Dinosaurs Under Heat - San Francisco State University Digital

Dinosaurs Under Heat
A Written Creative Work submitted to the faculty of
San Francisco State University
In partial fulfillment of
^ ^
the requirements for
the Degree
Jol(,
Master of Fine Arts
* 'X Q 6 4 '
111
Creative Writing
by
Randall Jong
San Francisco, California
May 2016
CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL
I certify that I have read Dinosaurs Under Heat by Randall Jong, and that in my opinion
this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirement for the degree Master in Fine Arts Creative Writing at San Francisco State
University.
Michelle Carter,
Professor
Maxine Chemoff,
Professor
II
Dinosaurs Under Heat
Randall Jong
San Francisco, California
2016
After four years in the program, 1 have written a short story collection that ruminates
around the themes of identity, race, and family structures. 1 am a Chinese American who
grew up in San Francisco. I grew up on American pop culture, the English language, and
an unfathomable amount of multiple cultures that is truly difficult to generalize. These
stories really ask the question: Under certain guises, what does it mean to be an
American?
I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this written creative
work.
-£ ~ '~
Chair, Thesis Committee
t- f — 3
Date
III
it
/
PREFACE AND/OR ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to all my friends, family, faculty, and fellow writers for your support. It’s
been a rough few years regarding creativity, but everyone in my life has been truly
generous with their encouragement.
IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
You Wish You Were W hite......................................................................................................1
The Closest Attempt to Time Traveling................................................................................. 9
Men Who Look Like Veteran Lovers....................................................................................24
Mom, Eat..................................................................................................................................43
The Asian Jack Tatums...........................................................................................................56
Tender C hild........................................................................................................................... 72
An Inter-radical Relationship................................................................................................. 87
Dinosaurs Under Heat........................................................................................................... 107
V
1
You Wish You Are White
Okay - finish taking a piss, wash your hands, check yourself in the mirror. Check
for boogers, check your greasy-ass hair, check your lips and lick them if they’re dry. Ask
yourself: will that girl by the pool table-the one with the massive triceps and calves
despite the little everything else-will she fuck me? Hell yeah, she will. How could she
not? You’re wearing your super fitted American Apparel V-neck that clings to the
smooth grooves of your muscles. And, remember, you just worked out this afternoon:
chest and arms with no mercy. Flex.
Keep staring at the mirror. You’ve had five shots of Jameson and a 24oz can of
motherfucking Paps. You’re not quite smashed, but you’re feeling tight. Life’s been
worse; you’ve survived hundreds of hazy bar-hopping-nights. You’ve been told that you
drink like a white dude and got the swagger of a black dude. These generalized opinions
somehow keep you some-what sober and get you almost laid. You don’t know why. But
you don’t really ask yourself either.
Mirrors don’t lie. Even though you’re not a big guy, you’re body parts are
proportionate to each other. You’ve got nice bulky shoulders. A co-worker, a white girl,
once said you got good skin too, and you sure-as-hell believe her. Oh yeah, you’re
Chinese though. You forget sometimes. It’s a strange acknowledgement: I’m this Chinese
guy. It’s not that you think you’re anyone else; it’s not that you think you’re actually
white or black or brown or whatever. But, yeah, you’re Chinese. It might’ve been easier
identifying as Chinese if you spoke the goddamn language or ate the fucking food. But
2
you grew up on canned spaghetti and “Home Improvement” reruns. Don’t feel too bad.
Can’t complain. English is universal. Cantonese is just loud-ass chicken scratch.
Sure, there’s a part of you that wishes that you went to Chinese school as a child.
Sure, there’s a part of you that knows that you can return to school to learn Cantonese or
Mandarin. Last week, you’re friend told you that he’s learning Portuguese through
Rosetta Stone. But you’re not willing to admit that you’re a little jealous of his ass for
being so proactive. But, fuck learning a new language. You’re almost thirty. You can’t
even retain a hot girl’s number without writing it down and studying it multiple times.
How can you expect to retain squiggly lines and ridiculous inflections? Did I say
“watermelon ” or “car-engine”? Neither. You just made a loud-ass chicken noise.
“Can I use the sink?” someone says behind you.
Don’t look too eager to get out of his way. In fact: fuck him.Let him squeeze by
you if he wants to wash his filthy hands so badly. Keep yourself in the mirror.Thisis
mirror time, and you’re having a serious moment.
You can’t help but see this other guy’s ugly-ass face. He’s Chinese too. You can
tell the difference between Chinese and everything else. You can tell that a Chinese’s
face is a face that has a flat nose that looks like a deformed cauliflower, giant nostrils,
bigger-than-usual eyes (for an Asian), and a dark slave-like tan. This very description
disgusts you because it reminds you of farm-life. Farm-life sucks. Probably. You don’t
really know. You’re a city kid. But this guy is a farmer.
“You a farmer?” you ask. A legitimate question.
3
“What? Fuck you, dude.”
“Yeah, well, fuck you, farmer.”
The guy eyeballs you like he’s going to hit you. But he doesn’t do shit, and storms
out of the restroom without wiping his wet-ass hands. What a loser! You mean: what a
farmer! Seriously, though, you have nothing against farmers. You have nothing against
Chinese people. You just - you don’t know why you’re so aggressive right now. Actually
you do! Blame the media. Blame the lack of Chinese American pop culture. Blame the
history books - third through twelfth grade - that only had a couple paragraphs about
Asians in America yet had scrolling encyclopedias dedicated to George Washington and
his white ass. More than ninety percent of your grammar school class were Chinese kids,
and you guys learned more about white and black people than your own kind. Lincoln
was cool. Fredrick Douglass was dope. Johnny Joe-Blow Chan didn’t exist. So what the
fuck? Maybe that’s why you forget you’re Chinese. Maybe that’s why you feel strangely
anonymous.
You think about calling your Ma to explain all these buried feelings. Call your
Ma. Wait a second -fu c k it, call her! By the first ring, you’re hoping she picks up. By the
third, you’re hoping she doesn’t. You’re debating whether or not to dive right into the
heart of your issues or ask for a few favors like doing a load of laundry at her house or
taking some silverware. You should probably hang up. Too late“Hello? Donald.”
“Uh, Ma?”
4
“Yes. Are you okay?”
“No. I mean: yeah. It’s nothing. I just thought - 1 don’t know - I’d call you and
say some stuff. ”
“Okay. What kind of stuff?”
“I don’t know. Being Chinese.”
“What about being Chinese? We’re Chinese.”
“But, like, whyV
“Donald, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, it’s hard to explain. Being Chinese. It’s kind of a lame race.”
“What the hell does that mean - a lame race?”
“Yeah. It’s lame. It sucks. It just sucks. It’s sucky.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you calling me so late?”
“I hate you.”
Hang up right before her confused whimpers turn into actual sobs. Holy shit, you
feel terrible. But in many ways you meant what you said. When you say you hate your
Ma, you mean you hate the confusion. You hate being divided between what you’re
expected to be and what you actually are. And you hate that what you actually are is a
smorgasbord of shit, a collage of micro-culture that has multiple fucking roots. You read
shit that marginalizes you. You read shit that generalizes you. You read shit that doesn’t
talk about you at all. That’s why you rarely fucking read. You assume, you hope, most
people of any background goes through these series of feelings. But even those people,
5
like your friends, don’t really know nor want to talk about it. And when you bring up
race, or try to bring up race, they sense it and look at you like you’re causing unnecessary
damage. Once you asked a friend “do you ever wish you were white?” And your friend
responds, “Oh my god, dude. Have some self-respect.”
You’ve been spending too much time in the bathroom. Your friends are
wondering where the hell you are. They think you’re puking. And, remember, that girl
with massive triceps. She’s not staying in this dive-ass place forever. Go outside. Take
action. Before you actually talk to her, you seek comfort with your friend who is waiting
for his drink. Head butt his shoulder. He looks at you funny, as if you told him that you
stabbed your Ma’s heart (which you kind of did already) or that you’re planning to stab
his.
“Bro,” he says. “You’re drooling everywhere.”
“What?” Wipe your lips. Goddamn, they’re wet.
“The bartender is staring at you,” your friend says. “I think they want to kick us
out. And I’m not leaving before talking to that girl.”
“What girl?”
“By the pool table. Look at those triceps.”
Hell no. You saw massive triceps girl first amongst your friends. Beat him to the
moment. Run to the girl, and talk to her already. Your friend is staring at you from the
bar, smiling like crazy because he knows you’re going to mess up. As you approach her,
you realize that she’s a lot bigger than you. She’s also a lot paler than you. Pale. Well, of
6
course, she’s a white girl. And as you’re getting closer you notice that she’s got a scary
pair of green eyes to complement those throbbing triceps. This girl looks like Wonder
Woman. Damn, she’s hot. You want to say that you don’t know why you’re attracted to
white girls. But you do know why: they’re pretty, they’re the complete opposite of you in
every which way, and on a subconscious level, they elevate status. Like a green card. Oh,
you got better one: like an official club jacket.
Alright - say something cool.
“Sup.”
“Uh, what’s up?” She says and takes a sip of her drink.
The entire bar is getting louder and your voice is getting softer. But stay strong;
you’re in conversation mode, you’re in let’s-see-where-this-goes mode. This feels like
you’re launching into space. You’re the test monkey. You have this compulsive urge to
tell her that you’re a test monkey. That might make her laugh. Then again, she has zero
context of your thought process and probably won’t laugh. It’s been a solid five seconds
since you said anything. Your odyssey into space is already dipping back down to earth.
“Do you do a lot of skull crushers?”
“What?”
“Like at the gym.” Make the motion of an easy-bar skull crusher. Emphasize the
triceps extension because if she does lift she’ll know exactly what you’re talking about.
“Skull crushers,” you say again.
“Oh. No. I don’t do those skull things.”
7
“Do you go to the gym? Because...”
“Sometimes.”
“Because, well, as I was about to say that you look like you would do that
exercise.”
“Oh yeah. Cool?” she takes another sip and angles her body away from you.
“Would you like a drink?”
“Uh, I have one.”
“What about your calves. Let me guess: standing calf raises?”
“Oh my God,” she laughs but not in a flattering way. “I think it’d be best if you
just walk away.”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Mission accomplished, buddy,” she completely faces away from you.
“Wait. Is it because I’m Chinese?”
“Um,” She wipes her head around and smirks as if she’s about to drop an atomic
fact. “It’s because you’re a creepy little meathead.”
What? Laugh her off. Laugh her off, man. You can’t laugh, you can’t even fake a
smile, because you did not expect such a response. You were expecting an honest “yes”,
or at least, a vague lecture on why you are not her type. You’re not creepy or little. And
you’re definitely not a meathead. Stupid girl. Those massive triceps and calves don’t look
as good - in fact they look super weird. This girl is probably taking testosterone. She
looks like a body-builder. That’s creepy.
8
“And you’re still standing next to me,” she says.
Fuck you. But don’t say that. Retreat to the bathroom, quick.
Okay - get real close to the mirror. Go ahead, let your nose touch the reflection.
Who cares if someone walks in? Who cares that you’re not leaving with a girl who thinks
you’re a creepy little meathead? At this point you just want to go home, rethink a few
things, convince yourself the positive aspects of life, whatever they may be, and carry on.
Oh, yes, and call your Ma in the morning to apologize. But before you leave this bar for
good, you can’t help but notice the mirror. This damn mirror. Look at yourself and see an
American. See a Chinese guy. It’s hard to decipher what that really means. But don’t
question that fact ever again. All you know is that you love yourself and you’re a badass.
Now take a step back. Run your hands through some cool water and slick your greasy-ass
hair. Really ask yourself: do I love myself?
Fuck yeah, you do. Flex.
9
The Closest Attempt to Time Traveling
Pop and his bruises. Pop and his bumps. Pop and his old age. Often times, when
he felt dizzy, he’d lose footing and fall onto something hard: glass shelves, hardwood
doors, protruding cabinets. His flesh was overripe. Bruises formed on him like dark blue
mold. On harder impacts, his wounds split open. A younger man treated his injuries with
a dab of antiseptic and a Band-Aid. But for Pop, after decades of ingesting blood thinners
and injecting Cortisone for his asthma, his injuries meant guaranteed trips to the St.
Francis Hospital.
When I was fifteen years old, Pop was seventy-one. He fractured his right arm
during that time. At our request, with a physician’s approval, we saw the awkward x-rays.
I wondered how a solid thing like bone could splinter so easily.
“See your humerus, Mr. Lee? Like continents shifting,” the physician said. He
took off his thin silver glasses and tucked it in his coat pocket. “What happened again?
You fell?”
“Mhm.” Pop adjusted his arm in the temporary sling and groaned.
“From where?” The physician smirked. “A balcony?”
“I wish,” Pop said.
Pop didn’t tell the physician that an overnight maintenance crew waxed our
apartment’s main corridor. I was running late for my Muay Thai practice, forgetting
things. He was chasing after me, trying to hand over my new Fairtex boxing gloves. I
10
almost slipped trying to catch the elevator. When Pop stepped onto the floor, his slippers
slid forward, his head reeled back, and his right arm-the humerus-crashed into our front
door. Thwack! The sound of landing timber. I watched him curl up and feel the pain. The
blood gushed through a cut on his forearm. The bone shifted underneath the skin. My
gloves, like firm blue globes, were strewn by his feet.
“Your grandpa is okay,” the physician said to me, as a nurse guided Pop into a
different room.
“He’s not my grandpa,” I corrected, as I always did, that common
misunderstanding. “He’s my dad.”
The physician wore his glasses and examined Pop’s x-rays again. Waitresses and
bus drivers were better actors. At least they could smile. “He’s seventy?”
“Seventy-one.”
“How old is your mom?”
“I think she’s almost forty.”
“Lucky guy.” He smirked again, as if their age gap was the sexiest thing he had
ever heard. “Have you contacted your mom?”
“She’s working.”
Depending on the injury, I could estimate the length of our visits to the St. Francis
Hospital. A cut in the hand took forty-five minutes; a gash in the leg took an hour and
fifteen minutes; a knot on the forehead that included an MRI scan took over two hours. I
squandered a lot of time in waiting rooms, slouching in straight-backed chairs, and
11
watching clocks revolve infinitely. I knew every type of magazine in these rooms, every
odor repellent in the outlets-the favorite, an acrid vanilla-every analytical physician who
could not say, once and for all: your dad is officially broken.
“He’s fortunate that he didn’t land on his head.” The physician handed me one of
the x-rays, as if I could offer a better opinion.
