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SIFTING DIRT
Willy Conley
Words: 1,827
[Story]

Roger Folter leaned against the park's thick iron fence and crossed his right foot over his left. He was a few yards from the water's edge. In the middle of the Rancho La Brea pit was a gray mastodon stuck in tar; its massive trunk and tusks stabbed the sky in a frozen snarl. A squat pigeon rested on the mammoth's back, and down the sculpted shaggy sides were dried white dribbles of dung. As tar bubbles rose passively to the surface near the statue's legs, Roger envisioned his dirt-filled kitchen sink. The living room scene replayed in his head.

"You preach, still," said his wife Rhondee, standing in front of the anchorwoman on the eleven o'clock TV news.

"Move please, she's talking about Bosnia now," said Roger.

"You preach, still," said Rhondee with stronger hand movements.

Roger leaned forward on the sofa to push her out of the way but she slapped his hand off her hip.

"Hey--can't you wait till this is over?" he asked.

"No, me saw you--you correct-correct him. Must stop now."

Roger sank back on the sofa.

"Correcting what?" he asked. He craned his neck to catch the newsclip that flashed on the screen.

"You preach-preach English to him," she said.

Roger felt his gut tighten a little but he let it go.

=

The bubbles that bobbed up against the mastodon's leg released an oily film in the water. The pigeon fluttered its wings then settled down again on its haunches. Roger closed his eyes, trying to remember what happened next. He had been watching a closed-captioned newscast, reading fast scrolling lines of text at the bottom of the television screen, when Rhondee stepped in. It was a chore to read the news at a frantic pace, especially when the captions were fraught with misspellings, but he kept at it knowing that it would pay off in the long run.

Roger looked around the pit to check on his son. On the other side Cody skimmed rocks across the water. The pigeon flew away. Roger crossed his left foot over his right and went back to the bubbles.

"I'm teaching English to Cody," said Roger. He emphasized teach with his hands, retrieving invisible information from his head and pushing it to an imaginary young boy next to him. "Now move?please?"

"You preach-preach!" The veins on Rhondee's neck and face began to surface.

Roger was proud of the way he preserved his emotions. He was a professional who sold his feelings; that's how actors work. Big emotional outbursts were all right for the stage, but the way Rhondee wasted her anger in their warm, serene living room was beyond him.

"Next year we're enrolling Cody in kindergarten, right?" Roger asked his wife.

"Right," she said. The interrupted lines of captions scrolled behind her.

"With deaf or hearing children?" he asked.

"Hearing children," she said with a bitter expression.

"Correct," said Roger. "Cody is hearing--we can't help that--he should be around other hearing children, right?"

Rhondee stared at the little scar on Roger's lower lip.

"And what language will these hearing kids be using?"

"English," said Rhondee. "What's the point?"

"Sign that again," Roger said.

Like a bored sign language student, she clasped one hand weakly over her wrist in a classic British pose.

"English."

"Right! And does Cody know English?"

"He knows enough," she said.

"Bathroom, me finish touch," Roger mimicked. "Me-know, me-know, me-want, me-want. You call that English?"

Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils pinched. The unbuttoned pocket flaps on her blouse seemed to open and close as she took big breaths.

"What's-what's wrong?that?" her hands trembled. "Before never bother-bother you, me not sit here watch-watch captions, improve my English."

"Nothing's wrong, if Cody's signing with us or other deaf people. But if he talks like that to his teachers and classmates, they're going to make fun of him."

"Give him time." Her index finger repeatedly jabbed her wristwatch. "Cody develop natural deaf language now. Dump two languages on little boy, age-four, can't. Later, English."

"I want to start now before it's too late," he said.

"Not now! First, what? he understand us, must!--you, me--our language--before too late."

"Do you want him to look stupid?"

She hit the palm of her hand with a firm karate chop in front of Roger's face. Roger flinched and thought she was going to slice his nose off.

"Stop!" she said.

=

The bubbles in the pit burst slowly, one after another. Roger felt something tug on his pants. Cody stretched his little french-fry fingers apart and pressed his thumb against his forehead.

"Daddy!"

"What's up?" Roger grimaced as he rubbed a stiffness in the back of his neck.

"Me hear bird. Talk funny."

"I hear a bird. It talks funny," Roger corrected.

"Can't. Hard," said Cody.

"Try it. You're a smart guy."

"Don't wanna."

"Do you want to go home now?" Roger asked. "I don't need to stay here."

"No, no, don't. Me want stay," cried Cody.

"Then you try harder."

"I hear bird. It talk funny," said Cody.

"That's better. Was that so hard?"

"Yeah."

"OK. Where do you see this bird?"

"Not see bird but me can hear--says ?Hel-lo!' " said Cody. He fingerspelled the last word leaving the o formed in his hand.

