Feathers (7 page)

Can’t you see he’s talking,
I said, and Sean gave me a look.

Sit down,
he said.
I’m almost done.
He tapped me on the head and ran back over to his game.

The tap on the head meant he wasn’t mad at me for coming. I climbed onto the bleachers and sat down in front of some girls who were watching the game.

“That’s your brother?” one of them asked me.

I looked at her and nodded, then turned back front.

“He can’t hear
anything
?” I heard her asking my back.

I knew what was coming, so I didn’t turn around again. “Nope.”

“Dag,” she said. “That’s messed up.”

I heard another girl say, “And he’s a fine brother-man too.”

I rolled my eyes and felt my hands clinching inside my coat pockets.

“No wonder he’s not trying to talk to us.”

I wanted to say, “He’s not trying to talk to you because he’s not interested in you!” But I didn’t say anything. What was the use? Instead, I watched Sean and his friends play full court. Sean took a shot and missed, then looked over at me and shrugged. Then he looked at the girls behind me and ducked his head a bit before taking off down the court.

“Those other two guys are deaf too,” another one of the girls said.

“Yeah—but they’re not as cute as her brother.”

There were three hearing guys playing against Sean and his friends. From the looks of it, the hearing guys were winning. I didn’t want to see that. Not with those dumb girls behind me. Not with the deaf guys trying so hard and all. I got up after a few more minutes and signed to Sean that I’d meet him in the hallway. He nodded and I left the gym. Kids were running around and there were a few grown-ups trying to get them to use “walking feet.”

I leaned against the wall, watching it all. There was a poster across from me listing all the rules of the rec center. Next to each rule, instead of a number, there was a big yellow smiley face. Next to the rule that said NO GRAFFITI, somebody had Magic-Markered their name and a frowning face.

I was smiling over that when I saw the Jesus Boy coming out of the boys’ locker room, zipping up his coat, his hair wet and curling over his shoulders. I stopped smiling. Maybe he felt me staring because he looked up suddenly.

I just kept staring at him.

“Hey,” he said when he got a little bit closer.

“Hey yourself.”

“What’re you doing here, Frannie?”

It felt strange to hear him say my name.

“It’s a free country.”

He moved a little bit closer to me. “That’s what they say.” He signed the word
say.

“How come you know sign anyway?”

The Jesus Boy stopped smiling, thought for a minute, then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, like he was really trying to understand.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I just know it,” he said. “I just do. Maybe from when I was a baby or something.”

“Well, it’s not something a person’s born knowing,” I said.

“Well, how come you know English?”

“Because my family knows English and that’s what they taught me.”

Jesus Boy shrugged again. “So maybe it’s the same for me. Maybe somebody in my family knew it one time.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make even a little bit of sense.”

“Does to me,” he said.

“Do they sign now?”

He made the sign for
maybe
and smiled at me.

I signed back,
Maybe you’re crazy.

“Well, what made you sign to
me
the other day?” I asked.

“I saw you walking with that guy who signs. You two were talking to each other.”

“That’s my brother,” I said. “Sean.”

“Yeah,” Jesus Boy said. “I was kinda far away when I saw you, but y’all look alike.”

“No we don’t,” I said. Sean was beautiful. Everybody could see that. I was just regular.

We just sort of stood there for a while, watching people go by.

“I’m waiting for my dad,” Jesus Boy said. “Maybe I should be waiting outside.”

“Well, good-bye then,” I said.

The Jesus Boy looked at me sideways but didn’t move.

“You really lived across the highway?” I asked.

Jesus Boy nodded.

“What was
that
like? To live over there.”

“It would have been okay for me. But it wasn’t okay for my mom and dad,” he said. “It was hard for them. People can be so stupid. Once this cop stopped us and asked me if I knew my dad. Me and my dad were fooling around, kinda wrestling and stuff. He thought my dad was hurting me.”

He looked at me, then said, “I don’t look like him, I guess.”

“How come.”

