Page 15 of The Sign for Home

Professor Bahr shook her head, then spoke directly to me as if I were the one speaking.

“Can’t you see I’m about to begin a class, sir? If you need assistance, I’m sure the office can—”

Before I could stop him, Arlo went in to shake the professor’s hand, clipping her in the left breast in the process. The professor, who had been looking at me, jumped back in shock, with a small scream.

“What in God’s name?!” she snapped. “If you could please tell your son he cannot randomly grab people.”

At that point Arlo had located her hand, and began shaking it with one hand while his other hand held her wrist. By the look on the professor’s face, she felt the shake was going on far too long.

“Um… excuse me, Professor,” I said, gently taking Arlo’s hands from hers and putting them back into mine. “I think there’s a misunderstanding. Let me explain. Um, I’m Cyril, an ASL interpreter. The person who was speaking a moment ago was Arlo here. He’s not my—our—son. Weworkfor him. I know it’s confusing. If I speak or Molly speaks—that’s his other interpreter standing by the door looking annoyed at me—when either of us speaks, we’ll say something like ‘This is Cyril speaking’ or ‘This is the interpreter speaking.’ Otherwise, when you hear ‘I’ or ‘me,’ that’s Arlo speaking. Do you see what I—meaning ‘me,’ the interpreter—am saying?”

The professor heaved a deep sigh and massaged her brow with her fingers.

“What in God’s good name are you talking about, sir?” she barked. “I? Me? He-she-it? Is this some old Abbott and Costello television routine? Once and for all, I cannot help you. Now I need to start class.”

With that the professor turned her attention to her roll book, dismissing us completely. At that point Molly came over, shoved her elbow into Arlo’s hand, and started guiding him back to the hallway to leave. Arlo was clearly confused, but still signed nothing.

“Molly! Wait!” I quickly blocked their exit, then placed Arlo’s hands onto mine to interpret. “Of course, Molly, we’re not the ones who make decisions, right?”

“This isn’t his class,” Molly signed to me sharply. “Also, that teacher seems mean. We had to work very hard for him to be able to take this class. I don’t want it to be a waste of time for him.”

“But that should be up to Arlo,” I signed. “He’s the boss. Not us. What would you like us to do, Arlo?”

Arlo hesitated, then nervously addressed Molly.

“I ask professor one more time? Can?”

“Of course,” I answered before Molly could interject. Then I guided Arlo back toward the professor, who had begun her lecture. I coughed to get her attention. She ignored me, so I coughed again. This time a bit tooaggressively, as if I had the mildest case of tuberculosis. Her head snapped in our direction.

“Excuse me, Professor,” I said. “Arlo just wants to ask you one thing real quick.”

I nudged Arlo to start talking.

“Professor,” Arlo began, as I voiced. “Sorry to interrupt. I would like to switch to your class. A website I read says you are a great teacher. I know I will learn better with you and promise to work very hard. So will you sign my drop/add form?”

Arlo pulled the drop/add form from his pocket and held it out thirty degrees to the left of where the professor stood. The professor’s expression softened while she heaved a surrendering sigh.

Sniff.

A gust of air from the professor’s lungs tells you stories. Your mind attaches to a time at the Rose Garden School. You were fourteen years old. It was the September after your first summer break. You were no longer homesick. Martin had brought an entire chest filled with his favorite food from his grandmother’s house. He fingerspelled each dish for you: jerk chicken, goat curry, beef patties. Professor Lavinia Bahr must have eaten this kind of food for breakfast.

Professor Bahr’s eyes filled with pity as she gazed at the drop/add form in Arlo’s outstretched hand, his slightly crossed eyes gazing just past her head.

“I’m so sorry, Arlo or Cyril or Molly or Doggie or whomever I’m speaking to at this moment, but I’ll have to say no.”

I tapped Arlo on the shoulder. He put the drop/add form back in his pocket, so I could interpret what Lavinia was saying.

“I’m talking to you now, Mr. and Ms. Interpreters.” Professor Bahr folded her hands and looked down at the class roster in her binder. “You need tounderstand the school is supposed to limit these classes to fifteen students. Yet I have one class with seventeen students, and this one, which is already overbooked with twenty. I only have so many hours in the day. Have you ever read thirty-seven response essays written by first-year community college students? Most of which have been written on a bus thirty minutes before class? Twenty-seven of which repeatedly misuse ‘it’ apostrophe ‘s’ dozens of times?”

It was only at that moment that Professor Bahr registered that I was still interpreting for Arlo.

“Excuse me?” she snapped. “Are you telling him what I’m saying? I was just talking to you two! Not him!”

“I’m sorry,” I began. “This is me the interpreter, Cyril, talking now. You understand, we have to interpret everything. Providingequal accessis our job. It’s notethicalif we don’t. You understand?”

While fingerspelling and clarifying the sign forethicalfor Arlo, I looked over at Molly for support, but her face was a mask of disapproval. Arlo, however, was smiling.

A secret hatch opens in your skull and fresh air fills your brain. New fact: Interpreters are supposed to interpret everything. It’s a rule. New word:ethical.

---