Silent Heartbeats 12: Hamlet
By Maureen
standard disclaimers apply. see store for details.
***
Peter -
He's your brother! How can you be so callus? He needs you. Come down one weekend, you can stay with us; I'll pick you up if necessary. How about the weekend after this? I know finals will be over then and it will Jamie's last week of school. Call me: 859-668-1547
Alex Freeman
***
Alex signed off the computer, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Three weeks of school left. Nearly a semester of having a 'son' and still no sign of any of Jamie's real father. Every time he thought of that bastard he just wanted to hit him. No one should treat people the way he did.
"Hey, Alex, here's the paper you wanted," Jamie said, handing him the stack of printer paper.
*Thanks, * he replied. It was amazing. He had said that he was going to succeed on the team just to prove to Alex that he could. And Alex had done everything in his power to get rid of him, find him not competent enough. And Jamie had triumphed. Proven Alex wrong about him time and again. Then Alex had an idea. *Have any plans this weekend? *
*No, I'm not working or anything. No final projects or anything. Probably hang with Catie; she wants to rent a video. * The unspoken ending 'because there is no closed captioning on movies'.
*Want to take a road trip? *
"Where?" Jamie asked out loud. His natural reactions were still vocal.
*Athens, Georgia. * Alex replied. It was about 5hrs away, no problem. *We'll go tomorrow morning. *
"Sounds like fun." Jamie said, leaving the small office. He had no clue what the significance of Athens, Georgia was, if anything, but he'd never been to Georgia at all. Besides, he was a teenager, the liking of road trips was in the 'How to be a Teenager' handbook.
***
"So Alex is dragging you on a road trip?" Catie said into the telephone. They had recently begun to use the relay service and TTY and although it was slow and somewhat cumbersome, they had more privacy. Catie idly doodled on a piece of paper while she waited for the operator to type her reply to Jamie.
The way the relay system worked was simple. Either Catie or Jamie could call the relay operator on a special number and ask to be connected to the other number. Jamie's phone was now connected to a TTY, a text telephone device, and he would speak into the phone to Catie and the operator would type Catie's words back to Jamie.
"Yeah, I'll be back Sunday night. It's not as bad as you're making it out." Jamie said, "I've never been to Georgia."
"You've never been out of Virginia before!" Catie reminded him.
"I know. I need to go now. Alex said we're getting up obnoxiously early. I love you Catie."
"I love you too Jamie. Have fun!" she slowly hung up the phone, wishing he could hear her say that she loved him. So many doubts and worries plagued her, but she was so afraid of hurting him more. Only Val knew it all. It was odd, she reflected, despite how terrible the accident it was bringing everyone closer in the strangest ways. Alex was human now, she was closer to Val than ever before and Brooke had practically adopted Jamie as her older brother. The world certainly worked in mysterious ways as the cliché went.
***
Jamie threw a couple spare t-shirts in his backpack with some spare shorts and his toiletries. What more did he need? Glancing around the room he added his sign language dictionary, a fresh pad of paper, game boy and his book du jour, The Godfather by Mario Puzo.
Alex flicked the light switch once, letting Jamie know he was there. *Ready? *
"Yeah," Jamie said blurrily, following his guardian out of the apartment. He was still half asleep but last night Alex had promised him donuts if he would wake up at 6:00am. Those donuts were his!
Ten minutes later Jamie was munching happily on a sausage kolaches and had already finished a cream filled donut. He slurped noisily on the chocolate milk Alex had insisted he get instead of a soda. "Thanks," Jamie mumbled around the kolaches.
*Your welcome, * Alex signed back. It was difficult to sign and drive but not impossible. Soon after Jamie fell asleep, curled up in the passenger seat, blissfully passed out.
"Where are we?" Jamie asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. All around him were tall pine trees and the road was hilly. It looked a lot like Virginia.
*Almost at the North Carolina/South Carolina border. You slept the entire state away. *
"Oh. It doesn't look like we've gone anywhere." Jamie rummaged around his backpack for his book and within minutes it was as if he was asleep again, completely oblivious to Alex.
An hour later Alex pulled off the highway and stopped at a Cracker Barrel. He nudged Jamie and signed 'lunch time'.
"Good, I'm hungry again." Jamie followed Alex up to the porch surrounding what appeared to be a log cabin. All over the porch were rocking chairs. When they went inside they entered a general store screaming 'southern charm'. "What is this place?"
*A popular restaurant. It's only found off the highways between cities. The food is excellent. *
"Two? Smoking or non?" the waitress asked. The name embroidered on her apron read 'Marilee'.
