Shaking the Sugar Tree (22 page)

We put our tables together.

“This is Jackson Ledbetter,” I said, making introductions, “and my son Noah. My name is Wiley Cantrell.”

“I’ve seen you,” the woman said. “But I don’t know where.”

“FoodWorld?”

“That’s right!” she exclaimed. “Where are my manners? I’m Stella Hood and this is my husband Lloyd Hood. Very nice to meet y’all.”

“Same here,” I said.

“Y’all sure this is all right?” she asked, glancing nervously at Jackson, who was not nearly as scruffy-looking as I was.

“No problem,” I said. “How old is your daughter?”

“Becky is two,” Stella said, suddenly frowning. “See how quiet she is? She’s not talking yet, doesn’t seem to hear anything we say. Doesn’t seem to hear anything at all.”

“She’s just a little bit too young for tests,” I said.

“That’s what the doctor said. He made an appointment for us to see someone down in Jackson, but that’s not for another two months. We just don’t know what to do.”

“You’ve been doing your own tests?” I asked.

“We can’t help it,” Lloyd admitted. “I’ll try coming up behind her where she can’t see me, talking, snapping my fingers. One time I beat on a pan with a spoon. She doesn’t pay any attention. But when I walk around in front of her, she comes to life right away.”

“I did the same,” I admitted. “Noah was about the same age when I realized something was wrong. He had other problems, so I wasn’t really sure.”

“What kind of problems?” Stella asked.

“Don’t be nosy,” her husband said.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Noah was a meth baby. He had birth defects and other stuff, so I wasn’t sure what was going on with him. He used to cry and carry on like no one’s business. ‘Meth baby rage’ and all that. But I noticed that the only time he made any noise was when he was unhappy. When he got into one of his rages, he’d just open his mouth and howl and carry on like he was dying. But the rest of the time, he never said a word. He never vocalized or did any of the goo goo gaa gaa stuff. And when he was about two years old, I began to realize he couldn’t hear me. He’d respond to me if he saw me, but otherwise he didn’t seem to be aware of me at all.”

“That’s just like Becky,” Stella said.

“Could very well be,” I said.

“But what are we going to do?” Lloyd asked, his voice full of worry. “What if she’s deaf?”

“She’ll manage,” I said. “Every child has special needs. Some are a little more extreme than others, but you manage. And I think you’re doing exactly the right thing—talk to people, get as much information as you can, because you’re going to need it. I wouldn’t treat her any differently than any other child.”

“Your boy seems to be doing well,” Lloyd offered.

“He is,” I said.

“You adopted him?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m his father.”

“And his mother?” Stella asked. “Where is she?”

“We’re not together anymore,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be,” I said.

“But I thought y’all were… together,” Lloyd said hesitantly, glancing at Jackson.

“We are,” I said.

“So he has two dads?” Lloyd asked.

I could tell by the way he asked this question that he was curious, nothing more. “We’re dating at the moment,” I said. “Who knows?”

“Your boy is all right with that?”

“I don’t think he gives it much thought, actually,” I said.

“I’ve never met….” Lloyd said.

Then his voice trailed off as though he feared he might have said too much.

“You’ve never met a gay couple?” I filled in.

“Well, no,” he said with an embarrassed grin.

“I’m afraid we’re just as boring as any other couple,” I said.

“It’s just strange,” he said, “but I reckon folks will get used to it. It’s a free country, ain’t it?”

“I think I’m starting to like you,” Jackson said.

“You’re not from around here,” Lloyd said.

“I grew up in Boston.”

“Must be different down here.”

“It is.”

“You like fishing?”

Jackson admitted he did not.

“You don’t like fishing?” the man asked, outraged.

“Oh, don’t get him started on fishing,” Stella said, rolling her eyes.

“I’ll take him over to the spillway and give him a pole and we’ll put a stop to that,” Lloyd said with a smile.

“My husband
loves
to fish,” Stella said.

“Damn right,” Lloyd said. “Anyway, I just don’t know what we’re going to do about my daughter.”

