Crocodile Eyes

By Elizabeth Weisser

“I suggest you find a support group.” The lights of the examination room, which had been dimmed in order to give Paige’s dilating pupils time to adjust, and also to allow Dr. Jeffries to examine Paige’s retinas with his ophthalmoscope, cast the doctor in an eerie silhouette as he spoke. He pushed the mechanism on the dimmer upward and looked seriously at Paige who was sitting in the tall, black adjustable patient’s chair. The room, just off the main hallway of the eye specialists’ clinic, seemed barely big enough for the two of them, and the chair made it look even smaller. “Here’s the contact number for the Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired.” Dr. Jeffries pressed a folded, yellow, lined sheet of paper directly into Paige’s right hand “You should talk with them about finding a transition counselor there and starting Orientation and Mobility training.”

“Isn’t there something else you can do for this, special contacts, surgery, medications, something?” A dull ache filled Paige’s stomach, like a sponge absorbing water only to be wrung dry and soaked again.

“If I could give you something to make this better, Miss Prescott, believe me I would.”

“You said I have a specific kind of RP, something about ‘auto-recessive.’ That’s different, right?”

“Autosomal recessive’ retinitis pigmentosa simply means that both of your parents were carriers of the disease. You may or may not have a family history of RP. The disease still affects the same parts of the eye, with similar results.”

“Blindness.”

“Yes. Eventually.”

“So, how much vision will I lose? How long can I expect to be able to see anything?”

“I really can’t give you any specifics. RP is different for every person.”

“I thought you were supposed to be a specialist.”

“I am.”

“Well, can’t you at least give me an estimate?”

“Most people with RP are usually legally blind by the age of forty.”

“Great, so I’ve got another fifteen years of this nightmare.”

“Look. Research is being done, but right now, there’s no cure for RP. Dark glasses might help to reduce the glare of sunlight, maybe slow the process down a little, but whatever I can provide for you is only going to be a stop-gap. You need to prepare yourself, get the training. People with RP can live independent, productive lives.”

Paige rested her forehead in her hand and sighed. Her long brown hair fell over her slumped shoulders. She closed her brown eyes, which felt as though each one had an eyelash trapped inside it, even after Dr. Jeffries removed the electrodes used in the ERG test that measured her retinas’ responses to light. (Dr. Jeffries explained the results…Night Blindness…the rod cells in her eyes were gradually dying, which was why she was having such a hard time seeing at night). The hours of testing left Paige unnerved especially the field test that had measured her peripheral vision. She remembered sitting in front of the giant, gray screen, how it took forever to adjust the wheeled stool so that she could see the red light in the center of the screen, the red light she instinctually ignored in favor of the little yellow pinpricks she was supposed to respond to. It reminded Paige of Whack-a-Mole, only instead of a mallet, there was a clicker. She’d imagined she was a rat, trying to cross the interstate at rush hour: her beady little eyes darting left and right her ears hearing the “beep, beep, beep, beep,” of massive crushing machines that were honking at her; she could feel it, when she didn’t see the yellow-dot cars, didn’t acknowledge them quick enough.

Dr. Jeffries had explained, “Your visual field is shrinking. You compensate for what you can’t see by shifting your gaze more often, moving your head left or right to catch what you would otherwise miss. Eventually, you will experience “tunnel vision;’ it will seem like you’re always looking through a pair of binoculars”

Now, she sensed Dr. Jeffries staring at her. His presence made it harder for her to collect her thoughts and the silence…the last time she’d experienced this kind of silence was ten years ago at her grandfather, James Prescott’s, wake when she was fifteen. That had been the first time she’d experienced the death of someone close to her, and she didn’t know how to react. Standing in the chapel alone, she’d stared down into his casket and thought how, in that moment, he seemed to embody “silence” heavy yet empty; his corpse was there, his head rimmed with thin, white hair, the starched white shirt, navy blue suit, black shoes, and blue-and-red-striped tie coving his tall, 160-pound figure. Yet, his soul was gone, it seemed to touch her heart for a moment then drop away, like a hand that had been raised in a final wave, or lips that brushed her cheek as she slept. She wouldn’t see his blue eyes dance again, no crooked smile would break up the mass of wrinkles on his face; she would never hear him bellow “Old Man River”, or sit in his lap and lean her head against his chest feeling the low rumbling tones of the story that lulled her into a doze.