"Two, nonsmoking," Alex replied, following her to a table.
What kind of name is 'Marilee'? Jamie wondered. Sure, he couldn't remember a time when he didn't live in Kingsport, but Virginia, at least Kingsport was more Northeastern than Southern. Now he was in the Deep South and heading deeper.
However the chicken potpie that he ordered was excellent. "I like this place!" Jamie mumbled, intent on the peg game in front of him. On every table there was a peg board and pegs, depending on how many pegs you could get rid of by jumping the pegs over one another depended on your score. Jamie loved it.
Alex shook his head, trying to understand how the boy could be so easily amused. *Time to go hotshot. *
"I got it down to 2 pegs left!" Jamie crowed in the parking lot. "So, how much longer?"
*We should be there in about an hour. *
"Why Georgia?" Jamie asked. This had been preying on the back of his mind ever since the road trip had been proposed. He was almost certain that Alex had something up his sleeve.
*Why not? I have an old friend who lives in Athens that said we could stay with him. * Alex told him. His old college roommate was a professor at the University of Georgia and had helped him to find Jamie's brother.
"Whatever."
***
An hour later they arrived at a small split-level. "This it?"
*Yes. Come on.*
Alex strode quickly to the door with Jamie lurking behind him. A minute later the door opened revealing a woman about the same age as Alex and pregnant. "Alex! You look good! And you must be Jamie!"
Jamie stared at her.
"He's deaf, Lilly." Alex told her pointedly. Jamie stood there his arms crossed over his Captain America t-shirt. Everything about his manner screamed 'punk rebel'.
"Well, come on in!" she said, flustered. "John isn't here right now, he has classes until 5:30, but I'll show you around." Alex just signed whom she was and that she was giving them a tour. Jamie followed dutifully, dropping his backpack by the front door.
The house was littered with toddler toys and baby gates. After only a minute a kid about three came careening from behind the couch and latched onto her mothers leg, staring up a the two visitors. Lilly picked her up and continued the tour, introducing the girl as 'Sarah'. Jamie would sleep in the second bed in Sarah's room and Alex got the couch.
*I'm going to lie down, * Alex both signed and spoke, leaving Jamie alone with Lilly and Sarah.
"Do you want to watch TV?" Lilly asked, obviously not used to dealing with someone who was disabled.
*I'm deaf, * Jamie signed, not even bothering to tell her he could speak.
"Riiight," she said slowly, taking his arm, pulling him down the stairs to the TV.
He shrugged her away heading to the TV, fiddling with the control settings. He had become skilled at turning on the closed captioning. He quickly found cartoon network and sat on the couch to relax.
Sarah joined him, inching her way closer and closer, her eyes wide. Finally she just stared at him from barely a foot away. Jamie waved. She waved back before scurrying over to a pile of toys. Soon Jamie was on the floor playing with her, ending up with them wrestling in a tickle fight.
Lilly just watched from the kitchen door, unsure if she should trust him, but he had done nothing wrong so far.
***
"I'm home Lilly!" John called to his wife. "What's new?"
"Shh!" she hissed. "Alex is here, he brought his ward too. And Sarah's sleeping."
"This late?"
"Come look," she said, leading him from the kitchen to the living room. Sprawled out on the floor were Jamie and Sarah, both oblivious to the adults watching them. "They started playing and wore themselves out. I didn't have the heart to wake either of them."
"So that's Jamie. He doesn't look like his brother at all." He commented.
"You never did explain why they came so suddenly."
"I'll explain that," Alex said, coming down the stairs. "Jamie's father is missing. And he hasn't seen his brother since he left for UGA two years ago. Peter, his brother, doesn't want to see Jamie, but we're hoping that he might know where the father is or even their mother. And if Peter won't come see Jamie, then Jamie will just have to go see Peter. But, Jamie doesn't know Peter is here, he doesn't know where he is."
"He's deaf. Does Peter know sign?" she asked, but before anyone could answer she continued, "of course he does, they're brothers."
"No, he doesn't," Alex, corrected her, "Jamie's only been deaf for about three and a half months, he hasn't seen Peter in two years."
"I have to go finish getting dinner together," she said, excusing herself. She would never admit it but people with disabilities made her nervous, she didn't know how to act around them.
Dinner was a nerve-wracking affair; Alex and John talked about finding Peter and their lives, while Lilly helped Sarah try to get more food in her mouth than on the floor. Jamie ate his meal quickly, asking to be excused to play his game boy.
*Jamie. Come on, we're going out. * Alex told him after dinner.