“Do you feel like you need to
do
something?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said heatedly. “We’ve got to figure this out, see whether there’s a surgery or something they can do, hearing aids—I’ve been reading up on cochlear implants—”

“Let me stop you right there,” I said gently. “I don’t know that it’s helpful to view this as a problem that needs to be fixed.”

“I don’t follow,” Lloyd said.

“If your daughter really is deaf, you’ll soon be learning about Deaf Pride and all the issues in the Deaf community. You’ll find that many deaf people are not happy with this idea that they have a ‘problem,’ or that they’re ‘broken,’ or that something needs to be ‘done.’ They find that kind of thinking rather offensive, actually.”

“Offensive?” Stella said.

“Well, yes,” I said. “Deaf kids can do anything that other kids can do, except hear. They learn sign language to communicate. Their lives are just as full and meaningful as other children. If your daughter really is deaf, then there isn’t much you can do about it. There’s an entire range of hearing, of course, and the doctors will figure out how much hearing she does have. Hearing aids might help a little, but at the end of the day y’all will have to learn to cope with having a deaf child. I guess what I’m saying is that you don’t want to unintentionally harm her by thinking of her as a problem, or someone who isn’t good enough because she can’t hear. That sort of thinking creates a lot of resentment and low self-esteem. If your daughter was blind, you wouldn’t waste a lot of time thinking about having her cured of her blindness. You’d get on with the business of living and coping and figuring out how to create a life for her.”

They considered this in silence for long moments.

“You mentioned cochlear implants,” I added, “which raises a flag with some people, including me. To install these implants, the doctors have to destroy part of the inner ear. They do this without really knowing whether the implants are going to help or not. Thing is, once it’s done, the child will never be able to hear anything again on their own. If the implants fail, well, you’re just out of luck because the ears have been irreparably damaged. If they work, your child might have some hearing, but probably not very much. So it’s risky and there’s no guarantee how much they’ll help, or whether they’ll help at all.”

“You’d advise against it?” Stella asked.

“I’d think about it a lot before I agreed to go down that road,” I said. “I’d be careful about trying to change your daughter. Perhaps that’s a better way of saying it. I’d be careful about trying to ‘fix’ her or putting too much hope in some miracle cure. You’ll understand what I mean as you go along and you meet other deaf families. There’s a lot of pressure on deaf children to be just like hearing children, but they’re not, and never will be, and the sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be. No child wants to be raised in an atmosphere where everyone thinks they’re a problem that needs a solution, or where there’s too much emphasis on what they can’t do, rather than what they can. As you go along, you’ll see what I mean.”

“But you must worry about it,” Lloyd said.

“For a while, yes, I certainly did. Everything was a struggle to make sure he was just like everyone else. But he’s not. And after a while, I found it wasn’t helpful to think in those terms. I was tired of my child never measuring up to his hearing friends, never being as good as they were. I was tired of people looking at him as though there was something terribly, desperately wrong with him. There isn’t. He can’t hear, that’s all. We get by. It’s not like the end of the world.”

“He’s an adorable little boy,” Stella said, smiling at him.

“Tupelo has some good programs for deaf kids,” I said. “I think you guys are going to do just fine.”

“It seems really scary,” Lloyd admitted.

“It
is
scary,” I said. “But it’s scary in one of those weird, wonderful ways. And it gets less scary as you go on and you realize you can handle it and everything will be fine.”

The conversation moved to small talk and it wasn’t long before Lloyd got back to the subject of fishing.

Is the baby like me?
Noah asked, peering at the baby in its stroller when she became fussy and wanted to be held.

They think so,
I said.

He smiled.

O
N
W
EDNESDAY
,
Jackson invited us for a dip in the swimming pool at his apartment complex and the baptism of his new grill, in that order. The temperature hit the midnineties and stayed there. The air was oppressive and heavy with humidity.

We were not the only ones with fun in the sun on their minds. Several children played in the shallow end, screaming and shouting and splashing water at one another, their mothers laying on deck chairs and keeping watch. A rather handsome Speedo-wearing young man worked on his suntan. Jackson, wearing a Speedo himself, nodded to him as we passed.

