Glass Eye Will Get You Discount MARC Fare

Want to ride the MARC train for cheap? Here’s how you do it, according to Raymond, who got on at the New Carrollton stop Tuesday night, bragging about his $3 ticket: You go to your doctor, have him write up a letter, get yourself a disability card.

Raymond, who is 38, looks pretty fit. I ask him what’s wrong with him.

“I got arthritis,” he says, “and a glass eye.”

I stare at his face. Sure enough, one of his eyes looks a half-shade less green than the other. He points at the left one.

No way, I say, trying to be nice, as if both eyes look the same. Raymond pops the falsie out of his face, rolls it in his palm, spreads his socket so I can check the void. Then he tells me how he did it, how when he was six he was playing cowboys and Indians and his buddy (the Indian) fashioned a twig arrow and fired it into his face.

What can you say to that? Did it hurt? I ask.

“Hell yes, it hurt,” he says, looking at me as if I was the one with an eyeball rolling around in my hand.

Raymond has had this particular glass eye for more than 10 years. It’s a good one, he says. Moves in your face like a real eye, but doesn’t go off all cockeyed or fog up like cheaper ones. Cost him $2,500. He has another one, a crummy one. He keeps it in a jar at home just in case.

“This is the Mercedes of glass eyes,” he says. “I can slam it on the ground, it wouldn’t break. It’s bulletproof.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 9:23 am and is filed under Health, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.