"You can come in, Mr. Creak, but I don't know how responsive he'll be. I'll check."
Regular, pulsing beeps, piercing the stillness; the astringent scent of antiseptic. He breathed slowly, trying to conceal his consciousness. A whiff of a nurse's redolent presence: "Mr. Creak? Mr. Creak, I know you're awake. How are you feeling?"
When he failed to reply, she lowered her voice. "Mr. Creak, please. Don't force me to tell you like this." When he refused to reply, the nurse said gently, "Mr. Creak, I'm afraid your mother is dead."
At first he was not sure he had heard correctly. "Your father and a priest are at the door," she finished quietly. Air flushed against his cheek as the nurse, he assumed, raised her arm. New odors intruded upon her scent, then a steady hand grasped his trembling fingers: "My son." He recognized his priest. "I am so very sorry for your loss."
His head was swirling with confusion, yet somehow, recognized his Dad's presence in the room. "Dad," he whispered, "I saw her."
He heard a long, silent pause, before, "You saw her?" his father said. "But you're blind! Don't you remember? You walked off the street into the path of an oncoming car. On purpose. Why do you think your mother had stoke?" The nurse gasped. "You saw her?" His father's voice was trembling with rage. "You saw her? But you're blind! Blind!"
With rage his father's harsh hands seized his cheeks, clawing at the bandages round his eyes. The priest spoke sharply, there was the sound of struggling--The bandages were ripped from his face. The visage of his father plummeted through the darkness.
"Dad!" he shouted.
They all froze. He saw his father's blurry face above him, saw the black blob of the priest and vague white figure of the nurse. It did not matter that the images were not crystal clear.
"I can see!" he shouted. "I can see!"
His father's expression of amazement was almost terrifying. "But they were gouged," the nurse babbled. She turned to the priest, tugged his robes, "His eyes were gouged--gouged."
His father dropped the bandages and left the room. The priest's and nurse's startled glances followed. But, somehow, in spite of everything, he could see. . .
Two weeks later, they released him. He was almost ready to leave, yet he loitered in the doorway of his hospital room, lighting a cigarette. He felt nervous about leaving the hospital. For days he had feared that this "miracle", as the priest termed it, might subside, and vanish, leaving him in total darkness. The hospital was while unpleasant, at least safe.
Of course, the doctors could offer no explanation for his miraculous recovery. "It's impossible," one told him, "Simply impossible." He hardly cared.
Neither, apparently, did his dad. A pang of guilt, and the lighter's flame trembled, before snapped away by the lid. In the case's reflective surface he saw that car again, smashing into his side, slamming his face into its windshield. Perhaps Dad was right, perhaps his mother's death was his fault.
"Mr. Creak!" Startled, he looked downward. "Smoking in the hospital?"
It was his nurse. They had been keeping the bandages around his eyes for most of the last two weeks as a "precaution", and as a result, now he saw his nurse clearly for the first time. His lips parted.
The nurse's gleaming white skirt was the most brilliant white he had ever seen. It flowed over flesh reverently flushed with life. His eyes roved over her form, her dipping skirt, her curving lapels, her red lips, dark, dark hair, green, gleaming eyes--
"Mr. Creak!" --her every color plumed vividly, her every hue was perfection: from the soft to the intense he could hardly breathe.
"Mr. Creak!"
She was blushing, ruddying into ever lovely and lovelier shades of red-"I'm sorry-" he said. For the first time, he felt truly embarrassed before a woman.
The nurse brushed close to him, before pushing him into the hospital room. Face burning red, she shut and locked the door.
He had never seen a smile more sweet.
Several days later, Billy still could not rid his mind of the nurse's image. She haunted him, like a sweet spirit or ghost.
Under the glaring neon lights of his favorite strip bar, he sat with a beer mug amongst those whom he called his pals. "Hey, Billy," said Ricardo, "How come you always wearin' those sunglasses now? Even in this bar?"
They were supposed to be celebrating his release from the hospital. Billy managed a strained smile.
"He don't look none too chipper. Yeah. Probably's that nurse."
Uselessly he raised
his mug to his lips, trying to be one of the guys. Yet the gesture was
awkward. Deep inside he could not help but feel wholeheartedly depressed.
