The Night Watchman(96)

So he didn’t. Except it was very hard to not be assimilated all alone, and he wished he could go home.





Clark Kent




The eye clinic was set up in a corner of the hospital, with a line outside the small room where the visiting eye doctor conducted his tests. Patrice stood in line for an hour. The eye test consisted of charts and lights and cards with black lines. After the doctor wrote down all of the results, he lowered a large set of lenses before her face and switched magnifications on each eye until the shapes in front of her resolved. When she was finished, he took a few more notations and then informed her that her prescription was not uncommon and that he could fit her with eyeglasses that very day.

“Eyeglasses? But I don’t need eyeglasses.”

It hadn’t occurred to her that the tests led to eyeglasses because she had no trouble seeing things.

“Your reading-distance vision is better than 20/20,” he said. “You need glasses to see things far away.”

“I do see things far away.”

“You will see them more clearly.”

He left the room and came back with a cardboard box. From the box, he removed a set of eyeglasses. They were the same kind of Indian Health eyeglasses everybody wore. The frames were black and square. He put them on Patrice’s face and made sure the bows fit behind her ears.

“There,” he said. “Perfect fit. You may take them off to read.”

The eyeglasses felt heavy on her nose and she didn’t think she would get used to seeing everything framed by black plastic. She was very conscious of the way the bows sat behind her ears. Patrice walked down the hospital steps and it didn’t seem there was a big difference. Everything seemed absolutely normal. Except that when she looked at Wood Mountain waiting at the bottom of the steps, she could see every detail of his battle-marred face. She could see the expectant hope, the love she didn’t want him to utter again. As she walked down the steps toward him, she realized that she’d never been able to read people’s faces at a distance; she had never seen their expressions. She hadn’t even realized that, from a distance, he looked different now. You wouldn’t call him handsome now that his nose was so smashed. She stopped on the stairs and looked past Wood Mountain, toward the cars and houses, the trees and the water tower. The precision of the world took her breath away. The crisp lines of brick. The legibility of signs on doors. The needles of pines standing out sharp against more needles and the darkly figured back of the trunk.

When she looked in amazement at Wood Mountain, she could tell he was going to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

But she felt there was something very funny too. Here she was in another disguise.

“You look like Superman’s girlfriend.”

“No I don’t. I look like Clark Kent.”

“Oh, waa, you do!”

Wood Mountain held his arm out for her and she took it, like in the movies, but she needed him for balance. The glasses made her feel like her feet were very far away.

“Which way home, Clark Kent? The long way or the short way?”

A chinook wind had blown through the night before. The world was dazzling with snow and dripping with light. The road was sparkling with water and the air was warm and soft. And the birds, the birds were out, singing their spring songs in the middle of the winter.

“It’s all the same way,” said Patrice.

Halfway home, on the road, Wood Mountain stopped her. He cradled her face in his hands. He didn’t kiss her. He kissed the corners of her eyeglasses, then held her hand as they resumed walking.

“What was that?”

“I couldn’t help it. Those eyeglasses.”

“I look like a boy,” Patrice laughed.

“No you don’t,” said Wood Mountain. “But you do look brainy. I pity a guy who bothers you.”

As they continued on, the brilliant snowdrifts threw so much radiance their eyes could not drink it in. Their eyes had to shut some of it out. They could feel the darkness around the edges. Someone had taken a stoneboat through the woods and a trail was packed, so they went down that trail. The blue light enveloped them, a gentler light.

“Bother me,” said Patrice.

“Bother you. I never thought I’d put the moves on Clark Kent.”

“Well, do it anyway,” said Patrice.

Wood Mountain held her with her back against his chest. His hands clasped around her padded waist. They were dressed very warmly but they’d both have snow down their neck and pants if they did it the old-fashioned way. She turned and kissed him until his head swam. She had a skirt on, but wool stockings underneath it.

“Let’s find a log to sit on,” he said. “I’ll sit on the bottom. You can sit on top of me.”

She didn’t know what he was saying until they found a place to sit. He put his hands on her breasts, under her coat, and she blanked out a little. Oh, so good. He adjusted their clothing when she lowered herself on top of him and soon she remembered what Betty had said and asked him. He took a packet from his inside jacket pocket.

“I been keeping this handy every time I see you,” he shyly said, and put it on. Then he was inside of her, too eagerly. Tears started into her eyes, blurred her eyeglasses, and he edged away. She adjusted her eyeglasses, and gasped to start again. So they did, and it got better. Although it wasn’t the best thing of all, like Betty had said, Patrice wondered if she would become obsessed, as Betty had also said. If so, she would think of nothing else. As it was happening she really didn’t care. However, once Wood Mountain became helpless and deranged, and once he called out and then was still, she did care. She cared very much. She held his head against her heart, still wearing the orange mittens that Millie had given her. From the branches, all through the woods, snow dropped in clumps. Beneath the snow, melting runnels of water murmured. A woodpecker drummed into a tree so hard the wood rang like a bell. Their breathing slowed until they were breathing in perfect time. It seemed like maybe they were thinking one thought, too, but she didn’t want to test that out, and so she didn’t speak. They restored their clothing to its old arrangement and stayed on the path. They were purified. That’s how they felt. Their desire was gone for now and they felt like children. She laughed at nothing and threatened to wash his face with snow for him, and he said to do it, so she took a handful but only touched his cheeks and fed him snow when he opened his mouth. The taste of the snow was eternal to Wood Mountain. He fed the snow to Pixie and it melted on her tongue. Her eyeglasses fogged. She was beginning to come down. She was beginning to touch the earth. But it was only when they got within sight of the cabin that she felt her chest squeeze shut. She could hardly catch her breath. She said goodbye to him and wouldn’t let him in the door.