Apparitions, page 12
Dad was sitting by himself, watching people, hoping. People took a long path around him and it’s sad how lonely he is but it’s his own fault, but it’s also not. I don’t know how to talk to him. We’re both ghosts going faint. That’s what the world wants, to treat us like ghosts until we become ghosts.
21 January 1980
The police came today to ask me questions, sat in the living room and wrote their questions while dad watched. While they asked, he kept asking me in sign are you telling the truth, are you telling the truth, like he wanted me gone. After they left dad couldn’t look at me the rest of the night.
There’s so much that can be better and we have the power to do it but people choose not to
Love has been twisted so much that we can’t recognize it anymore.
THERAPY
At breakfast I beamed at Felix. I wanted him to love me again and had to fight to keep the blush between my legs quiet.
Maybe again after? I signed.
Not today. Felix made forks with both hands and had one following the other.
What’s that?
F-u-n-e-r-a-l. Bury a dead person outside.
I turned over an invisible body with my hands. Who’s dead?
Man named Clark. Older man. He was here for years. Ms. Beddim told me he died upstairs the other day.
Felix touched his forehead, then both shoulders. Dr. Pearl probably killed him, he signed. He made a knife of his thumb and pulled it backward across his palm, then tapped his head and spelled out the sign: He had a l-o-b-o-t-o-m-y a long time ago. Dr. Pearl removed part of his brain. I saw the scar.
His brain? Where his thoughts are?
Yes.
That’s sad, I signed. I felt much more than sadness—the image of someone cutting thoughts and pictures out of my head was horrifying—but sadness was the most available word.
I said a prayer for him, Felix signed. Do you want to watch the funeral, so he’s not alone?
They bury him?
In the cemetery outside.
No. Don’t want to.
I’m going to watch.
They buried a boy, I signed. At night.
When?
A few nights ago. My father buried him.
Felix shook his head. It’s just a dream, he signed.
He’s coming for me. I don’t like people being buried. In the dark, all alone.
Who was buried? What’d you see?
A boy. He was covered with a blanket.
They don’t bury people at night. Just a dream.
Tears swelled through my eyes. I don’t want to die, I signed.
Felix leaned close. Don’t worry, he signed. You and I won’t be buried here. We’re meant for better things.
Our trays arrived. Pancakes with apple slices. I nudged mine aside. I have questions, I signed.
I’m hungry. Felix spread butter on his pancakes.
I don’t like people being buried, I repeated. All alone in the dark. It’s big sad.
Yes.
When can we love again?
Felix didn’t answer. Bowed his head and kept eating.
Why can’t we talk about it?
I told you. Rules. Stop asking.
No one understands us.
They understand enough.
Felix peered around the dining room and made himself small.
Later, he watched the funeral from the corner window in the common room. I sat across the room studying pictures in magazines. He sent several signs out to the small crowd walking to the cemetery: Peace. Beauty. Heaven. Sleep.
I thought if I watched the burial, I’d see my father standing beside the hole.
👁
New people came. A woman named Irene whose arms and legs moved without her permission. A girl named Hortense who used long metal sticks to help herself walk. George and Bernice made friends with Hortense, and the three of them kept asking me to spend time with them. Play games. Go for walks outside. Go to the storage room. They tried passing notes. Tried drawing what they wanted from me: stick men with thin smiles and twigs for hands. They invited Felix too, but he was too busy reading and writing so they just gave me the notes.
They just want us for entertainment, Felix signed. We’re not their clowns.
I wanted more love from Felix, but the closest we got was hugging and lying beside each other one afternoon. During meals or study time, I’d touch his leg under the table and he’d shove my hand away. The ache in my crotch persisted until it became pain. Hortense once smiled at me and swung her head asking me to follow her, and I started to, but Felix pulled me back.
Each night the sun arced over the prairie and left red and pink smears on the sky. Why don’t they build houses here? I signed. Have more people? There’s nothing out there. Empty. It’s boring.
Felix signed, No, it’s not. Everything’s here. Every possibility.
I feel the breath of ghosts whenever I’m out there. I’m never safe.
That’s just wind. The land, the air is full of possibility.
Like love?
On a hot day when our shirts clung to our shoulders, Bernice approached me sitting alone in the hallway. Felix was writing again and had told me to do something else until dinner. She led me down the hall toward the storage room. She waited for some uniformed men to walk past, then opened the door and nudged me in ahead of her.
George stood there, holding a lighter. Bernice tucked a chair under the doorknob, and George let the orange light go out. I stiffened. All the objects felt closer in the dark windowless room; I thought I might trip or jab myself.
George bunched his body up against mine—soft on the surface and hard underneath. His chin touched my forehead as he wrapped his hands around me; his dick dug into my hip. Bernice pressed up beside me and took my hand and put it underneath her shirt. She smelled like soap and pink sugar. George smelled like sweat and fire. Bernice kissed me. I felt her and George kiss each other, then George kissed me, his mustache brushing my lip. I tasted toothpaste. Bernice pulled my hand down and tucked it in her pants. George undid mine, and I shut my eyes. The darkness wrapped around us. Hid us. Protected us. We began stroking, kissing, petting, settling into a rhythm, leaning into each other. I felt soft hair, warm skin, slippery folds.
