by Lyle Howard
This morning, they decided to go to Matt’s locker first. The hallway leading to the bank of lockers was packed with bustling students. The few brave members of the faculty that struggled to keep the chaos in check may as well have been trying to fight back the tide. Overcrowding had become a reality in the suburbs, and until the school board realized the merits of running split shifts, there would be no relief in sight. Matt shouldered his way through the crowd of youngsters, running interference for Simone. For the two of them, the bedlam wasn’t nearly as irritating as it might have been to a hearing individual. To Matt, the sound of the crowd came across as a soft, indistinguishable undertone, much the same way a person would perceive the sound of the ocean if they were to hold a seashell up to their ear. As for Simone, the distraction was even less. For her, there was no sound at all...just the emptiness of silence.
Upon reaching his locker, Matt wedged his way in between two other students while Simone waited. Every locker in the school was equipped with a built-in combination lock. Three correct numbers, entered in alternating directions, would release the latch. Matt dialed in the first number as the girl standing to his right retrieved her books and slammed her locker shut. Matt smiled at her as she strode away, and dialed in the second number. Simone wiggled in beside him. “So, do you think Iris is wearing the same stupid outfit today?” she signed.
Matt’s mouth curled into a smile. “I would not bet against it,” he signed back.
Simone’s face was so expressive, it conveyed volumes when she laughed.
Matt was just about to dial in the last number when suddenly, he jerked his hand away from the dial as though he had been scalded.
Simone grabbed him by the shoulder, her face communicating concern.
“Feel the lock,” he gestured.
Simone looked back at him perplexed.
Matt scrutinized his fingers. There appeared to be no irritation or sign of injury.
“Are you okay?”
Matt looked scared. “I know I must be going crazy. It felt like it burned me. ”Simone cocked a skeptical eyebrow at Matt and then carefully studied the lock. Cautiously, she tapped her index finger against the numbered wheel. Feeling only the cold metal dial, she rolled her eyes and shot him a suspicious look.
“I’m telling you,” Matt signed feverishly, “it felt like the lock was burning my fingers!”
Simone tapped on her wristwatch impatiently. “Get your things. We don’t have all day. We only have seven minutes to get my books before homeroom starts!”
Matt looked around to see if anyone else had seen his reaction. During the daily ritual of the last minute rush, everyone else was so preoccupied with avoiding detentions for tardiness, they were totally oblivious. Feeling like an idiot, he sheepishly entered the final number. The metal door creaked open on its rusted hinges to reveal everything as he had left it before the weekend break. He grabbed his math book, notebook, and two sharpened pencils before shutting the door and spinning the dial.
The mob of students was already starting to thin out as Matt and Simone turned the corner and hurried toward another wall of lockers. Unlike the sterility of the hallway where Matt’s locker was, this main corridor was alive with color. A hand-painted mural on the wall to their left depicted the arrival of spring. In the commemorative painting, fluffy white clouds floated over a meadow of multicolored flowers. A handful of picnickers and a smattering of nondescript birds were thrown into the mix to add a touch of realism. Seeing how wonderfully Simone’s bright yellow outfit blended in with the mural, he wondered to himself if she had worn that color on purpose.
Matt leaned against the wall and continued to admire the artwork while Simone attempted to open her locker. It seemed she always had trouble with her combination especially when she felt she rushed. Was it left first, or right? No matter which she tried, she could never get it to work. Combination locks were just not her forte. She drummed her foot impatiently and gritted her teeth. She had heard something about spinning the dial a few times first to clear the tumblers, but in which direction was she supposed to turn it?
Matt wiggled his fingers in front of her face to get her attention. “Having trouble again?”
Her lips were knotted in frustration. “I don’t know why I can never do this! Why does this always happen to me?”
Matt politely nudged her out of the way and took hold of the dial. “Let me try....”
No sooner had Matt touched the handle than his head began to twitch like a thousand volts of electricity were being conducted through the muscles in his neck. At first, Simone thought he was just joking around with her, until she saw his eyes roll back into his head. Trying to control her mounting fear, she grabbed Matt by the shoulders and tried to pull him free of the metal cabinet, but his hand remained frozen on the black dial! Placing both her hands on his face, Simone attempted to hold his head steady, but it was no use; the convulsions continued to grow in their intensity! She tried to pry his fingers off the dial, but his hand had become rigid as steel, and just as steadfast.
She had to get help, but where? The hallway had already emptied out, and she didn’t dare leave Matt alone! Matt was seizing like an epileptic, but somehow, he felt strangely at ease. It was a cruel twist of fate that had stolen his hearing ... and now it was that same providence that was intervening in his life once again.
He was no longer aware of the world around him. The colorful mural he had been staring at only seconds earlier had ceased to exist. It was the same sensation one would get sitting in a darkened theater waiting for a movie to begin—only Matt could no longer go to the movies.
A voice in his head whispered to him...a kind voice ... a haunting voice that sounded so familiar! It assured him that he could control the seizures if he would only try. As clearly, and as intelligibly as though he had never been struck down, Matt could actually hear himself answering the disembodied voice. He told it that he was too afraid.
