by Kia Corthron
Lloyd has finally broken down and purchased paint for the lobby, assigning the task to me. Having confined myself inside on New Year’s Eve to avoid the Times Square madness, I decide to use the hours constructively and pull out the stepladder. I’m about halfway through the job, 6:30 in the evening, when I remember the deaf tourists from the subway today, Italian flags sewn on their duffel bags. I was fascinated by their foreign manual language, and now I make wild spontaneous plans to learn Italian sign and then to travel with April May June to Venice in the spring. The entrance door cracks open, but it’s a struggle for whoever is trying to get in, being jammed among the throngs. After some effort the mission is accomplished and April May June emerges, wild-eyed and clutching a bottle of champagne, slamming the door behind her as if she had just made a narrow escape with her life. I stare at her, unbelieving, and she is startled to see me looking down from the ceiling, roller in hand. I nearly fall over the ladder in my rush to embrace her, this surprise gift of her return two days early to be with me on New Year’s Eve. She’s not at all disappointed by the meager canned tomato soup and crackers I have to offer for dinner, just so long as she doesn’t have to go out and face that mob again. We eat staring out at the crowd, and my eyes fill as I remember being in this same place a year ago, wondering if the stranger in the miniskirt I’d met in the 50th Street station might be among the multitude, overcome with the gratitude that I drummed up the courage to write her that night. When we see the lips of the revelers moving with the final ten-second countdown, we face each other and raise our glasses, our counting fingers moving in unison with the millions.
A cold, wet January kicks off 1972. On Tuesday, February 8th, I organize a game of Gossip with the teenage class. Confidentially I give the first person of each of the two teams a message in sign syntax: “gray goat sleep where, big tree, under.” By the time the sentence moves down the line, my assertion that “the gray goat sleeps under the big tree” has been distorted by one squad as “two red rabbits eat a house,” and by the other (with obviously some deliberate embellishing along the way) as “President Nixon is a toad.”
After class I stroll by April May June’s as usual. I wonder if she remembers that our anniversary is fast approaching—one year since the night I first came to her apartment for the party we never went to. I’m surprised she’s not at home and has not left a note, so I leave one. When I come again after Thursday’s class and again there’s no answer, nor a reply to my previous message, I begin to feel uneasy. I leave another note.
The next afternoon I’m leaving my building to pick up a few groceries when I see a note taped to my mailbox.
In her “illness” she managed to travel over fifty blocks to my building to leave a message, and made no effort to see me? I get on the train to the Village and push the button connected to her flashing lights for a half-hour, no intention of leaving, until she comes to the entrance door, glaring.
I told you I don’t feel well.
Then I should come up and make you some soup.
She rolls her eyes, turns, and I follow her up to her apartment.
Are you angry with me?
No, but she doesn’t look at me. I’ve got hot water on. You want tea?
Thank you.
She returns momentarily with two cups. I’m sitting on the couch, and she sits in the right-angle soft chair. I put my cup down without sipping and lean forward.
Are you pregnant?
Her cheeks are instantly covered in flowing tears but she tries to suppress it. It’s okay, it’s early, thank God I spotted and went to the doctor, it’s really early, it’s just a pinpoint of a pinpoint, I know a place where I can get it done.
Is it safe?
I don’t know. I don’t know!
Is it what you want to do?
She wipes her eyes. I don’t want to have it just to give it up for adoption. Little black kids don’t get adopted so easy. And if they get adopted by whites, raised white, they don’t even know who they are. And what if he’s deaf? Could spend the rest of his life in an orphanage! She sighs. Your tea’s getting cold.
You don’t want to keep it?
She looks down, she doesn’t say anything. What she is thinking, I think, is how hard it would be to raise a child on her own, all by herself. But she doesn’t say anything. I take my hand and gently raise her chin so that she can see my signs.
I would like to get married.
She studies my face a long time. Then shakes her head. Shotgun wedding! she signs, a weak laugh.
I say nothing and she looks at me again.
B.J. We’ve barely known each other a year.
But I see the trace of a cautious, hopeful smile.
Mr. Peoples appears, picks up his front paw, and taps her, sign language for Lunchtime!
**
In Gimbels I can’t help fingering the infant wear, though April May June, even with a belly swollen eight and a half months, is superstitious and forbids me to make any such purchases until after the baby is born.
But I do research without telling her. Since April May June’s deafness is genetic, I want to know where a deaf child is taught. As it turns out there are several institutions right in the city, including Public School 47 on East 23rd. I would be able to see my child every day just like the parents of hearing children! Where I grew up, there was but one choice in the entire state—the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind up in Talladega—and I imagine my mother just couldn’t bear to send me so far away.
I walk out into the fall chill that has suddenly hit this late October Thursday. Passing by a deli, I stop and consider. April May June seemed fine today, but after what happened last night, bringing home a tub of strawberry ice cream, her favorite, may not be a bad idea toward the maintenance of her present tolerable mood.
