Burn Down the Ground Page 7

My father hated being deaf. To this day, he dreams about getting a cochlear implant, an electronic device that can help the profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing hear. There are two components to the implant. One part is the microphone, sound processor, and transmitter, worn externally on the scalp. The other is the implanted receiver and electrode system, which is surgically inserted under the skin behind one ear.

  The Deaf community is divided on the use of cochlear implants. Many deaf people don’t perceive their hearing loss to be a handicap, but a cultural identity. That’s why the d in “Deaf” is capitalized when referencing the community, while a lowercase d for “deaf” means the inability to hear. The Deaf have their own language, arts, churches, and universities. Because of this, they are strongly bonded through shared history and life experiences, and view themselves as a distinct society.

  Implying that implants are necessary is labeling deafness as a defect that must be corrected. In actuality, a deaf person’s ability to live a full life is not compromised by their hearing impairment. It simply requires making a few accommodations.

  The contentious debate has some going so far as to say that implants are nothing short of cultural genocide, fearing that the devices will render the Deaf community and ASL extinct. Most deaf children are born to hearing parents who often choose implants without first learning about Deaf society. After being implanted, deaf children are often not taught ASL, which fuels the fear that the community will die.

  Others in the Deaf community view implants as a matter of personal choice. Since the devices don’t cure deafness, but merely restore some sense of sound, deaf people will continue to exist and ASL will remain a necessary and vital language. Opting for an implant is capitalizing on the advances in technology. Parents who elect to have the surgery for their underage children want to give their children advantages and choices. Even with implants, the device is “optional” and can be turned off at any time. And their opinion is that a child can always be taught ASL at a later age.

  Dad viewed implants as no different as wearing glasses to correct his vision. To him, an implant would be like a really powerful hearing aid and he wanted one. But in 1980, cochlear implants were rare and expensive. The cost of one today averages forty thousand dollars and is often not covered by insurance. For my father, this meant an implant wasn’t even an option.

  Like any deaf person, he was very proud and didn’t want to be treated like he was stupid or inadequate. He portrayed himself as too cool to be spoken to, and thus avoided rejection.

  My father strode through stores with a swagger. When greeted by a cashier, he’d wink and flash a mischievous grin. With his good looks, he usually made the counter girl clam up and blush. If they needed to ask him a question, though, he had to explain. He’d point to his ear and shake his head, “No.”

  Since Mom was able to hear, she could share things like music and movies with David and me. Dad was undoubtedly frustrated by this. When we shopped for a second car, he refused to pay for a radio as an added option. Every other kid at school had nice cars with air-conditioning and radios, so I pressed him for an explanation.

  “Why should I pay extra for something I can’t hear?”

  Dad’s reason annoyed me. I agreed that it wasn’t fair that he couldn’t enjoy music, but we lived in a democracy. My mother, David, and I represented the majority, Mom raked in a good portion of our family’s income, and we wanted a radio. Why didn’t her opinion count? But Dad was such a strong leader and I so desperately wanted to please him that I chose not to protest, and neither did Mom.

  Our enjoyment of music wasn’t the only thing that separated Dad from his family. On rainy weekends, Mom drove David and me to the six-screen movie theater in Conroe. Horror movies were our favorites, so we planned our trip to see films like Carrie, Halloween, and every Friday the 13th movie.

  In the early 1980s, there was no such thing as closed captioning in movie theaters, and even today the showings are limited in big cities and rarely offered in rural communities. Rather than join us for the movie marathons, Dad stayed behind to work on the Chevy or watch football by himself.

  Despite public options being limited, he was still able to enjoy movies with us privately. My parents’ deaf friends, the Sloans, liked to borrow films with English subtitles from the public library or their Deaf club in Houston, and they showed them on a wall in the living room using a 16 mm reel-to-reel projector. But the selection was limited, so they often chose titles that were highly inappropriate for us kids, such as The Exorcist. I know full-grown adults who shudder at the mere mention of the movie, but I don’t. I laugh at the memory of a screening in the Sloans’ makeshift theater.

