Chapter

34

As we exited the quick subway ride, I felt like I had been transported through a time machine. All around me were old buildings from another time, decorated with banners, streamers and balloons. “Where are we?” I asked.

Julian took a long, deep sniff of the air and smiled. “This is the street of the ‘wanna-be’s,’ just around the corner from where they wished they lived. Smell it?”

I took a whiff. “Yeah. Smell what?” I replied.

“C’mon,” he laughed. “Max? Take that man’s other arm. ‘Will the real New York come forward...’” he bellowed like a game show host, “and show this man where it all started?”

I didn’t really know what was going on, but as he and Max half lifted me up and propelled me along the cobblestone street, I couldn’t help but believe what was coming up had to be good.

As we approached the corner, Julian began fingers-snapping  rhythms of the sounds. “Charles, where you hear the beat, that funky, ‘Italian Dixie’ we call it.”

We rounded the corner. “This is our neighborhood. Welcome to Little Italy.”

As we merged into the crowd, Julian said, “Stay close and I’ll fill your ears, your eyes and finally your belly with enough sensations to last you all the way back to LA.” Laughing, he nudged me, “with a lot of indigestion thrown in.”

They firmed their grip on my arms and steered me into the hundreds of eating, drinking and dancing New Yorkers jammed into one block of carnival rides, games, food, food and more food.

“C’mon, guys. I give up. What is all this?” I said as my senses were bombarded with music, confetti, paper-mache saints and angels being carried through the streets high above the steaming sausages, beer, wine. more beer and wine, sweat, pizza, sweat, more

sausages, grilled, smoked, burned, and boiled.

     “Festival time,” Julian yelled above the blaring New Orleans style band atop a flatbed truck in front of us. “Feast of Saint Anthony.” He took a bill from his pocket, Max...” he shoved the bill in Max’s hand, “three sausages, ‘krout, onions, extra onion, you like onions, don’t you Charles? Sure you do. What to drink.?

“What?” I shouted back.

He laughed, shook his head, and yelled to Max, “Three creams.” Max was off, leaving me in the hands of this man called Julianthis man that couldn’t see what he was feeling, but whose smile, clapping hands, and foot stompin’ energy painted a picture of pure sunlight for all who were lucky enough to see it. I had the front row seat and as his elbow found its mark in my side with, “C’mon, Charles, let it out, let it all out, blow it off,” I found my hands coming up and meeting one another. Suddenly, I was into it.

Celebration took over and I felt safe in the hands of a blind man, a blind man whose eyes had memories, eyes I would have gladly traded my own for at that moment as he wept with sheer joy and excitement to the music.

That’s how the first three minutes of St. Anthony’s festival began for me in what I would remember as my trip through Julian’s Heaven...and his passage through my Hell.

As the sun disappeared behind Mulberry Street, the heart of Little Italy, my stomach told me that Julian’s promise of ‘indigestion’ was already being fulfilled. As we made our way through the festival, Max had lavished me with what he labeled as “little-bite-size-samples” of everything imaginable in the two hours we had been here. Pizza, Ricotta pie, figs with almond stuffing, pistachio ice cream, Sicilian cassata, more pizza, gelato, potato pie, garlic bread, pasta, and finally...some more pizza. I saw that Julian liked his vino and by nine o’clock, he was feeling no pain. I was feeling lots of pain. And Max? Well, he was only ten years old and still curiously buying a taste of everything, as he led us to the last row of food stands.

I paused on the stoop of a building entrance to nurse my various party problems. I slipped with an embarrassing belch.

“More pizza?” asked Julian.

I forced a smile. “Julian, if you could see my stomach now, that would sound ridiculous even to a half-drunk blind man.”

“Ah, c’mon,” he laughed back, “I can hear you got more room.” He lifted his Chianti. “How about some more ‘wet,’ at least?”

I looked in my cup, then to the almost empty bottle of Chianti he was carrying. “Just to help you out,” I said.

As he poured, I looked around for Max. “Max still out there eating?”

“No, I expect he’ll be doin’ some dancin’ ‘bout now. The parish priest thinks he’s some kinda saint. Always askin’ him to entertain the heavens.”

“You’ve got quite a boy there, Julian.”

“Yeah,well, he got his mama’s good heart, and just enough of me to survive.” The pain of his thoughts was obvious as he finished the bottle in three huge gulps.

We sat quietly.

“He’ll be okay,” Julian said. “He’ll be okay all the way to the Golden Gates.”

He placed the bottle gently down and stood up. “C’mon. I’ll show you the best view of the Brooklyn Bridge in the city “

“OKAY to leave without Max?”

“Yeah. Father Rourke will bring him home when he’s danced out.”

He led me with his cane around the corner to a quieter block. “New York at night is the best part of showin’ people around, Charles. Don’t show this view to many, though.”

We walked another block, then he led me to the stoop of an apartment building. “This is the place. This is where Max and I live. C’mon.”

He led me into the building, an old, but well-kept old brownstone. As we walked the four stories to reach the roof, he shared a lot of deep thoughts for a man I’d just met eight hours earlier.

