The Blind

by A. F. Brady

  “Hi, Raul, it’s Dr. James. Can you do me a favor and send someone up here to escort a guest out? He’s a little hesitant to leave.” I stare at Lucas as I speak to the security guard, and he sees I’m not fooling around. “Thanks, Raul. I appreciate it.”

  Lucas promptly rises to his feet and smooths the front of his pants. He drapes his charcoal gray cashmere coat over his shoulders and squares himself. He looks down at me disapprovingly. “I thought you had more respect than that, Sam.”

  I pull my desk chair out of his way and gently swing open the door. He gives the office one last look over before he moves his feet to leave. As he inches past my chair, he leans his long, manicured hand over my desk and flicks over the open coffee cup so the soaked twenty-dollar bill and the sticky liquid fall all over my desk and patient chair. “Oops,” he says as he walks out my door, and I hear Raul approaching down the hall.

  MARCH 3RD, 1:14 P.M.

  I thought of going to see David but I needed to get out of the office, so I’m walking in Riverside Park. It’s that part of the year when the days are getting longer and the sun is bright, but it’s still cool. I’m breathing in long, deep breaths to try to cleanse myself. The fresh air tickles my nose.

  I sit down in one of the green folding chairs and watch the people. There’s a big sign next to me that says No Smoking, and I use its base to put out my cigarette. No more booze, no more cheap thrills with cheap men, but I still hold on to my cigarettes. Everyone is rushing, with heads down, wearing jackets too light for the weather in an attempt to speed up the spring. They’ve got their arms wrapped around themselves, blowing into coffee cups.

  As I’m gazing at the passersby, I light another cigarette, and I catch eyes with a homeless man sitting across the path from me. He’s smoking, too. He holds out his cigarette and points to the No Smoking sign. He’s wearing a pair of black fingerless gloves on top of another pair of gray gloves. I wonder how he wields his cigarette so well. I tuck mine between my lips and obligingly turn the sign around so it doesn’t face either one of us. The man smiles, gives me a thumbs-up and turns to face the sun.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the sun on my face. When I was drinking, I avoided the daylight. Daylight was for hangovers and wrapping myself around a toilet or a trash can. I couldn’t hide the bruises in daylight; I couldn’t hide the truth about Lucas. I couldn’t sneak kisses from anonymous men. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life hiding from something—something I couldn’t show in the light, someone I couldn’t be when other people could see me—and now I’m exposed. I had a premonition that things were going to change when Richard appeared back in October, but I didn’t know that I was going to change. His arrival seems timed with the departure of the me I used to know, of all the me’s I used to be—the martyr, the superhero, the disaster, the caricature. I used to have a crutch to lean on; I could blame the alcohol for all my bad behavior. I was drunk at the time, I would never do that if I were sober. I could wallow in self-pity and play the victim, removing any responsibility from my own shoulders. Now all that’s left is the raw material beneath all those masks I used to wear. It’s time I find a way to get my feet on solid ground again.

  I stand up to walk back to Typhlos and flick my half-smoked cigarette to the pavement. I feel taller than I ever have before. Like I used to carry a backpack that was too heavy and pulled my shoulders down, and now I’ve taken it off.

  I pass Raul on my way back inside and give him a high five. My office is warm from the sun, and I feel sleepy as soon as I sit back down. I’ll be out of here soon.

  The phone jolts me back into awareness. At the third ring, I snatch up the receiver and growl into the phone, “Yes?”

  “Dr. James?”

  “Oh,” I stammer and perk up. “Yes, this is she.”

  “Hi, it’s Mark Sloan. How are you?”

  “Oh, hi, Mark. I wasn’t expecting a call from you.”

  “I wonder if you have a moment to spare?”

  “Absolutely, yes.” I lean back and sip cold tea from my dirty coffee mug.

  “Well, after we last spoke, I did some digging back into the prison files to see what I could find for you.”

  “And? Were you able to find anything?”

