The Uninnocent (9 page)

Around Thanksgiving I lost my job. My supervisor was kind enough to give me the bad news in person. They'd held out as long as they could, he said, sitting with me in my den over some chowder Sarah served us in mugs. “Damn bad luck,” he told me, his voice gooey from the thick soup if not the tacky sentiment. I nodded, trying to form an understanding smile on my lips, though I'd already begun to forget what I looked like before the accident, and had no clear concept what such a smile might look like now. Vivid silence clouded the room before I heard him shift in his seat and rise to leave. “Your workman's comp is all in order,” he said, taking my free hand into his, which was clammy. I thanked him, climbing to my feet. I wanted to touch his face but hadn't the nerve to ask. As I recall, he had a dense, large nose, the by-product of a long-standing love affair with cheap scotch chased by cheaper ale. Balls and beer, the boys used to call it at work, a thousand years ago. Off the top of my head I couldn't tell you his or any of their names now.

Then came the truly dark days. Days that added up to months, a year of miserable months that vanished like voices murmuring in an empty room. Learning braille was a necessary but grim admission that my blindness was not the temporary setback my hopeful ophthalmologist had diagnosed. A second sightless Christmas came and went. Luke and Becca seemed happy with their presents, none of which I could see any more than I could their presumptive beaming faces. Sarah thanked me for the nightgown I bought her with the help of a salesperson who was kind enough to describe it to me over the telephone—rayon, beige, a few flounces edged in lace. We tried to act celebratory, to make the best of the situation, and I even indulged in a little champagne, which gave me a migraine that lasted a week. Sitting alone in my personal black hole on New Year's Eve, I urged Sarah to go without me to a party down the street, hire a sitter, enjoy herself a little. It hardly seemed fair for her, who looked after me day and night, to stay home reading to me from Isaiah, or Job, while I followed along with my fingers. Even as I sat wallowing in my misfortune that evening, listening to Mahler and eating a bowl of popcorn my wife had placed on the side table, I guessed the busybodies were talking about none other than me and what a shame all this was for poor Sarah, who was still so young and vibrant. I drowned myself in the choral voices of the Eighth Symphony, then fell asleep in my chair. Later, Sarah woke me and led me by the arm upstairs to bed, which smelled of roses and sage. My melancholy delirium lifted for a moment, for these fragrances reminded me of the carefree, caring nights we used to enjoy, the nights of earlier intimacy that resulted in the births of our babies. Half awake, I kissed her and thanked her for all she had done to help me through this tragedy. I promised her—though she might not have heard, since I could tell by her breathing she was asleep—that I would try harder, would overcome the doldrums that had made life so tough this past year and a half. That I would do something with myself, defeat my disability in some way, learn to see anew, like blind Bartimaeus whom Jesus cured in Jericho with nothing more than a few words of encouragement.

True to my promise, the next morning I glued braille alphabet tabs to the keys of my old typewriter and sat myself down to outline everything that had conspired to bring me to my present predicament, and what I believed as I began my long journey back to life. Sarah set me up with a fresh ream of paper. The work was slow. It took a while to get a feel for producing words and phrases through the clumsy machinery of the typewriter. Not being able to review what I'd just written, I had to visualize the sentences fore and aft in my head. Initially, Sarah read me back what I'd sketched, but even she had reasonable limits as to how much time she could devote to my little project. The children weren't getting younger. She had even taken a part-time position with that contractor who built the extension, in order to supplement my benefits. He was called Jim James, a name whose triumph of redundancy might have intimated the ways matters were drifting but did not. We were grateful for the income.

At first I thought to write an article for the St. Francis newsletter about how faith in God is essential to our surviving crises, or some such, but as I got the ideas down on paper, I realized it was one cliché after another and of no use to anybody. I had to delve deeper into my reservoir of pain, so I turned some of my ideas around backward and found they came out much better. Faith alone, in other words, was not enough to carry us through. Rather, it was one oar we could use to pull our fragile ship through the turbulent waters of doubt and despair, the other oar being hope. Like that. I spent hours on end working out my thoughts, quoting passages from my King James whenever the reference seemed apropos, or sometimes, if the pretty image struck my fancy, when it wasn't.