"Oh, c'mon Code, you know birds can't talk."

"Come look-for," said Cody.

Roger hitched Cody up onto his shoulders; he smelled his light buttery scent which came from Rhondee, only hers was sharper. As he walked around the tar pit to a nearby construction site Cody gave him the signal, with a tap of his boot heel, to let him down. Cody ran up to a mound of excavated dirt and climbed up to the top. He had the look of a miniature cowboy scanning a prairie. Roger sat down at the bottom of the mound and scooped up a handful of moist dirt, slowly letting the finer pieces fall between his fingers. He looked over at the tar pit and studied the expression of rage on the mastodon's face.

=

In the living room, Rhondee still wouldn't budge from her position in front of the television set.

"Face it," said Roger. "We're living in a hearing world."

"Spittie," she said.

"What did you call me?"

"Spittie?pftht, pftht!"

"I don't need to watch that deaf bullshit," said Roger. "Get out of the way. I'm getting behind on world news, you mind?"

Rhondee stepped back and used the anchorwoman for a demonstration.

"You want act like hearing people, talk-talk-talk, spit fly out your mouth."

"Are you making fun of my work?" asked Roger.

"My life, you mock?" asked Rhondee.

There was a moment of stillness in the room except for the flickering images from the television.

"Me show what you look like on stage with other hearing actors." She stood erect, expressionless, one hand over her chest and the other behind her back. She imitated a bad actor's monologue, moving only her mouth in grotesque shapes: "Blah-blah-blah."

Roger took a minute to think while the anchorwoman signed off for a commercial break.

"I thought you supported the idea of me integrating with hearing people?"

"Too much," Rhondee said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You leave behind sign language, deaf culture."

"I'm including it . . . expanding it. To see how far we can go with our potential."

"Uncle Tom," she said.

"You can't deny we live in a hearing world," said Roger, overlapping her remark.

"Uncle T-O-M." Rhondee fingerspelled slow to catch his attention.

"Uncle Tom?"

"No, no, no; mistake me," she said. "Uncle Tom for blacks. Me mean Uncle R-O-G."

"What's wrong with you, Rhondee?"

"Everything! Thought me married Deaf man."

She stared at him, breathing hard. When he couldn't hold the glare, she backed up and left the room. The anchorwoman returned and continued her cool delivery. He went back to the news and absently read the captions. He couldn't translate their meanings.

A few minutes later Rhondee returned with her arms full of potted aloes from around the house. Dirt spilled on the floor behind her, some stuck to the sweat on her arms. She dumped the pots upside down and filled the sink with black soil. Roger watched from the corners of his eyes, keeping his head in the direction of the television. She grabbed a bunch of aloes and plucked apart the fleshy, finger-like leaves one by one. The leaves were piled up on top of the butcher block next to the toaster. For an absurd second Roger imagined her making a salad. She took a fork from the drawer and methodically mashed the juices out of the leaves. When she was finished, the clear liquid oozed over the block and onto the counter.

From the far end of the sofa Roger sat with his mouth open. He thought of what he should be feeling but nothing appropriate registered. Her actions surprised him. There was no cue for her next move. She's going to sneer at him, he anticipated, and sign, "Now you know how me feel!" Instead, his wife walked over to the television, unplugged the wires from the closed-captioning device, and wrapped them around the machine. The television image shrank to a dot where the anchorwoman's lips were and disappeared. Rhondee snatched her keys off the top of the microwave oven and left by the front door with her captioning device under her arm. Roger waited for the vibrations to rock across the hardwood floor when the door slammed, but nothing happened. She left the door open.

Roger looked back at the television and saw that his wife left behind her muddy handprints all over the screen. He slowly got up to look in the sink. It smelled like a freshly-turned garden. He wondered which two of the leaves were the original ones that Rhondee gave him at the start of their relationship, before it had grown wild and out of proportion. Roger padded down the hall to peek into his son's room. Cody had slept through another silent argument.

Roger was still looking at the mastodon when Cody jumped on his back and knocked the remaining dirt out of his hands.

"Daddy! Me saw balloon man. He make-make balloon, like this . . ." Cody showed his father how the man blew a long, narrow balloon and twisted it into different shapes.

"Well, let's go buy a balloon. You know what kind of animal you want?"

"Yep!"

"Good. And let's buy one for your mother. You know what kind of animal she wants?" Roger was thinking that Rhondee probably drove over to her mother's to cool off from the fight.

"Don't-know," said Cody. "Have idea--we tell balloon man make-make talking bird."

Roger raised his right hand to correct him, but restrained himself. He lifted his left hand and signed, "Okay, and then we'll go over to your grandmother's."

=====
Willy Conley is the chair of the theater arts department at Gallaudet University. His most recent book is Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays, which is available at http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/bookpage/VODCbookpage.html

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