Martin In The Tunnel Of Light

Martin In The Tunnel Of Light, originally uploaded by P.S.Zollo.

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.