Grandma and I glance at each other over G’s head, united by that thought. “I’m Simon,” I tell her. “I don’t know what I did wrong.”
She shakes her head as though to absolve me of responsibility. It wasn’t you, she seems to be saying without words. But what else could it be? If G’s tinnitus can be treated, why isn’t she happy?
Maybe I’m slow. Maybe I’m just overwhelmed by so much information coming at me all at once. Mum tells me I’m smart, but in moments like these, I feel as dense as lead.
Until suddenly the fog parts and I start to get it.
G’s long silence in recent days. Her call to come to the hospital. Her request for me to stop talking. And now, tears.
She isn’t about to receive treatment. She’s already had it.
And it hasn’t worked.
so loud in here
all the fucken time
Fantastic, I told her. Like an idiot.
A nurse appears in the doorway and says something to Grandma, who nods without turning. The nurse inspects G from across the room, the lingering, practiced look of a health care professional, then goes away again.
G has stopped crying, but no one moves. Two of us are waiting for the other to signal what she wants. No signal comes. Part of me loosens a little then: G already has what she wants. Comfort. Support. Love.
And above all, silence. On the outside, anyway.
Cone of Silence
December 29
I have a folder of photos on my phone that I use when I want to communicate with someone who can’t hear, or in circumstances when I’m unsure of my ability to use my voice, such as cinemas. Am I whispering or shouting? Beats me. That’s when my phone comes into play.
The folder contains photos of things I need regularly, like popcorn in the cinema scenario. It also contains screenshots of common words and phrases. Sometimes holding up a note saying I can’t hear you is less confusing for hearing people—which is not to say that they’re stupid. I would’ve been confused too, before. It’s not something I ever consciously noted, that some deaf people can talk just fine.
Also, well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and that certainly applies for emotions. Dad and I have developed a shorthand for emotional exchanges, something he and I were never particularly good at even before. He’s much more comfortable talking about music than feelings.
It started when I came out of hospital. He sent me a text, asking me what I’d thought of the Mahler.
I responded with a photo from the internet of
He responded with
* * *
In the hospital, after a respectful pause, I reach for my phone and type one-handed.
The first result is an image from an old TV show. It’ll do. I show it to G, and she takes the phone from me. We’re so close I can practically feel the cogs in her brain whirring. She doesn’t need to work hard to interpret the image. She can see the search terms right above it. She knows I’m saying without words that what happens in the hospital stays in the hospital.
G scrolls down the page past the images from the old show and selects one of a man with his head up his own arse. She shows that to me, and I know she’s feeling better.
Grandma understands too. She lets go of G’s hand and signs something too fast for me to understand, so she scribbles a note instead.
Hello, Simon. I’m George’s Aunty Lou.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I say to her, because Mum hammered politeness into me along with respect for numbers. Three’s a crowd, and Aunty Lou obviously doesn’t know anything about me. She just sees a tall, skinny, long-haired, pierced and tattooed stranger alone in a hospital room with her niece.
“Should I be here?” I ask her, feeling a powerful urge to run. “I can leave if you want.”
Aunty Lou glances down at G, and G senses that I’ve said something out loud. She looks up at me and mouths, What?
I take my arm from around her shoulders and point to the door, keeping the question in my posture. The awkwardness of the moment is only amplified by our inability to talk to each other using our voices. Every stage of this conversation buries me deeper in my natural shyness.
G rolls her eyes and says something to Aunty Lou, while at the same time waving her hands in a rough approximation of the sign for Auslan. I guess she’s talking about how we met at deaf class. The three of us have separated a bit so we can see each other more clearly. I catch myself staring at G’s mouth and feel self-conscious with Aunty Lou there, but what else can I do? I’m not in the least bit interested in kissing those lips right now. They are simply my best bet at trying to work out what else she’s telling her aunt.
I don’t see any mouth shapes that might be boyfriend, so I figure I best not take anything for granted.
G presses my phone onto Aunty Lou, and I glimpse the screen of the dictation app we use. Aunty Lou looks uncertain, but G closes her eyes and sinks back into the bed, leaving us to it. We have no choice, really.
This is a bit awkward, Aunty Lou says into the phone, holding it like it might bite her, which is good because that way I can see the screen.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I can go if she wants me to.”
No, she wants you to stay. She wants me to tell you the way things are.
My heart sinks a little. Am I being dumped already, via old lady?
Thankfully my hurt confusion is short-lived.
Not with you and her, with me and her. George is my niece, but she lives with me. She has since she was a small girl. Her parents . . . they weren’t responsible people. I never knew all the places they traveled to, or how they paid for it. Sometimes they took George with them, but usually they left her with me. I wasn’t married, have never been invested in that sort of thing, and work understood. I’m a primary school teacher. George’s parents came and went, and gradually the trips got longer and the visits shorter. One day they didn’t come back.
