Robbins
Brooke Dickson
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I'm posting this story for a good friend of mine. She wrote it some time ago when she was still in college and the show was still on the air. I always thought it was a shame that she didn't write any more, but I suppose Inspiration is a fickle thing.
If you wish to give her any feedback, you can send comments to my e-mail address and I will forward them to her. My e-mail is smiskow@lycos.com.
Gargoyles is the property of Buena Vista.
I've rated this story PG.
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He started life as a soldier, a warrior. He killed those that he was told to kill, and did his duty for his country.
But in his heart, he was a teacher.
And when he lost his sight to those whom he had been told were "the enemy," he was thanked, shipped back home, and given a medal for his loyal service.
But no one wanted a blind teacher. At first he joked in order to convince people to accept him, "Think of how much you can save on eye exams each year!" But with each rejection, he became more frustrated, then angry, and finally bitter. And he shut himself away from a world which no longer wanted him.
For many months, he brooded, and tried to forget. The most frustrating thing to him was the loss of his books. How he missed his books. As a child, they had been his means of adventure, intrigue, and expansion. They had offered new ideas and possibilities to him. And now, they were lost to him.
About two years into his self-exile, he received an urgent phone call: his only brother was dying. And he wanted to make peace to end a war that would have ended years before, if stubborn pride had not gotten in the way.
Robbins hired a private car and driver to take him to his brother's side. He arrived just in time to say "Forgive me" and "Goodbye."
After a small funeral on a dark and miserable afternoon, he returned to his brother's house with his brother's widow, who asked him to stay awhile and visit.
"And why would you want a useless blind man who's old before his time hanging about the place?" Robbins asked in a sarcastic tone.
"Because, if you think you're that useless, then you'd be better off being six feet underground, like Melvin."
Robbins stayed on his brother's farm for several months. He grew to know his sister-in-law, Sarah. Sarah marked the beginning of Robbins's road back to humanity. She did not fuss over him or treat him as a child, but patiently helped him learn how to feel his way around the farm. She fed him good food and spent many hours talking to him. Through Sarah, Robbins made peace with his brother's memory and decided that if Melvin had the good sense to marry Sarah, he might have had some common sense after all. But the best gift Sarah gave him was the gift of reading again.
One Saturday night, Robbins and Sarah sat on the porch after dinner. Sarah shelled peas for Sunday dinner and Robbins struggled to understand the Braille writing of the book that Sarah had gotten him. It was his favorite, and it secretly amused him to realize how different it was to see the print with his fingers than it had been with his eyes. He could hear the lazy rocking of Sarah's chair as she quietly shelled peas, trying not to disturb his concentration.
The farm dog started barking and running towards the barn. Robbins looked up, turning towards the sound, and tried to rise from his seat. Sarah stopped him.
"No, you stay here. I'll go check."
Robbins protested, "It may be too dangerous for you. I'll go." He tried to move in the direction of the dog's barking and stumbled on a loose board in the porch. "Damn!" He shook his stumped toe and tried to move forward again. Sarah barely kept him from falling down the steps. He had miscounted steps again.
"No, Robbins. I'll just be gone a minute. Probably a fox, anyway."
Robbins could hear Sarah move off the porch. He hobbled back to his chair, fuming over his clumsiness and his eyes. His blindness was such a frustration! His usefulness had been robbed through his eyes. His mind drifted back to Vietnam, the stench of the wet grass around him and the piercing sound of close gunshots…
Gunshots…oh God, that was a gunshot! "Sarah!," Robbins yelled, lurching to his feet. "Sarah!" He stumbled over the loose board again, cursing in frustration. He forced himself to count his steps until he reached the stairs…8, 9, 10. He reached the ground and tried to orient himself. "Sarah!" No answer. There had been no answer. Robbins stumbled towards the direction he remember hearing the dog. One, two, three…he stumbled over a rock, cursing louder this time,…" Goddamit, Sarah, answer me!"
Robbins heard the sound of a motor being gunned behind him. Spinning around, he heard the car, no louder, heavier, a truck, being driven away from him at a high speed. "Sarah!" Lost, confused, frustrated and so BLIND! "Sarah!," he yells again, knowing that something is wrong. He stumbles against the edge of the porch, and using it as a guide, feels his way slowly back to the stairs, One, two, three…he crawls across the porch, into the kitchen and heads for the direction he knows the phone to be. He grabs the receiver and punches in the number zero…the only number he can remember the location of on the dial pad.
"Operator…"
"I need help! Send help!"
"Sir, what do you need? What's wrong?"
"I need police at the Robbins farm…and I think I need an ambulance! Something happened to my sister-in-law…I think a gunshot."
"Sir, what exactly happened?"
A moment of silence from Robbins. The operator tries again. "Sir, what exactly is wrong?"
Robbins says in a dead voice, "I don't know. I heard a gunshot go off and a heavy truck race away. I can't find her…I'm blind." He can hear the slight inhalation of the operator. He braces himself for the pity in her voice.
"Sir, the police are on their way."
He slumps back down to the floor, the phone still cradled in his hand as he fights the tears gathering in his eyes. For he has betrayed Sarah…he could not help her as she helped him.
