Martin In The Tunnel Of Light

There is light at the end of the

tunnel. It's true. Even though we

often walk in the dark.

 

he's a new friend, I am happy to say-

I met him at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard

& Cahuenga - the corner where Hollywood

actually began - and he looked a little

unapproachable

and the happy bravado which usually leads

me to easily ask strangers for their photos had

abandoned me, as it sometimes does-

and so I past him and instantly sensed

I was making a mistake. So i went back-

and I am happy i did, as the unapproachable-seeming

ones are often the most special

souls of all.

 

I said hello to him -

he was holding a blind man's red & white cane,

but it was folded up under his arm -

he was startled, and didn't know where to

face when I spoke to him, and I reached

out and he gently took my hand, and

shook it.

 

"This eye is gone," he explained, pointing

to the patch, "and the other one is almost gone, too."

So he's almost totally blind - though

he can still see light out of his left eye. Though

it's fading, and blindness is an inevibility it

seems. Yet he's far from downhearted,

and we had a nice walk together down to

Sunset & Cahuenga - and he told me his story.

 

From the hills of West Virginia, he said, and came

to Hollywood decades back.

Used to work as a waiter at the old Copper Penny.

which was a diner of sorts on Sunset and closed

about 1983 as I recall.

 

Glaucoma started robbing his sight. Of course,

I mentioned marijuana, as that's always been

floated as a cure, but he said his doctor told

him it wouldn't work, so he doesn't try.

 

Now he is retired,

and lives in Hollywood on Franklin -

and he has a "surrogate son," who helps

him and reads stuff for him

and drives him. And he walks

through Hollywood cause he knows

it - like I do - so intimately sight isn't

really required. And he knows how to

stop and go at traffic lights, he

explained, by listening to the cars -

and knowing when they are stopped

and when they are going.

 

But obstacles do cause him to

change his route -

scaffolding now on Cahuenga

just south of Yucca has torn up the

streets, which is treacherous to a man

without much vision - so he walks

up the west side of Cahuenga to

Sunset - where Amoeba Records now is -

and crosses at Sunset to the

Jack In The Box - where he goes every day.

 

I walked with him the entire way -

and let him know when the lights shifted,

which made it easier for him - and we spoke

about how Hollywood has changed -

a change he has heard about but cannot see-

and he was as sweet and as gentle

of a soul as I have ever met. About his

blindness, he is not bitter at all - "hey," he said,

"some people can't even walk," he explained.

 

Yes, I thought,

but they can see - which is harder? I didn't ask.

 

At the Jack In The Box - which used to be a gas

station there on that spectral corner of

Sunset & Cahuenga which we both remembered -

I asked for his photo, and at first he was

reluctant, but then changed his mind, and

said, sure, go ahead.

And I took a few

and then laid them later

over this photo of the Holly Drive tunnel

between darkness & light -

which I used to go through every day on my way home

in this, the Hollywood Dell,

and as he is walking between the darkness

and light each day, it seemed right - and though

moving physically into darkness

is a being of much light.

 

We said goodbye, and I regretted

that our connection was over,

and I went back in the restaurant-

and looked for him - he wasn't ordering food

as I had thought he'd be at the front -

but then I found him, sitting alone at

a table, surrounded by people and a city

he could barely see,

and I said hi and told him it was me again-

and his face lit up with a big smile

like seeing a good friend,

and he reached again

to shake my hand

and we shook

and I gave him my card and told

him if he ever needed a ride or anything,

and he held it and said, "Okay. Thank you

Paul. I'll have someone read it

for me." I hope he calls.

 

Done