Burn Down the Ground Read online

  “I know!” I huffed. Her warnings were almost solely directed at me, as if David could be trusted and my history as a motor-mouth would get them busted.

  In late July, my mother drove David and me to Weiner’s, a discount clothing store in Conroe, to put some school clothes on layaway. Leaving the store without my new jeans and shirts was an enormous disappointment, as torturous as waiting for Christmas morning after the tree had been up for two weeks. In the meantime, she let out the hems of our too-short jeans and ironed denim patches on the knees to cover the holes. Every week, she stopped by Weiner’s to make an installment payment.

  Mom had found full-time work assembling electronic communications panels at HeliFlight Systems in Cut and Shoot, a town in east Montgomery County that, according to local legend, got its name in 1912 during a community dispute involving the town’s only church. During the debate, an eight-year-old boy grew frightened and supposedly cried out, “I’m going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes in a minute!” The boy’s statement stuck and thus the name was born.

  Even with Mom’s income, money was tight, so professional haircuts were out of the question. Using salon scissors, she gave me a wedge haircut in our trailer’s kitchen. I wanted to look like my idol, Olympic ice skater Dorothy Hamill. I was so enamored with the gold medalist that I spent hours practicing her skating moves in a corner of our living room, sliding around on the carpet in my socks and a leotard. But Mom’s chop job was unsuccessful. After nearly an hour sitting still at the kitchen table, I came out looking more like Moe from The Three Stooges.

  My brother didn’t fare much better. He got his trim from my father. Dad must have tipped back one too many Coors Lights that day because a sober man could see that was no straight line that crossed my brother’s forehead. The edge more closely resembled the curved and jagged coastline of Texas.

  Since the school bus wouldn’t come down Boars Head—the bridge built with railroad ties was too unstable—my brother and I had to walk the half mile to the hairpin turn where the wooden “Boars Head” sign hung from the tree. A homely black Lab mix named Taffy accompanied us. She became ours after a neighbor abandoned her when they moved to Dallas. Taffy flopped on her back when anyone came near, revealing swollen breasts, bumpy, pendulous nipples, and a belly full of ticks and fleas. She followed David and me to the bus stop just about every morning then disappeared into the woods, returning to the back porch a day or two later.

  We had no choice but to trudge along with our heavy book bags in the oppressive heat and humidity. Unlike Houston, where our schools were within a few blocks of our home, we were now more than an hour’s drive away, longer when you added all the stops. Even in late summer, it was early enough to still be dark outside as we waited for the morning school bus with the handful of children who’d emerged from the woods. I recognized just two of the boys, Chris and Billy King. I had glimpsed them downhill from the spot where we’d planted our garden earlier in the summer, but I’d been too busy working to make friends with them.

  This would be my first time riding a bus and neither David nor I had seen our new schools—my fifth one in four years. I would soon learn that there was an unwritten hierarchy to the seating on Bus #9. The youngest kids and social rejects sat in front under the protective eye of our bus driver, Mrs. Buttercase, or Mrs. Butterball as the older kids called her behind her back. The rear seats, the most revered, allowed for privacy from her prying eyes and ears. They had the added bonus that when the bus hit one of the dirt road’s many bumps, their occupants were flung out of the green vinyl benches, sometimes high enough to hit the ceiling. The boring hour-and-a-half-long trip turned into a thrill ride, with us laughing, cheering, and begging Mrs. Buttercase to drive faster over the next big bump.

  The older and more popular you were, the closer to the back you were allowed to sit. At twelve years old, David would become a member of the bus royalty, a position he held for the duration of our time on Boars Head.

  The riders on the bus ranged from five to eighteen years old. Out of the fifteen, there were only two other girls: Haley Miller and Tammy Sverck. Haley was a delicate thing who looked younger than her seven years and spoke in a whisper, although she rarely talked. Tammy, David’s age, was only interested in talking about boys and baton twirling.

