Page 54 of The Sign for Home

7.8 billion people live Earth

332.2 million in America

19.3 million in New York State

6.6 million people live in upstate New York

30,669 in Poughkeepsie where I live with Brother Birch

(I ask Molly. She guess Molly) 100 people that know sign language in downtown Poughkeepsie

(This also GUESS) 50 can sign language so good can have long conversation (More Deaf and JW can do sign language in Rome, New York)

(How many CAN/WILL DO TACTILE ASL IN POUGHKEEPSIE?????)

GUESS: 12 that have was spoke to DeafBlind person before and CAN Tactile ASL

8 of them WOMAN (maybe) that CAN DO TACTILE ASL

(FACT) ONLY 6 woman that live close and has was ACTUALLY talk with me in TACTILE SIGN

4 who TALK TO ME every month regular

ONLY 3 ARE JW (Forbidden marry NON-JW)

1 = MOLLY, my ongoing SSP/Interpreter (She old, besides not my taste.)

So I ask you HONEST: WILL ANY of those ONLY 2 GIRLS LOVE ME? Or me attraction at them? Them attraction at me? NO!!! because I AM ALONE like DEAFBLIND UGLY MONSTER. (HA HA I NOT crying. Just SHAKING MY HEAD.) I think I have was TIRED.

SHH. I telling you OTHER Secret. I was LIED before. REMEMBER Girl I did sex with first time? I was LOVING her. But she wasNOT JW girl. Was not CHRISTIAN. Shh. Big SECRET. SHH. Gone forever. THEY bad. Sinner. Not allow SPEAK ON SINNER PERSON. Shh. (CRYING) Please no tell. Shhh.

Sorry. Honest. I not allow talking to you no more because you not JW Christian woman. But we still WILL email… okay? Or you become JW and we can talking about Jehovah God?!!

Even people practice WITCHCRAFT and SORCERY can SAVED if ask Jehovah God FORGIVENESS!

But if not be SAVED we STILL can secret friends. But Shh. Don’t tell. Secret. Please delete after read.

HUGS,

Arlo Dilly

21THE FIRST TIME

You finish writing the email to Cyril’s friend Hanne. You press Send and the email disappears into the computer and flies through the clouds into her computer. She could be reading it now, your secrets becoming her secrets. Witchcraft. Red star. Shh. Shh. Your heart is pounding. Too many sins. Turn off the computer. Climb into bed. You had hoped the voices and stories in your head would stop by writing the note to Hanne, but it’s the opposite. A dozen memories wrestle one another to get to the front of your brain.

You were seventeen and a half years old.

It was September again and you could already smell the earth outside your window starting to cool. Your growing muscles pushed against the buttons of your shirts. Hair grew thicker on your face and arms. At lunchtime you ate a minimum of two baloney sandwiches and drank a carton of chocolate milk every day, and still you were always hungry. Arms and ankles felt unfamiliar breezes after being abandoned by too-short shirtsleeves and pant legs. Crazy Charles and the Deaf Devils still picked on weak students, but they didn’t bother you or your friends anymore. This was because of what S said to him, but you hoped it was also because you had grown more scary looking.

Other things were changing too.

Usually the Deaf-sighted students avoided talking too much with theDeafBlind, but suddenly two girls in your class, Marla and Em, started talking to you every day during lunchtime, giving you parts of their lunches they didn’t want to eat. One day Em brought you your own extra peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich. The next day Marla brought you two, but with strawberry jam, which you liked better. Both girls let you feel their bodies jiggle when you signed a joke that even you knew wasn’t funny.

Martin told you that a lot of the girls in school were gossiping about how you had turned into ahandsomeman over the summer. S once called youbeautiful. You asked Martin what the difference was betweenhandsomeandbeautiful. He said the words meant the same thing, and then he asked to touch your face.

“Your face feels same all faces,” Martin signed. “Except for Big Head Lawrence’s. His face different. Those girls stupid. You not handsome. I handsome and beautiful!”

Then Martin checked your chest and arms to see if they had changed.

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