Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

by Sanford D. Greenberg

  Before my trip to Detroit, I had privately harbored notions of a future that included Harvard Law School and then, one day, the governorship. The specter of this bottommost rung of the law—a porch in some small western New York town—was unbearable. My confinement within myself seemed inevitable and without end. Yet it was unacceptable. And to be clear: For me on that day, “unacceptable” meant nothing like today’s vague sense of disapproval. It meant that I would not accept such a life.

  9

  A Walk on the Wild Side

  I have worked on this memoir for decades, trying to understand why I began trying to rejoin the race—both contest and human. The struggle was a long process, taking months and years. Many years. And counting.

  What was it that lay between my near despair in Detroit in the winter of 1961 and the life that I cherish today, blindness and all? Hermann Hesse may have gotten close to it: “God does not send us despair in order to kill us; he sends it in order to awaken us to a new life.” The awakening, though, was brutally hard.

  During those dark days after Detroit, I had to decide what to do. What movement would make any sense at all? In the beginning, I saw nothing—in just about every sense of the word. My friends, family, girlfriend, classmates, and professors had all disappeared. Of course, they had not literally vanished, but how was I to know whether they would or not, at least some of them?

  I knew I had some talent and some determination. But would these gifts and the support of my family be enough? My family had a tradition of nagging uneasiness about good fortune. There was always a subtle, unwelcome presence lurking. My misfortune was proof that good fortune was illusory. What then? Was my life’s purpose simply to serve as a reminder that bad things can happen?

  I still harbored a stubborn feeling of being unfulfilled. There were things I just wanted to learn and to know. Like pulling the proverbial loose thread from a sweater—there is always an unending more and more. Newly blind and downcast as I was, it was this hunger to know that ultimately provided the fuel for my liberation. One of my most cherished friends would apply the match.

  Arthur visited me in the spring after my operation. My family always loved it when Arthur came, and I think he liked it very much, too. Shortly after his arrival, the two of us were walking down Saranac Avenue, squirrels running across the sidewalk in front of us. We walked steadily and leisurely—a pace that seemed at odds with my condition. For the past several months my body had been tense, almost rigid; I could not move around even in my own bedroom without knocking into something. Here on the street, with Arthur, it was as if there was nothing to knock into. I lightly held his elbow as we walked along.

  I was uneasy as we began our conversation. Up to this point, I had shared certain of my emerging notions only with Sue: pathetically defiant thoughts, quite possibly delusional, that had begun to percolate through to my consciousness. I was thinking I might return to Columbia and graduate and that Sue and I would marry.

  Those thoughts, not quite overshadowed by doubt and pessimism, had become more insistent. Did I dare expose them to Arthur? His presence here in Buffalo was, after all, my foremost remaining link to college. My brief taste of Columbia and the city and all the great things they represented was a seed already planted, and it had the potential to grow. Seeds want to sprout and send out roots.

  Putting my embarrassment aside, I related my recurrent fantasies of return to Arthur, and in one of those rare moments when he put aside the lyrical and romantic, his analytical side emerged. His speech became focused and intense as I struggled to explain my fantasy, and his voice descended to a lower octave. Sightless as I was, I could sense his blue eyes searching my face.

  After a while, we turned from my predicament to discussing the university in general. It felt less awkward to focus the conversation on the subject of school itself than on my recent catastrophe and its effect on my educational career. Then, abruptly, Arthur asked me when I was going to return. When! It soon became clear that he was concerned merely about the great amount of coursework I had missed and would have to catch up on for the second half of junior year. As if it were that simple! I replied that, flights of fancy aside, I really did not know whether I was going to return at all. At that, he was silent for a while. Then he said that of course I was going to return, that it was his job to convince me to return: “There is no other way.”

  I said the opposite was true—there was no way I could go back. I had already missed out on so much that I would certainly not be able to graduate with our class. At bottom, however, there was always the basic underlying issue: the coursework required to graduate as a member of any class would be unmanageable.

  That conclusion, which I stated with impressive firmness, was not in fact rock-solid for me. I needed Arthur to tell me whether or not I was dreaming the impossible. The unspoken question was: Would he be willing to room with a blind man? Neither of us knew how much that was asking.

  We continued strolling along quietly for a while. It had been a few months since the surgery, and my eyes no longer hurt. I could feel the warmth of the sun when we passed between breaks in the trees. Arthur told me he would help me if I returned.

  I suddenly became aware of the sound of my sneakers against the pavement, and things moving all around me—birds and squirrels perking up and bees awakening from their winter. I could even sense crocuses poking up through the earth. It was good to have Arthur there, a living reminder of a life I used to have.

  “Well, I think you have to come back,” Arthur said. “It just seems like the only reasonable thing to do.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re crazy. I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to discuss it at some point. I’m going to make you discuss it.”

  “Well, I don’t want to.”

  “Sanford. Stop.” He repeated that he would help me if I returned.

