In the Country of the Blind

by Edward Hoagland

  Press, relying on his blindness to permit these personal questions, though without mentioning that he’d heard “The Hippies’ Horse” pinned as a nickname on Al, asked if he didn’t encounter lots of them begging for rides hereabouts or aiming for other commune strongholds like Arkansas and Oregon.

  “Yeah, I sure do pick ’em up. Only they’ve got to tilt themselves back so two heads don’t show in the windshield, in case some bastard wants to report me to the insurance company. No hitchhikers. The license plate is all they’d need.”

  “And Carol?”

  “Carol’s a nice girl. Sure, I’ll bring ’em door to door if they’re as nice as her. But I’ve got no car seat for the children, and that would set the insurance agent’s pants on fire.”

  Press asked about miscellaneous corruption in town, such as the tale of the sheriff and the airstrip supposedly used for airdrops.

  “You could say a lot of things are scams. Like rich kids going to school when poor kids can’t, or somebody selling stocks to people who don’t know any better. Rog plays poker after the commission sales so that the farmers who sold their cattle will get home with less than they should. Dog eat dog.”

  “Though dogs do more than that,” Press remarked. He missed his setter Flare, whom he’d left in Cos Cob for the sake of the children, Molly in particular, but would be touching soon, like her and Jeremy—anxious as to how it would turn out. Would he find a place to live nearby, or have to hire some garage guy to drive him back to Ten Mile Road? Did he even know which outcome he really wanted? And would he ever return regularly to the Big Apple to stroll the streets, or just huddle in Cos Cob hearing the lawn mowers? Al, when he asked, said that he had often crossed the George Washington Bridge, glancing toward the glittering city down the Hudson, but never ventured into it himself.

  “No Christmas trees?” asked Press, mentioning Dorothy’s annual trips to the metropolis with her brothers as a teen.

  “No, we didn’t sell that stuff, or the pies or the syrup. We didn’t fuck with the tourists, cleaning their houses, washing their laundry, when they came to the country, either.” But he seemed nettled at the reference to the Swinnertons, beyond disdain for the catering to rich summer people, with their duck dogs and wish for fresh cream for their morning oatmeal and maple syrup on their pancakes, served by colorful, obliging locals. Press, investigating further, found that Karl was the actual sore point, with his bossy fire-chief decisions and pronouncements and, as American Legion Post Commander, his doctrinaire concept of duty and patriotism. Al had served in the Korean War but wouldn’t think of joining a veterans’ organization, except for using the VA hospital for operations or checkups.

  He’d seen an American soldier shoot a Korean man off his bicycle simply for fun when some civilians were passing their unit, and gotten beat up for suggesting he ought to be court-martialed. Press observed that Legion halls were mainly used for binge drinking, though Athol’s was too small for a bar.

  “No, not just that. I mean so many of them are ashamed of what they did in the war—killing children, maybe, and all that—spraying ’em with the sweep of the gun. They march with the flag in the parade really to try to forgive themselves and cover it up.”

  Press remembered hearing that drivers like Al, crossing the country, were called “Knights of the Road.” But Al relaxed into complaints about rent and women, and the cattle in the back sank to their knees together as the indignities of panic subsided. Soon Vermont itself receded. He fell asleep again.

  Delivered to the train station in Massachusetts, he waited an indeterminate time until the ticket master handed him to a kindly conductor who seated him in a reclining lounge-car chair, after letting him visit the restroom. He missed Carol’s ministrations in that regard and mildly regretted not having questioned Al about the mysteries of the swamp below his house and the sounds therefrom. Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport he registered in his mind’s eye. Then came Stamford, and the conductor helped him to descend to the platform, with his cane and suitcase. The train pulled out. Silence reigned.

  “Press! There you are!” Footsteps and the golfer’s physique and hearty voice of Roddy Wyman approached. “You look well! Those hippies up there must be taking pretty good care of you,” he said congratulatorily, not of course realizing that the notion had some truth to it. “Good to see you!” Grasping Press’s bag and free arm, he told him he’d “been looking into some assisted-living facilities for you, if you like them. We’d like to have you back at the club for drinks and lunch.”