The evening began pleasantly enough. We were expecting our first guests as a couple. In fact, other than April May June in the days we were dating, they would be my first guests of my nearly twelve years in New York City. Ida Jo, a childhood school friend of April May June’s, was traveling through town with Ted, her husband of two years, a professor at Gallaudet, whom April May June had never met. She invited them for dinner, and we managed to make room at our small table.
The prospect of, for the first time, having an outside eye inspecting our home, what we have made, caused me to step back a moment and give it the once-over: not bad. And we could share our news about the imminent, and eminent, upgrade to an even more spacious flat.
In August, Lloyd informed me of his plans to retire at the end of the year. He wasn’t liking the changes, the building going co-operative which, despite its commune-sounding appellation, actually led to a certain exclusiveness, and he was already sensing a more critical eye directed at himself. Anyway he’ll be sixty-seven in a year: it’s time. Would I like the job? I could have his apartment: two-bedroom. In the transition he’s also allowed me more day hours, and the swollen paycheck is a godsend for my burgeoning family. I’ve already ordered the tools to rig up our future home so that the building buzzer and, more vitally, the fire alarm will be linked to the lighting.
The new position will mean leaving my Met job and the teaching, the latter of which I’ll especially miss. Joy also laments my forthcoming departure, and has been embarrassingly flattering in her scramble to find a way to keep me. Since school starts early, how about having each of my two classes once a week rather than twice, 7:30 to 8:15, before my building management duties start at nine? Half my current hours but three-quarters my current pay? I was tempted to say yes on the spot, but I do need to think about taking too much time away from my wife and baby. How fortunate to be a super, a stay-at-home dad! The principal has asked that I give her an answer by Thanksgiving, and April May June and I persist in weighing the pros and cons.
As for now, we continue to share this one-bedroom. She moved in last April. It broke her
heart to give up her Village sublet but she felt greedy holding on to two apartments, one rent-controlled and the other free, so she passed her studio on to a recent Gallaudet graduate, new to the city. Mr. Peoples would have moved uptown with her but during her pregnancy she developed an allergy to his long hair. As it turned out, the new tenant’s elderly cat had died just weeks before so she was thrilled to have the company, and April May June gave her old companion a teary farewell embrace.
Yesterday she scrubbed and polished our place, assigning me cleaning tasks whenever I happened to take a break from my janitor duties. Her final touch was to set out our small wedding album. The March ceremony was very modest, at the courthouse downtown. It was rainy and cold, and April May June and I entered the building in our wedding clothes, her simple ivory dress cut just above the knee and my navy suit, both of us soaked and shivering and laughing. The court clerk and officiant, a pleasant, smiling woman who had come to New York as a child with her Puerto Rican family, didn’t know the sign language, but an interpreter was found. The fifth person in the room, the legal witness and sole guest, was a beaming Ramona who had arrived with good wishes from the family and armed with her camera, embracing her role as self-appointed wedding photographer.
And so, with many good tidings to share, and my wife’s eagerness to meet her old chum’s husband, it was with great anticipation that we opened the door last evening. April May June and Ida Jo had not seen each other in over a decade, and the huge joy in their reunion was multiplied by the fact that my wife had kept her secret—thus her obvious pregnancy came as a shock and a delight to her old friend. Kisses, warm embraces.
And then things began to take an unfortunate turn. It became quickly apparent that Ted, Ida Jo’s husband, was engaging in Signed Exact English and that Ida Jo was following suit. Very recently this rejection of sign language syntax in favor of signing with precise English grammar—inserting articles, inventing words for pronouns rather than simply pointing at her—had become a volatile topic. An assimilation to hearers, and elitism: rejecting the traditional manual communication still embraced by the working class. We had heard of deaf people engaging in SEE with hearers not proficient in sign, but to be in a room of all deaf and have an educated couple speaking in this clumsy, pretentious fashion was rather unsettling. As host I could maintain my composure but I knew hell was bound to break loose as April May June is not one to temper her opinions nor temper her temper. I agree with her in principle but these were our guests, and I was irritated to suddenly be cast in the role of peacemaker when my wife knew very well I would have much preferred spending the evening in the library while she entertained her old pal. The couple argued that this compromise—speaking manually in the way we deaf are comfortable while using grammar in the way the hearing feel at ease—could facilitate a new universal vocabulary. My wife retorted that sign language is its own language, it’s not English, and then the sarcasm: Oh wouldn’t it be great if America could get the whole world to speak English! And worse: So what’s next for the two of you—the Alexander Graham Bell Association? Bell, the son and husband of deaf women (his invention of the telephone arose out of his wish to develop devices to help the deaf hear), was a crusader for oralism and, in his zeal to force the deaf to speak, campaigned to abolish the sign language, even advocating for the closing of deaf schools and to outlaw deaf couples marrying. For my wife to insinuate that her dear old friend and spouse would support such an organization was the ultimate low blow, and as I stood there awkwardly offering the apple sour cream pie, our first guests hastily grabbed their coats.
