BARRY KITTERMAN is a recipient of fellowships from the NEA and Tennessee Humanities. He lives and writes in St Joseph, MI, where on Tuesdays at noon, you will find him standing by the side of the street waving a sign and speaking truth to power.

When I think of all the things I could lose, this doesn’t seem so bad. My vision is okay and it should last me a while. I have friends who lost their sense of smell after the virus. I think about the taste of coffee in the afternoon. The years of cheap beer, the cigarettes, it would be poetic justice to lose my sense of taste, but that’s not my problem. It’s my hearing that’s going, a little at a time, not all at once. I want to blame it on someone—those years of listening to rock and roll in high school gyms. Then trying to keep a band of my own going. It was never my band. I had this friend who was a drummer, and this is interesting, he put in earplugs before every practice. That drummer, his name was Dave.

I had a job in a little lumber mill, the worst job I ever had. It was dirty and the owner was a terrible sort, but the worst of it was what those machines did to my ears. I was one of the lucky ones. I didn’t have to stick with the job for years and years, watching the saws and the planers take a finger, take two fingers, take the rest of my hearing.

Some days I don’t care about hearing. What passes for conversation leaves plenty to be desired. My daughters ganged up on me last Christmas and said I needed to get hearing aids, and I got some, and afterward I heard the birds sing again, sure, but I also heard the guy at the table behind me in Thornton’s go on and on about some colon thing he had done three years ago, and he championed the lunatic running for state senator. I didn’t have to look at him to know he’d be wearing one of those stupid ball caps. I put the hearing aids in a drawer and only took them out when one of my daughters came over. The youngest one understands. Daughter number two is in an unhappy marriage, and she takes it out on me and my sorry ears.

“You’re going to step out in front of a car one of these days,” she tells me. “You won’t hear it coming.”

Cars are quieter than they used to be. Guys in ball caps are louder.

“You won’t hear a burglar when he breaks into your house.”

As if any burglar with an ounce of pride would break into my house.


To keep the peace, I took the hearing aids out of the drawer, and of course I’d neglected them for months, so they didn’t work even a little bit. I had to drive to Kalamazoo to the Costco and get somebody to take a look at them.

“Your Gatorade won’t work?” said a person at the hearing aid counter.

“Is that what I said?” I said.

“Your leering maids?”

“What leering maids? What kind of place is this?” I said.

The woman held out her palm and I caught her drift. I put the devices in her hand and she sort of waved me toward the rest of the store and I spent the next hour wandering the aisles sampling the free crap they feed you in a place like that. Stuff out of boxes. I wasn’t sure I had to wait a whole hour before I went back to the hearing counter. If they couldn’t fix the things in an hour, it was a sign from the God I don’t much believe in that I didn’t have to wear them anymore. Back at the counter, a guy in a ball cap was chatting up the nurse, I think she was a nurse, so I went away and walked around some more. I looked at the price tag on a gun safe, but I don’t own any guns. It was right next to some nonstick cookware. I could have used that cookware, but I’d already told myself, don’t buy anything on a whim.

I walked back to the hearing aid counter. The nurse was finishing up with a woman who said one of her devices had come apart and the little basket thing was stuck in her ear.

“That never happens,” said the nurse. “That’s impossible.”

The old gal on my side of the counter glared at that nurse.

“I believe you are a nitwit,” she said. Or maybe she said she would come back later. It was hard to hear in that place.

The nurse held up her hand like the crossing guard at the local grade school, and the gal on my side of the counter must have known sign language because she stopped talking for one minute so the nurse could fetch my repaired hearing aids out of their hiding place and slide them across the counter at me. I got out of there without paying anything, which is how I like it.


