The Deaf Heart, page 19
At the picnic, Dr. Robb introduced them to everyone and announced that they were going to perform “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Max felt like they were in a dog and pony show. He got the impression that most of the employees were seeing him and Bertha in a different light outside of the lab, as if they’d thought they had no other aspects to their lives besides work.
A microphone was set up near Bertha, and another one was placed near Max. Max looked at the AV technician and shook his head. The technician looked at him with a puzzled expression. Max gestured that he was going to sign, not sing. Was he going to perform sign language to a microphone? Everyone laughed. The technician came forward and removed the mike and quietly apologized.
Bertha looked at Max to indicate she was ready. He gave her a wink. The first few undulating notes came out to him from the portable public address system near them. The trumpet sounded hauntingly beautiful, almost like “Taps,” perfectly juxtaposed with the memorialized submarine, the USS Cavalla, in the background, and the U.S. and Texas flags fluttering together, up high in a blue, cloudless sky. Beyond the Cavalla, the Galveston–Port Bolivar ferry was making its hourly commute across the Houston Ship Channel.
Bertha gave Max a nod, and he began signing the first verse. Unexpectedly, everyone began to sing along with his signs, almost as if they knew what each sign meant. Bertha, in her own musical world, looked up from her trumpet keys and became red-faced, but she continued on. Seeing the others singing bolstered his energy and made him exaggerate some of his signs to impress them more. Max was so into the moment that he completely blanked on the last few lines. Shit! He looked at Bertha, who gave him a look back to continue on. The words wouldn’t come to him. Hell, who would know the difference as long as he kept moving his hands in the air in a pretty way? No one would have a clue that he had forgotten the last lines of the anthem.
When the song ended, everyone clapped vigorously. The women wiped tears from their eyes. The men looked at their feet, clearing their throats. Dr. Robb came up to shake Max’s hand, and then hugged Bertha. Over Robb’s shoulder, Max gestured a “thumbs-up” to Bertha.
Some of the guys came up to Max and slapped him on the back without saying anything. A couple of the women hugged Max, saying how beautiful his signs were, and how they felt they knew every sign for the whole song. This was actually the first time that Max, as a Deaf employee, was shown genuine respect. How ironic that it had taken music to garner that.
Max slowly came to terms with the fact that he would have no luck with women throughout the residency year. He would ride out the remaining time working at the lab and teaching his sign language class until the end of August, and then seek his chances elsewhere. A week after the picnic, during a break from a class lesson on animal signs, one of the women from his sign language course slipped Max a note inviting him to her house for a small gathering. She wanted him to meet her deaf cousin from Austin who had recently been hired as a costume assistant for an outdoor summer stock theater on the west end at Galveston Island State Park. Hearing people often told him that they had a hard of hearing grandmother, an uncle who was hearing-impaired in one ear, a deaf dog, or a deaf whatever, whom they hoped he would meet one day. He guessed they thought people with hearing loss were one big family. Since she was one of his good students, he was willing to meet this woman’s cousin.
Max remembered having hiked through the state park when he’d lived out at the beach house. It was on a Sunday morning, in the middle of a Galveston winter, which usually got down into the thirties for a few weeks. He’d needed a break from his portfolio work and had to get out of the house for a long walk in fresh air. As he hiked along the boardwalk trail that went over the swamps, he’d discovered beyond tufts of marsh grass an outdoor amphitheater overlooking a bayou. It was right smack in the middle of miles of wetlands and beach. Seats were arranged in high, tiered rows like the outfield section of a baseball stadium. A row of seagulls squatting on the seats watched Max walk across the dirt stage. There was no one around. No boats out in the water. Just palm trees; a steady, cold wind; and the gray sky.
Behind the theater was a Quonset hut with the large, faded word pepsi painted in blue and white across the corrugated steel. Beside the hut was a row of identical one-level apartments, like a lone motel on a country highway. A sign over the boarded-up box office read: “Come back next summer! See Broadway-style musicals every night under the stars: The Lone Star; Annie Get Your Gun; Hello, Dolly!” He’d felt like he was in a deserted town wiped out by a plague.