  I believed in his sincerity, but while I comprehended how much effort it would be for me to resume college, I was not sure he did. Just getting around my own house in Buffalo was a tremendous effort. The idea of going back to college, in frenetic Manhattan, seemed foolhardy. There were a few serious specific hurdles: the tight schedule of classes, the campus to navigate, and the competitive fellow students, probably scornful of a blind student. Not to mention the heavy reading load. Still, I had already been considering the idea of using audiotapes. I could tape-record the classes and lectures to review later and get people to read the associated assignments to me.

  “Just how are you going to help me, Arthur?”

  “Well, I could get all your class notes, all your assignments. I could quiz you for your exams. I could walk you to your classes and then pick you up.”

  “How are you going to do that and still handle your own classes and reading?”

  “We can figure something out. I think you’re dodging the main question, though.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Which is whether or not you’ll return.”

  Arthur then laid out his underlying premise: everything else would fall into line once I made that decision. His tone of voice suddenly changed. He began to sing: “Oh Sanford, Sanford, Sanford…I made you out of clay, and now you’re dry and ready. So, Sanford, we must play.” With that, his intensity vanished; we both laughed and put our arms on each other’s shoulders.

  With his simple nonsense, he had succeeded in dispelling my uneasiness, which enabled us to continue our discussion in the same dispassionate manner in which we had discussed so many other things in the past. It felt as though we were back at Columbia, relishing our good fortune as we sauntered down College Walk. Arthur seemed comfortable, speaking as though nothing had transpired since he had seen me last. The attitude, the patter, the humor were familiar. He had made a sudden decision to help me. Was it preceded by an epiphany about the meaning of life? I don’t know.

  For a moment, my tension eased. I told him about that first poem I had ever written, on the ho
rror of cancer and blindness, and the fear that either might afflict me. In 1945, cancer meant certain death, and since I had for some reason linked it with blindness back then, I told him that I now felt a nearness to death—at the “bottom of life’s barrel,” as I phrased it.

  “Sanford, let’s recite together,” he said abruptly: “‘Oh, to be in England / Now that April’s there, / And whoever wakes in England / Sees, some morning, unaware…’ Buffalo is not exactly England, but it is nice here. I love this place. As I’ve said many times before, it has soul.”

  This time, Arthur’s characteristic attempt to change the subject to uncoil my melancholy failed. I stopped walking. I dropped my hands, clenched my fists, turned my ruined eyes upward, and shouted, “Arthur, look at me. I’m finished. Look at my eyes. I can’t see. What has God done to me?” Yes, it was blatant self-pity, but I now like to think of it as a way of firing myself up, of creating the momentum of emotion in order to move on. It was the standard tactic of backing up to get a running start.

  In any case, Arthur was having none of it. He gently put his hand on my shoulder. “You know, Sanford, when we studied the words the Greeks spoke, they were just that to us, mere words. Those words—about tragedy, glory, heroism, greatness—they were all just concepts. I couldn’t really comprehend what they were talking about. But now, as I see you standing here, blind—I still can’t believe it—but now I understand the words of the Greeks. They weren’t just words. Seeing you as you are now shows me the real meaning of tragedy.”

  I said nothing. Here I was, battling for my life, and Arthur was talking philosophy. He quickly broke into my silence. “We read about a man dropping from the heights, and his fall to the bottom so precipitous that they called it a tragedy. But what about heroism rising? What if you’re not on top when you fall? What if you’re just an ordinary guy who gets devastated? Do you remember Professor Goethals?”

  “Yep,” I responded. We had both taken his humanities course. Now, Arthur proceeded to mimic his resonant bass voice. “‘Was Achilles a heroic or tragic figure?’ It was Achilles, remember? ‘A spear came out of nowhere.’ Not only did Achilles survive, he triumphed.” Arthur went on in his mock-Goethals bass register: “‘Gentleman, Achilles was a great man, a hero.’ Sanford, those words mean something to me today.”

  “But, Arthur, do you remember what Achilles said?” Then I put in rapidly, so as not to give Arthur time to respond, “The question was, ‘Achilles, were you to relive your life, would you, knowing what you know now, select the short and glorious life you lived, or would you choose to live a long and dull one?’”

  “I don’t remember that. What was his response?”

  “‘Just give me one more day in the sunshine.’” I repeated it with emphasis, “Just give me one more day in the sunshine, Arthur. That’s all I ask.”

  “But, Sanford, you have already lived a fine life, and I think yours will be a long life. No, you won’t see the sun, but the fire in you will lead you to achievements that others can only dream about.” That flowery rhetoric was pure Arthur, right out of late nights at the V&T Pizzeria.

  “I don’t know where I’ll come out,” I replied, “but wherever it is, it will sure as hell be better than sitting like a lump in my living room.”

  “Sanford, listen to me carefully,” he said. “You will be a great man, a hero—greatness will be yours.” That is the grandiose manner in which we spoke to each other in those days, yet meaning every word. “Anyway, what would you do here?”

  “I don’t know. Work with my father, I guess.”

  “You’re going to work in a scrap yard?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Why? Is something wrong with that?”

