Train Go Sorry

by Leah Hager Cohen

  Sofia, licking her fingers, notices how many of her classmates have dressed in sweatshirts emblazoned with various Lexington insignia. She goes into the hall and digs through the pile of luggage until she locates her own bag, from which she wrestles her navy blue Lexington Volleyball 1991 Champions sweatshirt. This she exchanges for the pale raspberry sweater she put on earlier. Then she loosens her hair from its scrunchie, lets it tumble down her back: an older look. By noon today, she will be facing her possible future.

  Each spring, Lexington’s social studies department takes the junior class on a two-day field trip to Washington, D.C. Ostensibly, the trip’s purpose is to enliven the eleventh-grade curriculum—U.S. history—with visits to an impressive array of government buildings, museums, and memorials. But for many of the students, that purpose is eclipsed by another, more personal interest: the agenda includes a visit to Gallaudet University. Their overnight accommodations will be right there on campus, albeit not in the college dorms but with the high school students who live up the hill, at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf.

  The Lexington kids can hardly be faulted if the allures of the Capitol, the White House, and the Supreme Court pale beside the thought of staying overnight at Gallaudet. More than just the home of the world’s only liberal arts college for deaf people, more too than the home of MSSD and the Kendall Demonstration School, which educate deaf children from around the country, Gallaudet is the epicenter of deaf power and deaf pride.

  It is also the place where Sofia hopes to continue her studies after Lexington. She slides the scrunchie up on her wrist and zips her bag shut. Outside the student entrance the sky is going pearly gray, and now a teacher comes swinging through the lobby door: “The bus is here! Tell everyone to come.”

  They filter out to the parking lot, shove their bags inside the gaping, lit holds of the bus, and climb aboard. This year’s junior class is small—only twenty-three students to begin with, four of whom can’t make the trip—so there is plenty of room, and they stake out territory, exploring the little toilet and the overhead storage compartments, playing with the individual lights and air vents over each seat, claiming spots toward the rear portion of the coach. Here in the dark, homely neighborhood of Jackson Heights, the interior lights give the bus an officious, alien glow: it might be a space capsule, about to propel the students into a foreign zone. They sink into gray and burgundy plush, use the arm levers to tilt themselves back.

  A figure intrudes at the front of the bus, tall and dark-suited, stooping a little as he travels partway down the aisle. It’s Cohen, as they tell each other, reaching around to shake the shoulders of classmates who did not see him come aboard: “Hey, look, pay attention, it’s Cohen.” In the back, they press fists into cushions, elevating themselves, and crane their necks to see over the high backs of the seats.

  “Have a great trip,” Oscar says slowly, having arrived early at work and come to see them off. He pauses, takes in the students, and smiles at their damp hair and scrubbed faces, on which excitement wrestles with sleepiness. They watch him attentively, patiently. He has nothing in particular to impart, but feels a sudden warmth, a sorrow almost, at how grown-up they look. “Say hello to the president for me,” he says. They laugh. They tell him, “Okay. We will.”

  When Oscar leaves, the teachers, seven of them, board the bus and pass out shiny blue-and-white folders. Inside, the students find stapled trip booklets with maps and schedules and, naturally, homework questions. They glance over the folders perfunctorily, then jam them between the seat cushions. At 6:15, when the eastern rooftops are all touched by a thin yellow glow, the bus rolls imperiously from the lot, leaving Lexington behind.

  The travelers have arranged themselves along certain definite lines. The hearing teachers sit up front, along with a handful of students from the lower academic grouping. The rest of the students, Sofia and her crowd, spread across the back of the bus. The single deaf teacher, Janie Moran, sits smack in the middle.

  Another way of identifying the subdivisions is by language. Those in the back of the bus use ASL, or rather, they do not use it so much as revel in it, sass and tease and fool in it, flick it over the backs of their seats and around the corners. Just as each generation of hearing kids invents its own vernacular, the Lex kids use a particularly teenage brand of ASL, encoded with slang signs. Even those students with strong speech skills cast off their English here. They kneel, sit backward, dangle across the aisle, contort and bend their bodies in every way to see the conversation. Secrets they sign at the hip, or conceal beneath a jacket or behind someone’s back. Jokes they deliver standing up; still, someone invariably cannot see the whole thing, and seatmates copy-sign the missing components for each other.

