BUG: Deaf Identity and Internal Revolution

He Wrote about Ring Bologna and Disappeared

B U G 113 He Wrote about Ring Bologna and Disappeared My version of hell: I’m condemned to float around for eternity on a giant piece of ring bologna in a huge subterranean cavern that’s half-filled with ring bologna juice. The steam rising from the bottomless depths sticks to my skin like a wet rubber hospital glove. I have nothing to eat except lukewarm ring bologna chunks, I have nothing to drink except lukewarm ring bologna juice, and there’s just enough murky light to assure that I’ll always be able to see my ring bologna raft bobbing up and down in the gentle lapping waves. . . . I tell you this not only because I honestly believe that ring bologna numbers among the foodstuffs of Satan (which I do) but also to advance the theory that a Deaf writer can write about something other than deafness and not spontaneously self-combust. A lot of Deaf writers I know start out with the intention of helping to make deafness known to the outside world . . . which is a good and noble intention, to be sure. But we should (gasp!) also be writing about that outside world as if we (gasp!) already lived in it, because we (gasp!) already do! Take ring bologna, for example. Does my opinion on this putrid, gut-wrenching substance somehow not count because I’m Deaf? Are there additional social or physical criteria I have to meet before I can write about ring bologna any old time I want to, just like a hearing writer can? And if I write down my 114 C H R I S T O P H E R J O N H E U E R opinion on this nauseating non-food, does doing so somehow make me less Deaf, since ring bologna has nothing to do with Deaf culture? Or is it possible to remain Deaf and still write about ring bologna? Hey, you never know. Ring bologna has lots of evil, hidden, dark powers that we don’t fully understand. It could go either way. Still, I think we should at least test it out: We could try being Deaf and write about things other than deafness once in a while. Just to see if lightning bolts don’t come thundering down out of angry black skies, or if the pulsating (when we aren’t looking) ring bologna in our refrigerators doesn’t come creeping up on us in the middle of the night, entwine itself around our flailing limbs, and drag us shrieking off into the gloom. So I’ve written about ring bologna, and now I’m going to bed. If I’m still around come morning, great. If not, remember me as brave and send generous monetary donations to my wife and cats. Spleen Gone Blues I met her in a bar her drink was almost done. Irony was hoping that I would be the one. So I slide up on the stool B U G 115 and I say my pick-up line I say “Baby how you doing?” She says “Baby, you’re fine.” Well wow, whoa It was Halloween. Who would’ve thought she’d be taking out my spleen? Invites me to her room gives my knee a little rub. . . . The next thing that I know I’m on ice in her tub. I woke up to a phone set atop a little note. It said “the market’s good,” and that was all she wrote. So I dial 911 and I’m trying not to bleed. I’m thinking economics: “Supply and Need.” Well wow, whoa her eyes were really green. Who would’ve thought she’d bring her own morphine? She plays with her hair, (Once again, I wrote about something that has nothing to do with deafness ! How ya doing? Feeling faint?) 116 C H R I S T O P H E R J O N H E U E R I’m checking out her rack . . . next thing that I know, I’ve got stitches in my back. Now I walk through the park and my eyes dart around. Someone needs a transplant and I’m the guy he found. So he sent out an angel with her hot, hot breath. . . . But little did I know she’s the Angel of Death. Well whoa, whoa, whoa, she was firm and lean. The sweat...