For six months Tom lay in a hospital bed, blind, in a coma, though he didn't know that -- all he knew was that he sometimes heard voices around him, wavering, echoing away, and he couldn't see, couldn't speak. He lived like this until one day someone asked him again to move his hand and he was able to. There was a commotion but he became tired, too tired to do any more tricks, and drifted off. Now, he is just confused.

We begin this story at the end, to let you know that there is an end, to show you what will come. Perhaps this strategy stems from Tom's inability to view destinations now as he approaches them, his incapacity to see the top of unfamiliar steps, to guide himself towards the door. It is strange being blind. If he doesn't have a voice behind him saying, "About two more feet to your left, Tom," or "There are twelve steps," he gropes forward waiting for that end to come but never being sure if he'll stumble, if he'll begin to lift his foot for another step but land on nothing, if he'll miss the door and have to follow the wall the other way.

The end: After some uncertainty he is alive, unseeing, his face scarred but bandaged. Tom is in the rehabilitation ward of St. Mary's Medical Intensive Care unit. He hasn't spoken yet even though he is physically capable -- he is still unsure what is going on -- and he wonders if what the doctors say is true, that he will never see again, and if, someday, he will have to use a cane, a guide dog, even learn Braille. Reading by touching terrifies him, though he doesn't know why. He is strangely calm.

It is true when blinded people say that their other senses become more acute. What is even more interesting is that Tom's memory is suddenly embroidered with his other senses, a retroactive filling-in of sound, smell, taste and touch. He can still "see" images in his mind, but they are layered with darkness, and seem to be more so with every passing day. For example, if he were sighted and were to describe the fruit stand at the Korean grocery where he worked, where all this began, the stand which he stared at that first day he saw the store, he would tell you about the apples, oranges and grapefruits separated by a green plastic mesh that snaked around the fruit and hung over the sides; the signs above the apples were newly drawn -- white cardboard with black magic marker: Red Delicious, Granny Smith, and MacIntosh apples for sale. The apples were in staggered rows, the hot afternoon sun shining off them at identical angles, the reds and greens contrasting sharply against the bright Sunkist oranges.

But now he senses more: the heavy odor of rotting fruit coming from the side of the store, where the dumpster was. A sweet, citrus smell rises from the fruits, and though he can count the uneven rows right now in his head, marvel at this geometry of fruit, he can also taste the grapefruit that he will soon eat, the tart juiciness filling his mouth, wincing sharpness easing his thirst. At that time, almost a year ago, he looked through the large front window, and saw an Asian man at the counter, ringing up a customer. Tom was there at the store to ask about a job. For the past week he had been looking for work, having just arrived in Kasdan, Queens after losing his job as a waiter in a restaurant in Boston. He spent his childhood in Kasdan, and returned to it since he wanted to live somewhere familiar.

When Tom walked into the Fruit 'N Food grocery for the first time, he was hit by the cool air in the store, the air-conditioner whirring loudly above him. More smells of old fruits and vegetables. A hint of ammonia. The man at the counter turned when the small bell on the door rang; he smiled and nodded slowly at Tom, the tough dry skin wrinkling around his eyes and mouth. The man wore baggy jeans and a loose blue workshirt.

Since the man had a customer, Tom walked further in and pretended to be a shopper. The grocery was small, with only four aisles; the aisle to the far left was filled with more fruit and vegetables, pale heads of cabbages, leady celery stalks, carrots. The back aisle was refrigerated, and he saw eggs, milk, and further along, beer and soft drinks. A fluorescent bulb in the far right corner flickered rapidly, and beyond the corner in a back room, a woman's voice, an older harsh voice, was scolding someone. A younger female voice answered. Tom recognized the Korean inflections, though he couldn't understand them. He hadn't heard this language in many, many years.

Tom walked to the counter, and the man said something to him in Korean. A question.

"I don't speak Korean," he said.

"You Korean, hanguk-saddem?"

Tom nodded.

The man said something again in Korean.

He shook his head.

Laughing quietly, the man also shook his head. "Ho, you no Korean. You gyupo."

Tom hesitated, then said, "I want to buy a grapefruit." He motioned outside. "A pink grapefruit."

"Grapefruit? Three for a dollar."

"I just want one." He reached into his back pocket, but his wallet was gone. He patted his other pockets, cursing to himself.

"What? What wrong?" the man asked.

