Dante's Wood

by Lynne Raimondo

  “That’s a bit rich for me, but I’ll take bourbon if you’ve got any.”

  Alice lived in a two-flat on Altgeld in the upper unit. “I bought it for the sunlight,” she said as she unlocked the door and let us in. “We’re in the living room, couch on your left. I’m going to freshen up a minute. Feel free to look around.”

  That was a nice touch, if you’ll excuse the poor pun. Coming upon an unfamiliar room always presented a social dilemma, a Hobson’s choice between asking for a sketch of the floor plan or creating suspense for my onlookers by feeling experimentally ahead. Often I took the coward’s approach and waited by the door until someone caught on and came to my rescue. It was childish, but I hated feeling like I was on the wrong side of a two-way mirror with the rest of the world looking in. There was no danger of that with Alice, so I accepted her invitation to explore.

  I made a few passes around the perimeter before tackling the center. The apartment was an older one with hardwood floors and a fireplace flanking the left wall. Facing it were a couch and glass-topped coffee table with a vase of tulips in its center that I paused over. On a set of bookshelves to the side of the mantle I located Alice’s sound system and CD collection, neatly organized in cubbyholes according to type—opera, jazz, etc.—with Braille labels above each section and on the individual covers. Her taste was much classier than mine, which tended toward the sort of music that can be heard on 97.1 The Drive. I picked out a jazz album I was familiar with and put it in the player while I continued my inspection of the shelves. They contained many books, both Braille and standard, and more than a few plaques with what I guessed was Alice’s name on them.

  Beyond the living area I found a door leading to a small galley kitchen. The appliances were newer, and like mine, equipped with blind-friendly controls. Everything was as neat and orderly as a cross-stitch. Evidently Alice didn’t share my predilection for household sloth. I washed my hands and dried them on a towel and took a sip of water from the tap. Back in the living room I noticed a stand near the window with some ceramic pieces on it. They were the shape and size of nautilus shells, with long, looping whorls etched into the surface like the patterns waves leave on a beach. I traced them with my fingers until Alice returned, some long minutes later.

  “Do you make these?” I asked her as she was pouring our drinks nearby.

  “The ceramics? Yes, a hobby of mine.” Alice touched a tumbler to my hand and we went to sit on the couch.

  “I forgot to ask you whether you wanted ice,” Alice said, “but I pegged you for a straight man.”

  “Is that a veiled slight to my conversational skills?”

  “I was thinking more of sexual orientation. You are, aren’t you?”

  “Straight?” I wasn’t bothered by the question, though I was curious about what prompted it.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just so rare to find an unmarried man your age who is.”

  “How do you know I’m unmarried?” I tested.

  “I don’t know. I suppose I would have expected you to mention it by now if you were.”

  I surprised myself by telling her I was divorced, though I didn’t supply any of the details. “And you? I mean, after your fiancé was killed, you never found someone else?”

  Alice sighed. “I had a few relationships, but none I cared enough about to continue. And I’ve been so busy the last ten years getting the center established. It’s been my whole life. It’s difficult to sustain relationships when you’re working so hard for what you believe in.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “An idealist.”

  “You’re not, I take it.”

  “Everyone has an angle, even when they claim to be motivated by altruism.”

  “What’s yours then?”

  “Filthy lucre,” I said.

  We talked of many things while the bourbon and the strains of Miles Davis’s trumpet lit a glow in my limbs. I was feeling guilty about enjoying myself so much while Charlie was still locked up in a cell, but I had been without any break for so very long. And more than that, I was experiencing an odd sensation, something I had once taken for granted but seemed to have forgotten lately. It confused me at first, until I sorted it out. For the first time in over a year, more than that if you counted the months I spent locked up in my apartment, I was completely at ease in the company of another human being.

