The hallway outside our second-floor apartment has a curl at the end. In my head, I picture a question mark.
Accordingly, Hani first leads me in a straight line. Then we curve to the right before hooking left. Hani stops. Sliding my right foot ahead of myself a bit, I feel the edge. A step. We’re at the top of a stairway.
“Good girl!” I exclaim, patting her head. A golden retriever-yellow Lab cross, Hani has ears that are a delight to touch.
“Hani, forward!”
The harness in my hand pulls downward a bit, and our six feet start clomping unceremoniously down the stairs. It’s hardly ballet, but we make it. Once at the bottom, it’s a straight shot to the front door. Hani lifts her nose to the doorhandle. I tap the handle, telling her again she’s a good girl. That’s what I wanted–the doorhandle. Fiddling with the lock, I open the door to the entryway. One more set of doors, and we’re outside.
And then? We turn around and do it all over again.
These were my first two days in Chicago. Hani and I must have gone back and forth from our second-floor unit to the front door of the apartment building 30 times.
Methodical and careful. Not exactly the words anyone would have used to describe me back in the 1970s. But everything changed in 1984. I was 25 years old then, on my honeymoon in Scotland, when I first started seeing spots. Diabetic retinopathy, the specialist at the University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary diagnosed. A year later, I was blind.
A rubber band hangs from our apartment doorknob, confirming that we’ve returned to the right place. The head of the key to our unit has rubber around it, too, so I can distinguish it from my other keys. Inside the flat, there are no knickknacks on end tables, no pictures hanging low on the walls. They’d just get knocked down when I am feeling my way around.
We had moved to Chicago from a house in Urbana, where Mike and I had met in a journalism class at the University of Illinois. The house was one I’d lived in as a graduate student. I remembered what it looked like. My visual memory of the town from college days made it fairly easy to navigate, too. Mike had worked at a series of jobs in Urbana, most recently the editorship of a weekly newspaper. When the paper folded last winter, Mike found work designing a Web site for a new program at North Central College in Naperville. We could have moved to the suburbs to be near the college. But Mike and I had never lived in a city together. We wanted to give it a try.
During the first few days at our Printers Row loft, Mike escorts Hani and me outside four times a day so she can relieve herself. The nearest grass is 25 yards away, around the corner and past an alley. Hani learns to stop at the alley, wait for me to give the forward command, then cross and head to the grass.
Business over, Mike leads me to the nearest trash receptacle and places my hand on the rim. It feels like a basketball hoop. With a net made of wire. “There’s one on every corner!” Mike marvels. By day five, Hani and I are finding her plot of grass–and the waste container–on our own.
We chose the Printers Row neighborhood because it’s close to public transportation. Mike can reverse-commute by train when he needs to go to Naperville. As for me, I don’t need to travel to work. I’m a writer who composes and researches essays and articles via a talking computer at home. But even though I don’t commute, the easy access to buses and trains seemed handy for me as well. Printers Row has plenty of stores and businesses right in the neighborhood too. Hani and I can get there by foot.
That was our rationale, at least.
Either Mike or my friend Bonita walked with me at first. We needed to scout out the most straightforward intersections, the longest stoplights, the most problem-free sidewalks to use. I’d learn the routes, then bring Hani along.
Seeing Eye dogs are courageous and smart. But MapQuest they ain’t. I don’t get up in the morning, say, “Hani, library!” and expect her to lead me there. I have to know where we’re going, how many blocks it is, when to turn and when to stay straight. Hani’s job is to pull me forward until she gets to the end of a block. She waits there while I listen to traffic. I’m the one who determines it’s our turn to go. Depending on our destination, I command either “forward,” “left” or “right.” She looks both ways, confirming it’s safe to proceed, and we’re off.
The humans guiding me around those first couple of days alerted me to potential problems and answered questions Hani couldn’t. Is this an alley or a street? Does the traffic go one way here? Can they turn right on red? It was important to memorize the grid, learn which streets were where, and to figure out which streets don’t line up straight.
My feet noticed the sidewalk rising and falling throughout our early walks, each dip indicating another alley or driveway. If I asked Hani to stop at each one, we’d never get to our destination. Mike and Bonita warned which drives seemed more dangerous than others, and I went to work memorizing them. Fumes differentiated parking garages from alleyways. Garages echoed. Alleys didn’t. A rush of traffic was a clue that it was a street. Alleys sounded calmer.
Just as with Hani and the front door to our building, Bonita and Mike took me on the same routes over and over, day after day.
Finally Hani was added to the mix. All three of us would stop at each stop sign, stop light, each dangerous alley or driveway. “Hani, sit!” I’d command. She would, and I’d praise her lavishly. Seeing Eye dogs are rewarded with praise, not treats.
