Songs for the Deaf, page 15
As he stepped out from behind Tony Sutter and into the cone of the dim streetlight, he reached into his pocket. He and Antonio stood together now, the one singing, the other just staring up at the dark window with an ache he did not know how to fix.
The tears started down Jeremy’s cheeks. In a last-ditch attempt to steady himself, he pulled out the stainless steel relic and raised it to his quivering lips. He blew as hard as he could, the way the playground lady had tried to in grade school long ago.
The townspeople who witnessed it would say now that not even a sherif’s whistle could stop the angelic voice of the Magnificent Antonio. So strong and insistent was his voice that it blotted out whatever shrill unlovely noise Deputy What’s His Name had hoped would steal Antonio’s thunder. It was a sign, they said. For at that very moment, the deaf girl’s light came on and her plain but vaguely pleasing face appeared at the window.
Antonio turned to Jeremy Jones and looked him in the eye for once, smiling in a way that showed how humbled he was by his own great talent. All the doubts about his ultimate destiny flooded out of his eyes and he was once again the Magnificent Antonio, now at the dawn of his Glory Years.
After that, nothing could hold Antonio back. He left town, sacrificing whatever true feelings he might have had for the deaf girl, because how could he let himself love just one person when his voice expressed such deep love for all mankind?
The rest of his story is public knowledge. The quick rise to opera stardom, the great performances on the world’s stages, and a victory over the three tenors in the PBS special, “Singoff in Stockholm.”
At first it bothered Jeremy that the whole town attributed the deaf girl’s awakening to Tony Sutter’s voice instead of the miracle of the whistle. But he soon got over it. The only people who counted knew the truth: himself and the deaf girl. Her name was Marietta, and she was impressed that he took signing lessons so he could ask her on a date. After only a few months, during which he was promoted indefinitely to Acting Sheriff when it was clear Sheriff Greeley—and Jeremy’s mother—would never return to Ermine, he signed the question to her, and they were married in June.
Sometimes at night, he still takes out the playground lady’s whistle and tells Marietta its story in bed, concluding with that moment under her window when he finally ran the Magnificent Antonio out of town for good. He signs the story expertly, adding exaggerated hand flourishes for emphasis.
And she believes it all, affirming always that the whistle is indeed what she’d heard that night. Jeremy smiles, not caring if she’s lying—sort of hoping, in fact, that she is, because then it means she’s doing it out of love, and love, he’s decided, is the Great Consolation he deserves for his years clutching the chain-link fence of Tony Sutter’s undeserved fame.
And then, at Marietta’s request, he blows the whistle once more, and she puts her hand on his chest and softly closes her fingers to ask him to please dim the lights.
JOHN HENRY FLEMING is the author of The Legend of the Barefoot Mailman, a novel, Fearsome Creatures of Florida, a literary bestiary, and The Book I Will Write, a serial novel-in-emails. His short stories have appeared in journals such as McSweeney’s, the North American Review, Mississippi Review, Fourteen Hills, and Carve, and have been anthologized in 100% Pure Florida Fiction and in The Future Dictionary of America. His awards include a Literature Fellowship from the State of Florida. He has a PhD in Creative Writing from The University of Louisiana-Lafayette, and is the founding editor of Saw Palm: Florida literature and art.
ALSO BY JOHN HENRY FLEMING
The Legend of the Barefoot Mailman
Fearsome Creatures of Florida
The Book I Will Write
Endnotes
1. After the Righteous End, Our Lord, The Survivor, walked out of the Devastation and told us His stories. We share them now to understand His Greatness and the Significance of His Life.
2. Just as we today take our Communion Chips from bags we find in the Heaps.
3. Thus do we honor the beasts of the field.
4. Amen!
5. Today we sigh in prayerful quietude before the lightless screens on our altars, even as we await the return of the Lord’s New Season, when our screens will shine again with His light and bring delight to all!
6. Such are the strains we hear in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
7. This is why our churches are open to the sky and we adorn our pews and aisles with offerings of unwashed clothes.
8. Amen!
9. Just as today we raise our fingers against all who challenge Our Lord’s sovereignty.
10. We bob our heads each Sunday in spiritual agreement with the palpitations of St. Ian’s flute and permit ourselves the joyful riffs of our air guitars, for we are created in His image.
11. Amen!
12. Amen!
13. You may recognize these actions as the source of our Confirmation ceremony!
14. Amen!
15. Is it any wonder we “Pass the Rock” in church? We celebrate Our Lord’s game and fear His mad skills!
16. Now you see the meaning of the magenta chalk used for decoration at the annual Festival of Doubt, as well as the reason it is scrubbed clean when the festival ends.
17. We say today not to “clerk” one’s neighbor or you will lock yourself in glass. We take heed at the lessons of Our Lord.
18. Amen!
19. These used to exist.
20. In such manner do we mock our Lord and his powers during the Festival of Doubt, only to renew our faith more strongly at its conclusion.
21. The Boy with the Stubbed Toe chose unwisely. We speak of his sorrowful fate in our lessons.
22. Unseasonable at the time, and a portent of the Cleansing Devastation that Our Lord did harness with His unparalleled might.
23. Re-enacted in church with the aid of a string!
24. Just as our finest actors do today when they replay the events of Our Lord’s life for the delight of His followers.
25. Here begins the Great Action Sequence that children re-enact on the remnants of ball courts everywhere!
26. Amen!
27. Amen!
28. Perhaps this is where it occurred to Our Lord that the troubling weather recently afflicting the land could be used for Great Ends.
29. Amen!
30. Amen!
31. Technically true in the short term. It was years later that Our Lord’s Great Storms washed the Earth clean.
32. We speak these words today to remind our believers to remain open to Our Lord’s blessings.
33. One never knows which of us will be called upon in the service of Fate!
34. Years later, Our Lord did harness these powers to smite the world for its own good, bringing peace and goodwill to all Believers.
35. Amen!
36. Like grace!
37. As we say to our children, “Go forth unchecked! For your life has not yet touched the rim!”
38. Amen!
John Henry Fleming, Songs for the Deaf