  The King brothers were closest to my age. They sat in the seats right behind Mrs. Buttercase. They lived in a junky mobile home a few hundred yards downhill from ours, making them nearest in distance, too. Chris was older than me, but after failing two years he wound up in my class. The front part of his greasy, dirty blond hair stuck up in a cowlick like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals, and he had odd facial tics, smelled like urine, and bullied kids half his age.

  Billy was a scrawny, blue-eyed boy with naturally curly bright blond hair. He could be observed on Bus #9 sucking his thumb while simultaneously picking his nose with his index finger. On occasion, he’d stop to lick his index finger clean before going back to mine for more boogers.

  Who was I to judge? I wasn’t known for brushing my teeth or wearing clean underwear. I had loathed washing up ever since the onset of the nightly horse trough bath and tick check ritual and did what I could to avoid bathing altogether. I showered only when commanded, which averaged about once a week. I had nobody else; the King brothers would have to do.

  On my second day as a third grader, the principal sent me from class to class to teach students the ASL alphabet. David and I were proud of our Deaf heritage, and we weren’t afraid to talk about it. We’d tell people right off the bat, and we’d sign to each other on the bus. I don’t know if it was because we were in a small community, but having deaf parents made us special. Montgomery had nothing going on. We were unique.

  Teaching the other kids ASL made transitioning to the new school easier. By the end of my first week, every kid knew me and asked me to help with their signing skills. I was even put in charge of teaching a group of girls an ASL version of “Silent Night” for the annual Christmas pageant. Excited to sing in sign language, just like my mother had at the Deaf bowling tournament, I practiced in front of a mirror every chance I could. Because of Mom’s experience, I asked her to tutor me on hard phrases like “round yon virgin,” knowledge that I passed on to my pupils.

  On opening night, the school cafeteria was transformed into a theater with the unfolding of a portable stage. The room was packed, with parents, students, and teachers overflowing into the hall. I took my position at center stage and led the girls in signing the hymn in ASL as a chorus sang behind us. I saw my parents standing in the back glowing. I tried not to let them distract me, seeing them so proud, but I was exhilarated to be in the spotlight. At the end they applauded the longest and loudest.

  “Beautiful,” Dad signed over the crowd, as I took my bows.

  Our ASL interpretation was a showstopper and was so memorable that my classmates never fail to recall the event. Thirty years later, I was in Houston and saw one of my former classmates who, without hesitation, performed the song flawlessly in ASL from start to finish.

  After the show, I was excited to introduce my teacher to my parents. I wanted to hear her talk about what a great job I had done. When she discovered that my father was not working because of a knee injury, my teacher asked him to volunteer as a chaperone for our class field trip. He looked amused, but agreed. “Sure, I can do that,” he said. I squealed a pitch so high Mom thought her hearing aids were malfunctioning.

  I counted down the days until the outing finally arrived. I spent the whole field trip interpreting questions for Dad from my classmates. Like paparazzi chasing a celebrity, they swarmed in a circle around us as he and I walked hand in hand. I beamed with pride.

  After the trip, Dad drove my two new friends, Shana and Stacey, home. Like most new people I meet, they quizzed me about life with a deaf parent. “My brother and I can do anything we want and my daddy won’t hear a thing,” I bragged.

  Stacey seemed skeptical. “How
do you know he’s really deaf? What if he’s pretending?”

  “Here, watch this.” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “SHIT!”

  Dad gave me an inquisitive glance. My shrieks inside the metal cab of the Chevy must have given his ears a piercing shock. Shana and Stacey froze and their eyes grew wide with fear. My father just grinned and looked back at the road ahead.

  The girls and I burst into heaving laughter. We caught our breath and they joined me in screaming, “BITCH! SHIT! ASSHOLE!” Dad grinned with eyebrows raised in suspicion. I could bet money that he knew exactly what we were up to, but still he just smiled and kept driving so as not to spoil our fun.

  “Your daddy is the best!”

  “Yeah, he’s so cool!”

  They didn’t have to tell me. I already knew.

