In the Country of the Blind

by Edward Hoagland

  Gracious, were we worthy of them? Press thought. “Buy and hold,” Roddy was advising Claire, as to her portfolio of stocks. “We’re in an upswing.”

  Press wanted to leave. “Can’t you hand me off?” he said to Roddy, meaning to unburden him. But Press’s impulsive hitchhike south in Al’s cattle truck (which no one here knew about) had been too abrupt for him to line up a relay team of former pals who might be free to step in at short notice. They returned to the club for lunch, for want of a better idea, and the cadre of teachers would meet him afterward. Over the quiche and beet salad he missed Carol. Roddy had tucked some of his surplus assets overseas, so was speculating about the stability there. You save on taxes but could lose your principal. Socialism, nationalization, economies tanking: you had to read the Journal and the Times, as if you were still commuting on that train to the city. Japan versus Detroit. Big Oil versus OPEC. Red China versus Singapore. New York itself was going to the dogs.

  They visited on a mini-tour three assisted-living “retreats” or “villages,” where seniors needn’t push the envelope of their limitations to enjoy what faculties they still had. Roommates might be necessary in his price range, but they of course could be switched if friction arose. Roddy seemed astonished at what a gulf more modest means than his own could make. “Reduced circumstances,” Press joked. An Ivy veneer alone wouldn’t cut it, but second-tier accommodations weren’t to be sneezed at, plus trips to Carnegie Hall or Yankee Stadium on a monthly docket. Each manager was glassily maternal, offering him “independent living” or “memory care,” as called for; perky, entry-level voices led them to sample dormitory rooms, cottages, or suites. He and Roddy were glad to mosey on to the children’s sumptuous school, where, as a trustee, Roddy had lined up more of a corps of consulting figures than Press had wanted, in order to accommodate Molly’s wish for no fuss. But their conclave was not observed by many students, and did serve to assure Press that both kids were thoroughly on track, not derailed by at-home strife. Jeremy’s knack for geology was intriguing to his science teacher and Molly wasn’t just reading music but interpreting it on her flute. They’d both get into good prep schools, Press was told.

  At the inn he fielded a few phone calls from old chums inviting him to dinner or for drinks at some point open on their calendar, which he couldn’t commit to immediately because his plans were a fudge of confused yearnings. To “watch” his kids grow up; to float back to the commune with Carol; to sink into a cocoon of institutionalization. But by all means, yes, he wanted to connect with them, knowing how gossip can blossom from a single thwarted contact—Press appears to have lost it. One guy did alter his routine by driving over for a nightcap, after Press’s children’s early supper at the inn. He learned from them and him that this Brad character had older children of his own, in a “broken home” in Chappaqua, and that he seemed at least clubbable over there, marketing in a new field of technology, not IBM but parallel to it. Maybe he’d become a better partner for Claire if he married her. The children remained closemouthed on that subject but hands-on fond toward Press.

  He asked them, will it be—would it be—important to you whether I live close to you in the future? They were silent, then mumbled noncommittally, as if to skirt hurting his feelings or displeasure by their answers. Ambiguity was the essence of life anyhow, he realized.

  “Gracious, I love you,” he said. “So much, and whatever you do, whatever you want.”

  They collected doggie bags to take back for the dog even before the meal ended, although it was politely leisurely; they’d gotten extensions on their homework. He described interesting people like the Swinnertons he knew in Vermont and his ride down to see them in the cattle truck, how big the swamp was, and French-speaking Quebec so near. They could visit when their French classes were over, and he would show them the Milky Way and herringbone clouds and goshawks and moose and other stuff Connecticut had lost. “We’ll camp out.” And then because he knew Jeremy would look up the hawk in a bird book, “Leave one ‘h’ out,” he added.