  Those in the front of the bus do not know ASL. The hearing teachers know various amounts of sign language, but they could neither express themselves in nor fully understand the language being used so rapidly in the back of the bus. The four students who sit up front do not know ASL either. They communicate with signs, but without the fluency, the grammatical structure, or the extensive vocabulary of their classmates. They are what used to be called “low-verbal” or “low-functioning.” Once people would have said they had “minimal language skills,” but now, largely owing to the efforts of deaf activists, these phrases have become archaic and are on their way to being rendered obsolete, with the likes of such offensive labels as “deaf-mute” and “deaf and dumb.”

  Now, within Lexington, these students are called “six-one-one,” a descriptive term that refers to state-mandated special education ratios for instructional grouping. Based on their Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), no more than six of these students may be grouped in a classroom, and that classroom must be staffed by at least one teacher and one instructional assistant (as opposed to the students in the back of the bus, whose IEPs designate them as twelve-one-one or twelve-one).

  Two decades ago, Lexington broadened its curriculum so that it could accept deaf children with multiple handicaps, learning disabilities, and serious emotional disturbances. In 1974 it started the Secondary Individualized Learning Center (SILC). The program was housed in a part of the building separate from the regular high school, and grew to account for about a quarter of the total enrollment before it was dissolved in 1990 and its students were incorporated into the rest of the high school. Now, although about two dozen students continue to be educated separately in self-contained classes, the rest of the former SILC students have been integrated educationally and socially with the other students.

  Of course, the students themselves know who is who. Now, instead of saying, “He’s a SILC kid” by way of explanation for some out-of-kilter behavior or inability to comprehend, they’ll say, “He’s six-one-one.” Most of the students have no idea what “six-one-one” literally refers to, but the implication is clear. They tilt their heads, squint their eyes in a pinched sort of apology, and mean this: He’s low-functioning. You can’t really communicate with him.

  They say it not unkindly. Even in the throes of adolescence, as preoccupied as they may be with trying out their own forms of expression, fighting their own battles to be understood—not only by parents, teachers, and other authority figures but by hearing people in general—they are not without compassion and do not intentionally ostracize these students. Some of them will even step in to interpret when they notice a communication breakdown; they will piece together meaning from a classmate’s signs, rephrase it in more familiar syntax for the teacher, and relay the teacher’s answer back, converting it into simple signs or even gestures.

  ASL is not a gestural or iconographie language any more than English is an onomatopoeic one. But sometimes mime and gestures are used with people who are fluent in neither a spoken nor a signed language. Within the field of interpreting, some deaf professionals specialize in facilitating just this sort of communication, between deaf people who have no complete language system and hearing interpreters who know ASL but do not possess th
e cultural background to operate in this languageless zone. Many Lexington kids, particularly the more agile code-switchers, will intercede in this way—and very sweetly too, without giving the impression that they are acting out of any but the most basic human decency. After all, each of these students knows what it’s like not to be understood; any opportunity to alleviate misunderstandings is embraced as a matter of course. Still, given a choice, they would rather socialize with people fluent in their language, and on the bus they naturally gravitate together.

  It is Janie Moran, stationed midway, who evinces final proof that language, more than either deaf/hearing status or teacher/student status, is the predominant factor in the way the travelers have dispersed themselves. Although part of the time she converses with another teacher, sitting across the aisle, she is the sole staff member who mingles with the ASL crowd at the back of the bus. They adore her.

  She is one of only three deaf teachers in Lexington’s high school, and the closest in age to the students. The course she has recently charted holds great appeal for many of them. Before getting her master’s degree in social studies education from Columbia University, Janie was an undergraduate at Gallaudet, where she participated in the historic campus takeover. Before that she was a Lex student. Old yearbook photos show her looking just the same, with straight dark hair and round, florid cheeks, her expression a mixture of shyness and faint rebelliousness. She was a leader in student government and a star athlete; she even qualified for the Deaf Olympics the year they were held in Los Angeles. There’s a picture of her in Oscar’s office, posing with a volleyball in front of the five famous interlocking rings.