  Up until then, I’d gone out of my way to avoid other blind people, thinking we could have little in common. I told myself blindness was just a random physical trait, like being left-handed or having red hair, not a basis for companionship. And to me, “blind” still summoned childhood memories of Mr. Cosenza, the unmarried neighbor who sat on his porch all day chain-smoking and threatening to call the cops on our games. He frightened me, and after I wound up in the same boat, gave me another reason to pry myself out of the house. But as I sat there warming to Alice’s conversation, I realized what a hypocrite I’d been, buying into all the stereotypes I fought so hard not to have applied to me. Sure, Alice lived alone, but it wasn’t because she was cranky or a misfit. She went everywhere and did everything and was as cultured and interesting a person as I’d ever met.

  But that was only half of it. During my relatively short stint as a blind man I’d lost track of all the strategies I used to appear as normal as possible. Turning my head at loud noises, “looking” at people when they spoke to me, relaxing my eyes when I sensed them wandering. These and other behaviors had become almost as repetitive as breathing, yet never entirely effortless. I knew my facial expressions still reflected what I was thinking, that I hadn’t forgotten how to smile or frown, but all the same I periodically checked them to be sure. The Regina Bests of the world would have chastised me for trying so hard, but I could no more allow myself to develop a zombie stare than I would have stopped combing my hair or brushing my teeth. What I hadn’t considered up until then was how exhausting it all was. With Alice I could let go—be as blind as a post if I liked—and not have her think any worse of me. It was like finding family.

  “Where were you?” Alice asked. “I think I lost you for a moment.”

  “Just how nice it is to be here—with you. Sort of like being at a drive-in movie. Alone in the dark where no one can see us.”

  “Oh dear,” she said in mock alarm. “You’re not going to grope me, are you?”

  “Only if you promise to grope me back.”

  “I was hoping you would say that.”

  I moved in closer and let my lips find hers. We stayed that way for a long while, kissing and exploring each other shyly. Alice’s cheekbones were high and she had a lovely curve to her jaw. She wore no jewelry except for a pair of small pearl earrings. I traced my fingers over them and down her smooth neck to her breastbone. Alice began to breathe more rapidly and gave me permission to continue by placing a hand in my lap. My penis leaped at her touch. Whoa, buddy, I recall thinking. I hadn’t anticipated us ending up like this, wasn’t sure we should be moving so quickly, but my misgivings were quickly scuttled by her apparent willingness and my own overpowering need. My hands shook as I loosed the buttons of her blouse. Alice undid her bra and guided me to her breasts. I felt her nipples come erect, as soft as doeskin in the quick of my palms. When I put my head down to take one in my mouth she shuddered and said, “Perhaps we should continue this in my bedroom.”

  Of course I came too quickly, it had been that long.

  But Alice didn’t seem to mind, saying only that I’d flattered her. After I’d recovered from the shock, Alice refreshed our drinks and we made love a second time, very slowly, to the strains of the jazz still drifting in from the other room. When we were done, I lay with my head on Alice’s chest, listening to the stronger music of another beating heart while she rubbed little circles into my scalp.

  “A man with a full head of hair,” she observed. “I like that. Are you gray?”

  “A little, when I last looked. Probably more now. I suppose it’s one of the few advantages. I don’t have to be con
fronted each day with how rapidly I’m aging. And you?” I provoked.

  “You should know better than to ask a woman that.”

  “You could lie to me, you know. I wouldn’t know the difference.”

  “No. But I wouldn’t like myself for it. What was it you said earlier about genes?”

  “That they’re the only things in this world that don’t lie.”

  “That speaks volumes about your sense of trust. Are you really that jaded?”

  “Only when I’m not being cynical. But you’re welcome to keep working on me.”

  “I might just do that,” Alice said, laughing and pulling me atop her once more.

