Page 40 of The Sign for Home

Then Crazy Charles threw a small, hard plastic dish of creamed corn at Big Head Lawrence’s head and said it was monster cum. He said if the girls touched or talked to Big Head Lawrence they would have monster babies.

When someone told Martin that Big Head Lawrence was getting beaten up, he started screaming for help. The Deaf Devils grabbed Martin’s cane from him and started pushing him back and forth between the gang members. When Martin told you this part of the story, every inch of your body filled with rage. Being pushed around was bad enough but being pushed around when you can’t see anything at all is the worst thing ever. Then one of the Deaf Devils held Martin’s arms behind him while another boy covered Martin’s mouth. Then Crazy Charles started stabbing Martin’s thigh over and over again with what he later learned was a safety pin. On top of that, Martin also learned that Crazy Charles and the Deaf Devils said many racist things the whole time. Martin started crying, and also had trouble breathing because the boy’s hand was over his mouth to muffle his screams.

One of the Deaf Devils signed into Martin’s hand, “You DeafBlind asshole. Snitch teacher? Crazy Charles will revenge.”

Martin did not stop shaking through the whole story. Big Head Lawrence covered himself with his pillows because he was crying again and felt embarrassed. That’s when you decided something had to be done about Crazy Charles.

You waited until it was the middle of gym class on Friday morning. You asked Molly to take you to the locker room because you needed to go pee before it was time to do your sit-ups. (Despite your age, you still avoided climbing the rope, which you were convinced would be certain death.) Molly wouldn’t go into the locker room with you since she would see boys naked and that was a sin. This would give you the time you needed.

The locker room was too dim for you to see anything. So you stood stone-still, feeling for the vibrations of footsteps and the breezes of bodies. To make sure you were alone, you swung your cane around your body, slashing the air.

The coast was clear.

Romans 12:17 says, “Return evil for evil to no one.” You learned that the summer before in Bible study. That meant if Crazy Charles bullied you or your friends, Jehovah God said to ignore it, andThe Watchtoweradvises to either make a joke to calm the situation or report it to a teacher. Which were good suggestions until a sighted bully stuck a safety pin in the leg of one of your best friends.

You took a deep breath and walked to the first row of lockers next to the showers—Big Head Lawrence had snooped around and found out where the right one was. You counted six bottom lockers in from the end and felt for the raised metal number: 117. This was Crazy Charles’s locker. You pulled at the lock to see if it had been left open. It hadn’t. Then you felt for the slats of the metal door that lets the lockers breathe so gym clothes don’t get moldy. You sniffed the locker and could tell it was full of whatever Crazy Charles kept in there, most likely school clothes, shoes, and a book bag. You pulled down your pants and aimed the tip of your penis through the slats of the locker. All morning you had been drinking water and holding it. Your piss was as strong as the water from a hose, and it sprayed everywhere inside his locker. The smell was thick and disgusting. The whole time you thought about what he had done to Martin and Big Head Lawrence.

Fuck you, bullies!

Red star.

Empty. You quickly zipped up your pants and rushed back out to the gym, hoping no one saw you come out of the locker room. Molly tapped you on your arm.

“What took you so long? The others are doing the rope climb. Do you want to do sit-ups?”

“I will rope climb today!” you signed excitedly, the thrill of revenge swirling in your veins.

“But you‘ve always said the rope climb was too dangerous—”

“Change my mind!”

You handed Molly your cane and Gym Teacher quickly handed you the thick scratchy rope. You imagined how Crazy Charles and all the Deaf Devils would be watching you: the poor low-vision boy. Your hands reached up and held the rope tight, pulling your body off the floor. You were much stronger than you had been three years before. But not only that, it was as if an invisible hand had grabbed your shirt collar and was dragging you toward the ceiling, past the third knot, and the fourth and the fifth, escaping everything and everyone that was below. Up, up, up. You could tell you were getting close to the ceiling because of the stuffy smell of the dusty tiles, and the air getting warmer. You entwined your legs around the rope and kept hold with one hand, and with your free hand you reached up and slapped the ceiling very hard.Pah! Success!For a split second you thought,What if I never came down?

After two minutes you felt the rope jiggle, which you sensed was the signal from Gym Teacher to come down. You had no choice. You reversed the climb, hand under hand, gravity assisting. When you hit the soft mat, Molly hugged you and told you that you had terrified her, but also that all the other students were clapping. Gym Teacher told you that you went higher and faster than any other student in class. He called you Spider-Man.

“Why are you smiling so much today, Spider-Man?” he signed. “You smiled all the way up and all the way down.”

Smiling? I’m smiling? Stop smiling.If you smile too much, they will know it was you who pissed in Crazy Charles’s locker.

You commanded the corners of your mouth to lower themselves. They refused. You curled your lips inward. Without lips you couldn’t smile. If you didn’t smile or do anything out of the ordinary, no one would suspect a DeafBlind Jehovah’s Witness of doing anything bad. You went to your locker and changed your clothes. Immediately you could tell something was wrong. Bodies were rushing through the locker room. The vibrations of angry feet stomped on the floor. You caught a sighted boy by the arm and asked him what was happening.

“Someone toilet in Crazy Charles locker,” he signed, laughing. “Ooooh! Stink bad! Crazy Charles explode! Punch lockers! Other kids are laughing! Clothes, shoes, backpack all covered with toilet! Stink! All ruin!”

You shook your head, curled in your lips, and made your eyebrows dip toward the middle so you looked concerned. Without taking a shower you quickly dressed and left.

Later, in your private place outside the cafeteria, Martin told you he heard gossip about how Crazy Charles had to wear pee-covered clothes to walk back to his dorm room to change and everyone was making fun of him.

Then Big Head Lawrence told you, “I hear Crazy Charles cry so much. Why? Because his shoes new. Also, his family very poor. He get big trouble!”

A wave of sympathy momentarily washed over you for the impoverished Crazy Charles. You thought about him weeping, and how bad his ASL was and how maybe Jehovah God would want you to forgive him and admit your wrong, but then you remembered what he did to your friends and the pins in Martin’s leg and Big Head Lawrence possibly dying when he hit his head.

“I don’t care,” you told them. “Crazy Charles stupid asshole! He probably toilet in own pants anyway!”

And then you started laughing very hard, which made Martin laugh,and that caused Big Head Lawrence to laugh. Suddenly, all three of you, with your hands entwined, became a giant, six-legged, three-headed laughing monster.

“That’s a very funny story,” Cyril tells you. “You are a very good storyteller!”

You ask Cyril if he wants to hear the rest of the story. He tells you he does. But you are worried that telling him the rest of the story is a sin, because you promised Jehovah God and Brother Birch that you wouldlet it go and forget. But there is a strange surging power inside of you, and maybe because of Hanne’s magic spell on you, you are compelled to tell it. So you do.

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