Scott Spencer - A Ship Made of Paper

Finally, however, Daniel submits to a series oftests, under the aegis of Bruce McFadden.First, Bruce conducts his own examinations, and then, finding nothing amiss, he sends Daniel toWindsor Imaging, for an MRI and then a CAT scan, and when all the results are in he sits with Daniel in his office to go over them.Among the other decorations in McFadden’s office—and it’s an eccentric old space, filled with angles and oddities—are framed black-and-white photographs ofsome ofhis favorite blind musicians:Ray Charles, StevieWonder, Roland Kirk, Al Hibler, Ivory Joe Hunter, BlindWillie McTell, the Five Blind Boys ofMississippi and the Five Blind Boys ofAlabama, together in the same photo, which makes it an artifact ofunusual distinction, and the English jazz pianist George Shearing, the one white face in the lot.

“It’s the old joke,”Bruce says, tilted back in his Swedish orthopedic chair, with its childishly bright-blue upholstery and its brilliant chrome hardware,“the one that goes,‘I’ve got good news and bad news.’”His feet are on the desk, he has knit his fingers behind his neck.“But the good news is good enough, maybe you won’t even care about the bad.There’s nothing wrong with your eye, Daniel.The retina, the cornea, the optic nerve, everything’s shipshape.In fact, you’ve got the ocular vigor ofa teenager.You don’t even need glasses.”

“Except that I can’t see,”Daniel says.

”Yes, well, that’s the bad news,”Bruce says.“We’re going to have to explore the possibility that the origin ofyour difficulty is not physical.”

“Meaning?”Daniel asks, though an instant later the question answers itself.

“Your eye is fine.Your vision will most likely come back.After your life—”

“You think my life has made me blind?”

“I don’t know what’s made you blind, Daniel.All I can tell you is what the tests say.And they all say your eye is healthy.”

Daniel falls silent.He hears a sound, turns toward it.The branch ofa maple tree, its leaves large as hands, blows in the breeze, scraping against the outside ofthe window.

“Guilt’s a bitch,”Bruce says.He sits forward, folds his hands, he’s coming to the end ofthe time allotted.

“I don’t feel guilty.How could I? I’ve turned a blind eye to everything.”

Bruce smiles, he looks relieved.“It may turn out to be as simple as that,”he says.

“I’m joking, Bruce.”Daniel’s chin juts forward, he widens his eyes.“Jesus.”

“I feel sorry for you, Daniel.I really do.You’re under a lot ofpressure.”

Daniel tries to smile, but then, failing that, he tries to compose himself into a sort ofmanly grimace, but even that will not hold.He feels his lips quiver and he feels the surge oftears.He takes a deep breath, covers his eyes.There are certain things he has not been able to say, not even to Iris.She, into whose consciousness he has wanted to pour himself since first meeting her, she turns out to be perhaps the last per-son to whom he can reveal the remorse he feels over Hampton, over Ruby, over Kate.She already has a broken man in her life.Every step he has taken into the light ofIris’s love seems to have ushered him along on an equal journey into, ifnot the heart ofdarkness, then, at least, the darkness ofthe heart.It is not what he had expected.What happened to the world opening wide, what happened to joy? How could the achieve-ment ofall that he has desired cast him into such withering isolation?

“I don’t think this needs to be said, Daniel,”Bruce says.“But nobody blames you.You realize that, don’t you?”

Daniel reaches across the desk and clasps Bruce’s hand.“Oh my God,”he says.“I can see! I can see!”

For a moment, Bruce looks confused, as ifhe is about to believe some kind ofmiracle has occurred.But then, he regains his composure.“Very funny,”he says.“Ha ha ha.”

Even with the appalling evidence ofHampton’s ruination an inch or two from her face, the reality ofwhat has befallen him, her, all ofthem, remains elusive to Iris.The waking dream ofeveryday life obscures his injury, there is so much else to do, so many people, so much work—dishes to be washed, clothes to be folded, tunes hummed, a minute goes by, ten, and the space in her mind labeled“Hampton”will, without her governance, be silently, unconsciously occupied by the familiar man to whom she once swore allegiance and then betrayed, that infuriating, belittling presence.

