Chapter 8

Five minutes later, the neighbors were back with a vengeance. Both Matt and Foggy could clearly hear two girls in near hysterics outside, and they soon began to knock on the door. This time, it was Matt who went to open it. He barely got the chance to say hello before words started exploding out of the mouth of the girl on the left.

“Oh, thank God! The RA was just here, right? We saw her here in the hall just as we were getting back and we are so screwed.”

“Yeah, she was here. What's the problem exactly?” Matt registered that the first girl was holding something small in her hands. It appeared to be moving and he caught a whiff of saw dust and a tiny hint of what smelled like rat droppings. Was that a mouse or something? “Oh, and I'm Matt, by the way.”

“Oh hey, sorry about being totally rude here. My name's Sara.” The words were spoken by the girl on the right who was nearly as wound up as her friend.

“Yeah, sorry. We're just panicking here. I'm Maggie and this is Goldie.” Maggie put her hands out toward him and Matt could hear the small animal, whatever it was, scratch against her palm.

“Where?” Matt could hear Foggy approaching behind him, probably dying to know what all the fuss was about. “I'm blind, so if you're trying to show me something, you're going to have to be a little more specific.”

“Oh God, we're so sorry. We'll just go ask someone else.” Maggie exchanged a quick glance and a smile with Foggy in the background and saw Sara do an overenthusiastic wave out of the corner of her eye.

“No, wait,” Matt started, before being interrupted by Foggy who was now standing next to him.

“Is that a hamster?” Foggy was amused to see both girls nodding desperately. They looked as if they were about to throw it at them and run away and hide.

“I'm guessing you're worried about the RA finding out, right?” He and Foggy had just heard about the no pets policy, and Matt figured that Maggie and Sara already knew about the rules but had decided to bend them.

“Yeah, if she sees her, we're going to have to get rid of her. I mean, it's just a hamster, right? So we were wondering if you could just watch her until the RA has been to our room. Please, you guys.” Maggie sounded as if she was about to cry.

“Sure, we'll take it.” Foggy stretched his hand out and Maggie carefully handed over the small animal. “What about the cage?”

“Oh, holy shit!” Sara said and turned to face Maggie, “we've got to go hide the cage!”

Before either Matt or Foggy could say another word, they had been abandoned on their doorstep with a small furry rodent. Foggy turned around to walk back and Matt closed the door.

“I thought they were going to bring the cage over here, not go hide it,” Foggy said with a chuckle.

“That would have made about ten times more sense. Now, what are we going to do? Are we going to have to take turns holding that thing for an hour?”

“I don't know. Man, this tickles!” Foggy looked down at the tiny round face of his new furry friend who was busy trying to escape the confines of his grasp.

“Hey, can I see it?” Matt wasn't thrilled about the prospect of babysitting a hamster for any longer than five minutes, but he was a little curious about what it felt like.

“Maybe we should sit down first.” Foggy was worried that one of them might drop it.

“Now, give me.” Matt got back down on the couch.

Foggy carefully placed the small animal in Matt's cupped hands. “Do you have it?”

“Yeah, I've got it.” Foggy wasn't kidding about the tickle and Matt suspected he might have felt it more acutely than his roommate did. “Geez, does this thing have whiskers everywhere, or what?”

“It's kind of cute though,” Foggy said as he reached for the TV remote, knowing they were going to be stuck doing nothing for a while. “Well, you know, in a girlie kind of way.”

“Yeah, not a real masculine pet, I suppose. You think this will ruin our image?”

“It might, if we had one.” Foggy turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels mindlessly. “So, did you ever have any pets growing up?”

“No, Dad and I watched our neighbor's dog for a while when he was in the hospital, but that was years ago. I was maybe eight or something. We had it for a month. What about you?”

“Well, my mom isn't crazy about anything with fur, but they let me have a turtle for a while.”

“It died?”

“No, but she found out from someone on our street that they carry diseases and stuff so she made me get rid of it.”

“That's pretty brutal.”

“Yeah, I know. I took me a full week to get over it.” Foggy smiled as he noticed Matt laughing, though part of it could have been the hamster tickle factor. “So you never thought about getting one of those dogs?”

“What, like a guide dog?”

“Yeah.”

