Page 32 of The Sign for Home

Arlo turned his head to the side, as if he were looking for some invisible person to give him the thumbs-up. A second later he and Snap got up and we headed for the lunch line. Snap, usually the epitome of canine cool, started wagging her tail, hungrily inhaling the greasy air with her wet, pink nose.

“Snap sure enjoys the smells!” I signed.

“Ha ha,” he signed, yanking the harness. “Snap first time in line too. Smells good, right, Snap?”

Arlo smiled broadly; his earlier indifference toward me had vanished.

There were only three people in the lunch line ahead of us. When they saw Snap and Arlo, they motioned for us to go ahead. Soon enough we were face-to-face with Doris and Bitsy, the guardians of the goulash. Both women were in their middle years, squeezed into gravy-stained white uniforms, and both wore the boiled expressions of having labored far too long over the heat of the steam table. They held their serving spoons aloft, like graveyard shovels, across the metal coffins of the day’s offerings. Bitsy, the taller of the two, recognized Arlo.

“Aaaoh,” she said with her cigarette-ravaged, South Jersey–transplant rasp. “Isn’t that the blind-and-mute kid who sits all alone out by them soda machines? Name’sArno, right? He don’t need to come up for his sandwich hisself, poor thing. Usually his other caretaker—the skinny lady—comes up.”

Immediately I had to suppress my agitation with Bitsy’s insensitivities regarding Deafness as well as the interpreting profession. I usually would just let the Deaf person take the lead on educating the hearing about what was appropriate. But when it was clear Arlo wasn’t going to, I smiled at Bitsy and did my best not to sound smug.

“Actually, his name is Arlo, and DeafBlind is the proper term, and that thin older woman and I are calledinterpreters, notcaretakers.”

As soon as I said it, Bitsy gave Doris aGet a load of who thinks he’s so speciallook.

“He’s having his usual, right?” Bitsy asked, clearly feeling affectionate toward Arlo despite whatever she was feeling toward me.

I turned to Arlo and started signing fairly broadly, mostly to demonstrate that someone with deaf-blindness could answer for himself.

“You want the usual baloney and American cheese sandwich with mayo, lettuce, and tomato, right? Molly said baloney is your favorite.”

Arlo paused. Once again, being asked a basic question seemed alien to him, and he looked confused by it. At the same time, from the corner of my eye, I could see that Bitsy was already slathering the slices of white bread with gobs of mayonnaise.

“Baloney and American coming right up!” she called out. “Who’s next?”

“Hey, Bitsy,” I interrupted. “Do you mind holding a minute, please? I’m not sure he wants baloney. Just one sec.”

I turned back to Arlo.

“Is there something else you would like?”

Arlo stood there thinking for a good fifteen seconds, like it was the $100,000 question onWho Wants to Be a Millionaire. Bitsy, meanwhile, nodded toward the line, which was growing longer behind us.

“I wish cafeteria cook other good food for students too,” Arlo finally signed. “Not fair. Cook good food for teachers. Students only allow sandwiches.”

“What?”

When I pursued it further, it turned out that since Molly had never offered Arlo anything other than his usual baloney sandwich, he was under the impression that students were limited to buying sandwiches, while the cafeteria’s hot food was the exclusive purview of teachers and administrators.

“Other good food, can eat?” he asked.

“Well, I mean, cafeteria food is rarely good, but there are lots of other choices. Let’s see. They have spaghetti and meatballs pretty much every day, pizza—which is pretty horrendous. They also have hamburgers, some old-looking salads. And… umm… chicken M-A-R-S-A-L-A with mushrooms. That’s the special.”

Suddenly, Arlo’s brow furrowed.

“What?” he signed, exasperated. “Spaghetti and meatballs? Have? Every day have?”

“I think so… yes, it’s painted permanently on the board, so yes, every day.”

Arlo’s eyes widened, followed by another long bout of silent thinking. The line behind us was getting uncomfortably long.

“Come on! Hurry up!” a male voice shouted. “What the hell is taking so long?”

“Sorry!” I yelled back as pleasantly as possible.

“Cool your jets,” Bitsy snapped at the impatient student. “Ever think of looking before you speak?”

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