Tripping the Tale Fantastic Read online

  “What’s that,” the substitute teacher yelled from the ground. “What’s that apple?”

  Rui’s eyes darted back and forth between the teacher and me. I smiled and motioned for him to give it to the teacher. Rui walked up to the teacher and gave him the apple.

  “Oh, for me? Why, thank you. That’s so thoughtful.”

  Rui smiled. The class was quiet.

  “Wow,” I exclaimed. “That’s amazing.”

  A shy smile passed over Meifawn’s face. Working with these kids day in and day out took its toll on her. It wasn’t the kids who made life difficult, though. It was the adults.

  “So what happened with Rui?” I asked. “Did he keep creating?”

  “Oh, yes, ever since then he’s been plucking apples from everywhere. Under desks? Pluck. Behind doors? Inside backpacks? Pluck, pluck, pluck. He pulled an apple out of the turtle. That was so funny!”

  We glanced down; our feet were intertwined. Smiled at each other.

  “But Miss Rose came back today.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yeah. She wasn’t happy about Rui’s apples.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She kept telling Rui to stop playing with apples and to focus on his schoolwork. Every time.”

  I felt heavy and my heart hurt. “Couldn’t she see how important it was to fully express oneself, to create?”

  Meifawn shook her head. “But at the end of the class today, Rui and I both winked at each other, said ‘See you tomorrow.’ Tomorrow we will create more.”

  In front of me, Meifawn put a gnarled orange apple on the table. I smiled and picked it up. It was beautiful.

  And delicious.

  ***

  FAMILY DOG

  Raymond Luczak

  [after Susan Dupor’s painting]

  Dogs hold a lot of power. Most of the time they don’t realize just how much. They are honest about wanting affection, and we give it to them without thinking about it. But humans asking so nakedly for affection from another? Tank was twelve weeks old when he waddled into Stacy’s life ten years ago. She had just turned six, a precarious age when children start to figure out the world isn’t what they’d thought it was. She was starting to realize that strangers on the street, usually friends of her parents, behaved differently around her because she wore hearing aids. They over-enunciated their words, remarked what a little sweet girl she was, and smiled and shook their heads at her while talking with her parents.

  Her father had a friend who bred English bulldogs on the side, and she had one puppy left and offered him to Stacy’s family. Her older sister and brother said, “Awwww!” when they saw the doe-eyed puppy sitting haplessly in the fenced area with his staunch-jawed mother. When Stacy’s father scooped him up and carried the puppy to the car, Sarah and Sam argued on the way who’d get to hold the dog on their trip home. She kept saying, “Oh, he’s so helpless!” and he kept saying, “He’s a boy. He’s tough.”

  Dad said, “Enough of bickering, you two!”

  Sarah and Sam turned quiet when Dad looked at Stacy. “You can hold him.”

  There, on her lap, sat the puppy. His brown eyes looked deep into her eyes, and she knew he would be hers. Didn’t matter if others in her family claimed him as theirs. That night Tank was supposed to sleep in her parents’ bedroom, but because Stacy never wore hearing aids while sleeping, she wouldn’t be bothered by the sound of the clock ticking next to his crate. The sound was supposed to soothe his anxiety of sleeping in a strange place. She watched him from her bed, and even though she was told not to take him out at all, she couldn’t take any more of the suspense. She let him out. He sniffed her hands, rolled over onto his back, and waited for her to stroke his chest. A warm buzz-glow filled her body.

  Every night at dinner Dad and Sarah joked back and forth, and Mom and Sam kibitzed about his college plans. The lights on them were good, but they tilted their heads when they laughed, or one of them covered her mouth while resting her chin in her hand, or everyone laughed all at once. Faces began to blur as Stacy’s eyes tired. Sometimes one of them clapped hands in delight, which distracted her from lipreading. They rarely looked at her or asked if she was following their conversation. Even though she was sixteen, practically a full-grown woman, she was just there. They assumed that she could hear pretty much everything with her hearing aids. It was as if they had expected her to be the world’s best lipreader. No big sweat, right?

  In her bedroom window the shadow of trees rustling in the wind looked like a painting. She could stare at it for hours and feel as if she understood its need to stop trembling for a moment’s reprieve from the wind. She was full of shadow, and no one knew it. She has been hiding it for so long that she forgot too much of it inside her could harm.

  When Stacy asked for clarification during a quick lull in their dinner table conversations, they always said, “It’s too complicated. I’ll tell you later.” Basking in the glow of laughter with others would always trump any communication need of hers. Sometimes she was lucky to get a five-word summary of what they’d been talking so animatedly about for the last five minutes.

  One morning Stacy found it odd that Tank didn’t come trotting to her bed to stick his cold wet nose in her face. She got up and looked for him. At first it looked as if he was just sleeping on his big pillow in the living room. She came closer and realized that he was dead. She touched him on the head, and she felt a spark of ice-cold electricity leap into her veins.

  After her family finished church, Marie Angstrom, a close friend of Stacy’s grandparents, came up to them and regarded them with a beaming smile. “Isn’t it so nice, that all of you are so together as a family? Makes me miss those days when my son was living at home.”