“No. I mean, it was one of those things to be considered, but we never seriously looked into it. It's not for me. Besides, they just seem really high-maintenance.”

“Yeah, I suppose you have to at least feed them.”

“And let's not forget about the walking. It's not like I usually spend whole days rotting away on the couch, but I kind of like having that option. And yeah, with a cane you can just get spare parts when they wear out, make sure it doesn't look like it's been dipped in mud, and you're good to go.”

“It actually wears out?”

“Oh yeah, this is probably the tenth one I've had in four and a half years, but I've grown a few inches too. And I have an extra that folds up.” Matt was scratching the hamster on the head, and it seemed to have settled down. It must have been completely shell-shocked. He held it close to his ear to listen for the heartbeat, just to satisfy his own curiosity, and noticed he could hear it about two feet away. It was fast and very faint, not the loud bass drum of a human heart. “So, is there anything on?”

“What?” Foggy was keeping one eye on the TV – he had probably gone through all the channels twice at that point since they only had basic cable – and one on the little furry creature that seemed to have made itself comfortable on Matt's chest where he held it in place with one hand.

“On TV? I haven't been listening.”

“Oh, the usual. Sitcoms, boring stuff. You know, maybe if you don't mind watching that thing, I could head down to the store and get some breakfast for tomorrow. I can get some snacks too if you'd like.”

“Are we still getting pizza?”

“Do you want to?”

“Sure. I could go for anything, but I would be nice not having to make something.”

“Okay, we'll call when I get back. If we're lucky, they may have picked up the hamster by then.”

“I wouldn't count on it,” Matt half-yelled at Foggy's back as he headed out the door. Matt could hear Ellie making the rounds and knew she had at least three or four rooms left before Sara and Maggie would be in the clear and could come back to pick up their animal. Though why they didn't just bring the cage over was beyond him. This was starting to get ridiculous.

Eager to kill some time, he carefully transferred Goldie to his right hand and felt for the remote on the table. It would take some experimenting to figure it out. The '5' button was easy to find because it had a dot on it and that meant the other number keys could be quickly located. The volume and channel buttons turned out to be a little larger than the rest and he decided to browse through the channels to find something to watch, and settled on a World War II documentary on what he guessed might be PBS. Most documentaries were easy to follow since they had a narrator, thus effectively limiting the slight annoyance he sometimes felt when he knew he was missing something. With all the things he could perceive with his heightened senses, watching TV was generally far down the list of favorite activities, but most people seemed to be in love with that thing and hanging out with friends often meant slouching in front of the tube.

There would be no slouching this time, however, because the second he found himself beginning to relax was the same moment Goldie decided to make a grand escape. Matt felt the soft fur sliding past the inside of his palm, but didn't quite realize what was happening until the hamster's clawed feet made a scratchy impact with the corduroy of the sofa cushions. Okay, nice and easy. He allowed himself to panic for only a split second before trying to decide on a strategy. If she decided to jump down another step, she'd be loose on the floor, making the job of trying to rein her in all the more complicated. He listened for an exact location and focused on his radar sense which painted the small animal as a roundish hazy speck about a foot to his right.

For the moment, she was sitting still, and Matt carefully put his hand down on the fabric and began to inch up on her. Trying to grab her quickly would probably fail. He was fast, but most animals seemed to be faster and it was better to get close before going in for the kill. Just as he was about to snatch her, she quickly darted off in a new direction, and he felt her touch his hip right where he was sitting before she seemingly disappeared. But he could still hear the scratch of tiny feet, and the sound seemed to be coming from underneath the cushions.

For some strange reason he came to think of Stick. What would Stick do? Matt could hear his old sensei's voice in his head, pushing him to focus on the task at hand, but couldn't help laughing at himself. More than likely, if Stick had been there, he would have shaken his head and walked away in disgust. That made Matt question once more why Stick had decided to leave so suddenly, but he pushed that thought aside. At the moment, there were more immediate concerns.

He listened past the sound of bomber planes coming through the loudspeakers on the TV, the loud and steady hum of the refrigerator, the bass of rock music from a stereo on the floor above and the rise and fall of cars coming and going outside. The furry pixie-sized monster, the one adversary for which his long hours of ninja training seemed to have left him completely unprepared, moved along the lower edge of the cushion, communicating her exact location through the sounds she made. Matt was wondering how much pressure he could apply to the top of the cushion to keep Goldie in place without killing her. Handing over a flat and lifeless hamster wouldn't exactly help with their reputation in the building.