Not only did the newsletter publish my first effort but, thanks to someone in the congregation who showed it to an editor at the local paper, reminding him who I was—the man blinded while trying to bring light to others, as he put it—I was commissioned to write a human interest article detailing the aftermath of that horrifying night. I missed the deadline and Sarah asked for an extension, which they granted. When I did turn in my manuscript I explained in an apologetic cover letter that typing on an old Royal rigged with braille tabs that kept falling off made for perhaps not the best working conditions. I hoped nevertheless that they would find the final product worthy of their esteemed pages.

The memoir was a success. Letters came in from around the state, the most gushing of which were published in the newspaper over the days that followed. Sarah knocked on my door soon after, announcing that the editor himself had dropped by the house with something that might make me very happy. Indeed, I was floored by Mr. Harrison's kindness. On behalf of everyone at the paper, he presented me with a used computer preloaded with software for the blind. Little Luke, who was eight then and computer-savvy, taught me how to use this gift, and within a matter of months I was contributing regularly to various periodicals distributed in the area. From this print exposure came my first invitations to speak before the public. My wife's inherent Christian strength of spirit was aroused by what she saw happening before her eyes. The love, empathy, and compassion she witnessed flowing toward her husband from these strangers, common workaday people who listened intently to what insights I was able to give them, overwhelmed dear Sarah. That Mr. Harrison offered to assist us financially, lift the burden of her having to work for the contractor, so she could devote more time to helping answer every request to address this crowd or that, constituted another blessing on our household. I, who had come to abide misfortune, was now in the pulpit of Everyman, as it were.
Many are called but few are chosen
, the Bible tells us, and I—an unfledged beggar by the waters of Siloam—was chosen.

Sarah was never more attentive, never more heedful than during the heady times that followed. Invite followed invite, obliging us to be away from home for days, even weeks, at a time. When my wife told me that we'd begun to charge sponsors a nominal fee to offset expenses of travel, lodging, meals, not to mention the live-in housekeeper who also looked after Luke and Becca, I didn't object, though deep down I would have preferred offering my inspirational views without money attached. Harrison advised her on the best ways to proceed, and acted on my behalf as an agent, placing my lectures in various journals and anthologies. “Building the rep,” as he put it. They were right, of course, telling me that if we wanted to get my message out there, we needed assistance, and who better than the listeners and readers themselves to assist? The venture was worthy, we all knew. There were many who wanted, needed, to hear my story of hardship and hope. I told Sarah that, if she didn't mind, she should be the one who managed the practicalities with Harrison's help. Back in the halcyon days before the world went dark, I wore the financial pants in the house. Given that now I couldn't tell a one-dollar check from another of a thousand made our positions clear. Sarah agreed with all my requests. Both my muse and protector, she was brilliant in her role.

What possible point would there be in reproducing a transcript of the speeches I made? Often I was introduced by a local priest or minister. My wife would then lead me to the podium. Applause. I launched straightaway into my backstory, guided my auditors from the shadowy valley of pain and grief to the mountain of renewal and joy. Self-pity was just that:
a pit
from which we must rise and shine. I told them about my New Year's Eve revelation, mentioning how I had come to believe that the marvelous scent of sage and roses in the bedroom that night was an auspicious sign from God, the soul-struck breath of my guardian angel. My favorite concluding exhortation was
Don't be afraid of miracles
. Applause. Then a few questions and answers. Do you think that God will restore your sight one day? was the perennial query I could count on being asked. My response was, in this life or the next, I believe He will let me see my wife and children again, for
He's a good and generous God
.

A reception would follow during which the voices around me brimmed with appreciative respect that made me understand just how attached each member of the human family is to another. My calling as a missionary of faith suited me well, and as the years elapsed, the uneasy peace I'd made with my blindness deepened. Never would I have touched so many lives had I not been stricken. I like to think that I was always a good man, but so many have proclaimed there's a genuine spark of greatness in me that at times I have to believe there may be.

