Kristen HarmonWHAT LAY AHEAD (Three Linked Stories)*True Business: MarjieLucas got on her nerves, just standing around the porch like that. No fight, just like her character, Ophelia. Waiting for something to happen. She couldn't respect that. Jim Woods, the teacher of her Deaf Culture class, always opened class by pointing to images of different groups of activists waving banners and walking a protest line. She wanted to rush right down into those photographs and wave placards mounted on two by fours and kick some butt. She couldn't wait to get there, wherever it was. When Jim had first cme to the school, she had made up her mind that he didn't have much to teach her. He had graduated from the oral deaf school in the same state, a school where ASL was forbidden in the classroom but the students still signed, on the sly, in the dorms. He signed like he came from a hearing family. But at the beginning of that first class, Woods had told them that too many people in the hearing world thought that deaf people could only be poster children or factory workers. He then pointed to all of them. Are you a victim? he signed. Most shook their heads with energy. No? Then what do you plan to do? Nobody had asked her that before. She had even taken one of his many inspirational sayings as her e-mail sign-off: "Go and have adventures; you'll live longer." She wondered what that would mean, though. Rocco sat down on the edge of the porch. Can't stand him. He made a claw of his hand in Lucas's direction. She shrugged and sat next to him. She dangled her legs off the porch. Holding her hand out for a cigarette, she angled herself, making sure they could still see each other in the flickering light of the porch. Rocco was okay, as long as he didn't go on and on about how he would become famous after he left the school. The way she saw it, the best thing you could do is to go get your education and then come back to where you began, do something where it matters, at home. When so many of the school's students left for larger deaf communities in the cities and better jobs on the coasts, the decision to return to this small river town was no piece of cake. She'd show them, those townies who thought deaf people were dumb. Like Woods, she wanted to get her degree and then teach at the deaf school. Before Woods had come to the school, there had been no deaf people in the faculty, just a lot of blank-faced hearing people with smoker's mouths who thought they signed better than they did. It was cool, having him there. Rocco shook his head with disgust. He stubbed out the cigarette he'd been smoking, shook his pack like a pro, and lit a new one. Like a flare, his cigarette burned traces on the air. An expensive brand. He took a long luxurious puff. Show-off, she thought. But then Marjie sighed. She did care, because he was cute, and girls outnumbered boys three to one at the school. Most of the boys she'd started with had dropped out, frustrated, bored, or restless, ready to get on with something. Some of them had moved to the nearby city, and she saw them when she and her cousin Risa took off to go there on Saturdays. Lately, though, Risa had been disappearing for whole days, coming back reeking of smoke and grinning like she'd had more beers than she could handle. Hate this P O V E R T Y town. Today, at Pizza Barn, an idiot refused my note-order. He talked-twisted his lips at me. Said, if you're deaf, then lip-read me. Come on, lip-read me. Rocco squeezed his hands into a choke-hold in front of him and made a frustrated face. I am deaf and do not read lips. I want one medium, pepperoni pizza and a large Coke. Why can't YOU read, asshole? He held out a hand, miming the scene and his note. Marjie laughed and nodded. Once, when she'd gone to a jeans store and tried on a pair in the dressing room, the security cops broke down the door. All because the saleslady thought she was shoplifting when she didn't answer some dumb "how's everything in there?" Should have taken Lucas, he can interpret, she told Rocco. But then they might think he's stealing something. She looked over at Lucas and mock-grimaced an oops. She figured he wouldn't understand anyway. But then Lucas moved forward into the circle of porch light and waved at her, flagging her attention. Again? he signed. What did you say? He tapped his lips, a slow challenge in his walk. Here it comes, she thought. She stood up slowly and put on her bitch face. She'd be damned if she let Lucas look down on her just because she signed and he spoke. She would not be pressured into becoming something she wasn't. Her dad said that when you got worn out from kicking and being mad about the world, that's when your soul got tested. That's where faith