See, Julia? Katz asks in my head. No one needs anyone’s permission, you said so yourself. Your art’s open season. Let me show you how it’s done.
I change into my fry-girl uniform and lock away all my stuff. I haven’t talked to Jordyn since that night in my car, so when she sashays into the locker room and sees me standing there, she does a little double-take.
“Coming or going?” she asks.
“Coming.”
“So, you are back at it. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Are you really asking me that?”
“But you told that girl.” I don’t respond. She won’t understand, I’ve been anti-hearie, anti-implant, anti-friends, anti-everything for so long, so how do I explain that this random, bubbly cheerleader happens to get me? I hardly understand it myself.
“She’s fat. And weird.” Jordyn wiggles her fingers under her nose, grimacing.
“Shut the fuck up. You don’t know her.”
“There’s something not right there.”
“I’m done talking to you.”
“She’s hiding something.” She puts her visor on and leaves without letting me have my say.
I know YP. We’ve talked more than enough for me to piece it together. The pies, the weight, the cheerleaders, Kyle. It’s not exactly an uncommon story. She hasn’t explicitly said what happened, but she doesn’t need to. The fact that Jordyn spent all of an hour with YP and feels entitled to judge her reminds me exactly why I didn’t tell her that I’m “back at it.” Why I’m never telling her anything again.
—
When I get to my station I see that Donovan is planted in the drive-thru. Great, another third-wheel shift. I throw down my first batch of fries and hope the steam is so hot I evaporate with it. Jordyn is still pretty protective of him, too, winking and blowing kisses whenever she catches his eye. Making a big show of their relationship, just in case I forget. He looks worn out, exasperated. It’s a familiar expression. I’ve seen it on Jordyn’s face dozens of times. Once again I’m thankful for my deafness. It’s much easier to ignore Jordyn’s giggling face than the actual giggles.
The oil is sparkling, rolling, bubbling, beautiful, yellow. That color would look sweet on the water tower, if I could only find a way to get up there. I’m actually excited that YP has thought of something. I expected to be put out, but I’ve never seen her so revved up before. Never seen her shove food into her mouth with a smile. Maybe she’ll feel better soon, cry less. Learn to not give a fuck. Like me.
Golden, foamy, deep-fried letters standing out against the mint green of the water tower. A grease stain you can’t wash out. I’m HERE, Katz. Now what?
—
My socks are soaked through with sweat when I peel them off after my shift. Donovan comes into the locker room and flicks the lights to get my attention. He has it. He leans against the door, nervous. His hands tremble as he reaches into his pocket and waves for me to come over. I pad over the cold tile floor in my bare feet.
I arch my eyebrows, miming, Yes?
“Here.” He pulls out a little package wrapped in silver paper, nearly drops it on the ground before putting it in my hand.
“Merry Christmas,” he mumbles.
“It’s not—”
“Open it,” he demands, still barricading the locker-room door with his back. I peel the tape off. It still has the little plaid Scotch tape–header piece on it. The small present is heavy, and wrapped without a box.
“Hurry up!” he motions, paddling his hand in a circle. I slide the contents into my hand.
Magnets. It’s a column of plain, black, round magnets. I look up at him and he’s giving me his best Donovan drive-thru megawatt smile.
“Thanks?” is all I can sign.
“—-for——paint, you liar.”
“What?”
“You know,” he signs haltingly, trying to remember the right hand shapes, “how I know about you?”
I shake my head. My face feels hotter than it gets over the fryer.
“——cans rattle,” he says.
“No!” I cross my arms. He’s wrong. He has to be. I always holster each one in a loop, to avoid that very thing.
“—-———-inside the can, you know,——you shake it?” Donovan mimes shaking a can.
Holy shit. I never…
He cracks up. I’m sure the look on my face is priceless.
“Put them on the bottom of the cans.” He acts out the motion with an invisible can, when suddenly the door opens a crack, pushing him forward. He shoves me away and jolts to his locker before Jordyn tries to open the door again. The three of us change without so much as a sign.
