The classroom was marvelously sterile, a perfect laboratory for experimentation. The faux marble floor tiles were scrubbed and polished to a glistening sheen. Gone were the wooden, engraved desks of the reactionary era of my youth. You could not etch puerile love letters into these Formica and steel sculptures if you tried.
I was enthralled with the possibilities on my first day on the job. The students were casual, detached, bored, semi-hostile in tone as they filed into my first-period class. I was prepared for anything. Except, perhaps, for the confident woman who detached a desk from the front row and reversed direction to face the class head on.
A guardian perhaps? Dispatched by the Principal to protect his prized possessions on my first day? To prevent a serious intellectual or social faux pas? Some politically incorrect comment? Some lasting trauma on the future of our nation? She sensed my alarm.
“I am an interpreter for the deaf,” she revealed with satisfaction. “I accompany Charlotte to all of her classes. I’m Mrs. Gracious.”
I was very satisfied myself. Mrs. Gracious was voluminously attractive, but in a controlled sort of way, and I did not mind the prospect of backup in case of trouble. As she performed her prodigious interpretive skills, I detected the evidence of deep feeling. This observation drew something out of me that I could not exactly pinpoint. A feeling of jealousy perhaps. I could not help but ask her at the bell how she had come by such a special arrangement–to be with a student every moment of her day to filter the chatter of a noisy world through lifeless membranes.
“Why, the Department of Interpretation, of course.”
“Yes, of course.” I responded, not knowing in the least what she was referring to. Had I been out of action that long? The course of my eyebrow must surely have registered my continuing, sincere curiosity.
“A Federal Department, committed to insuring that every person with a disability is able to function normally in a complex world,” she volunteered in order to put me at ease.
I was impressed with her rapid response, clearly designed to provide the maximum amount of expert information in the least amount of time. Charlotte was on her way, scooting down the hall with all of the confidence of a Latin scholar, and so was Mrs. Gracious, but not before lending me her card. Just as she had said: “The Federal Department of Interpretation. Committed to insuring that every person with a disability is able to function normally in a complex world. Call 1-800-579-4200 for immediate assistance. Know your rights and exercise them. Operators available 24 hours.”
“How did your first day go, dear?” My wife asked in one of her calming tones as we converged over the preparation of the evening meal. I was pacing the kitchen floor, clutching the card in my right trouser pocket.
“I almost hit a kid on the way home.”
“Perhaps they can provide a chauffeur as part of the package. Do they know how terrible a driver you are?” she inquired teasingly while testing the cous cous. Shirley believed humor was the answer to 99 percent of life’s problems.
“Not a bad idea,” I said, playing along, while thinking mostly about the card, although certainly cognizant of my dear wife’s lack of appreciation for my near tragedy. “But doubtful, on forty-five dollars a day.”
“Well, it’s only temporary, dear, ‘till you get back on your feet. After a year in the Rip Van Winkle Institute for the Marginally Mentally Ill, you have to be patient, dear. Take it one day at a time. One step at a time.”
But what if there is no second step? I said this to myself, patently ill-equipped to combat Shirley’s daunting optimism and not wishing in the least to disturb the cous cous. I removed the card from my pocket and re-read it. The thought was at once disturbing and relieving. It seemed to excite my feelings of unease while at the same time offering a glimmer of something beyond. What if? Then I realized the absurdity of my expectation. Unlike Charlotte’s disability, which was obviously of the more manageable, mundane variety, mine was decidedly other-worldly, hard to pinpoint, impossible to isolate. Therefore, impossible to provide interpretational assistance for.
Long after the cous cous, which, by the way, was a deliberate tactic to make me forget institutional food, I paced the bathroom floor, shuddering at the thought of killing a wayward pedestrian student on my first day. An incipient panic began to well up inside me. Shirley was snoring contentedly and I feared my panic would alert her. She was sensitive to my attacks and sometimes she would awake with a start, intuiting my solitudinous nightmares. But she needed the sleep and I wanted to believe that the last year of my life had not been spent in vain. I remembered Dr. Kindly’s advice. I turned on the faucet and began to poor cold water on the veins of my wrists. Search your memory for a cause. Panic has a cause and knowing the cause resolves the panic, he had said repeatedly. But what if my case was different, unique? What if the cause was so complex that it would take…? Then I remembered. I had left the card in my trousers which were … where? In the hamper? Had Shirley ducked out to the all-night cleaners? Was I now completely alone? Something about the card had given me a feeling, absurd as it may sound, of, well, for lack of a better term, hope. Clutching the card in my trouser pocket, I was clutching hope, feeling it, being a part of it. A new feeling. Rewarding. Calming. And now I had lost it.
