Songs for the Deaf, page 4
Now Our Lord stood at the top of the key, dribbled two times, and passed the ball to the taller of the Two Newcomers for a give-and-go.25 Our Lord raised His hand for the ball as He ran to the hoop, and the Newcomer obliged with a bounce pass, which Our Lord did receive and immediately raise for a layup against the Largest Sworn Enemy.
The Largest batted the ball back into Our Lord’s face and blooded His nose.
The crowd took notice without sympathy. Our Lord persevered.26
The Largest Sworn Enemy was the most prideful of the Sworn Enemies and the instigator of the many and varied persecutions suffered by Our Lord at school and in the neighborhood. His acned face and meaty neck did haunt Our Lord’s nightmares often and made Our Lord wish to vanquish him with prejudice.
Our Lord wiped His nose. He lifted himself off the ground to defend. He checked the ball at the top of the key and returned it to the Sworn Enemy, who juked left, put his elbow out, and knocked down Our Lord as he drove to the basket. The attempt by the Younger Newcomer to reach in and steal the ball was met with a shoulder to his chin, and the snap of teeth-on-teeth caused a stir in the ranks of the Manifold Witnesses as the Sworn Enemy’s shot did fall through the basket.
The crowd responded with bloodthirsty shouts and raised fists.
Our Lord lifted the fallen Newcomer and encouraged him to continue the game, despite the bloody drool at the corners of his lips and the red glaze staining his teeth.
The Sworn Enemies scored thrice more with ease, two layups and a short jumper over the outstretched hand of Our Lord. Now the crowd turned against Our Lord’s team for their lack of skills. When the Sworn Enemies missed shots and Our Lord’s team did get the ball, the crowd jeered Our Lord for His airball from the foul line. They laughed at another shot blocked, another pass off a teammate’s foot.
The wind raised its voice. The dark clouds boiled in anger. The Manifold Witnesses made movements to disperse.
And yet did Our Lord persevere.27 Down 6-0, Our Lord received the ball after a miss. He hesitated not. His jumper from the top of the key appeared headed for a sorry miss when the First Forceful Gust28 did redirect it for a swish.
The Manifold Witnesses eyed the clouds yet did hesitate now to leave.
Our Lord received high-fives from the Two Wise Newcomers.
He returned to the top of the key and received a hard check to the gut from the Largest Sworn Enemy.
Our Lord did persevere.29
He repeated His quick jumper. This time the wind did propel the ball into the backboard and down through the hoop.
The Manifold Witnesses took note. They returned to their seats and perches with renewed interest. The next time, Our Lord faked the jumper and dumped off to the Larger Newcomer, who dipped under a Sworn Enemy’s elbow for a layup.
The Two Magenta-Haired Girls relayed these events into their phones for the benefit of Those Who Could Not Make It.
The chill rain did fall, yet Our Lord received the weather as His due gift. He juked His Sworn Enemies into sprawling positions on the wet concrete and brought laughter to the mouths of the Manifold Witnesses. He played the wind and calculated the effects of the rain on His shots, as the storm spoke in harmony with Our Lord’s passion.
This is how Our Lord did persevere.30
Yet our Lord’s team did suffer more setbacks. When the Sworn Enemies were not falling to the court, they were committing flagrant fouls which they angrily denied. Their elbows flew like clubs against the chins and ribs of Our Lord and the Two Wise Newcomers, the younger of whom did also express his fear of lightning.
Stand with Me, urged Our Lord, and no harm shall come to you.31
The Younger Newcomer did stand, for he found strength in the words of Our Lord, even as the blood did flow from the lips and noses, as well as the knees and elbows, of Our Lord’s team, staining the court red.
The Manifold Witnesses huddled together under lifted jackets and backpacks. They winced at the storm’s tumult yet could not tear their eyes from the Great Upset unfolding on court.
The teams tied at 11, and then 12, and 13, with Our Lord’s team playing catch-up each time. Finally, at 14, with the black sky shattering like glass and the rain tumbling like the carelessly dropped hammers of angelic ironworkers, it was decided that the next point would win the battle, and that a jump ball would determine possession.
