Ed McBain: Long Time No See

He thought of the city as a galaxy. A cluster of planets revolving around a brilliant sun. Asteroids and comets streaming through the blackness of space. Behind his eyes, bursts of color sometimes exploded, tracer bullets flashed jaggedly and vanished, skyrockets soared against the nighttime of his sightlessness.

He was blind, but he knew this city.

It sometimes got bitter cold in November, this city. Far as he was concerned, that was the worst month here. Never could keep himself warm in November. Even the dog got to shivering in November. The dog was a black Labrador, trained as a guide dog. The dog’s name was Stanley. He had to laugh when he thought of that dog, a black man with a black dog. Just this morning somebody put a coin in the cup, a quarter by the sound of it, and then asked, “What’s the dog’s name, man?” Knew right off it was a black man talking. He could tell what a person was, what color or what nationality, just by hearing the voice.

“Dog’s called Stanley,” he said.

“Hang in there, Stanley-brother,” the man said, and walked off.

Stanley-brother. Dog was black, he automatically got to be a brother. Stanley must’ve looked at the dude like he was crazy. Good old dog, he’d be lost without him. “Right, Stanley?” he said, and patted him on the head. Dog said nothing, hardly ever said a word, old Stanley. Lucky to have that dog. Got home from the war, eyes shot to hell, people on the block chipped in to buy him the dog. Wasn’t a German shepherd, but trained just the same way, took him wherever he wanted to go in this city. Loved this city. Used to love it when he could see, and still loved it On the subway tonight, coming uptown, man offered him a seat. Italian from the sound of him. “Hey, buddy, you wanna sit?” Touched his elbow. Must’ve known some blind people, didn’t just reach up and scare hell out of him. Gently touched the elbow, that was all. “Hey buddy, you wanna sit?” Something in the way he said it — he must’ve known blind people, had to be the case. Wasn’t nothing in his voice made it sound like he was talking to an old lady or a cripple. Just man to man, you want the seat you can have it. He’d taken the seat. Would’ve refused it otherwise, but the man wasn’t taking pity, the man was just making things a little easier for him. That was acceptable.

You get to be blind...

You’re twenty years old and you get to be blind, people all of a sudden think of you as an old man. Got home from the war ten years ago, eyes gone, wearing the shades, Mama and Chrissie crying like anything, Come on, come on , he’d said, it ain't nothin, it can’t nothin . Shit, it ain’t nothin. It’s I’m blind is what it is.

But then you begin learning how to see again. How to use that old Stanley-dog to take you around where you want to go. How to read Braille and how to write it with a guide slate. Things like tying your own shoelaces, you already know how to do — most people don’t even look when they’re lacing their shoes, so ain’t nothing wrong with being blind when it comes to tying laces. And rattling a few coins in a cup’s an easy job. Get yourself a hand-lettered sign to hang around your neck, and you’re in business for yourself. Free enterprise. HERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO THEE. Chrissie lettered the sign for him. Made it on a piece of cardboard, threaded string through a hole in each corner. The sign, the tin cup, Stanley the black Lab, and he was well on his way to making a fortune. He would forever be grateful to the war. Otherwise, how could he have got started in his own business?

That was ten years ago.

Full disability pension. Tin cup. Rattle, rattle the coins in it, listen for the sound of more coins. Add them up at the end of the day. Take them home to Isabel and add them up together. Sit at the kitchen table, spread the coins on the oilcloth cover, her hands and his hands feeling the coins, separating them, feeling, feeling. He’d met Isabel in a bar on The Stem six years ago. He was a pretty good beggar by then, shuffling along behind old Stanley, listening to the hum of the city around him, picking out sounds in the air, entertaining himself with the sounds as he moved slowly along the sidewalk, jingling the coins in the cup, sign around his neck — a new one lettered by a man who ran a shop on South Twelfth — right hand holding onto Stanley’s harness. He’d had a good day, he stopped in the bar for a drink, this must’ve been about four in the afternoon. Woman sitting next to him. The scent of perfume and whiskey. Jukebox going at the back of the bar.

“What’ll it be, Jimmy?” the bartender asked.

“Bourbon and water.”

“Right.”

“My daddy used to drink bourbon and water,” the woman said.

White woman by her voice. Southerner.

“That right?”

“Yes. Bourbon and branch water’s a big thing down home. I’m from Tennessee.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Here you go, Jimmy.”

The sound of the glass being placed on the bar top. His hand moved forward exploringly, found the glass. “Cheers,” he said, and drank.

“Cheers,” the woman said. “My name’s Isabel Cartwright.”

“I’m Jimmy Harris.”

“Nice to know you.”

“Are you white?” he asked.

“Don’t you know?”

“I’m blind,” he said.

She laughed softly. “So am I,” she said.

Married her six months later. Blind as bats, both of them. Took an apartment on Seventh near Mason, didn’t want to be living in Diamondback uptown, not because he had himself a white wife now, but only because Diamondback was bad news for blacks or whites. Named by the blacks themselves, supposed to be sarcastic and comical, was just about as funny as a rattler itself, and every bit as deadly. Her father came up from Tennessee for the wedding. They’d been living together six months by then, wouldn’t have mattered if the old man yelled and hollered, they’d have told him to go back home and drown in his bourbon and branch water. Nice old man, though, said he knew his daughter would be well looked after. Marrying a man who couldn’t see his own hand in front of his own black face, but sure, he’d look after her.

Well, he had.

They danced together sometimes.

Put on the radio, danced to it. He used to be some dancer before the war. Secret music, he heard secret music all the time. Same as the lights that flashed. Used to think being blind meant darkness all the time. Wasn’t so. Lights flashing. Electrical impulses from the brain, memory images, whatever. Lots of action in his head all the time. Couldn’t see nothing in front of his eyes, but saw plenty behind them. Touched her face. Beautiful face. Blond hair, she said. Old Jimmy Harris got himself a honky chick, loved her to death. Rattled that old cup for her, rattled her bones in bed, too.

He was, by his calculation, two blocks from the building he lived in on Seventh Street. He had taken the subway uptown to Fourth, and was now crossing Hannon Square, where the statue of the World War I general on a horse dominated a small grassy patch overhung with chestnut trees. Weren’t no horses in his damn war. Punji sticks and vill sweeps, surround the village, go right through it — that had been his war. Leave your eyes on the floor of a jungle. Nice work, Jimmy. You got him. His M-16 was still on automatic, he’d sprayed the bushes on the right side of the trail, where the sudden machine-gun fire had started. There was stillness now. The sergeant’s voice. Nice work, Jimmy. You got him.