Communication Y O Y
Communication Y O Y
It’s almost painful to talk about. But not really. In fact, yes, I’m telling you, so it should not be that hurtful. No, I’m not pained, I promise. I am puzzled. I was watching two deaf-mute people, girl and boy, at a pizza restaurant last Valentine’s Day, and they killed me with their super sweet-no, amorous-gesticulations. I studied sign language some years ago, you know, and I could read what the two lovebirds were telling each other right there in the middle of a . . . I can’t remember if the restaurant was full, so maybe I should not say crowd. I hate it when people say crowd when it is not exactly that.
I was engrossed on the two sweethearts: their hands in constant, vigorous, multifarious ejaculations. Yes, ejaculation-almost in its other signification. You see, the woman was actually suggesting what sex positions they’d assume later at the motel. Que horror. There is no hand sign for motel-she had to spell it out. There is a hand sign for every letter in the alphabet. So that was how I learned they were to copulate later in the night.
I was scandalized. All I wanted was brush up on my sign language. But there I was lapping up every salacious sentence of endearment they threw at each other. How human, you may say. I ought to understand. But aren’t they supposed to think others might “hear” them? I mean, sign language is not exclusively taught to the . . . okay, the politically correct term is hearing impaired. They just did not care even as I read them say
Boy: I’ll kiss it. Promise, I’ll kiss it to titillate you.
Girl: You naught boy. That’s funny. (Throws a piece of paper at the guy.)
Boy: I’ll kiss it for hours.
Girl: (Blushes) Hey, you . . . don’t you dare. (Laughs flirtatiously.)
The dunces. Could they not see I was around? They ought to stop, stop.
You know, last January I watched this movie with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie in it. Not really a popular work. Certainly not Matt’s best. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t really heard of it until I bought a DVD of Matt Damon movies. The film is called The Good Shepherd. I don’t get why it’s called The Good Shepherd. Obviously, I am not that literate in the same sense that I don’t understand why Scent of a Woman is called that despite my loving the movie to bits. Of Scent of a Woman, remember that part where Al Pacino delivers his long speech at the school? I was thrilled to high heavens the first time I watched it on TV-until I saw another Al Pacino movie where he played a coach in some sport, and he gave another oration to rouse his team to victory. I was like, hey, kumita na yan ha. What a waste of a nice concept.
Anyway, The Good Shepherd featured counterintelligence, or how the CIA was supposed to have developed it. Or how the CIA was supposed to have refined it to an academic subject replete with a curriculum. I won’t bore you with the stuff (all right, the movie is fatally boring if you don’t take it seriously or watch it alone, convinced it’s a serious work given that Matt and Angelina are there). I was watching the hearing-impaired couple in the restaurant just a few meters away from where I sat; they were totally enjoying their prurient exchanges, and I went like, What if they are just playing on me? What if somehow they have come to figure I was listening and they were really playing me instead? After all, listening is not the monopoly of the hearing impaired. Remember the old folks when they used to say the bungol or the bingi in town were not infrequently the first to know who was the latest victim of premarital bulging of the bosom? What if these two bingi actually thought I was a hopeless prude dateless on a Valentine’s Day?
So there I was. I got dazed and started for the door. I had gone to the restaurant only because a friend had raved about it. Well, I didn’t like it. I did not have a great time. I walked past the tables of less amorous lovebirds and braced myself for the taxi ride back to my apartment half a million miles away.