What was wrong was that he had lost his wallet. As Tom hurried back outside to search the hot concrete, looking under the stand, in the gutter, he began to panic. Had he left it in his apartment? Maybe somewhere along the street? Fifty bucks. His last fifty bucks.

The man walked outside, his short, bulky body moving quickly. "You lose wallet?"

"I think so," Tom told him. "I had all my money in it."

"Maybe it here. We can look," the man said, squatting down slowly, grunting. He squinted and scanned the sidewalk.

After paying the deposit for the apartment, and buying groceries, Tom had given up over two hundred dollars the past two weeks. He tried to remember if he had taken out his wallet any time today.

"It might be around," the man said. He paused, then offered his hand. "My name is Mr. Rhee."

"Thomas. Thomas Pak." They shook hands. Mr. Rhee's grip was strong, and Tom felt the callouses scratch his palm. They continued looking around the sidewalk.

Mr. Rhee stood up slowly, his knees cracking. "I don't see. Maybe you drop somewhere else. Where you live, down there? You hurry or someone take it."

"Yeah," Tom said, looking down Amber Avenue and tiring at the thought of having to search the streets. In fact he was tired, very tired, since he hadn't slept well for the past few nights. Maybe it was the new apartment, or the heat, but he couldn't seem to fall asleep until it was almost light out, and then he woke up at the slightest noise on the street.

"Here," Mr. Rhee said, holding out a clear plastic bag filled with three grapefruits.

Tom hesitated.

"Here, you take. You pay another time."

"I might not find it. I might not have any money."

"It's okay. You take," he said. "You so skinny. You need to eat, get muscle."

Tom thanked him as he grabbed the bag and promised to repay him. Asking him for a job now seemed out of place, especially after receiving this gift. Mr. Rhee shoved his hands into his pockets and said, "You look for wallet now." He returned into the store. Tom wanted to stop him, but kept quiet. Mr. Rhee and the Fruit 'N Food could wait.

He then did what anyone else would have done. He retraced his steps. As he weighed the heavy plastic bag of grapefruit in his hand, he began walking slowly down the street, searching the sidewalks. Amber Avenue, a busy four-laner that runs off the Grand Central Parkway, has on it small stores with iron grilling welded over the windows, garbage piled up on the street waiting for the next pick-up, and a few newspaper stands spread out every three or four blocks. Tom passed and checked the stores he had been in earlier: the row of clothing and shoe stores off Inman, the large pizzeria near Gillan with what looked like new red tables and a smell of pepperoni floating into the street, the camera-electronic store with dozens of equipment stacked in the window. The traffic to his right became more congested as the afternoon approached rush hour, cars honking and cutting each other off, racing home, and he began to hurry down the street, worrying about his money.

When Tom thinks back about himself, he realizes that that person isn't him. The Tom Pak he sees rushing down Amber Avenue for his lost wallet is so removed from who and what he is now that he barely recognizes him. And yet, those experiences and memories are his, the body, now damaged, is his. Perhaps this is because during those months at the Fruit 'N Food he wasn't sleeping; he was constantly worried about money and finding a job; he was almost crazy with indirection. He wanted to get settled right away.

After the restaurant in Boston laid off a number of workers, he couldn't seem to find more work. Sure, there were minimum wage jobs in fast-food places that he could have taken, and, in fact, he worked at one fried chicken place for a week. But he soon quit. He couldn't stand the low pay, the uniforms, and the fact that he was the oldest cashier in the place. He was surrounded by high school kids. That was why he decided to move somewhere different.

However, while he searched for his wallet in his apartment that afternoon he was regretting his decision. There wasn't much of an apartment to search through since all he had was an air mattress, a coffee table, and a portable black and white TV that he had brought with him from Boston. His clothes were still strewn around his duffle bags, and it took one quick look to know that the wallet wasn't here. Perhaps he had been pickpocketed. He realized that he had no money, no income, and no idea, really, what to do next. He had some food in the refrigerator, and now he had three grapefruits. Without his wallet he had no identification. He had no identity. Maybe now, he thought as he looked outside his window, eight floors down, the cars jammed as a truck unloaded some boxes in front of a garage -- maybe now without his wallet he didn't exist.

[from The Fruit 'n Food (Black Heron Press, 1996). Copyright © 1996 by Leonard Chang. Permission to reprint given by the author.]

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