Eighteen Months Page 4

  “We go before the mayor on Tuesday. If he agrees, they’ll take you to the jail downtown and inject you that morning. He’s unlikely to decide to put you in jail. If, for any reason, he’s leaning that way, the city attorney is willing to argue it with me. On the other hand, he could change the conditions or implementation of the DCA appreciation punishment. We won’t know until Tuesday.”

  I got it, but I didn’t like any uncertainty. That said, I understood that there was no way of nailing this down before the hearing. I told Avery, “Okay, let’s go with that.”

  **********

  As I got ready for my court appearance on Tuesday, I heard my dad’s voice in my head, telling me to dress up and be polite if I ever had to go before a judge. I tried to dress respectably, and as conservatively as I possibly could, for court. I was at the River’s Edge municipal building by 7:30 that morning. I wanted this whole situation to be over. I didn’t even particularly care whether or not I was crippled for a while, as long as the worry and uncertainty about what was going to happen was in the past.

  I waited impatiently in the lobby outside the courtroom for Avery, who showed up at about 8:00. We immediately went into the courtroom. The only time I’d ever been in one before was when my dad took me to a Mayor’s Court back in Connecticut, so I could observe as part of a high school government class assignment.

  “That’s the city attorney for your case,” Avery said, indicating a middle-aged woman who was frowning over a stapled document she was reviewing. She saw us when she looked up and motioned for Avery and me to come to her. It was then that I realized she was in a wheelchair. Was that good, because, being disabled herself, she’d support a plea that would make me a cripple for a while, or was it bad because she’d be angry with me for violating DCA laws?

  It seemed to be neither. She was straightforward and business-like. She clearly laid out her position, which was what Avery had told me last week. She asked me if I agreed to plead guilty in exchange for her recommending the deal to the mayor when my hearing began. I said I did. She reminded me that the mayor could change the agreement at his discretion. I told her I understood that. I was so nervous I thought I might be sick. I wanted this to end, and never have to face a judge again.

  At 8:30, the mayor entered. I half-expected that he’d be blind, deaf and crippled. As it was, he seemed not to be one of River’s Edge’s disabled citizens.

  I was called up before the mayor, with Avery at my side. The city attorney sat to one side, after handing the bailiff a paper which he gave to the mayor. The document contained the proposed plea agreement. It introduced me and stated that I pled guilty to all charges and asked to become part of the Disabled Citizens Act sensitivity training. It went on to state that the city agreed and recommended a paraplegic punishment for six months.

  The judge – the mayor – read over the paper. He grunted a few times as he read it which made me even sicker to my stomach. When he finished, he looked up from the page and down at me, his glasses pushed down low on his nose so he could see over them. He took them off as he began to speak to me.

  “I see that you’re a new River’s Edge citizen, Ms. Adams.”

  “Yes, your Honor.” My heart was pounding and my palms were sweaty. I didn’t like being there. No, I HATED being there.

  “A little over a week?”

  “Yes, your Honor.”

  “My, my, you’ve certainly been busy …” I thought I saw a faint smile flicker across his face, then vanish.

  “I was careless, your Honor,” I admitted.

  “I would certainly agree with that. What do you have to say for yourself, Ms. Adams?”

  “I’m guilty, your Honor, and I’m embarrassed and I’m very sorry.” Avery had told me to answer any questions simply, but the mayor did ask and I intended to be scrupulously honest. “I was inconsiderate and that isn’t the kind of person I always considered myself to be. I’m starting a new phase of my life here in River’s Edge, and I want to be a good citizen, not a discourteous and careless one.”

  “Nevertheless, you were,” he told me. I wasn’t filled with confidence at that point. “It appears you have no record of any violations, moving or otherwise that we can find.” I was a little more confident again.

  “I don’t, your Honor.”

