Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love (21 page)

“I’m practicing my penmanship.”

“Is
that
what it is?” my father said skeptically. “So why can’t I read it?” he added—unnecessarily, I thought.

Not meaning to be rude but realizing this line of conversation was not leading anywhere that I wanted to go, I took the notebook back and resumed my tortured, crabbed, and—even to my mind—pathetic squiggles across the page.

Line after line of miserable…what? Yes, I realized, they were exactly as my teacher had said: chicken tracks.

I laid down my pen in utter frustration. I was a beaten kid. And besides, my hand hurt.

Looking up at my father, I saw him break into the most exaggerated signs, punctuated with carefully sculpted finger-spelled letters of the alphabet. It was as if he were cutting those letters from a block of marble one by one, each letter perfect.

His signs looped and soared with the ornamental elegance of a peacock, blended with the agility of a long-tailed swallow.

“That’s
my
Palmer Method,” he signed, picking up his newspaper again.

14

Parent-Teacher Night

T
he year I turned nine, I was faced with my ultimate challenge as intermediary between my father and the outside world: the dreaded Parent-Teacher Night.

When I learned that our parents were invited—and attendance was definitely not optional—to a conference with our teachers regarding our progress (or lack of it in my case) in our schoolwork and our social development (
Deportment? Works and plays well with others? Conduct? Good grief!
), this news chilled me to the bone. I was sure that my father would insist that I accompany them to the event. For something this important I knew he would not be content merely to shuffle cryptic, tediously scrawled notes back and forth with my impatient teacher. He would want me to act—as I had since I was six—as his interpreter, so that he could have access to the same full understanding of the exchange between teacher and parent that any hearing person would unthinkingly enjoy.

Holding on to some small fragment of hope that I could get out of going, I explained to my father that we, the children, were not invited. But my father insisted on my presence, as he always did on any occasion of note that required him to interact with the hearing world.

This occasion, of course, was different from any of the others. Up until now I had been merely a glass window through which language passed from the hearing to my deaf father, and then in the other direction—I was the facilitator. But now
I
would be the subject, the whole point of the exercise that evening. The thoughts and opinions I would be passing on to my father and teacher, in sign and spoken language, would consist of highly subjective opinions about myself. I was horrified. Only seven short days separated me from the upcoming ordeal. I passed over and through the intervening hours as if I were being dragged over hot coals.

My concerns were manifold and complex. Up until now my entire world, the world I inhabited with my deaf mother and father, had been my Brooklyn block—actually only half of it, as I rarely if ever ventured past the midway point. In this world I was known as the hearing son of two deaf parents, no more, no less—and best of all, no big deal.

When my mother called my name,
Mhhhaaarinnn,
from our third-floor apartment window in her sharp deaf voice, no one even turned his or her head to see where that keening sound came from. When my father cheered me on during games of stickball and touch football in his hard harsh voice, my friends barely noticed. And when my father signed to me, and I signed back, no one stared. The rhythmic movements of our arms and hands and bodies as we signed were as natural as the waving of the branches of the few trees on our block in the occasional breeze from Coney Island.

On this block, in this world, I was unremarkable.

But now all that would change. Now, in a few painfully short days, I would be with my parents in a huge auditorium filled with teachers and parents—strangers who had never encountered a deaf person, or heard a deaf voice, or seen what to them would appear a meaningless, almost demented, arm-waving, grimacing, squeaking, and scowling performance.

Moreover, I would have to endure my father’s request that I translate into spoken words his admiration of my numerous skills and attributes, each and every one of them, to my teacher.

In turn, I would have to interpret my teacher’s honest, critical, but oh-so-constructive opinions of my shortcomings, also one by one.

The evening inevitably arrived, on schedule.

“Myron, please tell your parents I’m very happy to finally meet them,” my teacher said in her pleasantly soft-pitched voice.

I smiled and interpreted word for word, my facial grammar expressing her happiness.

“Myron, please tell the teacher that we are as well,” signed and voiced my father, in exaggerated sign and harsh voice.

I cringed and interpreted word for word.

