The flashlight’s rays made it hard to read the cops lips in front of me. He wanted me to do something and I couldn’t tell what. I nodded in confusion, shrugged in desperation for knowledge and signed hoping they would catch on. Living in one of the rougher neighborhoods in Detroit my language must have been mistaken for something criminal because I was shoved to the ground, arms twisted about and face to pavement as a result of a simple sign, “help”.
Cold. Hard. Metal. These uncomfortable bracelets cut into my skin, resembling the self inflicted marks around them. My arms bent behind my back at an angle that caused me to hunch over and breath in less air. The officer placed his greasy, black stained hand on my freshly washed and highlighted blonde hair. Pushing down he shoved me into the backseat of the car and left me there while he stood outside and drank Pepsi with a coworker. Cursed with being in the wrong place at the wrong time I was deserted in this back seat, slick and smelly; an aroma of murder, robbery, drugs, and now my own innocence.

***

“You have one phone call”

Lifting the receiver off the hook, its greasy feel churned my stomach. Its aroma reeked of piss and armpit. Confused on how to make this work I dialed the number to my house. Calling was pointless, my speech was nothing but a meer squeak and without my hearing aid I couldn’t hear a thing. I hung up.
I was moving toward my cell when a short stocky woman, who didn’t open her mouth very much when she talked, approached me. She reached for my hand and instinctively I gave it to her. She spoke some more but it was hard to read her lips. She turned to walk away and I followed. She entered a medium sized room covered in cheap paint, now chipping off in various patches. In the middle of the room was a large table stained with rings from coffee cups, indentures of words from over pressing of ball point pens and the scratches of handcuffs against the wood.
After an hour, my husband walked in. Without any other words he signed “Let’s go”. I got up, he grabbed my arm and squeezed tightly. His large palms swallowed my thin arm and its outline would sure to appear on my skin. He towered over me at six feet even. He wrapped his arm around me and pushing me forward at the same time I knew the officers told him what happened. Like everyone they must have fed him apologies about the misunderstanding and how hard it must be having a deaf wife, but it was I they should be apologizing too.
Once in the car he turned and signed.
“Stop letting your loss of hearing be a crutch. Stop showing these people what you don’t have and let them know what you can do regardless. I never want to stand in the face of so many ignorant ass holes and have to endure the story of how they treated you and having to compromise without this becoming a story.”
He signed hard, not his usual soft flowing words and letters. His facial expressions were hard and he stopped moving his lips for me to read, forcing me to keep up with a new language my tongue would never use. I sat there without signing one word, looking in his direction or acknowledging his effort of an apology. He tapped me on the thigh and asked what I wanted, and all I signed was I wanted to go home and forget about this day, this life, and him until morning hit and I had risen from the coma I hoped to fall into overnight.