She kneeled and brought up a bowl of Lysol and threw it in Edgar’s face. The pain was so horrible, the act so sudden, that he simply laid out his arms and rocked, before his hands came up on their own and dragged at his eyes. He was conscious of her running back and forth in the trailer. But there was no water, not there or in any trailer around them. It was a long, long time before she had him, naked, in her Toyota wreck. Something went wrong with it, though, and it stopped. He was blind. He was probably good and blind before she, having raced around desperately for ditch water, opened the radiator for its fluid and came to him with a few drops of it, sprinkling some on his eyes. It tasted like antifreeze.
When he left the hospital ten days later, he had only a speck of vision, low in his left eye.
Emma had never left him, and implied her remaining life in this act.
“I’ll never leave you, Edgar,” she crooned, over and over.
She never discussed anything with Auntie Hadley or him. She would be there at the house with him forever, or wherever, she said. Emma had real power in her guilt. The aunt might be flabbergasted, but Edgar couldn’t see things like that now. He never heard an incautious opinion from his aunt anymore. Emma said, indeed, that the woman was being sweet, real sweet. He could hear them in conference. They seemed to be agreeing about almost everything. Emma allowed the aunt to buy her clothes. She described them to Edgar, meekly delighted. All he could see were the new Paris shoes.
Her love for him, he felt, went on past the penitential, which he, manly, protested many times. She swore it was not so, not in the least. Horrible as it was, throwing Lysol at him had been an act that told her where she belonged. He could not know how much she loved him. That thing about kings and princes was just the last of her daydreamy youth shouting itself out.
Edgar asked for his valved Bach trombone. It didn’t really taste like whiskey at all. He practiced it awhile. Blind men had come forth beautifully in jazz. His aunt’s hand was on his shoulder, appreciative.
One day his parents came with a present of Lambert’s latest swing record, a minor hit. They said it brought back memories. Edgar loved them desperately, and he could hear the kind Emma celebrating his progress as they left, meaning to visit often. It was all delightful, but the horn itself was no go. It was as if he’d never touched one. There was weakness in his chest, not from the healed sternum, but something more. He just couldn’t. He cried a little. It was mainly for Emma, anyway. He didn’t want her to see him cry. In fact, he was glad he was no good.
He’d gotten the grant. Emma was ready to lead him in Chicago, back to the old haunts, anywhere. Handicaps very often increased being, she said. Such people were called the “differently abled” nowadays.
Edgar had never wanted to go back to Chicago. That wasn’t his item, his thing.
Once, a month blind and just sitting there, seeing if he could read a long speck in one of Hadley’s diaries, he came across something from 1931: “I. . am. . made. . all. . different. . I. . can’t. . enjoy. . anything. . God. . you. . my. . husband. . pokes. . at. . me. . I. . am. . angry. . feel. . there. . is. . a. . dangerous. . snake. . down. . there. . not. . him. . me. . before. . he. . got. . there. . God. . help. . me.”
Hadley made a movement. She was next to him, on a wooden chair. Emma was away. Auntie Hadley started whispering about Milton and that “Argentina man,” and Helen Keller’s triumphant books.
“Milton was years preparing for his life’s work — what a paradise regained for us all, Edgar. His daughters served him and took his dictation. I can have all this brailled for you. You could then dictate and Emma would surely help. She is all you. You are luckier than your ugly aunt, in many ways.”
“Actually, the blind can write,” said Edgar suddenly.
“A whole new world. ‘They also serve who stand and wait.’ But you wouldn’t have to wait anymore.”
Edgar grinned. She’d not seen him grin. He knew something deep and merry, the exact ticket.
“Your physical needs are all covered. Then there’s my will, after I. . and a big sum for the book. And all the instruments, of course, for composition.”
“Do something for me, Auntie. Would you put Lambert’s record on the Victrola so we can listen together? The past, swing, times forgotten.”
She played it and sat, not a squeak.
God, the band was wretched, and yet they’d come round again with a hit. You never knew.
He screwed up his mouth when it was done, tongue against his teeth, watching Hadley’s foot bounce to this merde, holy smoke!
He told her there would be a declaration when Emma came back. He wanted a gathering. This was a big moment for him.
Emma sat, a Manhattan like Hadley’s in her hand, at six-thirty that evening. They told him it was snowing out even though it was early April — so very rare and lovely and ghostly quiet. The town was filling up and mute. A beloved merchants’ calamity thrilling the young at heart.
“All right, let’s get started. A real book knows everything. Let’s clear the air in two ways. First, Auntie Hadley, to get modern, when did you first know you were a shit? Was it a sudden revelation, what? When did it arrive that you were and would be, awful? Next, we of the addicted must write letters of amends to everybody alive. Maybe even to the dead. I want to hear that pen scratching near me while I’m at my work, sweetie. This needn’t take forever, though the sheer amount of paper will be staggering.”
There was silence before she acquiesced. Did he hear something moist and flowing from her?
“Emma, dear.” He himself began crying. “I release you body and soul. Don’t need no cellmate, not even no lovin’, till the old opus is done. Think it over then. Have at the kings and princes.”
Why was he so happy, so profoundly, almost, delirious?
Loud and bright and full of jazz, Rat-Face Confesses— that would be the title of their book.
Scandale d’Estime
THEY WERE DESTROYING A THEATER IN KOSCIUSKO, AND MY FATHER bought the bricks. He had made a good deal. He asked me and a buddy of mine to live there a while in a hotel to stack the unbroken bricks for him and load them on a truck.
We were, my buddy and I, probably seventeen. We read Downbeat magazine and knew a few Dylan Thomas poems, which seemed to us as good as poetry could get. Horace was the better reader and memorized poems whole. There was a small college in our town, and we knew some of the younger faculty who had left in despair and irony over the puritan expectations of it. As they had been able to talk about upwards of three books, we considered them great poetic souls. I wish there were a good term for the zeal we felt for these older hip brethren, which included one stylish lady named Annibelclass="underline" cats almost got it, when the Beats and jazzers established themselves. Those who got the joke and continued on with their private music. A personal groove.
Now and then there was a question of what we should do with the new women in our heads. You might go out with some local girl, but she was not really there, she was not the real faraway city woman in your cat head. You might kiss her and moil around — but she was, you knew, fifth string, a drear substitute for the musical woman in a black long-sleeve sweater you had in your mind on the seashore of the East — the gray, head-hurting East, very European to my mind, where you thought so much and the culture labored so heavy on you your head hurt. The beauty and the wisdom of this woman — uttered along the seashore in weary sighs — was a steady dream, and I woke with it, pathetically, to attack a world fouled by the gloomy usual. I yearned to talk and grope with a woman who was exhausted by the world and would find me a “droll” challenge. She would be somewhat older. She either sighed, or mumbled pure music. I had no interest in the young freshness of girls at all.