The heat in my crotch surged up, and white lights popped through the darkness. I made a noise through my teeth. Bernice covered my mouth. We all stopped. For a moment we breathed as one, each of us with a hand on each other’s shoulders.
The small flame opened, and I saw George’s sweaty face and Bernice’s breasts just as she pulled her shirt on.
I smiled back. Thank you, I signed.
They both smiled at me. Bernice pointed at the door and said something. George lifted the chair away and pulled the door open a small bit. His eyes searched the hall, his face stiffening in the light. He said something and waved us after him.
Bernice straightened her shirt and hair, and the two of us followed George out into the hall.
Bernice’s eyes widened; she pointed at my pants. A small white smear spread out from my crotch. As I tried to wipe it away, two men in white walked past us. One of them, Mr. Creel, laughed and spoke to George, whose mouth pinched. He looked at the floor. Bernice spoke to the men. Mr. Creel stopped walking and pointed, spitting hard words at her. She ushered George and me away.
At dinner, all the uniformed people watched me, George, and Bernice. Felix did too.
In his room after dinner, he signed, You have sex today?
What’s sex?
You have love? With George?
And Bernice.
Felix scoffed.
We just used our hands.
Did you kiss?
Yes.
Felix held his head in his hands. What did I tell you? he signed. It’s dangerous. People can’t know. It’s supposed to be just you and me.
You never want to.
Stop being a child.
I’m not a child, I signed, making fists.
Felix’s face slackened. He held up his hands to calm me down. We have to hide, he signed. There’s a time and place. You can find other things to do. Draw, paint, build something, play a game.
I don’t understand. Why don’t people love all the time? In the halls and bedrooms and the common room? It feels good.
I know.
Why do we have to hide?
Men can’t like men.
Why? I don’t understand! You said we had to find love outside rules.
Felix nodded. Then shook his head.
The next day, Mr. Creel said something to me. He grinned as he looked me up and down, his narrow eyes like holes punched through the wall. He made a gesture like stroking something. George ran over and punched Mr. Creel in the face. The two of them started fighting, George standing his ground and using his long reach to keep Creel away. Mrs. Koepp called for other nurses, and they grabbed George and injected him with something, but he kept fighting. It took four nurses to hold him still so they could take him away.
Felix sat still, staring at George and the nurses until they disappeared.
Later we saw Bernice standing in the hallway near the nurses’ station talking into a shiny black handle. I made a Y out of my hand and put one finger to my ear and the other to my mouth.
Phone. Right?
Felix nodded. The man who invented it wanted Deaf people to speak orally and stop using Sign Language, he signed. All so they could use his invention.
She misses George, I signed.
When I first got here, she thought I was twelve.
We sat on the bench across from Bernice. Just above our heads, dusty air seeped from a vent. Felix dragged his finger up and down over the diamond-shaped holes in the white metal vent cover. Bernice waved at him and shook her head. Felix stuck out his tongue and dragged all five fingers against the vent. Bernice held the phone between her head and shoulder and signed, Stop. Felix smiled. Mrs. Koepp stood up from the nurses’ station and said something to Bernice, who pointed at Felix then tried talking again. Felix’s hand skidded over the vent covering. He stomped on the floor, beating out a rhythm to which he dragged his fingers. Bernice clamped her hand over one ear and pressed the phone hard against the other.
Felix said something with his mouth, and she dropped the phone and strode over to us.
Whuzzerproblum, she said.
Felix put up his hands. Jessajoke, he said.
She pointed at me and spoke again, then walked back to the phone.
What’d she say? I signed.
She says I’m a creep and I should stay away from you.
During study time, Felix tapped Bernice and said, Ahmsawwrybout hutherday. Bernice waved him away.
Ms. Beddim had given me paper and pencils, and I’d spent the period drawing giant monsters stomping across the red and black prairie. I showed them to Felix. He nodded without looking at them and said something to Bernice I didn’t understand.
She pointed at me and spoke.
What is it? I signed.
Nothing, Felix signed.
Bernice shook her head and kept pointing at me.
Why’d she and George pick me? I signed.
She thinks I’m using you like a puppet, Felix signed. She and George are trying to protect you.
Felix spoke to her again. Nawoorfugginbidniss.
Yehdunluvim, Bernice said. Ooluvnuwwin. Oorasykobath.
Ehmnod. Ahluvevwun.
Fuggoff.
Bernice pointed out the door and said more. Felix tensed. He looked away from her; her words were gnawing at him, digging into him.
I tapped Felix on the arm. What is she saying?
Oodonnowuhluviz, Bernice said.
