Love for a Deaf Rebel - Derrick King (top 100 novels .txt) 📗

windows upside down, so half the window drains are at the top instead of the bottom! We can’t fix this ourselves, but we have to fix it soon or the walls will be damaged.”

“I am so pissed off. I have to sort mail so we can build a house twice. Meanwhile, I get older.”

Ross was busy with other work, so I called Jesse, whom Rokus had recommended. Jesse arrived with his dog, tied his hair in a rubber band, rolled a cigarette, and followed Pearl and me on a tour of the house.

“No one ever hired me to rotate windows. I’ll need scaffolding. While it’s up, I should install your missing soffits and siding, or you’ll have starlings in your attic come spring.”

Jesse set up shop in the unfinished side of the house. He soon had more bad news.

“Frank didn’t stain your siding. I know he left it to you to stain the outside, but it’ll curl if you only stain one side. While I’ve got scaffolding up, I should remove the siding from your entire house, stain it on both sides, and put it back up.”

It was hard to imagine building a house more inefficiently than we did by trying to save money. While our windows were missing, and plastic was stapled over the holes, the woodstove burned firewood at a tremendous rate, yet the house was always cold. We wore T-shirts to bed instead of sleeping nude, and we brought our next-day’s clothing into bed and slept next to it to pre-warm it.

The bathroom became our haven for warmth, relaxing, and signing. The baths we took together grew longer to delay walking out into the chill, but, gradually, Pearl started getting in after I got in, to let me warm up the bathroom. Little by little, I started getting out before she got out, for there were many tasks for me to do. Eventually, Pearl got in after I got out, recycling the hot bathwater, and our baths together ceased.

“You’ve changed,” signed Pearl, in bed. “You don’t sign as much. I don’t know what you are thinking.”

“Can you get day-shift again so we can commute together?”

“It’s impossible because of union rules and my low seniority.”

I lit the kerosene lamp and turned off the electric light.

“You have friends in the post office to talk to.”

“We work with our hands—how to talk? We are only allowed to sign during breaks. Hearies can talk while they work.”

“You need to make more friends here.”

“Few hearies want deafie friends. When I have a baby and stop working, there will be no one to sign to me until our baby can sign.”

Today, it is hard to imagine the time when most people had no electronic contact other than a fixed-line telephone.

“You will make many friends when our baby goes to kindergarten.”

Pearl rolled over, buried her face in the pillow, and wept. I took her hand. She squeezed it and rolled back to face me. Tears were dripping from her nose. “I am lonely.”

I ordered Whisky out of the bedroom. We made love and fell asleep with our hands together in the I-love-you sign.

Rich Couple’s House

Stanley and Gertrude visited us, and we showed them our property. The men did the chores while the women cooked. While we ate, Stanley said, “I would have shot Frank.”

“I’ve dreamed of shooting him,” signed Pearl.

I sighed. “I don’t want to go to jail. Maybe I should walk up to him sometime and say, ‘I’ve decided not to shoot you.’”

Stanley asked to see my pistol, so I unloaded it and brought it from the bedroom. He examined it and passed it to Gertrude.

“I’ve never fired it.”

“Basements are for sports, aren’t they?” said Stanley.

After dinner, our basement became a shooting gallery. We put on coats and filed down the stairs, Whisky at our heels. Pearl carried a notepad and my rifle. I carried the pistol and the ammunition. Stanley carried a six-pack of beer and a bar of soap. Gertrude carried wine and glasses. We filed past the woodstove and through the door in the temporary partition into the unfinished side of the basement. Two light bulbs hanging from the ceiling failed to pierce the Stygian gloom. I plugged a fluorescent light into an extension cord. The air was so cold that the tube flickered.

Stanley drew circles on a piece of plywood and leaned it against some firewood. “Ten points for a bull’s eye. Minus ten for hitting the BMW.”

“Everyone gets two pistol shots—a buck each,” I signed and said. The shooter wore my chainsaw earmuffs while the spectators poked their fingers in their ears. My turn was first; I aimed and fired. Whisky leaped behind Pearl. I took a second shot and handed the gun and earmuffs to Pearl.

Pearl hit two bull’s-eyes; she was still an excellent shot. Pearl handed the gun and earmuffs to Stanley.

Stanley hit the target, then set the bar of soap in front of it and shot it. “See how the bullet pierced it? Soap cuts like flesh.”

Pearl grimaced.

Stanley passed the pistol and earmuffs to Gertrude, who took two shots. Then, we took turns shooting the economical .22. Dozens of brass casings soon sparkled in the dirt. From time to time, we moved to the other side of the temporary wall to warm up. During one of our thawing breaks, Stanley lifted an old magazine from the tinder pile and flipped through it.

“Why don’t you get this for Frank?” Stanley pointed to an advertisement for Get Even: The Complete Book of Dirty Tricks.

Pearl looked at it. “Frank needs to learn that what he did is not fair.”

I remembered that the sign for “revenge” was one of the first signs Pearl taught me.

Get Even arrived a few weeks later, along with a catalog from the publisher, Paladin Press. The book was 200 pages of double-spaced trivia—a dirty trick.

“Did you see the big tree at the top of the field? The goats ate the bark, so it’s dying. We should have put wire around it.”

“I will cut it down and chainsaw a chair into the stump so we can enjoy the view from there.”

