Socks and the Deaf Child

Socks and the Deaf Child



DEAF CHILD
The sign stood right outside my house, advertising to the world that I couldn’t hear a jet engine if it took off next to me.  I hated that sign.   No matter how often my parents explained the reason for it all I wanted was to rip the sign out of the ground and throw it into outer space like some superhero on daytime TV.   The sign should have said “Caution” or maybe “Yield”.   Black lettering on a giant yellow diamond advertised my ailment to the whole world.  
Or at least the whole neighborhood.
To a ten year old the neighborhood is the entire world.  Not like my mother would let me explore it though.  Not after what happen last year.  Not after she made the town put a sign in their front lawn.  To her, I was handicapped, special.  Wherever I went, she went, and she didn’t let me go very far.  
Once I wandered off in Albertsons, walking from aisle to aisle savoring the smells of the foods.  I walked through the wine section, noting how the air around the bottles of Merlots and Chardonnays tasted like a forest full of Motts grape juice.  I imagined thick vines of purple and green grapes climbing up the trunks of enormous evergreen trees.  Only instead of Christmas lights you’d normally recognize on such trees, there’d be all these people sitting in the branches picking the fruit and swaying their heads back and forth in a repeated rhythm.  The people resemble Keebler elves, with cartoon faces and goofy smiles.   They were putting the grapes into the glass bottles and lowering them down in baskets.  They were singing but made no noise.   Not even my mind produced sounds.   My entire world was silent.   Dogs barking, car engines, music, I’ve never heard any of these things and I probably never will.
This was around the time the cop found me.  I was still idly thinking about the people harvesting the grapes when an overweight security guard picked me up.  Randy could not hear himself start screaming.  The cop made a face as if he’d just seen a very disgusting thing.  His face was scrunched up in a grimace, and the other people in the store were turning and staring at me.  The obese cop carried me past the aisles of freeze dried dinners and giant bags of candy and cereal and soda to the open arms of my mother who was weeping with grief.  
I found out later that my mom had single handedly organized a store-wide search for me, she used every employee available, all the time threatening to ‘sue them’ if they didn’t find her baby boy.  At the time I didn’t know what she meant by ‘sue them’, but knowing my mother, it probably wasn’t good.  I watched her lips patiently as she explained the whole thing to me on the way back, all the while stroking my tufts of black hair.
“People just don’t understand you.”  She said. “You have to stay close to mommy so nothing bad happens.”
I hated when she said things like that to him, I was ten years old for crying out loud.  I could read lips and read books, I could even speak although my words were often jumbled and high pitched because I can’t hear my own voice.  But gosh darn it, why couldn’t I just go explore a place if he wanted to?   My mom kept telling me about the bad things that could happen to me but not once had anything ‘bad’ happened to me.
That was until last summer.
I had been outside in the front lawn playing with Tonka trucks.  My dad sat in a lawn chair reading the paper.  He’d almost given up talking to me, any communication required my undivided attention.  At that moment I was too enamored with the yellow bulldozer and the candy red crane to look up for more than a few seconds at a time.  My dad didn’t notice when the neighbor’s cat sauntered up to me.  The cat had thick white fur covering its feet that contrasted to silky black that covered the rest of its frame.  It reminded me of socks, and I thought it funny that a cat could wear socks as this one did.  I giggled, as a child does, as I outstretched one grass-stained hand to pet it. The cat rubbed its head against my hand and I could feel the subtle vibrations coming from its mouth.  The cat arched its back, enjoying the attention.  I stood up, too suddenly for the cat, with the intention of picking it up.  The cat instead took off running towards the street.  And I, a stupid boy, chased after it in a silent run.  
Most children have one track minds when it comes to any sort of want.  I was no exception.  I simply wanted to play with the cat that wore socks.  If I could hear, then perhaps I would have noticed the red convertible as it roared down the street.  The next few moments happened in slow motion for me.  
I was already on the street, the cat only a few feet ahead when it disappeared underneath the tires of the red convertible.  The car shifted violently when the driver saw that I was in the middle of the road, hands raised in front of me as if I could push the car away.  He jerked the wheel, and the car spun.  I stood bewildered by the sight of the convertible crashing into the telephone pole on the other side of the street.  I didn’t hear the tires screech or the crunching of metal.  Instead I felt the concussion from the impact.  I felt heat and pressure as the impact pushed me backward.   The first wisps of white smoke escaped from the engine, I could smell the pungent odor of gasoline and engine fluid.   
A hand grabbed me and I screamed.   Then I felt my father’s arms squeezing me.  My father’s lips were asking me if I was hurt.  I shook his head.  
The man inside the car was barely moving.  The cat was no where to be seen.  A dark splotch on the pavement told me what my furry friend’s fate had been.  I started crying more then.  Salty tears ran down his face blurring his vision.  
That was when my mom came running out of the house, crying and screaming at no one in particular.   Her mouth was open and grimacing, she was soon hitting dad with open palms.  She was flailing in hysterics, grabbing for me and calling me her special, special little boy.    
The man started trying to get out of his wreaked convertible, his lips were moving with words you’re not allowed to say.  Of course, my mom started yelling at the bewildered man, my dad still held me in his arms.  
Two weeks later the sign appeared in front of the house.