He got down on his knees on the floor and gave the cushion a squeeze as he leaned over. Goldie had almost made it to the corner. If he could keep her there, immobilized, he could stick his hand in and grab her. He listened carefully and found that she had stopped moving and made some kind of squeaky sound, almost like a mouse. He listened even harder and found her heartbeat, though he had to really concentrate in order to hear it. At least she was still alive and kicking. Well, perhaps not kicking as much as breathing. He slowly squeezed his hand between the cushions and began to inch up on the her, though her routes of escape were effectively cut off this time. He felt her nose, but didn't have time to grab her before he felt her bite his finger. Hard. “Damn you!”

Matt quickly withdrew his right hand while still keeping the cushion in place with his left. He could smell the metallic tinge of blood, and taste it as he put his finger in his mouth to keep it from getting anywhere else. He suddenly realized that he had no idea what color the couch was, but he hoped it wasn't a light color, in which case he worried there would be a visible smear on it from when he pulled his hand away. “You little fuck,” he said, this time hearing his dad's voice in his head, telling him to stop swearing. “You busted my finger, and I kind of need that.” He felt it start to throb and decided to switch hands, holding his wounded index finger against his palm in a vain attempt to keep the blood from getting on the fabric while pushing down. He reached in under the cushions with his left hand this time, and tried to grab Goldie from behind, now that he knew which way she was facing. He felt a wave of relief as he managed to tighten his grip around her and pull her out. “Bad hamster! Very bad hamster!”

If Goldie looked the least bit guilty over what she'd just done, Matt wouldn't know it, but he seriously doubted it. He carried her with him over to the kitchen sink and turned the water on so could rinse off his finger. It was hard to tell exactly how bad it was, but it felt pretty deep and he knew he was going to have to put a band-aid on it. Fortunately, classes didn't start until Monday so having to read one-handed for a couple of days wasn't too much of a disaster. “I'm sure you're really cute and everything, but I really don't like you right now.” Goldie responded with a high-pitched hamster sound while being carried into the bathroom where Matt got some toilet paper to wrap around his finger until he could find a better solution.

Foggy came in the door five minutes later, just as the man on TV talked about Albert Speer's post-war plans for Berlin. ”Hey,” Foggy said excitedly, “I got us something.” He put the bag on the table and threw a box over in Matt's direction, landing it next to him on the couch.

“Okay, first of all, get this animal away from me.” Matt held Goldie out in front of him with his good hand so Foggy could grab her.

“What happened to you?”

“She bit me!” Matt decided not to include the part about her escape.

“What? This little cutie?” Foggy took a closer look at her and noticed a small red stain. “Oh, that explains why there's blood on her.”

“Damn, I didn't even think of that. Is it bad?” Matt suddenly felt a little embarrassed about not noticing. Not that anyone would have expected him to.

“No, there's just a little bit.” Foggy got some water on his hand and just washed it off. It looked fine.

“Did I get any on the couch?”

“No, it's fine. Was it that bad?”

“Yeah, I think she got me pretty good. I need a band-aid or something.”

“You want me to go look for one?”

“Okay, thanks.”

“I think I saw a first aid kit in the hall. I'm going to have to give her back to you though.”

Foggy gave Goldie back to Matt who seemed more than a little reluctant about taking her.

As expected, there was a small rack attached to the wall at the far end of the hall stocked with band-aids, gauze and some printed instructions on how to perform CPR. Foggy dearly hoped he would never have to be resuscitated by someone who had to read the instructions off a brightly colored laminated chart. He grabbed a couple of band-aids and almost ran into Ellie in the hall as she was leaving one of the rooms. They just exchanged the kind of forced smile that sometimes passed for a greeting, and he was grateful he didn't have to explain what the band-aids were for. There was no way they were taking the fall for the heinous crime of keeping an illegal hamster. Foggy sneaked back in the room. “Hey, Matt. I found some. Just so you know, they're on the wall at the end of the hall.”