A lone tear slipped down her lightly-freckled cheek.

“Is there someone you could call to drive you home, because I’m not sure it safe for you to drive right now.”

She nodded. He stepped out of the room and closed the door gently behind him. Paige listened as his footsteps faded down the hall. Her eyes began to burn as a few more tears slipped from them, but she couldn’t bring herself to have the long, hard cry she wanted to. After a few minutes of trying, she gave up, and began to wipe her eyes but stopped; Dr. Jefferies had warned her not to touch them after he’d used a local anesthetic to numb the cornea for the ERG test. Paige stood up from the big chair and retrieved her purse from another chair at the side of the room. She found her cell phone, called Bobby, then grabbed her down coat off the chair by the wall and went out to the waiting room to watch for his rusted, red 98’ Ford pickup from the window.

*****

“You want to order a pizza or something.” Paige felt for the light switch beside the front door of her two-bedroom ranch-style house and flipped it up. Bobby followed her inside ducking his head to avoid hitting it on the doorframe, stomping his boots on the throw rug and shaking the late-January snow from his green, down coat before hanging it on one of the hooks to the right of the door.

“You think they’ll deliver in this weather?” Bobby looked at Paige, breathless, his full cheeks red, droplets wetting his brown bangs as the snowflakes on his hair melted. Outside was a mix of sleet, snowdrifts, gusting winds and below zero temperatures. The hour-and-a-half-long drive home had taken three, and the snowfall was growing heavier by the hour.

“You’re right.” Paige sat on the two-person, oak bench on the opposite side of the door and began to remove her snow boots. The bottoms of her jeans were wet and she shivered as the soaked denim settled closer to her skin. Her socks absorbed puddles of melted snow on the wood floor as she tried and failed to step around them. “Still, do you want something? Coffee, tea, cocoa, warm milk?”

Paige stepped into the tiny kitchen flipped on the light, and pulled a tall insulated mug from the cupboard above the sink. She looked over her shoulder at Bobby, now seated hunched on the bench, removing his boots. Whenever Bobby was around, Paige felt as though she was in one of those slanted experimentation rooms, the ones that seemed to shrink while a person grew bigger and vice-versa.

“Cocoa sounds good. Do you have any of those little marshmallows?”

Paige took down another mug. She went to the pantry, a closet around the corner from the kitchen, on the left, at the start of the hallway. Opening the closet door, she saw shelves stacked with canned goods and spices, generic Tupperware containers filled with brown sugar, white sugar, flour with labels she couldn’t make out. She could obviously rule out the white stuff, but began pulling other containers, full of brown powders, from the shelf. She unscrewed the lid from each one and sniffed. Cinnamon: the smell made her crave toast, the banana bread her mother made, pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. Brown Sugar: more clumpy than cocoa powder, reminded her of baking Christmas cookies bowls full of ingredients; brown sugar reminded her of vanilla extract, the dark liquid against the yellow measuring spoon, how the two ingredients would meld with one another. She took a small pinch between finger and thumb, tilted her head back, then swirled the granules with her tongue, let them coat her taste buds. Paige could remember doing this as a child, wearing a white apron, baking cookies with her mother. It would drive her mother crazy to turn around after retrieving something from the shelf and see Paige with a dimply smile spreading over her face, her eyes closed with pleasure, a tiny lump in her cheek. Her mother would chide her then start to laugh and take a pinch for herself, which meant she really wasn’t all that mad. Now, Paige picks up a third container. Ah-ha! Cocoa! The dark hue of the powder seemed to mimic the smell. Paige inhaled deeply, the scent moving from chocolate to acrid in her nose and dripping to the back of her throat with her breath. The church choir director was always comparing music to food. Standing there in the pantry, Paige’s nose told her: Cinnamon Soprano, brown-sugar alto, Cocoa for baritone and bass. Paige grabbed the can of instant cocoa and a bag of mini-marshmallows from the shelf and closed the pantry door again.