  Roddy was referring to the country club, where you could lunch on the patio and listen to the thock-thock of tennis matches, whether sightless or not. He was vice president at the moment, having retired early from Wall Street after inheriting his father’s seat on the Stock Exchange and finding out that leasing it to another trader was more profitable than placing his own bets or executing investments for others.

  Press assured him that he’d had a fine trip and was glad to have reserved a room at the Holmewood Inn, near his former home; a groundskeeper or whoever could walk him over or Jeremy and Molly walk to him.

  Roddy knew Claire and the kids—his own went to school with them—but apart from telling Press everybody was cooking with gas there, kept his news tactfully on his own family or club politics or friendly town gossip about their mutual friends. “They’ll come to see you,” he said. “I’ll take you to the club tomorrow.”

  At the inn, Roddy saw him to his comfortably light-filled room and let the management know that he, Roddy, would have to be reckoned with if anything but the best of care was tendered to Press. He also saved him the embarrassment of calling Claire to announce his arrival, as well as the difficulty of dialing a few other people and cashing a check at the desk. They ordered Bloody Marys as an eye-opener. This being a school day, the children would join him for supper. Maybe tomorrow Roddy could swing by for a tour of assisted-living setups. “There aren’t many,” he explained, and he was relieved to be “out of the grind” himself, meaning the daily commute of sixty-five minutes to New York, even with the amenities and camaraderie of the club car on the train. “Not being generous,” he promised Press, for the offer of trouble and time. But they agreed that a visit to school right now might be embarrassing for his children, before they had first seen him privately at the inn tonight. “Tomorrow, better,” Roddy suggested managerially, and no, Press wasn’t up for immediate reunions at the country club. “Tomorrow the club, tomorrow the school so you can talk to the teachers,” Roddy concluded.

  Alone on the pleasant slate terrace, Press enjoyed the complexities of a Caesar salad and another Bloody Mary—which he somewhat regretted when Claire showed up, impromptu, in case she might think he had taken to the bottle.

  “I’m so glad Roddy was home to meet you. He’s so obliging now that he’s not trying to be his father, moving the market. Just winning the Cup every summer,” she joked, referring to the club’s golfing prize they’d not taken seriously themselves. “You’re looking well. Color’s good. They’re feeding you up there?”

  Press’s emotions collided, both wistful and resentful. He hardly spoke but squeezed the hand that touched his. Claire said that the allergist reported that Molly seemed to have grown out of her asthma, and she was doing fine on papers in history and English, and Jeremy in math, and he’d fitted right in at “midget football.” They both had friends. Enough kids nowadays had divorced parents that it wasn’t a stigma.

  “Yes, I believe it, and they’re smart when I call. You’re managing well.”

  “I hope so. It’s a twenty-four-hour-a-day job.”

  Though registering her gripe—ironic, since she’d kicked him out—he offered her lunch, but she flapped her hand against his to say no, and responded by asking if he was thinking of relocating. Friends like Andrew or Roddy must have raised the possibility.

  “Not specifically, I wanted to touch base—touch them. I feel irresponsible. It’s been too long.”

  “O
h, I’m glad. They need it too. Their father. You could stay in the house if necessary. It’s nice to have you close. Do you need anything we’ve stored?”

  “What’s stored was mostly for them. Pictures of ancestors I can’t see, or toys they played with. I’ll look at the clothes.”

  It was a congenial conversation; no lacerations. Yet she returned to that question of relocation. Truthfully, he couldn’t answer. She asked whether he was considering selling his Ten Mile Road place.

  “No, that’s some kind of toehold or taproot for me, or whatever. One of the kids may meld to that bit of resource too someday as what they love and what they need.”

  They talked about how Jeremy loved summer camp. Rock climbing, swimming, snake-catching, sleeping out. “But it might be Molly instead who wants to recuperate from the city and teach her children about birds.”

  “Yes.” Claire, having favored the purchase to begin with, understood what he meant. But Press also fathomed a sort of tension rising in her between a tender impulse, reaching to touch him, and reluctance or a stubborn aversion to admitting any guilt. No doubt at the club friends of his asked how he was doing, exiled to the north woods and losing his sight. This visit had not been instigated by but sprung on her, and she moved on in her choice of topics to whether she should start to hunt for a higher paying job.