  I was just five years old when I curled up on a couch under a scratchy blanket in their living room ready to watch what I thought would be an exciting horror movie. When the film opened with an archaeology scene set in a Middle Eastern desert, I quickly grew bored and fell asleep by the end of the opening credits. Soon I was jolted awake at the frightening sound of Linda Blair talking in the voice of Satan.

  Things got worse for Linda. Her head spun; she levitated and found herself covered in crusty sores. To everyone’s shock, Linda Blair began stabbing herself in her crotch with a crucifix. Dad and Peter did a double take while Mom and Linda shielded their faces in horror. I ducked under my blanket and plugged my ears. Suddenly, Skip’s piercing screams broke the tension. “Fuh meh! Fuh meh! Fuh meh!”

  I peeked out from under the blanket and saw Skip writhing on the shag carpeting assaulting his crotch with an imaginary cross.

  My brother doubled over with laughter, then joined in shouting between gulps of air, “Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!”

  Their antics sent me into a tizzy. They were such a welcome comic relief that I jumped up and down on the sofa, laughing and cheering as the spasmodic boys wiggled around on the floor. The shrieking and laughter got Mom’s attention. She scolded, “David, you cut that out!” She waved her arms to alert Dad and smacked her hands together hard as she signed, “Make him stop!”

  Pleasantly stoned, Dad, Linda, and Peter were pretty amused by the boys’ antics. Mom, however, judging by the look on her face, was not. She was the only adult able to hear David’s and Skip’s repeated profanities. “They’re cussing! I don’t like them being dirty! Make them stop!”

  “DEHVIH!” Dad screeched with a pitch so high it could have broken glass. “You want me to get my belt to spank you?” The threat was adequate. Skip and David scrambled to their feet and I plopped back down on the sofa.

  Like most CODA, David and I had perfected the art of ventriloquism, the ideal way to communicate in front of our parents when we didn’t want them to know what we were saying. We became so adept at talking without moving our lips that we were able to have full secret conversations in their presence. With their attention back to The Exorcist, David, Skip, and I resumed our snickering. With perfectly still lips we mimicked Regan’s self-mutilation, careful to keep our voices low so Mom wouldn’t hear and our hand gestures small so Linda, Peter, and Dad wouldn’t catch sight.

  These private home showings were fun. As I said, public movie theaters were not for Dad. He wasn’t as good as Mom at lip reading and hated relying on anyone to interpret for him, especially his wife and kids.

  Without a radio in the car, David and I made requests for Mom to sing her favorite songs during our forty-five-minute rides to the cinema. Dad was right. We didn’t need a radio. We rotated who sang backup lyrics but most times the three of us sang at the top of our lungs, turning our car into a jukebox on wheels.

  I begged Mom to sing “Teen Angel,” a classic song from 1960 about a girl who was hit by a train. I liked it because it reminded me of a story my mother often told about her deaf uncle, Bobby, who was my grandmother’s twin brother. He and five other deaf passengers were killed when the car they were riding in was struck by a train. The lights and gates at a railroad crossing had failed. “They never heard it coming,” Mom lamented.
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  Once we got to the theater, Mom bought us each a single matinee ticket. We loaded up on soda, popcorn, plain M&M’s, and big sour dill pickles wrapped in wax paper and plotted our show schedule.

  Plan in hand, the three of us spent the day sneaking from one theater to another in the multiplex, waiting for the coast to be clear before dashing inside where darkness concealed us.

  On the long ride home we laughed, rehashed the movies, and, of course, sang our impromptu songs with delight. Movie days were bonding times but my father was left out in the cold.

  Dad didn’t like our inside jokes or secrets that he didn’t understand. Like when we watched the evening news that featured investigative news pieces by Marvin Zindler, a flashy reporter with white hair and blue-tinted eyeglasses. Zindler had gained worldwide notoriety for closing down the Chicken Ranch, a house of prostitution that later became known as “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” Mom, David, and I loved to join in as Zindler shouted his signature sign-off, “MAAARVIN ZINNNNDLER EYYYYYYEWITNESS NEWS!”