I tore through the hamper, trying to avoid any feelings of anger toward my dear wife who was only trying to help by keeping me well-pressed. There it was! Bent, fragile, but still there. Hope.
“24 hours,” it said, proudly.
“Hello?” I whispered into the hall phone.
“Yes, go ahead please.”
“My name is, well, that’s not really important. It’s just that a friend gave me your card, and…”
“What is the nature of your disability?”
“The nature of…?”
“Yes, we have 479 categories to choose from, all conveniently located on our website at interp.com.”
“But I’m not online.”
“You are not online? Dear me. That’s category 367. People who are computer disabled. We can provide you with a full-time interpreter to resolve all of your computer disabilities with complete, up-to-the-minute interpretation of all technical jargon. Our interpreters are all intelligent, attractive, well-educated, compatible and, most important of all, free for the lifetime of the disability. But there is a limited supply in this category so you must act soon in order to avoid the waiting list.”
“But um ah I…”
“Dyslexia? That would be category 29. You are lucky. We have a surplus of interpreters going into this field. Simply go to interp.com and…”
“I was really thinking about something more relevant to…”
“You want something more relevant? Trendy? How about Fear of Success? That’s very popular these days. Eating disorders have become a bit déclassé.”
“No, not eating disorders. At least not yet.” After my initial misgivings I was beginning to get the hang of the procedure and felt like I was entitled to get the whole list before making a decision. And she seemed so accommodating.
“Could you just go down the entire list for me … please?”
“I don’t have all night you know.” She said this plausibly with only a hint of impatience. But I was desperate not to lose her and had to think fast.
“Perhaps I will find the one I’m looking for before you have to go through the whole thing.” I was quite amazed, if not shocked, at my ability to come up with the right words. Hope works, I thought, as I listened with anticipation of my interlocutor’s response.
“We do have general categories. That should save some time.”
Why didn’t she say that in the first place?
“That sounds good,” I said, compliantly. Anything to keep her on the line.
“Sexual dysfunction. Compulsive, obsessive disorders. Amnesia. Insomnia. Tardiness. These are not in alphabetical order, of course.”
“Of course,” I responded eagerly.
“Nor necessarily in order of importance. We, at the Federal Department of Interpretation, do not discriminate.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” I said sympathetically. “That’s the last thing.”
“The last thing on the list is…”
“No, I was just saying…”
“Philosophical disorientation in the post-modern milieu.”
“Perhaps we ought to go back to the first on the list, although I’m not really…”
“Sexually dysfunctional?”
I was quite shocked at my transparency. But it was only a disembodied voice over the phone. What would she know? Or care?
“It’s more like me and my wife just don’t…”
“How about sexual communication?”
“That’s perfect,” I said with relief.
“We can have the interpreter at your doorstep by 9 a.m.”
“Well, I don’t know…”
“Indecisiveness is category seven.”
“No, that would be fine. Nine a.m. would be just fine.” After providing my name, address, phone number, social security number, and mother’s maiden name to my anonymous benefactor, I entertained some doubts. With all of those choices, what if I had made the wrong decision? Not to worry, she had said. You can always trade for another interpreter in a category of your choice with twelve hours’ notice. I slept soundly that night for the first time in years.
Morning came knocking by the name of Petula. She was humming. I introduced her to Shirley who busied herself with the eggs Benedict.
“This is Petula, dear. She has come to interpret for me.”
“Nathan Sump! Are you planning a trip abroad?” Shirley queried without missing a stroke of the whisker. The hollandaise was beginning to froth quite nicely. I didn’t know what to say. She was a master at the comeback. I often misinterpreted this gift as a manifestation of condescension toward me, an unwillingness to take me seriously. I wanted to be taken seriously. Normally I would counterattack with an ingenious question, such as, “What do you mean by that?” But this time I had Petula, to whom I looked for support. She rightly interpreted my raised brow as a lead-in.
“What your wife just said was, “are you stark raving mad?”
I knew it!
“And that she loves you a lot.”
“OK,” I said, somewhat befuddled. “Let’s get to the first thing first. We need to talk about what she means by mad. Because Dr. Kindly always says that I…” Petula gently stroked my hand while holding her index finger over her mouth. Then she proceeded to hum a bit more. Something familiar.