  “Our financial arrangements would need to be changed a good deal if you went into a facility. Quite expensive. Much more. Would you need to?”

  “You mean you’d have to support yourself?” he commented sarcastically, before he bit his tongue. “No, I know, tuition,” he interrupted her retort. They both said “private schools” at once. “I want that. What you don’t know is that Roddy, Andrew, and some others are the ones imagining I need assisted care. I have a sort of support network so far where I am. I came down here to see my beloved kids, and go see my eye doctor, not to sue you over the settlement or spend your money!”

  Claire grasped his hand to stop the argument. “Yes,” she said, “and I’ll send them over tonight.”

  “You mean they don’t want to come?”

  “No, no. Of course they do. Of course. They love you. They’re excited.”

  They took breaths to calm down, and he was tired from the sleep he’d missed in the truck, on the train.

  “And tomorrow you can send them off to school, and then in the afternoon.”

  He asked about her family, favorite in-laws, and several friends, but her hesitancy in answering such innocuous questions or telling him what time to set for supper’s reservation—only perceptive to somebody who knew Claire as he did—was puzzling, till she interjected, “I want to make it easy for us, for them, you. So they don’t feel they have to tell you. My friend Brad is living with us. He’s moved in. Finally, this month.”

  Press pictured her small face. Too small—although her parents had somehow never taught her to always chew with your mouth closed. He would hear the sound at meals when her mind, in conversation, was drifting, and he had seldom brought himself to mention it. Or maybe she had done it more and more as their marriage frayed? This Brad? He tried to remember a Brad at the country club.

  “From the club?”

  “No, no. We don’t go much, they’re so puritan. He’s in merchandising, and good with the children. They’ll tell you; you can ask.”

  Press didn’t want to hear how she had needed a man, or flesh out the portrait, so kept his trap shut, although he did wonder about Brad’s finances.

  Claire sighed. “I hate to hurt you. I could have written if I’d had more notice. Does somebody read your mail to you? There must be.”

  He didn’t give her the satisfaction of a reply.

  “Well, if you need assisted living, certainly you should have it. Brad has children of his own, but he could contribute to the mortgage.”

  “That was Roddy’s idea, not mine.”

  “Might be a good one though.” She answered his quarreling tone with a patronizing inflection; then cut herself short to grip his hands, speaking of travels in Ireland they’d shared and the jubilant births of Molly and Jeremy.

  “I don’t want us to flay each other. I hope you have company too. That’s not what you came down here for, but to see your children—which excites them, and they need to. I’ll get out of the way, if you want.”

  “Too painful,” he muttered. She was a good mother. Why should they fight? The situation was a new normal. But his hand knocked over his glass of iced tea, as happened privately with some frequency, but not in front of an estranged wife, with the separation papers already signed.

  Claire was touched, however, groaning in empathy. “And oh, you have spots on your pants, your shirt, because you can’t see what you’re eating!” She skipped round the table and kissed his scalp line, rubbing his shirt with her napkin. “If you require assistance we can change the terms amenably. One forgets realities at such a distance.”

  She was decisive, which was nice if you agreed with the decision, even though alarmed by the speed with which she had fixed on it. But Press hadn’t descended on Cos Cob seeking a nursing home. That had been Roddy’s off-the-cuff, probably over-drinks inspiration, a man who had homes for everything, skiing in Aspen, snorkeling in the Caribbean, culture-vamping in Tuscany. The very curves of the roads here in Manhattan’s exurbs had a comfy, manicured swing to them, he’d noticed on the drive from the Stamford train station, not like a dirt road in Vermont. You wouldn’t be mistreated in this moneyed realm, as did happen occasionally in the north-woods rest homes. He’d felt more apprehensive of experiencing pangs of longing to be accepted back inside the so-familiar house, with Claire now its mainstay—of begging permission to nullify their breakup, not for love of her but to be safe again.

  “Okay,” they both said simultaneously. He should nap before the kids came, to be at his best and fresh. “I’ll send a bag of clothes with them and you send something back for the dog to smell. I’ve never bad-mouthed you for a minute, you know.”