“Just for you.” she said, holding up the unopened bag for Bobby to see. “Hey, I’m going to go change out of these pants real quick. Have a seat over there on the couch. I’ll be back in a sec.”

From behind the bedroom door, Paige could hear Bobby opening and closing drawers, running water in the sink, punching numbers into the microwave. As she stepped into a pair of gray sweats, dry terrycloth socks, and dark-blue, fuzzy slippers she heard mewing.

Uh-oh, now you’ve done it. Paige thought with a smile. She emerged from her bedroom , situated just to the right of the kitchen and saw the blur of her gray-and-black-striped mouser, Moses, perched on top of the round, oak kitchen table, his long, bushy tail sweeping back and forth.

“Moses, you silly boy. You know better than that.” She picked him up off the table, then retrieved his nearly empty bowl from the corner of the kitchen and found the bag of cat chow stored under the sink. She added two scoops, replenished the water in another bowl, then sat down at the kitchen table to watch as Bobby stirred the cocoa and Moses licked his chops, a half-eaten piece of kibble crunching between his teeth.

“Sorry, guess I couldn’t wait. How many marshmallows you want?”

“Surprise me.”

Bobby added a handful to each mug as Paige stood up and made her way over to the beige couch. Bobby joined her, carrying both mugs and set one down on the coffee table in front of Paige before sitting beside her on the couch.

“You were awful quiet on the ride home.” Bobby took a sip.

“Yeah, I had a lot to think about, a lot to take in.

“Like what?”

“The sunset.”

They were silent for a moment. Paige sat imagining the sunset she’d seen on the drive back: the orange that formed “x’s” across the sky and made the clouds look like smoke from a warm fire. Pink, then deep red against the horizon, then purple, fresh blood from human skin, a deep bruise, as if someone had fallen, hard, into the sky. She could almost taste the colors, sweeter than freshly spun cotton candy, thicker than heavy whipping cream, richer than butter-cream icing.

Moses came from the kitchen and hopped onto the couch next to Paige. He let out a “Mew” and nuzzled his head against her right hand. She raised the hand absentmindedly to pet him, and he made his way slowly into her lap, curled up, and began to purr.

“So, how’d you’re appointment go today?”

Paige didn’t answer. She stared straight ahead, stroking Moses tip-to-tail. His continuous, “purrrr-purrrr-purrrr” massaged her lap, and she began to wonder where tomorrow would find her.

“Are you going to drink your cocoa? Paige… hello, Pai-age?” Bobby waved a hand in front of her face. “Just thought I’d let you know there’s a monkey on your windowsill and he’s flying to Finland with me next Tuesday. Mind if we use your credit card?”

“Okay.”

Bobby rose from the couch, walked to the front door, and slowly, silently took his coat from its hook. He flipped it over his head. Moses perked up his ears and jumped down from Paige’s lap as if to stop him from leaving. Paige noticed her lap was empty, and looked up to see Bobby, standing at the door in his socks and coat.

“You’re going already? You haven’t even finished your cocoa.”

“And you haven’t even touched yours. What’s with you tonight?” Bobby sat down on the bench.

“Nothing. I’ve just got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

Bobby straightened his boots, stepped into the left one. “Well, call me when you’re ready to share.”

“Wait. Don’t go….Please?”

Bobby froze, his sharp blue-gray eyes staring straight into Paige’s brown ones. A tear slid down Paige’s left cheek. She made no move to wipe it away, though by now it was safe to do so. She didn’t dare take her eyes off Bobby. Another tear fell, cooling as it reached her chin, then another. She didn’t look away as Bobby removed his boot. He kept his eyes on hers too, his brow furrowing. Paige noticed he made no sudden moves, slowly put his coat back on the hook. She imagined it was the hunter in him and she was an injured animal in a poacher’s trap that he didn’t want to scare He seemed to match the pace of Paige’s tears as he returned to the couch and took her in his arms.

“Hey, hey! What’s all this about?”

The pressure of his arms around her felt good, like some kind of counterbalance when she thought she had none, and she finally let go, finally fell, let herself cry. For a long time he cradled her, saying nothing. When she could speak again, the answers came all at once, as if a double-paned window was slamming down and if she didn’t say what she needed to now, she wouldn’t be able to make herself heard.

