Hands of My Father

by Myron Uhlberg

  These polarizing reversals, so sudden and complete, were unnerving for me. One minute I was struggling with comprehending and deciphering, then translating and interpreting the adult concepts that had been communicated to me by hearing grownups. The very next minute my father was ordering me to be still, to stop jumping around, and to stop fidgeting—and telling me that a boy must always mind his father. Then he would gently but firmly take my small hand in his, and we would walk away from the hearing world, and I would be once again just what I was, his little boy.

  As I grew older, my job as interpreter increased in complexity, and so did my feelings about it. My father continued to take me with him every Saturday morning to do the week's shopping, and I still felt a sense of pride about his reliance on me. But in time I became increasingly sensitive to the harsh reality of the prejudice and scorn that the hearing world levied at my deaf father.

  Older still, as I deepened into the role of being my father's voice, I would note with despair and shame, and then anger, the way in which the hearing would ignore him as if he were nothing more than an inanimate, insensate block of stone, something not quite human. This sheer indifference seemed even worse than contempt.

  On many occasions I witnessed a hearing stranger approach my father on the street and ask him a question: “Can you tell me the way to the subway?” “What time is it?” “Where is the closest bakery?”

  I was never able to get used to the initial look of incomprehension that bloomed on the stranger's face when my father failed to answer, and the way that look turned to shock at the sound of his harsh voice announcing his deafness, then metastasized into revulsion, at which point the stranger would turn and flee as if my father's deafness were a contagious disease.

  Even now, seventy long years in the future, the memory of the shame I sometimes felt as a child is as corrosive as battery acid in my veins, and bile rises unbidden in my throat.

  One day we were in the local butcher shop. As usual on a Saturday, it was crowded. My father told me to ask the butcher for five pounds of rib roast. “Tell the butcher man, no fat!” he added firmly.

  “My father wants five pounds of rib roast. No fat,” I said to the butcher when we got to the head of the line.

  “I'm busy, kid,” he said, not even bothering to look at my father. “Tell him you'll have to wait your turn.”

  “What did he say?” my father asked me.

  “He said we have to wait our turn.”

  “But it is our turn. Tell the man to wait on us. Now!”

  “My father says it's our turn now. He would like a five-pound rib roast, and no fat.”

  I added politely, “Please, mister.”

  “Tell the dummy I'll say when it's his turn. Now get to the back of the line, or get the hell out of my store.”

  The line of restless shoppers now stood as statues, frozen in their places, staring with blank, unfeeling eyes.

  “What did the man say?” my father asked me.

  Above all else my father had taught me that I must never, ever edit what hearing people directed at him, no matter what they said. He wanted it straight. Thus I signed, “The man says you're a dummy,” while a roaring furnace burned within my six-year-old body, almost blistering my skin.

  I had never heard anyone call my father a dummy before. The only time I had ever heard the word was on the radio during the Charlie McCarthy show, when Edgar Bergen called Charlie a dummy. “Charlie, you're a dummy. You're nothing but a block of wood.”

  My father was not a block of wood. He was no dummy.

  My father's face flushed with anger.

  “Tell the man to shove the roast up his ass!” he signed with exaggerated emphasis.

  “My father says we'll be back, thank you.”

  Outside on the street my father knelt down to me.

  “I know you didn't tell the butcher man what I told you,” he signed. “I could tell by looking at his face. That's okay. I understand. You were embarrassed.

  “It's not fair, I know.

  “I'm in the deaf world.

  “You're in the hearing world.

  “I need you to help me in your world. Hearing people have no time for a deaf man. No time to read my notes. They have no patience for the deaf. Hearing people think I'm stupid. Í am not stupid,”

  My father's hands fell silent.

  “No matter what they think,” he finally signed to me, “I must still deal with them. So I must ask you for help. You can hear. You can speak.”

  My father was always so sure of himself. But now he seemed different. And I thought he might cry. I had never seen my father cry. I couldn't even imagine it. And it scared me.

  Looking directly into my eyes, he slowly signed, “It hurts me to have this need for you. You're just a boy. I hope you will understand and not hate me.”

