“I can handle myself. Besides, this is a rough neighborhood. A guy’s got a right to protect himself.”
I lowered my head, but kept watching.
“My dad was diabetic,” he said as he checked out my CD collection. “I used to take care of him.”
“Used to?”
“He died a couple years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. I miss him—miss talking to him.”
He ran a hand over an old Raggedy Ann doll sitting on a stack of magazines. The doll was something I’d brought with me when I moved out of the house. I’d given it to Cary on her fourth birthday, one of the happier days of my life.
“You got a daughter?”
“I do.”
Glancing at the bookcase, he said, “Lots of books.”
“I used to be a high school English teacher.”
“My dad liked books too. You read Braille?”
I shook my head.
He glanced into the kitchen, then back at me. “Maybe I could read to you sometime.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond.
“I used to read to my dad all the time. I’m good at it. I kind of got what they call a dramatic streak.”
“Well—” I didn’t know a thing about this kid. He’d saved me from being robbed, but my instincts told me to be wary. But then, I guess my loneliness got the better of me. “Sure. I’d like that.”
“When?”
“Well, first, do you live around here?”
“Not far. Maybe a mile.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ryan. What’s yours?”
“Leo. You live with your mom?”
“Yup.”
He didn’t elaborate.
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be fifteen in January.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“I got an older brother and a younger brother—and an older sister. Where’d you teach?”
“Washburn.”
“What grade?”
“Tenth.”
“I got a bunch of friends who go there. Me, I hate school.”
The gripe was so familiar it made me relax a little. “So, how about tomorrow night? You can come for dinner if it’s okay with your mother. I’ll give you my phone number and she can call me.”
“She won’t care. She works evenings.”
“Okay,” I said, drawing the word out. I wasn’t sure about any of this, and yet the prospect of not spending the evening all alone appealed to me. “How about six?”
“Six is great.”
I wished I could see his face better, but as I said, I was afraid to take off the dark glasses and put on my regular ones. I was beginning to like him, so I wanted to come clean, tell him that I did still have partial sight. But something stopped me. I didn’t know it then, but my life would come to hinge on that decision.
By the next morning, my left ribs hurt so much from being kicked that I called my doctor and made an appointment. I took four Ibuprofen while I ate breakfast, then got on a bus headed to Uptown. I had to sit in the waiting room for over two hours before I was allowed into the rear, where the examining rooms were located. My doctor wanted to send me for X-rays, but couldn’t get me an appointment until the next day, so she gave me a prescription for some heavier painkillers and sent me on my way.
I filled the prescription at the Walgreens by my apartment, bought some bottled water, and took a couple before I left the store. It was going on 4, and the light was starting to fade. All my life I’d dreaded fall in Minnesota. The chill winds and early darkness seemed to seep into my soul and depress the hell out of me. There were some things I needed from the store for dinner. Instead of getting back on the bus and heading over to Rainbow, which I knew would take too long and put me out on the street well after sunset, I walked the three blocks to the convenience store not far from my apartment. Without my flashlight to shine down on the sidewalk, I wanted to make it home before dark.
Over the past couple of months, I’d made friends with the man who ran the store. His name was Chuck, although I figured it wasn’t his real name because he was Vietnamese. I said hi to him as I entered. We usually exchanged small talk, so while I made a mental list of what I needed, I listened to him tell me about his newest grandchild. He almost glowed he was so proud of her. He said he planned to take her to Camp Snoopy at the Mall of America as soon as she was old enough.
“She so pretty. So smart,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.
After a couple more comments, I drifted toward the meat counter. It wasn’t large, but all I needed was a pound of hamburger. Walking through the aisles, I grabbed a bottle of spaghetti sauce, a box of noodles, and a half-gallon of milk. Thinking that Ryan would probably be expecting dessert, I passed by the frozen food section and found some chocolate ice cream. I wasn’t much of a cook, but I figured most kids liked spaghetti and ice cream.
When I got back to the front counter, I had to wait while four other people paid for their groceries. Chuck was never in a hurry, so the minutes ticked by. Outside, the light was dwindling. I jingled the change in my pocket, cleared my voice a couple of times, but nothing I did seemed to register with Chuck that I was annoyed and wanted him to move faster. I could feel my palms begin to sweat. Finally, it was my turn. Chuck must have thought I was in a foul mood, because as soon as my stuff was rung up and I’d paid the bill, I rushed out the door.
A bitter drizzle had begun falling. I pulled the collar of my coat up around my neck and started across the street. The painkiller had finally kicked in, so I felt kind of floaty and loose, but no less anxious.
As I walked along, I could barely make out the sidewalk. Even with the drugs, I winced as I carried the sack of groceries. I was miserable and tense, and felt I’d made a big mistake in asking Ryan to dinner. I stumbled a couple of times over cracks in the concrete. The last time I nearly fell. And that’s when I sensed it—the feeling that I was being followed. Maybe it was the Vicodin. Or maybe it was the dark closing in around me. I’d been warned to expect a range of emotions as my blindness became more complete, but paranoia wasn’t on any list I remembered.