He stared at the poster with the smiley faces. “Just ’cause. It doesn’t really matter. I used to wish that I would wake up and look just like him. I still do sometimes. I look at him and he’s so cool and . . .” He stopped.

I watched him, waiting for him to say something more, but he didn’t. Just put his hands in his pockets and stood there.

Two little kids ran by us but slowed down to stare at him. At us.

“Take a picture,” I said. “It lasts longer.” The little girl stuck her tongue out at me, then she and her friend ran off.

Jesus Boy smiled. His eyeteeth were kind of fangy.

Someone pulled the rec center door open and a group of boys came in making a lot of noise. I could see Trevor in the middle of them, his coat hanging off the arm that had the cast on it. When he saw us, he stopped.

“If it ain’t Mr. and Mrs. Jesus,” he said. The other guys with him looked at us. One of them laughed.

“You still here?”

The Jesus Boy looked at him. “I’m still here.”

One of the guys said “C’mon, Trev” as they started walking away. Trevor told them to go ahead, he’d catch up.

“You know I don’t even like you,” Trevor said.

“You don’t even know me, man.”

“I ain’t your man, white boy!”

The Jesus Boy looked at him calmly and said, “Well, I ain’t your white boy, man.”

“We could take this outside,” Trevor said.

“You go ahead,” the Jesus Boy said. “I’ll meet you there.”

Trevor looked at him, his blue eyes getting smaller and more evil.

I wanted to ask him what he planned to do with his arm in a cast and all but then the door opened and a tall, dark-skinned man came in, looked around, then saw us.

“You ready,” he said to the Jesus Boy.

The Jesus Boy nodded. “This is Frannie. Frannie, this is my pops. That’s Trevor.”

I felt my eyebrows lifting up and tried to make them go down again.

“Hey Frannie.”

I managed to say hello but Trevor just stood there a moment, staring at the man. Then, without saying anything, he turned and took off down the hall.

The little girls were back, staring at all three of us now.

“Let’s get moving,” Jesus Boy’s dad said. “We got things to do.”

As they were leaving, I heard him ask the Jesus Boy how his swim was. I couldn’t hear the answer.

“Is that white boy your boyfriend?” one of the little girls asked.

I had forgotten they were standing there.

“Oh, scat out of here already,” I said, waving my hands at them. They squealed and ran off again.

But later on, when Sean came out of the gym all sweaty and pulling on his coat, I was still thinking about the Jesus Boy and his daddy.

You’re always following me,
Sean signed.

You like it,
I signed back.

How come you didn’t watch the whole game? We went crazy on those guys. They didn’t know what was happening to them once we got warmed up! You missed my winning shot.
He took a jump shot, throwing his basketball into the air and catching it.

I thought about the stupid girls in the bleachers, then brushed the thought out of my head.

It got too hot in there,
I signed.
And stinky.

Sean laughed and chucked me on the head again.

Down the hall, I could see Trevor and his friends standing around in a circle. I heard the guard telling them to get out of the hallway and saw Trevor give the guard a mean look.

“You can get out of my hallway or you can leave,” the guard said.

“Let’s go play some pinball,” one of the boys said, and the others followed him down the hall to the game room. “C’mon, lefty,” he said, looking at Trevor. “Let’s see what you got with that one good hand.” Trevor smiled and his face looked almost normal—soft and happy.

Isn’t that kid in your class?
Sean asked.

I nodded.

How come you didn’t go hang with him then?

I watched Trevor move down the hall with his friends.
I don’t like him.

Beggars can’t be choosy,
Sean said, smiling and tapping my head again.

I know,
I said.
That’s why I’m stuck with you!

And as we walked out into the snow, I lifted my head up to catch flakes on my tongue, feeling them melting in my mouth and, somehow, warming me.

