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

sell his jade.

As we were leaving, Karl revealed to me that he hadn’t discovered the jade; a metal mine had found it, and he’d bought it. He’d reported his “discovery” to Guinness as a marketing ploy. Karl’s jade was like Ernie’s horsemeat: everyone in the family knew the truth except Pearl, and I’m sad to say I kept their secrets, too. Our collective silence only served to make the complex reality of life more difficult for her to see.

On the last day of the trip, we took a gravel road. Because I had bought only one tie-down bar, when the truck pitched on a bump, the loose camper dented the roof of the cab. Pearl was furious at me, and I became furious with her. I had done all the planning, preparation, and driving, so I parked and told her to drive home or to shut up. She refused to do either; instead, she complained bitterly that I was controlling her.

Pearl signed, “We should see a marriage counselor.”

“First, you should see a doctor about your sensitivity and anger. If your doctor asks me to come, I will come. Then, after you feel better, we can see a marriage counselor.”

“We can’t waste any more time. It’s month four without the Pill, and I’m not pregnant, so you need to be tested.”

“Me? Let’s be logical. You had womb surgery; how do you know there was no damage? You should get tested first.”

“We will not have sex until I see a report about your semen.”

“If you are sure you can get pregnant, then you must have been pregnant before. You have no stretch marks, so you had an abortion.”

Pearl was startled. “I got pregnant when I lived with Eddy. I didn’t want to marry him, so I had an abortion.”

Pearl told me this dispassionately. She had withheld her abortion from me—but I was no better because I was concealing my clandestine birth control from her.

“I told you he is an alcoholic with bad genes.”

I began to wonder if Eddy really was an alcoholic. My concern about Pearl’s mental health increased.

“No sex until your test. Your balls must be full.”

“What if I fail the test?”

“We will adopt a black baby. White babies are not available.”

“I will take a test.”

I was happy to take a test because “we will not have sex until” would delay pregnancy. The first step was for us to see our family doctor. I booked an appointment for two weeks later.

The doctor told us we should wait nine months before a semen test because the odds at our age after four months were only fifty percent, but Pearl talked her into authorizing it.

I stalled for two weeks before taking the test, then I waited a week to inform Pearl after the doctor called me to tell me my result was normal.

“The doctor must tell me,” she signed.

I booked another appointment. Two weeks later, the doctor told us the result and urged Pearl to relax and be patient.

That night, Pearl signed. “The lab didn’t see you shoot into the bottle, so you borrowed semen from a friend to hide your vasectomy.”

“Leo, would you jerk off for me? No man would do that!”

Perhaps she believed me, because she didn’t mention infertility again. I’m sure we both knew we couldn’t go on like this, yet we both went on.

The ducks had grown up. Pearl no longer wanted a duck in the garden. We killed and cleaned them together. Decapitation was easy; the hard work was holding the duck to avoid being bruised while the headless duck flapped violently. Pearl didn’t want to swing the ax, so she was the one to hold each duck and get bruised. We didn’t know the technique of stuffing a bird in a sack with its head sticking out of a hole. It took us a dozen hours to clean and pluck a dozen ducks. We never did it again.

“Where is your elbow report from the doctor? I need it for the insurance claim.”

“It’s in my bag.”

I looked in her bag for her medical report, and I found it. I also found a letter:

Dear Mrs. King:

Re: Your Letter

Thank you for your interest in cochlear implants and your kind offer to be a research patient. We appreciate your confidence.

Please be advised that the procedure is still experimental and could result in total loss of hearing; therefore, we do not consider for experimental surgery any patients with any residual hearing, however minimal, such as yourself.

Cochlear implants are being improved in both efficacy and safety and we hope in the future to be able to aid you.

Sincerely, Dr. H S Smith

The letter was a month old. I put the letter and the elbow report on the table. When Pearl saw the letter, she became angry.

“Why did you take that letter?”

“Why did you keep it a secret?”

“Because you would try to prevent my implant. You prefer I stay deaf.”

This was the most painful thing Pearl had ever said to me. Cupid’s arrow was a distant memory now.

“What can I say? If I say I prefer a deafie, you will think I love you because you are deaf. If I say I prefer a hearie, you will think I don’t love you as you are.

“I often lie in bed wishing I could do what my sisters did when they heard something—hear that sound and know what it is. I think hearing would be convenient, that’s all.”

Pearl invited a dozen guests to her Labor Day long weekend deaf party. I invited Stanley, Gertrude, and Ralph, but Stanley and Gertrude couldn’t come.

Ralph was the first to arrive. He came up the driveway in his jeep and, to my surprise, escorted a brunette to the door.

“Adele, meet Pearl and Derrick.”

Adele offered her hand for a handshake, and I realized she was blind. Pearl shook her hand, too, and we invited them inside. Ralph guided Adele by the elbow into the kitchen. A flashlight hung from his belt.

“Don’t you trust my electricity?” I signed and said.

“I’d wear one if I were you—for when the time comes.”

“You said Ralph was single,” signed Pearl.

“I was single, but we met on a blind date.”

“I was Ralph’s Braille teacher,” said Adele. “I moved in with Ralph last month when my youngest child moved out.”

“You guys talk while I unload the jeep.”

Ralph returned with two suitcases and a carton labeled Baxter-Travenol. Pearl went to pick up her guests while I did the chores, and Ralph and Adele walked around the property.

