And she was still one fine-looking mess. Nature may have stolen one of her senses but it left her a number of gifts: perfect skin, a seductive jawline, and what I could only assume was a divine metabolism. She had an incredibly nice body for a woman who sat at her computer all day.
She studied me for a moment, then scribbled into her handheld.
It’s nice to see you.
“Thank you. You, too.”
You ready?
“Where are we going?”
Just trust me. You’re in for a real experience.
She locked the doors and turned off the light. Before pulling away, she closed her eyes and crossed herself. Whether she was really praying or just messing with my head, I didn’t know. She didn’t clue me in. But as always, I had my suspicions.
________________
There’s an electronic device known as an Emergency Response Indicator that picks up the noise from police, fire, and ambulance sirens and signals it to deaf drivers through a series of blinking red lights. It even indicates the proximity of the emergency vehicle. I got to see it in action on the way to our mystery destination. What a magnificent age we lived in. There was clearly no better time to be deaf.
At half past ten we arrived at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, only two blocks south of Harmony’s hotel.
With covert glee, she held my arm and led me through the bustling crowd of pedestrians and street performers. She took me down an alley, between two restaurants, then up an unobtrusive stairwell. There, on the second floor, across from a Greek optometrist’s office, was the entrance to Club Silence.
She adjusted my collar at the door, then retrieved her handheld from her purse.
You are now leaving Earth, she wrote, and entering my world.
She wasn’t kidding. Never in my life had I been to a place where everybody was talking but nobody was saying a word. All throughout the posh little establishment, patrons cut their hands through the air in quick, elegant motions. There didn’t seem to be a single verbal conversation transpiring, yet there was more than enough noise to keep the scene from becoming eerie. The shuffling of clothes. The clapping of hands. The clumps and clods of footsteps. And the normal human interjections: moans, sighs, laughs, cries. I’d never seen anything like it before in my life. I didn’t even have a film or television reference to compare it to. I was completely off-script.
Jean paid my cover charge (she insisted, although I suspected my expression alone was worth the price of admission), then pulled me to a row of small tables on the east side of the room. Fastened onto each surface were numerous laptops linked together by LAN cables.
It cost another ten dollars to score us an hour of table time. We sat across from each other. The setup was very similar to EyeTalk, with one major difference. From behind her screen, Jean threw me a small and mysterious grin. I had no idea what was fueling it. Reading her face was like reading the NASDAQ page. There were too many details. Too much going on.
<So,> she entered, <is your mind sufficiently blown?>
Unlike her, I wasn’t a touch typist. I had to look down at my fingers.
<Yeah. Wow. I didn’t know places like this even existed.>
<Yup. They’re all over. At least they used to be. The Deaf Club’s dying out.>
<Why?>
She shrugged. <High technology, I guess. We have the Internet now. TTY. DVD. Closed-captioned TV. Basically, like the rest of you, we have a lot more excuses to stay home. I haven’t been here in at least two years. Thanks for giving me an excuse.>
<Thanks for bringing me. This is amazing.>
Jean rested her chin on her fist, studying me through a squint. <Tell me, Scott. Why do people find deafness so fascinating? Are they the same way about blindness?>
<No. Blindness is boring as a dog’s ass.>
<I don’t get it. Why?>
<Because Hollywood’s already given us a million blind people. We know they’re all kind-hearted, plucky, super-capable individuals, and we don’t give a shit.>
<But why aren’t there a million deaf people? And when they DO show deaf people, how come they’re always oralists? The oral deaf are an extreme minority.>
<My guess is that nonverbal deaf people, like yourself, are much harder to adapt for the screen.>
Jean raised a skeptical eyebrow at me.
<Look at this,> I wrote, then motioned between us. <Look at us. Come on. We’re both very pretty, but who wants to watch us typing for twenty minutes?>
She made a vast sweep with her hand. <Look around! ASL is a visual language! It’s beautiful to look at. It’s even beautiful on ugly people! Look!>
<I’m looking. I’m agreeing. But even if you show two people signing, even if you show subtitles, there still won’t be any sound.>
<So?>
<So viewers don’t like long periods of silence, especially in the theater. It weirds them out. It causes them to think.>
Jean rolled her eyes. <Remind me not to ask you any more questions.>
<You should be glad they’re leaving you alone. They’d only get you wrong.>
<Me personally?>
I grinned. <Yes. You’re completely unadaptable.>
The overhead lights flashed on and off, until everyone turned to look at the middle-aged man at the switch. He stepped onto a small wooden stage and cheerfully signed to the room for a few moments.
<Well,> I quipped, <I guess we know where he stands on the economy.>
<He’s the club owner. He was basically telling everyone not to go away. There’s a live comedy act starting in a few minutes.>
<I assume that’ll be in sign language too.>
<What can I say, my dear? You’re a stranger in a strange land.>
<That’s okay. I’m loving it.>
She lost a good chunk of her merriment. <It’ll wear thin. Trust me. This was Neil’s life. He was a hearing boy raised in an all-Deaf family. Exact opposite of my upbringing. If I was a fish out of water, he was a bird in the sea.>
<Yeah, but he grew up speaking the language, didn’t he?>
<It’s not the same,> she wrote. <When you can hear, signing just doesn’t take on the same import. There’s only so far a coda can go into the Deaf World. It gave Neil issues, to say the least.>
<Coda. I remember Madison using that word. What does it mean again?>
<Child of Deaf Adults.>
<Right. I guess she’s one too.>
<That’s a big reason my first marriage ended. I didn’t want to raise her at Gallaudet. I didn’t want her to grow up alienated like I was.>
Sarcastically, she shook her fist. <And a BANG-UP job I did, too!>
<I think you’re underestimating her,> I stated.
<Uh, wasn’t it just an hour ago that you feared she was secretly playing me?>
<Yes. I underestimated her. Now that I’ve been proven wrong, I’m preaching the gospel of Madison. I think she’s a wonderful, amazing girl.>
<You’re only getting a fraction of her,> Jean wrote with a heavy face. <With you, she puts her best foot forward.>
Before I could type a word of protest, she cut me off. <Not because she’s in love with you! I think you’re right. I missed the boat on that one, okay? My bad. But you are still the light in her otherwise dreary existence. She idolizes you. Of course she’s going to want to impress you.>