“I didn’t have a good appointment today. The doctor ran all kinds of tests. He says I have this eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa, RP. He says I’ll go blind, probably by age forty. He says there’s no cure.”

Now it was Bobby’s turn to sit in silence. The winter wind blew so that the branches of the big oak tree in Paige’s front yard scratched the windows and knocked against the roof. Paige imagined Winter, an old man, with nothing to keep him company but the sound of his own voice. Hunched with age and the cold, arthritis in his knuckles, his crackling tenor would ask a question, then answer it, ask a question then answer it, as if he spent day and night in a weathered, hand-made rocking chair near the only window in his house.

“You need to tell your parents. They deserve to know.”

“I can’t, not yet.”

“The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to get.”

“What am I going to tell my dad? He still thinks I’m going to nursing school”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“The classes are in the evening. The last time I tried to get there, I stood on the same spot of sidewalk for like, thirty-minutes, shaking. I started crying, hard, right there in the middle of the sidewalk. People walked around me, looked at me like I was strange. Finally, someone was nice enough to help me inside. Security guards started asking me all these questions, could they call anyone for me, was I hurt in any way, had I been attacked? What could I tell them? ‘No officers, I was walking to class and all of a sudden I didn’t know what I was walking on anymore, I didn’t know where my feet were?’ Instead, I called Clarissa, told her I’d made it to campus but that I wasn’t feeling right, asked her if she could come pick me up when she finished with class. After that night, I dropped all my classes and made sure I’d finished everything before sunset. It’s been a month since then, and Clarissa and Laura Beth are beginning to ask questions I couldn’t even tell them what was going on. We’ve been friends since the third grade. And if I can’t tell them, how am I going to tell my parents. I can’t. I have to think. I can’t. Not yet.”

Paige began to cry again, desperate to make him understand.

“Okay, okay. Did you want me to tell them for you?

“No, please? I have to be the one. I know I have to be the one. I just can’t. Not right now. Just give me a few days.”

“Alright.”

Bobby sat with her for awhile longer then insisted on staying the night in the guest bedroom. The weather gave him another reason not to go, and Paige couldn’t object to that. After a hot bath and a bowl of Chicken soup, courtesy of Bobby, Paige still felt exhausted, but a little better. She crawled into bed with the light on while Bobby stood waiting at the door, pulled the covers up over her, and before Bobby had turned out the light, she was asleep.

*****

Paige awoke to pots and pans clattering in the kitchen. Her heart jumped in her chest until she remembered: Bobby’s here.

She heard Dr. Jefferies’ voice in her head: Right now there’s no cure for RP. People with RP are generally blind by the time they’re forty. “Shut up,” she whispered. “It’s me and Bobby. I didn’t ask for a threesome so you just shut up!”

The air smelled of bacon Paige pulled the covers down. A blast of cold air hit her, sending goose pimples up and down her flesh and making her teeth chatter. The cold almost sent her back into bed, but there was too much noise for her to sleep anymore. She brought her face close to the clock on the bedside table and realized she’d forgotten to set the alarm. It was nearly ten. She was late for work at the store. One good thing about being the daughter of the store manager and a daddy’s girl: it was harder for your father to fire you. At least, that was the case with Paige’s father, Paul.

Paige stepped into her slippers and grabbed the hanger holding her light blue bathrobe from where she’d hung it in the closet the night before. She didn’t have time to put the robe on, though, before Bobby knocked on the door and entered bearing a lap table with a tray on it holding a glass of orange juice, a small bottle of maple syrup and a plate of eggs, bacon, pancakes and a slice of cinnamon toast.

“Oh! Good morning! Well, so much for the surprise” he shrugged. “You can’t have brunch in bed unless you’re in bed so...where do you want it?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the radio station?” Bobby worked the 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM shift at WKRB Radio, located about an hour outside of town.

“I called my boss last night told him I needed to take a few days off, for personal reasons, and he said, ‘Okay.’ Besides that, the roads are terrible. I never would have made it into work from here. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, your dad called….”