  “Yes. I’m still in contact with various people at Ogdensburg; very few who were there when I worked there have stayed, but a couple of people have. The records system before the internet is a mess, of course. But they still have all the records in paper files. I supposed when we do detective work, that kind of thing is useful!”

  “It sure is. I’m sorry, can I stop you for a moment? I was reviewing our last conversation, and I’m still unsure about a lot of things. What was Richard’s diagnosis? Do you have those records?”

  “Yes, that was one of the items I was searching for when I looked into the prison records. Depression and PTSD. His prison medical records should have that information. Don’t you have those?”

  “No, I hardly have anything at all. Here’s what’s bothering me—though he was diagnosed with depression and PTSD while he was incarcerated, that was many years ago. He hasn’t been diagnosed with anything since he was released from prison.”

  “Yes?” Mark Sloan seems to be unable to follow my train of thought.

  “I can’t diagnose him with anything because he doesn’t fit the criteria for any disorders.” I’m hoping Dr. Sloan will catch on.

  “Yes, okay?”

  My hopes falter. “So what is he doing in a mental institution?”

  “Oh—” Dr. Sloan is stumped. “Oh, well, I’m sure you’ll have to discuss that with him.” Another dead end.

  “Okay,” I sigh, again defeated in my quest to figure Richard out. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

  “Well, this record I wanted to discuss with you isn’t from Ogdensburg. It’s in a note that came from his previous prison stay at Green Haven. You had asked me about friends or visitors.”

  “Yes. Does it say he had contact with anyone?”

  “It shows that a blonde woman came to visit him several times. And each time she came, he refused to see her. She sat in the waiting room, went through the screening process, but never had any contact with him.”

  “A blonde? Is there any further physical description? Did they say she was petite?”

  “That’s the interesting part. The records say she was pregnant.”

  MARCH 7TH, 1:57 P.M.

  Richard pops back into my office this afternoon after our session this morning. He’s sitting in my patient chair, waiting for me to sign off on some changes he’s proposing for his schedule. Even though he’s been in that chair in my office so many times before, today the whole scene is different.

  I put down his paper and look out the window at the construction team across the street. They’ve been working on that building for years now, and today, I see them pulling down the scaffold. Now and again, I hear a big crash of a plank being thrown into the truck. Richard watches me watching the men. He turns to see what the workers are doing.

  “It’s coming down, huh?” Richard says, facing me again.

  “Yeah,” I respond. “They finally restored that old building. It looks great now. So much cleaner.”

  “Like it got a new life.”

  “I was thinking. You know—” I put down my pen and take off my glasses “—you and I are the same. We believed everyone else’s perceptions of us. Everyone else colored us in to be things that we weren’t. You were a monster; I was a superhero. But, in the end, we’re both just people. Equals. Just like you said.”

  “And monsters aren’t real, Sam, and superheroes aren’t, either.” He smiles a knowing smile at me, picks up his hat and places it back on his head.

  I smile and hand Richard his signed paper. He slips it into his pocket and pulls open the door.

  We look up to see Shawn standing in the doorway. He appears anxious, like he may be in the wrong place.

  “Hi, Shawn. Richard is just leaving.”
Richard nods, relinquishing his place.

  “Oh, hey, Doc. Good, great, okay. I was worried that maybe I was here at the wrong time again.” He breathes a sigh of relief as I gesture to Richard and stand up to welcome Shawn inside.

  “Have a seat, and go ahead and put your stuff wherever you like.” I sit back down in my desk chair, and Shawn arranges himself in his seat. He searches back and forth to find a place to put his plastic grocery bag filled with all his most prized possessions. As I look for a good spot with him, I see that Richard has left his newspapers on my desk. In the months we’ve been working together, he has always brought them with him at the end of his sessions. But for some reason, today he’s left them here.

  Shawn decides that there isn’t a good enough spot to place his bag, so he tucks it onto his lap and looks to me to begin our conversation. Just as I’m about to start, my phone rings.