Though the Sworn Enemies all had at least half a head on the tallest of Our Lord’s team, Our Lord did not object, for He was confident now of His victory, and He had a plan. He whispered to the Two Wise Newcomers to stay back and cheat toward the middle on defense and be prepared to receive the ball from an unexpected source.32
As Our Lord and the Largest Sworn Enemy stood across from each other at the top of the key with the rain battering their cheeks and blowing into their eyes and testing the musicality of the ball with fillips to its roundness, Our Lord knew three things: first, He would lose the jump ball; second, the Largest Sworn Enemy would call for the ball after swatting it to a teammate; and third, the Largest Sworn Enemy would then drive the lane, elbowing aside Our Lord to attempt the decisive shot for his personal glory.
The Manifold Witnesses pumped their fists and shouted, now firmly on Our Lord’s side, for they did respect both His determination and His great loss of blood. From among the multitude, a Random One33 was selected to toss the ball into the air. Our Lord made no effort to out-jump His rival. He backed into the lane and waited for His prophecy to unfold.
The Largest Sworn Enemy did swat the ball to his teammate.
The crowd raised its voice.
The Largest called for the ball and received it. Though one side of his face was covered in grit from a fall to the court and his lip was bloodied, the Largest started his dribble with a smirk at Our Lord.
Our Lord crouched with his arms out. A fingernail gash colored His throat, while His left ear reddened and swelled. His elbows streamed blood across His forearms, while the blood of His knees drained onto His socks, making stains for which He would later be persecuted by His worldly parents.
The storm made its voice heard, and Our Lord embraced the beauty of its awesome powers to cleanse.34
The Sworn Enemy faked a move to his left. Our Lord did not bite.
The Sworn Enemy crossed over between his legs and drove to the basket.
Our Lord slid over and blocked the Enemy’s path. He knew the Largest would not give up the ball.
The Sworn Enemy spun back to the middle and attempted to hook Our Lord with his thick arm and shove Him aside.
Our Lord slid into the lane and avoided the Enemy’s grasp.
The Largest kept driving. He had no choice now but to plow into Our Lord, just as Our Lord had prophesized.
The Manifold Witnesses did see this and gasp. For no one had ever before taken a charge from the Largest Sworn Enemy. The Largest had size and bulk beyond all others who played the courts, with a meanness of spirit and limb that imperiled any who might test him. He had twice been held back in school. His father was rumored to whip him with nunchakus to toughen him.
Yet Our Lord did stand boldly in his way, prepared to take the charge and give victory to His team. This is how he persevered.35
Though surprised by His actions, the Largest was determined to make Our Lord pay a heavy price. He drove a forearm up under Our Lord’s chin and delivered a knee to Our Lord’s thigh.
The Manifold Witnesses gasped and brought their hands to their mouths. A lightning strike went unnoticed.
Yet in the Sworn Enemy’s haste to injure Our Lord he became careless with the ball, which our Lord did anticipate.
As Our Lord was shoved with great force to the rain- and blood-soaked concrete, the ball went flying down the lane and delivered itself36 into the hands of the Younger Newcomer, who had obeyed Our Lord’s command to cheat to the middle. The Younger Newcomer received the ball and knew what to do. By the pick-up rules of this court he did not have to take the ball back and check it, as it had not touched the rim.37 He raised the ball over the heads of the stunned Enemies for an easy layup.
This is how he gave victory to Our Lord’s team.
The crowd jumped to its feet and shouted. The sky flashed harmoniously. Fists were raised. The women cried with joy as they rushed onto the court to attend Our Lord, Who lay flat on His back with His bloody elbows and bloody chin and bloody scalp washing the court around Him in purifying shades.
Our Lord had taken the charge for His team and vanquished His foes. He had taken the charge for us all. Now, as the women gathered around him and the Sworn Enemies shuffled away in defeat, Our Lord’s mouth opened with joy, and He did taste the sweet cool rains of His Wondrous Triumph.38 This is how it was.
