Kristen HarmonWHAT LAY AHEAD (Three Linked Stories)Wrestling Daddy: LucasSomeone's hearing aid whistled, and Lucas blinked. The two white boys standing next to him in the well-lit kitchen automatically reached up to make sure it wasn't either one of theirs. As they turned to a place inside themselves, concentrating, they looked like broadcasters with a breaking news report–a hand pressing the ear–waiting. Risa, the only girl in the group and the only one not wearing aids, smiled for the first time all evening, probably at the sudden, synchronized movement. They were all graduating seniors at the state school for the deaf, and Lucas would not have minded a little news about where to go from here. He tapped his aid and barely heard the shallow thump. The battery must be dying. "Mine," said Shane, turning down the volume on his behind-the-ear aid, a color that used to be called flesh. Lucas's first aids—a loaner pair–had been that Ken doll color, crescents behind his ears until his own arrived. Only one more month here, Lucas thought. And then? In the kitchen of this old house near the school, Lucas crossed his arms and watched Shane toss back the rest of his beer. Shane continued signing and voicing his story about Mrs. Fulton, the school's speech and language pathologist. From experience, Lucas knew Mrs. Fulton seemed too fond of pressing reluctant fingers into her neck. She had just changed her hairstyle after her divorce and wore bright red lipstick, too, and so jokes about her ran wild over the school, in corners, wherever the administration couldn't see. Feel here, she always said. Shane mimicked her over-enunciation, the way she angled herself so that you had to see her lips, no matter how hard you tried to look away. Watch my lips. Learn to listen. See the train leave. Hiss out the "s," like an arrow. S-s-s-s-s. Shane spit when he hissed. Expelled from the mainstreaming programs at the public schools, Shane had started as a senior at the institution. Lucas could tell he loved being there, loved using his new signs. They'd become friends even though Lucas refused to use the deaf and dumb signs, as his dad called them, waving his hands and twisting his face like a gargoyle. Plus, as his uncle Gene had made sure he understood, get into the wrong place at the wrong time and you might get hurt. It happens, Gene said, and put his hand on Lucas's shoulder. Be careful. You know? That afternoon, before the party, Lucas had been in a speech session. When Mrs. Fulton became exasperated with his mistakes, she pressed his hand harder into his own throat. Shane mimicked her prissy manner. "You sound like a cartoon character." Shane shook his head back and forth and placed his hands on his hips. Lucas wondered if Mrs. Fulton meant the hero, villain, or sidekick. Who would hire a sidekick? He vowed to work harder with his speech, work to get his father's deep glass muffler rumble. "You know my girl, Becka, right?" Shane signed and asked around the kitchen. His wild blonde curls wavered above his questioning face. His eyes widened, and Lucas could see he had two differently colored eyes, one greenish-brown, and one green-gray. Shane paused when he looked at Lucas, and he knew that Shane waited, out of habit, for a response from Lucas. Sometimes this constant checking annoyed Lucas, especially since it meant that he had to get involved. Lucas nodded: gotcha. Sure, Lucas remembered Becka, the hearing white girl who came to the school from the nearby university's speech pathology program. But when had she become Shane's girl? Every time Lucas and Shane went to the mall, girls trailed out of The Gap and Victoria's Secret, trying to fingerspell their own names. After shaping each letter like a fist, those skinny girls nearly fell over laughing.
Becoming deaf had been, in the beginning, the best thing Lucas could have done for his budding love life. Girls fought over holding his hand. At first, after getting sick with spinal meningitis at the age of eight, he had not been glad that he'd survived, with the sudden deafness dropped around him. But then girls either thought he was sweet or romantically aloof. At home, though, his mother was always so worn out from her job as a paralegal in training that she couldn't pay much attention. Every day, after the small, endless demands of her workday, she gave Lucas a drooping hug, her forearms heavy on his shoulders, her hands wilting from her wrists. While his mother took care of dinner, his daddy spent just as much time out in the garage–really an aluminum overhang that used to rattle with the rain, Lucas remembered–with his friends, slid up under cars and listening to the radio. Lucas tried and tried to understand his father, but he was too hard to lipread, too quick in exchanging one-liners with Russ and Mack and 'Dolphus and Uncle Gene. Lucas got his hair cut close to the skin like Gene and even got a tattoo of a flaming arrow and still no response from the men, just a quiet inspection from Russ. "Who you putting the show on for over there at the special school?" he asked. Lucas shrugged, embarrassed by Russ's grin and wink. Russ laughed and said something, his mouth shaping an unrecognizable message. Rather than show that he didn't understand, Lucas slapped the question off his face and practiced blankness, followed here and there with a causal, I-hear-you, tell-it hand clap on somebody's back. He almost never gave himself away. That way, no one could wince at his mistakes, least of all his dad. One thing Lucas