“Wait, did you remember your Blackberry charger?”
“Yes honey, I have it with my computer.” Derrick smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back on Sunday.”
Derrick kissed his wife of five years. Dennise walked back around to the driver’s side of the couple’s black Beemer and opened the door.
“Don’t forget to tell Mom that I made her an appointment with Dr. Grenzky for tomorrow morning. She’ll forget if you don’t remember.”
“I won’t forget, Derrick, you just go have fun and make sure those important men wearing important-looking suits know you mean business.”
Derrick laughed and waved goodbye as Dennise drove off from the 30th Street Amtrak station in Philadelphia. Derrick Harper, a young and successful business executive for a major advertising company extending its reach to most of the East Coast, made his way toward his train—steaming coffee in hand. It wasn’t a long trip to the city, but Derrick fully intended on reviewing the proposal he would be giving to the vice president of an up-and-coming telecommunications company based out of Long Island. Even just a little bit of time was too valuable to waste. If he could work out a contract with the company, it would be his third in two weeks. Not only would it be his third major contract landed in such a short amount of time, but the commission from the deal was quite a bit more than pocket change to say the least. He had to land the contract. Success was at hand. And Derrick was never one to relax. Success doesn’t come to those who wait; it comes to those who work.
The voice of a middle-aged woman came over the intercom announcing that Derrick’s train was set for departure and ready to board. She didn’t seem to be very excited about her announcement. She spoke as if no one was listening. Was she angry? No, just tired. Maybe she worked two jobs and didn’t get much sleep last night. Or maybe she’s just a lazy person who’s just trying to skid through life the easy way. Probably the latter.
Derrick adjusted the shoulder strap to his computer bag, disposed of his empty latte, and prepared to board his train to New York City. Derrick was six foot three, African-American, and in better shape than most thirty-five year olds. His new Cesare Paciotti shoes clicked and clacked rather nicely on the cold marble floor of the Amtrak station. Freshly polished, it would be hard not to notice such a nice pair of shoes hand crafted in Italy. That is, if his Canali pinstriped suit or Breitling watch weren’t noticed first. No matter how someone looked at Mr. Derrick Harper, you knew he meant business. But no one likes a showy person. So Derrick confidently handed his ticket to an older man with a full head of grey hair with a smile after stepping onto the train.
“Thank you, sir, have a great day,” Derrick said as the train attendant handed the ticket back. Why didn’t the man smile back? He must envy successful people. Maybe if he worked a little harder in school instead of drinking and dropping out he would be more successful than a minimum wage-paid ticket handler—or whatever they’re called. Derrick made his way through the train to find a secluded place to work. Did all of the seats in business class face each other? No, the whole train couldn’t be laid out this way. The last thing Derrick needed was to start up an unwanted conversation or maintain an awkward silence with a stranger sitting directly across from him inquiring about his business. If they really wanted to know about him, all they needed to know was that he didn’t become successful by shirking a perfectly good opportunity to get some work done or by talking with complete strangers he would undoubtedly forget thirty minutes later.
“Excuse me, ma’am, would it be possible for me to sit where I could charge my computer during the trip?” Derrick asked a young lady readying refreshments for the passengers. He knew the only place with power outlets was at the front of business class—usually only one or two seats secluded by themselves. It would be a perfect place to solidify his business proposal.
“I’m sorry sir. Normally I would let you sit there, but we’re currently having trouble with the power outlets at the front of the train.”
“No problem, ma’am, thank you for your help.”
Power trouble? Unlikely. She probably had her cell phone along with other Amtrak employees’ cell phones plugged in up there. That’s what happened last time at least. Was it so hard to remember to charge your things ahead of time? Whatever happened to accommodating customers first? Affluence never did come easily.
“Welcome to 30th Street Station giving service to Penn Station along the Northeast Regional. We will be departing shortly, so if you could please take your seats and stow any loose baggage, it would be much appreciated. Our ETA is 5:17pm Eastern Standard Time, the current weather forecast for New York City is 72 degrees fahrenheit with cloudy skies and an 80% chance of rain. We hope you enjoy your trip with us, thank you for choosing Amtrak.”
Derrick found a sequestered group of vinyl seats near the middle of the train (community seats would be a more appropriate term) and placed his bag in the empty seat next to him. With two empty seats across from him, things seemed to be turning out well despite the train attendant’s shady excuse about the power outlet dilemma. Derrick checked the time, unzipped his computer bag, and pulled out his 17’’ Macbook Pro. T-minus two hours.