When I finally made it home, I locked the door and turned on every light in the apartment. I dumped the groceries in the kitchen, then slumped into a chair in the living room, breathing hard—breathing as if I’d been chased home by the boogieman. In the silence, the clock across the room sounded like a jackhammer.
I sat there for a while, until I was steady enough to get up. By then, the ice cream was melting in the sack. I pushed the carton into the back of the freezer and slammed the door. I hated feeling this fragile, this vulnerable. It wasn’t a good night to be entertaining.
Back when I’d first retired, I contacted a group at my church that supplied “big brothers” to children without fathers. The woman who interviewed me was as rigid as an old-fashioned schoolmarm. It became clear pretty quick that she thought I was too old. They needed younger guys who could go sledding, skiing, skating, play softball. I had arthritis and a bad hip which prevented me from being as active as I used to be. When I left the office, I regretted being so honest with her about my physical limitations. I missed spending time with kids, and I figured I had a lot to offer a boy other than sports. Maybe that was another reason I wanted to get to know Ryan better. It was a chance to prove that know-it-all lady at my church wrong.
I’d just set a pot of water on the stovetop to boil when the doorbell rang. I buzzed Ryan in and stood by the front door, hands in the pockets of my khaki pants. As he walked past me into the living room, I could smell cigarettes on his clothing and alcohol on his breath. I decided then and there that this was one troubled kid—or, perhaps more accurately, this kid was trouble. But I’d always prided myself on being able to reach kids that others gave up on. Maybe I could help Ryan. After all, I owed him.
“What’s for dinner?” he asked, trying to sound casual, indifferent, cool.
“
Spaghetti.”
Behind my dark glasses, I closed my eyes. I’d never made an entire meal before without relying on what was left of my sight. I opened up the refrigerator to get the hamburger. “Help yourself to a Coke,” I said, feeling around for the right lump.
“You haven’t been blind very long,” said Ryan.
“Is it that obvious? I’m not very good at this, am I?”
“Here,” he said, moving up next to me. “Let me do it. You go sit at the table. I used to cook for my dad a lot, so I know what I’m doing.”
I felt my way over to a chair. “There’s some bottled sauce on the counter.”
“Just relax, man. I got it covered.”
While he made dinner, we talked. Ryan told me about his dad, that he’d been a construction foreman before he lost his vision. Ryan’s family had lived in a house over on 43rd and Sixteenth, but they’d moved to a small apartment when his older brother and sister moved out. By that time, Ryan’s mother was the sole breadwinner. She was an L.P.N. who worked the 4-to-midnight shift at a nursing home in St. Paul. And she had another part-time job that kept her away from the apartment on weekends. Ryan didn’t see her much, but he shrugged and said it wasn’t a big deal.
“What about the brother who’s still living at home?” I asked.
“He’s always on his computer. It’s all he does. It’s brain pollution, man. Boring.”
“You don’t like computers?”
“I don’t like nerds.” He went on to tell me about his best friend. I’m not sure what his real name was, but Ryan called him The Duck Man. I got the impression that The Duck Man was a little older than Ryan, and that he wasn’t in school. They hung out together on weekends. The Duck Man was into motorcycles, music, and all things cool. He was in a band. Nothing ordinary. The music he made wasn’t commercial. Commercial was crap.
While the noodles boiled, Ryan drifted into the living room and came back holding a book. “What’s this about?”
“What is it?”
“It’s called The Fox and the Hedgehog.Sounds like a little kid’s story, but it’s big—thick.”
“It’s a compilation of essays on that Greek saying.”
“What Greek saying?”
“A fragment of a verse from an ancient Greek poet: Thefox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I suppose you could say it’s a way to categorize human beings. They’re either foxes or hedgehogs. They either know one central important thing that guides their lives, or they know lots of smaller things.” I paused. “Which do you think you are?”
No hesitation. “A fox.”
“Why?”
“’Cause foxes are cool. Did you know that back in, like, the twelfth century, people were terrified of foxes because they thought that if you looked deep into a fox’s eyes, it could, like, hypnotize you and then drag you back into the forest?” He stepped over to the stove, stirred the spaghetti sauce, then turned it down. “But actually, I think I’m a more of a hedgehog. I know one big thing.”
“And what’s that?”
His expression sobered. “That you gotta take care of yourself, because nobody else will.”
It was such a bitter, cynical comment for such a young person to make, and yet with what he’d told me about his life, I wasn’t surprised.
“What are you?” Ryan asked. “Fox or hedgehog?”
“I think I’m a fox.”
“So what do you know that’s so important?”
“Well,” I said, feeling like I was being forced to take an exam I hadn’t studied for, “for one thing, I think it makes you feel good when you help people.”
His eyes rose to the ceiling. “Yeah. Okay. What else?”
“That it’s important to love people. We’re not complete unless we do.”
“Shit, man. You sound like a fortune cookie.” He seemed angry. I was about to respond when the phone rang.
Ryan handed me the receiver. “Hello?” I said, easing both of my elbows onto the kitchen table, turning away from him.
“Dad?”
It was my daughter. “What’s up, honey?”
“Do you own a tux?”
