A Good Sign

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

I felt truly inspired once, some years ago now, watching two deaf gay men signing that they liked each other in a crowded Soho gay bar. I am significantly but by no means profoundly deaf, and cannot sign very well, but did not need to; it was obvious what was happening in any language. 

I was cruising on my own (and getting nowhere fast, as we do sometimes) and felt very humbled by these two guys as well as delighted for them. There was I, fretting because no one was showing any interest in me and fast developing something of an inferiority complex, and here were these two guys showing me how it’s done by the sheer force of their personalities. From where I was standing, they lit up the whole bar and put the rest of us in the shade.

I know some deaf and partially deaf people don’t consider deafness a disability. I do, if only for all the stress it has caused me since early childhood. Deaf people have their own culture, and hearing people feel part of a community they often take for granted. Significant, but not total hearing loss means you belong to neither. For years, I felt a strong sense of exclusion in so far as everyone else gave me an impression of ‘belonging’ in a way with which I could not easily identify. As a child, I had neither the experience nor articulation to understand I was partially deaf; pitch or perceptive deafness is particularly confusing as so much depends on acoustics as well as the pitch of a person’s voice and, of course, whether or not they are facing you; lip reading - conscious or not - is a necessary skill for hearing impaired people.

I learned to rise above my hearing loss and compensate for it. Even so, when I finally acquired hearing aids when I was 40 years-old, it made a huge difference to my quality of life. Even now, I can’t help thinking how much greater my learning experience at school and university would have been if I hadn’t been struggling to hear all the time.

Disabled people invariably have an uncanny knack and inner strength for rising above their disability. Sometimes I think we focus too much on the disability and forget the person doggedly rising above it. They have the same aspirations and desires as the rest of us; among them, many gay men and women.

Gay people are often made to feel excluded if not always intentionally from mainstream society. Imagine how it must be for a disabled gay person.

I slept with a disabled guy once who was wheelchair bound. I liked him at once, but hadn’t considered anything else until he gave me a long, searching look, a huge knowing smile and informed me that he was missing two legs, but there was nothing wrong with the third and his bum was the original. We went back to his place, and had a great time. It was one of my few truly unforgettable one-night stands. (Most of the others were already a distant memory the next day.)

.A GOOD SIGN

White tee, blue eyes,

cruising a gay bar, looks around 

as he orders...

Settles on green eyes

lit with the kind of smile

an angel would gladly

die again for, crosses to sit

nearby and shyly

nods a ‘hello’ but - no reply

so gets up to go,

Green Eyes running fingers

through golden hair,

full lips pursed, exposing

a hairy chest,

stretching a downy leg

in lycra shorts...

(Blue, slowly drowning

in wildest thoughts...)

“I’m deaf,” he says quietly

in the queerest voice,

clearly making up his mind,

staking his choice;

Blue grins, winks, signs

that he’s also

up for a close encounter

of the intimate kind

Among lonely hearts

in a crowded Soho dive, two pairs

of hands come alive

Copyright R. N. Taber

[Note: Soho has been a very gay-friendly area of central London (UK) for many years. An earlier version of this poem appears in 1^st eds. of First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002; 2^nd ed. in preparation.]