The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(5)

I don’t know to what extent Dr. Pridemore educated my parents that day or on subsequent visits, but I soon became well versed in my “condition,” the only word my mother would ever use to describe my eyes. A soft-spoken, bearded man of quiet dignity, Dr. Pridemore would become a lifelong mentor and friend. What I recall about him from my youth, however, was that he always had the appearance and demeanor of a slightly distracted science professor—plaid shirts and wrinkled corduroys, an unkempt beard, wisps of curly hair protruding at odd angles, and glasses mottled with dust and fingerprints.

“Ocular albinism,” he’d later explained to me on one of my frequent visits, “is best understood with a rudimentary explanation of the components of the eye.” He used a diagram hanging on the wall to show me the two layers of pigment in the iris. “There is the front, which we see, and the back, which we don’t see, but which blocks light transmission. The iris without pigment is white,” he explained, chewing hard on his ever-present stick of spearmint gum. “And the presence or absence of melanin in the iris accounts for the color of our eyes. A lot of melanin at the front results in brown eyes. No melanin in front, blue eyes. Some melanin and the eyes can appear green, hazel, and every shade in between, depending on the amount and distribution.”

“And what about red?” I had asked.

“Technically, there is no such thing as red pigment.”

“But my eyes are red,” I said. And they were, though let me clarify. I am not talking about fire-engine, glow-in-the-dark red, or even the red of a ripe apple. The color was more subtle, bordering on pink. But I’m also not an albino. Though I was born a towhead, my hair gradually darkened to its current nondescript light brown. And though I burn if I don’t use sunblock, my skin pigmentation is otherwise normal. And that is how my mother considered me from the moment of my birth. Normal. In the hospital room, when Dr. Pridemore came to conduct his examination, she asked the only question that mattered to her. “Will it affect his vision?”

But Dr. Pridemore did not know that answer in 1957, there being scant literature on the topic. “All I can say is that Samuel’s eyes are very rare.”

“Not rare, Doctor,” my mother corrected. “Extraordinary.”





5

My father dutifully called the few relatives I had with the news of my birth. My father had been an only child, born and raised in Chicago. He had lost his father to cancer two years before I was born. His German mother, whom I referred to as Oma Hill, made an annual sojourn to Burlingame for the Christmas holidays. Either my birth did not rate a separate visit, or my father politely steered her away from coming. I presume my father thought it best to spare everyone Oma Hill’s lamentations about all the pitfalls that awaited a child born with red eyes.

Grandma O’Malley, on the other hand, rode the first bus from San Francisco to Burlingame, suitcase in hand. Also a widow, Grandma O’Malley had never possessed a driver’s license and saw little need of obtaining one. She raised my mother and my auntie Bonnie in a San Francisco Victorian in the Mission District, where bus lines were plentiful, specialty shops abundant, and she could walk to Saint James Catholic Church for morning Mass. Unlike Oma Hill, Grandma O’Malley did not acknowledge afflictions, neuroses, diseases, or maladies, a trait I have since attributed to her Irish heritage. She apparently marched into my parents’ bedroom, unswaddled me from my cocoon in the bassinet, and proclaimed, “Two eyes, two ears, ten fingers, ten toes, and a nose. Perfect.”

And that was her final word on the subject.





6

Sunday, three days after we arrived home from the hospital, my mother dressed me for my first visit to Our Lady of Mercy. It would take something far more severe than giving birth to keep my mother from attending Sunday Mass. My parents arrived early and marched down the long aisle to the third pew on the left, what would become our unwavering spot. My mother later would say this was so that God could note our presence, though a skeptic might believe it was to ensure a less divine being would take notice—our pastor, Father Brogan. Parishioners’ regular attendance at Mass, and their offerings in the weekly envelopes, went a long way when it came time to enroll their children in OLM’s crowded Catholic grammar school.

Before slipping into the pew that first Sunday, my mother took me to the alcove just to the right of the altar to present me to the Blessed Mother of Jesus Christ. Mary stood atop a globe, dressed in a blue-and-white shawl, rosary beads in hand and a snake crushed beneath her bare feet. It was the first of what would be many visits I would make to that alcove.

That my parents’ first encounter with intolerance would occur in church is less a commentary on Catholic hypocrisy than it is a testament to the frequency of their attendance. They were regular Sunday churchgoers, not “Christmas Catholics,” as my father dubbed those who attended Mass only on Christmas and Easter. Had my parents been as fervent about baseball, I’m sure the first inappropriate comment about the color of my eyes would have come from a child wearing a baseball cap and eating a hot dog. As it was, the offender was a young boy in blue knickers sitting in the pew behind us.

“Mom,” he’d apparently exclaimed, “what’s wrong with that baby’s eyes?”

“What did you do?” I would ask when my mother recounted this story.