“Thanks, that's good to know.” Matt handed Goldie back and felt Foggy place a couple of band-aids in his hand. He inspected the damage with his other hand before putting one on. Now, that was much better than toilet paper.

“Okay, now open the box.”

What is this?” Matt felt the smooth surface of cardboard box. It was glossy, but had something printed on it. Maybe he could have gotten at least something off of it, if he'd tried.

“Open it.” Foggy sat down and watched as Matt pulled out the item inside and ran his fingers over the surface.

“You got us a phone?”

“Well, you know. We were talking about hooking one up, and they had this down at the drugstore. It was only ten bucks so I got one. I hope this one's okay.”

“Yeah, this is great. Now it's only a matter of time before the ladies start calling, right?” Matt said jokingly

“Hey, maybe we'll meet some at the party. That was real nice of Eric to invite us, by the way. He didn't have to.”

“No, he didn't. You think there will be other freshmen there?”

“I hope so. It's nicer when you're not the only one feeling like you don't know what the heck you're doing there.”

“No kidding. Hey, you know what we can do with this box?”

“What's that?”

“Get something sharp and poke air holes in it. I'm sick of watching that thing.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Foggy said, grinning.

Twenty minutes later, Goldie has been returned to her rightful owners who seemed a little baffled to find their pet confined to a dark cardboard prison, but they didn't say much about it. Ten minutes after that, their large pepperoni pizza arrived. It was the result of the first phone call made on their new phone.

There was certainly something to be said for an evening of Coke, tons of melted cheese and a mindless hour of television. When Law & Order finally came on, it didn't take long for Foggy to find the right balance in just how much extra information to give Matt so he could follow along without including every detail. A few references here and there was all it took.

When ten o'clock rolled around, Matt said what both of them were thinking. “Wow, I'm so beat.”

“Yeah, me too. And way too full.”

“That too. I'm usually never tired this early. I guess, it's been a pretty intense day.”

“Yeah, you got bitten by a hamster and everything.”

“Really, you move out and the first thing that happens is that you get tetanus from a hamster bite. What are the odds? I think my dad was always more worried that I'd get hit by a car or something, but this is a perfectly respectable way to go, right?”

“I really don't think hamsters carry tetanus. Rabies, maybe.”

“Rabies? I'm not liking the sound of that at all. I'd rather have tetanus, I think.”

“Well, you've had all your shots, right?”

“Yeah. Besides, I'm sure they gave me a booster shot when I had my accident. But that's kind of a blur, so I don't really remember. Lots of shots. It really makes you appreciate drugs though. I can see why people get addicted to that stuff.”

“So this was four years ago?”

“Yeah, March, 1988.”

“So, what happened exactly?”

“Okay, the short version? I pushed this old guy out of the way of an oncoming truck.”

“You what?”

“He was about to be run over and I don't know what I was thinking, but I just had to save him. You know? So I sort of got hit instead. It wasn't the truck, there were these barrels filled with some pretty nasty stuff on it and when it swerved, one of the barrels came loose and broke against the sidewalk. I got some of it in my face and, long story short, my eyes don't work anymore.”

“Did the old guy make it?” Foggy almost couldn't believe what Matt was saying, and he found it hard to breathe.

“Yeah, he was fine. But hey, don't worry, they gave me a medal and everything.” Matt tried to be flip about it because he could tell that Foggy was uncomfortable.

“That's just not fair.” The whole idea of what had happened to Matt bothered Foggy in a lot of ways. Life wasn't supposed to work like that. People who did good things, weren't supposed to be punished for it.

“Maybe not. I don't know. There's no point in dwelling on it. It happened, I can't change it.”

“But still. That sucks.”

“Yeah, it did, but I meant what I said about not feeling bad for me. Sure, there are times when I wish I could see, and when you can't it's a major pain in the ass sometimes, but I've learned to live with it. I don't know if it's something about how people work, but I know for a fact that you can get used to almost anything.” Matt didn't mention the part about how his heightened senses had almost been more difficult to adjust to than the loss of his sight, and he still found them overwhelming at times. Along with the memories of colors which had already begun to fade, he wasn't sure he could truly remember total silence anymore, other than as a vague state of pleasant nothingness.

“I'm not sure I could.”