As he waited for his computer to start up, Derrick spotted a young child running ahead of his mother holding a toy airplane. Apparently he was fighting the Battle of Britain right there in the train’s aisle. Banking left, he bumped into Derrick’s left shoulder and continued on ahead spitting out sound effects for good measure. The boy’s mother, dressed in jeans and a faux red leather jacket, loomed from behind and made no attempt to apprehend her child’s socially unacceptable disturbance. She was noxiously thin and held an imitation Hermes handbag along with an imperious glare aimed at anyone attempting to notice her flashy façade of confidence. Her eyes had bags underneath them, either because she hadn’t slept well or because she’d been crying. Judging by the smeared eyeliner at the corner of her right eye, tears were probably the culprit. Sometimes life sucks. Get over it and move on. Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t help the situation—just look at the bulimic-skeleton syndrome it’s produced. Suck it up and let it make you stronger.
As she shuffled past, Derrick half breathed a sigh of relief that she and her unruly son weren’t sitting near him, but his breath was cut short by the overwhelming aroma of potpourri inundating the area as if it were the smoke from the air battle fought by the skeleton woman’s son. Thin woman. “Skeleton” might be derogatory, “thin” or “petite” was the correct word to describe her. Either way, her perfume was much too strong—Derrick’s singed nostrils could attest to that.
Derrick coughed a few times to clear the smell of the skeleton’s premature decomposition he had just sucked into his lungs. How could people let their bodies deteriorate to such a size anyway? Were they really so depressed that they couldn’t at least maintain a healthy diet? Then again, she was probably mentally abused as a child and didn’t have many friends. That’s still no excuse to blame your failure at life on your parents. Who knows, maybe half of what they said to her was actually true. People who don’t take criticism well don’t do well in life, or in anything for that matter. Most of the time they end up blaming others, confiding in a false sense of security, and carrying around fake purses while belittling everyone around them with their eyes. Maybe if she gained some weight and took criticism to heart, she’d be carrying a real Hermes.
But enough about others’ problems, Derrick had a proposal to review. But just as Derrick turned his attention to his half-charged computer, a peculiar and steady knocking sound approached Derrick’s seat from the aisle ahead of him.
“Pardon me. I’m sorry, pardon me.” The sound of shifting bags and people moving out of the way caught Derrick’s attention.
“Oh I’m sorry, sir, let me help you to your seat,” said a woman just out of sight. The knocking sound ceased and a short moment later a young and surprisingly attractive train attendant with brown hair and dark blue eyes appeared at the front of Derrick’s car leading the way for a rather short elderly man carrying a large leather case and long white stick. He was blind. Now if anyone were to sit across from Derrick, a blind man would be the best possible candidate. Derrick could just mind his own business, and maybe the man wouldn’t even notice he was there. But if he did start talking to him, he wouldn’t be able to tell he was busy or even annoyed unless Derrick was straightforward with him about it. And being straightforward or rude for that matter was not Derrick’s way.
“Okay sir, this is your seat, let me just help—”
“Thank you so much ma’am,” The blind man interrupted, “I think I should be alright from here. I may be blind, but I’m not completely helpless.” The man grinned in the general direction of the attendant. His humor was genuine.
“You’re welcome, sir,” she said smiling back as she continued on towards the back of the train. Didn’t she know he couldn’t see her smile? A laugh would have been more appropriate. Although her voice did sound attractive. Maybe the blind could discern that kind of thing—like whether someone was smiling when they were talking. Or maybe not. The blind probably mistake a lot of those small hints of body language people exhibit all the time. That’s probably why they come across as such nice people. Who knows what they’re really like behind closed doors. Could someone with a handicap like that really be happy? Maybe, but not likely. Frustration would be a more appropriate response.
The blind man’s leather case, or satchel, or whatever it was certainly looked strange. It was unusually large and square-shaped, and the brown leather was faded and cracking—probably because the poor man couldn’t tell when the leather needed to be treated.
Derrick’s computer alerted him of incoming mail with the sound of a high-pitched bell. Why wasn’t the volume turned down? Critical error.
“Oh I didn’t realize someone else was sitting here. I’m usually put by myself on these trains.”
Derrick wasn’t caught off guard in an awkward moment very often, but having had his cover freshly blown, he struggled with his response.
“Oh. Yes, I’m,” Derrick cleared his throat, “I’m here. Just going over something for work.”
“Really? Me too. Unfortunately I don’t have much time left to finish mine up. But maybe the weather will hold,” the blind man said with his head pointed towards the window to his left.