  “Ms. Adams, as a new citizen with a clean record, I could probably forgive one violation or give you a few hundred dollars fine. But with three DCA violations in two days, along with illegal parking which blocked an emergency vehicle, I can’t set this aside. It wouldn’t be justice to everyone else.” He paused and looked at me; I thought he was waiting for me to say something.

  “I understand, your Honor.” It was my fault after all, not his.

  “You do realize that you have enough violations here to put you in prison for up to a year?”

  “I do, your Honor.” Oh how I wanted this to be over!

  “Very well. How do you plead?”

  “Guilty of all charges, your Honor.” Those are the exact words Avery told me to say when asked directly.

  “Very well. For the most part, I agree with the city attorney’s recommendation. I think taking part in the DCA sensitivity training program would be more instructive and better serve River’s Edge than incarcerating you. However, the most serious violation is the moving violation with a blind woman in the crosswalk you sailed through. You were far enough away not to hit her, but hearing you suddenly in front of her could have caused her to panic and possibly run into the path of still another vehicle. You put her at risk.

  “Therefore, I’m assigning you to the blind sensitivity program, not the paraplegic one. That makes more sense to me. Your period of blindness will be the nominal three-to-five month period, recognizing that it cannot be less than three months, and may be more than five months, based on your own physiology.”

  He looked at me, Avery and the city attorney. I’m sure my mouth was hanging open and I had a look of panic on my face. Did he just tell me they were going to blind me for three-to-five months? Or longer?

  Fortunately, I thought, Avery spoke up right then. “Your Honor, Ms. Adams is due to start her new job at River’s Edge Biotech in less than two weeks. She could perform that job with a paraplegic punishment. It would be impossible if she were blind.”

  “Mr. Kiefer, it’s quite simple: the punishment fits the offense. In my mind, that makes it just. That’s what I’m trying to do, sitting up here. I understand that Ms. Adams may have to delay starting her new job, but that’s the consequence of her actions. Decisions we make affect us, for good or ill. We go on and learn from our mistakes. I want Ms. Adams to learn, and I want to be fair compared to all the other cases I hear.”

  He paused again and looked at me. “You’ll be taken down to the sheriff’s infirmary where the procedure will take place. After your treatment, someone from Uptown Disability Services will meet you, to begin your orientation to your punishment period.

  “The sentence is to be carried out immediately.” The gavel came down and Avery pulled me aside, uncomfortable concern clouding his features.

  “They’re going to blind me? THEY’RE GOING TO BLIND ME!” I didn’t shout loudly, but I did react with all the shock I felt. “What’s going to happen now? How will I work?”

  “I didn’t expect the judge to change the agreement, but he has the prerogative to and he did. I’m sorry, Natalie, it was always a risk, but I thought it was very unlikely.”

  “What happens now?” I knew, but I wanted to hear him say it, somehow make it less threatening.

  “In a minute, the officer over there will take you with her and drive you downtown. You won’t be handcuffed or anything, but you will be in the back of a police car …”

  “Will you go with me?”

  “I cannot. It’s not allowed. She’ll take you to the county jail’s infirmary where a doctor will perform the procedure.”

  “You mean blind me!”

  “Yes. That is the sentence. Afterwards, y
ou will go with someone from Uptown Disability Services to their location uptown. They will help you adjust to being blind and train you to get around and so forth. They will also help you find a job that you’ll be able to do while blind. I will look for one for you also. Between us, we’ll find something to tide you over.”

  The officer came up to me then. “Ms. Adams, we need to go now.”

  “Call me when you get back home. Here’s my mobile number. The Uptown Disability trainer will bring you home. Try to keep your emotions under control and this will be easier. You’ll get through it. It’s a thousand times better than prison.”

  With that, the officer took me by the arm and led me out of the mayor’s court and to a River’s Edge police car. As we drove off, she said, “Try not to be too afraid. This happens more and more often. Neither the city nor the state want to put people in jail anymore. In many ways, this is a more humane and effective punishment.”

