THE BLIND MAN
“They don’t understand. They just don’t understand at all.” I sob into my pillow, and am ashamed. A man ought not cry, not a grown man. But no one understands my need.
I make my way clumsily outside. I no longer care enough to be careful when I go from one place to another and I crash into things. Who cares anyway?
I get into the old willow arbor. Made it myself long years ago. When I first got home from Lexingville. Thought it would be a great place to meditate. I haven’t repaired it or cared for it for a long time. No one else seems to have noticed. Or they haven’t said anything to me if they did.
That’s probably Francis calling out. I’ll not respond to him either anymore. Give him a good show of a crazy blind man who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. I mutter and smack my lips vigorously and stumble across the bench as if reaching for something that isn’t there.
He’s calling again, but I’m not going to hear him. Even he is not getting another chance to hurt me. No one is. I’ll just stay in the world they’ve forced me to enter. Full of madness and despair, where nothing makes sense.
It took me a long time. But I did finally reconcile myself to the fact that I would never again see with my eyes. What I find so damnably frustrating is the equally cogent fact that I can’t see with my hands. Not because my hands can’t see. I can see more with my hands than most others see with their eyes because I pay much closer attention to the information I receive from my hands. What hurts so much is that they haven’t allowed me to use them to see the things I’ve wanted most to see.
No one in this horrible village understands. They never have. I once thought I could explain things, but that time is long gone. Now I can’t talk to anyone about it. Not even the parish priest. He’s the only really educated person around here, but even he wouldn’t understand. He would maybe even be the worst, with his kindness, his patronizing kindness. How could you tell a priest of your need to touch the face of a woman, or a boy?
Ma is stirring again. The screen door on the back porch has its own way of saying who is using it. I will have to go in again and find something to do, to keep busy. She mainly ignores me now. She never shows whether she’s feeling sorry for me, or for herself. She was a pretty cheerful woman, long time ago. Vaguely, I wonder again what she looks like. Somehow I can’t shake that desire.
I get up from my seat in the arbor as if to go into the house. Then I make as if I am lost again, and struggle to get back to sit down. I tumble over something, and get up in confusion. I listen halfheartedly to the buzz of lazy summer flies and the scurrying of the chickens scratching for scraps in the chicken yard. I used to enjoy that so much it hurts now. I go over my life once more, for the millionth time.
I remember the day, so long ago, when my brothers and I were splitting this huge pile of wood. We were laughing and shouting our fool heads off about something. All of a sudden an axe-head flew off its handle and caught me directly on the side of my head. I think I saw it coming but I couldn’t duck in time.
I can remember vaguely my drifting in and out of consciousness. I recall the grayness, the gradual loss of light, and then finally coming home unable to see even though I opened my eyes as wide as I could.
“He will probably never see again.” The words of doom. It took a lot of persuading to convince my parents to abandon their immigrant distrust of government agencies and to allow me to attend a school for the blind.
I am ashamed to say those were the very best years of my life. Unlike the family and my village friends, the people in Lexingville School for the Blind made me feel whole, convinced me that despite my handicap, I was normal and useful and talented. I learned to read Braille. I loved detective stories best. Then they taught me all about the piano and the organ and the guitar. They taught me that I could use my other senses for reliable information. I learned to trust my ears and my nose and my skin.
Especially, I learned what my hands could do. I learned to see with them. My fingertips became my most important avenues of contact with everything around me. Gradually I learned to piece together a world that was comfortable and exciting.
I was nineteen by the time I was ready to return home. I felt so completely ready. I was young, strong, and confident of my ability to deal with life. I was especially proud of my body. Running and workouts in the gym had hardened my muscles till I liked how firm and hard they were. Each morning while I was shaving I felt my whole face. “You’re not bad looking, old man. Forehead a bit large and eyes somewhat sunken, but a strong chin and strong facial lines. I think girls would like what they see.”
