It was a wintry February morning. The alarm shrieked and I bounded out of bed, made a quick French press coffee, and headed out into the blistering cold for an appointment. My mind was fixed on getting there, and on little else.
As I raced in the door, like a batter sliding into home base, the receptionist gave me a quizzical look, and said: “You are right on time for tomorrow.”
Tomorrow?
The existential comedy of the moment did not escape me.
*
I sauntered back down into the subway and onto a waiting subway car. The subway doors closed, then opened again. People got on. The doors opened, closed, closed, opened. I sat with other passengers waiting for the car to move. The doors opened again. More people got on. Nobody got off. The doors closed, then opened and stayed open. People fidgeted, then looked down at their hands.
I felt like Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. “Estragon: Well, shall we say something? Vladimir: Yes, let’s say something. They do not.
After a few long minutes, the loudspeaker crackled and I heard the word: ‘Fire.’
Now might be a good time to get off, I thought to myself. None of us moved.
Finally, the subway conductor, asked us to get off and wait for another car. The doors opened and we all got off.
*
Emerging from the underground, the mood was somber, dull. The streets were grey – grey on grey- like sheets of wet newsprint.
*
As I walked towards the transit stop, a startling cacophony shook the air —bark-bark, quack-quack, honk-honk. I looked around for the source and saw nothing except a man in a transit shelter, on a bench, drinking water from a water bottle. Again, the sounds poured like hail. I looked towards the man in the bus shelter. This time he was on his feet, propelled off the bench by some invisible, electrical force, eyes and mouth contorting into a clownish, surreal mask of curiosity and consternation as he bellowed at everyone and no one at once: Suck it in, suck it in!
A man in a baseball cap froze in his tracks, pretending not to notice.
I stared fascinated.
Others moved away.
The sounds grew louder, more insistent – more barking, quacking, wheedling, brrps and phritzzes, clicks and pings, and an urgent, shrill ‘Suck-it-in-Suck-it-in’. The sounds were strange, amazing, poignant, desperate, dissonant, embarrassing, odd, and I couldn’t help myself, I could feel nervous laughter rising.
*
The streetcar arrived. The man boarded the streetcar first. He headed to the back, and sat down. A handful of us got on the already packed streetcar and waited for the inevitable. The light turned green, the streetcar clanked forward and suddenly the air was electric with a loud honk-honk, several quacks , a rat-a-tat-tat of cawing and wheedling and a torrential downpour of gassy pings and clicks. It was remarkable. I had never heard anything like it.
A little girl sitting on her father’s lap queried her father in a gentle whisper, ‘Daddy?” Her father caught my eye. Tears of nervous laughter fell down his face.
The woman across from me, said ‘He’s got quite the repertoire.’
I nodded – and in that instant, awareness dawned. My heart sank.
” Tourette’s?” *, I whispered to the woman across from me.
The woman nodded. “It must be so hard for him.”
*
The streetcar driver kept her eyes on the man through her rear-view mirror but she said nothing. His noisy eruptions peppered the air. I watched him as he struggled to contain himself, to shore up the onrushing river, to meet our stares with noble quiet.
As the light turned green, and the streetcar clanked forward, I heard something extraordinary. The man’s sounds merged seamlessly with the sounds of the streetcar and traffic. They were in perfect synchrony with the clanking, ringing, rocking, and hissing of the car against the tracks, and the screeching and honking of traffic.
Within seconds, his bbrpps and pings and clicks and honking no longer sounded discordant or obtrusive.
They were music.
I was mesmerized, in awe. I could feel joy rising- unexpected joy. It was the joy of pure discovery. If I listened one way, he was a man with Tourette’s. If I listened another, he was a genius, an artist. A composer scavenging symphonies from the detritus of days. A sculptor carving gargoyles for protection, hope and chance. God delivering the secret of all secrets: How you listen changes what you see.
Listen with your heart, with love and curiosity, life will become a miracle in motion – making broken hearts whole. Listen with fear and judgment, you might shut out every possibility of a miracle and break every heart at the place it was broken before.
*
My stop arrived. I glanced back at the man as I got off.
I thanked him silently for the gift of his presence on that streetcar.
He was completely still, chest erect, face relaxed and dignified, eyes fixed on a distant horizon.
~ Christiane Schull
*Tourette’s is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary vocal and motor tics and gestures.
@ Feb 2014