When he met Madison, the costume assistant cousin of his student, it was like arriving at an oasis he had been seeking for months. For him, she was a tall, cool drink of water—an intelligent, attractive Deaf woman he could relate to, at long last. He learned that her parents and siblings were also Deaf, as were five generations of relatives. She rarely moved her lips when signing. It took Max some getting used to, for he had become so used to speaking and to reading the faces and lips of hearing people. He didn’t need to wear his hearing aids with her; instead, he had to get accustomed to turning off his voice and reading her unique Southern sign style. She loved to fingerspell, which took a bit of extra concentration for him. To him, fingerspelling was like reading fancy cursive. After a while, he got the hang of reading it.
Maddy, as she preferred to be called, had a natural, old-fashioned beauty that reminded him of a 1940s movie actress—like Hedy Lamarr or Lauren Bacall. She had smoky blue eyes and long blonde hair parted on the side and held up by a barrette. When she formed her hand shapes into words, it was graceful and poetic, even when she was talking about mundane things. Her goal was to become a professional actress for stage and film, but to achieve that, she needed to work with costumes to learn all about how stage productions worked. She believed that the best way to learn the craft was to work in all areas backstage.
She was intrigued by the kind of work Max did at the hospital, and wanted to know more about it. They agreed to meet to give each other tours of their workplaces, and the following Saturday morning Maddy pulled up to the main entrance of UTMB in a 1966 aqua-colored Chevy step-side pickup truck with Texas plates that read: DEF PWRD.
“Good morning,” signed Max. “Nice truck! Lifted body and fat Super Sport tires—gorgeous! Is that a three-speed column stick shift?”
“Are you talking about my body?” asked Maddy. “Yep. Love old trucks. They’re good for a traveling girl like me.”
“What’s your license say?”
“Deaf powered!” She put one hand over her ear and the other hand out the window in a fist.
“Radical! Shouldn’t it be Deaf power, though? What’s the ‘d’ for?”
“The truck is powered by me!” she said.
“Ahhh, now why didn’t I figure that out?”
“Maybe you haven’t had your morning coffee yet.”
“You’re right! Was waiting to see if you wanted me to pick up some coffee before we go to my lab.”
“I get my morning caffeine from Pepsi. Is there a machine around?”
“Oh yeah, vending machines are all over the place. We’ve got medical students everywhere.”
After they got their coffee and soda, Max gave Maddy the grand tour. He introduced her to Orlando, who was alone doing some work for a neuropathologist on some black-and-white prints of dissected brains to be published in a journal. Max cautioned her that the photos might be upsetting to look at.
She waved her hand at him like he was a nuisance: “Get outta here, I’ve seen it all,” she said.
“Oh really? How’s that?” asked Max.
“My father used to work as a mortician’s assistant.”
“Wow! My grandfather was a mortician.”
“Check that off on the list of things we have in common,” said Madison. She held up her soda can to toast. Max held out his coffee cup.
“Wait, wait,” she said. “Deaf toast!”
“What’s that?”
“Hold your cup out and bend your wrist to touch my wrist. You know, Deaf people must feel; can’t hear our drinks clink together.”
“Ah, learn something new every day,” said Max. “Cheers!”
Back at her truck, she told him she would drive, and would be happy to bring him back to the university. Max protested, but she insisted, saying she was born to drive.
“So, you’ll be my c-h-a-u-f-f-e-u-r for the day?” he said, fingerspelling each letter as clearly as he could. He was testing her with this word choice, wondering if she would understand it. He’d been accused by some deaf people of trying to act “hearing” by throwing out “big” words.
“I’ll be happy to be your chauffeur,” she said, fingerspelling the word back so fluidly that the word was like a sign in itself. This confirmed to him that she was indeed a well-educated deaf woman with strong bilingual skills—a rare find now that he was out in the hearing world.