“You know, Charles, bet you think I’m kinda young to be havin’ a ten-year-old takin’ care of me.”

“Hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“I do. A lot. Before the accident, we were just a normal family, makin’ the rent, buyin’ the groceries, doin’ the regular things. I was playin’ some cellars in the village and—watch the handrail on this floor. It’s not very stable—and we were doin’ okay.”

We rounded the turn onto the second floor, as Julian continued. “Laura and I dreamed all the normal stuff. Max was two, and we figured we had plenty of time... “

He suddenly stopped talking and continued the walk up to the roof in silence. It was the first time he’d mentioned his wife and I was tempted to ask about her, but stayed quiet, as he seemed troubled. He was a strong man, though. I envied his strength. I felt like an honored guest in his world and I’d been surprised many times that day with how he handled everything. His white cane was the only suggestion of a man with a handicap, and then it was used more like a walking stick than a set of eyes. So far, he had moved through the afternoon and evening like any normal person, fascinating me with his ability to be at one with any place he found himself. He seemed to have all the securities and identities I lacked.

As we reached the door to the roof, he paused.

“Laura and I thought we had plenty of time, but I screwed up.” He turned and faced me just before he opened the door. His dark glasses reflected the single light bulb illuminating the stairwell, and it was as if I was looking into his open eyes. “I have my demon too, Charles. He’ll tear me up if I drop my guard. So, I come up here every night and get my fix.”

I stood there, contemplating what he had just said as he turned back to the door and opened it on to the moonless, cloudy night. As he stepped onto the roof and was swallowed up by the darkness, he said, “Hear Max? ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’.”

I focused on the distant sounds coming from a street several blocks away. I could vaguely hear ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ being played, but I didn’t hear any Max.

“He’s soft shoein’ it right now. He’ll break out in a couple of seconds.”

Holding back, I peered through the open doorway onto the pitch-black roof. “You hear his tappin’ from up here?”

Julian’s unseen voice chuckled, “I could say I did even if I didn’t and you wouldn’t know the difference, right?”

Strange thing for him to say, I thought. “Guess so. But... “

“You’ll never hear him from inside, Charles.”

He was right. I stepped up to the threshold. The spill from the single bulb dimly illuminated the first couple of feet on the roof, then...blackness.

“Step over to the edge. You’ll hear him. Go ahead.”

I felt uncomfortable. I looked around me. Beneath my feet, the roof felt like it was tar papered. That explained the pitch-black feeling as I looked down. The lights of the festival were in back of us...that explained the lack of depth perception as I peered into a void of blackness ahead of me. It was as if a blanket had been put over my head. Julian was as comfortable on the dark roof as anywhere else, but I felt like I was blindfolded. I felt like a child in the dark, and like the child—the child Mathews said I might have to become to reach the light of my memory—I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t admit...

“Over here. You can hear him much better,” Julian shouted.

His voice was to my left now, and much farther away. Before, it was straight ahead.

“Listen... he’s breaking out. That kid’s got feet of gold. You hear him now, don’t you Charles? Charles?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Julian. I hear you.”

“Him, Charles. Him. You hear him, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Now I do. Sure. Great feet. Great rhythm. Great... “

Suddenly, the roof door slammed shut, sending a shock wave of fear through me. “Julian! What was... “

“Just the door, Charles. I forgot to tell you to hook it. Damn thing’s so heavy, does it on its own. Max is finished now. He was fantastic, wasn’t he?”

The child within me was trembling. I couldn’t move. My eyes strained to see, but the darkness was completely around me now. “Yeah. Great. Wish I could see him dance.” I was wishing I could see anything right now. I couldn’t remember ever being in such total darkness.

“He’ll do another number. They’re still clappin’ for him.”

Just wait another minute, I told myself...let your eyes get used to the dark. Stop acting like a child, stop...

“Charles, let me earn my pay. You can’t see anything on that side. The city’s over here. Feels kinda damp. Fog coverin’ the bridge on that side?”

“Yeah.  Can’t see a thing.  Maybe we ought to go down.”

“Doesn’t happen often.  We hit a bad night.  Charles?”

I was still standing in the same place. I was afraid to turn. I was without the ability to move. Suddenly, a split-second image of the ice cap bolted through my brain...Oh, God...not again.

My arm was suddenly touched, sending me into a fit of terror. “No!” I shrieked.

“Charles?” said Julian. “It’s just me.”

I sank to my knees. My chest heaved. I struggled to regain my     breath. Neither of us said anything. I felt him sit down beside me. Still, we didn’t speak. My breathing finally calmed. I wasn’t trembling anymore. Julian touched my armagain. This time I didn’t move.

“I screwed up once, Charles. It cost me my eyes, Laura her life, and Max his mother. The demon won’t let me forget. But, up here, He fixes me whenever I bow my head and ask. He makes the demon go away. Would you like to join me?”

I bowed my head and closed my eyes. The light was there. “Yes,” I said.

Charles Randall was never the same after that dark night on the roof of Julian’s world...and neither was his demon.