  Seeing us laughing and mouthing in unison piqued my father’s curiosity. “What?” he signed. “What’d you say?”

  Dad thought we were keeping secrets or plotting behind his back. He was visibly annoyed and frustrated and he didn’t want to be played the fool because of his deafness. When we all spoke without using sign language, he was threatened. We knew it was rude, but sometimes it was just faster to dismiss him when we were discussing something that didn’t concern him.

  I felt a pang of guilt seeing the curiosity and hurt on Dad’s face when I brushed him off with a quick sign of “Nothing.” How could I describe a funny voice to my father who had never heard a voice to begin with? It was easier to let Mom explain. I shrugged my shoulders and did just that.

  I was part of the hearing world. I held the kryptonite, too.

  HALF BAKED

  Despite being deep in the woods, my parents became the same social butterflies they’d been back in Houston. Their first few years on Boars Head had been filled with lots of hard work. In addition to their full-time jobs, they developed and maintained our acreage, planted and sustained a garden, and kept Mom’s landscaping in tip-top shape.

  As busy as they were, they still found time to play. There were no clubs or associations for the Deaf within a sixty-mile radius of our trailer, but they made plenty of friends at a nightclub they frequented in Conroe. I was ten when, in October 1981, my parents decided to host a Halloween party and invited their favorite co-workers and barflies.

  As we cleaned the trailer Mom gave me forewarning: “Some women that are coming tonight are lesbians.” On the word lesbians she dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper. “Do you know what a lesbian is?”

  I blushed and nodded. I had known what the word meant ever since I asked Dad for “lesbian” money instead of lunch money one morning before school. American Sign Language is far more complicated and nuanced than hearing people may believe. ASL uses hand signs along with facial expressions and body language to convey a rich variety of words and phrases.

  Finger spelling, in which fingers are used for signing one letter at a time, is generally used for communicating proper names and other words for which no hand sign exists. Contrary to what some people may think, ASL allows deaf people to quickly communicate thoughts, emotions, and feelings to others in the Deaf community.

  But a slight change to a sign can change its meaning—much like a typo on a keyboard—and prompt the occasional mistake from a ten-year-old.

  Dad had burst into laughter upon seeing me sign, “I need lesbian money.”

  “You mean ‘lunch’ money?” he asked, and signed “lunch” by forming an L with his thumb and index finger and tapped his thumb on his chin. “You said ‘lesbian.’ ” He mimicked my mistake by taking the same L shape and placing the fatty part between his thumb and index finger on his chin. “Lesbian means a gay woman.” A simple switch of my wrist and placement of the ASL letter “L” could have avoided the awkward lesson in gal-on-gal copulation.

  I mulled over Mom’s news that lesbians would be at our Halloween party and said, “To each his own.” A phrase I heard her say whenever any scandalous gossip was bandied about during Deaf events.

  “That’s right.” Mom smiled. “To each his own.”

  To prepare for the party, David and I turned his bedroom into a funhouse. We filled our old metal bathtub with apples for bobbing and put boiled spaghetti, chunks of Jell-O, and grapes into shoe boxes and aquariums. My friends Chris and Billy King stuck their hands in to feel the mushy food while David narrated in a spooky voice with a flashlight under his chin. “You are touching my braaains. That is my heart! Ooooohhhhh! Those are my eyeballllllls!” Dad’s addition to the decorations included a homemade wooden coffin.

  My parents dressed up like vampires with ghoulish white faces and blood dripping from the corners of their mouths. My mother wore a long red wig that she stowed in her nightstand and a skin-hugging, floor-length black dress. My father slicked his hair and wore a black cape. When they posed for pictures, Dad wore plastic fangs and pretended to suck the blood out of Mom’s neck. They looked amazing.

  “Kambri, these are the ladies I was telling you about,” signed Mom when the four members of the rock band KISS arrived. I was stunned.

  “Hello,” I whispered, offering my hand for a shake and staring wide-eyed. They looked so authentic that if Mom hadn’t told me they were women, I would have sworn the real KISS had hired a private jet to crash our party on Boars Head.