  Hate my father? I was shocked. How could he think that?

  “No.” I shook my head.

  “Never!” my hand said.

  My father took me in his arms and kissed me, then held my head to his chest, and I heard his beating heart.

  Not long after the butcher shop incident, my grandmother Celia told me, “You must always take care of your parents!” That's all she said. She didn't explain herself, or give me any instructions about how to follow her advice. However, I vividly remember what she told me that day because it was so baffling to me. How could I, a child, take care of them, adults? And not just any adults—they were my mother and father. But I would learn.

  The Language of Touch

  From the time I was a small child, I was struck by how often my father would hold me, for no reason that I could ever understand. On my block it was quite noticeable, even to a young kid like me. In that time men had the socially accepted role of breadwinner. They were not the nurturers of our young lives. That role was reserved for our mothers.

  Every weekday morning while it was still dark, the apart ment houses on our block would empty of all our fathers. The men would march with heavy lidded eyes, virtually in lockstep, to the subway station on Kings Highway, from which the subway trains would whisk them off to points all over Brooklyn, as well as to “the city.” (No Brooklynite ever called the city “Manhattan.”) There our fathers toiled in largely meaningless tasks, uncomplainingly, since the Depression was not far from memory. Latter day concepts of having a “career” or work that was “fulfilling” would have been Greek to their ears. A “job” plain and simple, the ability to earn that which was sufficient to “put bread on the table” and pay the rent—that's what our fathers’ daily tasks in those days were all about.

  My father ana I

  At precisely one hour before supper, the fathers of our block would return, shoulders turned downward, heads bent, the New York Daily News held tightly under their arms.

  The women would proceed to greet their husbands, often launching into a well-documented list of their child's misbehavior that very day. This litany of misdeeds might result in a swat on the head to the errant child with the folded Daily News—or worse.

  On my block, in those long-ago days, this was often the only physical connection a father would make with his son.

  But that was not the case with my father. At the end of his workday he would drop to his knees when he saw me, and hold me close, as if I had been lost, then found. After that first embrace he would hold me at arm's length, looking me over long and deeply. On his face I would detect a look of mild surprise, a look I could never decipher. No signs were exchanged between us. All that I needed, in order to understand how much my father loved me, was the feel of his arms around me. He spoke, and the language I heard was the language of his touch.

  3

  The Fights

  My interpreting for my father was an external business. It occurred on the outside, in the hearing world. One day, though, I was called upon to perform my trick inside the walls of our apartment, and this time I was put to a test beyond my calendar years, and many light-years beyond my skills.
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  It was a June night in 1938, and the occasion was a rematch between Joe Louis, the black man known as America's Brown Bomber, and Max Schmeling, Adolf Hitler's example of presumed Nazi racial superiority, a product of the Master Race. In their first fight Schmeling had knocked out Louis. The Fuehrer had crowed like the cock of the world's walk. Now it was time for the Brown Bomber to redeem himself and expose Hitler's lie of racial superiority.

  My father came home from work that night excitedly waving the New York Daily News in my face. “You tell me all about the big fight!” he signed, his fists punching the air. “Joe Louis is fighting Max Schmeling. Joe has my name.” He pointed to his chest. “Louis,” he finger-spelled proudly.

  My father was so excited about the fight that he rushed us through the dinner my mother had spent hours preparing. Normally my father was always after me to eat more slowly, to chew each mouthful of food at least three times before swallowing—five times if it was calf's liver, which was exceedingly tough (and a dish I thoroughly detested). That night, however, after gulping his own food rather than chewing it, my father pushed his chair away from the table and signed to me, “Let'sgo!”

  Twirling the dial, I soon tuned in to the broadcast of the fight. We were early. The prefight commentary by the announcer detailed the career of Joe Louis; that of Schmeling; the replay of their last fight; and the political significance of this rematch. The complexity of all this information surpassed by far both my understanding of current events and my signing sophistication. My father didn't care. All he was interested in was the fight itself.