“Did they die?” I ask her, gripped by this unsuspected tragedy.
No. I think they just . . . lost interest in us. Which is worse, perhaps. But more honest. George remembers them less and less clearly as time goes on. I keep hoping she’ll forget entirely, but even if she does, I don’t think the wound will ever heal. You should know that she has abandonment issues, if you don’t already.
“Funny way of showing it,” I tell her.
Oh, not really. It’s safer to get out before she’s thrown out—that’s how she copes. She’s run away so many times I’ve lost count, and she’ll push you away before you have the chance to do the same back to her. You’ve seen that?
I’m nodding.
Then I’m glad you’re still here, she tells me. George needs someone more than she lets on. Next time she might not be so lucky.
“Next time?” I ask her, because Aunty Lou seems to have aged ten years in a moment.
If George really doesn’t want to come back, she won’t. She’s like her parents that way. It’s only because she’s not sure, I think, that she’s still with us at all.
And that’s when I really do get it.
G isn’t in hospital because of a treatment that failed. She’s in hospital because she tried to kill the noise in her head the only way she had left.
U-N-F-A-I-R
October 7
Dad and I didn’t talk in the underwater cave the night I walked out on Sandra, but having him around was definitely more comforting than being on my own. Suddenly I was four again, and rituals like Ghost Spray and the presence of a parent made all the difference. So what if the world was a shitty, terrible place? Dad was with me. Everything was going to be okay.
Around midnight, I fell asleep right where I was, head dropping t
o my knees first, then my whole body tipping over into a fetal position, which is how I woke an unknown time later at the insistent shaking of my shoulder.
A bony hand radiated anger, like something out of my childhood wardrobe nightmare, but I wasn’t dreaming. This was real.
Uh-oh, I thought, blinking up into a bright glare. The studio lights were on, as they never normally were. There were stains on the carpet that didn’t bear close examination.
Bending over me, face in shadow, was Mum.
Seeing my eyes flicker open, she squatted down in front of me and began to sign with such fury I’m amazed the air between us didn’t burst into flames.
You—me—home—now.
“No,” I said, and she slapped me. Slapped me, right across the face. Not hard, but the sting was startling. She had never done anything like that before.
Before I had a chance to recover, she clapped her hands in front of my nose. I jerked backwards and banged my head against the skirting board.
Rubbing my head, I sat up. “What are you doing? Get away from me!”
She clapped again, then made the sign for Auslan. Then she pointed at her ears and shook her head.
The message was clear. Sign, or I’m not going to listen to you.
“You can’t just stop hearing—”
She shoved me and made the Auslan sign again, before emphasizing her point.
You—talk—me—okay. I—talk—you—how? U-N-F-A-I-R.
Mum’s finger-spelling was slow but clear. She had obviously been practicing. I glanced over her shoulder at Dad, who was standing with his hips against the mixing desk. He shrugged helplessly. Obviously, he wasn’t going to take sides. He never does. Not against Mum.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, intending to offer her the dictation app, and saw a dozen missed calls and texts on the lock screen. So that was why she was so mad.
Suddenly weary, I slumped back against the wall and put my hands over my eyes. Mum batted them away, thinking I was trying to block her out, but that wasn’t my intention. Not specifically. It was the whole world I wanted to turn my back on, but I took her point. Closing your eyes is rude when someone’s trying to talk to you.
I lowered my hands and forced myself to use them as we had been taught in deaf class. I was very rusty.
U-N-F-A-I-R—you? I—want—not—deaf!
Putting on the limited vocab and grammar I had learned was like accepting a straitjacket.
Mum placed one hand on her chest and nodded, tears flooding her eyes.
Sorry—B-U-T—you—A-R-E—deaf.
I—know!
She shushed me with a wave of one hand. She wasn’t finished.
Me—mother—deaf—son. Me—learn—Auslan. You—
She poked me in the chest.
You—not—S-T-U-P-I-D—or—L-A-Z-Y. You—A-F-R-E-I-D?
I felt vengefully pleased that she made mistakes with her finger-spelling.
T-I-R-E-D.
She nodded.
Come—sleep—home.
No. T-I-R-E-D—everything. Want—F-O-R-B-E-T.
She frowned. Instant karma. I tried that word again.
F-O-R-G-E-T.
Nodding, she folded her hands in mine and pressed them to her forehead, like she wanted to absorb my words directly into her brain—which she could have done if she’d only let me speak. That’s what the human voice is for, after all.
And that’s what Auslan is for too, I knew. But practice required energy, and I was burning up enough of that just adapting to not having music, or a life, or even Shari, apparently . . .
I wondered what would happen if I really did drop out of everything for six months or even a year, however long it would take to learn what I needed to learn and become whoever I needed to become. A deaf person. A stranger.