  “Gene Simmons” had a really long tongue like the real lead singer and flicked it when anyone came near. A few beers later and “Gene” and “Paul Stanley” were French-kissing. I didn’t know which was wilder: seeing two women being intimate or witnessing the “Demon” and the “Starchild” make out.

  When the bonfire we had built died down, the party moved inside. We pushed the furniture out of the living room and everyone sat in a big circle on the floor. I squeezed in between two costumed guests while Mom took her place in the center.

  “Hey everybody, listen up! I’m going to teach you a game the Deaf like to play called Elephant.” Mom signed in ASL as she talked. Even though my father was the only deaf person at the party and already knew how to play, she didn’t want to leave him out.

  “All right, I’m gonna start. Everybody have a drink?” A few people hopped up to grab fresh beers as Mom went on with her instructions.

  “I stand in the center and turn in circles. When I stop, I’ll point to someone. If that person is you, then you have to put both your fists on your nose in the shape of a trunk, see?” She demonstrated stacking her fists on her nose. “If you’re sitting on either side of him, then you have to make the elephant ears by putting your hand up to the ear of the person I pointed at. Get it?”

  A few people weren’t paying attention or were too drunk and grumbled they needed instructions one more time.

  “Okay, Kambri, you can help me show them how to play.” Mom started spinning in circles. “I turn and turn and turn, then stop!” She pointed at me and I quickly put one fist in front of the other on my nose.

  “Jerry, you put your hand up to Kambri’s ear.” The mummy to my left did as he was told.

  “Dee Dee, you’re supposed to make Kambri’s other ear, but you gotta be fast or you’re out of the game. Got it?” The Raggedy Ann to my right nodded.

  Our Deaf party game was a hit. People screamed and laughed when they messed up and screamed and laughed when they got it right. Dad lit a joint and passed it around the circle of players while the onlookers passed around our bong.

  When the joint made it to Dee Dee, she took a hit and then handed it to me. Realizing she was handing it to a kid, she quickly pulled it back. “Oh! Sorry!” She coughed and tried to hold in the smoke, but some blew right in my face.

  “It’s okay.” I pinched the joint between my fingers and passed it to Jerry, who didn’t think anything of it. Even though I didn’t take a h
it, the living room was thick with marijuana smoke. I felt dizzy and my mouth felt like I had eaten a sack of flour. To quench my thirst, I stole sips of beer out of half-empty cans that dotted the trailer. Dad always let me take the first gulp of his Coors Light as a reward for fetching him a fresh one. I definitely preferred my beer cold, but these sips were refreshing, and the rest of the night became a blur.

  “I think she’s high,” Jerry said. “Hey, Kambri, smile!” The flash of his camera hurt my eyes, so I pinched them shut and reeled back. Jerry cracked up and said, “Oh, yeah, she’s baked outta her mind.”

  The next morning my mother’s impatient voice jolted me awake. “Come on, lazy bones! Time to get up!” Mom flashed my bedroom light on and off like they did at Deaf school to wake the kids. “Come on, let’s go. Come help me find my necklace.”

  My tongue felt like sandpaper. I rubbed it with my finger, feeling each taste bud. I then peeled off a chunk of dried Juicy Fruit I had stuck to my bedpost and put it in my mouth. Outside, Mom, Dad, and David were digging through ashes. The screens were off our windows and piled in a stack by the porch steps.

  “Grab a screen from over there and help us look for my rose pendant. You know what it looks like.” I had never seen my mother look so upset. The pendant was part of a set that had matching earrings, and the rose represented June, her birth month.

  “How’d you lose it?”

  “Your daddy threw it.”

  “Why’d he do that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Kambri,” she answered, irritated. She was in no mood to field questions.

  I stepped out onto the front porch, and my father waved me over. My mother was visibly angry, but Dad was unfazed. We didn’t have money to spare, and her fourteen-karat-gold rose had cost at least a few hundred bucks. It would not be easy to replace. My father didn’t seem at all upset or remorseful at having discarded Mom’s treasured possession. In fact, he turned the search into a game.

  “Let me show you.” He shook a screen and signed, “Like California gold digging.”