  “Yeah.” Dad tousled Sam’s head. “Won’t be long before he leaves home.”

  Ms. Angstrom walked closer to Stacy and showed a bit more teeth as she spoke. Why is it that hearing people think showing more teeth will make it easier for lipreading when it actually makes things worse? “Stacy, I’m so, so proud of you.”

  Stacy gave a stiff smile.

  “Oh, yes, we all are,” Mom said as she gave her daughter a hug. “She’s done so well.”

  “Amazingly well,” Ms. Angstrom said. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “She’s no trouble, really.”

  They talked about Stacy as if she wasn’t there. I might as well be a dog trained to do a few spectacular tricks at the circus waiting for my next treat, she thought.

  Mom said no when Stacy asked for a ride to the Copper Mall where there would be a gathering of deaf and hard of hearing teenagers from all over the area. She hadn’t believed her luck when she searched online to see if there were get-togethers for people like her, and there was one for this Friday!

  She asked, “Why not?”

  “You have enough friends.”

  “No, I don’t. That’s why I want to go.”

  “But you speak so well.”

  “Mom!”

  “It’s too far away, and there’s that Friday afternoon traffic.”

  “You’ve never had a problem picking up Sam at six o’clock after he finishes football practice, so ... ?”

  “Stacy. Please. Just because you’re deaf doesn’t mean that you get special favors.”

  “When have I ever requested anything special?”

  “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”

  But of course, later never came.

  In school she thought about Tank. He always liked to stay under the dinner table. Even though Sarah and Sam tried to tempt him with crumbs and scraps from the table, he never left her side at mealtimes. He would lay on his back and expect her to rub her socked feet all over his chest while she ate. When she didn’t do that, he sat right next to her and rested his head against her legs. His heavy breathing sometimes tickled her.

  She cried during lunch when she realized what he had been trying to tell her all along: I’m still here. I’m not forgetting yo
u.

  Mom and Dad said no when she asked if they could get another dog.

  Her school was a mile and half away from the Copper Mall. On Friday, Stacy decided to skip the bus ride home and hurry straight to the mall. The trees, filled with orange, red, and yellow leaves, swayed above her. They seemed as excited as she was.

  She took the two escalators up to the third floor where the food court, surrounded by fast food joints, was filled with many tables and chairs. At 3:30 in the afternoon, there weren’t many people eating there, but she caught sight of a group of teenagers signing at one end. She stopped briefly. She hadn’t anticipated that. She expected they would use their voices and hearing aids just like her.

  A long-haired girl with barrettes in her hair smiled at her. She waved hello.

  Stacy glanced around herself. She was waving her over? She wove through the maze of tables toward the other girl and her friends.

  Even though the other girl, Marianne, was deaf and used sign language, she was surprisingly easy to understand. She used a notepad and pen for their conversation, and she introduced Stacy to Eugenie, a girl with a cochlear implant who also knew sign language. She seemed to speak as well as Stacy did, so Stacy started learning about the deaf community. She was amazed that anyone could understand so much about what it was like not to hear well. It was the first time in her life that she didn’t feel alone.

  It was already nine o’clock by the time they left. The security guard crudely gestured to them and over-enunciated each word directing them to leave as the mall had to close. Suddenly famished, Stacy realized she’d forgotten to buy something to eat there. She couldn’t believe how easy it had been to make new friends, and that her hearing aids weren’t an issue. She had learned her first signs: “deaf,” “hearing,” “family.” It felt strange to use her hands so openly like that when she’d been taught not to behave differently from anyone. She was indeed deaf.

  Everyone exchanged text numbers and email addresses, and agreed to meet again the following Friday.

  As Stacy rode home in Eugenie’s car, the trees, haloed from the lights lining the street, looked as if on fire. I know I’ll catch holy hell tonight, she thought, but I don’t care. Tonight she had learned that she was not alone feeling frustrated with her family, and this piece of knowledge had given her an armor of invincibility.

  When she entered the house, she was surprised to find Mom, Dad, Sarah, and Sam sitting in the living room. They jumped up and talked all at once when they entered.

  Stacy said, “Stop! I can lipread only one person at a time.”

  Mom said, “Why didn’t you call? We were so worried about you!”

  “You said you couldn’t give me a ride home from Copper Mall, so I went over there on my own and met some new friends.”

  “What new friends?”

  “Well, Eugenie—she gave me a ride home. She’s deaf like me.”

  “You shouldn’t have—”

  “You said we’d talk about this later, but you really didn’t want to talk about it at all. There’s no ‘later’ with you, Mom, or anyone! Fuck this shit.”

  Everyone looked mortified. They’d never heard her use a four-letter word before.

  “I’m sixteen years old. I’m not a kid anymore!”

  “Stacy! Don’t talk back to your mother. Ever!”

  She gave her father a dirty look.

  Without using her voice, she signed to everyone: “Good night.”

  Everyone looked aghast. She had been long forbidden to use signs. It was supposed to ruin her speech. What a joke. They simply don’t want me to look different.

  In that moment she realized that silence was her best weapon.