I stuck them in place, that is to say, in my ears, as I crossed the parking lot looking for my car. I have a white car. It has a roof rack. It has four wheels. Not so easy to find right away, but I saw it after walking three or four miles in ever-increasing circles. I’d parked next to another white car and a blue pickup. The guy in the truck must have finished his shopping early, and that is why I couldn’t find a blue pickup. And even with the hearing aids in place, I had a close call when some yahoo in a minivan came rushing up behind me. I didn’t hear the minivan at all, which should have been the first sign something wasn’t right with my devices. I jiggled the things in my ears. I thought maybe I had the left one in my right ear and/or visa-versa, so I swapped them around. This is harder than you think. I had to stop and stand still for a moment. The sounds coming out of those devices were not the sounds of a parking lot. I was standing in the Costco lot, sure, but my ears were in a café somewhere having a quiet conversation with a woman who spoke in a remarkably low voice. You might call it sultry or something.

“I thought you’d never get here,” said the low voice.

“You thought what?” said a man’s voice. The man’s voice sounded a little like my voice, but then again, you never sound like you think you do. You ever hear a tape recording of your own voice? All you can say is, Now, that’s not me!

“I thought you said you were going to move out of your house,” said the woman in the café.

“How’s that?” said the man she was with. “I’m not sure I heard you right.”

“Oh, you heard me just fine,” said the woman. That low voice did sound a little disgusted.

“I haven’t been able to hear properly since I got my hearing aids back,” said the man, the one who was not me. I mean, I’m sure he wasn’t me. “I keep hearing cars go past,” he said. “It’s like I’m standing in the middle of a parking lot.”

“You’re such a liar,” said his lady friend.

“I’m on fire?” said the man.

“She said, you’re a liar,” I said, speaking as clearly as I knew how to speak.

“Who was that?” said the man in my ear. “What is going on here?”

“I’m leaving you,” said his lady friend, “that’s what is going on.”

“You’re grieving?” said the man.

“Oh, give me a break,” said the woman.

Then I needed to get in my car. I had traffic backing up behind me in the parking lot.

“Get out of the goddamn way,” said a large woman who was pushing an overloaded shopping cart.

“What is happening?” said the other voice, the man’s voice, the one in my ear.


It was pretty clear to me what was happening. Well, one of two things. Either I somehow got my hearing aids swapped out with this other guy back at the hearing aid counter and I was taking part in his life. Or, second possibility, space aliens had invaded my brain and they were just messing with me. I thought, either way, it was what my friend Dave would call the FM theory. Dave is a really smart guy who can fix air conditioners, and anytime I ask him what makes my air conditioner work, he gets this pained look and say it’s the FM theory.

“The FM theory?” I said, the first couple of times he referred me to the FM theory. I wasn’t sure if I was hearing him right.

“Fucking Magic,” he said. “It’s just a theory.” And his face cleared up like he felt better, having explained things to me.


I thought I should call Dave and ask him if he knew how hearing aids work, if there was a way I could have somebody else’s hearing aids in my ears and ergo, be in somebody else’s life. But see, the only way I can call somebody on the phone is by dialing their number on my phone and listening to them through my hearing aids. It’s blue tooth. The other person needs blue tooth too, I guess. Blue teeth. I would have called Dave, but the guy in the café was already using the phone, his phone or maybe it was my phone, anyway he was calling his friend, who was not named Dave, and together they were trying to figure out his next move.

“She’s leaving me,” said the guy in my ear.

“I could have told you that,” I said.

“Who is this?” said the man, who I will now be calling Alfred, so I can keep him straight from his friend, who I will call Ernesto. That is, Ernesto was the friend who Alfred was talking to on somebody’s phone.
 
“This is me,” I said. “And, if you don’t mind me asking, what about you? Are you really Alfred?”

“Are you hearing voices?” said Ernesto.

“I think I am,” said Alfred. “I think I’m hearing voices.”

“You’re not hearing voices,” I said. “You’re hearing me. You’re hearing me through my hearing aids.”

“Alfred, who is that?” said Ernesto.

“Alfred!” I said. “I knew it! I got it right!”

“Alfred,” said Ernesto, “why are you changing your voice that way?”

“You got to help me,” said Alfred.

That meant a lot. He really was Alfred!

“My name is Mike,” I said.

“Stop doing that,” said Ernesto. He said it to Alfred. “Stop doing the different voices.”

“What is going on?” said Alfred.

I was really grateful to know his name.

“I am really grateful to know your name,” I said.