Shirley gently positioned each poached egg on an English muffin, graced with Canadian bacon. She then proceeded to coif each mound of lovingly poured hollandaise with a pair of sliced, dark olives.
“Please join us,” Shirley said to Petula. “Coffee?”
“I’m over my limit for the day, but the eggs look yummy.”
We sat silently while Shirley said the blessing. Most families don’t pray over breakfast, but Shirley always said that it was a bad day that started without a prayer.
“You look familiar somehow,” said Shirley, palpably ignoring the crisis that faced us.
“The hollandaise has just the right touch of lemon,” responded Petula, nonsequitoriously. Petula was clearly avoiding the issue just as much as Shirley, and, frankly, I was wondering what use she was going to be, regardless of the financial advantage to my side of the ledger. Like many government programs, the rule of unintended consequences was reigning supreme, not just in the macroeconomic sense, but right here in the Sump household. About as micro as you could get.
“I know!” yipped Shirley, as she practically choked on a mouth full of Kenyan coffee. “You are the spitting image of Petula Clark. My all-time favorite singer,” she said dreamily. “Always so happy. Positive.”
“My agent always used to say the same thing,” Petula chortled just before digging into her second poached egg. Shirley was always prepared for unexpected guests and we never lacked for seconds. I guess it was just her nature to always expect the unexpected. I, on the other hand, was a bit peeved. I reckoned another call to the Department was in order, just as soon as it was polite to leave the table. Philosophical disorientation wasn’t looking bad by comparison to a celebrity in the house. Especially of the has-been variety. As one might expect, Shirley went with the flow.
“I always wondered why you stopped performing,” Shirley asked as if Petula were now a long-lost member of the family. But I suspected a double entendre, since our intended topic was supposed to have been sexual … well … communication. Then the thought occurred to me that this whole thing was some sort of complex plot to humiliate me further. The Federal Department of Interpretation did not exist. A complex ruse designed by Dr. Kindly and Shirley, co-conspirators.
“Yes, Petula. Go right ahead and tell us. Why did you stop performing?” I asked aggressively. I knew as soon as I had said it that I was going overboard. It was as if Dr. Kindly was standing over me, reminding me to watch my tongue. So I filled my mouth with coffee to dutifully await my denouement.
“Oh, I just decided that it was more fulfilling to commit my life to my husband and children than to millions of screaming fans. Raising children made me feel, well, I don’t know if I should say it really. It’s a bit personal.”
“No, please do!” I found myself saying. But Petula waited for a positive signal from Shirley, while ignoring my own interrogatories. Then I guess she must have seen something in Shirley’s eyes that voiced her consent, which is obviously what an interpreter does best.
“It made me feel immortal.”
“Immortal,” said Shirley with a nod. “Immortal,” she repeated, caressing the word like it was the little baby we had postponed. I heard the words, but only the sound of death. The Death of Nathan Sump. There was an awkward moment of silence, punctuated by the sound of Petula’s enthusiastic slicing of Canadian bacon.
“Your wife is a good person and she loves you a lot, Mr. Sump,” said Petula, as she used a napkin to dab a bit of yoke from the corner of her mouth. “But you must stop acting like a two-year-old child. Now what else would you like me to interpret for you?”
“Could you please interpret my philosophical disorientation in the post-modern milieu?” I asked without skipping a beat.
“Aha! See there! You do have a sense of humor, Mr. Sump. You’ll be just fine.”
As I was attempting to interpret what she meant by this, Shirley ushered her to the door. I strained to overhear their brief, parting conversation, which seemed to have a musical lilt to it. Shirley returned to the kitchen. I was still sitting at the breakfast table, ruminating over Monday’s prospective substitute assignment. More math? An AP history class perhaps.
“You’ll never guess where she’s headed from here, Nathan.”
“You’re probably right, dear,” I said, wondering if I might not need help with the interpreting.
“Downtown, of course!” Shirley giggled as she sat next to me and cradled my hand in hers. For a moment, I felt like cuddling back and not saying a thing. Or interpreting. While I gazed into Shirley’s sparkling eyes I sensed something that aroused me ever so slightly. Perhaps a home with children and a mom and a dad wasn’t such an alien concept. As I gently squeezed her hand, I realized that I would have to call Mrs. Gracious and thank her. And maybe ask her how I could get a job application from the Department.
Copyright 2004-2005 :: The New Pantagruel 1.3.