Page 59 of The Sign for Home

Red star. Red star. Red star. Red star. Red star.

“I’m going to rest,” Molly says. “Would you like me to take you to the Able-Ride stop?”

You tell Molly there is no need, you have asked for a later pickup so you can work on your homework in the library. This is another lie. Before Molly leaves, she gives you one of her hesitant, bony hugs and says, “You know I only told your uncle what I know about Cyril because I care about you, right? You are a very important person to me, and I don’t want to see you hurt again.”

The words that make up Molly’s statement seem loving and simple, but they are not. Sometimes words are like old sticky candy left in your pocket. They have so many things stuck to them, like old stories and lint, that they have a different taste from the one they are supposed to have. But you don’t say that. You say, “I understand. See you tomorrow.”

A little while later you are sitting alone in the library staring at the computer screen. Even though you are supposed to be working on your personal essay that you have no intention of turning in, that’s not the real reason you have come to the library today. You came to try to find your old friends Martin and Big Head Lawrence on the internet. You couldn’t do this at home, since it’s a sin and Brother Birch might tell you that it’s the Devil working in your heart. And maybe it is. But when Cyril mentioned finding friends on the internet, it made you curious. Before Jehovah God can come into your heart, you quickly type the wordM-A-R-T-I-Nand the wordDeafBlindinto the Google search box and hit Enter.

There are a billion Martins, and even with the wordsDeafBlindorDeaf-Blindordeafandblind, there are still too many to read. So you tryL-A-W-R-E-N-C-E, which is hard to spell. Then you typebigandhead. Press Enter. Nothing comes up with the name Big Head Lawrence, or at least not all the words together right next to each other.

But with the internet, even when you don’t find what you are looking for, you discover other interesting things. You learn that there are manyfamous people and things named Lawrence. For example, Lawrence of Arabia is really someone named T. E. Lawrence who was a famous Englishman with many skills, including writing anddiplomacy(a word you look up), who helped fight the Ottomans—you learn these are people from Turkey but a long time ago—during World War I. Lawrence of Arabia, despite doing all these amazing things, died after a motorcycle crash back home in England. There is also a place called Lawrence, Kansas, which is the sixth-largest city in the state of Kansas and has a population of 100,205 people, making it over three times the size of Poughkeepsie, but a lot smaller than Manhattan. The writers Langston Hughes and William S. Burroughs spent some time in Lawrence, Kansas. There is also a famous writer named D. H. Lawrence who wrote so many books you can’t count, and whose books were banned for many years in the United States, including one calledLady Chatterley’s Lover, which was consideredobscene(another new word!). You write the name of this book down to see if it’s available to read at a later date. You wish you could tell Big Head Lawrence how many amazing things are associated with his name. Then you type in the nameMartinagain, and that leads somewhere which leads somewhere which leads somewhere until suddenly…

It’s 4:50 p.m., twenty minutes past the time you were supposed to meet your Able-Ride driver, and you panic. You gather your things: your laptop, your SBC, your notepad, your cane, stuffing them away willy-nilly, and you rush out of the library with Snap at your side. You walk as fast as possible through the halls to the elevator and down to the front of the building. Then Snap has to pee.Hurry up, Snap!The air feels strange, heavy, moist. The wind is beginning to blow stronger. You smell a thunderstorm coming. You better hurry or you may get stuck in it. You trip over a curb since you aren’t paying attention and fall down. Snap licks your face to make sure you’re okay. You get up and scratch her head. Then you rush to the pickup spot and check your watch. It’s 5 p.m.

The Able-Ride van has left.

This is bad. Really bad. You don’t have any Wi-Fi on your laptop to contact the van. Worse, if it starts to rain, all your technology equipment could be ruined. You will have to go all the way back to the library to use the Wi-Fi, but the library closes at five in the summer, so there won’t be time to go back to the library. But if you go back, you won’t get caught in the rain. But what if the ride comes back for you while you are gone? That happened once and you got in trouble. Brother Birch said if you miss rides too many times, they will stop coming. So you stay where you are, but you are feeling very frustrated, because you are hungry and Snap is hungry, and now you are very, very angry because it isn’t fair that you don’t have an iPhone on which you can contact the ride service or your uncle or someone to help you. If someone was there, you could ask them to call for you. You take out one of your laminated assistance cards and hold it up in front of you. The card says:

PLEASE HELP ME! I AM DEAFBLIND!

You hold the card up in front of your chest, then next to your ear so people can see it from the front and back. Then you also wave your hand and say “Hey” in all directions, hoping someone is there, but no one is there. You use your voice and shout:

“Hello! Hello! I need help!”

