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My hands followed his words, quickly fingerspelling the comedian's
name. I had barely finished the "S" when Rudy bounded on
stage. I glanced his way to see if I'd seen him before; comedy club,
TV-anywhere. I needed a clue to his routine; the better to interpret
by. I didn't recognize him, but my heart skipped a much-needed beat
for a different reason: Rudy Thomas had a guitar.
A guitar meant music; music meant trouble. Depending on when a person
became deaf, music can either be a warm remembrance or an unfathomable
ritual enjoyed by The Hearing. One deaf woman actually stormed the
stage at a "song sign" performance a few years back,
heatedly signing to the stunned hearing performer that bringing music
into a deaf-sponsored event was "INSULT," insensitive and
needed to "STOP NOW!" Ever since then I've been wary when
even a musical note weaves its way into an assignment.
I looked at my two clients to gauge their reaction but they seemed
nonplussed by the instrument, their smiles signaling nothing more than
happy anticipation.
"So how is everyone tonight?" Rudy asked, his fingers
strumming a few background chords. Sharp whistles and bawdy cheers
rang through the auditorium.
"You know…we've all heard those classic love songs. Guy meets
girl." Strum. "Girl meets guy." Strum. "And the
whole sordid affair is memorialized within one two-minute love
song." He said 'love song' close to the mike, dropping his voice
for sultry emphasis. I was just stumbling over how to sign
"sordid affair"-I was still fairly new at this-when Rudy
broke into song.
"You picked a fine time to leave me,
Lu-cille!"
I quickly signed the famous line, realizing too late I'd not given any
clue to my clients that the comedian was now singing instead of
speaking.
"Four hungry children and a crop in the field!"
Certainly they must have known the song-would recognize it along with
others in the crowd who were now singing along. But I saw nothing but
confusion register on the two young faces. One turned to the other,
"WHO LUCILLE?" His compadré just shrugged, the universal
gesture for "Beats me."
Rudy continued. "I've had some bad times…lived through some sad
times…"
When the students looked up I quickly signed, "HE SING NOW.
FAMOUS SONG. TITLE L-U-C-I-L-L-E."
The two nodded with comprehension, but not before glancing at Rudy to
see his fingers active over the guitar, his mouth moving with the
unnatural slowness only a hearing person in song can do.
Rudy abruptly stopped his ballad. "It occurred to me one day …"
"HAPPENED ME THINK-APPEAR," I translated to Sign, my right
index finger first tapping my temple above my brow, then pushing up
between the fingers in my left hand to animate the
"appearing" thought.
"… that there isn't a lot of truth in these songs. I mean what
would we hear if the songwriter wrote about what really happens in
relationships?"
The crowd began to fidget and giggle in anticipation. Rudy readied his
guitar.
"A different kind of love song would be heard…something that
goes a little like this: You picked a fine time to stalk me
Lucille!"
The crowd roared. I signed the play on words with a prayer. If I was
lucky one of my young clients had been harassed by a crazed girlfriend
and the meaning would survive the translation. I dared to glance in
their direction. They were laughing! They got it!
"Four hundred phone calls and a drive-by…" Rudy stopped
short to yell: "-attempt on my life!"
The crowd again cheered their approval but I knew I had another
problem: the grammatical challenge of the 'passive voice,' which
doesn't translate well into visually active Sign. I mentally
rearranged the sentence into noun-verb-object order, a technique we'd
learned in interpreting class to keep the meaning clear, and signed:
"L-U-C-I-L-L-E TRY KILL ME."
The lads wore serious, shocked expressions on their faces now.
"I'd paid for a good time-more for a bad time. This time you …"
Rudy again braked his song to shout: "-put me in the fuckin'
hospital!"
The curse word bit deep. It wasn't as if I didn't know how to sign it.
As young impressionable interpreter interns, we were privy to the more
salacious corners of Sign language, practicing every imaginable hand
maneuver to portray a graphic array of sexual signs in anticipation of
a client's visit to a doctor's office, counseling session or
baby-making class. The interesting thing was that Sign language had
the same sliding scale of naughtiness as English when it came to
illustrating the sex act between consenting adults. At the tame end of
the spectrum was MAKE LOVE; the full-impact "F-sign" was at
the other.
But there was precious little time to conjure an equivalent meaning
for the term when used as a gritty adjective. Rudy's racy lyrics had
started up again and my memory banks were on borrowed time. I had no
choice but to go with the words as heard and signed the sentence with
verbatim abandon, closing my eyes the moment my hands collided so I
wouldn't see my own swear sign.
I opened my eyes to see my two clients laughing and pointing up at me
with open delight. I knew their glee was tied to the bawdy lyrics more
than any comedy comprehension. Good girl signing dirty. A big night
out for them.
Finally, out of the corner of my eye I saw Rudy remove his guitar and
place it on its waiting stand. He sauntered back to the microphone.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd now like to introduce you to my friend
Bob."