There was a long pause, and then in a calm resonance that instantly shushed all of his fears, the ethereal voice guaranteed him, there was nothing to be afraid of. There wasn’t anything in life that deserved to be feared. It implored him to try! To gather up all of his courage, and to just trust his intuition!
Simone was bordering on the brink of hysteria. She wanted to yell for help, but the interpretation of screaming for a deaf person isn’t the same as it is for someone who can hear their own voice. For a person who has never listened to the actual sound of the word “help,” or has never had to form the word with their own lips, the guttural wail that can emanate from their throat can be a chilling sound. Thankfully, Simone never had to make an effort. As quickly as it had begun, Matt’s seizure suddenly stopped.
The voice was gone, and the mesmerizing slide show was just beginning...
Colorless images flashed before his eyes in a dizzying collage. Faces of children he did not know passed through his line of sight in rapid-fire succession. One after another the unrecognizable young faces flew by, none remaining for more than an instant. Like the wooden horses on a carousel, the nameless children seemed to whirl around in his head without any apparent rhyme or reason.
The only distinctions Matt could perceive about the young faces was the steady modernization of the children’s hairstyles. It was like peering into a barber’s time capsule. Where the boys had started off with short-cropped hair, the blur of male faces continued to evolve through the generations of styles and fads. Crewcuts ... slicked-back hair ... long hair ... tight Afro curls ... medium length ... fade cuts ... all flashing by in a matter of milliseconds.
The same held true for the girls he saw too. Bobbed hair ... long hair with paisley headbands ... tight Afro curls ... the return of long hair ... then another face with short hair again, but this time dyed in punk shades of blue, orange and green! It was a whirlwind tour of hair fashion, but they were all blending together and moving so fast, he c
ould feel his stomach turning in protest. Then ... without warning, it stopped! Like driving two hundred miles an hour, and hitting a brick wall, it just stopped!
Why was this happening to him? Was this what death was supposed to feel like? He had so many things he wanted to do in his life ... so many questions he wanted answered. Shrouded in shadows, encased in silence, all he could feel was the steady beating of his heart inside his chest. He was so scared, but he remembered what the voice had told him ... no fear! He hung on to that reassuring phrase like a lifeline.
The instant he concentrated on those two small words, the curtain of darkness parted, and Simone was all that he could see ... but there was something different about her. As she came toward him, she wasn’t walking under her own power, but as if she was floating out of the light, and she was no longer wearing the yellow outfit he had admired only minutes earlier. As she approached him, her clothes kept changing ... from black slacks, to a green dress, to white pants, then to blue jeans, back to her yellow outfit ... they all merged into an endless kaleidoscope of style and fabric! But something was happening now ... the closer she advanced, the slower her pace became, and in turn, the less frantic the clothing transformations. When she was almost within arm’s length, she stopped abruptly as two ominous shadows passed across her face! A bloodcurdling shiver shot down Matt’s spine, as though one of his classmates had slipped an ice cube down the back of his shirt! There was someone else here ... someone bad! Other presences standing just beyond his view! He knew they were there ... he sensed them! He could feel their hearts beating ... hear their syncopated breathing!
No fear, he repeated to himself ... there is nothing in life that should be feared!
As Matt looked on in uncontrollable horror, a geyser of blood sprayed out of the back of Simone’s head! Helpless in his vision, he was forced to watch as her face contorted into a mask of anguish. He wanted to close his eyes ... needed to blot out the terrifying image ... “no fear,” the voice repeated again.
Something wasn’t right about this. Matt didn’t know why, but he felt that things were getting all mixed up. Lines were getting crossed. What he was seeing wasn’t real! His imagination was going berserk. Simone was fine ... she was standing right beside him ... he knew she was there! He could feel her there! No fear!
Suddenly, like a fog being lifted by the warmth of the sun, it all became so apparent to him! Like someone had kindled a clarifying beacon to lead him out of the darkness, he thought he finally understood what was happening!
There was no fear!
With newfound confidence, Matt turned his focus to the pair of visages lurking in the shadows. Only one was visible to him, and he took that to mean something too. Matt recognized the man, not by name, but because of all of the chance encounters they had shared. That had to be the explanation as to why he remained obscured by the darkness! In real-life, he worked in the background! The more Matt relaxed, the more he understood that everything he was visualizing in this trance was there for a specific purpose! He knew now that the endless procession of children he had witnessed had been every child that had shared this same locker for over forty years. He could feel their company as clearly as if they were actually standing right in front of him! Forty-two years’ worth of students had led him right back here to the present ... and to Simone! And what’s more, he now knew who was burglarizing all the lockers! The revelation hit him like a backhand across his face.
Simone didn’t know what else to do ... she struck him so hard, the palm of her hand left a bright red imprint on his cheek. In a torrent of light and color, Matt’s surroundings returned. Without hesitation, he reached for Simone and tugged her close, feeling her body trembling against his. She wrapped her arms around him, and together, they found contentment beyond their years.