  He didn’t believe that, since it was only human to bad-mouth an ex-spouse, but wanted to hear more about Brad. In merchandise? And not country-clubbable? Tomorrow Roddy could fill him in. And he was up for Molly and Jeremy’s arrival, handling their heads and shoulders with welling love. To please them, he now changed into an outfit from Claire’s storage room that she had folded into a shopping bag, which they remembered as a favorite from the old days. Press remembered their classmates’ names and could convey wordlessly as well how much he’d been missing them. Molly told him his postcards were wedged into the corners of her mirror. Jeremy said he could throw a football farther than when Press had taught him, and once had slept out under a tree in the yard, remembering the Athol property they had begun to know during the summer before their mom and dad split up.

  “It will be yours,” he murmured, roughhousing ever so slightly with him. Being around Carol’s children on a regular basis helped him act naturally with his despite the interruptions. He was relieved to find the stiltedness of their misfiring phone conversations were gone. And the lobster feast the inn provided was conducive to celebrating fond affections.

  He asked if they preferred or not that he should visit school tomorrow and buttonhole their teachers. On the whole, no, presumably because of his handicap, although both agreed he could if it was important. Astronomy was Jeremy’s brand-new enthusiasm, and he had a mentor in the science teacher, whereas Molly’s circle of close friends seemed her strong point. Dancing classes loomed; would that be fun? Though piano was a bore. Ping-pong they could play at home and, unlike football, Jeremy said, didn’t depend on your weight. They were white-collar children, privileged beyond Carol’s—even studying French already—but somehow lent him unanticipated insights in how to talk to hers.

  Brad was never mentioned, and Press bridled his curiosity. The waitress considerately allowed them unlimited time and Claire had cancelled homework supervision; whenever they walked home was okay. To their amusement, he kept sniffing
their hair. It was his hair.

  “Mummy said it was clean.”

  “It is clean. And I’m going to come to meet your favorite teachers. Just your favorites, after school. You pick them; they’ll call me. No fuss; the other kids don’t need to know.” He thought he’d phone the headmaster on his own to register his interest and questions and presence. Stamps, coins, butterflies, and other collectibles of his youth were apparently no longer currency for kids. Jeremy had some arrowheads and signature rocks—marble, sandstone, granite, and one snitched by somebody’s uncle from Antarctica—and Molly, several posters of concerts her mother had taken her to. She was half-blues, half-classical in her budding interest in music, plus pinup hunks, Claire said. “Rock hunks,” to match Jeremy’s.

  Press angled for specialty presents he could send them. Did Jeremy have a playable trumpet for band?

  He let them go before dusk and slept long and late. Roddy had already done his morning run before talking tax shelters over Belgian waffles with Press. They went to the club then, empty except for early golfers at this hour. The tennis pro, golf-shop lady, and maître d’ remembered him and the gala terrace, being prepared for a wedding party later, fetched a hubbub of memories. Roddy had planned a solo round of nine holes if Press’s vision permitted him to accompany him, but the first sand trap was a hazard.

  Instead, they sat with a couple of other trust funders, or proto-retirees, and talked real estate, lawn care, offspring-in-therapy, and merger mania. A message from Claire at the desk suggested he drop by now while the children were at school, and Brad perhaps out, he assumed, if he wished to. So they did, Roddy extraordinarily patient; he was a churchgoer. A new minister had invigorated St. Andrews, he said, with emphasis upon his Scottish roots, with bagpipes and the like. He muttered what Claire would probably “get” for Press’s old home, before she let them in with exaggerated hugs. The layout had been changed a bit, with furniture maybe brought by his replacement. But he begged off on a tour; then received an armload of clothing he could give to the inn’s kitchen help if he didn’t want it anymore. The dog wagged, and the shade trees, anciently formed, stirred him, and one blue spruce he’d taught Jeremy to climb and sway with in a gentle wind. These expensive roads, with Indian names—Ponus, Oenoke, Wahackme—the once-upon-a-time local chief and his two sons—and his white colonial house and hundred-year-old maples caused a pang.