Love for a Deaf Rebel by Derrick King (ereader with dictionary txt) 📕

“Grandma’s family were very wealth. Grandma has 19 or 16? (I don’t remember) sisters and brothers. When my father was 2 years old, I don’t remember who took him when her mother had heart attack and laid down on kitchen floor and left my father alone. My father’s father and 4 boys (brothers) were all drowned near Squamish. Then my father got killed by a car.”

Pearl’s story shocked me, and the offhand way she talked about these disasters shocked me, too.

“Sister Nadine, 28, student. Sister Lydia, 21, student. Brother, 26, doctor.”

“How old were you when you found out you were deaf?”

“My aunts watched me tear paper to feel vibrations. When was 2 Grandma told her that I am deaf but Mother refused to accept until doctor in the hospital admitted. I was 3. Someone gave measles to her when pregnant. Many deafies are first in family.”

“Is your ex-husband deaf?”

“Hard-of-hearing like Jodi. We open up and talk deeply about something. She or I don’t feel safe to talk to another friend.”

“I talk deeply with Leo and Virgil. Do you have many hearing friends?”

“About 10. Deafies—lots but I don’t want to get close, just see them once in 2 wks. is enough. Many deafies have problems. I don’t like deafies who are negatives.”

Everyone generalizes, but the way Pearl talked about her community, either disparaging or boastful, surprised me. She didn’t seem to see deafie and hearies as equals but as “us vs. them.” Despite the language difficulties and against her mother’s advice, Pearl said she preferred to spend her time with hearing friends.

Pearl walked across the street to my condo. We were constantly dropping in on each other for tea. We scribbled like madmen as we tried to get to know each other.

“Where are you going on holidays?”

“I’ll visit grandma and grandpa for few days. Then stay at Uncle’s ranch to ride on the horse. I am going to learn to jump the fence on the horse this year.”

Pearl caught me staring at her. “It’s amazing how much your face can say.”

She smiled. “‘Body language.’ Jodi and I go to Bimini Bar once a while after health club. We don’t get bothered there. Men are thinking we are weird because of ASL. We are peace. Hardly explain to you. We don’t drink very much. Ex-boyfriend Eddy was very alcoholic. I lived with him almost 2 yrs. ago. I did not like his way. Bad influence to children in future. He’s my good friend now. I think I meet wrong men.”

Pearl’s sexual history included a homosexual, an alcoholic, and an epileptic. What was I to think of her? I thought she, like I, had been unlucky in love.

“You’ll make a wonderful wife and mother to some lucky guy.”

Pearl beamed. “I believe that I’ll be.”

“What if you met a guy you can love but who didn’t want kids?”

“Forget him for boyfriend but keep him as good friend for yrs.”

I brought a bouquet, a half-bottle of wine, and plastic glasses to our food court rendezvous, even though it was illegal to drink it there. Pearl handed me a letter, looking self-conscious. Her script was neat and her grammar better than in our speedwriting conversations.

8 May 1984

Dear Derrick.

Shall we be magnificent couple? …I want to talk with you about anything we can know each other more deep and also improve our communications (signs). Even touching—so on. I want you to teach me anything that you want. I like to try anything to expand my experiences. We create it ourselves and enjoy it together.

I do wish your separation is over. You are hearty person—wonderful! You are not naive. I really love to see your being a gentleman—to make me a woman. I really want to wear nice dress for my work and meet you for eating together. We would feel fascinate.

I notice myself that you make me week and to be loved.

I feel like to touch you but I couldn’t reach you because you are working on 20th floor, ha!

I love you, Pearl

Cupid had shot an arrow into my heart—three months after we met, six weeks after our first date, and while we were still talking on paper! But although we had connected in a magical way, I didn’t want more than friendship. Perhaps I didn’t want to take advantage of a handicap, or I was worried that my actions might be seen that way. Release of my prejudice—for that is what it was—was our final hurdle.

I walked across the street to Pearl’s for brunch. While she toasted waffles, she asked me to check out her diving equipment. It was stored on top of cartons of World’s Finest almond chocolates. The fundraising chocolates were labeled Silent Leadership Association.

I took a box to the kitchen.

“Whose chocolates?”

“Silent Leadership Association. I store them because I can’t trust other SLA members not to eat them. There are many deaf groups fighting. Deafies are weak to make progress. I started SLA to make strong association for leadership of all deafies who will join.”

“How many members do you have?”

Pearl shrugged sadly. “Few.” She opened a file from her desk and showed me a logo. “My sister draw for me for SLA.”

