I Was Never Supposed to Get Behind a Wheel

I was never supposed to get behind a wheel. No one ever had to explain to me why. It’s just a general knowledge that comes with being deaf. I wouldn’t be able to hear cars approaching, or honking, or screeching to a halt. I consider myself lucky to not know what a screech sounds like. As my mother had explained it before, a screech is the feeling of a tough bristled brush rubbing against your cheek. Unpleasant, uncomfortable, and sickening.

           So, there we have it. I was never supposed to get behind a wheel. Especially when it’s raining. But now, resting under my palms, was the foreign feel of a rigid, rounded device. Not only were my hands on an off-limits steering wheel, but my foot was on the gas pedal. Yes, I was driving a car. My heart raced beneath my t-shirt, anxious that my mom might find the car missing. Though I found it highly impossible that she would ever check my bedroom. She had no reason to peek in on me at 1am. I’m always right where I should be. Lying under the covers, in the dark, in the silence of the night. Though it doesn’t matter whether it is night or day, I am always in the silence.

           It has a way of haunting you, living the way I do. I don’t know what I’m missing, yet I know that I’m lacking something others have. To sit in a football stadium, watching my high school classmates cheer and scream for our team, yet only seeing moving bodies and gaping mouths. To rip open a Christmas gift, but it’s just as silent as when I spread butter on my morning toast. To watch other girls in my school laughing at each other’s lockers, knowing I will never know what they are laughing about. Not only that, but I will never know what kind of noise a laugh is. To me, a laugh is happy eyes and a wide mouth. Like I said, it can be haunting.

           Yet, there is something magical about the way I live too. Just like how something magical happens when it rains.

           I’ve sat in the passenger seat of this tiny, gray Civic, riding down this very road many a times. Most of those times were with my dad. And almost all of those times were during the day. I know this road like the back of my hand, yet in the dark now, I found myself second guessing where exactly to turn. Not to mention the rain making everything look blurry, like a smeared painting. I never considered how difficult it would be to steer a car down a road, in a straight path, when the lines defining the left and right lanes were sometimes visible and sometimes not. Still, I kept on. I wasn’t going to miss the magic of the rain.

           I know magic. I actually know it very well. My ears may not work, but the rest of my body does. It works in ways that only I can experience. Where I lack what the crowds have, they lack my magic. When my dad drives the Civic, I can feel the difference between the songs “Back in Black” and “Thunderstruck” when they come on the radio. I can tell when my mom returns home from work because I can feel the garage door opening. When a storm passes through town, I can feel when the sky shakes. Everyone calls it thunder. I call it power.

           The power was what woke me tonight. My bones rattled, and I knew that this was my chance to experience magic. Borrowing my mom’s car was the scariest part of the decision, but now that I was halfway to my destination, weaving left and right down the asphalt, I was excited.

           The turn came quicker than I anticipated and the tires crunched beneath my feet as I cut the wheel left. My headlights bounced with the pot-hole laden, dirt road. Mud splashed against the driver-side window. I’d have to come up with an explanation for the filth, but maybe the rain would wash it away and help cover up my excursion. My throat grew tight as I continued on down the way. Wet bark and dripping pine branches towered above the car on both sides. Everything beyond the bark lay dark as ink. The woods never scared me much, mostly because I can’t hear the things that creep and slink through them at night. But perhaps that was the very reason why I ought to be afraid of the forest. I’d never hear danger approaching.

           The windshield wipers glided easy against the sopping glass and made it clear enough to see that I had reached the place in which I sought. In the summer months, this spot acted as my family’s favorite weekend campsite. We’d pitch a tent, cook our meals over the fire and swim in the aqua lake that lay wide and deep within the ring of pine trees. Summer was over now, and the campsite would lay bare until May. Though September was a confusing month of jumping between steamy and nippy, I knew the lake would still be bearable.

           I was thankful when I put the car in park. I felt the gear click into place and released my foot of the gas. Rain tapped against the car, and I could feel the tiny pings they made as they hit the metal and glass. But that feeling was nothing compared to what I was about to witness.

           The rain soaked my long hair and pajamas as I made my way to the lake’s edge. It didn’t matter though; I would be drenched soon enough.

           As I suspected, the water was chilly, but not full of autumn’s touch just yet. My shoes sat on the soggy shore as my bare feet waded into the gray lake. The rain pitter pattered against the surface of the water around me, and I could already feel the surge of its activity within me. The chill didn’t bother me as I became more and more submerged. I was waist deep in the lake, then chest, then neck. All that was left to go was my head. My ears, to be precise. At least, that was what mattered the most.

           I sucked in a breath. Then sank.

           The cold surface caressed over my head and the water logged against my ears. And suddenly I could hear.

           There is a different kind of energy underwater. Vibrations are more precise. The movement of water feels alive and suppressing. But what made the magic was the rain. The splat of raindrops on the surface of the lake hit like stones. Their impact sent waves of sound down below the waters and crashing to my ears. The vibrations hit my ear drums so heavily that I could feel the sound inside my head. It was different than feeling sound with my limbs. This was hearing. This was living. This was magic.

           I was never supposed to get behind a wheel.

           But sometimes the perfect storm comes, and magic rides on its wind. And I must feel it, if only for a moment.