  The pride I had for my father was reinforced every school day when Bus #9 rounded the corner to drop off the older kids at Montgomery Junior High. A row of shanty houses was directly across the street from the school. The dwellings were so tiny and dilapidated that I would have thought they were abandoned if not for the fresh laundry hanging from the clotheslines. Most of the shacks had broken windows, some haphazardly boarded up. Porches were collapsed, structures tilted, and roofs were patched like quilts.

  Often, I stared at them from the bus window, wondering who lived there and imagining how tough their lives must be. Seeing such extreme poverty, I thanked God I wasn’t so unfortunate.

  These tumbledown houses helped put everything my father had done on Boars Head into perspective. Dad was smart and skilled. He had managed to provide us with water, plumbing, and electricity and I was certain he’d never allow us to live like these poor folks.

  My father’s accomplishments on Boars Head over the past year and a half were extraordinary. And when a young man driving a large truck filled with sand caused the bridge on Boars Head to collapse, he became a superhero.

  The loss of the bridge stopped all traffic in and out of Boars Head. We were stranded. Dad immediately took charge. Unknown neighbors emerged from the hidden recesses of that forest. Most of them had never seen a deaf person, but they trusted my father as a leader capable of ensuring their survival.

  After clearing the wreckage and disassembling the remains of the bridge, Dad designed a new one and constructed it with more modern, solid materials. Members of the neighborhood pooled funds together to pay for the supplies and Mom photographed every step of the process so we’d have evidentiary proof of this catastrophic event and epic recovery. Once the framework and metal rods were in place, a ton of concrete was poured and evenly spread. When it was almost dry, Dad signed one corner with his name and the year, 1980. As long as we lived there, I proudly pointed out the signature to anyone who visited. If they were skeptical, I had the pictures to prove it.

  The Army Corps of Engineers inspected Dad’s handiwork and deemed it capable of holding up to a thirty-thousand-pound load. The new overpass changed our lives. It opened up the remote area to more comforts that other people took for granted. Dad’s bridge connected our private hideaway to the world. Years later, it allowed the passage of oil tankers and drilling equipment.

  But back in the spring of 1980, the new bridge meant that Bus #9 could drive down Boars Head. We were spared the long slog to the bus stop at the crack of dawn and the afternoon trudge home in the blistering Texas heat.

  By building that bridge, my father became a living legend both on Boars Head and among my friends. But every hero has his weakness. For Dad it was his deafness, and the hearing world held the kryptonite.

  One afternoon, Dad and I were on an errand in Conroe and I suggested we stop at the Pizza Inn.

  “No! We will NEVER eat there, EVER!” my father signed. His eyes became angry slits as he mouthed the word “EVER” through clenched teeth and lips pinched so tight they turned white.

  “You want pizza? We’ll go to Pizza Hut instead.”

  “But Pizza Inn is the same!” I argued as he circled the town in search of a Pizza Hut. “Why can’t we just eat there?” I didn’t see the point in rejecting one over another when they were practically identical, even down to their red roofs.

  “Because,” my father signed, “they had me arrested.”

  “Arrested? Why?”

  “Why? For nothing!” Dad pulled into a Pizza Hut parking lot and turned off the ignition. “On my way home from a construction site, I stopped in for dinner and a beer. The next thing I knew I felt a tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes and saw a policeman standing over me. I was tired from long hours of work and fell asleep in the booth. Why didn’t the waiter or manager try to wake me? Why send a cop? They said I was passed out and arrested me. I wasn’t drunk; I was sleeping.”

  The story was infuriating. Even though I was a child, I was convinced that if I had been with him that day I would have been able to prevent the whole misunderstanding.

  “They didn’t even bother trying to talk to me because I am deaf. They discriminate!”

  I nodded my head in agreement. I knew that some people treated deaf people differently. While staying with my maternal grandparents during one summer vacation, I befriended a girl named Tina, who lived next door. I asked my grandmother if she could spend the night.