  “Give me just a second, Shawn.” I pick up the phone; it’s Rachel. She’s stuck at an administrative conference, and she needs to me to cover for her at a meeting in an hour. I hold up a finger in Shawn’s direction and let him know that I need a minute. He starts sifting through Richard’s newspapers, looking to occupy himself while I’m on the phone. I check my date book and schedule, and pencil in a few changes so that I can help Rachel out. Getting back in my golden-girl saddle, I tell her I will do whatever she needs. She thanks me profusely, and I hang up, satisfied. Things are finally returning to some semblance of normalcy.

  “Sorry about that, Shawn. I’m ready to give you my undivided attention. So, tell me, how have you been doing?”

  “Um, Doc? How come these papers you got are so old? This is old news.” He holds out the top couple of papers for me to inspect.

  “Oh, yeah?” I look at the cover of the New York Times and see the date is from the spring of 2012. I riffle through the other newspapers and realize they’re all from the same time period. April and May 2012.

  MARCH 11TH, 1:41 P.M.

  I took Richard’s stack of papers home with me, and I’ve been fortifying myself with coffee and Gatorade, bracing to look into them. They’re sitting in my work bag on the floor next to the coffee table, and I’m pacing the apartment, nervously staring at them. I asked David to come over, and I’m waiting for him to get here.

  I’m wandering around my apartment, trying to find something to do in the meantime. I’ve already tidied everything, so I keep refluffing pillows, willing the time to pass, checking my phone. I walk to my bathroom and pull some nail polish out from under the sink. I sit down at the coffee table in the living room, unscrew the and start filing my nails. I didn’t realize how badly my hands were shaking.

  The front-door buzzer startles me so badly that I drop the bottle on the carpet as I’m trying to open it. A gloppy line of gray polish shoots out of the top of the bottle and paints the leg of the coffee table. My heart pounds through my chest as I stumble to the intercom.

  I see David’s face in the grainy video and push the button to let him in. Through the camera, I watch him standing in the vestibule waiting for the elevator, holding a paper bag in his left hand and tossing his floppy hair with his right.

  I wait in my doorway for the sound of the elevator opening, looking for David’s face as he appears from around the bend. He glances up just as he turns the corner and seems startled to see me in the hallway.

  He walks past me over to the couch and pulls a wax-paper package out of the bag. He sets the sandwiches on the coffee table and sits down without saying anything.

  “Don’t you want to know why I needed you to come over?” I grab some plates from the kitchen and sit down next to him. I realize the message I sent him probably seemed cryptic and unclear, but he doesn’t seem focused on trying to figure out what I meant. “Aren’t you intrigued? Why are you being weird?”

  “Sam, I know you wanted me to come over and explore ‘something crazy’ with you, and I’m not sure what your text message meant, but I’m preoccupied and I need to talk to you before we start in on your adventure, okay?”

  “Okay?” I twist my face into a concerned grimace, wondering what could possibly be more important than delving into the mystery of Richard’s five-year-old newspapers.

  David takes a deep breath and fidgets with the paper on his sandwich. I’m sitting with my feet tucked under me, my back on the arm of the couch, looking at him, and he is slumped forward over the coffee table. “I’ve been thinking a lot since you freaked out in my office that day.”

  “Yeah…”

  “I know that you’re scared that this diagnosis is a death sentence because it’s got such a bad reputation, but I don’t see it that way.” He breaths deeply and starts unwrapping his sandwich. I take a bite of mine, my mouth dry, and wait for him to get to his point. “I always knew it, Sam. You telling me that OMH saw it, too, didn’t change a thing.” He gets up off the couch and walks to the kitchen to get drinks. “So, even though you were finding out for the first time, I always knew. It didn’t change the way I think about you, even if it changed the way you think about yourself.” He hands me a Sprite, still not looking at me. “I’m really glad that this happened, actually. Because it’s obviously the motivation you needed to figure your shit out. And, I’ve been—” he takes a bite of his sandwich and continues with his mouth full “—I’ve been waiting for you to figure yourself out.” He chews and swallows. He resumes speaking, looking into his sandwich. “And I figured, maybe once you got your footing back, and you were comfortable again—” he hesitates “—maybe we could…” He doesn’t finish his sentence and instead turns his earnest eyes to me.