After four weeks in
a hospital, nearly dead and then declared blind, this was all he had to
return to--
His fist pounded the bar. "Whoa, there, Billy!" He looked upward, startled. He knew that they did not understand, that they had no idea of this helpless rage he sometimes felt. Since the hospital he had been unable to return to life's flow. He had nothing to say to the men around him, and he felt misplaced, like a child's lost toy.
"Well, forget her, buddy," his nearest compatriot advised. "There are always a dozen like 'em."
"No," Billy said, "Don't you see? I absolutely know that she's special. I know because something's happened to my eyes."
They exchanged glances. "Really," he insisted. "When I take off these shades, I can see things as they really are. See?" He removed his sunglasses. "Right there, see that dancer on the stage? She hates her job and she wishes all men were dead. Under that makeup she's got black eye. She's only here because she has a two-year-old son to raise, and she can't feed him without a job. So he's being raised here. He'll become just like his father."
He was rewarded by their blank stares. Then one laughed. "She's a slut."
Hails of laughter. Slowly, Billy pushed the sunglasses up his nose, watching the darkness slide over the woman's figure. "Why is he always wearin' them glasses, anyway?"
Because, Billy silently answered, whenever I see you and I'm not wearing them, I want to puke. His glasses had become his barrier between him and the world. He covered his face. Even light's absence afforded no comfort.
"Damn't!" His fist slammed the bar, shattering the beer mug.
"Christ! Billy!"
"Get a doctor--"
He thrust them away, and ran through the thick crowd of people, ran through musk so thick and steamy he could almost see it. He ran into the streets. Their cries rang after him, but no one followed.
After some distance he stumbled and fell against a brick wall. In the alley's pitch darkness, he could feel pain burning in his hand. He snatched away his sunglasses.
Suddenly the world was swirling round him. From his hand, flaring red drops of blood dripped slowly onto hard, dirty gray concrete. Blinding street lights trailed away dizzingly as he raised his head, their blurry pearls stretching into a black night.
A slight breeze ruffled the world, stirring fluttering white debris, rolling green bottles. He shivered in the wind, turning to see the red solid brick wall, the blue smack-hard gravel--
He pushed the sunglasses over his eyes and bent double. The intense contrast between darkness and light made him gag.
The sharp notes of a soda can skipping across the street check marked his attention. Looking upward, he saw a man, accompanied by several others, enter the alley. He squinted through his dark glasses. The lead man seemed to wear a pockmarked face, and he had donned a grin so yellow, so lurid, he seemed to have shed his humanity. There was no warmth, kindness nor even inebriated happiness in those cold eyes. Billy started to cast for a weapon.
But the wind had emptied the streets. Strangled in the man's grasp hung a beer bottle from its neck. With a grin the man lifted the bottle, drained its spirit, then threw it through the night.
Below a streetlight it shattered in a brown explosion.
Billy started to slowly retreat, and he was slowly followed; running would not aid him. "You guys coming for me?" he asked. Mustering his flashiest grin "Hey, my buddies are right behind me. They'll be here any second."
"Really?" the lead man lisped. "I was sorta under the impression that you won't be needing anymore friends."
His back was against the wall. His body was trembling, yet somehow, he was not scared. Perhaps he had been waiting for this. Perhaps this was finally the night he would die. "Go on," he said. "I don't care anymore, either."
The first punch slammed into his cheek, double-hitting his head against the wall. Already they had him down the ground, and they were burying their shoes in him, and he heard the dull thuds. Every blow made pain. Made pain so bad, and he could not breathe as he curled gradually into a ball--
His sunglasses fell off his head. He screamed.
Suddenly the men above him were no longer men. They were monsters. Their faces were bloody and raw, and devoid of flesh. Their eyes were spinning halos of writhing fluorescent greens and yellows and reds, and they no mouths, only large, black circles.
He screamed. He screamed, he--
The alley was flooded by a lightning strike of car headlights. The monsters turned, and someone shouted at them menacingly. Then suddenly they were running away, fleeing.
He lay completely still. He heard the crunch of footsteps. Then he heard a familiar voice:"Those damned buddies of yours called me from the bar. They said they thought you'd get into trouble. Like usual." Thick hands grasped him, and lifted him.
And his father carried him to the car.
"How," Billy mumbled, "How did you find me?"
"I just told you. You aren't that far away from the bar. Can you sit?"
Billy nodded, then fumbled for his sunglasses. "Where, where--"
"Forget em, they're broken."