I did so, and it became our favorite spot on the property. From our stump-chair, we could see the upper field and barn, the roof of the house, and, in the afternoon, sunlight reflecting off the lake and glinting through the trees.

I cut a tree for our first Christmas on Bowen. Perhaps that tree, its aroma, and its cheerful lights helped us reach a milestone: although we had been engaged for a year, we had never set a wedding date. I thought recommitment might help Pearl to release any residual insecurity, such as the paranoia that caused her to open my mail.

In the glow of the Christmas tree, with glasses of wine, we sat down on kitchen chairs, the only chairs not covered in polyethylene sheets against the dust.

“We’ve been engaged for one year. Will you marry me on your birthday?”

Pearl kissed me. “I ask you again: When do you want children?”

“As soon as this side of the house is finished. A year, maybe a few months longer if Frank wins.”

“Why not marry after the house is finished?”

“Why should our wedding depend on house construction? Also, that would be more expensive. If a couple marries at the end of the year, one taxpayer can deduct the other for the whole year and get a $4,000 tax refund. That’s two months’ salary. But the tax rules change next year.”

“Our wedding day, my birthday, and Christmas Eve, all on the same day! I prefer not to invite Mother.”

“For second weddings, couples can do what they want. Let’s keep it simple. I will find a Justice of the Peace to marry us here. The minimum is two witnesses.”

“Stanley and Gertrude, Rokus and Jenny, or Alan and Rose?”

“Stanley and Gertrude.”

“Under the Love Trees. Perfect!” Pearl signed the name sign she invented the night we became engaged. “Pearl King … I love it.”

After calling several Justices of the Peace listed in the Yellow Pages, I found one who would work on Christmas Eve. We had wedding portraits taken and drove to her home to plan the ceremony.

She was startled to learn the bride was deaf.

“I have experience with the deaf. You don’t need an interpreter, do you, dear? I know you can read lips.”

“What?” signed Pearl, even though she had understood.

The Justice of the Peace leaned closer. “You do understand me, don’t you, dear?” she said rudely, a foot from Pearl’s face, breathing into it.

I was disgusted. Pearl pulled back. “What did she say?” she signed.

“Honey, either you read my lips, or you pay for a certified interpreter—if you can find one at Christmas.”

Pearl agreed to lipread.

Mid-morning on Christmas Eve, the Justice of the Peace, Stanley, Gertrude, Pearl, and I stood under the Love Trees as the sun sparkled on the frost. Pearl and Gertrude wore their best dresses; Stanley and I wore our best suits. It could not have been a more beautiful day to be married except that the temperature was just above freezing. We were married as quickly as possible and rushed into the house to thaw.

After toasts, we left for our two-day honeymoon. Alan and Rose cared for the animals while Pearl, Whisky, and I spent Christmas Eve in the Vancouver Bayshore Inn and Christmas Day with my parents.

Another horse arrived. Wendy rode Senator, a chestnut quarter horse gelding, up to the barn. I engraved Mouse and Senator signs from cedar and hung them over their stalls. Mouse already knew his place, and soon Senator knew his.

Alan called. “Could you two please help us to herd the sheep to the barn for lambing? On foot—our Volvo is only now free of sheep urine odor. We can walk them up the gravel side of your driveway. We’ll open the wire gate and let them into the upper field via that back route.”

Alan and Rose parked across the driveway, blocking it. I parked the truck at the top of the circular driveway to keep the sheep from walking back down the paved side. We opened the gate and walked into the lower field. The sheep huddled and moved away, bleating. Rose offered grain from a pail and tried to lead them, but they wouldn’t follow, so we all moved behind the flock. Pearl and I stayed behind them while Alan and Rose herded each side, beating the ground with sticks. It took half an hour, but our shepherding worked.

As I walked onto the ferry on my way home from work, I was surprised to see Stanley’s GMC Suburban. I waved, climbed in, and sat on the blanket covering the holes in the seat. It reeked of mildew.

“What happened to your Mazda?”

“I got fired. I lost my salary and perks. My boss was monitoring my calls. He heard me say, ‘Mrs. Rottweiler, you haven’t made your card payments for seven months. I understand your husband was laid off a year ago, and you have to stay home with the children. That means you knew when you used our credit card that neither of you had a job, so why did you use our card, Mrs. Rottweiler? Can you work while your husband cares for the children? Have you thought of eating and drinking less so you can set aside money to pay your bills? Could you pay, say, ten dollars a month?’ She told me that she’d had many collection agents call her, and she liked to talk to them—except me. What was I supposed to say? ‘That’s fine. Pay whenever you like?’ I’m now as unemployed as Mr. Rottweiler. Fortunately, our house is coming along. We’ve moved out of the trailer! Please be our first dinner guests.”

A few days later, Pearl and I parked at the bottom of Stanley’s hill and hiked up the access road. I carried a bottle of Liebfraumilch while she held the flashlight. The freezing dew made the asphalt slick, so we walked without signing, our gloved hands poised to break a fall. It was easier to walk farther up the hill, on the gravel. We walked past the dark trailer. Near the top, light glowed from two windows in the corner of the house.

Gertrude and Stanley greeted us. Behind their front door, it was like a frozen dungeon. Sheets of plastic stapled to rows of studs defined the rooms. We walked between two loose sheets and into tepid warmth.

“We’re only heating the kitchen and half the living room because our stove is too small,”