Fortunate wasn’t the right word. Pop looked small in the hospital gown, like a
hungry child blanketed in an extra-large, hand-me-down sweater. He was thin, white
haired, and his green dehydrated veins, whatever were left of them, strained narrow. If we
stood side by side at a bus stop, a passerby could not tell that we were related. Not
because of our age difference. But because I stared ahead, confident about my future,
while he lowered his head, gazing at his sodden loafers, at a past that did not resemble a
glamorous life.
Thwack! My sparring partner’s shin slammed into my thigh. The muscles
instantly tore and bruised. I knelt down, dead legged, as my partner stood over me. He
was about fifteen too, but kicked like a bull.
The blue mat reeked of brined socks and chipped toenails. People sparring around
me blew snot and blood onto it. I rose, feeling sick, protecting my chin with the right
glove, and received another hard kick to my ribs. I collapsed to the dirty floor, the wind
sacking out of me. Despite its heavy stink, the blue mat felt cool and smooth like a thick
12
surface of ice. I wanted to stay there forever, fixed at the ceiling, counting the rows of
fluorescent bulbs as glowing birds.
“Time!” Kru Michael shouted. He was a stocky man-dense tree trunk legs-with a
dark complexion of someone who had fought a million times in tropical heat. “Can
someone help Kevin?”
I raised my gloves and moaned. Two classmates carried me to the bench and
placed a cup of warm water at my feet. I caressed my ribcage, which throbbed between
my fingers. The stubborn part of me wanted to continue sparring. But I had to regain my
breath and rest.
The Kamsing Academy was a small gym on the comer of 9th avenue: a little
reception office in the front, a tattered boxing ring in the center, cardio machines and
punching bags in the back, and a huge space of blue mat where we would practice
techniques and spar each other. At the entrance, nailed to the door, was our statement of
purpose: To learn the art of Muay Thai and fight relentlessly.
As I watched my classmates, orbiting around each other, swinging punches like
warring gorillas, I could proudly say I belonged with them. Even though I wasn’t the
most talented or keenest student, I showed up to the Kamsing Academy every week and
took beatings. Under the tutelage of Kru Michael, I believed I would improve at the art of
Muay Thai. But at that moment, after nine months of getting kicked and punched, the
only things I could show for my efforts were an injured rib and a battered confidence.
13
I wasn’t big compared to the other guys. In fact I was scrawnier than most boys.
Everyone in the Academy could see my ribcage. Some could see my heartbeat. They
teased me: Give Kevin a bacon sandwich! But no one doubted my toughness. No one
joked when I was hurt but kept marching forward. No one said-give Kevin a bacon
sandwich-when I was screaming at the top of my lungs and winging punches.
Muay Thai is the toughest sport-the most brutal martial art-that I have loved for
over ten years. In the beginning I learned its traditions, an element that Kru Michael paid
homage to, of the red Mongkon headpiece, the Prajioud armbands, and Wai Kru Ram
Muay dance for family, teachers, and honor. And I learned its primal form, the thing I
was attracted to, of punching, kicking, kneeing, and elbowing an assailant from head to
toe.
For village boys, far away in Thailand, it was a daily practice. For me it was an
every Tuesday and Thursday practice. I kicked hard pads, dulling the nerves in my shins,
and punched bags until my knuckles blued and benumbed of pain. I attacked my target,
lifting my feet from the ground, turning my hips at the sharpest angles, and throwing my
weight behind a lethal strike. As a growing boy, a virgin fighter, I developed an addiction
for hitting things. Ever since Mom signed me up, I knew this sport was not for the weak.
And I knew, after eating my first punch and licking the salty blood from my gums, I was
one of the durable.
What if Pop was thrust into this sport? If he struck a pad, his arms and legs would
snap. If he ran on the elliptical, his lungs would explode over the machine. If someone
14
kicked him, God, I didn’t know what would happen: they would find pieces of him all
over the mat. I imagined him, this decrepit geezer, dancing and dipping in the center of
the ring. Pop, the next WBC Champion at forty-seven kilograms! I chuckled and my
ribcage tightened. Here I was making fun of him again.
“Time!” Kru Michael clicked his stopwatch. “You ready, Kevin?”
I rose from the bench. Although my ribs throbbed, I pounded my gloves together,
telling Kru Michael I was ready to spar. Then I snarled at my partner and pointed at him
like a solider of an unfinished battle, letting him know that I’d kick his ass back.
Months after Pop’s fractured arm, he sustained another injury. He stumbled in the
shower, careening his left knee into the bathtub’s steel spout. The edge of the spout,
jagged like teeth, ripped into his knee. From where I stood in the kitchen, I could not hear
his opening cry.
I was frying eggs for dinner. The hot peanut oil snapped into the air and the
television blared Pop’s favorite reruns of The Lawrence Welk Show. I thought Pop would
be fine showering by himself. He even said not to bother checking on him. Between
commercial breaks, as the oil settled down, I could hear his desperate groan trying to
break through the bathroom door.
I expected to discover his fragments. But he was whole, unbroken, leaning against
the bathtub, clenching his knee and affirming, “I’m fine.” He leaked a lot of blood. It
shined and pooled in his hands. Foolishly, he tried to clean our blue tiled floor with his
15
towel and smeared blood everywhere. I grabbed a new towel and wrapped it around his
kneecap, knotting the wound tightly. Then I layered several newspapers under his knee as
blood dripped rhythmically onto the floor. Identifying the leaks, compressing the wound,
I felt like a human plumber. I couldn’t decide whether the guilt, this sour feeling of an
empty stomach, was from neglecting him in the shower or failing to stop the bleeding.
Mom wasn’t home, working late for a client who was interested in one of her
properties. She had periods of absence when business picked up and potential
homeowners wanted to live on outskirts of the city. Silicon Valley Fish, she called them
and clattered her teeth like a shark biting into their fins. We argued after Pop fractured his
arm. She said I should’ve watched him more closely. I said that she was never home to
help, and she got in my face and nearly slapped me.
“I guess we’ll have to cut your Muay Thai classes and let Pop’s arm stay broken,”
she said. “Since, you know, I’ve been working too much.”
She was right; she was the big earner. Pop retired in his late fifties as a manager
of an art supply store. On top of his social security, he received a meager pension of one
hundred and twenty dollars a month. Mom needed to hunt, as she called it, to pay for our
expenses. It seemed to her that I didn’t appreciate her efforts. I think that’s why she
enrolled me in Muay Thai: I needed to get my ass kicked.
I called her but she didn’t answer. Then I called 911, calmly explained everything
to the operator, and demanded an ambulance. That was the procedure, as most kids knew,
but I was really efficient at it.
16
I did not tell Pop I called 911. He worried about what other’s thought of him. His
naked body, a bloody pulp below the waist, was apparently shameful. If he knew that
paramedics-that guests-were coming, he’d want to dress his wound nicely, button on a
suit, and clean the blood from the shower curtain. Pop’s pride manifested in a wellmanicured home and good mannered behavior. It was his last chance to impress a
generation that had written him off, to show them that he conquered the messiness of old
age.
“Did you get a hold of mom?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Just a little cut.” He was depleted of energy. “I’m missing Lawrence Welk.”
“You’ve seen the episode. Sinatra covers.” I pressed on his knee. Blood seeped
through the towel. “It’s not that bad. They’re coming.”
“They?” He paused, knowing who I really called, and covered his small flaccid
penis with a face towel. “Clean me up. I’m still wet.”
I wrapped his shoulders with another large towel and rubbed his back until we
both felt warm. I squatted on his blood and felt his weight, less than a hundred pounds,
wilting into my chest. He was losing consciousness, so I rubbed harder. Even if I
scratched his skin, inflicting little cuts, I rubbed. He woke up periodically, complaining
about the thick smell of salt and nickel.
17
The paramedics arrived ten minutes later, their heavy blue coats shuffling through
the bathroom, down the stairs, and out into the street. Pop wanted to walk on his own, a
healthy sign, but they forced him on the gumey and rolled him out.
“You can ride with your grandpa,” a paramedic said.
“He’s not m y...”
But the paramedic quickly turned away and loaded Pop into the ambulance. I
reached over to make sure he was awake.
“Can you turn off the light?” he mumbled. “It’s giving me headache.”
“Just close your eyes,” I said.
“That doesn’t help. It’s still bright as hell.”
I placed my right hand over his eyes. He held my wrist, making sure I couldn’t
pull away. He took a deep breath-I did too-and then said thank you.
“Time!” Kru Michael shouted in the middle of sparring. “Give him space!”
Olivier, a tall blonde man from Marin County, was sprawled on the floor. He
couldn’t move. His mouth locked open, mid-scream, at a moment of great pain.
“I caught him with a right hook,” his sparring partner said. “Sorry, Kru.”
“It happens.” Kru Michael rubbed Olivier’s chest and checked his breathing. He
glared at us as if we intruded on his business and said, “I want everyone to spar on the
other side of the room!”
18
It was my first time witnessing someone knocked out. A knock out occurred when
the brain recoiled to the back of the skull and then snapped to the front. Back and forth,
as the brain sloshed in its cerebral fluid, trauma rushed throughout the body and the
nerves shut off. I thought Olivier was dead. About a minute later, he thrashed at the
ceiling as if he was in the fight. Crawling on the mat, struggling to stand up, he slurred,
“What the hell happened? Did you start the round?”
Kru Michael lectured the class after Olivier was taken to the hospital. He stood in
the boxing ring, above everyone else, and started his stopwatch because he timed
everything.
“It’s important that we understand the procedures when someone checks out like
that. First of all we don’t laugh. I can hear some of you. If I catch you, I’ll suspend you
for a month. While a head trainer attends to the person in need, you should continue to
spar. No breaks until this watch says so. Got it?”
“Yes, Kru Michael,” we chanted.
“Good. Get ready for the next round.”
At break I pulled Kru Michael aside. I wasn’t sure what happened. Was Olivier all
right or completely damaged? He shut down, blacked out, like pressing the power button
on a television and then nudging it off a roof. I had never been knocked out-didn’t know
that was possible-and I felt suddenly exposed to the chance that it could happen to me.
“Does it hurt?”
19
“It doesn’t hurt, Kevin.” Kru Michael brought me into the office. Hung on the
walls were framed photographs of his grandfather, Annan Kamsing, who was a legend in
the gym. Annan was known as the Wiry Hawk, winning back to back world titles in the
fifty-eight kilogram featherweight division. However, towards the end of his career, he
lost six matches in a row, three by knock out.
“That’s the scary thing,” Kru Michael said. “You get hit, see a flash, and you’re
somewhere else. Five years ago I competed in a sixteen man tournament in Lumpinee. I
defeated most of my opponents in the first round. Liver shot after liver shot. I felt
invincible. Then, in the semi-final, I fought a guy who was much tougher than I
anticipated. I was doing well: I hit him with three, four, five, six knees to his stomach.
But he would not go down. He bit on his mouthpiece and fired left hooks. I knew he
relied on that hook, so I kept ducking it.” He bobbed and weaved, pretending that he was
fighting the match again, that the office was an open ring in Thailand. “Lumpinee was
crazy! People blowing oboes, rattling drums and cymbals, shouting bets, cheering HEY,
HEY, HEY! For a second, I forgot I was fighting. Then he swung the left hook again. I
ducked. Flash! I woke up in a stretcher.” He sat on his desk, exhausted. “I thought God
was talking to me. I was like: God speaks Thai? But it was a local doctor thrilled that I
was awake. They carried me to the parking lot and loaded me in the ambulance.
According to my trainers I ducked into my opponent’s right kick. He caught me flush on
the temple. I was out for fifteen minutes.”
“Was that your first experience?” I said.
20
“And not my last.” He looked at his stopwatch. Break was almost over. “You get
hit, see a flash, and you’re somewhere else. It’s the closest attempt to time traveling.
Where my mind went during that dark period? Who fucking knows?”
Though I didn’t admit it then, I was afraid of that kind of loss. I had seen it in
Pop: this blank underwhelming look that could not comprehend the cruelty of physics.
Olivier had the same look. I’m sure Kru Michael, those nights he got knocked out, had it
too.
When Kru Michael rewound his stopwatch and we continued to spar, I asked
myself: why am I doing this? But then I got hit and thought of nothing else but hitting
back. That was the difference between the weak and the durable. I, one of the durable,
could not accept that the world was unfair. I believed in the exchange, not the one-sided
beating that seemed to happen more often than it should.
So I fought. My sparring partner trapped me in a Muay Thai Plum-both his
gloves wrapping the back of my head, yanking my face downwards to his sharp,
upcoming knee-and smashed my nose. It didn’t break, but I got a cut on the bridge. I
covered up, bleeding, and thought about Olivier. I didn’t want to travel through time,
among the empty and soulless falling, much like sleep but far more unpredictable, and
wake up with a missing sequence, an important sequence, that I would always try but
could not remember.
My partner threw an uppercut to my chin. I absorbed it, bit on my mouthpiece,
and countered with a straight right. I missed. But, as he stepped to his left, I slammed my
21
shin along his belly button. He winced, backed off, and I kicked his stomach again.
Thwack! He went down, whimpering.
I was surprised that I possessed that kind of power, which would grow
exponentially during my late teens. That sparring session was the beginning of my
undefeated streak. In thirty-three amateur matches I have not gotten knocked out, but I
am still anticipating the likely chance it will happen.
In the summer, when I wasn’t in school, Pop and I took these long walks at Stow
Lake. He visited the lake to get away from the apartment. He couldn’t stand that desert of
time between noon and five when he had nowhere to go, nothing to watch on television,
and no one to talk to. During the regular school year, he napped until I got home. But the
summers, before I could make plans with friends, he asked me if I wanted to accompany
him to the lake. He wouldn’t allow me to say no.
Sauntering around Stow Lake, his hand resting on my shoulder for support, he
enjoyed the quietness of the mid-afternoon. The pale sunlight seeped between the trees,
casting onto the black glassy water. Gray squirrels scampered behind and above us. Dogs,
massive and minuscule, barked at each other from a distant field. He fed pigeons and
geese with clumps of white bread. He picked pebbles and pine cones and little berries,
admiring their bright crimson shells. Occasionally he wished we had a camera. When I
suggested a cheap disposable one, he turned down the idea. That was him: he wanted to
capture beauty without spending the effort.
22
We walked along the lake, through a dirt sanded trail, until we reached a large
pagoda. We looked inside: a circular space supported by wooden pillars and a clay roof,
aligned with red benches and an open view of the glimmering lake. Pop sat on a bench,
feeling a little dizzy.
