Page 30 of The Sign for Home

You tried to catch hold of the mysterious trickster. But, fast and small, they quickly escaped your attack. The floor gently shook ahead of you. Whomever or whatever it was, you thought, must have very strong vision.

“Stop! Finish!” you signed ferociously. “You will wake up Martin and Big Head Lawrence! Go! I sleep now!”

Which of the sighted students would play such tricks? Could it be one of the Deaf Devils?Those infamous bullies had played some mean tricks on both Big Head Lawrence and Martin over the years but always spared you. It could have been because of your size, or perhaps they were just waiting. Still, the body of the nighttime intruder weighed very little and the Deaf Devil’s breath would not smell so sweet. Nor would one of the bullies linger over you the way they did. Standing so still. Like aghost?

Big Head Lawrence used to tell stories from a large-print book calledGhost Stories. Before coming to the Rose Garden School, you had never heard much about ghosts or spirits. When you had asked Molly about ghosts, she reminded you that ghosts could be demons, and JWs believed that demons were real. Ghost stories became yet another thing you had toadd to the ever-growing category known as “forbidden things for Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Martin talked extensively about ghosts too. Real ghosts, not like the ones in Big Head Lawrence’s book. Martin’s stories horrified you, but also made you excited. You squirmed and shook at each turn of the tale, then pleaded with Martin “no, no, stop,” then a moment later begged him to tell the story again.

“Some ghosts at Rose Garden School,” Martin signed, very slowly until his fingers would speed up to scare you, “they dead Deaf children! Murdered in Dogwood House!”

“Stop! You playing! Finish you!” you shouted, convinced Martin was just trying to scare you again, knowing how you hated when anyone spoke of Dogwood House, that scary old dorm at the back of the campus where all the troublesome and mentally deranged children were allegedly sent.

“No! Truth!” Big Head Lawrence confirmed. “Long ago, children die in Dogwood House. Then ghosts of dead children sometimes visit live students. They beg for help!”

“Please, please, please,” Martin signed shakily and slow, acting as if he were the ghost of a dead Deaf child. “Help me escape from Dogwood House!”

You laughed at Martin’s impersonation even though it also gave you chills.

Your friends explained that these Dogwood ghost children didn’t know they were dead. Then, after a quick private conference with Big Head Lawrence, Martin told you about the worst ghost of all: Angry John.

“Big Head Lawrence doesn’t want me tell story. He scared baby! But I tell you. Angry John looks same as you. But only Deaf, not low-vision. Long long time ago Angry John sent to Dogwood House because he very bad boy. The mean dorm boss at Dogwood House have big teeth and claws and she sat on Angry John so long he couldn’t breathe. Angry John scream help help, but everyone ignores because he bad Deaf boy. And then… dead. Dorm boss scared. Why? Because she thinks they will blame her. Soshe digs hole in wall of Dogwood House and puts Angry John’s dead body inside. Then uses cement and make it look like regular wall. Ever since, the ghost of Angry John flies around the Rose Garden School at night asking live Deaf children to help get his body out of wall. Sometimes children wake up with bloody fingernails because he makes them dig at cement wall with hands. Dorm bosses thinks it’s wind or bad kids playing. Deaf kids don’t hear because they deaf. But many see him! Feel him sometimes. Sometimes smell him.”

“Angry John smell bad!” Big Head Lawrence added.

“Shut up!” Martin chided. “I tell story! One time Angry John tried to wake Big Head Lawrence when he sleeping. He tries to convince Big Head Lawrence to help him dig wall! Why? Because inside wall at Dogwood House his body all shriveled and smell like big garbage cans with bad food in back of cafeteria!”

Three years later, as you lay in your bed, Martin’s old story still gave you goose bumps even though you were so much older. You ran your hand across the tiny, raised follicles on your skin like it was flesh braille. Was that a message from a ghost? Was the mysterious trickster with the sweet-smelling breath who kept sneaking into your room, standing over your body, Angry John? You pulled the covers and a pillow over your face. If Angry John was going to kill you, there was no point in making it easy for him.