Twice I had fallen in love at the school. The first time, wow! I look back now with amusement. Miss Brinley was just about the most wonderful instructor I could ever imagine. I recall poignantly how patient she was and yet how firmly and insistently she helped me get over my adolescent infatuation without destroying my confidence in my ability to relate with others.
And then there was Mary Carter. She was blind too, and lived in another part of the school. We used to meet at parties when all of us students gathered every Saturday evening. She played the accordion and showed me something of its intricacies. I never got anywhere with that instrument because that wasn’t what interested me when we were with each other. We often sang together at public occasions. I’d have to say that we were a real hit, judging by the many times we were asked to sing, and how everybody clapped when we were finished.
Then when she ran her tiny fingers over my face for the first time. God, what a magnificent thrill took hold of my whole being!
“Oh, Werner, you’re so handsome!”
Shyly, she felt for my hands and pulled them up to her face. How soft, how incredibly soft her skin. Smoother than any velvet. I wanted the sensation to last forever. I held on to her hands for a long time before carefully and slowly exploring her arms. But I couldn’t get beyond her elbows. Was anyone watching? I couldn’t tell. I so much wanted to feel the rest of her, her whole body, and for her to feel mine. If only we had the privacy so systematically and consistently denied us.
We did manage somehow to steal a moment here and there. When we danced, I would hold her close, intoxicated by her smell. I felt the swell of her breasts and would lose concentration and bump into others who were more careful to follow the pattern set out by the dance instructor.
“Mary, where can we go? Where can we be alone together?”
“We’ll find a way. Let me think about it.”
But then all of a sudden she was gone. No one would give me a straight answer. I knew they knew where she was and were holding back. Then Miss Brinley finally relented. “Mary has gone to another school, Werner. Her parents came for her and have sent her on to continue her music studies in Toronto.”
“But she didn’t even say good-bye. She wasn’t finished here. She never said she was leaving.” I was frantic. “What’s her address? I want to write to her.”
“Better you don’t, Werner. Better for both of you before you get hurt. It never works out, Werner, and you’ll soon be finished here and will go home. You’ll always have her as a beautiful memory. And that is best for you. For both of you.”
How convenient they all made it sound. Everybody knew what was best for us. They made all the decisions that really counted. That was bad enough, but couldn’t they at least have consulted us? Or talked it over with us as if we had some brains?
Others could fall in love, marry and have kids. Why should they deny that fullness of life to us just because we happened to be blind? I was so sure that Mary was in love with me because I was in love with her. It was simply inconceivable that she might have wanted to leave Lexingville without saying anything, without leaving me a message of some kind.
Years later, after it didn’t matter anymore, Miss Brinley, who had become Mrs. Wilmett, wrote to tell me without apologizing that Mary did leave a message. She had asked that it be delivered before she had to leave. But the principal intercepted it, read it, and decided to destroy it, counting on the likelihood that we would never make contact again. After all, we were just kids and both blind.
I almost forgot the pain of losing Mary in the bustle of preparing to go home. I could just imagine myself getting off the train, tall and handsome in the new suit I purchased with money I had stashed away from my earnings playing at dances. The whole family would be there, Ma and Pa and my three brothers. What a thrill it would be for me to show off what I learned. I wouldn’t be a burden to them at all.
The conductor helped me down the steep metal steps onto the platform. At the bottom of the steps I stopped, planted my feet firmly and waited expectantly, eager to hold each one in turn, and tell them how exciting it was to be home, how much I missed each one of them, and to hear them say how equally they had missed me. I wanted to share my ideas, how I could get started with life again. I had it all rehearsed. I practiced it all the way home.
A strange hand grabbed me roughly and pulled me forward, off balance. My foot caught on the uneven boards of the platform, and I lurched forward, barely avoiding a complete fall. Talk about a grand entrance! I needn’t have worried about embarrassing myself. No one else came to my homecoming except this stranger.
“C’mon, Werner. Let’s go home.” I didn’t recognize the deep voice. “Oh, I’m Eddie, your little brother.”