These training methods were taught to me at the Seeing Eye school in Morristown, N.J. Celebrating its 75th anniversary, the Seeing Eye is the oldest such school in America. I trained with my first dog, a black Lab named Pandora, in 1991. Dora is retired now, living with a friend in Urbana.
It was a bittersweet day in November 2001, when I left Dora and flew off to train with a new Seeing Eye dog. At a private interview the first night there, my Seeing Eye instructor asked if there was a certain breed, a certain gender I needed to have for this second dog. I didn’t know what to say. My real concern was getting a dog with a good name. The puppies in each litter born at the Seeing Eye are given names that start with the same letter of the alphabet. Pandora was from the “P” litter, for example. To avoid repeating names, the Seeing Eye sometimes gets a little too creative. I didn’t know what might happen to my self-respect if I were given a dog named Yorba, Bouquet, or Gremlin. My need for a well-named dog, however, seemed too juvenile to admit. “No,” I finally answered. “I’ll take whatever you think is best.”
All born in the “H” litter, Hani’s brothers in the class had great names: Homer and Herbie. In my opinion, their sister wasn’t as fortunate. It sounds like Bonnie, I tell people, but it starts with an ‘H’.
“What does it mean?” they’ll sometimes ask.
“Hmmm.” I take time to think of an answer. “It means . . . it means they ran out of all the normal female names that start with ‘H’.”
In the end, of course, the dog’s name doesn’t really matter. And believe me, a name like Hani can grow on you once she guides you safely through a busy intersection. Or stops you from crossing in front of a car turning right on red.
Hani and I were in Chicago a week or so before I finally picked up her harness and asked her to take the lead. Bonita or Mike followed. They were asked to stay silent. Unless, of course, we attempted something life-threatening.
On our first day with Hani, at our first crossing, she veered way out towards the intersection. “Stop!” Mike hollered, chasing after us to pull us back. “What is she doing?” We realized then that there’s a manhole cover right off the curb. Hani headed out at an angle to avoid stepping on it.
Turns out Hani didn’t like sidewalk grates, either–pulling me around every one she confronted. Quite a joy ride.
A call to the Seeing Eye suggested I allow her to go around the grates. As long as she straightens out after she passes them by, that is. Grates and manhole covers can get hot in the summer, they explained, burning dogs’ foot pads. The opposite is true of the cold. Their pads could freeze. “And some of those grates have such wide openings, your dog’s foot could slip through.”
My regular route east on Polk Street to Dearborn Street is a good candidate for a Seeing Eye training film. Along with sidewalk grates, I encounter a variety of other challenges. Financial Place is where that manhole cover sits just under the curb. A viaduct takes us under a Metra train, so loud I can’t hear the traffic flow. At LaSalle Street, a deep hole in the sidewalk is surrounded by barricades. Hani has to bring me off the sidewalk and into Polk Street to get around them. The sidewalk at Clark Street doglegs before we get to the crosswalk. Clark has a long green light. Polk’s light is so short that if we don’t step off the curb immediately after it turns, we have to wait an entire cycle. Plymouth Court is so calm that it’s easy to mistake it for an alley. Next is an empty lot, which every dog in the neighborhood visits. It’s here that Hani morphs from noble Seeing Eye dog to Bugs Bunny, lured away by carrot stew. Very difficult to keep her focus where it belongs: on me, the sidewalk, and our safety.
For weeks I woke up every morning marking it as the date Hani and I would go without Mike or Bonita trailing us. Son of a gun, I got so darned busy with my writing during those weeks that I never found time to get out. I went to bed every night having managed somehow to avoid the solo trip altogether.
But then the reporter phoned. She wanted to do a story about my book for the local weekly newspaper. “How about we meet at that coffee shop on Dearborn?”
Busted. My memoir, “Long Time, No See” was published in April. The book champions adapting to change, thriving after hardship. The author is an independent, forward-thinking blind woman. Not someone who’d arrive for an interview hanging on her husband’s arm. Hani and I would have to go it alone.
“Be careful!” Mike calls as we exit.
Blindness affects my every move. It doesn’t scare me, the way it might some people. It just makes me paranoid. I can’t see people, but in public, I’m sure they are staring at me. Delusions of grandeur, I know. But out with Hani on the street, I’m not that worried about being hit by a car. I’m much more concerned about being spotted making a mistake.
The trip starts beautifully. Past Clark Street, a friendly sort shouts hello from the sidewalk ahead of us. I manage an enthusiastic reply. But the friendly sort suddenly sounds angry. “I’m on Polk!” he shouts as he passes by. Ooops. “He wasn’t talking to us, Hani!” I tell her, scratching those ears. This is not the sort of mistake that makes me feel foolish. After all, who’s the weird one here? The blind woman with the dog, or the man yelling on the phone?
At Dearborn we turn left, heading for the coffee shop. I repeat a quiet, “left, left,” telling Hani I’m looking for a door or an opening. She finds one. Feeling for the handle, I thrust the door open, smiling as we enter.