In the quiet hour after their departure, I suggested to April May June that she write Ida Jo to patch things up. She categorically refused. I cautiously reminded her that our language is undergoing its own identity introspection, no longer to be referred to generically as “the sign language” but as “American Sign Language” or “ASL” and Yes, I agree with you but perhaps we need to be tolerant of others’ ways of engaging with the manual tongue during these changing times. That’s when I got the look. It wouldn’t matter to me if it weren’t for my concern that my wife may come to regret tossing away a lifelong friendship based on one philosophical disagreement. Well, perhaps she’ll soften after the baby is born. Thus far today she has been sweet as pie, uttering not a word about last night as if it never happened, which is a bit ominous. I am no fool: should any remnant of that mood return, I am armed with a gallon of strawberry, and chocolate syrup for good measure.
I open my building entrance door. A fluke: someone’s key had broken in the lock so once again the door sets ajar until I fix it. I picked up a few other groceries along with the ice cream and hold the shopping bag in my left arm as I pull out my mailbox key when I turn and see him, sitting on the steps next to a duffel bag. Twelve years older, a touch of gray, but I know him instantly as he does me. I’m frozen except for the key I feel trembling in my hand. He smiles and, as always, speaks as he signs.
“Hello, brother.”
6
Randall’s fries are drenched in ketchup. He still prefers mustard for his burger.
“Aintchu eatin?”
I shake my head. The glass of water the waitress put in front of me remains untouched.
“Surprise! Bet you thought you never have to see me again this life. Hey, miss, I run outa ketchup, you bring some more?”
It’s quarter to five so the dinner rush hasn’t hit yet, the place half empty.
“Well I can’t believe how funny you’re actin, visit from your long-loss brother. Whatcha think, I come lookin for a kidney?”
What do you want?
“I ain’t seen you in twelve years! I gotta have a reason? Hey, we close to Times Square, ain’t we?”
In his manual speak, I’m reminded of some of the signs he and I made up when we didn’t know the proper gesture. In any case someone who speaks and signs simultaneously compromises either the spoken language or the sign language so it’s fortunate, given my brother’s very familiar mouth formations, that I am able to lip-read enough to fill in the gaps.
“New York City! Can’t believe my brother from Prayer Ridge find hisself here!” He takes a big bite of burger. “You know, I was tryin to watch the calories, but how can ya have burger an fries without a Coke? Miss?”
Randall wears a flannel shirt and blue jeans. For all I know they may be the same flannel shirt and blue jeans from Prayer Ridge. I notice the shirt is buttoned to the top, concealing his neck.
“You ain’t changed a bit, brother, lookin all slim. I got just a little bitta paunch. Well, Monique feeds me well.” He sticks some fries into his mouth. There are utensils but he ignores them, licking his fingers and wiping them on the napkin. He smiles, sly. “Guess you don’t know bout my new wife Monique.”
You should have let me know before you came.
“I understand you’re feelin that way but here’s the thing. Me an Monique got our vacation from the factory. Calculators, handheld things with big brains an teeny parts. We always take our week off together visitin relations a hers, she got enough all over Texas. But ain’t been able to get it outa my head, what Benja wrote year an a half ago: she heard from you an here’s your address. Wanted to come lass summer but Monique: ‘Over my dead body, after what he done to you?’ Respected her wishes at the time, but sooner or later I knew I was gonna see you. Started brushin up on the signs, took a course out at the community college, she thought I was bowlin Thursdays. Useta be fast with my fingers, remember? But ain’t had call to use it in more n a decade, outa practice. So here we are, firs day a vacation, her packin for a visit to her cousin Stella Mae in Fort Worth an suddenly I know I ain’t goin, I know I’ma be on a bus to New York. All impulse, see? Now by the time I’da written you an you’da written back, the vacation’d be over. Why’d they bring that little thing a coleslaw? I didn’t order it.”
You should have planned. You should have written early enough
to let me know.
“All hindsight now. Anyway what would your answer a been?”
So you just show up? Force me to take you in?
“You know what? This whole conversation feels a little upside down, you with the judgment since you backstabbed me! But guess you don’t see it that way. Hey miss, that apple pie in the glass good? Okay, couldja fetch me a slice à la mode?”
I lean forward. I’m married.
“Married? Why didn’t ya say! When was the weddin? Shoulda let me know!”
No wedding. We went down to the courthouse.
“Well. I wanna meet her!”
We’re expecting our first child very soon, and I don’t want to upset her.
“Congratulations! An what the hell you think I’ma do, take her out drinkin an smokin? When’s she due?”
I hesitate. It all feels so personal.
Thirteen days.
“Ah! Now that is a bless’ed event. Thank you, miss. Look, she brung a spare spoon, you gotta help me with this mountain.” Randall takes a heaping serving. “Mmm. Pie’s dry, but the ice cream helps.”
She’s black.
His second spoonful freezes midair, his mouth open. Then he lets out a huge laugh. “Shoulda knowed it! My brother, the great liberal. Lemme guess,” and for the first time Randall signs without speaking: Some hooker you got pregnant, only my brother would feel obligated to marry the whore.