  I know what’s about to come out of his mouth and I need to stop him before he says it. I make a stumbling, uncoordinated attempt to reach my hand to his face and hush him, but instead my feet get caught and I drop my sandwich on the couch while trying to brace myself against crashing into him.

  “David…” I sweep shredded lettuce from the couch onto my plate and try to reassemble my sandwich. I’m thankful for the distraction, so I don’t have to look at him. “David, I think I know what you’re going to say, and I—I want you to say it, but I don’t think I can hear it yet.” I’m graceless in my maneuvering of this conversation. “I need you to be my friend right now, and I can’t be more than that for you, yet.” I have mayonnaise on the fingers of my right hand, and I’m holding a plate with a dismantled turkey sandwich in my left, and David is watching me struggling to pull my feet out from under me. He’s not quite smiling, not quite sneering, but looking at me with some auspicious expression that I can’t identify.

  “What do you think I’m going to say?” Now he’s smirking.

  “What?” I’m suddenly panicked that I read the situation all wrong. I thought he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend, or propose, or tell me he loves me or fucking something like that. “I thought you—I thought you were going to say you wanted us…” I trail off, completely mortified that I implied he wanted to be with me if that wasn’t where his head was going.

  He takes a deep and warming breath, and puts his plate down on the coffee table. He takes my plate from me and squeezes my hands in his. He kisses my right hand and gets mayo on his lips. “Sam, I was going to tell you that I have feelings for you. As more than just your friend. But, of course, you already knew that. You’re always two moves ahead of everyone. I know you’re not ready. I will wait for you. I’ve waited six years, and I will wait six more if I have to. Or sixty more.” He kisses the knuckles on both my hands, licks the mayo off his lips and returns his attention to his lunch.

  “You heard me when I said that I wanted you to say it, right?” He seems too satisfied with this outcome. I didn’t expect him to be okay with waiting even longer.

  “I heard you.” His confidence is unnerving. “I know you, Sam. I just wanted you to know that I’m here. Like, really here.” He smiles at me, and all at once, what awkwardness came into the room when he arrived has flown out the window.

  MARCH 11TH, 7
:11 P.M.

  David is standing in the kitchen, cleaning up from our dinner, humming along with a TV theme song. He has a blue-striped dish towel thrown over his shoulder, and when he finishes each dish, he dries it off and puts it back exactly where it goes, as if he’s been living here for years.

  I’m sitting on the living room floor ready to investigate Richard’s stack of newspapers, my work bag propped up against the leg of the coffee table. It still has the gray nail-polish stain. The bent corners of the papers are sticking out of my olive-green canvas bag, and as I tug them onto the floor, the smell of Richard fills my nose.

  If Shawn hadn’t shown me the dates on the newspapers, maybe I never would have known. It occurs to me that Richard has been bringing in the same stack since our first meeting five months ago. The flashbacks appear in my head, and I see traces and margins of the same pictures, and the ever-increasing wear and frays down the spines and along the edges. I never thought to look more closely at them. They were newspapers, the most commonplace, benign, everyday items. Why would I be suspicious? I was never interested in Richard’s papers. I never should have been. Not until Shawn showed me the dates.

  Now I understand why he always took off his hat and placed it squarely on the front page of the top paper every time. Of course I would have noticed if, over all these months, the cover story was always the same.

  April 17, 2012, is the date on the front of the New York Times. The Post is dated May 3. The rest of the papers are also early spring 2012. The pages have yellowed, the edges are frayed, and all the front pages are torn along the fold. There are greasy fingerprints and stains along the margins.

  There are handwritten notes, Post-its and scribbles that usually start to appear toward the middle of the papers. From a preliminary glance, it looks like the bulk of the information is hidden in the Daily News and the New York Post.