Felix jumped to his feet and opened his arms and spoke to everyone in the room, shoving his voice at them, his teeth flashing, his eyes stretched wide. He began signing at the same time. I understood only a few things. Beauty. Holy. Light. Afraid. World. His body shook. He looked about to cry. Then he leaned across the table and kissed me on the mouth. I sat stiffly. Ms. Beddim averted her eyes from Felix, then looked back with her eyebrows halfway up her forehead, like she didn’t believe what she’d just seen.
Felix sat breathing deep. His body rattling.
At dinner that night, I waited for Felix. I caught Ms. Beddim’s eyes across the dining room.
Where’s Felix? I circled my F-hand above my head.
She pointed to the ceiling. I pictured him under a heavy blanket. Tubes stuck in his arms. His body cooking in the heat.
Bernice sat across from me, her eyes lowered. She touched my hand and said nothing.
I had difficulty eating. I didn’t know whether to start with the meat or the salad. Didn’t know when I should drink my juice.
When we left the dining room, Ms. Beddim waved me toward the main room where a group of people sat talking, smoking, reading, and watching TV. Bernice and Hortense lay on the couch watching the TV. In the corner, Anders drew with red and black markers. Irene sat under the TV, facing the room.
Too many people. I walked back to my room.
👁
The next day Felix was still absent, so I went to Dr. O’s office alone. He and a woman with a long face welcomed me in.
Sit down, the woman signed, her fingers fluttering like twigs.
I sat down and gripped the chair arms. Dr. O wore a green plaid suit. The woman stared at me. My ear. My arms. Her shoulders rolled. The sight of me disturbed her.
My name’s S-i-o-b-h-a-n, she signed. She gave a name sign, her S-hand tracing a long arc above her head. How are you?
What is this? I signed.
The woman spoke with her mouth to Dr O. Their eyes fixed on me, then his words came to me through the woman: She’s here to help. She’ll interpret so the two of us can talk, and so you can have the help you need. Understand?
I mimicked her sign. What is interpret?
Help you understand me.
Her? Or you?
Dr. O pointed at himself.
She’s speaking for you? I signed.
Helping me speak with you. I’m sorry it took so long—money has been limited.
The woman’s signs were tighter and more reserved than Felix’s open, expressive signs. Her face was stiff, and she held her hands closer to her body, like she was trying to keep her signs secret. It was hard to understand her.
What is money?
Helps you buy things.
Buy?
Dr. O reached into his coat, pulled out a small leather square, and opened it up. He pulled out pieces of colored paper. Something coiled in my gut.
You trade this for things you need, he said. Food, clothes, things you want.
Trade that? Is that a rule?
Yes, it’s a rule.
I don’t like that, I signed. Put it away.
Dr. O nodded and tucked the money back into the leather square.
I pointed at the woman’s hands and signed, This is weird. Your hands are different.
Dr. O smiled. You have the right to privacy, he said. You know what privacy is?
I mimicked the way the woman tapped her lips with the thumb of her closed fist.
Only you know what happens to you, Dr. O said. No one else does, unless you choose to tell people.
You don’t know what words I know. I understand Felix.
It’s important for you to learn without Felix.
When’s Felix coming back?
He’s in treatment.
I winced. Something brushed against the back of my neck. The air around Dr. O and the woman seemed to shift. I smelled sweat and piss. A gruesome presence was slowly leaking into the room, turning the air to thick putrid muscle. I tightened my body, drew my hands back into my lap.
Don’t hurt him. With the blanket and the needles.
He needs special attention. Dr. Pearl’s taking good care of him. The woman’s fingers were so thin I thought they might snap when they moved quickly.
My eyes widened. Dr. Pearl cut into someone’s brain! I signed.
Dr. O grimaced. Let’s talk about you.
What about me?
I have good news. You’re having your cast taken off soon.
I looked at my arm. So many people had signed it that there was no white space left. I’d been looking forward to having the cast removed and signing with ease, but now I didn’t want to lose it and become more exposed.
Something thunked down on the floor behind my seat. I glanced over my shoulder and wrinkled my nose—the smell of the basement room crowded around me.
Dr. O opened a folder with a few sheets of paper. The woman waited for him to speak. Her stillness bothered me.
We don’t know much about you, he said. Your name, where you’re from, your family, your history. It’s like you dropped out of the sky. Everyone here has a lot of questions, and until now we’ve been unable to ask them.
I want to see Felix, I signed.
You’ll see him soon.
What does that mean?
Let’s start with your arm. How’d you break it?
I felt like something would soon jump out from a corner of the room and bite me. I drew my hands close to my chest and hunched forward, sweating. The basement smell clung to my nostrils.
It smells in here, I signed.
Are you okay?
I smell the downstairs room. I want Felix.
Can you tell me how you broke it? Do you remember?
Felix!
Do you have any questions? You probably have a million of them.
I can ask questions?
The woman’s hands slowed. Yes, whatever you want.
I relaxed a little. You won’t lie to me? I signed.
Dr. O frowned. So did the woman.
No, he said.
Felix says you want to control us. You lie, Dr. Pearl lies, the nurses lie, because you want us to stay here.
