He had said, What are you, anyway, deaf?
The man hadn't acted like he heard what Tom was saying except for those times he had been looking right at him. And the man hadn't said anything to him, not even hi. Sometimes people didn't answer Tom when he asked questions because something in his face told them he was soft upstairs. But when that happened, the person who wouldn't answer looked mad or sad or kind of blushy. This man didn't act like that - he had given Tom a circle made of his thumb and forefinger and Tom knew that meant Okey Dokey... but still he didn't talk.
Hands over his ears and a shake of his head.
Hands over his mouth and the same.
Hands over his neck and the same again.
The room lit up: connection made.
"My laws!" Tom said, and the animation came back into his face. His bloodshot eyes glowed. He rushed into Norton's Drugstore, forgetting that it was illegal to do so. The no-talking-man was squirting something that smelled like Bactine onto cotton and was then wiping the cotton on his forehead.
"Hey mister!" Tom said, rushing up. The no-talking-man didn't turn around. Tom was momentarily puzzled, and then he remembered. He tapped Nick on the shoulder and Nick turned. "You're deaf n dumb, right? Can't hear! Can't talk! Right?"
Nick nodded. And to him, Tom's reaction was nothing short of amazing. He jumped into the air and clapped his hands wildly.
"I thought of it! Hooray for me! I thought of it myself! Hooray for Tom Cullen!"
Nick had to grin. He couldn't remember when his disability had brought someone so much pleasure.
There was a small town square fronting on the courthouse, and in this square was a statue of a Marine tricked out in World War II kit and weaponry. The plaque beneath announced that this monument was dedicated to the boys from Harper County who had made the ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR THEIR COUNTRY. In the shade of this monument Nick Andros and Tom Cullen sat, eating Underwood Deviled Ham and Underwood Deviled Chicken on potato chips. Nick had an x of Band-Aids on his forehead above his left eye. He was reading Tom's lips (which was a little tough, because Tom kept stuffing food through what he was saying) and reflecting to himself that he was getting damned tired of eating stuff which came out of cans. What he would really like was a big steak with all the trimmings.
Tom hadn't stopped talking since they sat down. It was pretty repetitious stuff, with many ejaculations of My laws! and Wasn't it just? thrown in for seasoning. Nick didn't mind. He hadn't really known how much he missed other people until he met Tom, or how much he had been secretly afraid that he was the only one left, out of all the earth. It had even crossed his mind at one point that maybe the disease had killed everyone in the world but deaf-mutes. Now, he thought with an interior smile, he could speculate on the possibility that it had killed everyone in the world but deaf-mutes and the mentally retarded. That thought, which seemed amusing in the two o'clock light of a summer's afternoon, would come back to haunt him that night and not seem funny at all.
He wondered where Tom thought all the people had gone. He had already heard about Tom's daddy, who had run off a couple of years before with a waitress, and about Tom's job as a handyman out on the Norbutt farm and how, two years ago, Mr. Norbutt had decided Tom was "getting on well enough" to be trusted handling an axe, and about the "big boys" who had jumped Tom one night and how Tom had "fought em all off 'til they was just about dead, and I put one of em in the hospital with ruptures, M-O-O-N, that spells ruptures, that's what Tom Cullen did," and he had heard about how Tom had found his mother at Mrs. Blakely's house and they were both dead in the living room and so Tom had stolen away. Jesus wouldn't come and take dead people up to heaven if anyone was watching, Tom said (Nick reflected that Tom's Jesus was a kind of Santa Claus in reverse, taking dead people up the chimney instead of bringing presents down). But he had said nothing at all about May's total emptiness, or the road arrowing in and out of town on which nothing moved.
He put his hands lightly on Tom's chest, stopping the flow of words.
"What?" Tom asked.
Nick waved his arm in a large circle at the buildings of the downtown area. He put a burlesque expression of puzzlement on his face, wrinkling his brow, cocking his head, scratching the back of his skull. Then he made walking motions with his fingers on the grass and finished by looking up at Tom questioningly.