Alfred began to cry. Not real big sobs, but I could tell he was crying. 


When the phone in my hand started ringing, (!!!), I wasn’t completely sure what I should do. I looked at the little window where they tell you who is calling and I saw my daughter’s name. I figured it out, she was calling me and not calling Alfred, but I was a little confused by then.

“Dad,” she said, “you have to speak up. It’s like we’re getting somebody else’s call mixed in with yours.”

I must have pushed the button that let her in on the other conversation. The Alfred, Ernesto, sexy-low-voice conversation. I wondered if this was what they meant by a three-way call. I’ve heard of those. They feel a little risky to me.

“Are you in a bar?” said my daughter. “Are you drinking in the middle of the afternoon?”

“I’m sitting in my car,” I said.

“You’re drinking in your car?”

“Is that a woman’s voice?” said Ernesto.

“Dad,” said my daughter, “who’s in the car with you? Is someone crying?”

“Alfred,” said his friend Ernesto. “Betty just left you and you’re already hooking up with someone new? Some little tart, I can’t believe you.”

“Hey,” I said, “that’s my daughter you’re talking about.”

“Sir, sir,” said a voice, and this was a whole new voice. Some kind of waiter? In the café? “You can’t get under the table,” said this waiter. “How much have you had to drink?”

“You are drinking,” said my daughter. “Who the hell is Alfred?”

“Oh my god,” said Ernesto. “Did you give this new woman some kind of phony name?”

“You’ve got to come out from under the table, sir,” said the waiter. I knew him to be a waiter. He had a kind of whiny voice. “Come on now.”

“Alfred!” I shouted. “Alfred, listen to me!”

“Whose voice is that?” said Ernesto.

Really, I am just guessing his name was Ernesto. I didn’t have time to ask for sure.

“I think, that must be God,” said Alfred, who was trying to stop crying. It wasn’t going very well.

“It’s not God,” I said. “It’s me, Mike Donleavy. From Costco.”

“I don’t believe in Costco anymore,” said Alfred.

“Dad, you’re really worrying me,” said my daughter.

“Well, you’re the one who told me I needed hearing aids.”

“Do we have to call the police?” said the whiny waiter. I think it was the waiter. I was losing count.

“Don’t call the police,” I said. “Just send Alfred back to Costco. Go to Costco, Alfred! We’ll sort it out at Costco.”

“How is any of this remotely possible?” said Alfred.

I felt bad for the guy. He had been through quite a lot for one afternoon.

“I’m not sure,” I told him. “It could be magic.”

I heard the sound of a chair scraping, like a large man was getting to his feet. I heard a glass fall to the floor.

“Was she really worth all of this?” said Ernesto.

“Watch yourself,” I said. “You better not be talking about my daughter.”

“Dad, you’re killing me,” said my daughter. I thought she might be crying too.


I got out of my car. I locked all the doors, something my daughter is always after me to do. She’s hard to please. I thought I should take the hearing aids out before I walked back to the counter in Costco, because to tell you the truth, I was a little dizzy. I don’t know, maybe that was a mistake. If I’d left them in, even if they were the wrong hearing aids, just maybe I would have heard that Prius. He wasn’t going fast. He knocked me down, and it hurt like hell. You might think getting hit by a hybrid car wouldn’t be so bad, but it was pretty bad.

They put me in the ambulance, though I thought I could drive myself home. The ambulance driver told me to look at his fingers. I had to count them up.

“What day is it?” he asked me.

That was easy.

“Thursday,” I said.

This all happened on a Thursday. All of it.

“Who’s the president of the United States?”

That was harder. I had to think about it for a moment.

“Some asshole,” I said. “What’s-his-name.”

“Can you tell me your name?” said the ambulance man. I was glad he was right there in front of me. This fellow wasn’t just a voice.

I didn’t answer right away. I was not completely sure of the question.

“Tell me your name,” said the ambulance man.

“Okay,” I said. 
“No,” I said.

“I don’t think I can,” I said. “I really don’t think I can do that.”


  

Volume 15.2  ✧  Summer 25

Barry Kitterman

Kalamazoo