  Janie is a heroine, smart and successful and ASL. When used as an adjective, ASL implies more than just fluency; it connotes an entire outlook, almost an ideology. To the students, it means this: Janie always understands them the first time. Her meaning is always clear. She teaches in ASL, doesn’t use her voice, and doesn’t wear a hearing aid. In fact, when she was a high school student at Lexington, she refused to wear her aids; if a teacher insisted, she stuck them in her ears but kept them switched off. She was suspended twice, once for cursing in speech class and once for scrawling on the back of the speech room door a common and vulgar suggestion about what the speech teacher might care to do to herself.

  Sofia and the others have not heard these stories, but they understand empirically who Janie is: a strong, signing deaf woman. They treat her with a mixture of deference and horseplay—deference because of their respect for her as a teacher, coach, role model, and adviser to their chapter of the Junior National Association of the Deaf; horseplay as a kind of flirtation, an expression of their affection and desire to be close to her. On the bus, they engage her in conversation both silly and serious, repeatedly steal and hide her jacket, even borrow one of her sneakers—something to do with a game of Truth or Dare (Janie elevates one eyebrow, decides against specific inquiries, and relinquishes the shoe with a wry shrug).

  Eventually they hit the highway; the rhythm of the bus works its spell and the students begin to doze. When they wake up, farms are skimming past the windows. They look quiet, unpeopled, their silos and fences solemnly upright against a pale sky. Sofia gazes out the window, gazes at the American land, receding, gentle and sober; even spring seems grave in this expanse.

  Tamara, her seatmate, stretches awake and inadvertently sticks an elbow into Sofia’s arm. Sofia protests and they pretend to bicker for a moment, then Tamara totters back to the toilet, after Sofia, in hilariously graphic ASL, advises against it with the prediction that the movement of the vehicle will cause water to slosh up on Tamara’s bottom. Janie and a student are playing chess in the aisle, crouched intently over the pieces, which jiggle on the gameboard. Everyone is waking up hungry. The doughnuts, after all, were three states ago; they don’t count.

  At nine-fifteen the bus pulls into a rest stop in Maryland. The students and teachers scatter around the building, dodging into bathrooms, the gift shop, various sections of the food court. Sofia orders breakfast at Burger King, pays the cashier, and steps aside. It is the sort of fast-food line where the customers are issued receipts with numbers; the number is called when the food is ready and bagged. Sofia’s number is pale on the slip, barely legible, and while she studies the faint ink, she misses the fact that they are calling out not numbers but food items. So her breakfast sits on the counter in a white wax-paper bag, unclaimed, as Sofia continues to watch the lips of the server, on the lookout for her number.

  It is the cute hearing boy behind her in the line—boy or man, she can’t quite decide—who taps her shoulder and says, “Did you have the bagel and cream cheese?” and directs her to her bag. She thanks him and blushes, because he’s smiling very nicely at her, and then she joins Tamara at the condiments bar, where she pours a miniature bucket of half-and-half into her coffee and wonders what the difference is between sugar and Sweet ’N Low—one of those details she would certainly have picked up by now if she were hearing. She dumps a packet and stirs and spills and mops the spill, Tamara urging all the while, “Come on, come on! The bus!”

  They are subjected to a short scolding for being the last ones to reboard, but they barely feel it, sipping coffee on a chartered bus, rolling south on a spring morning, knowing that tonight they’ll be sleeping at Gallaudet.

  Since they have an hour still to ride, Janie comes back and organizes a game. It’s one most of the students know already, having played it before with kids from other deaf schools when they’ve stayed overnight for athletic tournaments. They split into two teams of eight and face each other, kneeling on the seats or standing wedged among them. There are three possible ways to stand: like a deer, with hands up for antlers; like a hunter, with hands out for guns; and like a person, with hands pressed down in a neutral position.