“How’s your Kung-Fu?” he asked.
“Muay Thai, Pop. Not Kung-Fu. There is a huge difference.”
“It’s all violence to me,” he said.
“Muay Thai is way more intricate and useful. I’ve learned punches and kicks, but
I also learned trips and throws. Practical techniques. Street fighting. None of this KungFu crap. Did I tell you about the time I kicked a guy in the stomach?” I began to
shadowbox, pretending that the pagoda was a giant concrete ring. “You have to set up the
kick: high, low, then to the middle. They never see it coming. Watch me.”
“I’m watching.” He looked at the ground.
“See? It’s simple.” I threw a body kick at an invisible opponent. “You turn your
hips, pivot your left foot, and extend your right leg. We drill it every week in practice.”
I lost myself in the motions-kicking, jabbing, shuffling my feet. When I got
sweaty, I removed my jacket and continued to shadowbox. Was Pop paying attention? I
slowed down and looked to him. He wasn’t watching me or gazing onto the lake. He
stared at his loafers, pondering about one thing or another.
I didn’t know much about Pop’s life. I didn’t even remember him as a full-time
manager. Mom would tell me stories about those days when he had an unreplaceable
energy. He couldn’t shut up, he couldn’t stop moving, and that, she said, was very
attractive. I should’ve asked him about his younger years: the clothes he wore, the cars he
drove, the girls he loved, the things he did with his friends. But I never came around to
ask. I was too busy showing off my Muay Thai techniques.
I whiffed a punch by his face. He snapped out of thought and glanced up.
“Something cut me,” he said.
He lifted his hand to the sunlight. The tip of his forefinger was slit. He could’ve
cut himself on anything: bolts, nails, sticking outward. The slit did not bleed at first. But
we gave it second, warmed up to the idea, and a fine red sap began to push through
24
Men Who Look Like Veteran Lovers
Since the beginning of this year, after several interactions with strangers, I have
realized that Molly, my girlfriend, the love of my life, is attracted to mature Spanish
dudes. Let me break that down: mature as in mid-fifties or older, Spanish as in white
skinned Conquistadores chiseled from centuries of wielding swords on horseback and
conquering savage America, and dudes as in veteran lovers who have captured Molly’s
heart. All of them, the ones who I’ve met, sport thick Van Dyke goatees. Molly admits
that she misses the look. Soft or rough, thick or thin, to her it doesn’t matter. A goatee is
a goatee, sexy is sexy. I can grow two strands of facial hair: a long black one above my
upper lip, another deep under my chin. My Taishan forefathers spread their hairless seeds
from Southern China to this fine country. Because of them I can’t grow shit. Because of
them I’m losing Molly.
The first dude I met was her former history professor at Sacramento State. His
name was Manual Cortez, a third generation Spanish American from Los Angeles. He
had a cream colored goatee, moussed and combed. Appropriate for a tyrannical king.
We stood on my balcony during Molly’s graduation party, drinking Opera Prima
Merlot, an import from Spain allegedly. He was a proud wine connoisseur: stirring the
wine, shoving his nose into the glass, swishing the flavor in his mouth as he considered
texture and aftertaste. Our conversation began with his impromptu lecture about the
25
vineyards in Penedes. Then he quickly changed the subject. Wine reminded him of blood;
blood reminded him of war; war reminded him of history. I listened for twenty minutes
about the Spanish American War of 1898. He clamored about the sinking of the
Battleship Maine, Cuban guerilla fighters called Mambises, the Treaty of Paris. I wanted
to interrupt him-your majesty, slow down, I don’t care.
“What are you?” he said, after telling me that Mambi blood coursed through his
heart.
What was I? Did he really care about the brute history of my people? I decided to
give it to him, like you give a dog unwanted fat.
“I’m Chinese.”
He snickered and said he was sorry. I felt slighted. As I started blushing and
blinking profusely, he clarified his point.
“I’m not laughing at you,” he said. “The Chinese have never been-how should I
say-celebrated in American culture. I mean you have your Chinese New Year parades,
but those are for tourists. There are millions of you.” He lifted his glass next to mine, as if
comparing the shape and size. His glass, though from the same set, seemed shinier and
rounder. “I’m sure there’s more to you than proverbs, herbal medicine, and lion dancing.”
“Fortune cookies.” My throat cracked.
“Exactly! Those silly cookies! There’s more to you! The Gold Rush of 1849 for
example. Did you know that it was mostly men who immigrated to California? Their
spouses would be waiting at home, expecting fortune. But the men were forced under
26
long-term service contracts. So you would have thousands of single men, working twelve
hour shifts, bunking with each other without female companionship. I cannot imagine the
level of frustration. It might explain a lot of issues. This internal struggle that you must
feel. I don’t mean you, but you know: Chinese men in general.”
“I guess so,” I said.
I wanted to get drunk. Then I wanted to tell Manuel that women abuse and
forbidden pregnancies had been a part of my family since my great Gung-Gung
hammered his first nail in the Central Pacific Railroad. I should’ve told him that
sometimes when Molly yelled at me about something I did or did not do, I’d want to slap
her in the mouth-lightly-to get her attention. But I never would as long as I reminded
myself that I could not hurt her, that I loved her even though I felt, especially at night
when she slept at the edge of the bed, her back facing me, her unconscious farts against
my leg, that she didn’t love me back. I chugged the wine and proudly wiped my purple
lips with the back of my hand.
Before I could begin with-“my great Gung-Gung jumped a prostitute in an
alleyway”-M olly joined the balcony, her coconut perfume wafting between us. She wore
her dress from that morning, the one I helped pick out that snuggled around her small
hips and sparkled like a wing of emerald dragonfly. What struck me, I had forgotten, was
her short hazelnut hair. I thought it was longer, passed those tiny white ears.
“I see you two have met!” She smiled at Manuel who chuckled for no apparent
reason. “What are you guys talking about?”
27
“This young man,” he said, forgetting my name, “feels ignored by American
culture.”
“Donald.” Molly glared at me and snatched my wine glass. “We live in the
twenty-first century. Stop with the racial pity.”
“But I didn’t say anything.”
“He does this at every party.” She placed a hand on Manuel’s forearm. “Gets
loopy, finds someone willing to listen to him, who is too nice to stop him, and rambles on
about the insignificance of Chinese Americans. Then to make it really awkward, he talks
about his invisibility. Invisibility? Donald, we see you. You’re right there!”
I wanted to refill my glass, brimming the fuck out of it, and then get so drunk that
she would take care of me after the party. She would hold me in the shower and clean my
puke from the drain. I would wake up the next morning, my nose nestling in her hair, my
mouth clean with ice water and Listerine. Instead I nodded apologetically.
“It’s a matter of disengagement with the self,” Manuel said. “I understand where
he’s coming from.”
He winked at me like we shared a mutual understanding that Molly, for a college
graduate, was ignorant about colored people. But then I thought-no one should think
Molly was ignorant but me-and I decided right there that I officially hated this dude.
“It’s not that I don’t understand what Donald is saying. My mom’s family is from
Scotland and my dad’s family is from England. They both grew up in Buffalo, so they’re
28
American. I’m American. American is American. Why do we have to dwell on cultural
self-doubt? Why, Donald?”
“We don’t have to,” I said. “We can talk about something else.”
I reached for my glass, but she turned and pressed her left boob into Manuel’s
bicep.
“Now he wants to change the subject! In case you forgot, we have guests and I
have to make rounds. When I come back I want to hear you talk about something that’s
not so depressing. Okay, Donald? That’s not depressing.”
She returned inside, my glass in her hands, shouting Oh My God over the uproar
of new guests. Manuel offered his wine and I guzzled it, choking on the last drop. He
patted my back and said, “She mentioned she had a boyfriend. Is he around? I don’t think
I have met him yet. In my opinion, I don’t think anyone can handle her spirit.”
I found a near empty bottle of Opera Prima and drank until it was gone too. I was
happy to break it to him, waving that yellow and white flag of interracial love. “I’m her
boyfriend.”
“You?” He snickered but didn’t apologize. “I thought you’re a classmate. No
kidding. I didn’t expect her to date someone so.. .polite.”
“Thanks.” I could throw wine in his face and deck him in the nose. Then as if
nothing happened, I could strut inside, drag Molly’s ass into the bedroom, and establish
my stink. Instead I said, “We’ve been together for almost two years. She tends to talk for
me.”
29
That night I puked on my side of the bed. Mostly burning wine and chunks of
salami. Molly could not help me. She passed out on the couch and snored politely like a
princess with a slight chest infection.
The second dude, Alfonso Garza, was Molly’s co-worker from the St. Mark’s
Homeless Shelter. He was the every other Sunday cook and taught violin lessons on
Tuesday nights. His goatee was pure black, the color of a dead lung, and he had a scar the
shape of Florida scrawling across his neck. I had heard that in his early twenties he
assaulted his ex-wife with a fold-out chair and went to prison for several months. But
Molly made an argument that he was the sweetest guy. He reminded her of me.
I met him on a Friday evening in our kitchen. When I came home from work, I
heard a light plucking of a violin and his sullen voice carrying throughout the apartment.
I didn’t recognize the song, but it sounded like he was mourning the loss of a small pet.
Molly leaned on the stove, sipping a glass of Chardonnay, and listened to him. Crouching
over the chair, propping the little violin on his big shoulder, Alfonso was a seven-foot-tall
monster. When I stepped into the kitchen, he shot up and glared down at me.
“Donald,” Molly said.
“Hey.” I stared at Alfonso who refused to introduce himself.
“Pardon me,” he said. His voice, deep as a black hole. “I startle easy.”
“It’s okay. I’m Donald. Her boyfriend.”
“Aren’t you a little young?”
30
For a moment I forgot my age, afraid that I would say the wrong number and get
beaten for my stupidity. “I’m twenty-seven and a half.”
“You’re a baby,” he said and sat back down. “Both of you. Babies.”
“Alfie was telling me about the prisons in Mexico.” Molly’s cheeks were hot and
blotchy. She cleaned her glass and poured another. “Apparently they make San Quentin
look like a playground.”
“Full of swings and monkey bars,” he added, frowning.
“Would you like a drink?” I poured Chardonnay into a coffee mug.
“I don’t drink.” He stared at the bottle. “The taste frightens me.”
“Donald should follow your footsteps,” Molly said. “He drinks a little too much.”
I placed the mug down. That stung. At one time she thought I was an alcoholic
and forced me to stop drinking for an entire month. She threw out our rainy-day supply:
the Two Buck Chucks, the Sierra Nevadas, the Jamesons. Although I couldn’t get a drink
at home, I relished the attention. She hounded me every night, trying to sniff my breath
and threatening to dial A.A.’s hotline. But after she consolidated with her friend, Nina,
who knew a thing or two about serious alcoholism, she decided that I was never a real
alcoholic. They yelled at children. They hit their wives. Suddenly the ban was lifted, and
she started bringing bottles of wine home and caring less.
“So go ahead, Alfie. Your stepfather...”
31
“Celino. He was murdered in Santa Martha Prison. A rival inmate shaved a
toothbrush into a plastic spike, dipped it in feces, and stabbed him thirty-seven times in
the neck. The man died from choking on his own blood.”
“Awful.” Molly pressed her hand on her mouth.
“Why did he dip the toothbrush in feces?”
“Because.” Alfonso wiped his damp eyes. “If the bleeding doesn’t kill him, the
bacteria will.”
“I see.” I saluted my coffee mug. “That’s smart.”
“It’s not funny!” Molly smacked my arm. At least she could still tell when I’m
joking, though I wasn’t trying to make fun of dead Celino.
“It’s alright.” Alfonso tuned his violin. “I wouldn’t expect him to know what
Santa Martha is like. Let me ask you something, Daniel.”
“Donald.”
“Where are you from?”
Where am I from? I could tell Alfonso that I didn’t have to tell him shit, that he
should leave my apartment on the basis that I didn’t know who the fuck he was! He ran
his finger along the scar of his neck. Someone tried to slit his throat. Maybe he asked
them the same question. I told myself to not answer his question.
“I’m from Sacramento.”
“Did you have food on your table every night of your life?”
“Yeah.” I thought about it. “Well, in college I relied on Wheat Thins.”
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“Are Wheat Thins not food?”
“They are.”
“So you had food every night. You went to college. What do your parents do for a
living?”
I looked to Molly, hoping that she would sense my discomfort and stop his
interrogation. But she stood there, eyes perked, like she never heard of my name. Say
something, Molly. Ask him to fiddle or something. How my parents earned money to
support me and my brothers was no one else’s business but theirs. They didn’t do
anything special. Mama was a certified CPA accountant for an independent firm. Daddy
owned properties, mostly apartments in San Francisco, and rented these flats to techies
and lawyers. If a normal person asked me that question, I wouldn’t mind telling him.
However, Alfonso seemed like a dude who would misuse that information, selling my
parents’ identities to internet thieves. Bottom line, I knew where he was going, my
parents had money and I was undeserving of it.
“They’re landlords,” I said.
“Celino had very little. No property. No Wheat Thins. You know what he had?”
He covered his eyes and inhaled profoundly. “Fifty seconds. Fifty seconds to retain his
breath before losing his life.”
“Donald.” Molly placed a hand on Alfonso’s quivering head. “I think you owe
Alfie an apology.”
33
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know who I was saying sorry to. I might have been saying
sorry to myself for simply opening the front door and stepping inside.
“Maybe.” He pointed at the bottle of Chardonnay. “I will have that drink.”
Cupping with both hands, he brought the wine glass to his mouth. The dribbling
wine shined his goatee. He winced from the bitterness while thinking about my apology,
deciding whether or not I was being sincere. He read me right, since he didn’t accept it
and kept to himself. As Molly comforted him, telling him that I didn’t mean what I said, I
returned to my bedroom and locked the door. Then I went to a comer of the room,
farthest from the kitchen where sound could not be reached, and burst out laughing. I
laughed so hard that I began to cry. Then I punched the wall.
For the first year, Molly and I had a good thing going. We met at the Midtown
Farmers Market by the fruit vendors. Over a series of short conversations, usually
revolving around food, we ignited a steady friendship. We learned a lot about each other
before we even started dating. She liked to cook, I liked to cook. I was completely
different from her past boyfriends, a healthy reboot from an abusive lifestyle that she was
used to. She spent a year alone in her hometown of Buffalo, New York, contemplating
change. Her ex-boyfriend, the one right before me, had a huge goatee and dominated
their relationship. He picked their friends; he choose what they ate; he fucked when he
wanted to. He never let her speak.
