Jamie lay by the little brook listening to the small swirls
of turbulence as the water rushed over and around the rocks. After the dry summer, the previous
night’s rain had the creek singing once more. Jamie had an extraordinary gift of listening. The sounds naturally blended to
his ear like a symphony. Sound was
his medium. With sound he could
paint the wind bending the grass, blend in the color of rustling leaves, and
accent the little creatures that scurry along the forest floor.
A variety of birds found their way into his masterpiece; he identified each by their unique song. He claimed that his hearing was not so much better than others;
it was just that he heard more out of the sounds, the details that normally
went unnoticed by those who possessed the dominant sense of sight.
Jamie also had an acute sense of touch. He could feel the
wind on his face, knowing the direction it was blowing from and whether it
held the promise of rain. And
he possessed an uncanny gift for identifying things with his hands. But most of all he loved the feel of
the sun on his face.
Lying on his back with his hands behind his head he allowed
the full brightness of the mid-day sun to bathe his youthful countenance. Staring up at the sky, on a bright
sunny day, Jamie could just barely detect a hint of light, his only moments of
respite from a world of darkness.
Blind since birth, Jamie met the exigencies of life with resolve.
His sovereignty in everyday life
skills was owed to his parents, who disallowed any pity or indulgence. His constant companion and best friend,
Pal, gave him the eyes that nature had deprived. Pal was a Yellow Lab, and like most of his breed, was a devout
anthromorph. Endowed with human-like
sensibility, he shared Jamie’s quiet times lying close beside him and laying
his paw across the boy’s lap. And
like the time Jamie’s mother passed, a shy whimper might escape his throat. He would even sit and listen, tilting
his head side to side, straining to comprehend the stories Jamie’s grandfather
would tell on Saturday nights. The
boy and the dog went everywhere together, roaming the fields of the farm and
the backwoods along the creek.
This place was a favorite destination, a long walk down an
abandoned farm road where it crossed the little brook over an old culvert. Here Jamie spent many quiet times
musing over the sounds of the surrounding woods, the loss of his mother, or his
imminent future as a blind adult. He often confided in the loyal canine, which would sit and
listen and gaze upon the boy like a Sunday worshipper. But presently Pal was off terrorizing a
rabbit that had dared to venture into the clearing while the vigilant canine
was on watch.
As the dog emerged from the brush he detected a distant
sound. Then Jamie heard it, a
vehicle bouncing down the old farm road.
It was an old pickup truck, Jamie knew from the sound of rusted springs,
and the rattling of body in the process of separating from it’s frame, an all too
common occurrence in this farm country, which was rife with old pickups. Pal sat, ears erect and squared the way
Labs do, hyper-vigilant to the approaching noise. It was rare to see a vehicle on this old road, but it
was early in the hunting season and it might be someone after squirrel or
rabbit; it was much too early for deer.
Jamie and the dog listened as the noisy vehicle came closer.
Finally the truck bounced over the culvert and slowed to a
stop. Jamie heard the creak of old
hinges and the rattled closing of an elderly truck door. Pal stiffened and a low growl emerged
from deep in his throat.
“Hello there, seen any rabbits?” A friendly voice rang out.
Jamie had guessed the truck most likely carried one of the
locals. But he did not recognize
the voice. “Well, I can’t see
anything, but I think my dog was chasing one around a while ago,” Jamie
offered.
The stranger was carrying a shotgun over his shoulder. He walked closer to Jamie. His head thrust forward and a quizzical
look came to his eyes, “Excuse me, but are you blind, kid?”
“Yes, all my life, I was born this way.”
Jamie noted a sympathetic tone in the stranger’s voice that put him more
at ease.
“Well how in the world did you get way out here in these
woods?” The stranger asked.
“Its my dog, Pal, he helps me, he knows every inch of these
woods, he’s my eyes.” Jamie
proudly proclaimed.
“Well he is a real good lookin’ dog, I gotta say.”
“Thanks mister, you can pet him if you want,” Jamie offered.
“Oh, no thanks,” the stranger waved the offer off, “I like
dogs but I was bit one time so now I’m careful about dogs.”
“Well, Pal would never hurt anyone, but I understand how you
feel, that’s fine. My name is
Jamie, are you from around here?”
“No, my name is Nem, I live in the city. I was just driving around and saw this
old road and it looked like a good place to hunt.”