Maybe the weather will hold? Was he pretending like he could see the weather outside? No, he would have known it was rainy or cloudy from when he entered the Amtrak station. Maybe pretending to look outside was just his way of trying to appear normal. Not that he wasn’t normal of course. Everyone has his or her ways of coping. But what did ‘maybe the weather will hold’ even mean in the first place?
“Yeah, I heard the rain is supposed to continue into tonight. That’s New York for you though, right?” Derrick said with a smile. The man couldn’t see him smile.
“Oh I don’t know. Maybe it’ll surprise us out there.” The blind man continued to face the window as if gazing into the dreary grey sky.
“So why are you dependant on today’s weather? Are you a meteorologist?”
The blind man shifted his weight and put down his white stick. “Sometimes. At least, I certainly enjoy the weather. I’m not much of a forecaster though. What do you do?”
Sometimes? Maybe this man wasn’t quite all there. Being blind didn’t usually make people deranged, did it? No, most blind people are perfectly sane. Not being able to see shouldn’t have anything to do with sanity.
“I’m an executive for a major advertising company. We do advertising for telecommunication companies all along the East Coast. That’s actually why I’m heading to New York. I’ve got a meeting with a company based out of Long Island. What do you do?”
“Very interesting. I don’t have a cell-phone, never had a need for one. I’m actually a painter. My name’s Manny by the way.” Manny offered his hand.
Derrick shook it replying, “Derrick Harper. A painter? How do you—I mean—”
“How do I paint when I can’t see anything? I usually just do the big things—things that are still beautiful even if they aren’t how someone might normally think of them. You know, things that don’t get lost in all of the details. Not that details aren’t important of course.”
He must be, well, ‘Manny’ was his name—Manny must be an abstract painter. How many people could say they owned a painting painted by a blind man? Maybe there was actually money to be made there. But the money surely didn’t come from the work; it came from the fact that a blind man did it. The train crept forward and slowly began to accelerate. T-minus one hour, fifty-five minutes. Derrick needed to end the conversation. But how often was it that one is presented with the opportunity to talk to a blind person, much less a blind painter? What if he was famous? How many blind painters could there be in the world?
“So are you traveling to the city to display any of your pieces?”
“As a matter of fact, I am. It’s a unique piece—one of my favorites to be sure. It isn’t finished though, I was hoping to finish it up on the ride over.”
Was this blind painter trying to end the conversation with Derrick so he could get to work? He must be famous. Famous or just in a hurry. Either way, Derrick’s proposal needed some going over.
“Well, Manny, I won’t bother you any longer. You just go right on ahead and paint away.”
Manny smiled. “Yes sir Mr. Derrick Harper.”
He was good with names. Must be smart. Charming personality too. Maybe some further prying into this ‘Manny’ character could prove fruitful. Bringing up an acquaintance with a possibly famous painter could look awfully good in casual conversation with potential clients.
Manny felt for his leather satchel and pulled out a large wooden board with a white canvas stretched and tied around it like the top of a djembe. Derrick tried to sneak a look at its front but couldn’t get a good enough angle to tell what it was exactly that Manny was working on. Next out of the satchel came an oval-shaped wooden board with many different colors of dried paint on its surface. Most had mixed together to form an ugly brown, but the individual colors of blue and yellow and red could be seen on the pallet’s fringes. Then came some bottled paints labeled with what appeared to be brail, about ten different brushes, and a small bottle of murky water.
“I see you’re using some thick paint. Trying to cut down on the spilling during this train ride?”
Stupid question.
“Absolutely. I usually use watercolors, but this thick stuff will have to do the job for now.”
Not a stupid question. Perfect question. Watercolors? Maybe Manny wasn’t famous. He was sacrificing what he was good at to get a job done (on a train ride no less). That meant one of two things. Either he was truly in a hurry and could work well with thicker paint, or he was just trying to get by with what he could get done in a desperate attempt to propose a piece to some hole-in-the-wall gallery.
“Oh, that’s probably a good idea.”
Manny lifted his head. “Probably? No, no I don’t deal with ‘probably’s’ or ‘maybe’s.’ Only ‘definitely’s.’”
Derrick didn’t know what to say. At least he was optimistic. Derrick acknowledged him with a simple ‘okay’ and once again focused on his task. For the better half of an hour, the two men worked in silence—Manny painting, and Derrick typing and studying. Derrick went over his notes and numbers for a third time, reviewed how he would respond to certain scenarios the company could put him in depending on whether they liked what he had to say, and finally managed a confident smirk. Derrick slapped down the top of his laptop, slipped it into his bag, and pulled out his Blackberry to check his e-mail. While waiting for his e-mail to load, Derrick raised his eyes to Manny’s canvas, which was lying on some sort of travel stand in his lap.