Crazy, that I now look back at this little embarrassment as the easiest part of coming back home. I don’t know why, but I just wasn’t prepared for what happened. I had come home with such confidence. I could tune and repair pianos and organs. I could play four different musical instruments, three at the same time. I just knew that I would be a sensation, or at least adequate, at community dances. With even just a bit of help from the community, I really believed that I could make a living.
But that was not to be. They shelved me without so much as a thought, put me aside, treated me as if I were a child or an idiot. No amount of show and tell, no amount of confrontation with anyone, made any impact on the stubborn little village’s conviction that a blind man was not normal, could not be productive, had to be supported, humored. I was an oddity, a freak, the village dolt to be protected and treated kindly, but not to be taken at all seriously.
Before realizing it, I fell into a routine as changeless as the seasons and days. I remember trying to keep some sense of well-being, but it was impossible. I simply couldn’t escape the deterioration of an endless succession of mind-rotting distractions to keep me busy. I had a few chores around the house, but they were so elemental that, as the old saying goes, “A blind man could do it.” There was no stimulation. Every chance of real life resulted in failure, or in tragedy, the more painful because it was all so unnecessary. And there was no one with whom to share my feelings when the bottom fell out of something.
Katie was one of those terrible experiences. She shouldn’t be called an experience because she was a lot more than that. It wasn’t all that long after coming home that I began to notice she was special. She was a regular visitor to her aging aunt next door to our house. It took so dreadfully long to get beyond the worn-out pleasantries of greeting and response.
Katie loved to sing. She sang at Mass. She sang at parties and dances. Sometimes she sang while I played organ or guitar at a party or dance. And sometimes we sang together, with me getting in with my thin tenor beside her powerful soprano. It brought back memories of Mary, only richer for happening at home. I started to feel alive, to think things might be looking up, that there might be some hope in this ignorant little village after all.
The times were always too short. And I never did discover how to escape supervision. With everybody else seeing, I never knew when we were really alone. And then one day she joined me in my retreat, my favorite seat in the willow arbor, right here where I am now sitting. Only the place was in much better shape then.
I took great pains to explain how it was with a blind person, how we have to rely on our other senses to learn about the things around us. I talked about what we had learned at the school for the blind. I told her about Mary, just a little, and stressed that I saw only with my hands, and could I please see her hands, just a little while?
Something of that magical sense of thrill I felt must have passed on to her, for she stiffened, and quickly withdrew her hands. She was gone before I could say anything more.
“What were you doing out there? Holding hands with her? What do you think?”
“I think I love her.”
“Love her! Hah! You? Who would want a useless blind man? Just forget it. And don’t you dare do it again.”
“We weren’t even holding hands, Ma. I was just seeing her hands. You know that I need to use my hands to see.”
“Don’t you ever touch her again. Not ever. Or I will tell your Pa.”
Well, she did tell him. His wicked tongue-lashing and the furious accusations he threw at me emptied my heart of any affection I once had for this fiery little monster who was my father.
I never had any idea at all what the man looked like. Not long after coming home from blind school I tried to see Ma. I didn’t get very far. I tried to be so careful when I started exploring her features. Then it ended abruptly. She got uncomfortable, shuddered involuntarily and said that’s enough before I could form any image of her. Pa would hear of no touch at all, and I never could find the right words to explain that I really just wanted to see him.
Katie told me what happened next door. She caught hell the same way I did.
“I saw you out there with him.”
“With who?”
“With that Werner. You were holding hands.”
“No, we weren’t. He was just looking at my hands. He needs to use his hands to see.”
“Don’t you believe that. He’s a man, and you know what they want.”
“Oh, Auntie. He’s nothing like that.”
“He’s not normal.”
“He’s as normal as anyone else. He’s just blind. He’s the kindest man I know. He’s gentle and beautiful, and thoughtful. His hands are so kind and so strong.”
“Don’t you dare to come over here anymore to see him. Do you hear? I’ll tell your Ma and Pa and you’ll get a whipping sure.”