Before our first kiss, she said, “I haven’t been with anyone so kind.”
34
I said, “I’m just happy to have met someone.”
I meant what I said. Before Molly, I lived in an urban solitude. I reported to a
cubicle, shopped at discount grocery stores, and talked to myself in a ratty, south
Sacramento studio. I wasn’t aware of how alone I was until people started having
concerns and making suggestions. My younger brother, for instance, pleaded me to meet
his girlfriend’s sister, a girl who worked in a cubicle too. When I said maybe, he said,
“Don, Mama asks about you. She thinks you’re gay.”
Molly was my first long-term relationship, longer than I expected it would be. We
hung out compulsively. She or I would call at eight in morning, before work, and make a
quick plan for lunch or dinner. The plan didn’t have to be elaborate, and it never was,
because we just wanted to see each other. I didn’t know it was that easy to fall in love and
stick with that special someone. Eventually, without worrying about our future as couple,
we thought it would be financially smart to live together. My brothers complained about
the fights, the suspicions, and the undercutting things their girlfriends said about them.
They prepared me for the worst. But, after a good year with Molly, they were wrong. I
literally drew them a caricature of how my relationship worked: stick figure Molly and
stick figure Donald joined at the hip, sharing a plate of stick figure spaghetti.
“Don,” My older brother said. He had ended an eight year relationship when I
showed him that drawing. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
I had suspicions that Molly cheated on me with Manuel or Alfonso or someone of
that distinction. But I didn’t have any solid evidence. I raided her phone-password 1986-
35
and studied hundreds of text messages. One of her texts, sent to Nina, stated I had the
social skills of a rock. In hindsight I shouldn’t have wrote back to her friend:
Hey, it’s Donald. Good morning. I am not a rock.
Molly and I had a huge fight over that text. I claimed that she insulted me, she
claimed I had trust issues. We stuck to our arguments, like we stuck to our sides of the
bed.
I wished we could return to that first year. We used to reenact “MasterChef ’
competitions to see who could create the best homemade dinners. On our first Halloween
together, we choose pumpkin as the star ingredient. She wanted to make pumpkin blood
sausages. I wanted to make pumpkin tartar even though she didn’t care for raw beef. We
got messy. We nibbled on our dishes-hers was bland, mine was rank-and laughed at how
awful we were as chefs. Then we snuggled on the couch, wine glasses in hands, endowed
with a new appreciation for wannabe chefs and each other, and watched reruns of “The
Office”. We made love too. Once a night. Sometimes twice, counting the failed attempts
when I couldn’t get completely hard. It was never pretty. The lights always turned off.
One of us, depending on who felt more conservative at the time, kept a t-shirt on. I don’t
think we’ve been completely naked with each other. The one thing that I really wanted,
the one thing that I hoped she just did so I didn’t have to ask, was grab onto me. Grab
tightly. Instead she wedged her hands on my hips to prevent me from diving further to
her center (not that I could, not that I was long and girthy). If she was drunk and not in
the mood to police my thrusts, her hands flopped on the bed like gasping fish. After I
36
came, which felt quietly disappointing if I was drunk, she lay in her position unmoved by
it all.
On that Halloween night, after I finished, I pulled the covers over my cold chest
and she immediately turned to her side. I said something, anything, to recover the
murmur we were making.
“You asleep?”
“I’m trying to.”
“What if, instead of tartar, I make pumpkin fried rice?”
“Hmm,” she muttered into the pillow.
“We don’t have to worry about getting sick from raw meat.” I listened for her
response. Nothing. “I was thinking-do you think I would look good with facial hair?
Think about it: if my family was born further north, say Mongolia, I would be a hairy
man. I’d be stockier, lighter skinned, and withstand the cold better. My daddy can grow a
mustache. I don’t know why I can’t. Maybe I get it from Mama. When I was a teenager, I
rubbed Rogaine on my face. I was so stupid. So? You think I would look good?”
“Donald.” She kissed my cheek. “You would look weird.”
I felt good about us. Our bed didn’t seem as expansive back then, before we left a
gap in the middle. What’s changed, I don’t know. Her diminishing patience? My rock­
like behavior? Honestly, I don’t know what happened.
37
The last dude, a man who I knew as Roger, invaded our recent Halloween party.
His costume was “The Most Interesting Man in The World” from those Dos Equis
commercials. For a prop he brought a six pack of Dos Equis and crammed them into my
refrigerator. I couldn’t tell if his accent, raspy like a sore-throated mariachi tenor, was an
imitation. If it was then he stayed in character the whole night. Wearing a dapper sports
coat, a white collared shirt, and white snakeskin loafers, he stuck out from every sub­
group of generic vampires and dead celebrities. His white goatee, luscious and bright,
was easy to spot from anywhere in our apartment.
“I don’t always hangout with young, beautiful women.” He sipped a bottle of Dos
Equis like he was shooting a promotion. “But when I do I make sure I’m at Molly’s
parties.”
“Amazing! You sound exactly like him!” Molly embraced Roger. Her plastic
vampire teeth fell out as she plowed, head first, into his shoulder. She dressed as
Dracula’s spoiled daughter (her words). “Do another impression!”
“I don’t always fix teeth.” He adjusted her vampire teeth, his fat greasy fingers
exploring her mouth. “But when I do I make sure they’re yours.”
“Thank you! You are too good!”
He squeezed her again and then turned around to find me standing behind them. I
smiled, the only thing I could do. He asked, “What’s your costume, my blue friend?”
“Nightcrawler.”
“It’s a comic book thing.” Molly stuck out her tongue, trying to be cute.
38
“I don’t always read comic books, but when I do I shall read Nightcrawler!”
“Yeah, he can teleport.” They waited for me to say something else. “And he’s
Catholic.”
Molly grabbed Roger’s wrist. “Would you like a tour?”
“I don’t always take tours...”
They walked away from me. The blue face paint rubbed off on my gloves and the
furry, arrowhead tail refused to clip onto my belt. An hour into the party, I was falling
apart. Everyone thought I was Satan, poorly constructed and painted the wrong color too.
When I told them who I dressed as, they didn’t seem to care. They ignored that I tried to
join them. They were Molly’s friends from this minimum wage job and that nonprofit
organization, the only people who showed up to our parties. Because the apartment got
too loud and I had nothing to say, I frequently teleported to the balcony where it was
freezing but quiet.
Roger was a different kind of friend, one who you forgot why you were friends in
the first place. He was a regular at the Natural Foods Co-Op. Almost every Saturday
afternoon, Molly would run into him at the nuts and grain section. They would bond over
raw kosher almonds, their conversations lasting a few comments: Try the Mission
almonds! I prefer the Caramel! Before the party, I knew Roger as the lonely almond dude
who wore refried bean-stained sweatpants. He usually grew a beard that wasn’t
completely white; it had hints of dishwater gray. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a
real accent. When Molly had her fill of almond talk, he would slink away, alone once
39
again, pushing an empty shopping cart towards the exit. Sometimes as we waited in line,
minutes after they spoke, I saw him leaving the store without a single grocery.
He was the pulse of the party. He bounced around from group to group,
performing the Dos Equis punch line, tickling everyone who remembered the
commercials. Most of them understood his costume, befitting of his age, and unofficially
voted him as the most interesting man of the evening.
“Who is that?” Nina asked Molly. She still thought I was a rock and gave me dirty
looks all night. She was another drunk vampire, stumbling in diagonal lines. “He’s
fucking hot for an old guy.”
“That’s Roger,” Molly said, proudly.
“His costume is so perfect!”
“You should hear his life story. In the forties he was bom a blind orphan. That’s
right: blind orphan until he turned fifteen and hitched hike to a sacred spring where he
washed his face. Several days later he developed twenty-twenty vision. It’s hard to
believe but the way he tells that story. Uh, it doesn’t even matter if he’s lying.”
“How do you know all this?” I stood behind them.
“Donald. We talk at Natural Foods.”
“I thought you guys talk about almonds.”
“He talks about other things besides nuts.” She glanced at Nina and they both
sneered. “Did you know he owns a three story house in Madrid? Ask him to show you
40
pictures. It’s beautiful. He has this little hidden garden and a friggin’ waterfall. It’s not
that big, but it’s still a waterfall!”
I left the conversation, snagged a bottle of Merlot from the snack table, and served
myself on the balcony. The strong wind, fishy and relentless, slipped into my costume. I
drank glass after glass to keep warm and ignored the growling party inside. The more
wine I drank, the angrier I became, thinking about Roger’s stupid blind story. A sacred
spring? Miraculous twenty-twenty vision? Molly was impressed by this? The same Molly
who believed that Catholicism was misinterpreted hoax, who laughed at me when I said
Bigfoot could be real, who said I would look weird with a goatee? I wanted to know if
she planned to stay with me. Whether I had to swallow the insults or stay anonymous at
parties or meet the strange dudes, I could not leave her. I could not abandon what I
understood love to be.
A dude joined me on the balcony to smoke a cigarette. I couldn’t tell who or what
he was dressed as. As he smoked, he peeled off his fake brown goatee and attempted to
stick it on again. When it wouldn’t stick, he dangled the hair over the edge.
“Five bucks, man.” He dropped it and we watched it flutter to the street. “I didn’t
know about this party until tonight. If I did then I wouldn’t have shaved my goatee. A
real one is better, you know?”
“I’m sure,” I said.
“I thought Satan was supposed to be red.”
“I’m actually Nightcrawler from X-Men.”
41
“Totally. I can see that.” He flicked the cigarette off the balcony. “Have you seen
Molly? We ran out of wine.”
“She’s inside.”
“Nah, man. Not there.”
“I thought...” I peered into the living room, which was suddenly sparse of guests.
The dude was right: Molly was not there. Neither was Roger who attracted most of the
noise with him. I checked the kitchen and the hallway-no Molly. I even checked the coat
closet, just to be sure. I tried not to jump to conclusions, which involved Molly, Roger,
and nudity of some kind. I decided to enter my bedroom. As I crept inside, I could hear a
soft wet smacking. Then I saw, before I could close the door behind me, a man and
woman, old and young, vigorously making out. The man was Roger, that bright white
goatee, and the woman riding his lap, though I couldn’t see her face, was a vampire.
Teeth on the floor. Dracula’s spoiled daughter.
I darted at them, pushing Roger over the bed. As he crashed into the wall, I shut
my eyes and struck her cheek with an open hand. This was the first and only time I hit a
woman, and I could not explain why it felt good to swing and make contact. She barked
and collapsed next to Roger.
“Did you just fucking slap me?” Her voice was more shrilled than Molly’s.
As I took another look, I realized she wasn’t Molly. It was Nina, sobbing from the
wide rash on her face. The feeling of her hot, wine plump cheek lingered on my palm.
What could I say when familiar people, like Nina, started to look a lot different?
42
“You were kissing him and I thought-I honestly thought-I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,
Nina.”
“Fuck yeah you’re sorry!” She crawled to her feet and rushed out of the room.
“Molly! Your loser boyfriend is a fucking psychopath!”
I offered to help Roger, but he wanted none of me. He hugged the bed, rubbing
his lower back, moaning about an old sky diving injury. When I got close, he flinched
and pleaded, “Get away from me, asshole.”
My hands shook. I could never hurt Molly. I loved her.
“Donald!”
Molly blocked the doorway, her bloodshot eyes engulfing mine.
“Hey,” I said. “I was looking for you.”
Her knees buckled when she saw Roger lying on the floor, but she did not tend to
him. Instead she kept looking at me. She really looked this time. Blue, satanic, drunk out
of my mind, I was visible. I was right there.
43
Mom, Eat
While lying on her back at the St. Francis Hospital, a nasogastric tube crammed
into her left nostril, Mrs. Ethel Chu fantasized about robbing the Nabisco Headquarters in
Hanover, New Jersey. Not for their money, but for their delicious cookies. She imagined
a platinum vault amassing tons of flavored Oreos, secret underground labs crowded with
huge steel drums, and confectionary ovens the height of three story movie screens. That
would be so much fun: touring that whole facility, wandering into random vaults, eating
as much as it had to offer and smuggling new recipes back home to San Francisco. She
could buy a box of Oreos from any supermarket or liquor store, but the headquarters
concealed the tastiest breeds, the avant-garde versions of America’s favorite snack.
“We’re cutting Trans-fat like those disgusting Oreos,” Lori said, shutting the
notebook of her hand drawn food diagrams. “The doctor said soft foods. No more
processed junk. That stuff is killing you.”
Lori leaned across Ethel’s bed with a calculated scowl, as if studying a primitive
specimen. She did not look like Ethel, no traces of stomach blubber and chin fat, and
acquired her physique from Bill’s side of the family. Her tiny frame of tiny bones could
not grow taller than four feet, eleven inches. Although she was often mistaken for a
teenager, she was thirty-seven years old. An age that seemed too old for her size.
Ethel’s bowel obstruction, which the doctor tentatively diagnosed a few nights
ago, revived her daughter’s most aggravated lectures. For the last four days she had to
44
listen to Lori’s soft food diet plans, theories about mental weakness, and an impossible
thirty minute exercise called Insanity. Ethel could not withstand that much punishment,
and maybe she deserved it. But regardless of her bad choices, which she accumulated
many, Ethel needed Lori to sit down, shut up, and relax.
The stomach pump retracted pockets of brown intestinal matter into a plastic
container that hooked next to Ethel’s bed. She watched the matter siphon through the
tube, out her nose, marveling at the digestion process. Dripping in the container, full of
brown fluid, were the processed cookies from the night of her sharp abdominal pain. She
felt oddly hungry looking at that mush. She hadn’t enjoyed a solid meal for almost a
week. A plate of twelve Oreos and a glass of whole milk, no matter how destructive the
doctor advised, was the only thought lifting her spirit in this overwhelmingly yellow
room.
“Mom, you’re going on a liquid diet. We’ll juice your vegetables. Add some fruits
and unsweetened almond milk. The possibilities are endless. I’ll make Jook! It can’t be
that hard to cook. Some chicken stock, some white rice, some ginger. I should write this
down. Make a list. Okay? Mom, are you listening?”
Ethel wasn’t listening.