And the parade ofpeople who march in and out ofher house.It’s like Memorial Day.Here come the fire trucks, here comes the Little League, here come the Elks.Iris has kept a journal, meant at first to be a recepta-cle for her pain, for the remorse, the guilt she must share for what has happened to Hampton, and a place to map and describe the dark sea ofsex and happiness in which she is sometimes swimming, sometimes sailing, and sometimes sinking—but little ofthat ever makes it into the diary.It is crowded out, eclipsed, and then obliterated by a constantly expanding cast ofcharacters, the people who come in and out ofthe life ofthe house.

There are the doctors, the nurses, the medical technicians, all with names, all with stories, one has a limp, one is diabetic, one lost three fin-gers to frostbite in the peacetime PolishArmy, one smokes clove ciga-rettes, one is a Sufi, one sang backup for PaulaAbdul, each and every one ofthem stakes a separate claim on her attention.

And then:family.There are pages and pages in her journal about the comings and goings ofher family, and Hampton’s family.They have all risen to the occasion.Iris’s sister Carol is a constant presence.Ofthe first ninety days ofHampton’s convalescence—though that perhaps is the wrong word for it, convalescence implies a process, an end point, and Hampton’s global aphasia is permanent—Carol was living with them more than halfthe time.But not counting Carol, the first to arrive was Hampton’s mother, who descended into the hell ofJuniper Street in her dark-blue suit and wavy silver hair, wearing orange lipstick and a large diamond ring, and seemed to think that ifshe taught Hampton to speak once she can do it again.Then came Hampton’s brother James, who for all his hippy ways, his bewildering openness to spiritual margi-nalia, could do nothing useful;he sobbed and wailed, in a frenzy until fi-nally it fell to Iris to comfort him.Then arrived Hampton’s oldest brother, Jordan, a Congregationalist minister in Bethesda, gaunt, wid-owed, and remote, who, when Iris asked ifhe was going to pray over Hampton, looked at her as ifshe had asked ifhe handled snakes or rolled on the floor speaking in tongues.Next came her two favorite brothers, Louis and Raymond, in business together back home, getting rich selling BMWs (LouRay Motors) and speculating in real estate (Davenport De-velopment, Inc.).Then her father arrived, a month after the accident, as ifwaiting for the smoke to clear so he could set matters straight, strolling into the ruination likeYojimbo, somehow carrying with him the medical authority ofthe entire Richmond Memorial Hospital, where he had been head ofFood Services for thirty-eight years.Then Hampton’s old friends, the Morrison-Rosemonts, up fromAtlanta, and then more brothers, more sisters, his parents again, her parents again.She is run-ning a bed-and-breakfast for the genuinely concerned, throwing in lunch and dinner, too.All ofthem have different ideas, different needs, differ-ent dietary requirements.Some are helpful, some are pains in the ass, and all ofthem, each and every one ofthem, wants, finally, to know the same thing:Who has done this thing to Hampton?

“Oh, the man I love, the man I will sneak out ofhere to see as soon as the coast is clear, as soon as I hear you snoring behind the guest room door,”is what Iris does not say.“A friend ofmine named Daniel, it was an accident,”she also doesn’t say.“Ifyou need someone to blame, then blame me,”is likewise on the list ofunuttered things.But she can’t re-main silent, she can’t refuse to answer their very reasonable question, she cannot drum her fingers on the side ofher head and say“Da da da.”And so she tells the story again and again, drawing it out so it can seem she is not stinting on the details, beginning with the party at Eight Chimneys, the trouble between the Richmonds, the disappearance ofMarieThorne, the storm-wrecked woods, the flares, and on and on, and no matter which way she spins it the end is always the same—her silence mixes with the silence ofher listener, and the two silences combine in the air and create a kind ofHoly Ghost ofthe Unspoken, and that spirit looks down upon them and whispers: a white man did this to him.