Somehow, after that, the magic, if ever there was any, was gone in our relationship. We were both too shy, too fearful of our parents to talk about it.
And now the last nail is being pounded into the coffin of another relationship that lasted longer and was almost as sweet. He’ll forget me and go on with his life and that’ll be it. No need to hassle him or make him feel sorry or anything. My life and my feelings simply don’t count.
How terribly unfair life is. Francis moved into the house next door about five or six years ago. He’s at college now. He hardly ever gets home anymore. And when he does I don’t get to see him much.
There was something special between us from the beginning. Francis had that sort of mind that sopped up anything he could learn. I guess you could call our friendship out of the ordinary. At least it was so for me.
We spent so much time together. I couldn’t count the hours we sat together here in my willow arbor, playing thousands of games of checkers. I used to read him the detective stories from the big heavy books I got from the Lexington School for the Blind every couple of weeks. He even learned some Braille. And he read from his books too. We talked endlessly about the great and the little things of life. We used to sing those old favorite cowboy songs till we couldn’t sing any more.
Often we ran the alleys hand in hand, as fast as we could go, till one or the other would say we had enough.
I did a lot of simple carving in those days. Little stuff just for the fun of it. I had this jackknife that I kept sharp on an old whetstone. I taught Francis to pay attention to the smell of different woods, and to listen while cutting or sanding, and especially to feel whether he had gotten the wood smooth enough. We made dozens of propellers that danced and rattled in the wind.
We often walked to church together along the sidewalks. We went to the movies whenever the theater owner gave me free tickets to a show. And I dreamt about the ideal bond that could exist between man and boy. I dreamt of what it would be like to have a son of my own, and that it would be just like this, only more and longer and all the time.
“Francis, put it back! You can’t fool me!” You know, sometimes he would try to sneak one of my checkers off the board when he was afraid he was losing. And there were times he tried to creep up on me to surprise me, and he was always so full of wonder when I said something just before he was about to pounce on me.
We used to play cards a lot too, with decks marked in Braille at the upper left corners. I knew he would be watching where I put the suits and where I kept trumps, so every hand I changed their location and mixed them up so he couldn’t tell how many of anything I held. And it was so much fun, and we would laugh over it, and I would slam my cards down triumphantly. But that’s all water over the dam now.
Before each game we played one of us would announce, “Here’s where all friendship ceases.” And then we would play our best to win, giving and asking for no quarter, no second chances. A game is a game, but it is also a lot like life, and Francis understood that.
I sometimes wondered, for all the good times we had, whether Francis understood much more than anyone else. And I guess now I know. Now that he is in college, he doesn’t come over much anymore. He’s got other things on his mind. I know that. He has no use for me now. His family and girls are more important. Why would he want to come see an old blind man?
He is calling out again, but I have to set him free to get on with his own life. God, but this is a lonely business. I have never felt so alone before now, even in all the lousy waste of my life.
I might just as well be dead. There is no one who cares about me, not really, and no use of forcing the issue. What could have been is no longer possible. My only choice is to fade out, let them all think what they want, and pass on as the freak show they all expected.
All of them.
Life deals bad hands to some people, and try as they might, there’s nothing to be done about it. A stupid accident. A split second of difference. An inch this way or that, and life is forever changed.
And that’s all there is to it. When you can’t see, you can’t see. And even if you could, or thought you could, if no one lets you see, you can’t see either. I can no longer fight it, and there’s the hell of it all.
Francis added this postscript to Werner’s story: The last time I saw Werner, he was groping around in his arbor. It was pretty rundown. I called to him, but either he didn’t hear, and I find that hard to imagine, or else he didn’t want to hear. Or maybe he had lost his way. He was muttering, and smacking his lips so loud I could hear it in the next yard.
I heard later that his folks moved to BC, and that they had to put Werner into an institution because they couldn’t take care of him anymore. He died there alone a few years later.