Noah wore a bathing suit handed down to him by Eli. I wore cut-offs like the perpetually incorrect person that I am. We stood around the shower, rinsing off, before claiming a couple of deck chairs of our own. My shorts were loose on my hips and I worried they might fall off when I jumped into the water.

Noah stood on the deck of the pool, watching the children on the shallow end. Three boys had a ball that they were tossing back and forth.

I took him to the shallow end and eased myself into the water, watching as Noah made his first dive-bombing jump, landing perilously close to a black girl who was just starting to fill out the green one-piece suit she wore—and seemed to know it.

“Be careful!” the black girl exclaimed with a fair amount of attitude.

Noah, who didn’t see her, didn’t respond.

The black girl waded over to her friend on the other side of the pool.

We swam down to the deep end where Jackson had dived in. Noah piggy-backed while I dog-paddled. Jackson and I took turns ferrying him from one side of the pool to the other as he honked contentedly. I took him back down to the shallow end where the boys had started an informal game of water polo, or something similar. When the ball went astray and landed in front of Noah, he hooted rather weirdly, and tossed it back to them. They motioned for him to join their game and he happily complied, saying, “Hello!”

One of the boys looked at me with questions in his eyes. This boy seemed to be the oldest of the lot.

“He can’t hear,” I said.

“He’s deaf!” this boy exclaimed to his friends.

My heart sank.

“So be careful,” the boy added. “Come on,” he added, waving at Noah like he was a puppy.

“I fine!” Noah said, hurrying to join them.

The older boy laughed.

“What’s your name?” the older boy asked.

“My name Noey!” Noah said.

“Noey, come on,” the boy said, throwing the ball out as the game got underway once more.

I swam back to the deep end, climbed out of the pool, and let water drip to the deck. I sat in a deck chair next to Jackson.

“Who’s your cute friend?” I asked.

Jackson smiled when he saw me staring in the direction of the young man who was sunbathing.

“That’s Kenny,” he said.

“That’s interesting.”

“Too much of a queen for my tastes.”

“Screaming?”

“You could say that and you would not be wrong.”

“Got something against screaming queens?”

“I’m more of a man’s man kind of man. I don’t want someone who calls me girlfriend and acts like his life is a reality show. And there’s something to be said for facial hair.”

Kenny rolled over and displayed his firm posterior.

“Do you know how to tell if your roommate is gay?” I asked.

“No.”

“His dick tastes like shit.”

“That is such a crude joke.”

He laughed, despite himself.

“You liked it. You’re laughing. Not too crude for the Jackster, eh?”

“You crack me up.”

“How do you fit three gays on a bar stool?”

“I don’t know.”

“Turn it over, silly.”

“Ouch!”

“What do you call a gay dentist?” I asked.

“Let me think for a minute….”

“Come on!”

“I’m thinking….”

“What do you call a gay dentist? It’s easy.”

“I don’t know.”

“The tooth fairy.”

“That’s lame.”

Kenny rolled over, sat up, and looked in our direction.

Then he got to his feet.

“Oh shit, he’s coming in our direction,” Jackson whispered.

He was a good-looking fellow, but prim and extremely clean. He would not have been out of place with a tiara on his brow.

“Is he yours?” Kenny asked in a drawl, glancing down the length of the pool at Noah.

“He’s mine,” I said.

“He’s so cute! You just move in?”

“We’re visiting,” I said.

“Friends of Nurse Jackie?”

“Something like that.”

“Nurse Jackie, girl, how are you?”

“Do you have to call me that?” Jackson asked.

“Whatever, Miss Closet!”

Kenny threw his towel over his shoulder and made a rather swishful exit.

We eventually took leave of the pool and went to his apartment, discovering that Jackson Ledbetter had a Jacuzzi in his bathroom, one of the benefits of paying more than thousand dollars a month in rent. He filled it with soapy warm water and we sat in it for almost an hour. Noah pretended it was a small swimming pool and splashed back and forth happily.

The grill was baptized, steaks were eaten, Xbox was played, and all was right with the world until I went to use Jackson’s bathroom and snooped in his medicine cabinet where he kept a veritable drugstore of pharmaceutical assistance.