Paige’s eyes got wide. Her breath caught in her chest. She imagined her father’s reaction, the next time she came into the store. He’d pull her aside stammer about when two people are in love, think that, even though she was twenty-five and had been living on her own for nearly six years now, they still needed to have “The Talk.”

“Relax.” Bobby chuckled and set the tray down on the desk at the far side of the room. “I explained to your father that I stayed in the guest bedroom since the snow was so bad last night, that both of us made it back in one piece and…”

“Unless you count my eyes.”

“and,” Bobby continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “that you needed a little more time off from the store. He said that was fine. Now, where would you like to eat your breakfast?”

Paige considered for a moment. Though the heat was turned up and she was wearing socks and slippers, her feet still had that, “encased-in-blocks-of-ice” feeling; it was like both her feet had been asleep and she couldn’t shake them entirely awake.

She crawled back under the covers and Bobby set the tray in place. Paige picked up her fork and knife and began cutting up the pancakes. She always cut her pancakes before dousing them in syrup, even when she was a kid; that way, she avoided the sticky mess if one should slide off her plate. There was something in these pancakes though, dark lumps of something, blueberries maybe, or some kind of fruit. She tasted a bite.

“Chocolate chips. Okay, how did you know I love chocolate chip pancakes and cinnamon toast?”

“Your dad. I asked, he answered. He thought it was a nice touch. I just figured you could use a little pick me up. Luckily you had all the ingredients lying around.”

“Aren’t you going to eat something?”

“Paige Prescott, are you inviting me over for brunch?”

“Well, you did cook it didn’t you? Shouldn’t the chef get to taste his creation?”

“If you insist.” Bobby went to the kitchen a filled a plate for himself. “Yes, Moses. Good morning to you too.” Paige heard him set the plate down and begin searching the cupboards for Moses’ Cat Nip.

“I think he likes you.” Paige laughed and stabbed another slice of pancake. Somehow, she’d never pegged Bobby as a cat person. Then again, she’d have never guessed he was a master chef either, and this breakfast was fantastic. What other secrets had Bobby been keeping from her all these years?

She remembered the first time they’d met, or at least the first time she’d let Bobby see her trailing him on his outings with some of the older boys: Greg Danforth, Charlie Easton, and Bryan Hunt were the three she most often saw him with, boys whose daddies made money, by legal means or not, and were pretty much guaranteed protection from anything; trespassing was the least of their worries. Paige was eleven then, and Bobby fourteen. As an only child, and a girl outnumbered in a small town full of boys, (with a population of 2,500, Paige would bet less than half that was females) Paige had preferred staging fights between super hero action figures, hated dolls, dress up and tea parties, but loved to join the boys on the soccer field. The thing she most hated, though, was “Target Practice.” The boys would take their slingshots, their rifles, whatever weapon came most handy and rather than shoot pop cans off the top of fence posts they would head for the back woods that bordered her father’s acreage and aim for the trees

“Paige Prescott! You give me back my BB gun before I pop you in your prissy, powdered little nose! “

“How you gonna pop me, Bobby ‘Brick-head’ when I got your gun?” Paige remembered walking backward two steps for each of Bobby’s one. She was in that moment again, standing beside her younger self wanting to give into the impulse of adrenaline.

Bobby was about to break into a run. The red that started at his neck and worked its way to his hairline, made Paige grin, then laugh outright. Young Paige turned her back on him and ran, fighting to stay on her feet as her laughter rose and seemed to spread through the sky.

Bobby was bigger, but Paige’s legs were longer, and she’d always been a fast runner. She was three full strides ahead of him and could hear him behind her huffing and puffing; she imagined he was grabbing a stitch in his side. She crouched behind a tree at the edge of the family acreage and draped the BB gun across her gangly knees. Opening the chamber, she emptied the pellets into her right hand. Bobby had slowed and was looking for her.

“Pai-aaage,” Bobby’s voice was menacingly sweet, the tone in it layered, like a torte. “Paige,” he’d said, “I promise not to hurt the birds anymore.” Underneath was something else, though, Paige could sense it, hear the, I’ll take a foot to your stomach, a fist to your face threats. Paige held her breath, looked off between the trees and chucked the pellets as far as she could. She could go hunting for them later. “Paige, give me back my gun and…and…and I won’t tell how you kissed Jerry Mercer in the barn loft.” Bobby had been following her then, too?