  The decision about whether to return here and stay—in fact, money was so short in Athol he could have hired Dorothy or anybody to pack up his stuff and ship it down, if he’d simply made up his mind to move into one of the “senior communities” right now—was resolving itself without having to weigh pros and cons. He took care, however, not to let slip any leanings to his children that they might blame on their time with him, except to observe, “People are kinder up there,” which they would understand meant adults. “Money, money. They don’t have it so they don’t care about it so much, except for surviving. And for me it’s all about surviving.”

  Quickly he lightened up. Told Molly if she wanted to sing on Broadway, she could. If Jeremy wanted to explore Outer Mongolia for its rocks and horsemen, he could. He told them he’d liked the teachers he’d met, and described his daily life up north—the neighbors, the Clarks and Swinnertons, who helped with his needs and could read any letters they wrote to him. “It’s hard, having a father who is handicapped, but it’s my problem, not yours, and I’m okay, believe me, please.”

  His nightcap later with a former golfing and club car chum, a vice president of a middling brokerage firm, was affable but odd, because it turned more on the other guy’s problems than Press’s. His secretary was calling him from New York here to his home, although he’d forbidden her to, and this was causing him increasing problems, convincing his wife it was for business, particularly because of the hours when she got lonely and called. He couldn’t fire her because she’d threatened a suit, and the sex was good. But how would it end? Supposing his wife just picked up the extension phone; then he’d have a lawyer at his heels inquiring about community property. They were vultures, those lawyers. Doctors were right to want to clip their wings.

  Press agreed. “Don’t shit where you eat, maybe it’s true,” he said, repeating an old piece of clubman’s advice. “Even if she puts out.” Your secretary was a no-no. One guy they knew a few years ago had cheated on his wife to the point where she hanged herself. And he was shunned at the club and on the train, until, to everyone’s surprise, he drove his car at a very high speed down Oenoke Avenue into an oak, fatally. This was near a place where Oenoke, Ponus, and other Indians had camped in days of yore—and Indian Rocks, on Turtleback Hill. Press had once taken Jeremy there to see and feel the holes where women had ground corn with a pestle, and you could find relic flints, arrowheads, or spear points lying around.

  “What a town this is,” he told the worried friend he used to trade insider tips with on the train, where nobody could hear you. Trying to think of customers he’d dealt with who had become permanent friends, he remembered a colleague who’d died of Lou Gehrig’s disease alone at an expensive institution in Florida for people dying of that. He could think of customers he might have called for specialized advice, like a certain oncologist or a woman who treated autism, but not exactly a non-business pal.

  “I think she’s saved some proof,” the guy declared, meaning his secretary.

  “Probably so,” Press agreed, in the Holmewood Inn’s genteel bar, scented with air freshener and rather different, perhaps, from wherever the secretary hung out. “I hear the hummingbirds,” he said wistfully, apropos of nothing but his house in Athol, leaving the broker at a loss for words.

  Bonkers, the word might go out, though this was a good guy, plus Roddy wouldn’t stand for gossip of that sort, and money did talk. He explained that he had no feeder for them—only flowers in the garden—and his friend launched into a paean to canoeing at summer camp, both his own thirty years ago and now his boy’s. The ogre of divorce mauled children so much, he added, referring to his worry about his secretary and his marriage, but fell silent, recalling Press’s situation. Press rescued the conversation by observing that one of the pleasures of his new existence in the country was sharing a meal one day with people who didn’t believe in Evolution and the next with people who did.

  He couldn’t continu
e to commandeer Molly and Jeremy away from their suppers and homework every night. Nor wrap himself in the shroud of a campus for eighty-year-olds shuffling gracefully toward the night. He couldn’t work, as such, but needed to flex himself somehow in ways like work, he thought. Lacking credentials and sight he could not teach, for example. Even reading a cold-call script would be out, although he’d heard of a resourceful blind man who went to the social security office and suggested, “Give me either a job or just my damned check,” and received the former, skillfully handling mediation assignments.