  That night she dreamed of weaving through a thick and gnarly forest. The footpath was small, but each footprint indentation felt instantly familiar. Someone else had already walked in her shoes. Knowing that others ahead had paved her way to them filled her with joy. She no longer felt afraid of getting lost here. Everywhere she looked exploded with countless shades of green. Lichen, plastered against the tree bark, dribbled down with pastel hues. Birds of many kinds darted in and out, each wing a needle sewing the fabric of rustling branches. The strain of misunderstanding left her shoulders, and she felt light as a sparrow.

  The next day was Saturday, which meant lasagna night. She made garlic bread with a little bit of parsley sprinkled on top. It turned out perfectly with a hint of brown on the crust.

  As Dad doled out a helping for each person, everyone started yammering as before. Sam’s guidance counselor had recommended that Sam apply to yet another new college, and Sarah had learned two new songs in cheerleading practice earlier that day.

  Stacy could not take any more of this. Being with hearing strangers who didn’t know anything about deafness was one thing, but her family should’ve known better. They would already know how to accommodate her. Stacy said, “Hello?”

  No one seemed to hear her amidst their babble.

  She raised her voice. “Hello?”

  Sarah turned to her. “What?”

  “I’m here. Don’t ignore me when you’re talking with each other.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes.

  “Wow,” she nearly shouted. “I didn’t realize that I’m too much work for you.”

  Dad said, “What’s going on?”

  “Can you please look at me when you’re talking with each other so I can lipread?”

  “Oh,” Sam said. “That would feel so ... weird.”

  “What’s weird is that I have to keep asking you.”

  “It’s those ... deaf friends of yours, is it?” Mom asked. “They’re a bad influence on you.”

  “Not really. I want to feel included here.”

  “Stacy,” Mom said. “Not everything we say is important.”

  “Shut up, then.”

  Dad gave her a cold stare. “Don’t. Ever. Talk. That. Way. To. Your. Mother.”

  “Don’t. Talk. That. Way. To. Me. I. Am. Deaf!”

  Mom and Sarah gasped, and Sam tried to hide his laughter.

  She stood up and left the table.

  Stacy was surprised when neither Mom nor Dad asked to come into her room for a sit-down talk later that evening. Maybe they had carried on as before, speculating about her growing insolence. She tried to sleep, but it was difficult. Her head buzzed with the question of how she would be punished. But she managed to fall asleep.

  In the fog of dawn she was jolted by a cold but familiar sensation on her face. She turned to see what it was. The ghost of Tank was nudging her awake. He licked her forehead once and trotted to her bedroom door. He wanted to be let out of her room. She followed his ghost as she walked down the steps to the kitchen where everyone was making breakfast and chattering happily among themselves.

  “Good morning.”

  Everyone turned to look at her. They yelped in shock when they saw Tank’s ghost standing near her.

  “Tank! Is that really Tank?”

  The bulldog, wagging his tail, looked up at her with askance. He had always loved running to each person for a big hello. She had missed the way his thick paws oomphed on her thighs when he greeted her after school.

  She nodded consent.

  He waddled to each one and jumped up to their thighs as if to ask for a hello-pat on his head. Blue lightning sparked between them. He moved from one person to another so quickly that no one had time to react to what happened next. Stacy was flabbergasted when each person poofed into an ugly mutt. Her family was now a pack of dogs with no discernible features of a certain breed. She couldn’t tell which one was Mom or Dad or Sarah or Sam. Confused and unused to walking about on four legs, they whimpered. They stumbled toward Stacy, but she said, “No, you stay right there.” She turned off her hearing aids and texted her new friends to come on over now for an all-day gathering at her house and spread the word. Every deaf person in the area was more than welcome to drop by as long as they brought some food.

  Everyone commented on how a
dorable the dogs were in their own way.

  Stacy told them that she’d found them at the local shelter the day before.

  “Nice,” a guest said. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  Stacy saw the look of confusion in these dogs: Who are these strangers coming into our house? Why aren’t we using our voices? They were lost from trying to follow all the hands and wondering why these people were suddenly laughing so hard. Were they poking fun at their predicament? Not at all. But Stacy didn’t say anything to reassure them. Each time a mutt came up to her, as if to demand an explanation, she brushed it away. “Not now. Later.” She returned her attention to her new family, serving them microwaved leftovers and making lots of lemonade.

  Later that night, with the four dogs clustered on the floor around her bed, Stacy dreamed of finding at last a large clearing roofed with generous shade after walking hours through the heavy-misted forest. In that sweet twilight her people, having long dispensed with hearing aids and cochlear implants, sat on fallen logs around a fire and signed with each other, telling each other war stories about their own hearing families. Sitting and resting among their feet were mutts of every size and color. Every so often during their conversations, they commanded their dogs to leap onto their laps for a deep hug and looked into the eyes of their dogs as if to say: I’m still here. I’m not forgetting you.

  ***

  DREADED SILENCE

  A. M. Matte

  I’m never sure what to do with myself when I first materialize. I wonder if I should strike a pose. Or find a suitable vantage point from which to perch.