Simone pulled back and began signing mere inches from his face. “I was so worried about you! What happened? Are you okay now?”
Trying to be nonchalant about his actions, Matt casually brushed his hand across the back of Simone’s scalp. There were no words to relate the relief he felt when he found everything intact. “I’m alright.”
“You had me very scared!”
Matt tried to comfort her with a reassuring smile. “How long did I space out?”
Simone shrugged. “Just a few seconds, but you were shaking and twitching! Are you sure you are feeling okay now?”
Matt gnawed on his lower lip. “I don’t think we should tell anyone what just happened.”
Simone’s gestures were frenzied. “What did just happen?”
Matt grasped her hands to silence her. “Everything is fine, I swear. I promise I will explain it all to you, but first, I need to know something.”
Simone stroked her index finger across her palm, the sign for “what?”
Matt signed his words slowly and deliberately. “Did you leave anything valuable in your locker over the weekend?”
Without a moments’ pause, Simone nodded in the affirmative. “I had a Doctor’s appointment on Friday, and I forgot my backpack because I left school an hour early.”
“What was in the backpack?”
Simone frowned. “Not my cell phone, I don’t keep it in my pack, but my allowance was in there. My father gives me twenty dollars every Thursday night.”
“That’s it? Twenty dollars?”
She shook her head. “No, I had a watch and some jewelry that I always take off before P.E. I went directly from the track to the Doctor’s office Friday afternoon.”
Matt tried not to come off as too judgmental, but being deaf, he believed they both had to be even more observant of the world around them. “Didn’t they warn us about leaving important stuff like that in our lockers over the weekend?”
Simone’s demeanor turned defensive. “My mother was running late! Besides, there are over five hundred lockers in this school! Why would I think mine would get singled out?” Matt gestured with his thumb toward the locker. “Open it.”
“Why don’t you?”
Matt shied away. “There is no way you can get me to touch that lock again!”
After two unsuccessful tries, Simone finally manipulated the right combination and swung the metal door open. To her shock and dismay, the contents of her backpack were gone! She yanked out the bag and frantically rummaged through it again. “My parents are going to kill me!”
Matt waited for Simone to calm down and fill her backpack with books and then steered her toward the front of the building. “We’ve got to tell someone in the office about this.”
As they passed the cafeteria, the malodorous smells that wafted through the hallway seemed to warn them of the impending Salisbury steak lunch. “How did you know my things had been taken?”
Matt was walking so fast, Simone was having a hard time keeping up with him. “I don’t just know your things are gone ... I also think I know who took them!”
Simone grabbed him by the elbow as they turned the corner into the school’s entrance hall. “How is that possible?”
Reaching the administrative offices, Matt grabbed the backpack from Simone’s arm and held the swinging doors open for her. “I’ll explain it later. Right now, we’ve got to try to get your things back,” he signed.
Carmen Trujillo’s official title was Registrar’s Assistant, but when she wasn’t filling out forms, or arranging class schedules, she stood behind the counter and ran interference for the administrators from the litany of student crises that wandered into the front office. Trujillo was a young woman, not particularly attractive to the eye, but with a disarming smile that always had a way of calming even the school’s most unruly children.
She had always held a special place in her heart for Simone and Matt, and she was delighted whenever they came into the office. “Aren’t you two supposed to be in class?” she asked, her mouth moving with a magnified pronunciation for their benefit. “Where i
s Ms. Porter?”
Matt hated to use his voice, unsure of what he sounded like nowadays, but since the interpreter wasn’t around to help.. “Hello, Miss Trujillo. We need to see Mrs. Farmer.”
Trujillo lowered her half-glasses onto her nose and studied both children. It was the same dubious stare a parent would give a child when they were trying to figure out what mischief their youngster had gotten themselves into. “And why, may I ask, do both of you need to interrupt Mrs. Farmer? Our Principal is very busy.”
“She wants to know why” Matt signed to Simone.
Simone’s gestures were all facial, but he knew she was urging him to tell the truth.
“I really need to speak to her. It’s critical. I think I know who is stealing from the student lockers.”
All heads turned as the Assistant Principal, a tall, lanky black man named Clarence Ward, came storming out of his office. “What’s going on out here? What is all of this commotion about?” As petrified as Trujillo was by the massive man’s sudden appearance, she could only imagine how terrified the children must have been. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ward. These students are insisting on speaking with Mrs. Farmer. I’ll send them to homeroom right away!”
Out of an intuitive sense of self-preservation, Simone stepped behind Matt. She had always thought that with his shaven head and goatee beard, Ward reminded her more of a grizzled death-row inmate than a school administrator. As far as she was concerned, the man’s only saving grace was that she needed no interpreter to translate what he was saying. His brusque body language and scowling facial expressions were more than adequate to convey his message. “Why is it that you two aren’t on your way to class already?”
It was hard enough not to be distracted by the Assistant Principal’s burning gaze, but even worse, Matt hated having to read the lips of someone who wore a beard. The hair rimming the mouth tended to hide or distort the natural motion of the person’s lips.