  Doubtfully, from his room, using Information, he called a handful of widows or divorcees whom he remembered from the club but hadn’t previously contacted from Vermont. Sympathetic though wary, each of them knew his story on the grapevine and didn’t want to “take sides” or “be judgmental” of Claire for bailing out and divesting herself of him when the going got rough. So they were glad his call did not request that, but were cautious nonetheless about the chat, however lengthy—to be kind—lest a blind man “leech” (as he silently phrased it) onto their already touch-and-go existences. Life was complicated enough. But was he all right alone up north, they hoped, or was the call for guidance about rest homes their parents were comfortable in? He fielded soothing repartee but no luncheon invitations. They had been his “B” team anyhow to begin with, yet included a couple of voices you might enjoy hearing day in and day out. These lingered on the horn with him, as well, Lisa complaining of polishing silver in her church’s sacristy for a minister less than inspiring.

  “But I volunteer for hospice,” she insisted. “I read them their mail and hold their hands at the end, or visit when they don’t have family. We’re not nurses, who do the tubes, but we’re the best friend you have, who makes your calls and reads your mail.”

  Press, startled, answered truthfully that he himself didn’t have anybody steady for that. The postmistress helped with some things, the bank teller with others, and Dorothy Swinnerton for the rest. On lined paper he could pen short replies, or sign on a dotted line where the teller he trusted pointed, but how to convey personal letters?

  “Well, if you were dying I could do that for you,” she teased with a tinge of distant affection. “But when they fall asleep I go home.”

  Those suburbs, with shrubbery where chirping sparrows nested serving as their component of nature, and nannies or au pairs from Jamaica tending to half the kids, segmented charity toward one morning a week or what was tax-advantaged. An accountant calculated the appropriate sum, which the person relegated to the opera or the Third World or whatever. A hospice visit or Red Cross phone duty was watch-your-watch because of social commitments to follow.

  News of his phone calls may have prompted Claire to call the next morning and materialize for brunch, as if not to appear callous to her friends. “So what are your options? I mean the viable ones?” she asked.

  His eye doctor had fitted him in for a checkup this afternoon, since Press was in town, so she offered to ferry him there.

  “Well, I do have a life,” he said, without of course mentioning Carol or the commune, just the Clarks and the Swinnertons. “I go to church where they believe in treating people well. They may not believe in Evolution but believe God created the Earth, so why fret about the timing? Six thousand or four billion years is not the central point if you know that every day is holy and you believe in Him.”

  He couldn’t read her face, but more than ever suspected the silver-polisher had called and chided her. “I suppose,” she said, inquiring about grocery shopping, microwaving as a solution to the dangers of the stove, oil deliveries, and the thermostat—basics of country living; that Merrill Lynch doled out his monthly allowance to the Athol bank. Yet Press was more interested in hearing Brad’s history. A previous marriage and children, sure, and now he was a consultant to corporations headquartered in Stamford. A graduate of the University of Kansas at Lawrence, he was thus not immediately clubbable in Cos Cob; but should be with a little time.

  Roddy and another fellow dropped in unexpectedly after a golfing date at the club, an interruption Press rather welcomed because Claire and he, while not fighting, weren’t getting anywhere. Regarding the children, there was no disagreement—it was too soon for them to come visit him—nor financial concerns so far. She wasn’t touching his hand this morning, maybe feeling he had ratted her out a bit to her friends, and he couldn’t discern her face. Roddy, mellifluous, was a good go-between, familiar with so much, yet in the dark like Claire about Press’s current life. “Do you have toilets? Do you have dentists?” he said.

  “I haven’t met one, but I’ve heard we have lawyers. Haven’t been in jail for copping a feel.”

  They laughed, particularly Roddy’s golfing mate, who was an estates, wills, and trusts attorney. Playing a morning round with wealth was simply business for him. But blindness was definitive here in the suburbs, Press realized. In the city there would be resources, sanctuaries, company, and in a Vermont village the godly evangelicals and the practical, wholehearted folk who would look after a neighbor for a more modest recompense.

  “No lawyers, but they believe that monkeys were their ancestors?” the attorney asked.