  “Sure,” Grandma Worth signed. “She can have dinner with us if she wants. We’re frying catfish Grandpa caught.”

  Excitedly, I called Tina and was disappointed when she told me her mother wouldn’t permit it.

  “How come?” I whined.

  “ ’Cause your grandparents are deaf.”

  I was dumbfounded and pressed her for an explanation. Tina said her mother was concerned about what might happen in case of an emergency.

  “Well we can hear and your house is just right next door,” I rebutted.

  “It’s dangerous to have children in a house without any hearing people,” she said, parroting what she had probably heard her mother say. “What if they had a heart attack or the place caught fire?”

  My face started to burn. Tina’s house was barely fifteen feet from ours. Help was right there. Besides, my brother and I stayed home alone all the time. Having two adults with us, deaf or not, was more supervision than usual.

  During dinner, my grandmother asked why Tina wasn’t with us.

  “She’s grounded,” I lied. There was no use making her feel bad because Tina’s mother was ignorant.

  When my father was arrested at Pizza Inn, his older hearing sister Edith was visiting us from Oklahoma. She was staunchly religious and her icy cold stare could scare Satan himself. Accompanying Mom to bail Dad out of jail was as offensive to her as Darwin’s theory of evolution. “Does this happen often?” she primly asked Mom.

  “Oh no! Never!” Mom replied, sticking to my father’s version of the facts. “He wasn’t passed out; he was just tired from working overtime.” But my mother wasn’t telling the whole story. She conveniently left out the fact that Dad, alone, had downed a full pitcher of beer. Not only was he passed out drunk in public, but this had happened before, just never at Pizza Inn.

  My mother could paint a rosy picture. While my father would tell a lie to dig out of trouble, my mother liked to pretend that everything was in order by slanting the truth. She protected her own image by keeping her husband’s problems private.

  A week after Edith returned to Oklahoma, cash and checks arrived in the mail from my father’s family, though no one said anything about Dad’s public drunkenness and arrest. “We don’t need money,” Mom sniffed. “But we’ll take it. Heck, if they’re just giving it away.”

  When Dad’s court date arrived, Mom called in sick to work so she could serve as his interpreter. Her poise and eloquent speech seemed to sway the judge and he tossed out the charges. The ruling granted my father smug satisfaction that he was right. Pizza Inn was overrun with discriminating bastards and had him arrested because he was deaf. We never ate at Pizza Inn again, with or without Dad.

  Before school recessed for Christmas
break in 1980, my fourth-grade teacher gave us an assignment to make a homemade booklet of gifts. Each page was to be dedicated to a member of our family. It was up to us to describe the gift we would present if money were no object. It could be anything, not necessarily something that only came in a box. It could be a hope, a dream, anything.

  I was a dedicated, eager-to-please student and I took the assignment very seriously, giving deep thought to what I would give to my parents and brother. Each page started the same: “If I could give you anything in the world it would be …” I gave my brother “peace.” I gave “happiness” to my mother. And to my father, I gave “the ability to hear.”

  Initially, the thought of sharing my book with my mother excited me. I thought that happiness was something that she would really appreciate. She was always stressed and worried about money. She often complained about needing help around the house. She worked all day and lamented at how exhausted she was from the workload. Sitting at her desk with piles of bills and her checkbook, she sighed heavily and snapped at David or me if we interrupted her.

  My excitement at presenting Mom with her gift began to fade when I considered how my father might react to his. The usual presents he liked were tools, cartons of cigarettes, or a “World’s Best Dad” beer koozie. I worried that he would misinterpret my hypothetical gift. I didn’t want him to think I didn’t like him the way he was.

  After Dad read my present for him, his only reaction was a quick “Thank you.” He looked back down at the page and his chin wrinkled, a sign he was contemplating my wish. He set the booklet on the counter and went into the living room to watch television.

  I was too uncomfortable to ask him how it made him feel, so I asked my mother instead.

  “I’m sure he liked it, Kambri,” she reassured me. “He would finally be able to hear music.”