Op-Ed

In our community center, down the road on the right hand side, just before the church, the weekly meeting of Deaf Fingers, a group of deaf folk who could neither lip read or sign was in full swing. All was going well until the moment someone said “What?” In normal conversation it is a harmless enough question but without the ability to hear either visually or aurally, it triggered a response from a fellow participant of: “What?” This, in turn and probably louder than necessary (although nobody could hear so it didn’t really matter), caused a third person to ask the second to repeat themselves by asking: “What?” The chairperson, confused by these short but insistent not-so-silent cries from the circle, tried to find out what on earth everyone was agitated by and so naturally asked the question of the group: “What?”

The minutes for the meeting were being taken by the secretary but she could not not keep up. Being a deaf secretary without the ability to lip read or sign would normally have been a barrier to employment but the national headquarters of Deaf Fingers had to fill a government mandated quota of disabled people in the workplace so she got the job anyway. She worked slowly but she was conscientious and wanted to accurately capture the proceedings of the whole meeting. Knowing she was behind, and in an effort to catch up, she looked directly at the chairperson and asked “What?”

At this point it would have been prudent for someone to stand up and wildly gesticulate for everyone to shut up. However, this was a special meeting of Deaf Fingers. It was their annual convention for quadriplegic members who could neither sign (obviously) or read lips. Normally we are told people become stronger by their disabilities but in this case it was a distinct disadvantage.

And so, the What?’s escalated in both intensity and volume and soon the hysteric confusion had disturbed the group of narcoleptics next door who had just nodded off to sleep whist discussing Oprah’s book of the month. The group called themselves One Word at a Time and they met weekly to swap ideas and thoughts on the current book they had assigned themselves to read. I say current with a caveat. Despite meeting every week for the past two years, they had not yet made it half way through their only book, “A Million Little Pieces”. This book, a memoir, was about overcoming adversity and emerging the other side a new person. For this group the key story point of emergence was what kept them struggling on, hoping to emerge, at the least, from the back end of chapter 5.

It wasn’t rare for the whole group to nod off during a meeting. Within five minutes of starting, one or two members would let their chins drop and grab a power nap. Ever since childhood they had been told that it was dangerous to wake a narcoleptic and so paranoid were they of this adage that all reading and discussion had to stop and in silence they would sit until everyone was awake again. Of course, the quiet was relaxing and soon they would all be asleep, books open on their laps, pages unturned. Tonight however, the noise from the adjoining room woke many of them with a start but otherwise with no ill effects worse than a slightly elevated heart rate. The realization they had, for their entire lives, been fed a crock of shit concerning the dangers and adversities of their disability made the whole book rather pointless.

Ironically, Deaf Fingers did One Word at a Time a huge favor by being raucous that night. James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” also turned out to be a crock of shit. His adversity was fabricated and once Oprah impaled him on live television for making her look like a ass, his memoir instantly turned into a novel, poorly written with no character or plot development to speak of. At their current rate of knots it would have taken them another two years to complete the book only then to find they had immersed themselves in someone’s imagined not actual adversity. Let me tell you, one cannot imagine the trials and pains of what it’s like to be a narcoleptic at a book club meeting – it is something that can only be lived. They took a unanimous vote to abandon the book and immediately started their second, “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy.

Meanwhile, downstairs, the local chapter of Blind Luck, a group of visually impaired mountain climbers, was enjoying, or at least attempting to enjoy, a fascinating slide show presented by their president Reg. Although blind since birth, Reg was a prestigious climber and his latest expedition to the Austrian Alps made for a riveting story. Unfortunately, no matter how much they turned down the lights or how close they shuffled into the large projection screen, none of them could actually see his photographs well enough to gain a sense of the enormity of either the mountain or Reg’s blind bravery. Thinking about it, that’s probably just as well. If they could have seen anything then it would have been slide after slide of blue skies and a detailed examination of the inside of the camera case. Not a mountain in sight (if you’ll excuse the pun). Sensitivity and good manners prevailed and the audience emitted a suitable amount of “oooos” and “ahhhhs” at the beauty of imagined landscape as Reg recounted his grand adventures punctuated by many slides of sky. Reg isn’t stupid. He knows that sometimes even normal sighted people put the slides upside-down in the projector and so, from time to time, he would ask his audience if the image was of the correct orientation. Not wishing to be rude, but without the foggiest clue, they would reply to the affirmative and the show would continue. Occasionally though, and probably just for the hell of it, someone would say no and there would be a temporary halt in the proceedings as Reg fumbled to right the image.