  “They believe different things, just like you and me, but if they believe God created the world they think the question of how long ago is secondary.”

  “Well, we must be leaving,” said Roddy. And Claire had her usual errands to run. “Shopping, shopping,” she intoned, mocking herself. “I guess all the decisions are postponed? Or, no? Are you staying a while?”

  “I don’t know. It’s complicated. Any decision will be.”

  After she departed, with supper arrangements put off till later, he wandered the inn’s property, his cane in one hand, stroking the manicured hedges with the other. Free as the wind, his mind claimed, which was true as long as you also counted its ability to fall into a depression. But free, yes, of nagging guilt that Molly and Jeremy had need of his immediate guidance and help. The outspread trees whispered privilege—the pruning by tree surgeons, injected fertilizers, trash trees culled, noisy birds excluded from nesting in them. His outlook in the past had been affluent, though made limber by two years as a draftee in the army, and the habit of actually gazing out the window at Harlem on those daily train trips. Social justice had not been his focus so much as open-mindedness.

  At his appointment the ophthalmologist peered in and told him that his “SC,” or serpiginous choroiditis, was about the same, though deteriorating slowly and still incurable.

  The kids returned to the inn for an “aperitif,” a word Claire had inaccurately taught them for the occasion so too much homework time would not be lost. They’d eaten, so they enjoyed pie during his shrimp cocktail, then left with kisses when his filet mignon arrived.

  After a lonely finish, however—a weekday night was not ripe for impromptu get-togethers—he walked to the kitchen door to speak to the staff at their supper. Only a minute was required to smoke out a guy with a brother back from Vietnam, at loose ends, who would be delighted to undertake a twelve-hour round trip to the top of Vermont tomorrow, depositing him on his doorstep for two hundred dollars, plus gas.

  Chapter 5

  “Oh, we missed you,” Carol said two days after that, seeing him on his bike from her rattletrap. “I’ll stop over.”

  He recounted Vietnam War stories he had heard while in the car with the newly discharged and shaky vet during Dorothy’s chicken-and-biscuits lunch, except then he hurried lest Carol pull into his drive before he biked back.

  Of course she didn’t. Impatiently he waited till the next day, when she allowed his hands every liberty in greeting her. “I missed you,” she conceded, as his body spoke for itself. But she enjoyed teasing him too, this man she could pleasure so easily: starting him hardening, then stopping him. “Your wife would think you’re robbing the cradle.”

  They laughed, both because she wasn’t quite that young and Claire’s opinions would work contrariwise
. “You’re growing a third leg. We should notify P. T. Barnum.”

  She went and sat down elsewhere, though. At first he couldn’t make out where, but took a seat himself, as instructed, to tell her about his trip—how his mind was eased as to his kids, how Claire had roped in Brad, how hitchless the arrangements had been.

  “Okay, I’m glad. Come—let’s do frottage,” she suggested, moving to the sofa with merciful amusement, since he had taught her the term, whereby he could lie on top of her, rubbing himself against her thigh until he creamed in his jeans. “Oh boy! Now let’s get you cleaned up,” she chuckled when he had. She put his pants and underpants in the laundry basket for Melba to deal with. “We’re your handmaidens. You’re an emir upon your return!”

  He sought her lips to temper her humor, and she patted him to assure him everything was in scale. If an emir, he was a blind emir, with his wallet in her hand. “Ball in the mouth?” she teased, having told him previously that that was her ultimate test of a man’s trust in her. However, it was not a proposal. She made tea and sandwiches for the porch and filled him in on gossip of The Farm. A destitute couple had shown up, and a tarp propped over poles for them, but how long would they be fed? Bald tires, no money for gas, and two foster children the state might take away from them when it found out they’d been evicted from Burlington. They wanted their checks forwarded here, as if they were just on vacation. The revolutionaries wanted to protect them, but the trust funders resented unaccounted-for expenses shouldered ultimately only by them. Besides, a state investigator nosing around might find more than the foster children.