  Sixteen

  Dean Parsons had a clean, male odor and a frank, open air. “Alice told me what you were trying to do, and I want to help,” he said to me. “This job’s the only thing standing between me and the soup kitchen right now. I’ve been putting out feelers here and there, what with the center in so much trouble, but I haven’t come up with anything. There aren’t a lot of openings for physical therapists with only a bachelor’s degree. I should have gone on for my master’s, but I was already up to my neck in debt. I’ve been paying off my student loans for ten years and I’m still way in the hole. Costs me $900 a month with no end in sight. I would’ve been better off becoming a plumber, like my old man. But I like helping people. Mind if I do a few stretches while we talk?”

  I said I didn’t. We were in the center’s physical recreation room, a sunlit space at the rear of the facility. I heard him lower himself to a floor mat and begin grunting, while my thoughts drifted back to earlier that morning.

  It had been close to dawn when Alice and I finally dozed off, cradled in each other’s arms. I awoke alone a little after 8:30 to the sound and smell of bacon frying. “I need protein after all that exercise,” Alice said when I had dressed and followed my nose to her kitchen. “Coffee?”

  “Tea, if you have it, with milk and sugar. God, I’m sore,” I said, drawing my shoulder blades together and rolling them back to ease the crick.

  Alice set a tea kettle on the burner. “Hopefully not on my account.”

  I realized my mistake and apologized. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m a little out of practice sharing a bed.”

  “I thought so. Why? Surely you haven’t been holding back because you think less of yourself as a lover?”

  In reality, the worry had been there, and I’d almost welcomed my history as an excuse for not testing the situation. But I couldn’t tell her that. Despite the closeness that was developing between us, I wasn’t ready to disclose my fears about my weakened sex appeal, much less reveal my shady past. I didn’t think someone as upright as Alice would react positively to learning I was a serial adulterer with a son’s death on his conscience. I wasn’t even sure how I was going to make good on my promise to tell Sep and not have it permanently ruin his opinion of me. “It’s not that,” I prevaricated. “It’s just that I’ve been preoccupied with . . . so many other issues. And now there’s this problem with Charlie.”

  “Yes. I shouldn’t have distracted you from that. Or myself from the center, for that matter. I’m dreading what new woes today will bring.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Yes. I’ve been putting off meeting with our lenders, but with families bolting left and right . . .” The tremor in her voice was wrenching and I wondered how it felt to be facing the destruction of her lifelong work. “Do you think we’ve been fooling ourselves, thinking there’s a way out of this?”

  “I’m not ready to give up yet,” I said.

  But I didn’t feel at all confident about our chances.

  We talked about our plans for the day over breakfast, and I told her I wanted to stop by the center before going home, to talk to Parsons and Shannon’s other friend, Leslie Sherman. After Alice had showered and dressed, we walked to the center holding hands but saying little, each preoccupied with our own thoughts. When we parted a block from the front door she asked “Will I see you again?” I answered, “Unless you’re blind.” She laughed and pecked my cheek. “You’re a good man. Call me if you learn anything new.” The sound of her receding steps filled my ears until they were swallowed by the blare of a truck horn half a block away. I let a respectable interval pass and then went over and entered the center myself.

  “It’s hard work,” Parsons was now explaining between puffs of breath, “lifting clients in and out of wheelchairs all day long, helping them with their range-of-motion exercises. It really messes up my back if I don’t watch my core. The ambulatory ones, like Charlie, are easier. We used to play ball, things like that. Before he got arrested, I was teaching Charlie how to bench press. He’s a great kid, you know.”

  I agreed.

  “I could probably land work as a home aide, but the pay’s even worse and, I mean, who wants to be wiping up somebody else’s piss and shit all day long? At least here, I didn’t have to do diaper duty and I felt like I was putting some of my schooling to use. I’ll probably end up in a health club. Got a friend who’s a personal trainer at Windy City Athletics, said he’d put in a good word for me. Funny world, isn’t it, when there’s more money to be had helping rich folk trim their guts than working with people who are happy just to be able sit up? You should count yourself lucky.” He stopped abruptly. “Sorry, that was a bit presumptuous of me. But working for Alice . . . I guess I don’t think of being blind as such a big a deal anymore. If it wasn’t for the cane you wouldn’t even know.”