“You would not! You can have your stupid gun for all I care! I hope you shoot yourself in the foot! Then you’ll see how the little jays and hummingbirds feel!”

“‘Oh, whaah, whaa. Prissy Paige, protect me! I’m just a little birdie!’” Paige did her best to ignore him. “Hey! Where’re my BBs!”

He had jumped on her back before she could get far enough away from him. He caught her in a headlock. His arm was too strong for her to pull it away. Her lungs began to burn, begging for air. She lifted her right foot and he let her loose, doubling over in pain; she could have run, but her cruel streak got the better of her. She jumped on top of him and began to pummel him; blood spurted from his nose….

“What were you laughing at just now?” Bobby came back into the room his plate of food in his hand and Moses at his heels. He sat down on the edge of the bed again, and Paige listened to his fork clink, silverware scratch china as he took his first bite.

“The time you caught me tracking you in the woods when you were out hunting with Greg, Charlie and Bryan,” she said.

“You mean that time you broke my nose and gave me a black eye.”

“I didn’t break your nose.”

“Yes, you did, and I have a deviated septum to this day, thank you very much.”

Paige took a big bite of egg, to allow herself time to think, then asked “When did we grow up?”

“Are you sure we have?”

“Yeah, I can feel it. Sometimes, I’ll look at myself in the mirror and think, ‘I’m an adult now.’ I can’t explain it exactly. It’s like…there’s a switch in your brain that gets flipped somehow, or it’s like film rolling forward in a thirty-five-millimeter camera, only the process happens in slow motion. I can’t tell when it happened, I just know it did.”

“How? In what way?”

“I don’t know. Like take that day in the woods. Where did that mean streak go? Where did our mean streaks go?”

“I guess we found other ways to channel them. Like love….”

“Or food. This is an awesome breakfast, probably the best I’ve had in years. Did you ever consider going to culinary school?”

“Yes. I graduate next year. Glad to know I’m worthy of the certification.”

Paige blushed. “Yeah, I thought I was going to do the same thing in another year or two, graduate I mean. Now, it’s like I’m this child in a grown-up’s body: Unless I’m at home, I can’t walk without bumping into everything. Soon, I won’t be able to match my own clothes anymore.. I just want to be able to eat a meal with dignity. And I can’t even read ‘See Jane run.’”

“You’re a bright girl. You’ll learn it again. In fact, we could start right now. I’ll help you. Do you have a notebook and a black marker?”

“In the desk. Paper’s in the second drawer on the right, and there’s a black pen in the center drawer. Why?”

Bobby set his plate aside and retrieved the pen and paper. “Let’s make a few lists. Start with ‘Things to Research - Resources.’”

“Dr. Jefferies gave me a number for the Commission for the Blind and Visually-Impaired. I think I put it in my purse. He said something about finding a transition counselor.”

“Okay, well then, let’s make a sub-list, of questions to answer.”

“Wait. Bobby, why are you doing this?”

“Why am I doing what?”

“Helping me like this. Don’t get me wrong.” Paige could feel Bobby’s weight shift where he sat on the bed, sensed him drawing back. “I appreciate it more than you’ll know, but why?”

“There’s just something about you. Something beautiful.”

Paige blushed and brought her hand up to her matted brown curls. In red flannel pj’s, sporting halitosis and what probably looks like a bouffant gone totally wrong?”

Bobby took her chin in his hand. “Even then. I like you, Paige Prescott.” He kissed her lightly on the nose. She could feel the heat rising from her cheeks. “Besides, isn’t that what good friends do, stand by each other, even when it gets dark?”

*****

“Can you see me from where I’m standing?”

