In a bar, I tell the story of a blind boy named Sambo who lives in Alabama. His mother’s name is Clara and his dad looms over them like a shadowy presence. Sambo was born with magic on one side and he learns to talk quickly. He can’t see, but he has beautiful eyes and people argue whether they are green or lavender. Some people say they can hear the boy’s eyes crackle if you get close enough. After a while, he began to make out movement and shapes with his eyes, but around nine or ten years old his vision declined again. 

They can’t go to the white doctor, so they go to a doctor so drunk that he takes any patients and the so-called professional tells them to cover his eyes in hot rags and peel the crust away. Clara listens and wishes she could stomp a hole in the office’s dirty floor. Some people say Clara is a witch after Minnie Washington blames Clyde McDonald’s death on her when he dropped dead on Minnie’s front doorstep. 

Every morning, Sambo wakes up with a thick crust over his eyes and he’s always picking pieces of bark and dirt off his eyelids. He puts hot rags on his eyes and tries to distract himself from the pain by remembering what it is to see. One day, he dreams of shedding the rags and walking out the door and towards the hills where the sun rises. As he walks along, he sees the world clearly, counting blades of grass and animals. He tells his mother that the light sings to him and that it was a dream, but neighbors begin to tell Clara that they’ve been seeing her son in a hurry the other morning walking and whistling. 

As a witch, Clara grows scared because she knows about the force of magic and being two places at once. She also fears that if her son has magic powers he will have to pay the piper and the piper made her fall in love with his father. When he is twelve or thirteen, he leaves home for the first time, carrying a heavy shopping bag. Getting on the bus is a struggle, but Clara tells the bus driver to let him figure out for himself how to navigate public transport. 

Sambo finishes the story, now fully grown, sitting on a barstool in the Crawford Grill in Pittsburgh. I am on the other side of the stool and the bartender, Raymond, locks the door so it’s just us, talking alone while Marylou, the waitress, cleans. While others sleep, we wait until the music subsides and when we leave it is light outside. Sambo leaves the country with his shopping bag and ends up in New Orleans where he plays piano and ever since he has been on the road finding pianos and making money. He thinks it would be worse if he had eyes because people with vision easily forget to notice the light and they don’t even know that it’s gone. I know from personal experience that Sambo can play, and the point of the story is to look down at your hands. Look at the blood in the veins on the back of your hands and imagine it leaving you and running into someone else’s arms—Black or Brown or ivory, like yours. Then, close your eyes and ask yourself if anything’s been lost and try to remember the color of the light.