  I asked him if he could shed any further light on who Shannon’s boyfriend had been.

  “Rich dude is all I can tell you. Had to be, with the places he was taking her to. That place in Phoenix, what’s it called? The Biltmore. Shannon brought back pictures. You’ve never seen anything like it. Looks like an Arabian palace. Probably costs more to stay one night there than I pay a month in rent. And that necklace he gave her. It was worth so much Shannon had to have it insured. Or so she said.”

  “You didn’t believe her?”

  Parsons had moved on to a nearby weight machine and was energetically clanking a barbell up and down. “Shannon bragged a lot. Couldn’t help herself, I think . . .” Clank . . . “It’s part of why she wasn’t liked around here, that and the fact that she was, you know, so into herself. I didn’t mind. Most folks are just as self-centered. They only do a better job of pretending that they give a damn about other people . . .” Clank . . . “I can tell when it’s genuine. Alice, for example. That woman’s a saint. Sorry I keep going on about her. You’ll think I have a crush on her. But she really cares. That’s why this thing with the center is killing her . . .” Clank . . .

  I steered him back to Shannon again, but he didn’t have much else to tell me. Neither did Leslie Sherman, the center’s occupational therapist, though she confirmed what Parsons had said about the necklace being insured.

  “Came with some kind of legal appraisal. Shannon showed it to me. I thought it was tacky, her boyfriend letting her see how much it was worth. Guy must have been some kind of jerk. I told her she would have been better off with Dean. Poor boy had a real crush on her.”

  “Dean?”

  “Yeah. If you asked him, he’d deny it, but it was clear as day, the way he always hung around her classroom after hours, offering to help her clean up and stuff. Followed her around like a puppy. Shannon called him ‘hound dog’ behind his back.”

  “Did it ever lead to anything, you think?”

  “No way. Shannon finally had it out with him, told him she’d complain to Alice about sexual harassment if he didn’t back off. That was enough for him. Dean worships Alice. It’s a mother thing, I think. Dean’s took off when he was just a kid. Alice appeals to guys like that, the ones who missed out on all the milk and cookies when they came home from school. Not that Alice isn’t attractive too, but . . .”

  I didn’t like discussing someone I’d slept with the night before, never mind what the conversation suggested abou
t my own vulnerabilities. I guided us on to a different topic.

  “What about Charlie Dickerson? Did he hang around Shannon too?”

  “No more than any of the other kids. That’s why I couldn’t believe that story about the baby. I mean, it’s not like our clients just roam around the halls all day. You should have seen my schedule before all the bad publicity. Back-to-back sessions all day long. And Shannon ran a group class. She couldn’t just sneak off in a corner with Charlie while everyone else was coloring. It would have been easier for someone like me, who worked with them one-on-one.”

  “Maybe they met in the proverbial broom closet. And I was told Shannon was allowed to lunch in her classroom alone.”

  “Right. But the classroom doors are always open during the day. It’s a state requirement. And forget about the closets. They’re always locked during school hours to prevent accidents. Some of the kids here will eat anything.”

  “She could have borrowed a key.”

  “And what, pushed Charlie up against the wall? Do you realize how big he is? I don’t want to sound crass, but it would have taken some kind of Kama Sutra pose for them to get it on that way.”

  “So where could she have taken him then?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that it couldn’t have happened the way everyone thinks. Not around here, anyway.”

  On my way out of the center, I was almost through the door when I heard the sound of a motorized wheelchair bearing down on me like a Panzer division.

  “Doctor,” Regina Best called out imperiously. “I need to talk to you. Will you stop for a moment?”

  I turned.

  “Still gathering clues, I presume,” she said, scooting the chair to within a foot of me.

  I dug my glasses and hat out of my pocket and put them on. I was feeling naked in front of this odd, belligerent woman and wanted something to hide behind. “Is there something else you wanted to tell me? I’m in a bit of a hurry.”