*Where? What's to do around here? *
*Going to look at the campus. John's going to give us a tour. *
"Whoop," the younger man mumbled, shutting off his game and rummaging in his backpack for his sunglasses.
"Now, I've asked one of my students to let you see his room in Oglethorpe Hall, so why don't we head there first?" John asked, pausing a moment to let Alex translate. In school he had teased his roommate about taking sign language classes but was now happy that they were working out.
"Sure," Jamie replied. The first time he had spoke surprised John, not expecting him to speak so clearly.
"Why didn't you tell Lilly you could speak?" John asked him through Alex.
"Because she's all scared of me or something. Figured if I didn't say anything it would help." Jamie told him, confirming that he was paying more attention than John thought. Alex knew better.
They followed John through the lobby, not having to show ID cards because it was still early, and up the stairs to the third floor. The narrow hallway was decorated with handmade signs stating floor rules, what would happen if you got drunk (mullets for all!) and pictures the occupants had put up covered the doors to the rooms.
They stopped in front of a door decorated with advertisements of Absolut Vodka and women. Obviously a guy's room. John knocked and a guy opened the door. He was dressed as a typical college sophomore, khaki shorts, faded t-shirt from urban outfitters and Birkenstocks. He was tall with broad shoulders, his blond hair shaggy but still very preppy. He obviously resembled his father more than his mother.
"Prof. Constantine," he said, nodding and opening the door wider, revealing a messy dorm room decorated with posters of barely clothed women.
"I hope I didn't ruin your plans for tonight," John said cordially. He had changed from his usual suit to jeans and a t-shirt to show this was an informal visit.
"Nah, I won't go out until later tonight. So who's this kid you wanted to show the dorms to?"
"Oh! Right!" John replied, remembering that Jamie was still waiting outside with Alex. "Alex! Why don't you two come in?"
"Jamie!" Peter exclaimed seeing his younger brother. "What're you doing here?"
At the same time Jamie yelled "Peter! What the hell?"
A/n: I made the phone number up.
Don't I have eclectic taste in books? I had to read the first part of The Godfather (yes, the book that inspired the movie) and it's excellent!
Anyone catch the significance of John's name?
Also, on my floor we had posters proclaiming that if you got drunk you'd wake up with a mullet so don't drink!
I am the princess of cliffhangers!!!!
By Maureen
standard disclaimers apply. see store for details.
***
Peter -
He's your brother! How can you be so callus? He needs you. Come down one weekend, you can stay with us; I'll pick you up if necessary. How about the weekend after this? I know finals will be over then and it will Jamie's last week of school. Call me: 859-668-1547
Alex Freeman
***
Alex signed off the computer, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Three weeks of school left. Nearly a semester of having a 'son' and still no sign of any of Jamie's real father. Every time he thought of that bastard he just wanted to hit him. No one should treat people the way he did.
"Hey, Alex, here's the paper you wanted," Jamie said, handing him the stack of printer paper.
*Thanks, * he replied. It was amazing. He had said that he was going to succeed on the team just to prove to Alex that he could. And Alex had done everything in his power to get rid of him, find him not competent enough. And Jamie had triumphed. Proven Alex wrong about him time and again. Then Alex had an idea. *Have any plans this weekend? *
*No, I'm not working or anything. No final projects or anything. Probably hang with Catie; she wants to rent a video. * The unspoken ending 'because there is no closed captioning on movies'.
*Want to take a road trip? *
"Where?" Jamie asked out loud. His natural reactions were still vocal.
*Athens, Georgia. * Alex replied. It was about 5hrs away, no problem. *We'll go tomorrow morning. *
"Sounds like fun." Jamie said, leaving the small office. He had no clue what the significance of Athens, Georgia was, if anything, but he'd never been to Georgia at all. Besides, he was a teenager, the liking of road trips was in the 'How to be a Teenager' handbook.
***
"So Alex is dragging you on a road trip?" Catie said into the telephone. They had recently begun to use the relay service and TTY and although it was slow and somewhat cumbersome, they had more privacy. Catie idly doodled on a piece of paper while she waited for the operator to type her reply to Jamie.
The way the relay system worked was simple. Either Catie or Jamie could call the relay operator on a special number and ask to be connected to the other number. Jamie's phone was now connected to a TTY, a text telephone device, and he would speak into the phone to Catie and the operator would type Catie's words back to Jamie.
"Yeah, I'll be back Sunday night. It's not as bad as you're making it out." Jamie said, "I've never been to Georgia."
"You've never been out of Virginia before!" Catie reminded him.