Maddy told him to hop into the cab. He put his camera bag on the floor of the truck and climbed in. She backed out of the Pathology Building parking lot and went down a narrow side street to get to the seawall. She eased her big truck into the stream of traffic on Seawall Boulevard with the confidence of an eighteen-wheel-truck driver.
“You’re a helluva driver,” he said. “I noticed you barreled right through tight spots without batting an eye or backing off on the accelerator.”
She laughed and gave a dimpled smile. She took her eyes off the road and momentarily caught him admiring her. Max asked about her background. She’d gone to the Texas School for the Deaf for a while, but found it way too easy. Next she went to an oral school, where they drove her insane with speech therapy. And then she’d gone on to a mainstreamed school where she was placed in a gifted program. After high school graduation, she’d enrolled in the honors program, studying theater and dance at the University of Texas in Austin. She lived with her parents near the deaf school for a while, and was a part-time teacher’s aide there until she was ready to strike out on her own.
“Funny you mentioned the word chauffeur,” she said. “I had a dream last night that I was a chauffeur for famous people. They told me they liked my driving.”
A car towing a speedboat suddenly cut in front of her. Maddy honked her horn and stayed on it for a good fifteen seconds. “ Idiot!” she signed. “Hearing people can’t drive.” She tailgated the car, staying several feet behind the boat’s propeller.
Signing away with one hand on the wheel, she said, “A chauffeur, imagine … me a deaf woman whom these stars trusted to drive them anywhere. In my limo, there’s Ryan O’Neal and his girlfriend Farrah Fawcett … that’s what, over sixty million dollars riding in the back seat? Jack Nicholson and his latest mistress in another row of seats in front of O’Neal and Fawcett—thirty-five million … what’s that come to?”
The front of the truck was getting closer to the boat propeller. The speedometer pointed to 70 mph. The left lane was wide open for passing. Max didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to offend her by commenting on her driving skills; their relationship was budding nicely, and he didn’t want to nip it off.
Maddy beeped the horn again a few more times. “Ninety-five million dollars—imagine!” she said. She went on and on about the celebrities and how she was driving a gold mine in her block-long stretch limo. The brake lights on the boat trailer lit up. Her sandaled foot with red painted toenails was nowhere near the brake pedal. This time she held down the horn and let it blare continuously. Max was about to put a damper on the relationship by letting her know that they were dangerously close to a gory pileup on the seawall.
Slowly, the boat trailer veered off onto the highway shoulder. They passed the vehicle, mere molecules from metal scraping metal.
Shifting gears, Maddy talked about how she hadn’t done much reading lately. She wanted to get back into it, though she had been reading off and on a book about the works of some writer named Piraro that he didn’t know about. Then it hit him.
“Didn’t he draw some cartoons called ‘Bizarro’s World’?” Max asked.
“Yes, yes, he did!” She was flushed in the face. “Not many deaf men would know that,” she said.
“Well, ahem,” said Max, adjusting an imaginary sports coat and tie. “What can I say?”
She turned the truck into the entrance to the state park and maneuvered a windy road leading to the amphitheater parking lot. He studied her profile and tanned complexion. When she looked over at him, he averted his gaze. She stopped the truck and put it in park.
“So, what were you looking at, Mr. Max?” she asked.
“Well, I was thinking you have a nice, unique face for a portrait.”
“What’re you waiting for? Get that camera out!”
“Stay right there. Your arm resting on the wheel, and you looking at me, is perfect. You parked in the right spot—nice background of the bayou and palm trees framed by your truck window.”
Maddy started to remove her barrette to fix her hair, but Max told her to leave it. He liked her hair’s down-to-earth look, with a few stray wisps of blonde hair hanging over the side of her face.
“Aren’t you going to use a flash?” asked Maddy.
“Nope, ambient lighting,” Max answered.