“That is a nice logo. If there are already many deaf associations then another one will divide deafies even more.”

“No because they will join SLA for strong deaf leadership. But few in SLA want to help me sell. These chocolates are for future sale.”

“The expiry date is next month. Can I see the contract?” Pearl handed me a letter from her file. “This is a final demand for payment threatening to hand your invoice to a collection agency. Do you want me to help?”

Pearl nodded and looked relieved.

A few days later, I called the general manager of World’s Finest Chocolates and asked for Pearl’s debt to be canceled.

“Thanks for calling,” he said. “Communication with this group has been difficult. This group didn’t know how to organize a fund-raiser. My staff should have checked whether the Silent Leadership Association was a registered society and begun with a small order, so we are as much to blame as they are. I’ll write it off and close the file.”

Pearl’s stillborn deaf association and her unmarketable chocolates were naïve, but her initiative impressed me. I found myself wondering how successful Pearl would have been, and could still be, if she had a mentor. Most people overrate their importance in other people’s lives, and I was no exception.

It took Pearl and me two years to eat the chocolates.

Our next date was at the Ridge Theater, where we saw a Spanish movie with subtitles. As we sat in the theater, I was surprised to see Eugénie walk past the footlights, smile at me, and sit at the other end of the theater. She and I had seen more foreign films than Hollywood films and plenty of both. The Ridge had been our favorite haunt. While we were together, Eugénie and I had worked our way through every non-bondage position in The Joy of Sex. Now, ten years later, I was working my way through every sign in The Joy of Signing!

After the movie, Pearl came to my place and pointed to the map hanging on my wall.

“Roads I’ve ridden on my motorcycle. All states, all provinces, half of Mexico. Eugénie and I rode across Canada for our honeymoon. I want to ride to South America. That’s why I study Spanish. I have a pen-pal in Madrid. I ride safely, no tickets. How long until I can sign?”

“Depends on how much we have a conversation. For example, we eat together, I can teach you each food. It’s easier for you to remember while we are doing. English—The red dog is under the table. ASL—Under table dog red. It’s easy. I have seen so many people who learned ASL. They become more smart than they were before.”

I stared at Pearl, baffled.

She laughed. “I was joking.”

“Hello,” I signed, using the sign in the textbook.

“That is for USA. Almost same to Canada but like this is for children.” “Hello,” she signed the Canadian way. “For adult.”

“Sometimes deafies fingerspell words.”

“For names and other weird words. Local names we usually name it by our signs.” “Granville Island,” she signed. “Our invention. G plus island sign. You’ll meet deafies children who are hearing—very smart than normal children. My friend Elizabeth has a hearing son 8 years old. He learns both deaf and hearing worlds. So many deafies have hearing children. Few deafies has generations all deafies. My family is nothing. I am only one deaf. Jodi and I talked a lot about having kids.”

“If you wanted kids, then why did you buy a small condo?”

“For investments, I don’t like to waste $ on rents. I don’t know how long I find Mr. Right. My friends teased me which—deaf or hearing husband I prefer to have. In my teenage I made it clear to my deaf friends that I forbid about marrying a hearing man.”

“Why did you change your mind?”

“I thought of having hearing husband cause of few good deafie husband. But many mixed marriage failed because the hearie got bored of effort to talk to the deafie. Then the deafie married a deafie and become happy. Depends on communication and trust.”

I felt a twinge of disappointment to realize that as a potential mate, I would be Pearl’s second choice.

Pearl drove me to the empty New Westminster condominium she was struggling to sell. The radio in her red Buick Skyhawk roared with static when she turned the key. I turned it down and tuned in a station. Pearl felt the dashboard and drove off.

Her condominium was bare but for a mattress, a propane barbecue, and a makeup table.

“Why do you have a radio in your car?”

“It is impossible to buy a car without a radio—discrimination!”

We locked the door and walked upstairs to Elizabeth’s flat. When we rang the doorbell, a handsome boy opened the door and signed rapidly. We walked in, and Pearl turned the light switch on and off a few times to announce our presence.

A slender brunette came from the kitchen and signed; the boy interpreted. “I’m delighted to see you. I’m so happy Pearl has a boyfriend. This is my son, Kieran.”

I was amused that Pearl had told her friend I was her boyfriend when we had yet to kiss! After a look around her spartan two-bedroom apartment, we sat down to dinner.

“Your scuba gear—why did you sell it?” I said, with Kieran interpreting.

“My husband left me. It cost two thousand, but I sold it for one thousand.