For the second time, Robbins sits in the front pew of the Grace Baptist Chapel. In front of him, somewhere is Sarah's body in its casket. Behind him, he hears the sound of suppressed sobs, the ones go have given into to their grief…and the high pitch of gossiping voices, whispering among one another.
"Well, the police said that she was still alive for a good half hour after she had been shot…the poor dear must have suffered so much until death claimed her."
"Wasn't there someone else staying at the farm with her?"
"Oh yes, Melvin's brother. But he's blind."
"Oh my!"
"Someone said that he lost his sight in 'Nam. But at least he came back in one piece. Not like that helped Sarah."
He wanted to get up and yell at the whispering biddies, to make them bite back their hard words and hungry expressions. He wanted to tell the church that Sarah would not hold his mistake against him, that she did not hate him for letting her die...Sarah was too good a person to hate someone like that.
But that would have been admitting to both them and to himself that he had let Sarah die because he was only half a man, if that. That he as a cripple could not have helped another cripple. That would have validated his own hatred of himself. He sat in stony silence throughout the service and used a cane to feel his way down the aisle and out to the car to the cemetery. He ignored the offers for a supporting arm, but stumbled along on his own. When the group arrived at the cemetery, the same cemetery where he had met Sarah so few months ago, he let someone led him to the edge of the hole. He didn't care, he just wanted to leave this place and its memories, to hide away from people once more.
After the burial, he heard someone approach his left side. A voice that seemed naggingly familiar spoke, "Do you need a ride back to the house?"
"No," Robbins said softly, cringing at the voice dripping with sickeningly sweet pity. "I have the car and driver."
"You take care of yourself, you hear?" Robbins nodded at the farewell and let the driver lead him back to the car. It was not until he was halfway back to the farm that he realized why the voice seemed familiar…it had been the woman who had whispered in church…the one who said that his blindness had killed Sarah. With a sick taste in his mouth, he decided to leave the farm within the hour for the airport.
Ten years later…
Click, click, click, click…the sounds of Robbins's cane against the concrete sidewalk floated up to him, a subtle rhythm in contrast to the honking horns and yelling people surrounding him. Heading toward the golden gates of Columbia University, Robbins orients himself on the quad, clicking past the looming presence of the Columbia Library on one side. He still finds it ironic that while people still startle him when they approach, he can sense the presence of large buildings. It must be New York, he chuckles to himself as he heads for the classroom building that is his destination.
In the years since Sarah's death, Robbins has come a long way. The first year, he returned to his pre-Sarah ways, avoiding people. He ordered all of his groceries delivered to his apartment and never left. He sat in his darkened apartment and nursed his self pity. His crippled body, his crippled soul…his twisted mind. For days, he would sit in the same chair, not moving as he tortured himself with his twisted mind. Over and over again, he put himself on trial for the death of Sarah…and always found himself guilt of his crime. The voice of the whispering woman from the funeral always spoke just before the closing arguments…the statements that sealed his doom.
At the end of the first year, he had a dream. He dreamed that he was back on the farm, on the porch with Sarah. Sarah was telling him to stop torturing himself over her death…that he needed to live.
"I wouldn't have asked you to stay on my farm if I'd know that you would try to follow me to the grave," Sarah gently chided him as she shelled peas. He would always see Sarah as shelling peas. Her gentle voice surrounded him, "Get up and live, Robbins."
Robbins had alienated almost all of his friends, but there was one person left that he could call. He didn't have a telephone in his apartment…who would he talk to, or more importantly, who would care if something happened to him? The next evening, he cleaned himself up and thumped his way across the hall to his neighbor's apartment. Hesitantly, he knocked on the door.
"Yes?" A young voice, a female voice answered his knock. He hears the door open a little way before he hears the sound of a chain snapping into its full length. He senses her wariness at the sight of a stranger. Robbins hesitated, not sure where to begin.
"Miss, I need your help. My name is Robbins and I live in the apartment across the hall. I need to call someone, but I don't have a phone. May I please use yours? I promise that I will pay for the phone charge."
He sensed her hesitation. "Why haven't I seen you before now, Mr. Robbins?"
"Because I never leave my apartment. I have everything delivered to me. Because I'm blind." He waited for the realization to strike, to hear the sound of pity in her voice.
He hears the door close for a moment, the sound of the chain being removed, and the door reopening. "Come in, Mr. Robbins," he hears his neighbor say.
"You know, you shouldn't trust me to enter your home just because I'm blind."
"I trust you because I sense that you are an honest man. By the way, my name is Holly Brown."
"Thank you, Miss Brown."
"It's Ms. Brown, actually. Just call me Holly"
The sound of small running feet comes towards them. "Mama! Mama! Kin I have a cookie?" The small feet skid to a halt. "Who's he?"
Robbins can hear the sound of Holly's voice decrease as she bends down. "This is Mister Robbins. Say hello, Franklin."
"Hello, Mr. Robbins." Curtsy out of the way, Franklin demands a cookie again. Holly tells him to wait until later.
"Can I lead you to the phone, Mr. Robbins?"
"Thank you."