The costume shop near where Maddy parked was located in one of the stables he remembered seeing from his walk. Rows upon rows of period costumes and wigs were on stands. Dressmaker dummies with fabric swatches pinned to them were everywhere. Max got lost at times looking for Maddy on their little tour of the costume shop. Behind one of the dummies, he saw her arm stick out and beckon him to follow her. She showed him a row of industrial sewing machines and patted them on their behinds. “My babies,” she said.
Next she showed him a little room in the Hitchcockian Bates Motel setup behind the theater. The room was adorned with Christmas lights and sheer fabric hanging over the strings of lights to cheer things up. Her dresser top and windowsill were full of empty Diet Pepsi cans. She admitted to an addiction.
“Right now we are doing a play called The Lone Star. Want to see the wings where the actors bring props on stage?” Maddy asked.
“Sure, would love to see it. I’ve never performed on a stage or gone backstage.”
“This is a natural stage—no wood or raised platform. Kind of like the old Greek theater. Makes it easier to bring on set pieces, like cannons and horse carriages. We even use live horses. That’s why we have those stables over there beyond the wings.”
“Very interesting. You know, I hated theater when I was growing up,” said Max.
“Why is that?”
“My parents once took me to an outdoor show in Roanoke Island, North Carolina. We were in an amphitheater very similar to this one, sitting way up in the nosebleed section. I must’ve been about nine or ten years old. All of the actors were as small as ants to me. Ever tried lipreading an ant?”
Maddy smiled. “Well, I can get you front row seats here, but we won’t have any interpreters around. This island is like fifty years behind on accessibility issues,” she said.
“It’s not that bad,” said Max. “The hospital has been good to me about that, but that’s another story. Anyhow, I’m in this outdoor theater sitting practically up in the clouds, bored out of my mind, when suddenly my parents get up and start exchanging remarks with someone behind us. Then, for no reason, we leave. In the car, my mother takes her shirt off. I smell something weird. Find out a lady sitting behind us threw up on my mother.”
“No wonder you hate theater!” Maddy laughed. “Well, here we are. This whole property used to be a cattle farm.”
“They sure made good use of these old barns for wings—brilliant,” said Max.
“People I work with have told me there’s a ghost that goes back and forth between the two barns. One of the farmer’s sons hanged himself in the hayloft. They say you can hear the rope creaking and swaying. And sometimes you can see the shadow of the body swinging.”
“Have you seen it?” asked Max.
“No, just what I’ve been told.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts. I think it’s a hearing thing. Most ghost stories are all about sounds—creepy sounds.”
“You’ve got a point there,” said Maddy.
“I’ve never seen any ghostlike movements or anything. I work in a place where people die all the time. How come I don’t see their ghosts around when I’m working in the lab?”
Maddy nodded in agreement.
“Let’s get out of this hot weather and go back to my room where it’s cool and dry,” said Maddy.
“I bet it’s nice to see a show here,” said Max.
“It is. Even if you can’t follow the words, you can sit back, drink a Pepsi, and enjoy the warm Gulf breeze, the sunsets, herons flying by.”
“You and your Pepsis!” Max said.
“It’s not just me. Pepsi is a big sponsor of our shows here.”
“Oh, that explains it!”
“So, when the actors fight for Texas’s independence,” Maddy continued, “it gets pretty lively—really visual, with gunshots and cannon fire. No words are needed. I’ll get you a comp ticket if you want.”
“That would be real nice. Would you be able to sit with me?”
“Sorry—no. I have to work backstage during the show. Actors have to make quick costume changes, and I help them with that. Sometimes an actor’s costume will rip or they’ll lose a button. I have to be ready for emergency sewing. Then after the show I have to launder all of the costumes.”
“I think I could manage going solo,” said Max. “Would you be around after the show, I mean, after you do the laundry?”
“Hmmm, I’m usually the only one around after the show. I could throw a load in the wash and we could hang out till it’s time for me to go back and do another load. Have to do three loads.”
Maddy opened the door to her room and let him in first.
“I wouldn’t mind waiting,” said Max. “Would you have space for me to wait in your room among all of these Pepsi cans?”