Weighing of the Heart
“Behold, thy lips are set in order for thee,
so that thy mouth may be opened.”
—Egyptian Book of the Dead
I’m out driving one day and this girl comes floating along the side of the road—riding air, a clean three inches over the gravel. She takes little steps, though it doesn’t look like she has to. Just bounces and glides, bounces and glides, like a ghost who’s just become a ghost and still doesn’t know it.
She isn’t hitching and doesn’t look my way. I brake for her anyway. This is the middle of nowhere, the eternal flatness where somebody once took a big stamper and stamped it all to dirt.
I spit my gum out, pull over into the dust, and crack the passenger door.
“Funny sort of locomotion there, if you don’t mind my saying.”
She wears a leather skirt down almost to the knees. Her sleeveless blouse, faded from green, shows off her tattoo: a small white feather like a stray fluff of goose down that tumbled out of the sky and settled between her shoulder freckles.
She reaches for the door handle, changes her mind, then changes it again and asks where I’m headed.
“Generally speaking,” I say, “nowhere at all. But I can be persuaded to alter my route.”
She grabs the frame and pulls herself in, has trouble with the heavy door. “California, please,” she says, persuading me with her smile and her dusty blues, pale as air.
I look straight west, trying to picture it, but see only the dirt pressing out, mingling somewhere with the old empty vault. “Can’t say I’ve been to California, unless it was late at night one time and I cut through a piece of it without really knowing.”
She says nothing. There are more words in there but she keeps them to herself.
I ease back onto the two-laner. “Okay,” I decide, “it’s California. But I’d like to ask you a question first, if I may.”
She’s floating above the seat the way she floated down the road, her sandals hanging above the floorboard, tremoring with the big V8 and the rattle of half-crushed soda cans.
“That’s personal,” she says, folding her arms.
“What? I haven’t asked you anything yet.”
“You were gonna ask me how I came to be on the side of the road.”
“Not at all. What’s past is past. I was only interested in your walking style. I’ve never seen a floater outside a ghost movie.”
Now her face winds up and she puts her hands to her eyes and sobs, sucking in her breath and catching it short. Every time her shoulders twitch, she notches up a little higher off the seat until her head bumps the nappy roofliner.
I start to wonder if I ought to set her back on the road. After all, she was floating sweet as suds without me. Except when I hear those sobs and watch the straw hair spilling over her fingers, I don’t have the heart for it, though the open road and my carefree driving now look sadly endangered.
Here’s how it is: I’ve put long miles between me and old times, but once in a while it feels like nothing at all. I’ll be driving for days, paying close attention, testing myself even here in the stamped-out flats where the land’s been muzzled for good. Then, late night, the old AM radio signing off and the wind pouring in like sighs, I’ll lose my focus and fall into blackness, ratcheting downward till a bolt of wakefulness jacks my chin back in place. I’ll steer my wheels back to the road and twist up the radio fuzz. I’ll howl and twitch and claw my nails into my cheeks. I’ll draw up blood with a broken toothpick. And still I tumble toward the black. Finally, I’ll check my rearview, the way a guilty child checks its mother’s face, knowing just what I’ll find but dragged to it anyway, and what I find is my lovely wife, like all the miles I’ve driven have come to nothing, like the attention I’ve paid for years hasn’t bought me a moment’s peace: it’s The End of Old Times, and I’m staring again at the spider web my head weaved into the windshield and apologizing to my wife, who’s already joined the departed.
I’ve forgotten so much in the miles since the accident. I’ve forgotten the car I wrecked and the kind of tree I twisted it around. I’ve forgotten the finer points of my wife’s face, and there are times I have to work hard to even call up her name. I’ve forgotten the town where we once made our lives, the house we kept together, the plans we made in bliss, the struggles to love and the talk between us at night. Thanks to the miles.
But I haven’t forgotten my lapse of attention on our last night together and the blight of regret on its heels, and in moments of careless driving it all replays in the rearview.