“Me? No.”
“Well, if you’re going to walk me down the aisle in two months, you’re going to need one.”
“Oh. Sure.”
“I made an appointment for you tomorrow night at Nelson’s Tuxedo Rentals. I’ll pick you up at 6 and we can head over to Southdale. Maybe have dinner somewhere first. That work for you?”
“Fine, sweetheart. I’ll look forward to it.” I turned in my chair. Glancing up, I fumbled with the phone, nearly dropping it. Ryan was standing in the middle of the kitchen, arms stretched out in front of him, holding the gun in both hands—the barrel pointed at my chest.
“Holy shit!”
“What did you say, Dad?”
I tried to cover, to stop my voice from betraying my shock. “I just mean…the wedding’s getting so close.”
“I gotta run, okay?”
“Sure, honey.” The dark glasses hid the fear in my eyes, but I was afraid Ryan had picked up on it. Maybe I should have told my daughter to send the police. Except, by the time they got to the apartment, I could have been dead. I had to play this carefully.
“See you tomorrow night at 6,” Cary said.
“See yah,” I replied weakly, clicking the phone off. I was vibrating internally, but trying to hold it together. Sensing that my hands were shaking, I crossed my arms over my chest. “That was my daughter.”
He didn’t respond.
“So,” I said, sucking in a deep breath, “where were we?”
“You were giving me your happy lecture.”
“I was?”
“Tell me something real, man. Don’t you have any, like, dark truths? Stuff about the evil side of life?” He held the gun steady.
My stomach vanished. “Does that seem more real to you than positive thoughts?”
“Hell yes.”
I said the first thing that came into my head. “My parents thought evil was Auschwitz. Concentration camps. You know what they are?”
“I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were.” I tried to regroup mentally and start again. “Truthfully, Ryan, I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about evil.”
“And?”
“Well, people today talk about it like everyone knows what it is. Like it’s the weather. Everybody knows about the weather, right?” I paused, hoping for a response. When I didn’t get one, I continued, “See, we play with the word. Evil is bad, but bad means good sometimes, right? Evil is rebellious, irreverent, sexy. It’s what’s forbidden. And what’s forbidden is a mystery, and mysteries are cool. It’s the uptight assholes, usually our parents or teachers, who tell us what’s right and wrong, and what the hell do they know?”
He grunted at that one.
“For a long time, Ryan, maybe I thought a little like you. I saw evil as something that was darkly grand in a grotesque Third Reich sort of way. I liked to talk about evil in the rhetoric of Milton, of Paradise Lost.I romanticized it. Bad was dangerous, and that was cool. But you know what?”
“What?”
How did I explain this to him when most of the time I couldn’t explain it to myself? I gave it a second, then said, “See, Vietnam taught my generation a different lesson from the one World War II taught my parents. It showed us not the evil of others—but the evil of us. And that’s when I started thinking that evil wasn’t grand and epic and biblical; it was shallow and messy, grimy and stupid. Why do people hurt each other, Ryan?” I gave him some time to respond. When he just stood there belligerently, I continued, “Because they can. Because they feel like it. Because they want something and they have the power to take it. That’s it. Nothing grand or cool.”
The gun lowered a few notches. He was finally listening. “Go on.”
“I think we should st
op talking about evil geniuses and instead talk about evil morons. And here’s the bottom line. Being a victim—being somebody who’s been hurt—is the world class excuse, the Mount Everest of self-justification. He hurt me so I can hurt him—or someone else who just happensto get in my way.People do evil because it’s convenient, because of peer pressure and cowardice, because they’re inattentive or under the sway of some idiot ideology. We’re all victims of something, so we all have an excuse for what we do. Except, life shouldn’t work like that. If it does, then all the hurt just continues on forever. People—men in particular— think that courage means stuff like driving a car too fast, or knocking someone down in a fight. But the kind of courage you really need in life is moral. That’s the really hard kind of courage, Ryan. The courage not to be stupid, or shallow, or mean.”
He stared at me. A long moment passed. And then he lowered the gun and stuffed it in his pocket.
“You’re weird.”
“I am?” I could smell the sauce burning. “Better check the food on the stove.”
When he turned away from me, I collapsed back against my chair, waiting for the basketball in my chest to deflate. I struggled to think of a plausible excuse to get him to leave, but at the same time, I was afraid that if I ended the evening abruptly it would tip him off that I’d seen the gun in his hand. I figured that would put me in even greater danger.
The next few minutes were brutal. Something I’d said must have struck a chord because Ryan grew increasingly silent. He’d answer my questions, but with very brief responses. And then, slowly, his mood seemed to lighten. It was as if a light switch had been flipped on inside him, revealing a completely different kid. We ate our dinner and he talked animatedly about music, his main interest, and baseball, an interest we shared, and then he cleaned up. At one point, I remember he said, “You remind me of my dad.”
“Is that good?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s very good. The best.” He sat down on at the table across from me. “You know, I was just thinking, maybe you could use a kid around here sometimes.”
The comment touched me, more deeply than I realized at the time. “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I could. And maybe you could use an old guy in your life—every now and then.”
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