29/11/96

So To Speak

Silence, if not golden, at least has a silver lining sometimes.

    I usually have a lot to say, but recently I was rendered speechless -- for 17 straight days.
    I lost my voice during a prolonged bout of bronchitis. I couldn't even croak. For two and a half weeks, the only forms of communication available to me were whispering, whistling, finger-snapping, foot-stomping, pasimology (speaking with the hands), body language and e-mail.
    Imagine! Me! Silent!
    Nobody complained.
    For the first few days the condition was alarming, embarrassing, frustrating, but as I surrendered to it, it became downright entertaining. Someday I should write a film script about it: "Cat Got Your Tongue (1996, comedy). Director: Larry N. Jitis. Starring: Marcelle Marceau. A monk who has taken the vows of silence finds himself in the world's most loquacious culture. Hilarious study of human nature."
    In this clamorous country, sotto voce is unheard of. Some people thought I was mentally-challenged (I whispered to one baffled lady that "I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid"); others, well...
    "Can I help you, sir?" the saleslady shouted from the other side of the store.
    "Yes, I need a gift for a little boy. How much is this?" I whispered back.
    Dumbfounded, she stared at me, trying to guess if I was touched, balmy, demented, deranged or just plain rude.  Her reaction was typical: she whispered back. Then another shopper, going right along with this apparent new fashion, dropped to an undertone when he asked the saleslady a question.
    Most people automatically responded like that, but one woman went the other way: she leaned in on me and hollered. She shrunk back and blushed when I pointed out that I could hear just fine.
    I suppose word got around, because a couple of days later, Sybil, the harried lady who shares an office phone with me, took a call from an association for the deaf and blind. They wanted us to write an article on them. Sorry, she told them, Mr. Orbaum can't speak. I'm sure they think we at the Post are a pack of sick practical jokers.
    The phone was my major source of frustration and hilarity during those 17 days. At first, I tried to answer. "Hello," I said. "Hello? Hello?" was the inevitable response. "Hello!" I bellowed in my loudest whisper, but I sounded like static. "Click."
    Twice I tried to make a call. A woman hung up on me, later explaining she thought I was a perverted crank caller; and I left a message on someone's answering machine, causing her to worry that the machine was on the fritz.
    I figured I would just have to do without the phone.
    Hah.
    Ever try ignoring that Pavlovian ring? I tried, but even after a couple of weeks my right arm still twitched every time in rang. It drove my wife 'round the bend: the phone jangling right next to me, and I couldn't answer it or call her to remind her so.
    But it was also a blessing in disguise. One persistent caller, whom I really didn't want to speak to, must think I'm a very unimaginative liar. "Sorry," Sybil told her time and again, "he still can't speak." Well, what would you think if someone said that for two and a half weeks? Eventually she got the message and gave up. Perhaps one day I really will call her back.
    I learned that silence, if not golden, at least has a silver lining sometimes.  Unable to holler at idiot drivers, I merrily toodled along, shrugging everything off. I kept my opinions to myself. I never argued. I let a lot go by. 
    I was shut up in my own silent world. In my entire life I was never so mellowed out. 
    Pampering my swollen vocal chords, I was more laconic than the Laconians. I found that where a hundred words were once needed, I could now find one that would do.
    It stood my kids on their ears. They couldn't believe their luck, and doubtlessly prayed that my condition was contagious and that their mother would get it as well. But it was serendipitous for me too: their irritating habit of not listening was now not a problem: I didn't have to shout, because they heard me loud and clear. I only had to snap my fingers and they heeled, leaning in on me to catch my every word. "And don't make me repeat myself," I admonished with a pitiful wheeze. You can't imagine the unquestioning obedience.
    People can't always think of the right thing to say, and often say the wrong thing instead. "Y'know, I heard of this kind of thing once," one twit told me. "A guy I knew lost his voice for more than a year."
    "Lost your voice?" a genius found it necessary to ask. "No," I shot back in a whisper, "you've lost your hearing."
    Before I got the doctor's diagnosis that it was nothing more than bronchitis, I had some very anxious thoughts -- and these weren't allayed much by a report I read in the paper about baseball player Brett Butler, who had just recovered from cancer ... of the vocal chords.  
    Finally came the day I evoked some utterance. I woke up that morning and, as I'd become accustomed, opened my mouth to see if anything noisy would come out. "Urk," I proclaimed that morning, resonantly, eloquently, tumultuously. The kids came running, not believing their ears. "Urk!" I repeated to a round of cheers. "Urk! Urk!"
    I yammered non-stop with a vengeance -- which of course squelched my squawk again the next day. A colleague at work expressed her dismay at my setback.
    I beckoned her to come closer, and whispered in her ear: "Truth is, I can talk. But it's been so rewarding not to, I've decided to shut up for good."