"I know. I need to go now. Alex said we're getting up obnoxiously early. I love you Catie."
"I love you too Jamie. Have fun!" she slowly hung up the phone, wishing he could hear her say that she loved him. So many doubts and worries plagued her, but she was so afraid of hurting him more. Only Val knew it all. It was odd, she reflected, despite how terrible the accident it was bringing everyone closer in the strangest ways. Alex was human now, she was closer to Val than ever before and Brooke had practically adopted Jamie as her older brother. The world certainly worked in mysterious ways as the cliché went.
***
Jamie threw a couple spare t-shirts in his backpack with some spare shorts and his toiletries. What more did he need? Glancing around the room he added his sign language dictionary, a fresh pad of paper, game boy and his book du jour, The Godfather by Mario Puzo.
Alex flicked the light switch once, letting Jamie know he was there. *Ready? *
"Yeah," Jamie said blurrily, following his guardian out of the apartment. He was still half asleep but last night Alex had promised him donuts if he would wake up at 6:00am. Those donuts were his!
Ten minutes later Jamie was munching happily on a sausage kolaches and had already finished a cream filled donut. He slurped noisily on the chocolate milk Alex had insisted he get instead of a soda. "Thanks," Jamie mumbled around the kolaches.
*Your welcome, * Alex signed back. It was difficult to sign and drive but not impossible. Soon after Jamie fell asleep, curled up in the passenger seat, blissfully passed out.
"Where are we?" Jamie asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. All around him were tall pine trees and the road was hilly. It looked a lot like Virginia.
*Almost at the North Carolina/South Carolina border. You slept the entire state away. *
"Oh. It doesn't look like we've gone anywhere." Jamie rummaged around his backpack for his book and within minutes it was as if he was asleep again, completely oblivious to Alex.
An hour later Alex pulled off the highway and stopped at a Cracker Barrel. He nudged Jamie and signed 'lunch time'.
"Good, I'm hungry again." Jamie followed Alex up to the porch surrounding what appeared to be a log cabin. All over the porch were rocking chairs. When they went inside they entered a general store screaming 'southern charm'. "What is this place?"
*A popular restaurant. It's only found off the highways between cities. The food is excellent. *
"Two? Smoking or non?" the waitress asked. The name embroidered on her apron read 'Marilee'.
"Two, nonsmoking," Alex replied, following her to a table.
What kind of name is 'Marilee'? Jamie wondered. Sure, he couldn't remember a time when he didn't live in Kingsport, but Virginia, at least Kingsport was more Northeastern than Southern. Now he was in the Deep South and heading deeper.
However the chicken potpie that he ordered was excellent. "I like this place!" Jamie mumbled, intent on the peg game in front of him. On every table there was a peg board and pegs, depending on how many pegs you could get rid of by jumping the pegs over one another depended on your score. Jamie loved it.
Alex shook his head, trying to understand how the boy could be so easily amused. *Time to go hotshot. *
"I got it down to 2 pegs left!" Jamie crowed in the parking lot. "So, how much longer?"
*We should be there in about an hour. *
"Why Georgia?" Jamie asked. This had been preying on the back of his mind ever since the road trip had been proposed. He was almost certain that Alex had something up his sleeve.
*Why not? I have an old friend who lives in Athens that said we could stay with him. * Alex told him. His old college roommate was a professor at the University of Georgia and had helped him to find Jamie's brother.
"Whatever."
***
An hour later they arrived at a small split-level. "This it?"
*Yes. Come on.*
Alex strode quickly to the door with Jamie lurking behind him. A minute later the door opened revealing a woman about the same age as Alex and pregnant. "Alex! You look good! And you must be Jamie!"
Jamie stared at her.
"He's deaf, Lilly." Alex told her pointedly. Jamie stood there his arms crossed over his Captain America t-shirt. Everything about his manner screamed 'punk rebel'.
"Well, come on in!" she said, flustered. "John isn't here right now, he has classes until 5:30, but I'll show you around." Alex just signed whom she was and that she was giving them a tour. Jamie followed dutifully, dropping his backpack by the front door.
The house was littered with toddler toys and baby gates. After only a minute a kid about three came careening from behind the couch and latched onto her mothers leg, staring up a the two visitors. Lilly picked her up and continued the tour, introducing the girl as 'Sarah'. Jamie would sleep in the second bed in Sarah's room and Alex got the couch.
*I'm going to lie down, * Alex both signed and spoke, leaving Jamie alone with Lilly and Sarah.
"Do you want to watch TV?" Lilly asked, obviously not used to dealing with someone who was disabled.