11

Late in the afternoon, I was sitting with Sean on the couch, eating pretzels and cheese. We weren’t allowed to eat sugar when the weather was real bad because Mama said it made us too crazy with all the running around and jumping up and down we did. But Sean had picked up a Hershey bar on the way home and we’d split it and stuffed it into our mouths before we got on the elevator. I felt like I’d bounce off the ceiling and ricochet all over the apartment if the snow didn’t stop.

The weather guy had said this was a record—that it hadn’t snowed this much since way back in the fifties. I’d turned on the radio and the Jackson 5 were singing “ABC.” I was in love with Michael Jackson. He was one of the cutest boys on the planet as far as I knew. I got off the couch and started dancing to the song. Mama had gotten me a rainbow peasant skirt for Christmas and when I twirled in it, the colors seemed to spread light all over the room. Sean shook his head watching me. He signed,
One of these days, I’m gonna teach you some rhythm.
When the music was loud enough, Sean could feel the rhythm through the vibration. When he danced, you wouldn’t even know he was deaf. But he was too busy stuffing pretzels in his mouth and making fun of me to get up off the couch and move around.

The music was so loud, I didn’t even hear Grandma come in until she was standing right near me, telling me to turn it down. Sean jumped off the couch and hugged her. I nearly jumped into her arms.

“If you all don’t get off me and let me get my coat off, somebody’s gonna feel my Bible,” Grandma said. “I heard that music down the street!” But she was smiling as she turned the radio off.

Is it still real cold out?
Sean signed.
It was freezing earlier.

“He said, is it cold—”

“I know a little something,” Grandma said, cutting me off. She nodded at Sean. She always said she was too old to learn another language by the time Sean came along, but most times, when I tried to translate, she already knew what Sean was signing. And she had a way of signing back that only her and Sean understood most of the times—a kind of secret language that just about burned me up.

She bent down to kiss me and I took her face in my hands and kissed her nose. She laughed and pushed me away the way she always did. She only had two wrinkles—one running straight across her forehead and one small one just at the top of her nose between her eyes. She didn’t have any gray hair like other grandmothers but Mama said it was hidden underneath years and years of blue-black hair dye. I liked the color, though—the way the blue kind of caught you by surprise. I took her hand and pulled her over to the couch. Sean had the other hand.

“Now what’s all this fuss about this new one coming?” She was talking to both of us but looking at Sean.

“I’m with you,” I said. “Doesn’t make the least bit of sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense is both of you pulling on me like you’re still my babies.” She moved away from us and took off her coat. “I love y’all both to death,” she said, putting it on a chair beside her purse. “But you’re a little big to be pulling on me so.”

She sat down on the couch heavily and pulled me into her lap. I was way too big for laps. I knew that. But me and my whole family made believe that I wasn’t. Grandma put her other arm around Sean.

“What’s this I hear about Wilt Chamberlain?” Grandma asked Sean.

Thirty thousand points,
Sean signed. He had a huge grin on his face.

“And he’s the first black man to score that many?”

He’s the first any man!
Sean said.
In NBA history.

“Well, ain’t he something,” Grandma said.

“Argh, that’s nothing. If I was in the NBA, I’d score sixty thousand,” I said.

And then you’d wake up,
Sean said.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with the two of you,” Grandma said.

“Grandma, you know this white cat’s in my class now. People calling him Jesus!”

Grandma closed her eyes a moment. “Frannie, some days I have no idea what you’re talking about. What
cat
?”

“You know, cat, like person. You call a person a cat.”

“Is it a cat or is it a person?” Grandma asked. “Because if it’s a person, why are you calling him a cat?”

“Grandma! That’s the language! That’s what you say. It’s the seventies! That’s
jive
talk.”

Grandma just laughed and looked at me.

“Maybe you should concentrate on learning some English first. Before you start learning
jive talk
. And what’s this about Jesus?”

“That’s what they call him. Because he looks like Jesus—I mean, that’s—”

“You don’t want a piece of my Bible on your head, now, do you, Frannie.” Grandma’s face was starting to twist into the face that wasn’t so patient.