couldn't quite adjust to was how easy so many of his classmates were with their voices, how they didn't care what they sounded like to the waitresses, grocery store clerks, all the hearing people in the town with their suspicious eyes and deaf-mute jokes. "I asked Mrs. Fulton to teach me to say 'I like the way you giggle at me,' so I can try it out on Becka, right?" Shane said. Shane had begun to sign only the nouns, relying more on his voice, and this telegraphic signing was hard to follow. Lucas saw that Risa had dropped out of their circle. She looked instead out the doorway to the porch and her cousin, Marjie. "Well, I practice saying it, and Mrs. Fulton swat my hand." Shane lifted his hand, and with an effeminate downswing, tapped Risa's arm. Startled, she looked up at Shane. "She left and the counselor comes in, all worried because she thinks I came on to Mrs. Fulton." Another holding-back pause, working the room. "I say, 'so, what're you saying?' to the counselor, who says, 'you mean, you didn't make inappropriate advances on Mrs. Fulton?'" Shane ducked his head, laughing. "Turns out, what I accidentally said to that old fart: 'I like the way you jiggle at me.'" He cupped his hands in front of his chest. Shane and the other boys burst out laughing, and Lucas slipped out of the room, embarrassed. Rocco and Marjie, two of the "smooth" signers, stood out on the front porch under the one weak light, rehearsing the school play. As usual, Rocco and Marjie seemed unnecessarily intense to Lucas, moving from tight comment about history to angry signed explanations to getting choked up to some sob story the teacher, Mr. Woods, told in class. Lucas had a hard time following all of their signs and facial expressions, but he usually got the gist of things. He didn't understand why they felt so oppressed. They were white. Rocco's family ran a restaurant in town, so they had money. And everyone knew Marjie. She never had to prove herself. Lucas knew the type from before: even though her family didn't have a lot of money, Marjie was the head cheerleader, the student body president, and she walked around with either a laugh or a frown, depending on who you were. Her parents often showed up after school to watch the varsity football practices, and Lucas wondered about that. One or both of them usually had a huge 7-11 cup of Coke, the kind that almost required two hands to hold. In the deaf history and culture class he had with Marjie, he kept to himself. Every once in awhile, Woods put a hand on Lucas's shoulder and asked him to stay after class. Lucas didn't want another father, and so he acted like he didn't understand Woods's signing. Feeling comfortably invisible, Lucas sat on a folding chair in the dark side of the porch. Past the street and below, he could see the Mississippi River, a slow unwinding flash. Rocco and Marjie ignored him. Marjie wanted to go on to be a deaf actress or something, so she argued with Rocco about the play's translation. Thinking, Rocco twisted off his ball cap, flattened the brim, and slapped it back on. He used the name sign, H-Prince, for the main character, and signed something about how he was pissed off at the world. Lucas remembered the flyers advertising the upcoming school play, an American Sign Language version of Hamlet. No, no. Marjie shook her head at Rocco. Always tan and smooth-looking, with long straight light brown hair, a long nose, and narrowed eyes, she looked good on the stage. Being. She stood taller and swept a hand over her figure, presenting herself. She paused and then, with slumped shoulders and a firm shake of her head, swept her hand before herself again and crumbled a decaying body between her hands, Not being. She stepped forward toward an imagined audience in the dark yard, the Mississippi River curving the horizon, and with raised eyebrows, balanced her hands: Which? Rocco shook his head. No, not that. Marjie saw Lucas watching. She glared at him and then turned so that he couldn't see her face. He saw her shoulders shrug in a comment she made to Rocco. With a dry feeling in his throat, Lucas pushed forward and stood between them. Rocco reached for Lucas's arm, but Marjie stepped between them. They stared at each other, waiting. "Say it," Lucas yelled into Marjie's tight face. "Go ahead. To my FACE." Marjie, with a slow, deliberate movement: Stop. Stop talk, talk, talk. No one understands what you say. But then she paused and looked like maybe she felt sorry for him. Wake up! She turned away from him again, and Rocco copied her movement, with an extra head toss and so-there flair. But this time, they stood so that Lucas could see their faces. Lucas watched to see what they would say about him, like he had once when his daddy had been listening to the radio while he worked on the car. His father had turned, looked at Lucas with an open face, shouted, and danced Lucas around the garage. Turned inside out with joy and fear, Lucas had waited for an explanation. But then, they turned away from him and life went on as usual, without breaking news, no directions on whether to come closer or to just go on. Cut your losses.
*"What Lay Ahead" is being presented in three parts. Part 2 will appear in the September issue. The Wordgathering version of this story is lightly edited from original publication in The Tactile Mind Quarterly, Vertigo issue (Winter 2003-2004). Copyright is held by author. Reprints simply need to acknowledge original publication.
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