Someone once told you that when you yell you sound like a seal barking, but it’s all you can do at the moment.

You wait.

Nothing.

The wind gets stronger. You feel a drop of rain.

So you sit on the bench with your laminatedHELPcard and wait some more. No driver. The raindrops increase. One hits your cheek. One hits your forehead. Your shoulder. You hide your backpack under the bench, hoping it will protect it from the rain. Then you get up and you are pacing and angry. Snap tries to calm you by licking your hand with her big, wet tongue. But it doesn’t help because the storm clouds have made the skydark, and now you can’t see anything. The rain begins to fall in earnest now. The panic gets worse. Then you do something stupid. You take your cane and wallet out of your back pocket and place them on the bench next to you with the intention of returning them to your backpack safe and dry under the bench. But because you didn’t put things back in their right place you get distracted and start angrily rearranging things to their proper place. When you reach for your wallet and cane they are no longer on the bench next to you. They must have fallen off or been stolen. You can’t go around without your cane. You are no one without your wallet and ID. You crawl on the wet ground and swing your arms, searching for your precious things. You’re breathing really fast, and your heart is pounding. You ask Snap to help you find your lost things, but Snap doesn’t understand, and keeps trying to get you to calm yourself, but you can’t be calm because you still can’t find your cane and wallet. And you know Brother Birch and Mrs. Brother Birch are doing mission work at the mall tonight, so they will have no idea you need help. They would have left your peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich in the refrigerator. But you can’t eat it because you are left alone on the street, without a ride, without a cane, without a wallet, money, ID, and you are getting soaked and maybe all your equipment in your backpack is getting wet and being destroyed. This isn’t fair. It’s just not fair. You sit on your ass on the street, hug your legs, and scream.

“Hello! Hello! I need help!”

Snap, soaking wet, squeezes her body next to you, as the rain gushes down.

After fifteen minutes you are both shivering. Your arms have grown too tired to hold up the laminatedHELPcard any longer. You hug your wet old dog who is now licking your face and you wonder if you and Snap are going to die. Your dark brain imagines an alternate communication card:I AM DEAFBLIND AND MISSED MY ABLE-RIDE. IF YOU FIND OUR DEAD BODIES PLEASE DELIVER THEM TO THIS ADDRESS…

Then Snap gets up and wags her entire body like she’s happy. Someoneis approaching. Narrow fingers tap your back. They are a woman’s hands, but you are not sure which woman. Then the wet fingers, inexperienced at sign language, press the letters H-A-N-N-E into your palm.

You smile, because someone has come to your rescue, but at the same time you are both cautious and embarrassed. This is Hanne after all, the possible sorceress, who has the ability to yank secrets from your heart like an open box of Kleenex. Hanne, the one you are forbidden to see.

Before you can find a reason to object, Hanne grabs your backpack and guides you and Snap to her car. She puts Snap in the back seat and you in the front. You are shivering harder than you were before, and Hanne hands you an old sweatshirt of hers and you dry your face and hands. Then she drives the car for ten minutes until she parks. Then Hanne leads you and Snap into the café where she works. Only you can tell the place is closed because it’s completely dark when she first brings you inside and sits you at a table. You pull out your SBC and luckily it still works, and you ask Hanne why she was at the college in the first place. She types that she had just finished taking a class called Nursing Science IV and was walking to her car when she saw you. You sense that you are totally alone with her in the café and this makes you panic. Your hands still shaking, you type to her:

“Sorry. I NOT ALLOW be alone and talk at you. Can get someone HELP? I loss CANE and wallet. I wait outside.”

After a moment Hanne types back:

“You will drown outside! We’ll just stay here until the rain calms down. Then I’ll take you right home. Don’t think of me as a woman. Think of me as just a friend, okay? And I think your family will understand this is an emergency.”

You sit there frozen with your hands on the SBC, waiting for Jehovah God to inspire you for your next right move. Your body is shivering. After several seconds you feel the bumps on the display come alive. Hanne is typing again.

“I’m gonna go back and look for your things,”she types.“Just wait here and stay warm. Here are paper towels so you can dry your dog.”

Then Hanne leaves you alone in the empty coffee shop with the roll of paper towels. You dry Snap as best you can. Her wet fur stinks. With the remaining paper towels you dab at your soaking wet clothes, but it doesn’t help. Then thunder makes the room rumble. Now you, Snap, and the room are all shivering for different reasons.

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