comes in, he said, but she wasn't quite sure how that worked, how that kept you from getting knocked around, how that kept you from getting rug burn on your chin. She liked her father, but sometimes he got too wrapped up in his own theories. Before getting religion, he'd collected newspaper clippings about unbelievable events, alien abductions, brain implants, and joined twin separations. Lately, he'd gotten involved with petitions, going door to door to get signatures to protect American jobs. Rocco sighed for her benefit, stood, crossed his arms, and turned to face Lucas, his careful fingers holding out the cigarette away from his elbow. Lucas clenched his fists, and as clear as anything, Marjie saw that Rocco waited for Lucas to knock the cigarette out of his hand. Rocco wanted the fight, she saw, but he wanted Lucas to start it. Such a stupid guy thing. At least she wasn't the focus anymore. They stared at each other, not her. But if that security cop hadn't been twice her size, she'd have fought him all the way to the police station. Instead, when the cop showed up and wrestled her to the floor, she had screamed just as hard as she could. But this time, the fight wasn't with some hearing dickhead. She knew that Woods sometimes had to stop fights in the dorms. What would Woods do with Lucas and Rocco? One day, in class, they had been shouting in sign about being minorities in a hearing world, and Woods said that if he were a hearing person and there was an operation to make him deaf, he would be the first in line. True biz, he had told them. First in line. That hit her. True biz. What if everybody had that chance, to choose? Maybe that's what it came down to, in this yard, at this party just above the Mississippi River. You have to choose something that meant something. That's how you move forward, to the next thing, and the next, no matter where you are. Maybe she didn't need to worry about working at the warehouse or the greenhouse just because there was nothing else and state VR had been cut. Maybe she didn't need to feel the ache in her stomach whenever her mom said she didn't like how Marjie and Risa's school had changed—not like it used to be–and that they should move to Indiana or even as far as Maryland. Maybe she wasn't stuck after all in somebody else's world. Living your life and getting on with something that was real, that you made happen. Nobody else but you. Having some fun every now and then. Fun, she thought. And then: I'm tired. Maybe she should just leave, and forget everything else. She sighed. She expertly twisted off the black rubber band on her wrist, held it in her mouth, and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Both boys looked at her, caught up in the small personal ritual. She twisted and tightened the ponytail, and then smiled at them, a tight, let's-just-forget-it smile. She walked into the house. At the doorway, she looked back, and sure enough, both boys stared at her. Your life. She shrugged. Rocco shrugged at her and took a drag on his cigarette. He looked at Lucas, ready to keep going. Lucas watched Marjie, a surprised look on his face. Looking at Lucas, Rocco relaxed his shoulders. Of course, she thought, pleased. Come on. Doesn't matter. Not your fault. Want a beer? she asked them. Lucas nodded. Rocco flicked his cigarette out into the dirt yard, a small red light spinning outwards. Look–a UFO, she pointed and told Rocco, grinning. They had their own joke about UFOs and crop circles, stuff her dad used to go around photographing. Lucas frowned. She held her first fingers together in a circle and imitated a round disk hovering and zipping through the sky. The cigarette—he flicked it out—spinning–it looked like a UFO. He looked at her for a long moment. Then: you're weird. He grinned. They smiled at each other. Rocco shifted next to her, not sure what was happening. Anyway, she slapped her hands together. Imagine. Night. A small earth—closer–go to sky—saucer flying. She smiled at her audience. Then, a tree. Saucer circles slow, and slower, and pauses, behind a branch. Like a strange bird perching. I like that, Lucas signed. Nice. Clear. Beautiful. He nodded at her. You should do that again, sometime. A play. True, beautiful, she told Lucas. I saw one time. True biz. With a red ring, arrows shooting out. But not dangerous. She saw her life: not an alien abduction, and not a falling star, burning up, but a letting go, fiery like living, watery like faith.
*"What Lay Ahead" is presented in three parts. Part 1 appeared in the September issue. To read it, click here. Part 3 will be published in the December 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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