Brooklyn Technical High School - Blueprint Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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He felt the adhesive tape again, ginger- ly. He fumbled at its edge, gripped his fingernails under it and started to pull. It came off, sort of-reluctantly. Then it was off, and his hands fell almost to his shoulders, from the unexpectancy. Slowly he raised his hands to his head again. Already his head felt lighter, more empty. His hands touched the soft gauze bandages. They were thick, wrapped around his head like a Hindu's towel. Hesitantly, he fumbled for an end. He found it. He hardly felt the bandages as he peeled them off his head. Once he was startled when he thought he felt pain about his eyes. But he was mistaken. At last he came to the final bandage. It was a small piece of gauze, placed di- rectly over his eyes. It stuck there. He waited a while, trying to steady his hands. Then he pulled it off. His eyes were closed. His whole body trembled violently. Even his eyelids trem- bled. He waited a while longer. Then he opened his eyes. At first he thought he could just barely see the room. He imagined he saw it in- distinctly, darkly. He blinked his eyes, as if to clear his vision, then opened them again. He waited. He couldn't see. He couldn't see! He was blind! He became suddenly nauseated but he controlled himself with choking gasps. He felt hot, then cold by turns. He felt he had to get out of the room. Suddenly, he became aware of a sense of complete loss. He didn't know where the door was any more. He didn't know where the chair was, or the cot, or any- thing in the room. He no longer had any idea of the room's situation. Everything was black, much blacker than it had been before. The silence was more silent than before. He was lost. Fighting back sobs of fear and hys- teria, he began to grope. His knee struck the chair, but he regained his balance without falling. He was cursing and pray- ing at the same time, inwardly. Then his outstretched hands struck the wallg he drew up to it and began to feel along as close to it as possible. He came to the door. He had to feel all over the door before he could End the knob. He turned it, and pushed the door open. Still, silence greeted him. He had to swallow twice before he could speak. His voice was such a hoarse whisper that he could hardly understand himself, Bill! There was no answer. Doc! Kipper! Still silence. He could no longer contain his hys- teria. He screamed, Bill! Kipper! Doc! Not even an echo answered him. He burst into a scream of rage and terror. In it were curses and prayers -inter- mingled with rasping sobs. For a moment he had to stop, to regain his breath. His imagination had been inflamed, so that his next outburst was in a different tone. He only cursed, this time the treach- ery of his comrades-Bill, Kipper, and Doc. He cursed them with the worst pro- fanity he could think of. He swore dire revenge upon their black souls. They'd sold him out, that's what they'd done. Doc hadn't operated on his eyes to hx them. He'd blinded them, for sure. They'd all sold him out. They'd gone and left him, blind and helpless, for the cops. A door opened somewhere in the room. He whirled toward the sound, his hands flashing to his holstered weapons at his shoulders. He couldn't see a thing, but his ears were keen, and strained. ' For the love o' mike, Mark, shut up! You want the cops to hear you? It was Bill who spoke. So they'd come back. Maybe they thought he didn't know yet. 19

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to light it. His hands weren't trembling. There was just an inward tremor, as if the blood was jerking rapidly back and forth so that he could feel it. He wasn't scared either. Well, at least not cowardly scared. After all, this was the first time he had undergone such an experience. He sat down. He continued smoking, blowing forth volumes of smoke after each puff. He smoked without holding the cigarette with his hands. It dangled, wedged in, from his lips. The upper part of his head was swathed in bandages. They covered all his hair, his ears, and his eyes. He really wasn't scared though. Not he. Doc, outside, would remove his ban- dages tomorrow, and he would see again. Doc had said so. just now he had to have patience. just a little patience. He'd have to wait only a little while longer. He had become used to being without his eyes during the past five weeks, since the raid. Anyway, the guy that almost blinked him didn't have his eyes nor his ears. He didn't have anything. He was dead. He went over to the cot. He knew where it was, he knew where everything in the room was. He knew every detail. That's how used he had become to having his eyes covered. He lay down on the cot and tried to go to sleep. After a while he rolled over on his stomach, partly on the left side. The gun in the shoulder holster there hurt him, so he took it out and held it in his right hand. He crushed out his ciga- rette and fell asleep. He awoke with much the same feeling of tension and inward excitement. The room was as silent as before. The boys in the next room must have taken him fully at his word when he'd told them to shut up. They were good boys, Bill and Kipper. They were loyal. Doc toog he was all right. Sure. 18 It seemed to him he must have been sleeping a long time. He must have been sleeping for at least twelve hours. Why, today was the day Doc would remove the bandages. His tenseness increased. He sat up, and drew another cigarette, lighted it. The room was as quiet as ever. The tremors in his hands went up his arms, soon per- vaded his entire body. It sort of sickened him. It was like-like-as though it was eating him up. He started to sit down again, but felt that his queer feelings could be better contained standing. He drew heavily upon his cigarette, the burning smoke in his lungs giving him strange strength. The quiet became fierce, he felt it pounding steadily in his head. It became almost an actual thing. It added to his tension. If only he could see! That would chase it all away. He stood motionless in the room feel- ing alternately drunk and powerful as he sucked in and blew out the smoke. Then he walked across the room to where he knew the chair was. Before he reached it, the cigarette burned his lips furiously. He smacked it away with his hand, attempt- ing to spit it out at the same time. He smacked his lips so hard that they bruised against his teeth. He cursed. The tremors returned to his hands, in their most violent form. His hands shook. In an effort to keep them still they wan- dered to his head, to the bandages over his eyes. He couldn't help it. Tentatively, he felt the bandages. He knew just how they were put on. He knew where the last piece of adhesive tape was. And he pondered, he con- sidered pulling it off. After all, Doc would take it off today. So why wait? Why should he have Doc take off the bandages in front of the boys, who'd be staring at him as if he were a ghost? His mind was made up.

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Bill! Kipper! he screamed. You double-crossing rats! He went on, pro- fanely. His pistols were in his hands now. Mark! What are you doing with those bandages' off? He heard Kipper ask this question, but he paid no attention to it. His rage had surmounted his senses. He fired five swift shots in succession, mov- ing the guns in a short range so as to be sure to get them both. He was sure he had, when no response came, other than a sharp gasp. He didn't even hear their bodies fall. Mark! Mark! It was Doc's voice, this time, in a ghastly, frightened tone. He fired one shot, directly toward the voice. He heard Doc gasp, a dying gasp. He'd heard such gasps before. Then he heard Doc's body slump to the floor. But Doc was not dead yet, for he heard him utter, in a choking, coughing whis- per, Mark! What in heaven's name-? FLANDERS I'm blind, he grated in explanation. You made me blind, you- He heard Doc's mighty labor for breath. Then when he spoke, he seemed to have regained some articulation, though still choking and coughing. The bandages-weren't supposed to -come off-till tomorrow! The last word was uttered in the last breath. john Markwyn felt as if a physical force had struck him simultaneously on either side of his head. He was stunned. His hands dropped mechanically to his sides. His pistols clattered to the Hoor. He was stupefied. He hardly heard the rush of feet pounding up the stairs outside the room. He did not notice the loud knocking up- on the door, nor even the crash of the door breaking in. But he plainly heard the surprised exclamation, john Mark- wyn! and he knew that it was the cops. By FRED oEss, C61 Cold is the night. The stars shine bright Guiding the way, endlessly wide, Over the fields of Flanders. All quiet now Where friend and foe Lie side by side, row on row, After the thunder of battle. Long is this night, But it tells of light Shining again, after four years tight, Over the hills of Flanders. Time has passed. The die is cast, And once again the explosives blast Into the hell of Flanders. 20