“Say, Manny, would it be okay if I took a look at what you’re painting there?”
Manny looked up, but in the wrong direction.
“You know, Derrick, I normally would, but I really need to get this piece finished before,” Manny pointed his head towards the window again, “before not too long.” Rain began to tap on the windows like keyboard pitter patter as the clouds continued to darken.
“Okay then, no problem.”
Was Manny mad? It wasn’t an intruding question, just a curious one. Maybe Manny really wasn’t famous but instead just a crabby old blind man trying to make some quick cash to get by. That is, if he could even finish his painting in time.
Manny paused again, looked up, and smiled. “But I promise, Mr. Derrick Harper, you will see the finished product. It’s going to be a unique one, you can count on that.”
The awkward exchange was once again extinguished by Manny’s charm. Derrick chuckled. “Okay Manny, I’m looking forward to it.”
Manny’s brush strokes became longer.
“Manny, how do you know how your painting is coming out? You paint as if you can see exactly what you’re doing. And I don’t mean that as an insult, I fully mean it as a compliment.”
“You would be amazed how much you can see when you understand how things really are. You know, how they are in themselves. I’m not much of a painter of how things appear. I’m a painter of how things are.”
“So do you paint abstract paintings then? Like paintings that come from ‘the heart’ and are up for people’s subjective interpretations?”
Manny laughed. “Oh no, Mr. Harper, no sir. Quite the opposite I’m afraid. You’ll see. I promise, you’ll see.”
Another thirty minutes passed as the empty rural landscape began to fill with tall buildings as if they were progressing on an urban timeline from primitive man to modern civilization. Manny was still painting.
“It is currently 71 degrees with partly cloudy skies here in New York City. We hope you enjoyed your time with us, and from all of us here at Amtrak, we would like to thank you for choosing us, and hope you have a wonderful stay at your destination.”
Passengers began to gather their bags and slowly exited the crowded train through the much too narrow aisle. Derrick stood, grabbed his computer bag, and tried to glance at what Manny was painting once more. Too late. Manny had covered his canvas with some sort of protective covering—so that the fresh paint wouldn’t be disturbed—and placed it in his satchel.
“All finished, Manny?”
Manny grinned as he grabbed his white stick and struggled up to his feet. “Almost. I just need a little bit longer and she’ll be ready.”
“Well that’s too bad, I was hoping I would be able to see it,” Derrick said in a playfully antagonizing way.
“Oh don’t you worry now Mr. Derrick Harper, you’ll see it.”
The attractive train attendant from earlier entered the car. “I can help you to your taxi, sir,” she said to Manny as she began to lead him down the aisle.
Derrick followed close behind. “How am I supposed to see it? Are you showing it at a museum somewhere nearby?”
No answer.
The satchel. Manny wasn’t carrying it. He must have left it in his seat. Derrick spun around, forced the last few passengers out of the aisle into seats, and finally made it back to where they had been sitting. The leather satchel was in the window seat propped up against the armrest. Derrick grabbed it, put the strap around his shoulder, and quickly returned to the exit.
“Manny!”
“Are you looking for someone, sir?”
Derrick pushed past the inquisitive train attendant.
“Manny! You forgot your…”
Manny was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t have gotten far.
“Manny, your painting!” Derrick yelled as he stepped off the train into Penn Station. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people were walking in different directions. Derrick scanned the crowd for Manny, but to no avail.
“Manny? Manny! I have your painting, Manny!”
Still nothing. A few people stopped and stared at Derrick, but continued walking without giving him a second throught. How did an old blind man just disappear like that? He must not have been famous if he was careless enough to leave his work on the train. Then again, not being able to see it probably didn’t help remind him. Maybe the train attendant hurried him too much. Even still, he should have noticed. Maybe he would return to the train.
Derrick walked up to where his train had arrived and approached an Amtrak employee behind a customer service desk.
“I’m sorry, but do you have the list of passengers that just got off that train from Philadelphia? Train R2306.”
“One moment, sir.”
Derrick impatiently scanned the masses for Manny.
“Okay sir, are you missing any members of your party?”
“No, I just wanted to find the phone number—” Manny said he didn’t have a cell phone, that wouldn’t work, “I mean, I wanted to see if I could somehow find out the last name and address of the passenger sitting across from me on the train. He left his bag here, and I just wanted to return it to him.”
