated by physical abuse. My dad has said if you work long enough with abused kids, you discover the bad guys are fathers, stepdads, mothers’ boyfriends. For once, using the blanket term of “guys” to describe a group is pretty accurate.

I wish my dad were in the canoe instead of me. He’d know the right thing to say. I remember seeing in Tim’s file, WTAA, Dad’s acronym for Won’t Talk About Abuse. What’s wrong with this kid? I wonder. There’s a certified mental health professional with whom he has weekly sessions, and it’s me he wants to talk to.

I’ve experienced responsibility before. My grades are always good because I study. My teeth hold their newly appointed position because I faithfully wear my retainer each night. But I haven’t had the weight of responsibility for someone other than myself. Even the cat I begged for is fed by my mom and has its litter box cleaned by my dad. And in this moment, I know, I can drop the paddle and seek my parents when we get back to camp. They won’t expect more of me. I can wash my hands of the responsibility of Tim.

But there’s a buzz in my forehead, parallel to and between my brows, prodding me to reconsider. What if there are only so many times a person will branch out like a tree looking for sun? What if Tim won’t venture the subject again?

“Your father’s a criminal?” I ask, playing dumb. “What’d he do?”

“Beat up people. Like my mom and me.”

I shriek, “Did he blind her, too?”

Tim thinks my reaction is funny. “No. She can see. He made my eyes worse, though. I used to see a little. He took it all away.”

“What a prick,” I say. “He’s definitely in a mug book. Your mom’s not with him anymore, is she?”

“She’s not stupid.”

“Well, good,” I say. “Having a non-stupid parent is a bonus. You know the therapist, Mr. Galvin, is my dad, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Just saying. He’s the one if you have any in-depth questions about healing and stuff.”

Tim rolls his vacant eyes. I didn’t know a blind person could do that. I do know I’m messing this up, so I continue, “I’m saying I can vouch for my dad, that he’s okay if you need someone to talk to.”

“O-kay,” Tim says, in a way that lets me know he’s not interested. “Dad-E is O-kay. Is he your therapist, too?”

“Fuck, no!” I say, and Tim laughs. “I think that would be illegal,” I add, “to have your parent as your shrink. They can’t be unbiased. You need someone on the outside so they can see your life objectively. Look at it this way—a therapist works for you. You’re the boss. You tell them what’s bothering you and they have to come up with ideas on how to make things better.”

Tim objects. “I don’t think that’s what therapy is.”

“I’m clueing you in on a secret here. Lean in.” To my surprise, Tim does. He leans forward and tilts his head down and to the side. It makes me realize that when I talk to a sighted person, I talk into their face as if their eyes can hear me.

“You are the boss in your world, Tim, and everyone works for you.”

My walkie-talkie crackles. The recreation director is freaking out. I assure him that Tim has not drowned, that we’re having a swell time, and that I hadn’t heard his first or second whistle.

“Keep your nose clean,” Tim tells me after I ten-four.

“Is that from a Cagney movie?”

“Maybe. It means don’t be a criminal because you suck at it. You said you didn’t hear the first or second whistle. How’d you know there was a second whistle if you didn’t hear the first?”

“Holy fuck,” I say, and he laughs. “You’re pretty sharp,” I add. “I’m not worried about you. You’re going to be all right with brains like that.”

Tim’s face lights up at the compliment, but his smile doesn’t stick around. “What about when my father gets out of jail? And what if I run into another criminal? They’re everywhere.” The kid is killing me.

“Listen,” I say. “If every criminal is in a mug book, that’s got to be thousands of people, right? Thousands of books?”

“Very reassuring,” he says. “Thanks.”

“What I mean is, there’s got to be millions, no, billions of people that aren’t in any mug book at all. We’re looking out for you. We are the employees of Tim’s world. It’s easy to forget because the bad ones are louder. You see?”

“If only I could,” he sighs. “I’m visually impaired.”

“What is it with blind people and their jokes about sight? If I made one, I’d get accused of being insensitive.”

Tim fake-whines, “It’s so unfair you can’t make fun of disabled children.” He reaches down into the river, cups a handful of water, and aims it in my direction.

“Hey!”

“I can’t see,” he shrugs. “Didn’t know you were there. My bad.”

I shake my head like a wet dog, trying to spray him back. “For a blind guy, your accuracy is uncanny.”

The camp whistle blows again with extra blasts. We put our oars in the water and row without a splash.

“I knew it’d be easier if you actually helped,” he says. What a wiseass. Tim and I are in sync now, like a couple of old fishermen heading back with a plentiful catch.

JODY CALLAHAN

Jody Callahan is a 2025 fiction contest finalist for the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, and the Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival. A recipient of an Edith Wharton-–Straw Dog Writers residency, she has been published in Writer’s Digest, Southword, Gemini Magazine, The Rumpus, Epiphany, and elsewhere. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.