I wait until Jordyn and Donovan leave before pulling my black bag out from under my car seat. Damn, here I was dreaming up some masterpiece in yellow, and all I have is the near-empty Katz cans. Black, blue, and purple.
They’re freezing from sitting in the car; can’t be good for the paint. I shake up the purple can. I can barely feel the little ball sliding back and forth in there. It’s that noisy? Noisy enough for him to hear it through my bag. Shit. I shake it up again, trying to feel the sound, putting it up to my cheek. It’s barely there, and I might be imagining it. I’ve always seen [keys jingle], but [paint rattles]? Never.
The magnets are nestled in my coat pocket back in their silver paper wrapping. If this had happened a few weeks ago, it would have made sense: another tipoff to the role I thought he was playing in our game. Now, I’m confused as hell. How would he even know about this little trick?
I can’t help but think it’s pretty cute. The silver paper, the tape. If Jordyn was jealous before, I can’t imagine how she feels now. I wonder if he got her a Christmas gift. I’m supposed to be backing off. I already broke up with him in my head. It seems impossible to break it off with him now.
It’s getting late. The magnets snap to the bottoms of the cans. I shake them one by one, hoping that’s enough to guide the metal balls to the magnets. It’s brilliant. Whatever sound they made before, they certainly won’t make again. Stupid sound.
Ma is asleep on the couch when I get home. I hate bringing my stash anywhere near the house, but I can’t leave it in school unattended, especially with the cops snooping around. Mee waves from the top of the stairs.
“Come come come on!”
“OKOK.” I kick off my shoes before joining her.
She leads me into my room and sits on my bed next to a yellow folder. She’s practically bouncing with excitement.
“I got you a present!” she finally announces. Two presents in a day?
“For what?” I furrow my brow.
“Just, because.” She can tell I don’t buy it, so she continues. “Because you made it through the semester. I know it wasn’t easy.” My stomach churns. She has no idea. It wasn’t easy, not because of classes, but because of stencils and rivals and stolen paint. And now she’s rewarding me for—what? For going behind her back, after I promised them both it was over? I wish she would stop telling me how good I’m being.
“Here.” She hands me the folder and claps her hands together. I don’t want to open it. I don’t deserve whatever it is.
“Go on,” she urges.
I stick my fingers in the folder like I’m holding my place in a book. I should hand it back, tell her everything. My stupid hands work against me and open it anyway. Paperwork. I flip through the sheets, all headed with the words QUEENS COUNTY. The more I read, the more excited Mee gets and the worse I feel. I can’t believe she did this. She got me a wall. The biggest side of her acupuncture studio. A legal wall for me to paint on whenever I want. And what have I done? Lied to her. All damn year.
I’m going to throw up.
I tell Mee a thousand times how great it is, how happy I am, it’s so perfect, thanks so much! I’m praying she can’t tell as my stomach somersaults. I hug her out of my bedroom before heading to the only room in the house with a lock, and hurl up a small fry and Coke.
My forehead r
ests on the toilet seat. I’m not getting up until I’m sure I’m finished. I feel my phone buzz in my pocket; it’s YP.
YP: omgcheck yr email.
I close out the message and open up my mail. She’s sent me a link with no subject line or any other info. It leads to an article:
TEACHER TRYING TO SAVE STREET ART
In the small Long Island town of Greenlawn, one art teacher doesn’t want to clean up his neighborhood’s graffiti—he wants to preserve it. Andy Katz, 31, a teacher at Finley High School, has been in talks with City Council and the Greenlawn Police Department for the past week, defending the graffiti as works of art and attempting to bar the city’s typical cleanup procedures.
The first recipient of Katz’s preservationist attention was a mural on the back of a scoreboard at Tri-Village Field, depicting a whale and its skeleton. After meeting with Mr. Katz, the owner of the park, Cliff Ferguson, has decided to preserve the “art.”