“Well, sir, we have a lost baggage area just around the—”
“That won’t work. He needs this as soon as possible because…I don’t have time to tell you the details, I just need some way to get a hold of him.”
“Okay, sir, hold on for just a moment. What did you say his name was?”
“I only know his first name. Manny. I sat in business class and he was sitting directly across from me.”
The Amtrak employee pounded the keys of her computer, gave a puzzled look at the screen, typed again, and maintained her perplexed expression with squinting eyes. “I’m sorry, sir, we don’t appear to have any record of a ‘Manny’ on your train, are you sure that wasn’t his nickname?”
“No, I’m not sure, but could you just look to see if anyone has a name similar to ‘Manny’?”
More typing. More confusion.
“I’m sorry, we don’t seem to have any record of a ‘Manny’ or anything similar to ‘Manny’ on train R2306.”
Derrick’s frustration grew.
“No, there must be some mistake. There was a train attendant that escorted him on board, and she checked his ticket. He was blind. Do you have a disabled persons list?”
“One moment.”
More typing, this time only a few keys.
“Okay, the only disabled person we have on file for your train was a gentleman by the name of Rodney Michaels, and he is listed under the ‘wheelchair needs’ section. No blind people I’m afraid.”
Impossible. How could they have no record of a blind man getting on the train? He was obviously there; his satchel was proof of that.
“Thank you for your help, ma’am.”
Derrick jogged to the front of the station in hope of catching a taxi. He just needed to make a few phone calls to find all of the local art galleries having shows in the next two days to see if anyone knew of a blind painter named Manny. How many blind painters could there be? He couldn’t be that hard to find.
A long line of filled taxis slowly snaked out of the drop-off loop of the busy station—occasionally swerving to avoid the large hotel shuttles. Derrick walked to the curb with his hand in the air signaling for a taxi. Something caught his eye to his left. On the ground. Derrick’s hand slowly dropped as he took in what he was seeing. To the right of the automatic exit doors sat a homeless man smoking a cigarette and reading a book. In front of him stood a sign propped up against a wastebasket reading, ‘Lost everything. Anything can help.’ But it wasn’t the sight of the homeless man that had caught Derrick’s attention; it was the three men standing around him dressed in white giving off a strange ambient glow. All three men wore white robes down to their bare feet. One of them was on his knees with his hands on the homeless man’s shoulders. Tears ran down his cheeks. The one standing to the homeless man’s left had his hands raised in the air and was uttering words towards the sky. The third walked amongst the crowd, touched people on the shoulder, and pointed towards the poor man sitting on the ground. The people he touched didn’t acknowledge him, but instead only acted as if something unseen had nudged them. Some looked down at the homeless man, some didn’t. And upon any giving to the penniless man, the third robed man would smile and raise his hands. But no matter how many gave, the robed man on his knees continued to weep.
“I don’t have all day sir, do you need a ride?” yelled a taxi driver who had pulled up next to Derrick.
Derrick continued to stare.
“Sir?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Derrick replied half-dazed, “Take me to the Andrew Hotel.”
Derrick opened the back door to the freshly washed and waxed yellow cab, threw in his two bags, and held Manny’s satchel on his lap.
“So what brings you to the city?”
“A painter.”
“A painter? What kind of painter?”
“I’m sorry, not a painter. I don’t know why I said that. I’m here for a business proposal in Long Island. I’m an exec for a telecommunications company.”
“Making the big bucks, huh?”
Derrick stared out the window distracted by the robed men he had just witnessed.
“I guess you could say that.”
A little less than an hour later, the cab pulled up to Derrick’s hotel. Derrick paid the man with a crisp one hundred dollar bill and didn’t stay to get change.
“Thank you, sir!” the cabdriver said as Derrick jogged to the receptionist counter at the Andrew—not paying any attention to the wear his hustle was leaving on his leather-soled Paciottis. After checking in, Derrick put his room key in his eel skin wallet and started for the elevators. While waiting, he noticed a group of people socializing over cocktails and hors d’œuvres in a banquet room across from where he was standing. The group of thirty or so were dressed in tuxedos and matching pink dresses and sat at two long tables placed in the center of the room. On a wooden three-legged stand just outside the open double doors was a blackboard that read “Kaina Wedding Party.” But what caught Derrick’s attention wasn’t the loud conversation at the main table or even the silver platters of various meats and cheeses, it was the table secluded to the back corner. Four young children between the ages of five and seven ate together, laughed loudly, and were told more than once by two women—probably their mothers—to keep quiet and eat their food. Two of the children were boys (boys with their bow ties undone and tuxedos in complete disarray like they had just filmed a chase scene out of a children’s version of a 007 film), and the other two were younger girls wearing the same matching pink dresses as the older women in the room, but also wore white ribbons in their short blonde hair. The table was set for five—not four—as there also sat a man dressed in an off-white tunic at the table’s head. He was dark skinned, had long brown hair, and wore a full beard, though his most drastic feature was the ambient glow he gave off like a dissipating fog in the morning sun. It looked just like the glow of the robed men back at Penn Station.