“That's what everyone thinks before it happens, but what other choice do you have?”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm just saying that there's really no other option except dealing with it. Doing things, and hanging out with friends, or even getting bitten by a freaking hamster is a hundred times more fun than just sitting around moping. I think I'm generally a pretty happy person. My life isn't perfect, but there's no reason for anyone to feel sorry for me.”

“I just can't get over how you saved someone's life. This happened to you because you did the right thing. Weren't you ever just really angry at that guy for being in the wrong place?”

“Well, I was angry about some things for a while, but I don't think I was ever angry at him. The real irony is that he was blind too.”

“Who? That old guy?” Foggy just realized that if there was a God, he must have a very strange sense of humor.

“Yeah. That's pretty weird, huh?”

“That's crazy.”

“So, no. I wasn't angry at him. He obviously had no business being out in traffic if he couldn't handle it, but it wasn't his fault either, and he never asked me to save him. I decided to play the hero.”

“But at least they gave you a medal, huh?”

“Yeah, a few months later, after I finished rehab. They did a whole ceremony, it was even in the paper.”

“I bet your dad must have been proud.”

“He was. I think he was pretty angry about the whole thing for a long time though. We were never able to get any compensation from the trucking company or anything, that just went south, and then I think he was also just really worried about me. But that just made me work extra hard.”

“So he wouldn't worry?”

“Well, the whole thing must have just been eating away at him. I think he took it harder than I did. I mean, you know how parents are, right? I know he would have traded places with me if he could have. His life changed too, it wasn't just me. So I think I wanted to spare him in some ways. When I was frustrated or sad about something, I tried to not let it show around him so much.”

“That must have been hard. I think I probably take all my stuff out on my parents. We've never fought a lot, but it's like you feel you can afford to be a jerk sometimes because you know they love you anyway.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Normally, I'm like that too, but this was just so different. I felt like I had to show him that I was doing really well to keep both of us going. I lost it a couple of times, though. But I took most of it out on various instructors and rehab counselors. I'm sure they've had worse, but I wasn't a perfect saint all the time.”

“Somehow, that's a relief to hear.”

“You think I'm being too much of a saint?”

“Well, you did save a guy's life, right?”

“Yeah, I guess. Anyway, I just hope I was nice to them more often than not. It was just that it felt liked they asked you to do all these things that seemed completely crazy and unreasonable.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like after my first Braille lesson I was pretty much convinced that there was no way in hell I was ever going to learn that stuff. But I did, obviously. Even though it was a real bitch. Now I'm really good at it. Or, at least I was until that stupid hamster decided to chew on my finger.” Matt jokingly held up his bandaged right index finger.

“Oh, I didn't even think about that. Bad hamster!”

“I know, that's what I said. But, it'll be fine by Monday, not biggie.”

“What happens if it's not?”

“Oh, I can read with one hand, it's just not as fast.”

“Okay. That's good.” Foggy felt his eyelids start to get heavy, and the sun had already set outside. “I think I'm getting sleepy.”

“Me too.” Matt yawned and took his glasses off, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. They tended to get dry and itchy sometimes, a minor side effect of having being doused with a radioactive and corrosive substance once upon a time. There were eye drops for that, but he was usually too lazy to bother. “I think I'm going to go to bed. But we should get all this put away first.” He reached for his glass and the big pizza box.

“It can't wait until tomorrow?”

“I prefer to put things back right away so I don't forget anything. If that's alright with you?”

“Sure, that's fine.” Foggy suddenly realized that the tidiness of Matt's half of the bedroom would have to spread to the shared areas as well. His parents were going to be really impressed with the place when they came to visit, Foggy was sure of that.

“I can do the dishes if you put the rest of it away.” They had eaten straight out of the box so there were only a couple of knives they'd used to cut through the cheese that always seemed to hold the slices together, along with two drinking glasses.

Within ten minutes, everything was cleaned away and they were both in bed. Matt was exhausted. The day had seemed to last forever and he couldn’t believed he had woken up in his old bedroom just that same morning. The memory of it felt so distant. Before he dozed off, he heard Foggy snoring. It wasn’t too bad. At least it had a steady rhythm to it. Rhythms, he could deal with, it was the unstructured noise that really got to him. Rhythms, he could fall asleep to. And before long, he did.