  Through the cloth speaker of my radio, I heard the bell ring. The crowd roared like a herd of wild beasts, the sound loud enough to wake the dead. My father just sat there, cocooned in serene silence, eyes locked on my hands, my face, and the radio, waiting for my hands to transform the invisible, unheard sound into the visible, understood sign.

  The fight was on. The noise of the crowd, and the screaming voice of the announcer, poured in a torrent from my radio.

  I struggled to sign what was happening, what I was hearing; struggled to keep up. But there were just too many raw sounds coming at me, all crowded together. Besides which, my signing vocabulary did not include signs for the boxing game. Oh, sure, I could sign chicken. That was easy, as the sign looked like a chicken. I could sign corn, (I was great with vegetables, as my father had taught me agarden of signs, a veritable farm full of signs.) But how to sign, The Brown Bomber lands with an uppercut. Now he's jabbing Schmeling, Jab, jab, jab. There's no letup, Schmeling's eye is closing. Jab, jab, another jab to the eye, Joe Louis is killing him. Another uppercut. One to the breadbasket, Schmeling doubles over, OOOHH, that one will bring up his lunch.

  Pained frustration pinched my father's face as he looked un-comprehendingly at my incomprehensible, stuttering signs.

  Equally frustrated, I leaped instinctively to my feet, swinging my arms, my childish fists extended. As I listened to each detail describing the action in the ring, I danced in circles in front of my father. I swung. I ducked. I bobbed. I weaved.

  The punches I threw jolted my arms. The invisible impact of their landing shot up into my shoulders. I hunched in pain. But my face was Joe Louis's stoic mask, the one my father had shown me in the newspaper. I was killing Schmeling, that Nazi rat. Take that! How about this! Smack—my leather glove beat a tattoo on Schmeling's bloody puss. I was making hamburger out of his Aryan face, turning his Nazi body into mincemeat. So much for the Master Race.

  I rose up on my toes and pursued the retreating, cowering Schmeling around the ring.

  I heard the announcer scream, He can run, but he can't hide, Louis has Schmeling on the ropes. He's pounding the bejesus out of him, HE'S DOWN! HE'S DOWN! SCHMELING'S DOWN! He's on the canvas.

  I dropped to the floor and lay spread-eagled on the rag rug.

  Louis is standing over Schmeling,

  I jumped up. I stared down at the rug impassively.

  Schmeling's twitching,

  I dropped to the floor. Rolled on my back. I twitched.

  Schmeling's as still as a stone,

  I was as still as a stone.

  The referee waves Louis to a neutral corner,

  I jumped up and followed his command, taking myself to what I deemed the neutral corner of the room.

  ONE.

  I signed in exaggerated emphasis the number one… TWO… two… THREE… three… SCHMELING'S TRYING TO GET UP… I fell down. I tried to rise… and continued signing… FOUR… four… FIVE… five… SCHMELÍNG FALLS BACK TO THE CANVAS… I fell back on the rug… SIX… six… I signed the number from the floor… SEVEN… seven … EIGHT… eight… NINE… nine… TEN… I made a fist, thrust my thumb up, and wiggled my hand furiously… TEN.

  ITS ALL OVER! SCHMELING'S OUT! I was signing like a maniac.

  THE BROWN BOMBER IS THE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OFTHEW.O.R.L.DJ

  The noise from my radio was deafening.

  I paraded around the room, arms upraised in victory; the tumultuous cheering pouring from the radio was music to my ears. “Take that, Adolf,” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

  My father was whooping and hollering and stamping his feet on the floor in wild unleashed joy.

  The neighbors in the apartment below us were pounding on their ceiling with the end of a broom. Our next-door neighbors were banging on the wall between our apartments. The neighbors upstairs were stomping their feet on their floor. It was chaos.

  My mother felt the noise from the floor below her feet, and the reverberations from the walls and ceiling, and ran into the room in alarm.

  My deaf father heard nothing, but the look on his face said it all. He was laughing uproariously at my performance. Tears were coming out of his eyes and running down his cheeks.

