Page 57 of The Sign for Home

“Sorry, Ange. You know I have my ongoing gig with Arlo until noon today.”

“Of course. That’s the thing. By some miracle I found someone who will cover for you. It’s just one day, so no one will mind you’re gone.”

“Jesus. Thanks, Ange,” I said, annoyed that she thought Arlo wouldn’t care. “But you know how it is, we’ve already developed certain class-specific signs the new person wouldn’t know. Let the sub you’ve found do it.”

“Unfortunately, this terp won’t do platform work. Besides, you’re my best. Please, Cy, I really need you to do this for me. They are desperate. Mindy-who-used-to-live-here called me. She’d be your team. You know how good she is.Andshe requested you.”

“Mindy Ames asked for me specifically?”

A warm flush filled my chest. HavingtheMindy Ames, celebrity interpreter, request me was a big deal.

“Yes! She remembered you. I told her you’ve been working with Arlo and doing Tactile now, and she got really excited. She said you’d be teamed with two of the East Coast’s best Tactile interpreters and would learn a ton. The DeafBlind client is a PhD and heads the Laura Bridgman Center. Remember how you didn’t even want to do this Tactile job, and now you’re rocking it? Think how you could use this experience to do a better job with Arlo!”

Ange knows me well. I’ve always been the sort of interpreter who hates doing a half-assed job. To actually watch some top-rated Tactile interpreters in action and work with another DeafBlind client—someone professional—was a huge learning opportunity for me. But then I imagined Arlo meeting the substitute terp. What if it was some hot young woman who Arlo found attractive? Or some straight Jehovah’s Witness guy who Arlo related to way more than me? I wanted the money and I wanted the experience, but I knew that if Arlo liked the new person, Molly would try to persuade Arlo to replace me. It was a completely irrational fear, but it was bugging me nonetheless.

“I’m gonna pass, Ange. I’m just not sure it’s the right thing to do.”

“Look, Cy, I know you feel guilty leaving the kid with some stranger. But remember, Molly’s there, and this is a great opportunity for everybody.”

Ange was partially right. What she missed was that I was also being paranoid and selfish. I was acting like I owned the job—a job I hadn’t even wanted in the first place. I told myself:You should want Arlo to have the best interpreter.You should also want to be the best interpreter for Arlo. Andyou need the money!And if interpreting had taught me anything, it’s that no gig was permanent. I would not be working with Arlo forever. It was best not to hold on too tight.

“Ange,” I said into the phone, my voice almost like a pleading child’s. “You promise you found someone good to sub for me? And not fucking Justin?”

“Cy, babe, you know confidentiality prevents me from saying who is doing the job, but I swear to friggin’ G-O-D I found someone that will do just fine for one goddamned day!”

Before I could say anything more, Ange jumped in with, “Great! I’ll email the deets. Now get your ass in gear!”

After hitting the shower, I threw my interpreter essentials in my travel bag: two black shirts, black pants, black jacket, black tie. The contents of my suitcase looked like I was a funeral director. Within a short time I was on I-90 headed north, and five hours later I saw the top of the Xerox Tower rising in the distance.

I have a love-hate relationship with Rochester, having had both my favorite moments and the worst moments of my life take place there. The best moment was when I met and fell in love with Bruno twenty years ago. The worst moments? They include one or two fights with him on the corner of University and Beacon, then being dumped by him via pay phone at the Bachelor Forum bar while I was drunk and eating a bag of cheese puffs. My pleading tears laced with greasy orange dust pouring down my chin. And then there was… I felt my stomach tighten, and that familiar cloudy feeling inside my head returned. My mind flashed to things I didn’t actually see but only imagined for years: Bruno lying in his hospital bed, his thin body unrecognizable, his poor mother sitting in that chair…

Nope. No time to go there. Not today.It was stupid to think about thepast when I needed to get all my mental energy on the job.And the fact is you weren’t even lovers with Bruno when all that happened.You weren’t even talking. You’re romanticizing a past that didn’t really exist.

I suddenly remembered what Arlo had said about the sublime and about loving someone and losing them. What must it be like to have such a beautiful feeling toward loss?

I began to romanticize what Arlo felt when he thought about his old friends at the Rose Garden School. I knew something hugely important happened for him there.Love? It had to be love.I wished I could just get a direct answer.What happened, my friend? What happened at that school?

Then I started worrying about how things had gone in the classroom. Was the sub good enough? Did everything go smoothly? At a stoplight on East Main Street I checked my cell phone to see if Molly or Ange had sent me any urgent texts. Nothing.

“Snap out of it,” I yelled at myself. “Arlo Dilly survived twenty-three years without you. Now get it together so you can focus. You’ve got a show to do!”

23ROMEO AND JULIET

As you lie in bed, the Blue Devil God passes across your brain. It has been a long time since he visited you, but your recent thoughts about S have caused him to awaken. You pray to Jehovah God to remove the demon from your mind. But when Jehovah God finally erases the Blue Devil God, He replaces him with the remaining pieces of S’s face that had been etched into your brain: the small nose; the beautiful dark skin; the hair, thick and black like a horse’s mane; her dark wet eyes.

Big Head Lawrence, with his better vision, once said that S had eyes that were larger than other people’s. Martin thought larger eyes meant that S’s eyesight was keener than normal. Big Head Lawrence told you S was also the most beautiful and strongest girl in school. You didn’t need to be told. All that was unimportant compared to the beauty of S’s hands and brain. For hours after you made love, S’s perfect fingers would stroke your face and tell you more stories of growing up in New York City. Or how she went to India when she was eleven for her grandmother’s funeral, and how her aunties and uncles stood around gossiping, poking the fire, discussing how to make the body burn faster. After her grandmother’s body had become ashes, the whole family went to a big room and ate delicious foods, including desserts that filled an entire table. S promised that when you lived together someday, she would cook something calledgulab jamun and jalebi. Then S told of all the other gods her family worshiped, including an elephant-faced god, and that Blue God who could be both mean and kind. (That god that still haunts you as the Blue Devil God.)

When S spoke of her gods you grew silent for a long time.

“What what?” she asked. “You angry, why?”

“You must become Christian JW!” you yelled. “If you not believe in Jesus, Jehovah God… what will happen? Future, in heaven, we will not together! Elephant God and Blue God evil! If you continue worshiping them, you will die and disappear forever!”

After S calmed you down, she promised to consider believing in Jesus and Jehovah God but only if she could still worship both the elephant-faced god and the Blue God as well.

“Lord Krishna and Ganesh will accept your god. They accept all gods.”

You didn’t talk about it after that. You just thought to yourself,Later, later you will convince her. Later you will save S’s soul.

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