The platinum door opened, moaning angelically, as she crossed into the Nabisco’s
main vault. A hundred golden chutes hung from the ceiling, pumping out different
flavored Oreos onto the wax paper floor. Each pile rose five stories high, and she counted
the flavors: chocolate shells with white cream, white shells with pink cream, green shells
45
with orange cream, possibly sherbet cream, and yellow shells with purple cream. The
vault was made of these crumbling valleys, carved from years of production. She plucked
one from the first pile, a chocolate shell with white cream, and bit into it. Unlike the stale
supermarket brand, it was freshly baked and warm. She ran to the next pile, white shells
with pink cream, and ate one. Then she moved onto another pile and another until the
flavors tasted like one sweet cookie. She hugged the valley’s wall, gorging as fast as she
could, scooping the cream with her tongue. Surrounded by Oreos, lost amongst this
massive paradise, she could hear someone calling.
“Try this one!” Bill shouted from above. He stood on the green shells with orange
cream pile. He was nineteen and skinny. “There’s something I want to show you!”
When she reached for him, eager to know what he wanted her to see, a heavy pain
knotted in her abdomen. She pressed her hand on where the pain grew and clenched her
teeth until the moment passed, and it did. The sharp monolith was gone, but the hospital
bed emerged from under her and she stared at Lori’s trembling mouth.
“The fact that you don’t need surgery is a blessing. Don’t you understand, Mom?
Don’t you get it? It’s time to change.”
The St. Francis Hospital released Ethel on the following Monday morning. Lori,
driving a new green Prius, brought her home to the quiet comer of 10th Ave. Three of
Ethel’s garbage bins, each of them stuffed to the top, stood outside the driveway. The
compost bin rattled. Lori grabbed a broomstick from the garage and smacked the bin.
46
They heard a muffled screech, and a scrawny raccoon leapt from the lid and scurried over
a neighbor’s front gate.
“They’re everywhere.” Lori smacked the bin again. “Last night I saw three of
them clinging to a telephone pole and waiting for me to leave the area.”
“What’s in my bins?” Ethel wanted to take a peek. “I haven’t thrown anything
away.”
“Mom, I have a surprise for you.”
At first glance Ethel didn’t notice anything different about her place. Then she
sniffed a daunting fragrance of cinnamon bark and lemon balm. Sitting on the window
sills, which were once decorated with old Christmas cards and loose change, were arrays
of potpourri in ceramic bowls. She stepped further inside and found a spacious living
room, the sunshine reflecting off the white carpet. Where were the half empty Oreo
boxes, stacks of Bill’s newspapers, sandwich bags of his used Band-Aids, and her
collection of glass and aluminum bottles worth five cents each? Her houseplants, Areca
Palms that survived for ten years, were missing from the sun spot window. Nothing, not
even the glass ashtray that was now used as a fruit plate, smelled like home anymore.
“Wait until you see the kitchen,” Lori said.
From top to bottom, the cabinets were cleared out except for a few bags of white
rice. Lori excavated the refrigerator and freezer-no butter, condiments, plates of
leftovers, Klondike bars-and replaced everything with leafy vegetables and a carton of
almond milk. Then the worst: Ethel checked the far left cabinet, the one closest to the
47
sink, and could not find the bright colors and fat letters of Nabisco’s brand names.
Something moved in her stomach. A fantastic rumble.
“Veggie shakes!” Lori set a large juicer called the Elite900 on the counter. She
packed the feeder with celery stalks, kale leaves, half of a honey crisp apple and then
flipped on the blades. The high pitched spin-a clean, professional sound-shredded the
vegetables into a shallow green paste. “I forgot to buy berries, so we’re going to have to
make do. Look at it this way: the grosser it tastes, the healthier it is for you! Mom, are
you ready?”
Ethel was ready, but for someone else.
Bill jumped off the Oreo pile, disappearing behind it. His echo bounced
throughout the vault, disrupting the valley so that giant crumbs hailed before her feet.
Hurry\ Hurry\ She caught glimpses of Bill zigging around the piles, his thin limbs
swinging freely. She wanted to call out to him, ask him where they were going, but every
time she opened her mouth and crumb slammed in front of her. Then she stepped on a
white shell, slipping effortlessly, hitting her head on a soft cushion of cream. Bill was
saying something, but she could not hear him.
“Stop staring at the cabinet. I threw everything out.” Lori gave her a few ounces
of green juice. Bits of celery floated to the foamy surface. “Drink this.”
Ethel brought the glass to the window and found that light could not penetrate the
juice. It reeked of sour grass. She stared at Lori chugging her own glass of vegetable
sludge.
48
“You can’t expect me to drink this?”
Lori scrunched her forehead and puckered her lips until the taste dissolved behind
her tongue. “It’s a little bitter but...” She covered her mouth and dry heaved. Ethel
heaved too and slammed her glass onto the counter.
Hours later, as Lori wrestled with the Jook, the whole place choked in bland
steam. Lori stirred the white rice in boiling water, her hand shaking as she sprinkled
pepper into the pot. A bubble popped, grazing her arm, and she recoiled from the stove.
She was incapable of measuring an even temper, switching from high to low, low to high.
Ethel would’ve suggested to let the Jook simmer, but she decided it was best to watch
Lori burn the damned thing.
“You could’ve left one box,” Ethel said.
“If you didn’t stuff yourself, then maybe I wouldn’t have clean this entire place.
Look how you’re living! Anybody would think that a homeless person snuck in here!”
Lori dodged another popping bubble. She handed the spoon to Ethel. “You stir. And
don’t think about adding salt. I tossed that out too.”
They sat across from each other at the dinner table, a bowl of potpourri and their
own bowls of Jook between them. Lori blew the steam from her spoon and smacked her
lips-an unnecessary exaggeration-after every bite. The Jook was flavorless. Maybe, if
Ethel really concentrated, she could detect an aftertaste of chicken stock and ginger. She
stared at Lori, begging for a real savory dinner. Then, if her stomach didn’t hurt, a little
49
desert afterwards, possibly a pinch of ice cream and a couple of Oreos? Lori finished her
Jook without saying anything about the blandness and finally acknowledged Ethel’s side
of the table: the spoon untouched, the cold Jook.
“Mom, eat.” She tapped her bowl. “Go on. Eat it.”
“Isn’t there something else we could make?”
“This is what you’re eating for the next month. I don’t think your intestines can
handle solid food. We still don’t know what’s wrong with you. A bowel obstruction?
Diverticulosis? Stomach cancer? It could happen again. You’re stupid to think
otherwise.”
“I’m not stupid,” Ethel mumbled.
“Do you want to go back to the hospital? Do you want to hang from tubes for the
rest of your life? Because if you do, then be my guest. Eat whatever you want. I cannot
stop you.” Lori pushed the chair back, threatening to storm off, like she would when she
was a little girl. “But don’t think I won’t try! Don’t think I’ll sit here and watch you fuck
up your body and become one of those fat people in wheelchairs or get heart attacks like
Dad.”
Ethel snagged her spoon-anything to shut Lori up-and dug into her bowl. She ate
furiously, racing the oncoming blandness. She plowed through layers of rice and water
like a shovel through wet cement. As she scraped the bottom of the bowl, her glossy lips
sticking together, Lori raised her voice.
50
“That’s the other thing! Slow down. You don’t give yourself any time to digest.
You pile it in until you get sick. Do you need me to teach you how to eat? Mom? Do you
hear me?”
What Ethel heard was the Nabisco doors turning its hinge. She stood underneath
the golden chutes that hung from the ceiling and inhaled the rich scent of the Oreo
catacomb.
“What is that?” Bill came behind her, concerned.
“Jook. Lori made it.” Ethel dropped the spoon and then burped.
“Here.” He offered her a classic Oreo. “I want to show you something.”
She didn’t eat the Oreo, keeping it tight to her chest, and followed him to the end
of the vault where a yellow pond, emerging from nowhere, glistened on the floor. The
water was dense like lava and smelled of spice. She knelt by the pond, brought her nose
to the water, and realized it was melted America cheese.
“Nacho cheese,” Bill said. He dipped an Oreo in the hot pond and slid his teeth
into the soft shell. He sighed as he would when he ate good cooking. He was a very
handsome man. There was purity to his black hair and smallness to his body as if he
could burrow a nest in the earth and keep warm for a long time.
“Bill, that’s disgusting.” Ethel dipped her pinky into the cheese and sucked it.
Sweet and salty, a hint of Jalapeno. She took another taste.
“You sound like Lori. I can hear what she says, you know?”
“You can hear her through the walls?”
51
“The floorboards.”
“She’s been hard on me, like she had been hard on you.” Ethel lathered her Oreo
in cheese, a perfect yellow bulb. “I understand where she’s coming from; I do. I yelled at
you, and you kept doing whatever you wanted. Because certain circumstances are
inevitable. Lori hasn’t accepted that yet.”
“What’s inevitable?”
“A silent place.” Ethel inspected the Oreo-beautiful-and bit into it. “When I wake
up I don’t hear a thing. Maybe, when it’s a windy morning, leaves beat on our bedroom
window. But that’s it. Sometimes it’s nice. I make a game from listening to sounds that I
will usually ignore. Other times I get scared. I catch a noise from another room that I
know is empty and think it’s a ghost. I like to think it’s you. But I can’t think like that for
too long. I spend most of my time inside, eating. I’m always hungry. Why am I always so
hungry?”
Bill handed her another Oreo from his pocket.
“This will make you feel better.”
The cheese and cream coated the gaps between her teeth, molding the roof of her
mouth. Savoring the nacho chocolate flavor, Ethel grabbed Bill’s hand and held him for
as long as the taste lasted. Almost immediately, as the flavors changed into a ghostly
staleness of rice and water, Bill let go of her and headed through the valley of Oreos.
When she stood to follow him, her abdomen twitched in pain. She dropped to her knees.
The nacho cheese pond, she looked, turned into an empty white bowl.
52
Chunks of Jook was stuck to her lips. The stench of lemon balm, like a bitter
chemical, pinched her nose. She sneezed, sending flecks of Jook and snot on the
tablecloth. When she looked up to apologize, she saw Lori digging through her wallet and
shouting.
“I’m taking your cash and credit cards. I know you. Once I leave you’re going to
drive to the nearest market and buy Oreos and chips. I don’t want to get another frantic
call at two in the morning to rush you to the hospital again.”
Lori left Ethel’s place around ten o’clock that night. She shoved the whole pot of
Jook in the refrigerator and washed their dishes. As she was about to leave, car keys in
hand, purse around her arm, she said “I love you.” A true but tired statement. Ethel stood
by the doorway, subduing the urge to bargain with her daughter: return my credit cards
and I promise I will not go to the supermarket. Which, she thought, was what she would
do.
But it was too late to argue. As Lori pulled out of the driveway, she pointed to a
telephone pole where six gleaming eyes looked down on them. They were big bodied
raccoons, gray shadowed clumps in the wires. Lori shouted from her window.
“The broomstick is in the garage. They hate the broomstick.”
From the end of 10lh Ave, Ethel could see Lori’s rear view lights, red as a pair of
Twizzlers, turning right and disappearing for good. The raccoons descended the
53
telephone pole, cautiously making their way until Ethel looked at them. They froze and
waited for her to get inside, which she did.
To cap her first night at home, she skimmed the channels between CBS and the
Food Network. Both channels featured something interesting: CBS showed a special on
obesity in America and interviewed nutritionists who agreed that fried and processed
foods were evil. The Food Network showed a tortuous documentary entitled “The World
of Nabisco”. It began with a vintage rerun of a 1968 Oreo commercial that Ethel
remembered as a teenager. A black and white cartoon of a boy eating Oreos, and a
narrator who spoke into a crackling microphone: Once upon a time there was nothing in
the world but a little boy and his Oreo cookies. Rich and chocolaty outside, smooth and
creamy inside, and that was enough...
Ethel was starving. But the Jook looked more unappetizing since Lori left the
apartment. She tilted the pot over the sink, dumping the first layer. From the kitchen
window, she could see the raccoons opening the compost bin. The biggest one pushed the
lid with his head as the other two slipped inside. She admired their innovation, their
teamwork, and thought, from the way they shared the garbage, that they were hungry and
desperate. She decided to do something less wasteful with the Jook.
She placed the pot of Jook by the street and tapped the compost bin with the
broomstick. The raccoons, as expected, leapt from the bin and burrowed themselves into
the nearest sewer drain. Hoping that they would understand her kindness, she moved the
pot to the drain and waited for their little gray heads to surface. They never came up.
54
Returning inside, realizing that she needed to sleep off the hunger, she noticed that the
bin’s lid was flapping open. Crumbs scattered onto the sidewalk. An empty Oreo box fell
from the rim. Everything that Lori threw away was exposed in the darkness.
Her snacks-broken Ritz crackers, melted Klondike bars, chipped Oreos-piled to a
shapely peak. A sourness of rotten vegetable skins lingered on the bin. But she could
handle it. She plucked the most delicate Oreo, discerning after so many years the shell’s
design. Heart shaped petals on twelve symmetrical flowers. Why flowers? She popped it
in her mouth, chewed slowly, and caressed the taste. Purest chocolate and cream.
Swallowing the cookie, she realized that this was her first solid meal since last week. She
scouted the neighbors’ windows in case someone was watching, but every household was
dark as if on a Monday night no one cared to turn on a light.
She ate calmly. Chocolate and cream. Crunchy and sweet. She began to eat faster,
digging into the pile, feeling around for the Oreo shells, tossing anything but those
lovely, chocolaty flowers. She heard squeals behind her. The raccoons splashed their
hairy feet in the pot, their bushy tails hugging the edges like spoon handles. Eyes bulging,
mouth wet, she slowed down. She could almost hear Lori shouting from afar.
But, before she could compose herself, a pain knotted in her abdomen. Quick and
sharp like a bullet in the belly. She keeled on her butt and watched the raccoons tear at
each other.
High beams ran over the driveway. The raccoons, oiled in Jook, scurried up a
telephone pole and watched from above.
55
“Mrs. Chu?” her neighbor said, a person who she had seen twice in her life. “It’s
Mary from the comer house. Are you alright? Squeeze my hand if you’re alright.”
She squeezed, but lost strength. Mary dialed 911 on her phone and screamed at an
operator. Her message was as hysterical as Lori’s would be, and in some way that was
comforting. Ethel wanted to correct her: it was not a heart attack or stroke, but a
momentary bowel obstruction. But she decided, for the amount of time that she had until
an ambulance arrived, to sit back against her neighbor’s arms and fantasize about robbing
the Nabisco headquarters with her family.