Would that stranger recognize the old me? Would I lose my entire self along with those final notes of life’s great symphony?
Mum shook her head, and for a second I wondered if I had spoken aloud. I hadn’t. She had her own questions, I realized, her own anxieties. Her son couldn’t hear. That changed things for her, too. It had to. I was never going to hear the school bell ring again or the buzzer going off to tell me to take something out of the oven. I was never going to hear someone cry out in pain if they stubbed their toe. I was never going to hear her telling me to pick up my shoes or know if she was on the other end of a phone call. All small things, but that didn’t mean they weren’t important. Life is an accumulation of small things, adding up to a ziggurat that with a big enough shove can be toppled.
I knew all this. I was living it. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.
“So I can’t stay here?”
Mum looked up, and her eyes were bloodshot. She shook her head. The rule was that Maeve and I had to give her twenty-four hours’ notice if we were going to be at Dad’s, and I guess she was sticking to that in the face of things she couldn’t control, life’s unquantifiable twists.
“Let’s go, then.”
I stood and brushed past her, scooping down to pick up my backpack where it slouched by the door. Dad reached out to touch my shoulder as I went by, but I didn’t say anything to him. I felt betrayed.
Mum has never had a key to Dad’s house; he must have let her in. So much for being safe there.
The car was out front, windows lightly misted from the cool night air. I leaned against it, unable to get in. Mum didn’t follow immediately. Presumably she was laying down the law to Dad in my absence, although it wouldn’t have made much difference if I was there. I wouldn’t have overheard a thing.
I thought about running off into the night, but only for a fleeting moment. Defiance took energy too. I wasn’t like Maeve, who often threatened to live on the streets if she didn’t get her way. Her arguments with Mum last for days sometimes, but she’s still at home. I’m not sure that isn’t also an act of revenge.
Mum appeared and unlocked the car. That is, the lights flashed, but I couldn’t hear the bip-bip, of course. I got inside and buckled the seat belt, keeping my backpack on my lap as though I could still bolt at any moment. She got in behind the wheel. Her red Civic rocked and settled, then came alive with an inaudible cough. The seat vibrated under me as Mum pulled away from the curb, driving us steadily through the dark streets toward home.
We weren’t done, though. Just because her hands were on the steering wheel and therefore she couldn’t talk to me, that didn’t mean I had to be silent.
“I can’t remember the first album I ever heard,” I told her, “but the first I remember loving was Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. Dad used to play it in the car when he picked me up from daycare. Maeve and I would sit in the back and sing along to ‘Iron Man,’ making up the words as we went. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t actually about Iron Man the movie until years later, but that only makes me love it more. Music that hides its message is the best kind—that’s what Professor Dorn says, and I think she’s right.”
I could have been doing nothing more than working my jaw and tongue muscles, for all Mum reacted, apart from a slight tightness around her eyes, so I kept going. From first favorite album to the first I ever owned, then to the first I ever bought. The first band I ever followed. The best song they ever wrote. Best albums ever. Best album openers ever. Best one-hit wonders.
I was onto best guitar solos by the time we pulled into our driveway, and I was pretty sure she was going to slap me again. My cheek still felt tender from the first time, although that was probably just the memory of it, not an authentic sensation. I’m pretty sure too that my speech to her was retaliation for her hitting me, but it might also have been a form of catharsis—vomiting up a clotted mass of things that would never matter to me again. The detritus of my hearing life. All the crap that Sandra had wanted me to say.
And she bore it, like I guess she had to. She’s my mother.
The car rattled to
a halt and she sat still for a moment, keys in hand, looking like she wanted to sign something, but then she just got out and went inside.
I stayed in the passenger seat, feeling nothing but shame.
Nerve Stimulation
December 29
A composer writes notes on a page in an attempt to capture the music they hear in their head, knowing full well that it will change when played, filtered through the perceptions of conductor, performer, and audience.
From the age of sixteen, I wrote tattoos into my skin in an attempt to capture my identity, completely ignorant of the possibility that I might change in any substantial way. How could I have known that one day these marks would bring me pain far worse than the original needle had?
Back of my right shin: a bass clef.
Inside my right wrist: three barred semiquavers.
Back of my left hand: a key signature, C-sharp major.
Above my left nipple: a time signature, 7/8 (inked a week after I lost my virginity to Cass Bonnici, who came out as a lesbian the next day).
Along the inside of my left arm: an empty stave curving like a banner in the wind.
On the back of my neck: the chord progression from Slipknot’s “Psychosocial.”
At the time of my stroke I was considering a seventh tattoo for my eighteenth birthday, a power chord written in tablature, but afterwards my heart wasn’t in it. How does one write one’s identity when one no longer knows what it is?
* * *
Sudden deafness isn’t a disease with a fatality rate . . .
Impossible Music Page 8