Home, now, from nine long weeks on the road, after a restless night in my bed in the study—Sarah and I agreed to sleep in separate quarters after such long trips on the circuit because when I was particularly fatigued I tossed and turned—I awoke feeling not quite myself. True, I had been working harder than ever. Our schedule had been nonstop for months, so perhaps this explained my sensation of unbalance. Along with prayer, music has always been my remedy for any illness, and so it was I'd put on Schubert's Opus 78 for piano, whose divine opening chords would, I was sure, bring me around. Martita, the housekeeper, served my spicy cinnamon tea and tended my fire. Not wanting to bother her—and besides, the monumental Richter seemed to be working his magic—I said nothing about my disposition.

Some minutes after she closed my door, abrupt pain erupted in my temples. Beset by wild dizziness, by violent nausea, by spasms that stabbed like long needles through my skull, I shrieked, though no noise left my throat. Gasping, I rolled from my chair onto the floor, hitting my head as I did. I tried to call out for Sarah but couldn't. Then, as suddenly as the pain began it was replaced by numbness. I could hear the piano music very distantly, as if it were coming from the far end of a long tunnel. Light engulfed my eyes—a cascade, a flood, a torrent of
unblinding light
. As I grabbed at the arms of my chair to stand, I found myself staring into what appeared to be flames dancing behind the grate of the potbellied stove. My eyes agonizingly darted around the room and there, in this dim place on whose walls firelight flickered—more like Plato's cave than a Christian's den—were all the things I'd come to know only by touch. My table, my books, my computer, my cot, my chair. No embellishments, nothing on the walls, all very minimal, even dreary to my naïve eyes. But of course, I thought. Why decorate? Why wallpaper a blind man's cell? Standing now, a bit shaky, admiring my wife's wise Christian expediency, I walked around placing my hands on everything, still not quite sure what was happening. My vision was blurry, but with each new moment I became more reassured this wasn't a dream, a taunting nightmare. The radical pain having largely subsided, I remained a little numb, whether from excitement or physiological impulse, I didn't know or care. I wanted to climb to the roof and cry out to the world that my miracle had finally come. My feet carried me to the door that led to the main house, and I who rarely left my sanctum—why should I have?—opened it.

Bright white light poured through the living room windows, crisp sun reflected off the snow. But for the ticking of a clock, in Franz Schubert's wake, the house was silent. I took a few tentative steps and gazed, blinking hard while heavily tearing, in wonder. What had happened to our simple home? If you will, I couldn't believe my eyes. The walls were gilded and the windows dressed with billowing chiffon sashes. In an alcove stood a gargantuan breakfront on whose glassed shelves were countless porcelain figurines. I stumbled ahead toward facing sofas and stuffed chairs upholstered in striped silks of chartreuse and gold. Here was a commode with a marble top and a vase of orchids above the marquetry. There were two reclining brass deer on a prayer rug by the hearth. An antique grandfather clock clad in luminous mahogany stood haughty in a corner. Oriental carpets of red, blue, yellow, and green lay atop the white wall-to-wall. Fine old portraits of men and women dressed in the garb of another century hung everywhere, staring out at me from canvases black as lacquer. A chandelier centered it all, its prisms reflecting hundreds of tiny rainbows on the ceiling, which was done up with decorative plaster moldings. Though I examined each piece of furniture, horrified and fascinated, and though what I saw was as tangible as truth itself, my heart sank, because I knew this couldn't be so. I pinched myself, closed my eyes, reopened them. But the room didn't change. If anything, it became more lavish as my sore eyes adjusted to the light.

A familiar sound came from upstairs. It seemed to be Harrison, softly whistling to himself some random tune, as he often did when he accompanied us on the road. I thought to call out his name, tell him the astonishing news, ask him to come down, fall to his knees with me and pray,
Lord God, thanks for this deliverance
, but didn't. Who knows how or wherefrom inner voices speak to us, or in what mysterious ways they confide to us involuntary prophecies that save us from harm, disillusion, even doom? The whistling stopped and when it did, I took a couple of steps back, bumping into a side table and knocking a crystal lamp to the floor. I was startled to hear Harrison say, “Bunny?” And hearing him ask the question again, this time in a deeper, softer, more melodiously concerned voice, I looked around for a place to hide, an Adam's fig leaf as it were, suddenly frightened, frightened even beyond the terror of finding myself among the sighted, standing there agog, a dumb novitiate, a stranger in my own house. He glided down the carpeted stairs, silent as a proverbial ghost, and seemed relieved to find me, half crouching behind one of the big plush sofas.