  “No, not necessarily. It just seems a little off from what you wanted to do.”

  “Well, Arthur, I can’t do that any longer. You don’t get it, do you.”

  “Yes, I do get it. You’re the one who doesn’t get it.”

  “What don’t I get?”

  “Nothing,” he said dismissively.

  “No, tell me.”

  “Well, then, here it is. I need you to come back. Me. Okay? It’s not that you need to come back for yourself, though you do—but I need you there. You’re my best friend. What am I going to do for the rest of the time if you’re not there?” His voice was tight. I didn’t say anything. He added, “I mean, we’re best friends, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Then you have to come back. You agreed, remember? We made a promise to each other. It was when we said we’d live together.”

  “Well, I don’t know if this new thing counts.”

  “Yes, it does,” he said. “Of course, it does.”

  “This is different,” I said.

  “No, it’s not. This is it. This is exactly what I’m talking about. It’s the perfect time. I need you to come back. And if you come back, then you’ll need me. This is what we promised each other. This was the whole point.”

  Arthur was right. It was a stipulation: one would be there for the other in times of crisis. This was a chip, I would discover throughout my later life, that I would need to cash in on occasion. I would cash in one of Arthur’s chips when I went back to school. I would cash in a chip when my father, Carl, died and Arthur came rushing to Buffalo to be there with me—to sit outside on the porch with me in silence for hours, days; no words, just understanding. I would cash in his chips over the decades whenever I needed to hear his voice: frank, light, resonating with truthfulness. I would take him up on his promise at the birth of my children, for he would be godfather to each—a promise that extended even beyond that.

  My children would themselves call him at times about matters they could not discuss with me, or if they felt he would be a better ear, less judgmental. I called in Arthur’s promise when I asked him to sing at my wedding and then, years later, without my calling him, he came to sing at the weddings of my siblings, my sons, and my daughter. There were thousands of other times when he would be there for me. Because of this commitment made to me as a young man on our way to a bookstore near Columbia, he would forgo substantial income time and again to honor it. That was in his character.

  But that commitment was not one-sided. Arthur cashed in one chip right there on Saranac Avenue for my return to Columbia with him. He would have other chips of mine to cash in later. He cashed in one with me when he needed money for his early career in music. He used to send me every record he made, asking for my opinion. He needed my opinion, too, about every breakup with a girlfriend and later about many of his family concerns.

  I had always thought that Arthur would be recognized as one of the greatest architects in the world. At Columbia, I had listened to his concepts about how we ought to live as human beings, both spiritually and physically. He knew precisely what environments he would create to achieve this. I had seen him examine the Seagram Building inch by inch, seen him enthralled with Ayn Rand’s monomaniac architect hero Howard Roark, seen him spend endless hours making sketches and drawing plans.

  Arthur and I often quoted these lines from Our Town:

  Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?

  Stage Manager: “No.”

  Pause. “The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.”

  It occurred to me then, and has been confirmed ever since, that Arthur is a genuine poet—someone who realizes life “every, every minute.” I believed that, unlike in anyone I had ever met up to that time, his sensibilities had led him to an immediate appreciation of life.

  I could hear birds scrambling in the trees as we walked, cars going by. For some reason, there were no other pedestrians out. It was as if this conversation were taking place in the middle of the night, or in the very early morning. I felt myself slipping into an oddly calm frame of mind—the warm feeling when you are about to open a gift from someone you love.

  “Sanford, do you remember Sophocles? Do you remember Philoctetes? Here was a guy stranded on an islan
d for years, with an infected leg, a horrific festering sore. The gods had given him a special armamentarium, arrows that could pierce any object, but he didn’t use them, except for survival. He suffered until Odysseus, through an intermediary, asked him to use his enormous talent and skills to help conquer Troy by vanquishing Paris. The request compelled Philoctetes to confront himself. The question tore at his being. His decision, however, was affirmative. So come back with me and conquer Columbia.”

  These last simple words, following unexpectedly from that little academic recitation, struck home with such force that I could not speak. I knew he was right. I knew that, at this moment in my confusion, it was this that I needed to hear more than anything else. I could have gone to Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the revered Orthodox spiritual leader, or I could have gone to the pope, or even, dare I say it, to the Almighty himself, but none of their words would have mattered to me so much then as these words spoken along Saranac Avenue in Buffalo. This was Arthur speaking to my heart.

  So it was that, during that visit to Buffalo, Arthur tore the cover off the subterranean thoughts about returning to Columbia that were struggling to reach the light in my mind. The idea of my returning was, in Buffalo terms, terribly foolish. Arthur, artist and poet, could afford the luxury of crazy ideas. As for me, I did not know what I was any longer. Blind, I had the luxury of…nothing. I could hunker down in Buffalo and be safe. But safe from what? And for what? Arthur seemed to think that the sky was my limit.

  We did not speak for many minutes as we continued side by side along the avenue, me stumbling occasionally on cracks in the sidewalk (a hallmark of Buffalo winters and springs). Then, we came to a large open area without tree cover. I recall the sun warming my body.