Assembly Required: Notes From a Deaf Gay Life
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About this ebook
No one gives you a manual on how to be a Deaf gay man.
Raymond Luczak shares stories from his days growing up as a Deaf gay man in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and learning signs in secret, trying to follow music on the radio in order to be cool like his hearing classmates, and feeling clueless whenever gay cultural icons like the Village People, Queen, and Bette Midler were promoted in his small hometown. After he graduated from high school and enrolled at Gallaudet University, he discovered gay literature and came out soon after. Luczak eventually got involved with Deaf theater collaborators, educators, and sign language interpreters, from which his worldview is substantially reshaped on issues of identity, literacy, technology, and family.
Assembly Required offers a rare in-depth glimpse into what it means to be a Deaf gay man living between the Deaf and hearing worlds. This edition incorporates Luczak’s new observations from the last ten years since it appeared in 2009.
“One of the great virtues of Assembly Required is its accessibility. Not only is it written in clear prose divided into comfortable segments, but there is little academic jargon to provide a stumbling block to the reader who might be venturing into Deaf or gay literature for the first time ... There may be no better introduction to the Deaf gay life.” —Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature
Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of over 20 books, including Flannelwood, The Kinda Fella I Am, and A Babble of Objects. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Raymond Luczak
Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of twenty books. Titles include The Kinda Fella I Am: Stories and QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology. His Deaf gay novel Men with Their Hands won first place in the Project: QueerLit Contest 2006. His work has been nominated nine times for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He can be found online at raymondluczak.com.
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Assembly Required - Raymond Luczak
ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
Notes from a Deaf Gay Life (Updated)
RAYMOND LUCZAK
Handtype Press
Minneapolis, MN
***
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
nonfiction
From Heart into Art: Interviews with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Artists and Their Allies
Notes of a Deaf Gay Writer: 20 Years Later
Silence Is a Four-Letter Word: On Art & Deafness
fiction
Flannelwood
The Last Deaf Club in America
The Kinda Fella I Am
Men with Their Hands
poetry
A Babble of Objects
The Kiss of Walt Whitman Still on My Lips
How to Kill Poetry
Road Work Ahead
Mute
This Way to the Acorns
St. Michael’s Fall
drama
Whispers of a Savage Sort and Other Plays about the Deaf American Experience
Snooty: A Comedy
as editor
Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 200 Years of Walt Whitman
QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology
Among the Leaves: Queer Male Poets on the Midwestern Experience
Eyes of Desire 2: A Deaf GLBT Reader
When I Am Dead: The Writings of George M. Teegarden
Eyes of Desire: A Deaf Gay & Lesbian Reader
***
smashwords license statement
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
copyright
Assembly Required: Notes from a Deaf Gay Life (Updated).
Copyright © 2019 by Raymond Luczak.
The first edition of this book was published in March 2009 by RID Press.
Cover photograph: Modern Portrait, Ironwood, Michigan.
Author photograph: Raymond Luczak.
Cover design: Mona Z. Kraculdy.
All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Address inquiries to:
Handtype Press
PO Box 3941
Minneapolis, MN 55403-0941
online: http://www.handtype.com
email: handtype@gmail.com
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-941960-12-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019900777
A Handtype Press Second Edition
***
for Tom Steele,
who was there with me
when I began taking notes
years ago
***
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was expanded from these previously published pieces:
Christopher Street: Notes of a Deaf Gay Writer.
The Deaf American: Reams of Dreams.
Deaf Life: Bruce Hlibok: A Deaf Visionary.
Dramatists Guild Quarterly: Hands Onstage: Notes of a Deaf Playwright.
ISO Book of Days 2005 (David Rosen, editor, InSightOut Books): My First Gay Bookstore.
New York City Metro RID Newsletter: Richard Chenault is Dead, and I Don’t Know How to Answer.
New York Native: Have You Listened to a Deaf Patient Lately?
Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and their Stories (Bob Guter and John Killacky, editors; Harrington Park Press): It’s All in the Eye: A Deaf Gay Man Remembers His Icons.
SIGNews: In the Beginning: My Technological Evolution as a Deaf Person.
St. Michael’s Fall: Poems (Raymond Luczak, author; Deaf Life Press): Summer Nights 1979.
I wish to thank not only the editors and publishers of these periodicals where my pieces first appeared but also my friends who’ve helped me in many ways, both large and seemingly insignificant, during the book’s final rewrite: Dave Farnham (in memoriam), Paul Ferreri, Melainie Wilding Garcia, Scott Gatty, Bill Greuling, Daniel J. Langholtz, Vivien Arielle Luczak, André Pellerin, Anthony Santos, James Thomas Sharer (in memoriam), Tom Steele, and Cam Thomas. I appreciate the help of James Albert and Marc Marschark with their clarifications, and the kindness of Steven Wilhelm with his visual contribution to the original book’s cover. Thanks also go to John Lee Clark and Tina Schultz for their editorial guidance, and to David Cummer and Scott Holl for their input with this new edition. I am most grateful to Jennifer Apple and Bill Millios at RID Press for enabling this second edition to happen.