The two fell into a talk about hunting. Jamie related something his father had
told him about rabbit hunting; that you needed a good dog to get rabbits these
days. Pal was a good dog, but he
was not the right dog, what was needed was a good beagle, a beagle will chase a
rabbit and bring him right back to you.
The hunter was only a little older than Jamie, perhaps eighteen, and had
not been hunting long. He admitted
that he had yet to shoot anything.
It was mid-day, the sun was high and bright, and the hunting would not
be very good. So the two young men sat on the bank and talked of things, as
young men will. The dog lay down a
few feet away and slept in the warm September sun.
“You must go to school don’t you?” The hunter asked.
“Of course, I get by ok, and there is an aide that helps me
with the visual stuff, and special ed classes, I like school,” Jamie said.
Nem picked a long weed and stuck it between his teeth, “I
kinda miss school, there were lots of girls. Not that it did me any good,” he
confessed.
“Why?” Jamie probed.
“Oh, mostly because of this scar, that’s where that dog got
me, in my face, and it ain’t too pretty…” Nem’s voice trailed off.
“Man, is it really bad? I can’t see of course.”
“Here, feel it,” The hunter took Jamie’s hand and placed it
on his face.
Jamie had never seen a face, but as a very young child he
would caress his mother’s. And
he was let to explore others; like his father’s, and his grandmother’s. He knew what a human face felt like,
and had formed a clear image of what it should look like.
The deep and jagged scar traveled across the hunter’s nose
and down through his upper and then lower lip. It was a deep and horrible disfigurement. Jamie was shaken, the scar was bad, but
Jamie would not say anything, he would avoid making the hunter feel any worse
than he most likely already felt.
But the hunter saw his look, the same look he saw in everyone’s face
that met him, or walked by him on the street. It was something he had to live with. People would stare, then catch themselves
and look away, but their eyes would ultimately be drawn back. It is human nature. The children would stare, as
there is an inherent honesty in childhood, if you want to know what people think,
watch the children.
“Oh I don’t blame the dog any. You know dogs get scared and they’ll snap at you. It’s just natural for them I
guess. You can’t blame dogs, I
guess,” the hunter attempted to reconcile himself to his deformity.
“I guess we all got something we have to deal with, whether
a person can’t see, or a person has scars, we all got something,” Jamie said.
“I suppose it’s the scars you can’t see that go the
deepest,” Nem declared in a more distant voice.
Jamie said nothing.
But he had felt those scars also, those scars unseen that no surgery
could ameliorate, the irretractable loss, the forsaken gifts of life that
everyone else takes for granted, that are forever lost to a person who is
different, a person with scars on his face, or a person who can not see. He had felt it in school, and he felt
in on the hunter’s face, the perpetual state of grief; and the constant and ever-present
tinge of exclusion.
“Well, I better get goin' back home, I don’t feel much like
huntin' anyway,” Nem rose to his feet and spat the blade of grass he had been
chewing.
“It was good talking to you, I usually have no one but old
Pal to talk to,” Jamie said.
“I’ll say goodbye to your dog then too.”
Jamie was still lying in the grass when the thunderous
explosion occurred. The sound was so close, so terrifying
that he reflexively uttered an indiscernible roar and grabbed his head and
curled into a fetal position.
There he froze for a few seconds, his sensitive ears taking time to
recover, his face buried in the grass.
Terrified, Jamie called out, “What was that? Pal where are you? Pal!”
He heard the truck door slam; he heard the engine start; the
truck shifted into gear and drove away.
Still protectively curled in the grass, the sounds began to return; the
rushing water, the leaves of the trees; his own breathing. But one sound was conspicuously absent,
a sound that you would expect after such a violent encounter, a sound that
Jamie wanted and needed to hear, the sound of his dog barking.
“Pal?” Jamie
called softly.
Suddenly, a pang of horror seized him, more visceral than
cerebral. Alternating flashes of
denial and terror ran through his brain.
For a moment he was frozen, and a bitter nausea welled deep in his
throat.
“Pal!” The call
became frantic. Jamie crawled through
the grass like a madman, grasping in every direction. He found the still, wet warmth that was only moments ago his
companion, his closest friend.
Jamie collapsed on the dead animal and pressed his body into it as if to
give it life. To lose his eyes
twice in one life was too great a loss.
