James Dickey
BLIND SNOW, WARM WATER
from the novel
Alnilam
(Frank Cahill, a man in his fifties who has gone blind three
months ago from diabetes, is in the small town of Peckover
1
North
Carolina, where his son has been killed- or has disappeared- as
the result of an accident in primary flight training. With hi's seeing–
eye dog he is staying in a room over the local bus station. Takis
Harbelis is an aviation cadet who has been afriend andfollower of
Cahill's son joel. Cahill has just returned from walking with
Harbelis in a heavy snowfall. The incident takes place in mid–
winter of 1943.)
The door, the room opened inward, and he was prepared for
the desolation. It was there, it was always there for the blind, no
matter what they did, but he was continually ready for it: ready with
routine, with slow meticulous activity, with finding and placing
things, with control, with his body. He sat, now, untied his shoes
and took them off, leaving his socks on temporarily, not wanting to
put his bare feet on the cold linoleum. He footed into the bathroom,
closed the door to hold the heat that would come, found the faucets,
and sat on the side of the tub, his shirtsleeve turned up, adjusting the
temperature of the water with one hand and testing it on the inside
wrist of the other. He ran the water hard; the little room boomed
and splashed; there was a slow urgency of filling, of water with heft,
the weight of increase. In the deepening sound, the thresholding
sound, he got up and methodically stripped off everything, the dark
glasses last. He gripped the side of the washstand and felt the mirror
before his face, passing his palm over it, imagining what it was giv–
ing back. He put a thumb- and forefinger-tip on his lids as if it were
magic, withdrew his hand, opened his eyes and blinked into the new
darkness, and smiled openly into the mirror thinking that anyone
who saw him would be delighted at such an open, outgoing individ–
ual- so friendly, so easy to talk to you wouldn't believe it. Before
getting into the tub he listened through the door to determine if Zack
were moving around in the outer room, but the dog had evidently
settled himself, perhaps gone to sleep from the cold, the snow, and