One of the boys tossed a piece of drooping lettuce from his salad across the table onto the man’s plate with a smile, but quickly acted like he hadn’t done a thing. The bearded man looked at the foreign piece of lettuce, studied it, and proceeded to give the boy a penetrating stare. But just as quickly as he teasingly glared at the child, he laughed, picked up a dinner roll, and tossed it right back across the table into the boy’s lap. He threw his head back in laughter, but quickly took cover from what would likely be a messy retaliation. The boy faked the throw towards the man and then tossed the roll onto one of the girls’ plates. The two girls giggled to themselves, as the two boys and the older man laughed in unison.
One of the boys sitting next to the man gently grabbed one of the man’s hands and felt his palm with a shy expression. He looked up at him as he moved his finger across the worn lines in his palm, but didn’t say a word as if what he was doing said everything. There was some kind of darkly colored marking on the man’s palms. Was it a tattoo? No, it was different. They were holes.
The golden elevator doors opened in front of Derrick, snapping him out of his absorbing trance. He stepped into the elevator, pushed floor seven, and turned his attention to Manny’s satchel. Derrick cautiously lifted the leather top to reveal the painting inside. If he tried to remove the canvas’ protective covering, he risked damaging the painting. Derrick closed the satchel back up as he reached his floor and walked to his room. He inserted his key, opened the door, threw his bags on the perfectly made bed, and placed Manny’s satchel on the large wooden desk next to the window facing west. Derrick’s business proposal was in thirty minutes. No time to change. He checked his pockets twice to make sure he had his wallet and Blackberry, and then left his hotel room to catch another cab. Manny’s painting situation would have to wait.
Derrick caught a cab with relative ease and gave the driver the address. Twenty minutes later, he was on his way up to the thirteenth floor of a newly renovated office building on the south side of Long Island. The inside even smelled like wet paint. The elevator doors opened to reveal a modest reception area with a red haired receptionist offering a welcoming smile.
“Mr. Harper?”
“Yes ma’am, I have an appointment at 6:30 with Mr. Gaines.”
“Okay Mr. Harper, I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Derrick sat down on a firm black leather seat facing ceiling-high windows making up the back wall of the reception area.
The receptionist’s phone rang twice. “Yes? Okay, I’ll let him know. Mr. Gaines will see you now, Mr. Harper.”
That was quick. He must be eager to hear about the proposition. Well, eager to hear it or eager to dismiss it. Derrick pulled open the heavy oak door with Samuel Gaines’ name displayed in gold on the front. Upon entering, Derrick confidently walked forward with his classic Derrick Harper smile, but froze at the sight of the office he had set foot in. Sitting on a crude oil-soaked piece of cardboard was a man wearing a tattered and mud-stained three-piece suit. He looked like he hadn’t shaved for a week, and the rest of his office was even less impressive. There was no carpet or tile—only a grey cement slab for a floor. On the cardboard Gaines was sitting on were various papers stained with coffee, an empty hollowed-out beer can for holding pens, and an outdated desktop computer with two large cracks running down the front of the monitor’s screen. On the back wall hung a crooked, old, wooden frame. Beneath its glass was a faded newspaper, which looked like it had been wrinkled into a ball and then undone again, displaying the Sunday cartoons. Engraved on the frame was “Masters of Business, University of Southern California.”
“Derrick, it’s good to see you! Please, have a seat.”
Derrick didn’t know what to say. Walking forward and sitting down on the floor across from Gaines, Derrick placed his computer bag next to him. The cardboard ground against sand beneath him as he shifted his weight. Wait. Something was wrong. Derrick stared at his computer bag—now Manny’s leather satchel—in confusion. Had he grabbed the satchel by mistake? No, he wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. He couldn’t have. He must have.
“Is something wrong?”
Gaines’ breath reeked of alcohol.
“No, I think I may have just forgotten something.” Derrick opened up the satchel and tried to appear normal, but his worst fears were confirmed when all that lay within the bag were painting supplies.
“I thought I brought it.”
“Brought what?”
