in American Sign Language (ASL) gloss and English
me very young realize hearing people
strange behavior why
{point-to-mouth bah-bah-bah} for-for
{body hearing aids} earmolds
hear-hear hearing people laugh odd eat-eat time
not-want learn speak-speak but me lonely
want hearing people around-me happy
them look-down-on-me {look up}
{shaking sad face with a flat hand on chest}
then happen me stay foster family
two-hour drive stay week Sunday Friday
enter deaf oral program
us deaf kids gather-together learn-learn speech
signing forbidden
program t-a-p-i-o-l-a school
road {circle-around} short-distance there trees
us deaf kids r-e-c-e-s-s gather-together
gesture-gesture point-point-each-other
back-then not-know sign
but hands know inside finish
voice turn-off must sign something
then one day s-e-p-t deaf girl d-a-r-l-e-n-e
pop-up herself student classroom next-door
older deaf students there
us young deaf them older deaf mingle r-a-r-e-l-y
interact r-e-c-e-s-s that-all
d-a-r-l-e-n-e me-think seven years older
sit next-me school b-u-s wait go f-i-e-l-d trip
where ? me-forget now
but anyway teachers not there
d-a-r-l-e-n-e look-me-eye
glasses {cat-eyes} sign something
not-understand she oh-oh {mouth-mouth} word
both {points to mouth} “both”
look-up her-face me-jaw-drop why?
she-break rule sign-sign!
finish me want stay-with-her
learn-learn secret sign-sign escape hearing people
Back then I’d already grasped the language
of strangeness among hearing people
who used their mouths and sounds to communicate.
My twin hearing aids strapped onto my chest
amplified their mysterious laughter at the dinner table.
I didn’t want to speak but I was a lonely boy
felt driven to please and appease all those
hearing adults who looked down on me
and shook their heads out of pity.
Then I had to stay with a foster family
two hours away from home during the week
so I could participate a special program
designed to make deaf children learn
how to speak. Sign language was forbidden.
Beyond the road that circled Tapiola School
was a small cluster of evergreens
where we deaf kids congregated in recess,
gesturing and pointing at each other.
We didn’t know Sign back then,
but our hands were already fighting to say
something meaningful beyond our voices.
Then came along a deaf girl named Darlene
on a cold September day. She was a student
in the classroom for older deaf students
next door to ours. We younger kids never
interacted much with them outside of recess.
Probably seven years older than I was, she sat
next to me on the school bus for a field trip
waiting to go somewhere—I forget where—
but our teachers weren’t with us
for a few minutes. She looked into my eyes
with her solid cat-eyes and signed something
I didn’t understand. Then she mouthed the word
as her V-hand slid down the short tunnel
of her other hand: “both.” I looked up
at her smirking face. She’d broken the law!
Forevermore I would become that accomplice
itching to break into the vault of Sign.
—Raymond Luczak (Tab Journal)