Great, I thought, two comedians on stage to add to the humor that was
my interpreting performance. But then Rudy reached into his left shirt
pocket and pulled out a small red ball. He posed it between his index
finger and thumb, holding it high for all to see.
"This is Bob," he said. "… Bob the Clown Nose."
Rudy squeezed the ball to reveal a mouth-like slit in front-the
opening, no doubt, which under normal circumstances would fit over
one's nose were one to dress up like a clown. But Rudy had a
different, less mundane use in mind. As he squeezed, the ball opened
and closed and the nose began…to talk?! Oh God, my mind whimpered,
he's a flippin' ventriloquist, too.
Panicked, I quickly signed to the eager lads in front: RED BALL TALK
NOW. COMEDIAN VOICE. SOUND-LIKE FROM BALL. I mimicked Rudy's squeeze
play with my left hand, while my right hand signed TALK near my mouth.
The two nodded encouragingly, but my explanation had used up precious
joke-telling time. Rudy and Bob were well along in their verbal
sparring, delivering cutting one-liners between man and nose. My hands
tried to keep up.
"Hey Bob," Rudy said. "what's it like being a clown's
nose?"
"What do you mean?" Bob asked, his voice a cartoon version
of Rudy's.
"Well, do you find people pick on you a lot?" The crowd half
laughed, half moaned, but the joke was again on me. To 'pick on'
someone, as in 'to tease' is one sign. To 'pick a nose' was quite
another and not one I was eager to perform in front of three hundred
onlookers, but again Rudy's fast-paced banter left no time for
modesty.
"PEOPLE PICK-NOSE YOU?" I signed to the imaginary ball held
in my left hand, miming a refined, no-contact nostril exploration with
my right index finger. My clients laughed along with the crowd but
again for slightly different reasons. I was fast becoming the girl
interpreter of their dreams.
After that I lost all hope of maintaining any professional dignity and
simply signed the jokes as they came. One moment of inspiration did
give me a small note of aplomb: I'd added a variation to the
"body shift" technique used when interpreting a conversation
between two or more participants. When Rudy spoke I angled slightly to
the left; when Bob "spoke" I twisted slightly to the
right-and decreased the overall size of my signs to give my clients a
visual clue that the ball's voice was "small" and
child-like.
I was just short of congratulating myself for my clever technique when
I heard the impossible happen. Without warning, Rudy began projecting
both Bob's high-pitched voice and his own-at the same time! I quickly
looked over at him in startled confusion, but they visual didn't help.
I don't know how he managed it, but somehow Rudy and Bob were now deep
into a singing duet of the song, "Reunited."
My clients, feeling the noise of the crowd's raucous applause vibrate
their seats, looked at me pleadingly, their signing hands gesturing
"WHAT, WHAT?!" with staccato speed. I wished with all my
heart I were somewhere other than this torture chamber of disembodied
noses and voice-throwing sorcerers. Through the spotlights' glare I
saw the audience clapping, their hands coming together again and again
and again. I had a flash of inspiration.
In Sign language the sign for VOICE is done with a "V" hand
shape, like the peace symbol wave of the sixties, only the hand faces
in toward the signer. The two "stems" of the "V,"
formed by the index and ring fingers, glide up the throat and out from
underneath the chin to illustrate speech's anatomical path.
I quickly angled right to portray "Rudy" and signed VOICE
with my right hand, then turned left as "Bob" and repeated
the sign with my left hand. Now came the trick: I stood straight
forward and with both hands signed VOICE again, only this time
combining it with the sign for TOGETHER, pressing my two fists tight
against each other. This was, of course, breaking every grammatical
rule in the Sign book but Rudy wasn't playing fair so neither was I.
Another quick glance at my clients. This time they were sitting
upright in amazement, their own hands clapping slowly and out of sync
with the staccato rhythm of the hearing crowd. Lingering giggles and
gasps could be heard from others near the front, but my two wards
remained fixed on their subject, staring at the comedian like a pair
of five-year-olds meeting Santa for the very first time. Then it
dawned on me. Oh, geez, I thought, never underestimated the inherent
power of language. For these two, Rudy would forever be known as The
Man with Two Voices.
Then, like a gentle rain kissing the hot summer sand I felt cool
relief as Rudy waved a final goodbye and jogged off the stage. The MC
came out one more time to thank the comedians and the now-departing
audience. He even thanked me with a quick nod my way which I cordially
returned before I, too, left stage life behind.
Pattie had already gone home, leaving only her signature happy-face
doodle on a sticky note stuck to my purse. I methodically gathered my
things; a slow-motion performer among the fast-paced tech crew closing
down the place.
I pushed open the back door adjacent to the parking lot. The brisk
evening breeze was a welcome companion as I walked out to the familiar
safety and comfort of my car. I thought back on the last two hours'
worth of hard-earned cash, hard-won laughter.
Interpreting comedy? That it was. That it was, indeed.
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