The place doesn’t smell like coffee. Nary a sound of cups clanking against saucers. No roar of steam from a cappuccino machine.
“Can I help you?” a man asks. A deep voice.
“Is this the coffee shop?”
No, the deep voice says. I’ve gone one door too far. “Take my arm. I’ll lead you back there.” The man leads me into the coffee shop and finds me a seat. Before I thank the deep voice and say goodbye, I ask him his name.
“La Rue.”
“And what was that shop we turned into by mistake?”
“Oh, that’s my shop–the ‘Redoor Pet Day Spa’. You should bring your dog there sometime.”
And so, after my interview, I do just that. Get Hani spruced up. To mark our success and all. I mean, I know we missed the coffee shop door. Since losing my sight, though, my standards are lower. Any morning that my socks match, my coffee hasn’t spilled, and I don’t hit my head on a cabinet door is a victory.
Hani gets her nails done, her hair washed and dried. Conditioner, too. All done, she runs out to the lobby with a bandana around her head.
Having conquered–sort of–the coffee shop and spa, Hani and I widen our horizons. A nearby high-rise boasts a little grocery store. Mike agrees to walk us over, help us learn to get there and shop on our own. Once in the store, the shouts ring out. “No Dogs! No Dogs!” Hani is a Seeing Eye dog, we explain. Doesn’t matter, he says. There’s food in this store. No dogs allowed.
He’s wrong. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses and organizations to allow blind people to bring their Seeing Eye dogs into all areas where customers are normally allowed. The ADA applies to all businesses open to the public. Restaurants, hotels, taxis and shuttles, grocery and department stores, hospitals and medical offices, theaters, health clubs, parks, zoos–you name it, we’re allowed in with our guide dogs. Even if state or local health codes prohibit animals on the premises, businesses that sell or prepare food must allow Seeing Eye dogs in their public areas.
Hani got a warmer reception at Kasey’s, a nearby tavern, Mike leads us in, and as I negotiate a seat at the bar with floor space for Hani, the manager walks up. “I’m sorry,” he says. “No dogs inside.”
This time, I stand my ground. After all, this is a tavern, not a grocery store. I might need to come back here. After explaining Hani’s work status, I demand her rights. The manager apologizes. He didn’t realize she was a Seeing Eye dog.
“We used to let everyone bring their dog in here,” he explains. “But we got in trouble for that.”
He’d assumed I was an old-timer who hadn’t realized bar policy had changed. It was flattering, being mistaken for a Chicago old-timer. We’d only lived here a few months. Now when we go to Kasey’s, in addition to bringing a draft for me, they bring a bowl of water for Hani.
Folks at the Michigan Avenue Hilton, where I go to swim laps, are good to Hani too.
Our first solo trip to the Hilton went well until we got to Wabash. Planting her butt in front of the crosswalk, Hani refused to cross. “Hani, forward!” I commanded, 12 times at least. She didn’t budge. Many rules are drummed into our heads in Seeing Eye training, one of which is to never step ahead of your dog. Another is: Never force your dog into a street. If Hani wasn’t crossing, there must be a reason.
Trying a different tactic, I command, “Hani, left!” She remains planted. “Hani, right!” Not a move.
Finally a woman’s voice interrupts us. “Do you need help?”
When I explain we’re trying to get to the Hilton, she asks, “Do you know the President is here today?”
Sure enough, President Bush is at the Hilton talking with business leaders. The woman describes the scene: helicopters, police cars, ambulances. I’d been focusing so hard on our walk that I hadn’t even noticed the helicopters. Protesters are chanting across the street, too.
Maybe Hani is scared of helicopters. Or maybe she’s against the war. Or working for Howard Dean. Whatever the reason, she was still refusing to go near the Hilton.
“I’m a police officer,” the woman says, and helps us across the street to the Hilton and lets us go.
Hani is OK now, nudging me past the crowd in the lobby to the elevator. Listening for the “ding!” she identifies the available elevator.
After leading me to the pool area, Hani lies under the towel table. I babystep to the pool’s edge. Tapping the lane marker with every other stroke keeps me swimming straight. Onlookers tell me Hani lifts her head expectantly after each lap. She wants every lap to be the last.
On all our trips–for coffee, a beer, to the Hilton, the library–I entertain myself eavesdropping. I hear all sorts of people with all sorts of backgrounds leading all sorts of lives. Chicagoans have been helpful, pointing us in the right direction when we get turned around, lending an arm to escort us across Congress when we need it. But Chicagoans are busy people, too. They help, we shake hands, and go separate ways.
Our most recent conquest was crossing Congress. The Harold Washington Center of the library has music practice rooms. I go there to play the pianos. One time, the staff apologized that the only available room had a burnt-out light bulb. “Who cares?” I said. “I’ll take it.”
I got to stay in that room for hours. No one else wanted it. Hani slept under the bench.