Paige nodded. Charlie Olsen, Paige’s new Orientation and Mobility Counselor, spoke with a rich southern drawl and wore a perfume that reminded Paige of the smell of Iris on a spring breeze. Charlie had been displaced by hurricane Katrina, and had moved after being forced out of the Super Dome by the floods. Now, in mid February, the ground laced with ice and snow, she stood inside the Commission’s downtown headquarters in a medium-sized room, in front of Paige with a white cane, shorter than but similar to Paige’s own, demonstrating the proper way to hold a cane and use it safely. Paige’s cane came three inches below the tip of her sternum; it was stiff, made of graphite, and had a rolling tip, to keep it from getting caught in the cracks on the sidewalk

“Ok. Now, ‘Constant Contact” method is exactly what it sounds like. You sweep your cane smoothly from one side of the path to the other so the tip never leaves the ground.”

Paige listened to the swish, scratch, swish, scratch as the pencil-tip of Charlie’s cane moved across the linoleum floor. The white line of cane passed steadily in and out of her line of vision. Then it was her turn. She stepped slowly, holding the cane out in front of her so that it made a narrow arc before her feet. The tip bumped against the wall to her right. Paige had gone approximately twenty feet, when left-to-right arc of her cane was interrupted by the dull clang of graphite on mental. She inched closer and gripped the top of a folding chair that had been left in the center of the room, then gingerly made her way around it. After another twenty feet, she stopped again. The air was different here, less heavy, and Paige could hear someone having a conversation on a cell phone.

“I’m at the door. Do you want me to keep going straight?”

“How did you know you were at the door?” Paige imagined from the tone in Charlie’s voice that she’d raised her eyebrows and put a half smile on her face. Translation: Pay attention and remember.”

“The breeze is stronger here, like there’s an open space in front of me, and there’s a man to my left talking on a cell phone. The way his voice sounds though, like it’s echoing off something, must mean he’s a little ways down another hallway.”

“Very good. You’re a fast learner. The breeze you feel, that change in the air pressure, that’s part of what we call ‘sensory and auditory information.’ The closer you stand to an object, the greater the pressure, the more space between you and the object, the less pressure. And the man down the hallway, what you’re catching is an echo as his voice bounces off the walls, like sonar. Your cane can give you that kind of information too, when you tap it against the ground.

Paige tried this now, but the rolling tip seemed to blur the sound in her ears. Her fingers tingled with the vibration coming through the cane.

“Try tapping it more lightly,” Charlie advised and Paige did so, but the still seemed blurred. “Walking with a white cane is harder than it looks, that’s why we’ll spend six to nine months practicing with it.”

“Six to nine months?” Paige squinted, her nose wrinkling, as she looked at Charlie.

“Yeah, but let’s take one step at a time. For now, make that left, you were talking about earlier.”

*****

“Paige?” Paige looked up from the register behind the counter to the right of the front door, where her father had set her to work. Paul Prescott’s head bobbed out from the end of the middle aisle where he’d been busy stocking shelves with bars of soap, bottles of laundry detergent, and fabric softener. “That new shipment of flour should be coming in sometime today. Oh, and I almost forgot, the mailman dropped off a package for you here yesterday. I think it might be an early birthday present. Pretty good sized too. I set it in there for you”

“Dad, I love you but let’s practice giving me a little more to go on than that. ‘There’ could be Timbuktu for all I know.”

“Sorry, I’m still learning.” Her father had taken the news of Paige’s impending blindness rather well, Paige thought. Like Bobby, he had wanted to know, immediately what accommodations he should make so that Paige could get back to working at the store. By mid-March, he had set up a meeting with Charlie and Paige and the three of them had ordered adaptive technology: closed-circuit TV, a cash register that announced prices and totals, a pricing gun that did the same, etc. “I set your package on the top of the coat rack, just above your coat. Where would that be in terms of a clock face,” he asked.

“In this case, you don’t need to go that far. I know where my coat is. Thanks, Dad.”

“No problem”

Paige pressed a button on her new watch, “The time is 8:00 AM.” She was trying to decide if it was too early to take a break or not. Her father’s words, “I think it’s an early birthday present,” had peaked her interest. The bell on the door and Bobby’s “Good morning, all” answered her thought.

Bobby’s sneakers squeaked over the wood floor, wet from the recent rains and the last of the snow. Paige closed her eyes and listened hard to the squeaking forcing herself to use her ears, following Bobby’s path in her mind as he walked the aisles: a brief stop in the cookies and candy, past the vitamins, past the pet care aisle, straight on to the refrigerated section at the back. Paige heard the door slide back and Bobby grab a glass bottle. He made his way to the counter.