  Each team confers for about two seconds, signing low behind a seat back, and picks one of the three. At the referee’s signal, each team snaps into its role. Hunter wins over deer, deer over person, and person over hunter. It’s silly, fastpaced, and entirely visual—no English necessary, only heightened camaraderie, the ability to respond instantly as a group. Janie plays among them, easily crossing the usual teacher-student boundary. Thumbs to temples, she stands like a deer, forfeiting not a shred of authority. Regular shrieks of laughter rip from the back of the bus, and the hearing teachers look around, amused and perplexed.

  As if of its own volition, the game changes. The teams metamorphose into a single staggered circle. The students stand roughly shoulder to shoulder, knocking and swaying together, and each person picks a country. A rhythm is established, lilting and quick. Thirty-two eyes, keen and bright, rove around the ring as the players send their signs around, calling on each other: “Germany to Italy . . . Italy to France . . . France to Poland . . . Poland to the Dominican Republic . . .” Whoever interrupts the rhythm is eliminated, and the students are gleefully exacting: “No way, you signed Poland on your chin, that’s wrong . . . You did France up by your forehead; sit down.” They whittle the circle down to a champ, then get to their feet and play again, this time with animals instead of countries, and then with colors, and then with foods (“Spaghetti to orange . . . orange to egg . . . egg to soda . . . soda to potato . . .”).

  Sofia gets to laughing so hard her eyes water. Crimson seeps across her cheeks and her breath comes out in high, helpless snuffles. As her shoulders shake with merriment, she inclines her head toward her knuckles in order to obscure her face. She tries to stifle the sound, tries to come from behind the mirth and swallow the laugh, seal off the feeling in her chest. It’s force of habit. Many deaf people have been told all their lives, by hearing relatives and teachers, to rein in their laughter, that it sounds strange, ugly. Even when spared verbal reprimand, they are accustomed to being sent quick, disgusted looks. In this way, they come to understand that hearing people monitor their own laughs, adjust their muscles to make the sound come out in a certain acceptable way. And laughter becomes
one more luxury that hearing people control.

  “Soda to potato . . . potato to chicken . . . chicken to gum . . . gum to milk . . .” Hands are tensed, poised, all eyes trained on the signal being passed, and when Sofia messes up on milk, she yelps, rolls her eyes, and joins the ranks of her friends who are already out.

  They lean over the backs of seats and watch the harried proceedings of those still competing. All of them are giggling now, it’s all right: everyone here is deaf. They release their breath in natural, tumbling explosions. In this place, there is no one to hear the sound. Each one is entitled to laughter, free from reproach.

  The Lexington students arrive at Gallaudet shortly before noon. They leave their jackets on the bus and step down into a mild wind. Magnolia buds, swollen fat and half cracked open, stud the trees with pink; the dogwoods have put out their white saucer blossoms; the grass smells like sugar. There are few people around, since classes are in session, but those they do encounter—professors on the footpath, staff members in the visitor’s center—are all signing.

  In the visitor’s center they encounter an exhibit about deaf people and the Holocaust. Sofia falls behind the group. She walks close to the wall, studying the documents and photographs. One poster shows a simple figure forming three signs, Force Can’t Baby, and beneath that, in English, “Forced Sterilization.” Sofia bends her neck to read the accompanying document mounted above her on the wall. It is a letter, translated into English, addressed to deaf Protestants of the Third Reich, explaining why deaf people must not question forced sterilization but submit to it for the improvement of the race.

  For Sofia, who breathes a little patch of mist on the glass, her jaw set, her eyes steady and very dark as she reads, the letter strikes several chords at once—her own experiences with anti-Semitism, the discrimination she has experienced as a deaf person, and, most jarringly, the connection between the Nazis’ efforts to prevent the birth of deaf babies and her own parents’ decision not to risk having another deaf child. The sum of this knowledge is disturbing and oddly stimulating at the same time. Already, between deaf studies class and the gentle probing she has done at home, Sofia is coming to know her own story in broader contexts and on deeper levels. If she goes away to college, her understanding will expand even more. She can feel how new information will separate her from her family even as it defines her more clearly.