***
CONTENTS
DISCOVERING
Little Winks Everywhere
Attempts during my growing up years to decode the sublimated signals of gayness through hearing culture have made clear why my personal gay-identified icons are often different from others’.
The Night the Bee Gees Changed My Life
My passionate love for music is my biggest dirty secret. I trace the influence of popular music not only on me as a deaf person, but also on my artistic sensibilities.
Reams of Dreams
I recall my coming out as a Deaf gay man, learning not only the language of hands from my new Deaf friends but also the language of attraction to another man without shame.
Musings of a Deaf Culture Junkie
I ruminate on various elements of what is loosely defined as Deaf culture and offer provocative examples from hearing movies.
CONNECTING
How to Meet a Deaf Man
Hearing gay men treat Deaf men much more differently than they realize. A large part of how we interact with our hearing friends and lovers comes directly from our educational backgrounds. And there’s a big reason why Deaf people are so passionate about ASL.
Daggers in Our Hands
Backstabbing seems to be endemic in many marginalized groups. Yet in the Deaf community, where everyone seems to know and depend on one another, backstabbing feels especially painful.
My Technological Evolution as a Deaf Person
I explore how my deafness over the years has transformed my reliance on technology in order to level my playing field with the hearing world.
Appearances and Disappearances
The deaths of three completely different men—one hearing interpreter and two Deaf men—affiliated with the Deaf gay community give me occasion to reflect on their influences on my viewpoint as a Deaf gay writer.
IDENTIFYING
Lousy Show with Great Production Values
My feelings about the Catholic Church evolve as I begin to question its hierarchical values.
Leaving 49 India Street
In New York City, I come of age in my first year away from college.
Weighing the Bacon to Go
I learn an invaluable lesson about identity from my father who toiled all his life as a meat cutter.
About the Author
***
"It is quite natural.
Some hear more pleasantly with the eyes
than with the ears.
I do."
— Gertrude Stein
***
D/deaf?
READERS UNFAMILIAR WITH the world of the Deaf may wonder if the capitalization of the word Deaf
is arbitrary in this book. The capitalization of the word Deaf
refers to Deaf culture and sign language; the lowercase label deaf
often refers to deaf people who do not associate with other deaf people who are signers and see their own hearing loss as a medical condition. Some people may consider themselves lowercase-deaf until they join the Deaf community as adults and learn Sign, like I did.
For a variety of reasons—usually educational, political, and otherwise—they also may not choose to use sign language at all and rely solely on speech and lipreading to communicate instead. Some Deaf people may describe that particular choice as audism.
That word was first invented by the researcher Tom L. Humphries in the 1970s to describe discrimination or stereotypes against deaf or hard-of-hearing people; for example, some might assume that the cultural ways of hearing people are preferable or superior to those of Deaf or signing culture, or that deaf people are somehow less capable than hearing people. This meaning has evolved from his initial definition of audism as the notion that one is superior based on one’s ability to hear or behave in the manner of one who hears.
The LGBT community has a similar term to describe why some heterosexuals feel that gay people should not have the same legal rights as they: homophobia.
***
DISCOVERING
***
LITTLE WINKS EVERYWHERE
IT WASN’T JUST the hearing aid harness I wore under my shirt like a bra that made me feel different. I didn’t know how or why or what, but I knew I was different. All my childhood I was constantly ashamed—although I hadn’t quite grasped precisely why at the time—to be deaf and to have imperfect and very nasal speech. (At the age of seven months, I lost much of my hearing [currently 82 decibels (dB) in my left ear; 105 dB, my right ear] due to a bout of double pneumonia. I began wearing hearing aids when I was two years old. To give my situation perspective, I should mention that hearing people typically conduct their conversations at 60 dB.) Moreover, I was much too skinny and nonathletic, and I’d matured a little more quickly than others. Then I found myself falling in love with my male classmates and teachers. I was endlessly fascinated with them, although I hadn’t realized at the time the sexual possibilities of connecting.
But then again Ironwood, Michigan, the hometown in Upper Peninsula I left a good many years ago, never seemed smaller because of the emptied iron ore mines nearby, nor did it seem to have thrived due to the flocks of skiers and tourists that came through to look at Copper Peak, the tallest ski jump in the Americas, or the Statue of Hiawatha, then the world’s tallest Indian statue, which was made of fiberglass. Nothing seemed to change in spite of the seasons endured.
Just as my damaged ears are able to grasp the bare skeletons of sound, I did not realize that I was gay—or even identify with certain icons revered by gay men—in some instant Hollywood moment; rather, it was more an epic moment than anything else. But a cast of dozens, some of whose names I have forgotten, did hold up signposts that gleamed in the darkness of my wondering.
Because I live so vicariously through my eyes, I am virtually incapable of tossing snappy comebacks directly from the movies and rendering smashing lyrics from Broadway musicals. My memories of growing up deaf and gay are sealed tight in the Pandora’s box of my eyes, always looking back to see where I’ve come from.
OUT IN THE schoolyard, my best friend Todd and I are fighting over the TV show Batman. The year is 1975; we are ten years old. He is my best friend because he doesn’t care that I’m deaf, or that I have to spend half-days with his hearing class and half-days in my hearing-impaired resources
classroom. He says that Adam West fights better than Burt