And now I’ve invited this girl into my car when I should have kept to the road. A natural instinct, I guess, like when someone holds out a balloon or a bouquet of flowers—you grab without thinking.
I put my hand on the girl’s tattoo and try to pat out the sadness.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen. I told you I wouldn’t get personal, and here I must have done it anyway.”
I pat until my hand gets uncomfortable there, and then I make some shushing noises while she quiets down.
“How about if I just keep my mouth shut?” I say, thinking I’ll take her as far as the next highway then tell her I have a turn to hang, a new road to drive.
She nods, sucking in her lips, holding back the crying and whatever other words she’s afraid of letting out. She touches her fingertips just gently to her eyes, pressing the tears before they gather momentum.
I drive. I let the road pull me along.
“See now? A lot better. We’re experiencing all the pleasures the open road grants to the alert traveler.”
She nods again, working her lip like gum.
A few patches of scrub slip past like refugee camps. The heat puddles and scatters on the road, fingers up in the distance. A hot breath roars in my ear. The tires and engine hum, and the dome of the world hovers high. I eye the county two-tracks, the tempting way they angle back and away from the main road, but say nothing, feeling okay now. Out driving, there are times I feel like a mummy in steel rags, but then moments like this confirm the perfection of the present tense, a flame eternal for those who attend it.
She’s stopped her crying now and has one hand gripping the door handle and the other squeezing the edge of the vinyl seat, holding herself in place. Her feet still sway with every ripple in the pavement.
When she finally speaks, the words come slow, like she loves them too much and is giving them a long kiss goodbye as they pass her lips.
“One night it just happened,” she tells me. “I had beautiful dreams about floating in bright blue oceans, and when I woke up I was looking down on my pillow, thick and round like I’d never slept on it. I grabbed hold of the bed and held tight, afraid I’d float out the window and up like a spirit and nobody’d ever see me again. I stayed there, floating where I was until I got up the courage to float down the hall to the breakfast table, more like paddling than walking.
“When Mamma and Daddy saw my condition they turned their heads away like I was something shameful.
“‘You get yourself down on the ground this minute,’ Daddy told me.
“‘How’m I supposed to do that?’ I asked him.
“‘I ain’t a voodoo doctor,’ he said. ’You got yourself up there, now you get yourself back down or I’ll put you out for good.’
”’Eat some crisp bacon,’ Mamma said. ’That might do it.’
“But not even a whole plate of bacon helped. Soon as I let go of the breakfast table I rose up and bumped my knees and spilled the coffees, and Daddy threw down his napkin and slammed out the door.
“‘Your daddy told you not to get that tattoo,’ Mamma said. ’That’s likely what done it.’
“I shook my head and cried, but every breath launched me higher, out of my chair then over the table. My head was knocking the ceiling when Mamma finally stopped rinsing the dishes and looked up at me. ‘I always thought there was something wrong with you,’ she said.
“I left home after that. Been wandering four whole days now.“
I can tell the story took a toll, like she’s putting the whole nasty business out on the table again, but I sort of wish she hadn’t said it. It’s a burden I don’t need, not even my own burden, and now all I can think is, How do I shake this off?
“Well,“ I say. “That’s some story. Yes. How do you suppose... I mean, I never heard of a live floater before. I’ve seen magic shows, but I don’t take stock in illusion. I heard about ghosts, which I take slightly more stock in given the nature and limits of human knowledge with respect to the world’s mysteries. But never a live floater. You been to a doctor? They’ve got all kinds of specialists these days.”
She crosses her ankles, trying to keep her feet from swaying. “You know any free ones?”
“There’s clinics,” I say, “but none I know that tends to floaters.”
We think a bit. I slap the wheel. “Ankle weights!“
“You think?”
“Sure, all we do is get something heavy around those feet and you’ll be clomping around terra firma in no time.”
She looks at me, fingers pressed up against the ceiling, strands of straw hair clinging to the roofliner, that little white feather tattoo bobbing with every squeak of the shocks.