  “Is it going to hurt?” I asked, trying not to sound as timid as I felt.

  I think she could sense that I was this young girl who was scared to death – which was true. I guess she was at least understanding, maybe sympathetic.

  "I know a little about how this is done. There won’t be any pain. When everything is checked and ready, they’ll put drops in your eyes to anesthetize them and make them immobile. After that, they’ll do more drops and then the laser procedure and you won’t feel a thing.”

  “What’s the laser procedure?”

  “They use a laser to trigger whatever it is that causes the blindness. I think after the doctor is done, the effect begins in a few minutes.”

  “And then I’ll be blind?”

  She nodded her head, and didn’t say much else.

  I remembered all the talk a couple years ago when I was a sophomore, about how the US locked up too many people, and how newer methods of rehabilitation and punishment would be both a better and a lower-cost way to handle offenders. I’d hardly paid any attention to the debate going on then. It didn’t apply to me, so why should I care?

  Now I knew why.

  Chapter 2 - Blind

  Almost an hour later, we pulled up to a dock-like entrance of a big, mid-rise building on the edge of downtown. The building was mostly featureless dark beige brick with little slits for windows circling it on all floors. It wasn’t that old, but it really looked like a jail. I shivered when she opened the door to let me out of the car.

  If anything, the building was more austere inside than outside. It smelled funny, too – kind of like an old gym with inadequate ventilation. We went through two checkpoints and down two floors in a stark elevator to a lobby-like area that was the entrance to the infirmary. Two short corridors branched off of it, a busy one to the right, and an empty one to the left. We went down the empty corridor, and, through a heavy, metal door, entered a room with a thick, Plexiglas window directly in front of us. A bored-looking, African American woman in uniform sat behind the Plexiglas.

  “Natalie Adams. River’s Edge,” the officer with me announced at the window. I saw the black woman look down at something, then nodded.

  “I have her. You can sit her down and be on your way.”

  My officer gestured to a row of seats and I went and sat down. She left and the metal door slammed behind her. It was then that I noticed there was no door handle on this side of that door.

  I was locked in. I wouldn’t leave here able to see.

  My anxiety climbed higher and higher. Finally, a door which turned out to lead to an examination room opened and a woman who appeared to be a nurse called out, "Natalie?"

  "That's me."

  She smiled. That was hard to take. At that moment, I thought she might be the evilest person I’d ever seen.

  She wasn’t, of course. All that was nothing more than me and my fear.

  I got up and walked towards her like I was going to the guillotine. It was almost that bad. They were going to blind me. It seemed surreal, but, at that point, I believed it.

  I sat at a table in an otherwise bare interview room while the nurse asked me questions and typed stuff into the laptop on the table. Apparently, everything they needed from the court had already arrived. My account had been set up here and at the disability services place, which would send someone over to get me when the infirmary was done with me.

  She led me to an ophthalmology exam room which was mostly taken up with a reclining chair and the contraption with dials and lenses and other unfathomable buttons that’s used to check your eyes. There was a 12-inch cylinder on a movable boom suspended overhead.

  Before we could strike up any casual conversation while we waited, there was a knock and the doctor entered. He extended a hand and introduced himself as “Doctor Genovese.” I shook his hand limply, without getting up.

  He looked Italian, stocky and dark with combed-back, black hair. He was obviously not from Italy as his accent was plain old American. He was a little gruff, which did not put me at ease.

  He started in immediately with an eye exam, including having me read an eye chart and checking my eyes with the dials-and-lenses gadget and various lights and probes. He seemed pleased when he finished.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “You’re eyes are in perfect condition. And your vision is 20/20 or perhaps a little better.”

  “Not for long, I guess.”

  “No, sadly, not for long,” he sighed. Maybe he wasn’t gruff, but he sure didn’t make me feel any better. “We’re going to lay you back and put some drops in your eyes. The first drops will numb your eyes to prevent any discomfort and the second will make them immobile for an hour or so.”