Why did Mr. Gaines’ office look like this? What kind of man built up his life around such filth? The weight of the room’s disgust and fog of Gaines’ repulsive breath pressed down on Derrick’s composure. This was supposed to be a well-off company with millions of dollars in capital, not a third-world slum.
“I…I need to go.” Derrick rose, grabbed Manny’s satchel, and left the office. Taking the stairs, Derrick began to quicken his pace on the last flight, but tripped on the second-to-last step—sending him reeling into the door. Grabbing his ankle and grimacing in pain he saw that his own appearance had drastically changed since the beginning of the day. His Cesare Paciotti shoes were worn and holey, his pants were tattered and frayed, and his like-new Breitling watch was cracked and locked up at five o’clock. How had this happened? The little spill he had just experienced couldn’t have done all of this. Could it have? No, impossible. It all felt like a dream—a dream where he couldn’t run, read, or understand anything that was happening, yet felt perfectly familiar and real.
“Sir, can I help you?” asked an older woman as she picked up Manny’s satchel to give to Derrick.
“Oh, no I was just,” Derrick wiped his hands on his pant legs and took the satchel. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“You’re welcome, are you sure—” but Derrick was already gone and walking to the street to catch a taxi. After three filled cabs drove by, one pulled up next to him. Stepping in, Derrick said to the driver, “The Andrew Hotel, 75 North Station Plaza.”
“You got it.”
The cab driver’s voice sounded familiar.
“Do I know you?”
“Well, I don’t know if you know or remember me, but I certainly know you Mr. Derrick Harper.”
It was Manny.
“Manny?”
It couldn’t be Manny. Manny was blind.
“Yes, that’s what some people call me, but my actual name is Immanuel. Manny for short.”
Derrick was at a loss for any kind of reaction.
“Manny, I thought you were blind. What is going on?”
“It’s okay, I know where I’m going. In fact, we’re almost there.”
There was no way they were almost at the hotel. It was at least a twenty-minute drive.
“But how—”
“Don’t worry about the ‘how’, just worry about the ‘what’.”
Manny eased the cab to a stop at a red light. “Look over there,” Manny said pointing to his right. A run down cemetery was just across the street from where they had stopped.
“Look at what? I don’t see—”
“Look!” Manny said pointing, “The woman and her son over on the right.”
Derrick squinted while shading his eyes from the sun, which hung just above the horizon waiting to fall like the last bit of sand in an hourglass, and saw what Manny was talking about. Standing at the foot of a simple black granite gravestone was the thin woman and her son from the train. The skeleton. The boy still held the airplane he had been playing with, but the battle he was fighting had ended, as he held the toy solemnly by his side with only one finger. The thin woman dropped to one knee and buried her face in her hands. The boy put his plane in his pocket and watched her as he visibly struggled seeing his mom in such a sorrowful state—wringing his hands together no longer sure of what to do with them.
“Her name is Kate. Her son, Max, was only two when his daddy was killed in a car accident. Jim was the love of her life, and right now her heart is in ruins. Since the day of the accident, Kate’s struggled to resist the urge to take her own life. Max has really been the only thing keeping her alive. That’s Jim’s gravestone they’re visiting right now. They visit every year on the anniversary of his death, and it doesn’t seem to get any easier as each year passes. Sometimes time can’t heal every wound.”
Still on one knee, Kate’s body visibly shook with her shoulders going up and down and her face in her hands. Tears pooled in Max’s eyes as he embraced his broken mother. A man dressed in all white walked up to Kate and Max and kneeled down with them. He put his hands on their shoulders and shared in their mourning as he cried with them.
“Who is that man?” Derrick asked.
“His name is Comfort. Sometimes words or prayers aren’t enough to truly express the depth of what someone is feeling. Comfort shares in suffering and helps translate the deepest groanings of the soul to the one Person who can truly understand and heal all wounds.”
“I don’t understand, is Comfort…an angel?”
“No, Derrick. Comfort is the Spirit of God.”
The light turned green, and Manny pulled through the intersection and off to the side of the road.
“Well, we’re here.”
Obviously rattled from the day’s recent events—only to be topped off by a blind man (a blind painter at that) driving him to his hotel in a matter of minutes, Derrick paused before getting out of the cab.
Staring blankly at the dashboard, Derrick said, “Manny, I have your satchel here with the painting you were working on. You left it on the train. I don’t understand what or why—”
“You don’t need to worry,” Manny interrupted, “I painted it for you. But I would like my satchel back—those painting supplies aren’t cheap.”
Derrick took the painting out of the satchel and handed the leather bag to Manny.
“You painted this for me?”
“Absolutely.”