Paige could smell the peanuts and chocolate as she scanned the candy, feel the condensation dripping from the glass. “Snickers and a bottle of chocolate milk. Will that be all for you today?”

“Actually, I was hoping you might come to dinner with me tonight. My place, say…7:30?”

Your total is $2.25.” Paige smiled. She could feel the heat rising from her face. She held out her hand for the money.

He took his wallet from his pocket and placed two bills and a large coin in her hand, counting aloud. “One, two, and a quarter. I think I have a penny in here too, if that’s what it’ll take to get you to answer my question. Dinner at my place, 7:30? I’ll pick you up.”

“Depends. What’s on the menu?”

“Pasta with my special meat sauce, maybe some garlic bread, and some sparkling cider, since I know your not really into wine. Oh, and a little chocolate mousse for dessert?”

“Keep your penny. I’ll see you at 7:30.”

“All right then.” The glass scraped against the countertop as Bobby picked up his milk and Snickers. Paige could sense him smiling at her as he pushed the door open and walked out. She found the radio under the counter, turned it on and tuned it to Star 104.5.

*****

“Once again” you’ve outdone yourself.” Paige pushed her chair back from the table and patted her stomach. “A++”

“Thank you, very much.” Bobby came around the table and planted a kiss on Paige’s lips as he picked her plate up from the table. They talked some more as Bobby put the dishes into the dishwasher. Then the two of the sat on the couch together. Bobby had rented a video, and promised, with a flirtatious laugh, to describe for Paige all the parts she couldn’t see.

“Except for the ones below the belt.” Paige had taken a personal vow of chastity. Bobby honored that, and didn’t rush her into anything. That was one of the many things she liked about him, he listened and didn’t force himself on her. He helped her, sat for hours as they reviewed the rudiments of Braille together. The dots on Braille paper sort of reminded Paige of scabs, or even white heads on an acne covered face: small, run-together, and there for the picking. Still, Paige was determined to learn the system. She was always looking for different ways to do things, just in case, like when she taught herself to write left-handed, to avoid getting writer’s cramp. It had taken years of practice, and she her lower-case “y” still betrayed he right-hand dominance, but the script she wrote with her left hand was legible.

Paige knew, hard as she tried, that she couldn’t avoid every disaster, but she was also beginning to understand that “struggle” and “disaster” weren’t synonymous with one another. As frustrating as life could become the knowledge and benefits she gained each day were even greater. At night, in her bedroom, lying in the darkness, her head against the cool softness of the down pillow, she would try to define her excitement. It was then that she thought about a crocodile’s eyes, how crocodiles had those transparent eyelids, to protect their eyes when they went underwater. All of it: the white cane, Braille, the imaginary clock-face, facial vision, all of her strengthening senses, and especially the touch of Bobby’s hand, were like a transparent eyelid that continued to grow over her shrinking visual field. She was reptile-like, shedding her old, seeing skin, allowing the blackness, like a lizard’s tail in the mouth of a carnivorous predator, to fall away.

*****

"Crocodile Eyes" began during a Writer's Workshop Studio at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The main character of the story, Paige Prescott, is a twenty-five-year-old woman who is diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa and must learn to cope with her impending blindness. Paige embodies many of my fears, struggles, and desires; while I do not have retinitis pigmentosa, I am a visually-impaired individual with mild Cerebral Palsy who is attempting to define, more concretely, her place within the community as well as within "Disability Culture." Like Paige, I will soon celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday, but besides incorporating a little of my experience, I also wanted to teach others about "disability," more specifically about blindness. During the brief time I have had to research retinitis pigmentosa, I discovered myriad resources available to the Blind community. Blindness is not a "condition" to be pitied, simply a lifestyle to adjust to. On that same token, people need to be aware of the language that they use and how a blind person should be treated. It is my hope that "Crocodile Eyes" will help to make people more aware of "Disability Culture" and that a "life with blindness" and a "life of blindness" are not the same thing.