  He nodded to the nurse and the chair laid out mostly flat with me in it.

  “These are the numbing drops. We don’t want you to feel any irritation during the procedure.”

  The nurse gently held my right eye open and I felt drops go in. Then they did my left eye. I suppose my eyes got numb, but I couldn’t really tell.

  “Now I need you to look directly at the large red dot on the ceiling,” he said. “Keep staring at it while I put these other drops in. Try not to move your head. These drops will paralyze your eye muscles, to prevent them from moving your eyes. That’s for your own safety.”

  I felt a lot of things, but safe wasn’t one of them.

  Once again, the nurse held my lids open and the doctor put drops into each eye.

  “Now stare at the dot and don’t move,” he said again.

  In about fifteen seconds, he held his finger in front of me and asked me to follow it. I couldn’t! I couldn’t move my eyes! I think that’s when it really hit me for sure. They were actually going to blind me!

  “I can’t move my eyes!” I shouted in a high-pitched squeal.

  The nurse tried to calm me down. “It’s okay. That’s what’s supposed to happen. You’ll be able to move them again in less than an hour. There’s no need to worry.”

  “You’re going to blind me!” The terror of my situation was bearing down on me.

  “Yes, dear,” she almost whispered, “that’s why you’re here. That’s what the court ordered.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d volunteered for this to stay out of jail. Sort of. I thought I would roll around in a wheelchair for half a year. This was infinitely worse!

  Still, it wasn’t their fault.

  Where the nurse was trying to be kind, the doctor was all business. “Ms. Adams, I’m going to start the procedure now. First, we’ll put a strap across your head to hold it still. Then I’m going to put clips on your eyes to hold them open. This may feel strange, but it won’t hurt. Next, I’m going to inject the medicine behind each eye. Again, there will be no pain. After the medicine has a few minutes to diffuse behind your eyes, we’ll sit you up and position you on the equipment here. I’ll then use the laser to trigger the polymerization of the medication, which will, effectively, block your optic nerves from receiving input from either eye, and sending it to your bra
in.”

  "How long will I be blind?" I knew what the judge had told me, but I wanted to hear it from the doctor.

  "In most cases, it lasts anywhere from three to five months – total blindness usually ends in three months. The polymer stays in place the whole time you’re blind, then suddenly degrades a little over a period of a day or so. At that point, you’ll be able to see light and dark patches. About a month later, the polymer will quickly degrade a little more and some usable, though myopic vision will return; glasses will allow you to see almost 20/20 then. A month or six weeks later, the rest of the polymer will rapidly vanish, again over about a day or overnight, and your vision will be restored.”

  "Will I be able to see dim light or dark patches after you do this?"

  "You will have no vision at all, not even any light perception. Everything will be black or, actually, it will be nothing, meaning you won’t see black, you just won’t see. The effect is the same as though you had no optic nerve in either eye."

  “Can you reverse this if something crucial comes up and I absolutely need to be able to see?”

  "No. That doesn’t matter to the court. Even if there were an emergency, there's no antidote for reversing the blindness. You are going to lose your sight shortly, and there’s nothing that will restore it until the treatment runs its course. In fact, after the treatment, I will need to insure you will have no vision for at least three months, before you’re allowed to leave here.”

  “Ah … ah …,” I couldn’t speak. I was terrified.

  While I still lay there, the nurse lifted a strap with a curved rubber pad from next to my head and positioned the pad tightly over my forehead. Then she fastened the strap to a Velcro patch on the other side of the chair.

  “I’m going to clip your eyes open now,” the doctor told me. I could see him doing something to my upper and lower eyelids. There wasn’t any pain, but it was uncomfortable. I could no longer blink or close my eyes at all.

  The nurse was making an attempt to sooth me. She could obviously tell that I was in a panic. I thought I might faint. The doctor was going to inject me behind each eye!