After two nights of no nightly visitor, you figured Angry John (or whatever ghost child it was) had decided to haunt someone else. Finally, you could sleep in peace. But then, the very next night, you felt those same small feet walk across the floor. You felt the sweet breath, the face coming closer, you felt the warmth of skin, and then, for the first time, the ghost’s small fingers pressed themselves into your cheek.

That does it.You yanked off the blankets and grabbed for the ghost child, but again the small assailant was too fast, and you felt the feet scamper across the floor again.Wait. Do ghosts have feet?You jumped out of your bed. The cold tiled floor stung your bare feet. Sensing whoever it washad headed for Martin’s bed, you stumbled across the room. Martin’s body still slept undisturbed. But then you felt something coming from the floor under Martin’s bed. Hot breath was blowing on your toes. You kicked your foot under the bed and the ghost child scurried out between your legs, across the floor, and then jumped into your bed. That was it. You were furious. Murderous ghost or not, you ran back to your bed and leaped, pressing your whole weight upon the wriggling culprit. The body was slight and half your size, solid and so warm it was clearly made of flesh and bone. You straddled the squirming small frame, trapping it tightly between your knees.

“I know you play with me!” you signed furiously into the darkness. “I know not Angry John! Who?! Why you in my bed?”

You grabbed for the imposter ghost child’s thrashing hands, hoping they would speak to you. But, instead, they yanked the pillow over their face. You felt the warm, small body wriggle between your legs. Suddenly you found yourself growing stiff in your pajamas. Embarrassed at your body’s reaction, you lifted your crotch off the wiggling small body so as not to accidentally commit a red star sin. Whoever it was, they were definitely not any kind of threat. They weren’t even seriously trying to escape anymore. Was this all a game?

“Don’t sneak around,” you signed after removing the pillow from their face. “If you want play, you must sign Tactile with me. Now tell me who?”

When they didn’t answer you reached down to explore their face, which had very soft skin and small features. Then you felt the mound of long hair on their head, the narrow neck the width of your forearm, their skinny shoulder, which you stroked, letting them know you were no longer angry. It wasn’t until you touched their chest that you noticed something truly peculiar. It was a thin body, but, like Martin, it had… breasts?

“Sorry!” you signed after leaping to the other side of the bed. “I didn’t know you girl. Very sorry.”

Your hands reached out and this time the small hands entered yours.They were the most beautiful hands you had ever felt. She slowly stroked two letters on the inside of your palm.

“H-I.”

“Hi,” you signed back. “Name?”

But she didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled your palm to her face and sniffed your skin, then stroked the inside of your arm gently with her fingers. Your mother had stroked your arms before you went to sleep at night, but the ghost child girl’s touch was a different kind of warm, a different kind of good.

“Why you come here?”

Again you reached out your hands, hoping for words. But the ghost child girl tickled the insides of your palms with nonsense signs, as if her hands were trying to approximate Tactile Sign Language.

“You not blind?” you asked. “You just Deaf?”

You wanted to feel more of her hands, even though you knew it was a sin to be alone with a girl, especially now that you were a young man. Brother Birch said the only girls you were allowed to be alone with were your mama and Molly. If you were with other girls, you needed to have someone else with you. But you wanted to feel the girl’s hands again. You rationalized with yourself: If she really were a ghost then you wouldn’t be committing a sin, or at least none you knew about. The ghost child’s hands reached for you, but this time they continued up to your chest and along your neck and suddenly they were stroking your face. She pulled your head into her neck and you breathed in the smell of her thicket of hair. Burning leaves and jasmine flowers. You let your hands run along her arms and again across her T-shirt to the softness of her chest. Your sinful penis pressed hard against the cotton of your pajamas, so you grabbed the pillow and shoved it between your bodies for protection. She stroked the back of your neck; you felt her heart rattling like a drum against your hand. You leaned back again so you could feel her eyelids, feel the marblelike roundness beneath, and the thick paintbrush-like eyelashes. Her face lifted andcame closer to yours and you smelled the breath, spicy-sweet, turmeric and coriander. You faintly remembered a similar scent from years before, that first day when you arrived at school. Was it the same girl? How many times had she been around you?

“Please tell me. Who?”

---