“I think it’s interesting,” Ferguson said about the mural. Because the graffiti was created on his property, if Ferguson chooses not to press charges, law enforcement must drop the incident.
A second work of graffiti that local police say was painted by the same individual appeared recently on the Spring Road underpass. It depicts a woman with seashells for eyes, similarly overlaid with a skeleton. It’s been painted on public property managed by the Suffolk County Department of Public Works. Local government, however, is adhering to policy in responding to the incident.
“You vandalize city property, you’re going to have a bad time,” Watch Commander Cox quipped in a phone interview. He was also quick to dismiss the efforts of Mr. Katz to preserve these works. “I get it. Artists like to stick up for their own. But when it comes down to it, it’s not real art, is it? It’s the defacing of public property that costs the city money to clean up.”
Besides presenting his impassioned view in a City Council public hearing last Thursday, Katz has filed a petition with Suffolk County to prevent cleanup of the Spring Road mural. He is also “investigating [his] options” for obtaining an injunction against the DPW. According to Katz, the fight is not over. Whether it is an eyesore or an artwork, at this moment, the Spring Road mural is still there.
I hurl one more time for good measure.
—
Underneath my quilt, the light shines through the squares like stained glass. I’m supposed to want this. Public reaction, someone saying they want to actually preserve a piece. This should be the happiest night of my life.
What an ego, that Katz. Let your graff go. Don’t babysit your writing, don’t take pictures, don’t talk to the fucking press! Oh, and how about, don’t bring your girlfriend into it? And while I’m at it, don’t date your student’s interpreter! You’re a great artist, but your toy is showing.
City property. This is the problem with wars. Considering the article and the cops, I wouldn’t be caught dead bombing public property twice in a row. Hit up the side of a shop or something.
It’s too hot. I can’t breathe. It stinks under here. I need a shower. I need a plan.
I need YP.
JULIA: Come over?
The hall lights flash off and on; she’s here. I step into my slippers and go downstairs. Mee is already standing in the doorway, YP slowly signing introductions. Mee asks YP to take off her shoes. I must have looked exactly like that when her dad answered the door for me. Scared out of my mind, totally out of my element. Mee turns around to get my attention but I’m already standing behind her.
“You didn’t tell me you made a new friend!” Mee smiles uncontrollably. YP and I smile, too.
“It’s late; is everything okay?” she asks, addressing both of us. YP picks up on the okay bit and signs that she’s fine.
“We’re having a sleepover,” I explain as I pull YP past Mee and up to my room. My mom stomps her foot when we reach the top of the stairs.
“Love you.”
“Your mom deaf, too?” YP sits down on the floor in front of my bed.
“Yep. Both of them are,” I sign.
“Wait, both? Both what?”
“Both moms.”
“And they are deaf, and you are deaf?”
I nod.
“How?”
This is the problem with me and YP. It’s nothing I wouldn’t tell her—I mean, she already knows the real secret stuff. I want to be able to tell her, to talk to her like we both speak the same language, not to have to reach for a phone or paper. Every big conversation has to be a struggle.
She waves me back from space.
“Sorry,” I sign. “It’s C O M P L I C A T E D.”
“Here.” She grabs my laptop off of the bed. I roll my eyes. Always with the typing.
“Don’t be stupid.” She hits her forehead, her fingers in a V shape. Pants opens up the laptop on the floor and lies down in front of it. She waves me down to join her. I open up a Word file and let my fingers fly, English grammar be damned. YP won’t care.
My moms wanted baby right? So they decided they would get a donor and have one that way. Ma was working for tenure so Mee say that she will have the baby. So they had this friend who’s Deaf give them…the stuff right? And blah blah I was born.
SO like, if you’re both deaf you’ll have a deaf baby?
No, its a chance. They not know for sure that I would be Deaf. They say even if i was hearing they wouldnt care, they just wanted a baby. But I turned out to be Deaf.