Miraculously, nobody from the group has ever died attempting to scale the rocky sheer drops of the world’s mountains. This is quite an impressive track record considering a mantra of the group is to attempt these ascents unaided. However, as with most organizations this one also has dark secrets. Unbeknownst to everyone, members included, in the ten years of its existence, none of its members have actually ever climbed a mountain, physical or metaphorical. Ten years ago, as part of the annual “Discover Your Disabilities” open day, Reg had scaled the climbing wall at the local gym. So impressed was he of what a blind man could do if only he turned his mind to it, he started Blind Luck. Word spread and every blind person in the town was soon showing up even if it was mainly for the free tea and biscuits. It was a success, but the fear of the free refreshments and the social interaction disappearing led to an ever increasing exaggeration of the truth. Before long, members were jetting off to the Alps, the Cascades and the Rockies. I believe one intrepid explorer even attempted Mt. Everest – all without leaving their living room. It never occurred to anyone that the ascension of the highest peak in the world might take more than a week. People were just happy that one of their own managed to ‘give it go’ without missing a meeting and with photos in hand. In a way, even if the truth had been discovered they would not have believed it, the reassuring whir of the fan and the click of the projector’s carousel was all they needed of a Wednesday night, that and the free biscuits.

Down in the basement of the community center is the janitor’s room. Amir Ahmed is the caretaker and he tries his best to cheer up the small, gray box room with a few artifacts from his native Iran. He left there a year ago after his wife died whilst being flogged for being in public with a man who was not Amir. It was clear that Amir was next to be disciplined for letting his wife out so, fearing for his life, he packed just one small bag and found passage here. After nine months the government had finished reviewing his case for asylum and he was released from the airport detention center to begin his new life. He is a quiet man, keeps himself to himself. He is also a good and virtuous man. He rolls out his prayer mat five times a day to offer himself to Mecca whilst playing the call to prayer quietly on a cheap tape recorder he found in the basement.

He is treated with suspicion by the patrons of the center, especially tonight, a Wednesday. The members of Deaf Fingers constantly complain to Amir’s boss that the Islamic call to prayer, the Adhan, is disturbing their meeting and Amir’s boss, desperate to keep funding for the center, agrees and has now confiscated the tape recorder. One Word At A Time complain that he doesn’t pay attention when they ask him to do something, they say his mind is elsewhere and the members of Blind Luck say he looks like he’s a terrorist and probably lives in a garden shed with his three wives and thirteen children.

He believes in his new home, believes he has opportunities. He takes English classes at the weekends, is saving what little he can to start a business. He knows he’ll never get a license to practice medicine again despite his diplomas from the best teaching hospitals in Iran but that’s not stopping him working towards something he never had at home, the chance to challenge intolerance. In the meantime, the blind mountaineers have spilt tea all over the floor again and Amir must go clean it up. He grabs a damp cloth and heads into their room ready to marvel at how much blue sky there is in the world.

David Browne is David once wrote for his school newspaper. He has spent the subsequent years earning money from writing, playing, singing and typing for other people. As of 2008, his net worth from such pursuits is estimated to be around $1.27. In January 2007 he left his home in the United States to travel the world in the hope that non-native English speakers would enjoy his company. He has not returned home since (although their enjoyment is currently unproven). He was born in England, resides in Amsterdam but is domiciled in Seattle.
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