Read Driving Blind for Free Online Page B

you."
    The two sisters were very still. You could almost hear their hearts beating. The old man said:
    "What now?"
    "Why," said Emily Bernice Watriss Wilkes slowly, "every day for the next two weeks, send the rest of the letters. One by one."
    He looked at her, steadily.
    "And then?" he said.
    "Oh, God!" she said. "I don't know. Let's see."
    "Yes, yes. Indeed. Let's say good-bye."
    Opening the front door he almost touched her hand.
    "My dear dearest Emily," he said.
    "Yes?" She waited.
    "What—" he said.
    "Yes?" she said.
    "What … " he said, and swallowed. "What … are you … "
    She waited.
    "Doing tonight?" he finished, quickly.

REMEMBER ME?
    "Remember me? Of course, surely you do !"
    His hand extended, the stranger waited.
    "Why, yes," I said. "You're—"
    I, stopped and searched around for help. We were in middle-street in Florence, Italy, at high noon. He had been rushing one way, I the other, and almost collided. Now he waited to hear his name off my lips. Panicking, I rummaged my brain which ran on empty.
    "You're—" I said again.
    He seized my hand as if fearing I might bolt and run. His face was a sunburst. He knew me! Shouldn't I return the honor? There's a good dog, he thought, speak !
    "I'm Harry!" he cried.
    "Harry … ?"
    "Stadler!" he barked with a laugh. "Your butcher!"
    "Jesus, of course. Harry, you old son of a bitch!" I pumped his hand with relief.
    He almost danced with joy. " That son of a bitch, yes! Nine thousand miles from home. No wonder you didn't know me! Hey, we'll get killed out here. I'm at the Grand Hotel. The lobby parquetry floor, amazing! Dinner tonight? Florentine steaks—listen to your butcher, eh? Seven tonight! Yes!"
    I opened my mouth to suck and blow out in a great refusal, but—
    "Tonight!" he cried.
    He spun about and ran, almost plowed under by a bumblebee motorbike. At the far curb he yelled:
    "Harry Stadler!"
    "Leonard Douglas," I shouted, inanely.
    "I know." He waved and vanished in the mob. "I know … "
    My God! I thought, staring at my massaged and abandoned hand. Who was that?
    My butcher.
    Now I saw him at his counter grinding hamburger, a tiny white toy-boat cap capsizing on his thin blond hair, Germanic, imperturbable, his cheeks all pork sausage as he pounded a steak into submission.
    My butcher, yes !
     
    "Jesus!" I muttered for the rest of the day. "Christ! What made me accept? Why in hell did he ask ? We don't even know each other, except when he says, That's five bucks sixty, and I say, So long! Hell!"
    I rang his hotel room every half hour all afternoon. No answer.
    "Will you leave a message, sir?"
    "No thanks."
    Coward, I thought. Leave a message: sick. Leave a message: died!
    I stared at the phone, helpless. Of course I hadn't recognized him. Whoever recognizes anyone away from their counter, desk, car, piano, or wherever someone stands, sits, sells, speaks, provides, or dispenses? The mechanic free of his grease-monkey jumpsuit, the lawyer devoid of his pinstripes and wearing a fiery hibiscus sport shirt, the club woman released from her corset and crammed in an explosive bikini—all, all unfamiliar, strange, easily insulted if unrecognized! We all expect that no matter where we go or dress, we will be instantly recognized. Like disguised MacArthurs we stride ashore in far countries crying: " I have returned!"
    But does anyone give a damn? This butcher, now—minus his cap, without the blood-fingerprinted smock, without the fan whirling above his head to drive off flies, without bright knives, sharp tenterhooks, whirled bologna slicers, mounds of pink flesh or spreads of marbled beef, he was the masked avenger.
    Besides, travel had freshened him. Travel does that. Two weeks of luscious foods, rare wines, long sleeps, wondrous architectures and a man wakes ten years younger to hate going home to be old.
    Myself? I was at the absolute peak of losing years in gaining miles. My butcher and I had become quasi-teenagers reborn to collide in Florentine