Bill and Lori waited for her by the nacho cheese pond. Lori tried to split an Oreo,
but couldn’t because her hands were too small. Bill gently twisted it apart for her. “Thank
you,” Lori squeaked and licked the cream. They dipped their cookies into the pond and
ate. Ethel watched them, missing them, feeling the ground unearth. The golden chutes
began to snap and tear from their fixtures. Then the valley caved inward and the piles
descended into the cracks. Oreos did not seem as appetizing as they once did.
“Aren’t you going to have one?” Bill said.
“No, no.” Ethel rubbed her stomach. “I don’t think I can.”
56
The Asian Jack Tatums
Ray, listen. The last time we spoke, years ago, your daughter ran away. You said
that she packed her clothes in a plastic bag and snuck out at night, heading towards Long
Beach or Palm Springs or someplace where she thought her mom would be. Even though
you had plenty of people to call-her mom, her friends, the police-you called me. You
said you weren’t worried, though I knew you were lying, and assured me that she
couldn’t have ran very far because she was nine years old and terrible with directions. I
kept saying that you would find her, or someone would find her, even though I had no
idea. What could I tell you? You were an old friend, a former teammate, who I never
talked to anymore. After minutes of mumbling worst case scenarios-a teenage drunk
driver running her over, a child slave laborer kidnapping her-you asked me if my son
ever ran away when he was nine, and I told you that Josh escaped several times.
Days later, after you promised to update me, you called again. Your daughter
stayed at her friend’s place ten blocks away. You were so relieved, laughing at yourself,
telling me how angry you got shortly after you found her. And then you said that I could
call you for anything-any problem that I might have with my kid. You said save my
number and I did. Then, before you hung up, you said something that I thought about
since: “Jason, man, we should’ve kept playing football.”
I tackled Josh this afternoon.
57
The three of us-Rachel, Josh, and I-tried to have a nice lunch at Sam Fong. I
wanted to treat the family, but Josh didn’t see it that way. He took it as an insult. I was
supposed to know that he was on a diet. Apparently he couldn’t eat Chinese food. He got
the idea from Hamasaki, his only friend in school, a weird kid, who introduced him to
shredded seaweed and lemon water. I begged him to order something. But he cocked his
head, nostrils flaring in disgust, like he didn’t understand anything I said.
As the waiter handed menus, Josh confessed that he and Hamasaki were planning,
after senior year, to move to rural Japan and survive in a mountain shack that overlooked
a misty forest.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I said.
“We’re going to cultivate an eel farm for commercial businesses. Two tanks: one
for freshwater Unagi and the other for saltwater Anago. If that’s successful we are going
to breed and sell pure breed Shiba pups. We already have names for the first two: Aiko
and Akiko.”
“You’re serious.” I stared at my tea, reserving the urge to point at him and laugh.
“How can you afford it? You can’t even pay for a plan ticket to Japan.”
“Josh.” Rachel’s kind voice interjected. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“You guys don’t get it!” Josh shouted. The family next to us looked over.
“Hamasaki-san’s uncle works for RUMI Japan and knows how to raise seafood. Shibas,
by the way, are the national dogs of Japan. They’re fluffy wolves!”
“Lower your voice,” I said.
58
“Seiko!” He learned Japanese to insult me.
“We’ll talk about Japan later,” Rachel said. She could calm us down, except for
this time. “Okay? Order the soy sauce chicken feet. You used to love the soy sauce
chicken feet.”
“How can you not want to eat?” I curled my toes to refrain from kicking him.
“It’s a free lunch, buddy."
“Seiko!” He pushed back his chair and attempted to leave the table.
I clasped his arm, tying him to the table, and he threw a pair of chopsticks at my
forehead. Rachel demanded me to let him go, yelling in my ear, “You’re hurting him!”
The more she screamed, the tighter I wanted to hold his arm and wrestle him to the floor.
But then he lifted a rack of spoons, and I released him before he could crack me with the
fucking thing. Instead he slammed the rack on the floor, spoons bouncing everywhere,
and got the attention of the entire Sam Fong staff who took mental pictures and banned us
for life. He ran out of the restaurant while we finished apologizing for his mess.
“Why do you condescend him?” Rachel said, as we ran after him. I could feel the
uprising in her small black eyes, like it was my fault. “You know he hates it when you
call him buddy.”
“I am tired of listening to his bullshit!”
When I saw Josh in the distance, his thin hips swaying side to side, I sprinted at
him. Rachel couldn’t keep up. I targeted his legs as if he was a running-back on the open
field and lowered my shoulders into his ankles. Upon impact, as we slide across the
59
sidewalk, Josh busted his elbow. I saw the tom sleeve, the patch of blood. Before I could
embrace his arm and apologize, he broke free again. He ran for a departing bus and
slipped in the back door.
“Anta no koto daikirai,” he shouted from the window and flicked me off.
I wanted to catch him, but my knees were done. I could barely stand up.
Ray, I don’t hate my son. I just don’t get him. I don’t understand his interests or
even the way he dresses. What kind of kid wears his mother’s jeans? Seriously. He
squeezes into Rachel’s petite Eddie Bauers, a pair with faded kneecaps and dainty cuffed
ends; the tightest jeans the world has ever seen on a teenage boy. Josh dances around in
them and Rachel says nothing. She smiles, takes pictures of him, and posts them on her
Facebook.
Why can’t he like good, simple things? Why can’t he find a normal friend? When
we were seventeen, we never dreamed about moving to another country or discussed our
feelings in different languages. We had road trips, girlfriends, football practice. I don’t
think Josh can ever appreciate, or understand, our dedication and contribution to the St.
Mary’s varsity team. The only two Chinese linebackers, six feet and two hundred pounds,
who hit as hard, if not harder, than any white or black guy on the team. We were beastsfat mullets and bushy gangster mustaches-and people feared us. Wasn’t there a crazy
rumor that we broke some guy in half? I grabbed one arm, you grabbed the other, and we
yanked the bones and joints in opposite directions. We earned a reputation for smashing
60
receivers on the field, for ramming our helmets into their chin-straps on a shallow post
route.
Coach O’Neil called us “The Asian Jack Tatums”. I loved that nickname. Jack
Tatum, the Assassin, the legendary Raider who hit so bad that he paralyzed a poor
motherfucker from the chest down. Coach O’Neil, who once said we couldn’t play
because our eyes were too tiny, who changed his mind when he saw us hit guys in
practice, meant that we were dangerous at any moment. Running-backs had to think
twice before leaving their blocks, receivers had to tread cautiously, listening for our
heavy footsteps, and quarterbacks, those squirrelly bitches who were unable to read our
blitzes, had to call audible after audible. All of them, it didn’t matter who, had to peel
themselves from the turf, grass clogged in their facemasks, and watch our looming cleats
pass over them or-if we felt nasty-onto them.
We had goals too. Except, unlike Josh’s, our goals were realistic. We recorded a
stand out game on our varsity debut: you got four sacks, I got eighteen tackles and a
forced fumble. Who could blame us for thinking that we could get into a Big Ten school,
play first string for three or four years, and then draft into the NFL?
Do you remember, after our win over Our Lady of Mercy, we saw talent scouts in
the stands? They could’ve been from Michigan, Ohio State, or Penn State. We played an
admirable game. We shared a couple sacks and a few open field tackles. If I were a scout,
I would be impressed.
61
I could feel our excitement; it wasn’t loud or raucous, but something deeply
needed and serious. The chance at a full scholarship might’ve been the beginning of our
adulthood. We drove to Tommy’s Burgers, famished, weary, covered in grass stains. We
couldn’t stop talking about it.
“They sat way up the last row,” you said. “Both of them wrote shit down and
looked at me.”
“Looked at you?” I couldn’t believe it. “They wore suits, right?”
“One of them did. You don’t wear suits to a high school game.”
“Do you think it was someone’s dad?” I talked with a mouthful of burger. “We
never see Keely’s dad. Maybe one of them is Keely’s dad.”
“Maybe. But Keely didn’t look at those guys and they didn’t look at him.”
“Did they look at me?” I gobbled my burger in three bites, yet I didn’t feel
satisfied. Man, I wanted you to say yes.
“Probably. I mean, if they’re looking at me, they’re looking at you. If we keep
playing like this, if we maintain our numbers, then a Big Ten, or any fucking school, it
doesn’t matter, will want us.”
“Your right. I see guys from small colleges destroy in the pros and some Big Ten
guys bust. As long as I get drafted by the Raiders in the end, I’ll be happy. A1 Davis,
please!”
“Seriously.. .the Raiders?” You threw a fry at me.
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“You don’t want to don the black and silver?” I threw the fry back at you. “I get
it: you want to be a red and gold Niner boy, prancing across the Golden Gate Bridge,
sucking Bill Walsh’s dick.”
“Shut up. It’d be badass to play as a Raider. But I don’t look that far ahead. It’s
hard to imagine. The day that we’re singing the National Anthem on the sidelines of the
Coliseum.. .that day would be the greatest day ever.”
“I know.” I could not savor the acoustics of the Coliseum knowing that it might
not come true, that I might not hear it from the field.
We thought we were heading down that path. Our varsity season we earned a
combined number of twelve sacks, eight interceptions, five fumble recoveries, and about
fifty tackles. But the things we could not control-recruiters ignoring our talent, saying we
were too small, and Coach O’Neil benching us at the end of the season-blindsided us into
the real world.
Japan. Where is Josh going with this? The kid needs traction first.
As you know, great players start young. I wasted those early years with Josh. On
Saturday afternoons, when he was five, we visited the Community College track field and
attempted to play catch. We used the soft Fisher-Price football-smiley faces printed on
the stitching-that I bought him for his birthday. I wanted to sharpen his hand-eye
coordination, let him get used to the shape and speed of the ball. He was, and still is, a
fast lanky kid and I had visions that he could become a star receiver or punter returner.
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He never caught the ball. He dodged it, letting it spike on the Astroturf, and hid
behind Rachel. When I gave up, let my guard down, he ran over to the ball and kicked it
like it had cooties. Back then I wouldn’t picture him for a kicker. I told him good kickers
were essential to a championship team, but they couldn’t take a decent lick. If someone
tackled a kicker with a stiff shoulder then they would be out for the whole game.
Madonnas, I called them.
“You don’t want to be a Madonna?” I asked him.
Shrugs, he gave me.
But, now, if he decides to be a kicker, I will fully support him. Imagine: the
Superbowl, fourth quarter, his team down by a point and he has the opportunity to kick a
game winning field goal. Make or miss, I will cheer that he’s made it this far.
Since we failed at playing catch, I did the next best thing. I sat him beside me on
Sunday mornings and we watched the Raiders pillage the AFC West. I fitted him in a
little Raider Nation sweatshirt and a silver helmet that was too big for his head. He hated
it; his red teary face always pinned down to the couch.
Occasionally, if I worked enough overtime, I saved a portion of my paycheck for
Raider tickets. We would watch from the Black Hole seats. I rubbed black and silver
paint on his soft cheeks and carried him around my shoulders, showing him off to other
fans. I pointed to the huge figures on the field, informing Josh, “Can you see them,
buddy? Charles Woodson. Rich Gannon. Tim Brown.” But even as a child he wasn’t
interested. During live games, regardless of a deafening crowd, he fell asleep on the back
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of my head and dreamt of other things. While his drool slid down my ear, I forgave him
for not caring. All I could do was wait for the day he awakened and started to study
player stats, buy quality cleats, and beg me to take him to the field for evening sprints.
In little league, I knew something was wrong. He refused to play. He didn’t want
to interact with the other boys who, in turn, picked on him. You should’ve seen me
defend him against the other dads, warning them that my kid would crush their kids’
skulls in a few years.
“Your boy,” a bald loud mouth said, “can’t crush anyone with those faggot
hands.”
That day, our first and only day of tryouts, I hurled Josh’s rental helmet at that
guy’s fucking head, clocking him with it. Josh and I were sent home, forbidden to
participate in the league. Josh was fine with that call.
“Daddy,” he said on the ride home. “What did that man say to get you so angry?”
“We’re coming back tomorrow and you’re going to kick someone’s ass!”
“B ut...”
“You’re kicking someone’s ass!” I noticed he was about to cry. “Get tough,
buddy. People will make fun of you if you give them reasons to.”
Josh grew into an awkward teenager, dying his hair with blonde streaks and
wearing his mother’s jeans. He’s never at home, always gone somewhere with Hamasaki.
He would text Rachel at night to tell her that he wouldn’t be sleeping at home. Okay, she
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wrote back, thanks for letting us know. Over this past month we learned that he’s been
staying at Hamasaki’s apartment. Hamasaki’s parents, nice but clueless people, assured
us not to worry. They liked Josh’s company. He made them laugh.
Hamasaki is a year older than Josh and shockingly thinner. He’s so bony that you
almost want to nourish him. Rachel invited him for dinner, hoping to get to know him
better and feed him steaks. I, too, needed a stronger sense of who he was as a person, and
felt bad for not involving myself in Josh’s life (after he rejected football, I stayed out of
his business). We cooked one dinner for the kid and that was enough to understand where
Josh got the speak-Japanese, raise-the-Shibas attitude.
“Red meat causes heart disease, atherosclerosis, and colon cancer.” Hamasaki
poked his steak and Josh, out of respect, poked his. “But it’s yummy, I guess.”
“It gives you iron,” Rachel said. She flexed her bicep, a joke that would never
work, and they didn’t laugh.
“Yeah.” I stuck my fork into a chunk of loin and chewed slowly.
Hamasaki whispered into my son’s ear. “Kimoi!”
Josh giggled, shook his head, and repeated, “Kimoi!”
“What does that mean?” I said.
“Nothing,” Hamasaki giggled.
“Don’t worry. Eat your red meat.” Josh looked at Rachel. “Can we be excused?
His parents are showing a marathon of Yu Yu Hakusho!”
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Reluctantly, Rachel and I excused them. I think, shortly after they left, we got into
an argument. I forgot what it was about, certainly not about the boys, but something
irrelevant and distracting. It was a good cleansing fight, one that was quickly forgiven
and hugged out.
We don’t talk about Josh and Hamasaki as much as we should. One time we saw
them sitting together at the mall. They sat closely on a small bench-shoulders and thighs
touching-playing with Hamasaki’s smart phone. Josh rested his head on Hamasaki’s
shoulder until something happened on that phone, maybe a funny video, and they broke
out giggling.
“That’s cute,” Rachel said. “Best friends.”
“Yeah.” I looked away. “Best friends.”