Pearl returned with her guests in the back of our truck. Jodi greeted me as I lowered the tailgate. The guests jumped down, each with booze and a sleeping bag. Whisky was delighted to make new friends.

As evening fell, we started a bonfire and roasted wieners. I baked potatoes on Pearl’s propane barbecue. We laughed, signed, ate, and drank.

Then Ralph, Adele, and I went inside to talk.

“It’s better for us inside. The deafies don’t have to slow down their ASL for me, and I don’t have to interpret you for them.”

“You can sign,” said Adele, “so why don’t you like to do it?”

I nodded without speaking, then, realizing my mistake, spoke without signing. “Even though I know enough sign language for her friends to talk to me when they want to, we don’t have much to talk about. And if they slow down for me for too long, I know I’m imposing, like at a cosmopolitan party where the foreign guests are speaking English just to be polite.”

“If you have no mutual friends, there will be no one to help you stay as a couple through tough times,” said Adele.

“I know, but it’s hard. Pearl lives with one foot in the Vancouver deaf world and the other foot in the Bowen Island hearing world. She’d get lonely if she didn’t work downtown, yet she wants to have a kid and quit.”

Bursts of laughter, clinking bottles, the smell of marijuana, and the crackle of burning wood came through the open windows and door—but not a single human voice, like a movie sound-effects track. Now and then, the plywood floor thundered from the impact of boots as revelers went to the refrigerator for a beer. The sky turned purple.

“Adele, did you know Ralph is looking at the girls?” I said.

She laughed. “If I worried about things I can’t see, I’d go crazy.”

“Pearl worries about the things she can’t hear, and she goes crazy.”

“You said she wanted to start a business. What sort?” said Ralph.

“Selling her uncle’s jade. Renting unfinished space in the house.”

“I have another idea: build a shooting range, and start a gun club. Many people here shoot. I’m sure you can get permission for an underground range. Bury sewer pipe, add lights and ventilation, and there’s your business! You can stock it with provisions, and there’s your banker bunker! And you can rent it out for birthday parties.”

Ralph laughed, but he wasn’t joking. The Soviet Union was collapsing, and it felt like anything could happen. Pearl had no interest in survivalism, but she loved the back-to-the-land life to which it was related.

“You can get an ultralight plane, store it in your barn, and use your field as an airstrip. There’s so much you can do.”

“First, I’d need to clear the stumps from the upper field.”

“Get a copy of the Blaster’s Handbook and a blasting license; you just fill in the forms. After the reference check, buy dynamite, caps, and fuses. Bring them over on the weekly ‘dangerous goods’ ferry. You’ll meet interesting people on that boat! You’ll need an auger, some old carpets, and some old tires to keep the rocks from flying.”

“That sounds like fun. Let’s do it together.”

Ralph looked at his watch. “It’s time for an exchange.” He went to the bedroom and returned with a suitcase, a handful of metal rods, and two plastic bags, one full of liquid. The suitcase was packed with hoses, valves, and connectors. Ralph put the bag of liquid in the microwave and, while it warmed, assembled the poles into a stand. He hung the bag from the pole and pulled up his shirt to expose two catheters.

“I’m on Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis. Diabetics are prone to kidney disease, and I drew the short straw. If I change the fluid four times a day, take vitamin supplements, and eat bananas, I feel fine. If I don’t, I’ll die.”

Ralph drew insulin into a syringe and injected the bag of liquid. He disinfected his catheters and connected them with hoses to the bags. He put the empty bag on the floor and opened a valve; straw-colored liquid flowed out of his belly. Everyone who passed by on the way to the refrigerator stopped to stare.

Half an hour later, he closed the first valve and opened the second. Clear liquid ran from the bag on the stand into his belly.

Pearl walked in. “What is Ralph doing? All my friends are asking me.”

“He has kidney disease. He has to do this four times a day.”

Ralph disconnected the tubes, disinfected the catheters, closed his pants, and washed up. We walked outside and joined the party. Sparks from the bonfire rose like fireflies. A man handed his joint to Ralph. He took a toke and passed it to me.

Adele, Ralph, and I went back inside. I put a Moody Blues cassette in the stereo and lit the kerosene lantern. We listened to “Melancholy Man.”

“Do you have a TV?” said Adele, who was sitting in front of it.

“Pearl has a TV. I don’t like it. There’s too much noise and violence,” I replied.

“I disagree,” said Ralph. “There isn’t enough violence on TV. There would be less violence in the real world if the imitation world were more realistic. What happens when you kill on TV?”

“The victim falls over. Then blood dribbles out.”

“Exactly! That’s not realistic! When a man is shot, he pisses, shits, convulses, and gets a hard-on! If TV did a better job of presenting death, there would be less killing in real life!”

In the morning, Adele sat with Ralph while he exchanged his fluids. I did the chores and woke the deafies sleeping in the hayloft. Pearl woke the deafies sleeping around the house and cooked a delicious breakfast of grilled chèvre with our homemade back bacon. Pearl drove her guests to the ferry. Then the four of us sat down to talk.

“Did you talk to a blind woman before?” Ralph asked Pearl.

“I talked to deaf-blind using hand-spelling, but not blind.”

“Me, too,” said Adele, “deaf-blind, but not deaf-only. You