I don’t know how long I stood on those steps.
“She did the crossword every morning,” Carol said. She was starting to look frightened of me. “In pen. She had cataracts taken care of in ’91. She saw better than I do. Are you all right? Are you going to be all right?”
I sat down on the church steps in the cold, and I opened the envelope. I want you to know that I read it myself.
Dear Daniel,
You will have been told by now. Don’t be cross with Carol. She can’t help it. She was never quick.
I taught English for forty-six years. In that time I could spot a boy who couldn’t read from across a gymnasium. It’s the way he holds the paper. It’s how he is funny, right before it is his turn. I found eleven such boys in my career, and I went to each of them, as a teacher will, and told him I knew. I offered to help him. Do you know what they did, Daniel? Every one of them looked at me with hatred, and quit coming to school. A boy like that would rather be thought a criminal than be seen to fail by someone who can see him.
I thought about those eleven boys for a long time. I have had little else to do.
But no one is ashamed in front of a blind woman.
The dark glasses cost four dollars. The cane I got from a man down the hall who had no further use for it. The staff at Sycamore Manor were told to mind their own business, and they did, because they are afraid of me.
Judge Bellamy sat in the third row of my sophomore English class in 1951. I gave him a C-minus, which he deserved. Thirty years later he became the only man in Delaware County who still returned my telephone calls. When I moved into that place, I called him and said: “George, the next time you see a big, funny boy in your court who can’t read a word, send him to me. And do not tell him why.”
You were the fourth boy he sent me. The first three, I lost. You were the only one who asked about the raft.
I want you to know how hard it was. For two hundred hours, I sat with my back to the window so the light wouldn’t show you my eyes behind those glasses, and I watched your finger on every word. You said “island” with an S in it for a month, and it nearly killed me.
I also want you to know that I caught your pen. I have regretted that. I was sure that I was finished.
“You have the eyes, and I have the words.” I will confess to you now that this was a lie. You had both of them for quite some time. I just didn’t care to stop.
You never told me you couldn’t read, and I never told you I could see. I believe that’s what is called good manners. It was the finest three years of my life.
I am enclosing the glasses. You may find a use for them. There are always more boys.
Hour 201 begins now. Do not be late.
E. Voss
P.S. Your diploma did misspell the Latin. I wrote to the school.
I turned the envelope over and shook it. A pair of cheap black dark glasses slid out into my hand, with one arm held on by a bit of tape.
I sat on those steps until Carol’s husband came and asked me if I needed a ride. I told him I was fine. I told him I had some reading to do.
I’m forty-seven now. I went to Ball State on loans. I’ve been a reading specialist in the Muncie schools for twenty-three years. I have a bad back, two kids, and a wife who finds me very annoying. I have taught, by my count, about eleven hundred people to read. I’ve lost some. You always lose some. I remember their names.
I keep a pair of dark glasses in my top desk drawer, with one arm held on by a bit of old tape.
Last month, they sent me a new kid. He’s fifteen, and he’s big, with a long file. He came through my door doing an impression of the vice principal, and it was pretty good. He sat down and put his feet on the chair. I handed him a sheet of paper, just to see, and I watched how he held it.
Then he told me a joke, a really funny one, right when it was his turn.
I laughed. I took a good long look at him. I knew what I was looking at. I’ve seen it in the mirror.
I didn’t tell him that I knew. I’m not going to. I’ve learned that much.
Instead, I opened my top drawer. I took off my regular glasses, and I rubbed my eyes, and I sighed like an old man.
“I’ll be honest with you,” I said. “The doctor says my eyes are about shot. It’s getting so I can’t read my own mail. I’ve got this letter from the school board here, and I can’t make out one word. I sure could use some help. All you’d have to do is tell me the letters.”
He looked at the letter. He looked at me. I saw him start to get ready to be funny.
“You have the eyes,” I said. “I have the words.”
I put on the glasses.
“Between us,” I said, “that makes one whole person.”
This is a work of fiction. All names, people and events are invented.
