Deaf American Prose: 1980-2010

The Ear

68 Willy Conley The Ear Jessie Sweetwind was out on a five-mile run during a cold twilight evening thinking about her deaf students when she almost stepped on an ear. What caught her eye—and helped make that split-second decision to avoid stepping on it—was the wetness and color of flesh. She continued running, freezing the image in her mind as she made her way up to the top of a hill that marked the run’s halfway point where she would turn around a couple of wooden barrier posts and head back. Should she pass the posts and improvise a new route home or turn around and get a good look at that thing to be sure it wasn’t what she thought it was? A half hour of ambient blue light was left before it would become black. There were no lights along the footpath and the moon hadn’t risen yet. Around and around the posts Jessie ran doing figure eights. Eileen should’ve been with her. She usually accompanied Jessie on these runs to fill her in on various environmental sounds like the babbling brook, a drilling woodpecker, or coupling teenagers. Mainly, Jessie wanted Eileen for security—she was big-boned, taught phys. ed., coached field hockey, and there was no one Jessie would rather have along than a woman who knew how to throw a block or a verbal attack should danger come their way. Eileen enjoyed coming along since she could maintain a steady breathing rhythm signing while running with Jessie—both conversed in American Sign Language without voice. She especially liked how signing added a bit of aerobic activity for the upper body. Jessie stopped going around the posts and began running in place facing downhill. Usually her body was warmed up by now but she still felt the dull ache of cold in her feet and legs. A month ago while she and Eileen were running side by side, Eileen heard a gunshot and immediately shoved Jessie on the ground not far from where the ear was. Jessie rolled hard down the hill and smacked her head against a tree stump alongside the pathway. Before she realized what Eileen had done, blood streamed down her face turning her world red. Jessie ended up getting ten stitches on her scalp. She never saw the source of the gunshot so she had to take Eileen’s word for it. Jessie didn’t like the eerie power hearing people have over deaf people in situations like this; the same kind of power when they live on both sides of your apartment and hear just about everything you do—grinding your coffee, flushing your toilet, your burps, coughs, and sneezes, all of your private noises—but you can’t hear what they do. Jessie knew this because her passive-aggressive neighbor would let her know when she ground her coffee rather early in the morning or when she had been up all night with a male visitor. The woman had the ears of a cat. Main_Pgs_1-330.indd 68 3/28/2012 10:24:50 AM Willy Conley 69 Down below, Jessie could barely see the speck of flesh in the middle of the blacktop . Lined along the path were bare elms with branches reaching out into the night. “What would Eileen do if she were in my Nikes?” Jessie thought. Eileen had called earlier. “SORRY . . . HAVE TO BACK OUT TODAY . . . GOT A EADACHE, GA,” typed Eileen. As soon as Jessie saw the “GA” symbol for go ahead, she immediately typed back on her TTY, an old Model 28 teletypewriter converted to allow the deaf to communicate with others on the telephone. “A EADACHE? U MEAN EARACHE, GA?” Sometimes the old clunker hit the wrong letters or missed them entirely making Jessie play guessing games. “NO, NO . . . HEADACHE,” said Eileen. “WHAT AM I GONNA DO WITHOUT MY SECRET SERVICE ESCORT? GA” said Jessie. “I DON’T THINK THAT’S FUNNY, JESS. GA” “WAS BEING HALF FUNNY. AM SERIOUS, TAKE A COUPLE TYLENOLS. DON’T FEEL COMFORTABLE RUNNING BY MYSELF TODAY. GA” “NO CAN DO. MUST REST MY POOR HEAD TODAY (FROWN). COULD USE A BREAK FROM EXERCISING,” said Eileen. “WHY NOT WEAR UR HEARING AIDS WHILE RUNNING? GA” “RUIN THEM WITH SWEAT? NO WAY! GA” said Jessie. “IT’S WINTER—U WON’T SWEAT THAT MUCH. WHY R U RUNNING THIS AFTERNOON ANYWAY? DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING—UR THRU WITH TEACHING FOR THE AFTERNOON...