“Myron, please tell your parents that although you are a good student, you are a severe discipline problem.”

“The teacher says I’m a pleasure to have in her class.”

“Tell them that if you don’t improve in deportment, conduct, and paying attention, I’ll have to recommend that you be left back a grade.”

“My teacher says that at the rate I’m learning, she may recommend me for skipping a grade,” I signed creatively.

“Furthermore,” my teacher said in her sweetly modulated voice, “tell your parents that you are the worst discipline problem I’ve ever encountered in all of my twenty-two years of teaching in Brooklyn schools. Myron, you are truly unique.”

“My teacher says that she sees a bright future for me, perhaps as a surgeon or an airline pilot.”

By now my mother was beaming.

But my father, who had watched the very active and prolonged movement of my teacher’s lips throughout the entire exchange, was scowling with marked skepticism.

“Bullshit!” he signed to me in our home sign for the word.

“
Bullshit,
” he repeated in exasperation.

“Now, by God, tell me exactly what the teacher is saying,” he signed in his no-nonsense sign. My father, who could read the face of a hearing person as an Egyptologist can read the Rosetta Stone, had cracked the hieroglyphics of my teacher’s face and gestures. He knew the gist of what she was saying, and now he wanted the details. The jig was up. Now I was back to performing my disappearing act—in an instant I became the clear glass through which the unedited thoughts and comments of my teacher and my father would pass, back and forth.

Looking at my father’s grim face and angry gestures, my teacher said in the voice she reserved for speaking to me when I disobeyed her request to be quiet in class, “Myron, what have you been telling your father?”

“Well…” I began, but couldn’t continue.

“Myron, tell your father
exactly
what I’m saying to him now.”

I visibly cringed.

Seeing my discomfort, my dear teacher took pity on me.

“Myron is a good boy. He reads well and is obviously intelligent, but he has a discipline problem.” Then she smiled and said, “He has ants in his pants.” Reflecting on her own metaphor, she added, “And there are times I’m tempted to
squash
him, like an ant.”

The sign for
ant
is iconic and graphic: the closed left hand is the body of an ant and sits above the back of the right hand, which moves forward while the fingers wiggle furiously like an ant’s legs. In my newfound honesty, to eliminate any doubt in my father’s mind as to
exactly
what my teacher meant by this statement, I followed with the second version of this sign: the hands are closed in fists, and the right extended thumbnail comes down repeatedly against the left thumbnail, squashing an army of ants between the thumbnails. I executed this last sign with such descriptive power that my mother smiled—and nodded vigorously in agreement—while my father collapsed in convulsive laughter that was interrupted by an emphatically barked “YES! YES!” followed by his sign for “Sometimes, same me! Squash Myron like an ant.”

As my father made the exaggerated signs for
squash Myron like an ant,
my teacher joined in the hilarity, all at my expense. But I didn’t care. I had escaped any further elaboration of my transgressions in her class.

Soon, however, I noticed that this lively exchange had made our little group the center of attention for every parent and teacher in the room. I saw the stares and gaping mouths and looks of astonishment on their faces.

Piss off,
I thought.
I’ll be as tough as my father.
And I proceeded to stare right back at them.

That night after we returned to our apartment and my father paid the neighbor’s child who had watched Irwin while we were out, my mother made hot cocoa for Irwin and me. She topped it off with my favorite—fresh whipped cream that she made by hand with an egg beater in a cold metal bowl. When I finished drinking my cocoa, she let me scoop the remaining fluffy pile of whipped cream from the bowl directly into my mouth—and when my brother complained, into his mouth as well. This was a rare treat for Irwin, as she thought the habit quite unsanitary, and she was always very protective of him. I couldn’t imagine why, but my mother seemed pleased with me.

My father was another matter. He was as serious as I had ever seen him be with me. Looking at me sternly, he said, “Myron, no more of your foolishness in school. I expect a better report from your teacher at the next parent-teacher meeting.” Then, while holding my gaze, he hesitated and added, “And if you don’t…,” and he made the sign for squashing an ant—and burst into laughter.

 
Memorabilia