| Excerpted from a story originally published in Eyes
of Desire: A Deaf Gay & Lesbian Reader (Alyson Publications, 1993) It was
difficult to see the audiologist. The window was a series of glass panes with about an
inch of air between each pane. Although the window was designed to reduce noise coming
into my space from her room, the effect was that of multiple shadows and diffused light.
Unless the desk lamp shone directly on the audiologist, it looked like three audiologists
were testing my hearing. She was busy looking at some books and adjusting dials. I was
born with a "profound sensori-neural hearing loss, with damage to the cochlea,
etiology undetermined." I had enough residual hearing, it was agreed, for speech
lessons to be beneficial.
This was my twelfth annual hearing test.
While waiting for her to begin, I looked around my room. It was an airless room about
five by seven feet. Tiny holes no bigger than a pencil point punctured the walls and the
ceiling in a diagonal pattern, as if the room was wallpapered in perforated metal. In one
corner of the room was a small child's chair. In the other corner was a box of various
toys, some Cat in the Hat books and old issues of Look magazine. Above the box
was a satin banner with the word "RADIOEAR," and underneath it, the phrase,
"World's Finest Hearing Aid."
My first hearing aid was a box as big as a car battery, connected to headphones that I
wore on my head at home and at school. My parents' friends said I looked like Arthur
Godfrey. Then I had a hearing aid, a Sonotone, that was the size of a transistor radio,
strapped to the middle of my chest with white straps. Neighborhood kids called me a girl
because it looked like I was wearing a bra. Following that, for a short time, I had a
Zenith. My mother tells me I flushed it down the toilet.
I sat facing the window on an armchair made of metal, but upholstered generously in a dark
green vinyl. In an effort to make the hour go faster, I helped myself to one of the
headphones and, after adjusting it on my head, I was ready for the testing to start.
Finally, my left ear could discern a deep humming. The testing was about to begin. The
tests always started with a series of tones for the left ear, then the right ear. Then a
series of words followed, again starting with the left ear. I believed that if I heard all
the words and gave the correct responses, my hearing would miraculously improve to the
point where I'd no longer need a hearing aid.
The audiologist explained, as she had the year before and the year before that, that I
should raise my left hand if I heard something in my left ear, and my right hand if I
heard something in my right ear. Each year, I was always eager to show that my hearing had
improved. I really tried my best to be cooperative. Often, I heard the same tone, two or
three times: was the audiologist deliberately repeating the tone or were my ears ringing?
Then it was time for the words. This was a test designed to determine the amount of
residual hearing I had for speech comprehension. The more residual hearing I had, the more
I could comprehend the speech of other people, and therefore the better I could replicate
that speech. The audiologist read the words from the list, and the list never changed from
year to year.
"Say the word airplane." I visualized one of those new DC-8 jetliners.
"Airplane," I said in my high, nasal voice.
"Say the word baseball." "Baseball." In my mind's eye I saw my
brother swinging the bat in a game with the kids on my street.
"Say the word cowboy." I thought of Will Hutchins, the hero of
"Sugarfoot," my favorite Western on television. I never understood the stories
on the show, but I liked his easygoing manner and his lopsided grin. "Cowboy."
"Say the word hot dog." "Hot dog."
"Say the word sidewalk." This one always confused me: was it
"sidewalk" or "sideway?" Or was it "sideboard?"
"Sideboard." Better to play it safe. I watched her as she wrote in her notebook.
"Say the word railroad." "Railroad." It came out sounding like
"wailwoad."
The words were then repeated in my left ear, with which I couldn't hear as well as with
my right ear. I had to do a lot of guessing. Finally the words were over, and she left her
room. I took off my headphones and clipped my hearing aid, a Radioear, to my belt as the
audiologist pulled open the door to my room. The door, which seemed at least a foot thick,
let in a flood of fluorescent light as it opened. After she made adjustments on some
switches on the wall, I followed her outside. We walked to her office, where we joined my
mother. The audiologist explained the results, which were of course the same as last
year's. And the year before. My hearing didn't get better, it wasn't going to get better.
As I listened to the audiologist, I willed myself not to cry as the truth hit me: I would
always be deaf.
Two weeks after I turned twelve, my older brother Ricky and I were watching TV when Dad
came in to announce that we were going for a ride. Mom joined us as we got into the Chevy
station wagon. It was their wedding anniversary and I thought we were going to do
something together as a family, except for my sister Eileen, who was working that day.
It was an overcast day. We went east on the causeway, toward the beach. At Ocean Drive,
we turned left and kept going. In the backseat, Ricky and I played Flinch, a hand game of
feint and surprise: you had to trick your opponent into removing his hands from your palms
to avoid being slapped, and the penalty was a free slap, usually delivered as hard as
possible.
Somewhere north of Hollywood, after riding for half an hour, we turned into a parking lot
overlooking a deserted beach. It was quiet. Mom and Dad talked a little bit.
"Just say it," I saw my mother saying.
Dad looked at my brother and me, and then they continued talking in low voices.
I got bored. I looked out the back window and watched as two men walked down the street. A
car coming in the opposite direction caught my attention, and I followed it with my eyes
until it disappeared from sight. I heard Dad's voice, but I wasn't paying attention to
him.
Suddenly I heard Ricky crying. But he wasn't just crying, he was weeping and struggling to
breathe. I turned to my parents. "What's wrong? What happened?" I noticed that
Mom was crying, too, and Dad looked unbearably sad. If there was anything I could have
done differently that day, I would have spared Dad the pain of repeating himself.
"What's going on? Why is he crying?" Dad looked at me. The back of his hand
wiped away a tear at the corner of his eye. He looked helplessly at Mom.
"Don't look at me, Phil," she said. "This is what you want. You say
it."
Dad faced me again. He spoke clearly so I could understand him. "Your mother and I
have decided to separate. I'll be moving into my own apartment tonight."
I looked blankly at him until the enormity of what he said hit me. I opened the door
and bolted from the car. Mom called out after me. I pretended not to hear. I didn't want
to hear anything. I didn't want to hear the world. I reached down to my belt where my
hearing aid was attached, turned it off, and kept on running. Halfway down the street, I
looked back at the car. No one was coming after me. I slowed down to a walk. They had been
arguing for the last several weeks, but I couldn't understand what they were arguing
about.
Once, in the bedroom we shared, Ricky shushed me, trying to listen through the wall to
their bedroom. When I asked what was happening, he said, "Never mind," probably
to protect me. I finally realized why Dad didn't buy the traditional roses for Mother's
Day a few weeks before, even after I reminded him. This was why Mom was crying at the
Publix Market a few days ago when she turned to me and asked, "Robert, am I a good
mother?" Unnerved, I assured her that she was. Even then I didn't have a clue as to
what was going on. I never dreamed that their marriage was anything but perfect.
After a few minutes of walking, Dad caught up with me and put his hand on my shoulder. I
turned my hearing aid back on. We turned back to the car.
"Why are you doing this? Don't you love us?" He insisted that he loved Ricky,
Eileen, and me as we walked back to the car. His eyes pleaded with me not to ask about
Mom.
As I got back into the car, Mom looked at me and squeezed my hand. Ricky's eyes were
red as he turned to me and made an effort to smile. I told him that everything would be
all right. He responded with a few nods, but then he began to cry all over again. Except
for Ricky's crying, we rode home in silence. All I could do was to hold my brother's hand
and look out the window. |