Robbins lets Holly led him down a hall of 35 small steps before she places his hand on the edge of a sofa. "Here, sit down." Robbins sits.
"Here's the phone. Do you need anything else?"
Robbins feels for the phone…thank god for rotary phones. He draws out the small book where he knows he has kept all of his numbers.
"Can you please find me the number of Dr. Grey and read it to me?"
Thankfully, Holly does as he asks and does not perform the task for him. He didn't think his dignity could stand it if she had treated him like a child. As he brings the receiver to his ear, he hears her leaving the room. The ringing of the phone echoes in his ear. "Grey residence."
Robbins clears his throat. "May I speak to Dr. Grey?"
"Junior or Senior?" Robbins had forgotten that Grey had a son.
"Senior."
"I'm sorry, sir, but Dr. Grey passed on over a year ago. Would you care to speak to Dr. Grey, Junior?"
"No thank you."
Robbins feels for the body of the phone to replace the receiver when Holly walks back into the room. He looks so upset, she thinks, as she sits beside this strange neighbor of her on the couch.
"Did you reach him?"
Robbins seems distracted, and has to bring his attention back to her presence. "What? Oh, I reached the house, but he's been dead for over a year."
"I'm so sorry. It must be shocking to find out like this."
"Yes," Robbins states.
"Can I do anything to help?"
Robbins hesitates before he answers, "I was calling him because I wanted to know how to rejoin the world of the living. I don't want to hide anymore," a small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, "I've been ordered not to hide anymore."
He senses Holly leaning towards him. "What do you need to find out?"
Robbins sighs. "Everything about how to be blind in a seeing world. How to walk, how to manage, how to read Braille," a deeper sigh this time, "definitely how to read Braille. I need my books back in my life."
Holly laughs, a quiet laugh. "Well, you've come to the right place. I just got a job at a place that teaches the handicapped. Let me see what I can do for you."
Robbins gives a low, sarcastic chuckle. "That's right…I'm handicapped. I almost forgot."
Robbins followed Holly to her job and met with the instructors of the New York Institute for the Training of Handicapped Persons. Through the Institute, he learned how to manage his life and to deal with his sightlessness. Moreover, he learned to read again.
But the limited number of books in Braille frustrated him. While there were more Braille books available than he would have guessed, as his comfort with Braille increased, he quickly worked through large numbers of the books available through the Institute and through the New York Public Library. He had fulfilled Sarah's demand that he learn to live again, but he needed his books back. He was greedy, he wanted more than his teachers could provide. One day, one teacher said in frustration of Robbins's many demands for new books, "Why don't you write them yourself?!!?"
Robbins laughed at the idea that he could be a writer, but the seed had been planted. What if he could write books? What if he wrote books on the subjects that always thrilled and amused him?
After three years of learning, Robbins began working on his new goal. But he needed more exposure to people, more ideas to write about. A teacher at the Institute told him of a linguist at Columbia University who was working on a big research project involving an examination of Braille. Robbins quickly contacted the Columbia professor and convinced him to let him help with the project.
Robbins's first task under Dr. Julian was to help create a survey for the blind using Braille writing. Robbins learned how to formulate survey questions. Dr. Julian was a born talker, and so Robbins learned more about linguists and about sociology as well. He learned about the study of trends and the study of lifestyles. Robbins learned about how people see themselves and each other. He listened to the people around him as he went places, eating at restaurants recommended by the Institute for the presence of menus in Braille, so simply taking walks along the bustling streets of New York.
Seven years later…
Robbins walked to his bookshelf and ran his fingers along the spines of the books there. Ah, an old favorite. Robbins pulled the book off of the shelf and turned to the whimper of his seeing eye dog.
"No, Gilly, we're not going anywhere. Just a nice quiet evening at home with a good book."
In the past seven years, Robbins had become a successful writer. All of his novels were New York Times Bestsellers. The reviewers loved him and the publishers loved the revenues generated by his book sells even more. Robbins had enough money to move out of the city and into a nice house on the beach. He loved opening the French doors in his study and listening to the sounds of the waves. His hermit existence was his own decision (and one that he felt that not even Sarah would disagree with!) and he had reached some peace with the demons that had haunted him for so long.
Gilgamesh started barking. "What is it, Gilly? Another squirrel?" Robbins got to his feet and moved towards the sound of the dog's barking, feeling an eerie sense of déjà vu. "What is it, boy?"
And damned if he didn't hear the sound of wings. The sound of a heavy winged object moving towards him and the soft thud of the creature landing on his wall. Robbins moved forward to investigate, but stopped at an unusual sound. The sound of stone crackling. As if the creature were turning to stone…
Robbins felt the heat of the rising sun upon his face. Gilgamesh had stopped barking and stood wary at his feet as he inched towards the bulky presence of the strange intruder. He reached up slowly and felt the round cool metal of a cylinder container…held by a clawed hand. A stone clawed hand.
Robbins could feel another story coming into his brain. He moved away from
the stone creature. "Come, Gilly. We'll find out about our visitor soon enough."
Robbins turned around and felt for Gilgamesh's collar. Together, they walked back towards the house as the sun continued to rise behind them.
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End.