“He’s lucky. Some kids can’t make friends. They grow up strange and some of
them commit suicide.” We stepped into Nordstrom’s to buy a new pair of Eddie Bauer’s.
She liked the gray pair, the same one Josh borrowed. “I had one friend in college. We
weren’t even close. But every Tuesday and Thursday, after our illustration workshop, we
ate lunch in the student lounge. I was sort of jealous of her. She was a great illustrator and
painter. Definitely top three in the program. She recreated Claude Monet pieces, like, say
the Cliff o f Etretat. She would buy a 16x20 canvas, oil paints if she was out, and find a
beach that looked similar to Monet’s painting. She’d say, ‘I’m channeling Monet! He’s
coming at me in spirals!’ And she’d paint these insane renditions. I tried to recreate
Monet’s Sunrise. But it looked like a sunny side up egg. It was awful.”
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She placed down the jeans, deciding not to buy them. She sounded a little upset.
“After our semester was over, we stopped eating together. The sad thing is I don’t think
either of us missed each other. We never called. We never hung out. When we did bump
into each other again, like in that student lounge, we’d smile and continued on our
separate ways. At the time it wasn’t weird. But when I think about it...”
“People come and go.” I thought about that bench, how small it was, how close
they sat together. “They just do.”
“Even when Josh finds a nice girlfriend,” she said. “He’ll need a friend like
Hamasaki. I assume that all guys have that guy. You had Ray. What happened to him?”
That’s when I thought of you and the road trip we took to Qualcomm Stadium,
San Diego. It was the last Raider vs. Charger game of the season. We were nineteen, ex­
varsity nobodies, and dressed like true Raider fans. You wore those inflatable shoulder
pads, the ones with spikes, and a black German M42 Helmet. I wore my original Jim
Pluckett jersey, black beads and silver skulls around my neck, and a rubber skeleton mask
that I bought from Walgreens. We slathered our faces in black mascara and silver paint.
We rapped along to Tupac’s “Me Against the World”, our pump-up album, tossed empty
24oz Mickey’s onto Interstate 5, and flicked off cows and truckers and anyone with a
Chargers or Padres bumper sticker.
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You drove your dad’s used Corsica that coughed every five miles and burned out
randomly. I never understood why we pushed that thing nine hours southbound without
considering it was a complete heap of shit. But we did, careless and drunk.
“How many interceptions do you think Ryan Leaf will throw today?” You said,
honking a slow Buick in front of us.
“Three, at least! How many reporters is he going to yell at?”
“He won’t have time to yell at anyone because Junior Seau will snatch him from
post-game presser and butt fuck him in the showers!”
You swerved pass the Buick and blew a kiss to the driver, an elderly man. I
slammed my beer on the dashboard, laughing. You were one of the few people who could
make me laugh, and we spent a lot of time on that road howling and cramping up.
In the middle of Interstate 5, as we continued to drink and talk shit, Rachel called
me. I had been screwing around with her for less than five months. She had never seen or
heard me act like a wild, uncontrollable fan or a blood thirsty linebacker. So I ignored the
call. I tossed my Nokia in the backseat and chugged my beer. I swear, and I think I told
you, it tasted sweeter knowing that she could not stop me.
As we approached the Grapevine Canyon, we could see the road begin to wind
the mountain and could tell by the fading scent of cattle tail that we were escaping farm
country. But then you slowed down. I asked you what was wrong, and you pointed to the
white smoke billowing from the hood. The mustiness of fertile dirt was replaced by the
burning engine. You pulled into the last exit before the Grapevine. Coolant leaked from
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the radiator cap, and the only hopes of repairing it was to keep the hood open, wait out
the heat, and refill the cap with more coolant.
“We can’t miss this game.” I burped, tasting beer and acid. A sudden rush of
nausea hit me. I hunched behind a dumpster and threw up. Rachel called again. You
reached into the backseat, laughing, and opened my phone.
“Hello?” You said. “This isn’t Jason.”
“I am not drunk..
I whispered.
“He’s right next to me. I’m Ray, his guardian angel.”
You covered the receiver and blankly stared at me, your face looking twice as
scary in black and silver. “Man, she sounds pissed.”
“Rachel?” I grabbed the phone. “What’s up?”
She broke the big news-no hesitation-as fast as smoke rising from your car. She
demanded me to come home and then hung up. The news refused to settle in my gut. We
sat in the backseat for a long time. Finishing your last beer, you were equally at a loss for
words.
“Pregnant.” You had to say that word again. “You think she’s making it up?”
“God, I hope so.”
“You need a full time job. A baby is no joke. It’s like caring for a puppy but way
more advanced. It’s your DNA. You should be happy. If you have a little girl, you can
treat her like a princess and spoil her. If you have a boy? That’s like a little buddy all the
time. You can teach him how to tackle things.”
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I covered my face with the Walgreen skeleton mask because I didn’t want you to
watch me whimper. I was a disgusting sight: a huge skeleton man who couldn’t endure
the thought of his first kid. I brooded about my sparse resume. Three months at Safeway,
six months with Men’s Warehouse, no associate’s or bachelor’s degree. There was no
way I could support a household.
“Look at me!” I dangled my black beads and silver skulls in front of you. “I never
held a baby in my fucking life!”
“Tuck it in like a football.”
I groaned and buried my face into the driver’s seat. An upside down feeling
overcame me. Blood flooded each crevice inside my head until I couldn’t hear you
anymore. You tried to fit your arm on my shoulders, but your spikes jabbed into my neck.
“I’ll take you home,” you said. “Look. The smoke is gone.”
You struggled to stand up because of the weight of your outfit. In ten minutes you
had the Corsica running again. Instead of veering towards the Grapevine, you headed
north as promised. On that road, our windows down, I let the wind slam through my
fingertips. The buzz worn off, my brain felt sticky, and the nausea swung and speckled in
waves. My newborn, I could see it: slimy, purple, blind, and reaching.
You touched my hand. You wanted to say something. But I was too tired to
acknowledge you and the wind was too loud.
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Where am I with Josh? Last time I saw him he was on that bus. I’m hoping he is
at Hamasaki’s apartment. At least I know where that is, at least I can find him. It’s been
six hours since he ran away and we’ve left five voice messages and eight texts on his
phone. I’ve checked my phone every half hour, but nothing yet. Hamasaki’s parents
haven’t called us. We’ve called them, twice. Maybe he told them what happened in
Japanese. Maybe they despise me.
Rachel stopped talking to me. She’s in the shower, listening to a mixed tape of
R&B jams that an ex-boyfriend gave her. She plays it after every big fight, every bump in
the road. She plays it to piss me off. After what happened today, nothing can piss me off.
My voice, my body, are sore and weary.
You know that kind of weary: right after practice when the jerseys clung to our
sweat, the cleats pressed to our blisters, and we wanted something hot to eat and soft to
sleep on. We wanted Coach O’Neil and talent scouts to reassure us that we put in our
time, that we worked, and it would pay off someday.
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Tender Child
“Babe!” my younger brother, Harry, cries from his bedroom. “I dropped my toast!
Babe? Can I get more?”
“Okay! I’m coming,” I shout back and collect two pieces of toast and some
napkins. Harry is a slob. He spills things on purpose and then asks me to clean after him.
I try not to get mad, but sometimes I feel he knows better.
“Thanks, Babe.” He munches on the new toast as I gather the old toast from the
floor. Burnt crumbs sprinkle everywhere on his bed sheets. He tucks himself deeper into
bed. “Kiss me.”
I peck his cheek. He takes my hand (Harry can be gentle when he wants to be)
and sticks out his tongue.
“Kiss me in the mouth.”
“Harry.” I place both hands on my hips, my way of saying no. “We talked about
kissing and the whole ‘babe’ thing.”
“Sorry. Karen.” He picks and nibbles the crumbs from the sheets. “But you owe
me a kiss later.”
“I don’t owe you anything. What’s wrong with you?”
Harry grins, but doesn’t say anything else.
My brother believes that I am his girlfriend of twenty plus years. Not his older
sister. He thought this way since we were kids, well into our teens, which was the worst
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time in my life, and now in our late twenties. There’s not much to explain. Long ago,
when Harry was a toddler, our stepfather accidently shot him with a .22 caliber Smith and
Wesson. The bullet penetrated the left side of my poor brother’s skull, a shallow lodging,
no exit wound, and knocked him down. After surgeons removed the bullet, he was in a
coma for a few weeks and awoke on a Monday night with a new outlook on our family.
He associated our stepfather as Evil Man. He called Momma, Evil Man’s Friend. And
though he didn’t think of me as his girlfriend yet-how could he since he was four or sohe called me, That Pretty Girl.
I was that pretty girl until his ninth birthday. He wished for a Nerf Gun, a
Nintendo 64, and a girlfriend, me, who could hold his hand during recess. The students at
St. Peter wildly made fun of him as he paraded around the schoolyard, declaring that he
was in love with me. I was an eighth grader, four years older than him, and couldn’t
survive a day without hearing his proclamations. He couldn’t accept that I am his sister,
even when people mercifully told him so, even when I lunged on him during the St.
Peter’s annual Christmas pageant and repeatedly punched his chest. In the back of the
auditorium, surrounded parents and classmates, I pinned his arms down with my knees
and screamed over “O’ Holy Night” sung by the second grade choir.
“I am not! I am not! I am not!”
“Honey! Honey! Honey!” he whined. “You’re embarrassing us!”
I’m surprised I didn’t kill him. Because for the longest time that was my plan. I
imagined creeping into his bedroom, armed with a large pillow, and sinking my weight
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onto his small face. It’d be easy to suffocate him. Harry has tiny nostrils, a little mouth
(despite being so loud), and dry, grape seed eyes. Even in private, when it was just me,
Harry, and Momma sitting at the dining table, he shot looks at me. It was a look of
longing, of romance, and sometimes if he didn’t have P.E. class that day, of lust.
“Babe! I mean, Karen!” he shouts again. “Bring us some Buffalo Wild Wings
when you get home tonight!”
“Okay,” I say though not loud enough.
“Did you hear me?”
“I got it!” I nearly crack my throat. “Buffalo Wild Wings!”
In the morning, in Momma’s house, I take care of my brother. Momma’s scared
to watch over him anymore. Before I moved back from college, she served him the best
she could. I thought she spoiled him, giving him this and that, neglecting to teach him the
crucial lessons of self-reliance. Harry can’t even boil an egg or wash his own clothes
without being a danger to himself and others.
After multiple visits to neurologists and psychologists, no one could pinpoint
what happened to Harry. Everyone had theories: Schizophrenia, accompanied with a
shrug and a prescription, became the popular answer. In the meantime, Harry continued
to believe I was his girlfriend and Momma was an enemy. He despised Momma, which
made it much harder to control him. She called me at three in morning, fretting that
Harry, this demonic figure, stood by her bedroom door and mumbled threats.
“When you’re not looking,” he said to her, “I’ll cut your throat.”
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Now she lives in Laguna Beach, a few miles north, with a quiet man named Sims
(not my stepfather) and emails me from time to time to see how we’re holding up.
I make Harry breakfast and lunch before eleven o’clock. By two o’clock, about
seven miles away, I’m at work. As the evening security guard for Highland’s
Condominiums, it’s nice to escape from my brother. On a good night, the last person I
think about is him; on a tough night, the only person I think about is him.
My shift is a mind cleanser. The first thing I do is catch up with Ernesto, the day
shift guard, who informs me about all the little maintenance and security issues that have
happened: the elevator is broken on the fourteenth floor, level two garage’s door is
jammed (but cars can squeeze through), a drunk homeless man has been lingering around
the west gate entrance, and that man on the first floor who lost his orange Bobtail catErnesto makes sure I listen to this-should be notified that his cat has been found in the
recycling dumpster, dead.
When Ernesto clocks out and I’m alone at the front desk, I keep tabs on the
twenty-eight cameras that we have programmed to the system, noting times and dates
when something suspicious occurs. Criminal activity is tame in this part of town, but
occasionally I’ll catch a couple teenagers or homeless men attempting to steal a bike off
the level three garage’s bicycle rack. Other than maintaining my vigilance, I sit and think
and greet UPS and FedEx drivers who drop packages for me to sign. I write
notifications -Package arrived! Please visit the front desk- and slip these notes into our
residents’ mailboxes. I prefer to be a messenger as opposed to a guard. Less pressure.
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Less violence implied. For two periods of my long shift, I patrol Highland’s perimeter
from Franklin Street to Monroe Avenue. I’m armed with pepper spray (my own), a
walkie-talkie that connects to an on-site custodian, and a heavy Lumen flashlight. I stalk
the night, my belt clattering with these special tools, and listen to the warm murmurs of
every resident who’s made it home safely. It’s troublesome, especially when a resident
greets me by name (“Goodnight, Karen”) that I don’t know most of their names or, if
they tell me, forget them instantly. Somehow that makes me feel inadequate, as if I’m not
really here to protect them.
Eight o’clock. A man approaches the front desk. He must’ve spent his entire day
inside his unit since I haven’t seen him come or go. His long brown hair is unnaturally
groomed backwards, as if he sleeps while wearing a shower cap. He’s not that old, as one
might suspect from his gray sweater and shaggy beard, and though he looks nothing like
Harry, he reminds me of Harry. So, of course, I feel like I should help him.
“Zumba,” he says, slapping his bony hands on the desk counter.
“Excuse me?”
“My cat. Zumba. Ernesto said you found him.”
The man anxiously smiles. How do I deliver such tragic news? I tell him the bare
facts even though I want to embellish the story, let him know that Zumba died heroically.
The man removes his hands from the counter and steps back, uncertain whether to return
to his unit or wait in the lobby for more information.
“Would you like some tissue?”
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“Oh, I’m not crying.” He points to his eyes, which are wet and glassy. “But I am
disappointed. Zumba was such a tender child. He really was. He may not have been the
smartest guy but...he was sweet.”
I set a tissue box on counter and nod with him. After fifteen seconds of silent
mourning, he thanks me, takes a tissue, and calls for an elevator. I should’ve asked for his
name. At least I can inform Ernesto that Mr. So-and-So knows of the tragedy and, though
I feel like a jerk, joke around with the other guards that Mr. So-and-So calls his cat a
“tender child”. I guess I can understand why he does. If he lives alone, no wife or
children, then he finds comfort from a cat that has gracefully accepted the role of his
child. Simply, the cat is (was) something he can love. But it’s still funny. Zumba. What a
nice, tender child!
I’m getting a phone call.
“Hello? Harry?”