  “Greatfight!” he signed, when he caught his breath, “I understood everything!”

  I stood there in the middle of the ring, on the rag-rug canvas, exhausted but proud. Thank heavens, I thought, the fight had lasted less than one round. At my age I was in no shape to go the distance.

  “I didn't know you knew how to box.” He broke up again. “Your signing was great. Very clear.” Then he laughed again; he couldn't contain himself.

  Every year, after that performance, I was called upon to do it all over again, as Joe Louis fought his way through, and disposed of, an endless string of hapless opponents. Fortunately for me, in 1939 Joe Louis KO'd John Henry Lewis in the first round. No pile-driving man was this John Henry. He was sent to the canvas with one punch from the Brown Bomber's lethal fist.

  My father was delighted, as was every other American, white and black.

  The next year I turned seven, and Louis KO'd the oddly named, I thought, Johnny Paychek, in the second round. What the poor fellow had to do to earn his paycheck that night at the hands (fists) of Louis, I couldn't imagine. Personally I wouldn't go in the ring with Joe Louis for all the tea in China, let alone a mere paycheck.

  The fight had gone one round further than I had fought before. My stamina was improving, and my signing as well. But still my father preferred for me to do my special signing for each match.

  In 1941 both my endurance and my special signing were put to the test. On a warm, clear June evening, Joe Louis fought the upstart, much lighter and smaller but dangerous boxer, Billy Conn. My father was wild about this fight but terribly conflicted. He explained, as a runup to the bout, that Billy Conn was a Jew fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world. My father's head was with his religious brother, Conn, but his heart was with his longtime hero, Louis.

  In anticipation of the fight, I went into training. My father had told me this would not be a one-round affair. Conn was too agile for that. He would stay out of reach of Louis's gloves. Therefore I needed to build up my wind. This time I might be called upon to go the distance. My father had signed to me that Conn could dance; the two fingers of his right hand formed a V, and the legs of the V danced across his open left hand. I could see Billy
Conn's plan; he intended to dance his way to a decision. So I practiced dancing. When there was music on my radio, I had often seen my father dancing with my mother to the rhythms they both felt rising from the floorboards. With that image in my mind, I practiced.

  By the night of the fight, I was ready; and now I had added my mother to the audience. She knew absolutely nothing about boxing and cared even less, but she seemed fascinated by my strange manic antics. Where my father laughed, she stared in utter amazement.

  As they sat in obvious anticipation, I turned on my radio, and the fight began. I immediately went into a crouch and retreated, dancing. I was Billy Conn.

  I ducked, I bobbed, I weaved around the room. Then I reversed position—now I was Joe Louis. I stalked, I threw ineffectual jabs in the air, into the space Conn had just vacated.

  BONG/ The end of round one.

  And so it went, round after round. I retreated. I advanced. I ducked. I swung. And I danced. Boy, oh, boy, did I ever dance that night; I danced my eight-year-old heart out. The look of pure amazement and wonder on my mother's face was my reward.

  Rounds ten, eleven, and twelve came and went, with the same result: Louis advancing, Conn dancing.

  Billy Conn's on the balls of his feet, the announcer screamed. He's dancing up a storm. Dancing, Dancing, Louis CAN'T CATCH HIM!

  Between rounds I sat in my corner (on the kitchen stool I had put there for that purpose). I was exhausted. How long, I wondered, could I—I mean, Billy Conn—last?

  In the thirteenth round I had my answer. NOT LONG! Conn is retreating. Conn is dancing, dancing… OOOPS, Louis has Conn trapped in the far corner of the ring. Conn looks desperate! He can't go left. He can't go right, I stepped to my left. I stepped to my right. I was right back where I started from, trapped in the corner of the room.

  Louis is shooting short punches to Conn's body. Conn is covering. Now Louis is punching to the head. Look at those punches! They only travel six inches, but what damage they're causing! I covered my head. My head bounced backward, then sideways. Louis is a punching machine. Then I reversed position and punched, punched, punched the air. I was Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber. I was a piston, a pile-driving man.