“But how did you know you would meet me?”
“Derrick, how many times do I have to tell you not to worry about any of that stuff? Just know that I painted it for you, and for you alone.”
Derrick looked down at the covered canvas.
“Thank you, Manny.”
“You’re very welcome Mr. Derrick Harper. I hope you’ve been able to see some things today—things that I see. Remember what I said on the train? I paint things as they are in themselves. I paint them as I see them. I may be blind, but I can see more than you might think.” Manny smiled a smile only he could pull off with such warmth. It gleamed even without the aid of manny’s eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.
Derrick gathered his things and pulled out his wallet to give Manny the fair. But just as he reached in, all he found were dirty strips of white paper. After fumbling through the remaining compartments of his wallet Derrick said, “I’m sorry Manny, I don’t know what happened to my money. I don’t even know what happened to me. My clothes, my shoes…I mean, I fell down a few stairs earlier but there’s no way any of this happened because of that. I just don’t—”
“What are you talking about?” Manny interrupted, “Your clothes? They look fine to me. At least, that’s what they’ve always looked like to me. Trust me, you don’t need to worry.” Manny winked. “And Derrick, it’s only a five-dollar fair. By the looks of things, you’ve got a little over $300 in there.”
“What? No I don’t,” Derrick said as he looked through his wallet and pulled out the dirty paper.
“See?” Manny said taking one of the dirty pieces of paper. Manny then pulled out a few dirty pieces of his own and handed them back to Derrick smiling. “Here’s your change.”
Derrick didn’t have any words—only a pale and confused expression.
Manny held up a couple dirty strips of paper and said with a smile, “Money. It looks like you’re starting to see things my way.”
“Manny, I thought you were blind. Who are you?”
“Like I said, don’t worry about any of that stuff. You’ll figure it out soon enough. Just go up to your room, get a good night’s rest, and head on back to Dennise tomorrow morning.”
How did Manny know Dennise’s name? Derrick stepped out of the cab carrying Manny’s painting. Derrick started, “Manny, thank you for—” but Manny had already started driving off. Derrick stood on the curbside trying to just begin to understand what had just taken place. Had he been conned? Was he hallucinating? And what about this painting? Who were the robed men he had seen? Who was the glowing man at the banquet? How had Manny just driven in New York City?
Visibly embarrassed of his filthy appearance, though no one paid him any attention, Derrick walked into the hotel and headed back up to his room. Upon opening the door, he carefully began to remove the protective covering around Manny’s canvas and studied his work. Painted upon the canvas was what appeared to be a plain bedroom. On the left there was a black clock hanging on the wall and yellow lamp standing on a darkly colored wooden table, on the right was a queen sized bed with a white bed spread neatly laid across the top, and in the center was a large window looking out to nothing. Many hadn’t painted anything in the window or what would have been seen through the window, but instead simply left the window blank. Maybe this was what Manny had still needed to finish up. Why did he give him an unfinished painting? How had Manny even painted this in the first place? It was so clear and so well done. But just as Derrick studied the unfinished spot of Manny’s painting, he realized what the painting was depicting. Looking up towards the back of his hotel room, he saw a yellow lamp on a wooden table and a queen-sized bed with a white bedspread. A simple black clock hung on the wall to his left, and a fake painting of a yellow flower hung to his right above the bed. Everything in the painting—the color and pattern of the carpet, the proportions of the room, and even the texture of the wall was exactly the same. Manny had painted a picture-perfect portrayal of Derrick’s room, except for the window. At the bottom of the painting was Manny’s name signed in red with a few words written underneath it. They read, “Do you see as I see?”
Still confused, Derrick turned the canvas over, then back around, but then back over again. There was a note attached to the back.
Derrick,
Sometimes you have to open your eyes and see how I see. This painting is the frame of what I was really working on…what I just finished. Open the curtains to your window to see the painting I promised you would see.
You’re Friend,
Manny
Derrick placed the painting at the foot of the bed and looked over at the window. He took hold of the left and right curtains meeting at the center of the window and slowly drew them back. Light poured into the room from the horizon causing Derrick to squint and shade his eyes with his hand. Brilliant purple, red, pink, yellow, and mixtures of the four glowed on the western skyline of New York City. The sun had just dipped below the flat edge of the earth leaving behind a stunning array of colored clouds and a purple pastel sky. Storm clouds loomed on the right, but were rigidly highlighted by dark red and fluorescent magenta rays of the descending sun. The rain falling from the deep blue clouds, usually seen as a streaky blur, looked like motionless fire. Manny’s painting was perfect.
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