Are you mad?
for what?
Maybe you wouldn’t be deaf if…
I like being Deaf.
Oh.
Im big D deaf btw.
What?
use the big D Deaf not little d deaf.
Theres a difference?
yeah bc being Deaf is part of who i am. Im proud of it, I have a community. Im part of it.
It’s so hard to explain, I don’t know how to make YP understand the ins and outs of Deaf culture in a way that would make sense to her, or any hearing person. Ma is better at this stuff. The whole “it’s not hearing-loss, it’s Deaf-gain” thing. I’m not a spokesperson for us, but I do love our community. I know how to explain it in sign, but not so well in English.
Thats really cool!!! I had no idea :)
you seem like youre feeling happier.
I feel like…like I’m me again. But better.
even without cheerleading or whatever?
Cheer wasn’t me.
SERIOUSLY!!! I liked it because it meant I had friends.
but they’re so mean!
I know, but I didn’t care! I didn’t have to be alone.
Alone not so bad.
It gets old.
so you’re done with them? all the cheer girls??
Yes. I feel like, I’m back…I’m here.
I pick at the carpet. I think YP senses something is off. Her eyes dart around my room like she’s looking for something new to talk about. I rip out a thread when she finds the Jordyn box.
“Ooh, ex-boyfriend stuff?” she signs, and shakes the box like a kid with a present.
“Ex-friend stuff.” I snatch the box away from her.
“—-I see?” YP scoots next to me. We lean against the edge of my bed.
“Sure, I guess.” I give the box back to her and let her open it. As soon as she does I can’t help but laugh. It’s unexpected and I’m caught off guard, but it all seems so silly now. I was moping over what, a selfie stick?
“Oh, it’s just stuff.” YP reads my mind again. “I thought———-be more, I don’t know.” We lay it all out on the floor and finally have a real sense of what my friendship with Jordyn was about. Convenience. Outcasts banding together so we wouldn’t be so alone. And for a while that worked, but we’re just too different. And not in that good, “opposites attract” way. Now I see that she sort of glommed on because I didn’t judge or shame her. I’m sure that was comforting for her, and I don’t think she’s done anything to be ashamed of, but what exactly did she
add to my life? A shoe box full of random stuff. It’s hard to believe I was so heartbroken over it.
“I’m happy I met you,” I sign to YP, and she practically glows.
“Same.” She uses the right sign, sliding her hand in the Y shape back and forth between us. “Oh, I———forgot! Check——out!” YP stands up and unzips her quilted duffel bag and pulls out two yellow vests. On the backs, the words SUFFOLK COUNTY are stenciled in black.
“I have jumpsuits, too!” She reveals a pant leg from the bag.
“Isn’t this going to make us, you know, stand out?” I pulse my fingers like flashing lights.
“Nuh-uh.” She shakes her head, her bangs swoosh around. “————-look like the city hired——fix it.”
“That’s brilliant!” I sign, and flop onto the bed. “But—” I sign to the ceiling. She’s really thought this through; I’m seriously impressed. The effort that went into the outfits…
“What——?” She flops down next to me.
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
—
Someone is shaking me along with my alarm. I open my eyes and a wide-eyed YP points to the bed over and over again.
“Where is it?!” She blushes and covers her mouth, waiting for my response.
“What? Where’s what?” I sign.
“Your…you know.” She shakes her fingers, then starts spelling, “V I B R A–”
“No!” I cut her off, pinching my fingers. “Are you crazy?”
“It must’ve switched on—————-,” she says, lifting a corner of my quilt.
“I don’t have a—” Oh. I’m finally awake enough to realize what’s going on. I slap the button on my alarm clock and the bed stops vibrating. My bed alarm is intense. I had to get one called the Ultra Shaker. It was the only alarm annoying enough to actually get me out of bed.
“My alarm,” I tell her. She doesn’t catch the sign, so I spell it out.
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