*I'm deaf, * Jamie signed, not even bothering to tell her he could speak.
"Riiight," she said slowly, taking his arm, pulling him down the stairs to the TV.
He shrugged her away heading to the TV, fiddling with the control settings. He had become skilled at turning on the closed captioning. He quickly found cartoon network and sat on the couch to relax.
Sarah joined him, inching her way closer and closer, her eyes wide. Finally she just stared at him from barely a foot away. Jamie waved. She waved back before scurrying over to a pile of toys. Soon Jamie was on the floor playing with her, ending up with them wrestling in a tickle fight.
Lilly just watched from the kitchen door, unsure if she should trust him, but he had done nothing wrong so far.
***
"I'm home Lilly!" John called to his wife. "What's new?"
"Shh!" she hissed. "Alex is here, he brought his ward too. And Sarah's sleeping."
"This late?"
"Come look," she said, leading him from the kitchen to the living room. Sprawled out on the floor were Jamie and Sarah, both oblivious to the adults watching them. "They started playing and wore themselves out. I didn't have the heart to wake either of them."
"So that's Jamie. He doesn't look like his brother at all." He commented.
"You never did explain why they came so suddenly."
"I'll explain that," Alex said, coming down the stairs. "Jamie's father is missing. And he hasn't seen his brother since he left for UGA two years ago. Peter, his brother, doesn't want to see Jamie, but we're hoping that he might know where the father is or even their mother. And if Peter won't come see Jamie, then Jamie will just have to go see Peter. But, Jamie doesn't know Peter is here, he doesn't know where he is."
"He's deaf. Does Peter know sign?" she asked, but before anyone could answer she continued, "of course he does, they're brothers."
"No, he doesn't," Alex, corrected her, "Jamie's only been deaf for about three and a half months, he hasn't seen Peter in two years."
"I have to go finish getting dinner together," she said, excusing herself. She would never admit it but people with disabilities made her nervous, she didn't know how to act around them.
Dinner was a nerve-wracking affair; Alex and John talked about finding Peter and their lives, while Lilly helped Sarah try to get more food in her mouth than on the floor. Jamie ate his meal quickly, asking to be excused to play his game boy.
*Jamie. Come on, we're going out. * Alex told him after dinner.
*Where? What's to do around here? *
*Going to look at the campus. John's going to give us a tour. *
"Whoop," the younger man mumbled, shutting off his game and rummaging in his backpack for his sunglasses.
"Now, I've asked one of my students to let you see his room in Oglethorpe Hall, so why don't we head there first?" John asked, pausing a moment to let Alex translate. In school he had teased his roommate about taking sign language classes but was now happy that they were working out.
"Sure," Jamie replied. The first time he had spoke surprised John, not expecting him to speak so clearly.
"Why didn't you tell Lilly you could speak?" John asked him through Alex.
"Because she's all scared of me or something. Figured if I didn't say anything it would help." Jamie told him, confirming that he was paying more attention than John thought. Alex knew better.
They followed John through the lobby, not having to show ID cards because it was still early, and up the stairs to the third floor. The narrow hallway was decorated with handmade signs stating floor rules, what would happen if you got drunk (mullets for all!) and pictures the occupants had put up covered the doors to the rooms.
They stopped in front of a door decorated with advertisements of Absolut Vodka and women. Obviously a guy's room. John knocked and a guy opened the door. He was dressed as a typical college sophomore, khaki shorts, faded t-shirt from urban outfitters and Birkenstocks. He was tall with broad shoulders, his blond hair shaggy but still very preppy. He obviously resembled his father more than his mother.
"Prof. Constantine," he said, nodding and opening the door wider, revealing a messy dorm room decorated with posters of barely clothed women.
"I hope I didn't ruin your plans for tonight," John said cordially. He had changed from his usual suit to jeans and a t-shirt to show this was an informal visit.
"Nah, I won't go out until later tonight. So who's this kid you wanted to show the dorms to?"
"Oh! Right!" John replied, remembering that Jamie was still waiting outside with Alex. "Alex! Why don't you two come in?"
"Jamie!" Peter exclaimed seeing his younger brother. "What're you doing here?"
At the same time Jamie yelled "Peter! What the hell?"
A/n: I made the phone number up.
Don't I have eclectic taste in books? I had to read the first part of The Godfather (yes, the book that inspired the movie) and it's excellent!
Anyone catch the significance of John's name?
Also, on my floor we had posters proclaiming that if you got drunk you'd wake up with a mullet so don't drink!
I am the princess of cliffhangers!!!!