The passenger door slammed shut. Soon his father was in the driver's seat, and the car pulled from the black alley. "Now we get to go back to that damned hospital."
For awhile they sat in silence. Billy kept his eyes shut. He was terrified of what he might see. Most of all, he did not want to see his reflection. If he saw his reflection, he though he would just die, simply die. He already felt dead, no part of his body did not ache, did not scream. Perhaps looking at himself would not be so bad--
"Were you drunk?" his father asked.
It took him a moment to respond, but finally, "No."
"What about the last time you nearly got yourself killed. You know, the time you killed my wife and your mother? Were you drunk that time? Huh?"
Billy did not reply. "Why, Billy," his father asked finally. "Why did you do it? Why did you walk in front of that car?"
After a long moment, Billy swallowed. "It was an accident."
"No grown man walks into a car like that by accident." Billy knew it was true. Anyone could see that. Yet his head was pounding so hard, he could barley speak--"I'm not going to let this go, Billy. Tell me now or I'll kick you of my damned car. Why'd you just give up, Billy? Huh?" When Billy said nothing, his father wrenched the steering wheel and the car swerved drastically to the side of the road. "LOOK AT ME!"
Billy started, and looked slowly up into his father's eyes: lines of age etched over an ancient, despotic face, fettered by wisps of white hair, and draconian eyes, old, harsh, and grieving--
His father stared back, long and hard. "Is that how you look at me?" he asked finally. "Is that how you see me, a cruel old man?" Billy slowly looked away. "It was your mother who restored your sight," his father said.
"What?"
"You said you saw her, didn't you?"
Billy weakly nodded. "She said she was going to give you her sight. That she was somehow going to transfer her, her ability to see' to you. Now she's dead and you can see, so I guess it must have worked."
It was difficult to speak with swollen lips, but Billy said, "That's insane, Dad."
"I hope not," his father said. "You're all I have left of her now, son."
Billy looked upward. His father's eyes were moist. Slowly, the hard block of his father's visage molded into the simple face of a haggard old man. "It was all in her eyes, son," he said. "She wasn't a pretty woman, or even an especially smart woman. But she had those eyes, and they were the most beautiful eyes in the world. And when I first saw her, I said If I can marry that girl,then all my children will have eyes just like hers--" his father choked. "You know what?" He swallowed. "I don't know what she ever saw in me."
Billy stared as his father cried. Slowly, tentatively, he reached to grasp his father's shoulder. "Hey, Dad," he said, "It's all right. You know? It's all right. It was, it was. . ." He slowly looked away, "It's my fault she's dead, isn't it? She died because of me."
His father shook his head. "No. She gave you a gift. She just plain decided she wasn't go to let you live blind, that's all. But she told me--she told me to tell you that you owe it to her to go on. Billy, you owe it to both her and to me. You got to start to see something in life."
"Look, all I ever see," Billy said hotly, "Is violence, death, waste. We're in the middle of America, and all you see are people struggling. Well, I just can't cut it, all right! Ever since I flunked college, nothing has been of any worth to me. So don't tell me what I owe you, okay!" He fumbled for the car door, and opened it. And froze.
The cars were rushing by, like metal race horses, blurred under the city lights. And suddenly it was as if he saw all the people in the world, in a way he had never even conceived. He saw the stars. He saw into the windows of every building. The world was alive, the stars were alive. The city lights were a tapestry of gods--
His father grasped his arm and pulled him into the car. "Now you see?" he whispered into his son's ear. "That's why I loved her."
Without further word his father started the car once more. Billy sat, dazed, unspeaking. "She's still in you, son," he said, gently touching his son's cheek. "She put herself in you. In a way, I'm glad. Maybe now she'll live another seventy years. Maybe now she'll find your children. . .You know those monsters you saw in the alley? When you were a child, I could just kiss them away."
His father turned the car toward the hospital. "Now I can't. You just have to find some reason to fight those monsters, and keep fighting them, and never give up." His father turned the car toward the hospital entrance. "Just something to fight for. . ."
"Billy!" someone cried. Suddenly he was stumbling from the car. It was the nurse--his nurse. Her auburn hair was a streak of paint through the night, her soft body abrush against him, and he grasped her so hard. "Oh," she whispered, "You make me feel so lovely!"
And though Billy could not look now, the world had changed.
Copyright 1997 D.K. Smith.