goodbye
“I’m trying to find the curb.” Two people, 65 to 70 years old, standing at the crosswalk. A couple. A man with a white cane, a woman also with a white cane. The man said it to the woman.
He tapped the cane quickly against the ground, turning around, on the curb, back and forth. His eyes were closed. The woman stood next to him, eyes open, looking normal. No one would suspect she was blind without that white cane.
“Where are we? Is it this way?” She faced the empty road, speaking to the man on her left.
“I’m trying to find the bus station.” He touched the road sign, the thin metal pole. “No, not this one.”
The traffic light turned green. I was supposed to move forward. I was on the bike, almost passing them. I looked back to make sure no other bike was blocked by me. “Do you need help?” I asked, just as I was fading into the grand avenue.
“Oh yes, we’re trying to find the crosswalk for Mass Ave,” the man answered, facing in my direction.
“You want to cross Mass Ave? Like this way?” My right hand made a crossing gesture, pointing toward my left. I was on Mass Ave, and they were on my right. I looked at them, waiting for confirmation, then quickly realized they couldn’t see my hands.
“Yes, we want to cross Mass Ave,” the woman, standing behind the man, confirmed.
“We are trying to find the crossing. Can you point me to where it is?” The man was still searching the ground.
“Yes, I can show you. You can follow my voice.” The man faced me. I meant to tell him to keep going this direction. I sat on my bike, walking it backward slowly.
He turned his head left and right, the cane’s searching pattern unchanged. “Do you mean on our left?” the woman asked. Yes, that was her left. But not his left. Still, he corrected his direction quickly and moved toward me.
“Yes, keep moving forward, toward my voice.” I probably had some (mis)belief that blind people are excellent at pinpointing direction from sound. But they did follow.
“Almost there. Yes, here it is.” The man found the crosswalk, the woman following. The walking signal turned green for their turn. “You can cross now, it’s green.”
They walked one in front, one behind, both with white canes tapping the ground. The trail they made looked like a Z, but they stayed within the crossing lines. Suddenly, one of them staggered. My body jolted with theirs. It was a manhole cover.
A young man on a bike stopped next to me, watching them cross. “Thanks for helping,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s the only thing I can do.” The other half of the sentence stayed in my mind, “How are they going to get home on their own?” I didn’t know. Our lives parted at this crossroads. I vanished into the long, never-ending avenue under the dusky blue sky.