“I wanted to remind you to get Buffalo W ild-”
“You don’t have to call me. I get out around ten, so I don’t know if their kitchen
will be open. Harry?” I’m annoyed that he takes the longest pause when I tell him
something cannot be done: Buffalo Wild Wings, French Kissing, etc. “I’m hanging up.”
“How’s your night going?”
“Okay,” I sigh. “Some silly things regarding this strange guy. I’ll tell you about it
when I get home.”
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“Strange guy?” Harry perks up. I can almost hear his tongue twitching. “Is
someone trying to hit on you? Because if he is then I swear to God I’ll cut-”
“No one’s hitting on me. The guy’s cat died.”
“Good,” Harry says. “Fuck him.”
Although I hated Harry in elementary school, nothing could compare to how
much I hated him in high school. We didn’t even go to the same school. In fact, shortly
after Harry’s eighth grade year, after all his academic and social problems, Momma
decided to homeschool him. It wasn’t much of a homeschool. He slept until noon,
watched cartoons for hours, and, when Momma was napping, snuck out of the house and
searched for me. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to have this small, gangly
boy-your brother nonetheless-stumbling around the cafeteria during your lunch break,
shouting your name?
“There you are, Honey!” He ran up to my table and embraced me. He wore a
white t-shirt, stained with something brown, and reeked of boiled hotdogs. “When do you
think you’ll be home?”
My friends-Lindsey and Erin-stared at him like he was a serial killer and then
glanced at me to see if I would cry for my life. It was their first exposure to my brother. I
never spoke of him. Not even in passing.
“What are you doing here?” I gritted my teeth.
“I thought we should get some ice cream.”
“Harry, you have to go back!”
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As my face burned, my friends laughed among themselves. Harry didn’t seem to
understand that I was upset and laughed with them. Then Thomas Spears, my biology lab
partner, a sweet guy whom I would date for two glorious weeks, walked by my table and
had to say, “Hey Karen!”
“Whoa!” Harry leapt in front of me, blocking my view of Thomas. “Do you have
something to say to my girl?”
Thomas, being three feet taller, gazed down at Harry and smiled kindly. He
walked away, as a gentleman would, glancing over his shoulder to see if my brother was
following him. My friends started laughing. I yanked Harry out of the cafeteria.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. I don’t like that guy.”
“You don’t know him! You shouldn’t even be here! Where’s Momma?”
“I wanted to surprise you...”
“Stop it. Stop it.” I tapped my knuckles on his head, right on the scar where the
bullet had entered. “Gary should’ve killed you.”
“Gary?” He squinted his eyes, as if aching from a painful light, when he heard our
stepfather’s name.
“Evil Man.”
“You’re mad.” He backed away from me. As he receded to the exit, the stress
deep within my chest, my brain, began to release and cool. Before he left, he said, “I’ll
meet you after school. We can walk home. Get some ice cream?”
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“Please,” I said. He ran out of the building. “Please don’t come back.”
Mercifully, Harry stayed at home while I attended UC Santa Cruz. We were so far
away apart, he didn’t exist at that time. I studied political science, played intermural
basketball and softball, and hung out with roommates, classmates, anyone who wasn’t a
relative. I was able to form relationships with men, friends and boyfriends, without
worrying about Harry’s incredible possessiveness. I didn’t consider college as a chance to
be promiscuous, rather I seized the opportunity to erase who I was, the environment that I
came from, and start new.
One of those new things would be boyfriends. Thomas Spears was my first
relationship, even though we didn’t get very far: a ten minute kiss in Safeway parking lot.
I’m sure we would’ve went further if it weren’t for Harry, who discovered the Spears’s
home number and called it. Thomas never spoke to Harry, but Thomas’s father did. What
Harry said to Mr. Spears was horrifying: “Get your son’s dick out of my girl or I’ll cut it
off!” The message was enough to scare the Spears family, and Thomas stopped talking to
me.
However, over the course of my college life, including my semester abroad in
Hong Kong, I got to know four different guys. Each of them-Matthew, Jerry, Hector,
Gen-taught me something new. Matthew couldn’t commit to an exclusive relationship;
Jerry wasn’t sure if he was attracted to me or someone else; Hector thought I hated him,
sexually and emotionally; Gen thought I didn’t want to be associated with him in public,
therefore he acted standoffish during the rare times we were outside. After being with
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them, I realized that Harry possessed a confidence and passion that could only be
tarnished from true heartbreak. I thought I tore his heart by yelling and beating on him.
But I guessed not.
Center Camera, level three garage, records a homeless man picking at the gate
lock.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I say to Harry and hang up.
I check my belt, readying the Lumen flashlight and pepper spray, and run down to
the garage. By the time I reach the floor, the homeless man is perusing the bicycle rack. I
shout a warning. Step away from the rack! He acts like he doesn’t notice me. When he
finds a nice Fixie, he pulls out a set of sharp pliers from his swampy trench coat. I blare
the flashlight in his eyes. I shout again. You! Stop! He drops the pliers, covers his bright
blue face, and races for the gate. He’s slow enough that I can grab him, but I don’t.
Instead I keep the light on his duck taped shoes, yelling at him to never come back.
Ten o’clock. The overnight guard should be clocking in anytime soon. But I don’t
leave the cold, damp garage right away. I wait for the homeless man to return, as the
stupid ones do. Although that man looks nothing like Gary, he reminds me of Gary.
Maybe it’s because Gary is somewhat of a criminal too, though not an evil man by any
means.
It has been eight or nine years since I’ve spoken to him. Momma had loved Gary
because he was a decent man who accepted me and Harry as his children. But he was
paranoid, always had been, and collected weapons. He owned two handguns-.22 caliber
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Smith and Wesson and Glock 9mm-and a box full of hunting knives, machetes, and a
replica sword from the movie “Braveheart”. He wanted to purchase a black Remington
shotgun but Momma drew the line on that weapon. It was either the shotgun or the
family. Gary chose us.
On the morning before he shot Harry, he got into a nasty argument with a
neighbor. They fought about hedges and property lines. Harry and I watched from our
doorway, rooting for Gary even though he looked crazier than our neighbor. He puffed
out his chest and tightened his shoulders and neck. His face bulged and spewed with
anger.
“Says who?” Gary said. “Says who?”
“Section 829 states you cannot grow your shrubbery, including that ugly-ass apple
tree, anywhere into my yard. I can legally cut your shit down.”
“If anyone is cutting my tree or my hedge, it’s going to be me. I’m going into
your yard and cutting my shit!”
“If you come into my yard, I’ll smash into your house and rip your ponytail out in
front of your kids.”
Gary was taken aback by our neighbor’s threat, a bluff in retrospect. At night he
loaded both handguns and hid a buck knife under his pillow. Harry was frightened,
begging Momma to sleep with him. I was frightened too, but kept quiet. I prayed that the
night would transition to the next morning and everyone, even our neighbor, would be
fine. But at eleven o’clock, I heard a gunshot. Then Momma screaming.
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“My boy! My boy! My boy!” Gary cried. “You scared me!”
After I graduated college, I visited my stepfather in Daly City. Momma exiled
him right after he shot Harry and went to court for attempted murder. The verdict: not
guilty. A year later they officially divorced and stopped communicating with each other.
He would send her an undisclosed check every month, but she didn’t talk about it.
For a long time I sent Gary emails, updating him on the crazy things Harry said
and did. Most of the time he didn’t respond. But once he sent an email inviting me to his
new apartment, and I surprised him by saying yes and buying a plane ticket to the Bay
Area.
I didn’t spend too much time in his apartment, noting that he bought the black
Remington shotgun that Momma forbade. Instead we drove to a cafe in San Francisco
and sat outside on a warm December afternoon. Gary was much older, his long gray hair
tied into a lazy cinnabon tail. At first we talked about my post-graduation plans, which I
struggled to conceive ahead of time. I was a decent technical writer with a lukewarm
interest for politics and law, but I lacked experience in the workforce. Gary was in
between jobs too, but had an interview with a private security company.
“Crazy hours,” he said. “But not a bad gig.”
“I can’t picture you as a guard.”
“As long as I can pass a basic physical.” He had a soft body. “Doesn’t take an
athlete.”
“I can probably pass it,” I said, though, of course, not seriously.
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“I think you can too.” He hesitated to sip his coffee. I could tell he wanted to
change the subject, though it pained him to switch suddenly and violently to something
else. “Is your Momma getting my checks?”
“I think so. Yeah.”
“She still hates me?” He seemed like he didn’t want to know, but had to ask
anyway.
“I can’t say. She hasn’t spoke of you in a while.”
“I’m sure. How’s Harry?”
“Well, these four years have been good to me. I don’t feel like killing him as
much.”
In an attempted laugh, Gary choked on his coffee. I laughed too. But then I
remembered how awful Harry could be and that his condition, whatever the hell it was,
could’ve been prevented if Gary had a cooler head. So I stopped laughing before we grew
louder and sighed. Gary stopped too and wiped coffee from his mouth.
“I tried to love you guys. You’re good kids,” he said. “I hope you don’t hate me.”
I did not want to lie to him. Y et...
“I stopped hating you a long time ago.”
The homeless man doesn’t show up again. It’s already ten forty-five, and the
overnight guard arrives at the front desk. I call Harry and tell him I’m going to Buffalo
Wild Wings. He prefers a warning ahead of time so he can anticipate my arrival. If I get
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home later than expected, then I’ll have to listen to his worries about me on the reckless
freeway.
As I suspect, the kitchen of Buffalo Wild Wings is closed. Two blocks away,
across the intersection, there’s a twenty-four hour McDonalds. I don’t even bother telling
Harry that I’m buying cheeseburgers. On the drive home I’m preparing to scream at him
if he decides to reject the food and give me a hard time. When I get home, ready to fight,
he runs up to the door and snatches the McDonalds bag. He doesn’t notice that it’s not
Buffalo Wild Wings and starts setting the dining table. I throw my things on the couch,
too tired to change out of my uniform, and sit at the end of the table where Momma used
to sit.
“Tough night?” Harry tosses me a napkin and a cheeseburger.
“One of the tougher ones,” I say.
Harry rips open a box of fries and pours them onto the table. He squeezes a dollop
of ketchup on a spare napkin, dips a wad of six fries, and devours them. Then he unwraps
a cheeseburger (I bought three for him) and shoves the whole thing into his mouth.
Disgusting. He goes for the second one: same huge bite, but he cannot cram it in
completely. He cackles, chunks of beef and mayonnaise dropping out of his mouth.
My brother is in love. I can tell from the way he’s trying to impress me. He wants
my approval and admiration. And, maybe, I give it to him by serving him the best I can.
But on most nights, hell, every night, I pray that something will unclick and revert in his
mind and he’ll knock on my door in the morning and admit that he has been lying all
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along, or that he’s sorry and will never think of me as his girlfriend again. I welcome the
day he slips and calls me sister because that’s who I am and always will be.
“What’s wrong with you?”
He grins with something evil in mind and says, “You’re what’s wrong with me.”
I restrain a big smile-that line is quite smooth-and he winks at me as if he knows
I want to.
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An Inter-Radical Relationship
I dated a girl named Emily Dickinson. She didn’t speak much. She ate very little.
Whenever she would sit down, she’d acknowledge her “atrocious” posture and adjust
until her back was perfectly straight. Though over the course of an evening, especially if I
made her laugh, she would find herself relaxed and slouching.
I can’t tell you that I was ever madly in love with Emily. When I met her I didn’t
think that we would’ve come to the same conclusions about anything. She was a quiet
white woman who lived with her family in Massachusetts; I am a traveled-worn, Chinese
man from San Francisco. These are superficial facts, I know, but fundamentally we
wanted different things too. I wanted to learn more about Emily, to ultimately fall in love
and start a life with her. She wanted - well - 1 never knew what she really wanted.
Maybe our differences was the reason why we were attracted to each other in the first
place. I could say, now, our differences were the reason why we broke up.
Austin, her older brother, my friend who I met through Harvard Law,
recommended that I talk to his sisters because he was concerned that they were too
lonesome. He knew I was single, a shy kind of man, though he never said that to my face.
We became friends because he admired my travels. It was around that time of my
planned departure to the south when Austin started persisting that I should stay in
Massachusetts.
“You need to meet a good woman,” he said. “I know of two. My sisters.”
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“Do they look like you?”
Austin had wild, bushy black hair and the squarest face of a judge. Not the
prettiest man. He smirked. “They’re much more sweet and sharper than you and I
combined. You will get along with them. You have similar.. .behaviors. ”
He had his perceptions of me. Perceptions that I never found disrespectful, yet,
maybe, a little on the judgmental side. Was I lonely? Yes. But I didn’t want to admit it
then, and I definitely didn’t want others, like Austin, to define me as such.
I didn’t meet Emily first. I met her sister, Lavinia. Lavinia was a short and stem
woman who always seemed to have a cat in her arms. When I knocked on their door, she
was the first person to greet me. Actually, when I think about it, it wasn’t so much of a
greeting rather a thorough inspection.
“And you are?” she asked. A plump brown cat was rubbing against her ankle. She
looked down at it as I began to speak, and picked it up. It hissed, but she coddled it
anyway.
“I am William,” I said. I should’ve mentioned my acquaintances with Austin, but
out of nervousness, I simply forgot.
“And where do you come from?” She let the cat slip through her arms.
“Originally from California. I know your brother from-”
“I know you know Austin. That’s why you’re here, huh? To meet Emily and me?
Well, I can say that neither of us are really interested to meet you. Even though you may
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be a nice person, Austin never spoke highly nor unkindly of you. Emily said that our
brother made you sound like a ghost or an entity from the future. I said that he made you
sound boring.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Do like animals?”
“Sure.”
“And what’s your favorite breed of cat?”
“I don’t know - the one that you had in your arms.”
“You mean Robert,” she frowned. “He’s a shorthair. He’s/era/.”
“Oh,” I said, at a loss for any more words. For as crass as Lavinia was, I did begin
to like her. Her accusatory nature came off more autistic than mean-hearted. I found her
kind of endearing, as if she were a child slowly letting her guard down.
And then, before anything else was said, she shouted: “Emily! There is a strange
man at our door!”
When Emily came to the door, she didn’t add a fresh contrast to her sister’s
presence. Instead she seemed like Lavinia’s twin, stern and stand-offish. Maybe because
they were both wearing black dresses with white collared lacing that I found it hard to
differentiate the two women. Although, as I looked more at Emily, I noted that she had a
much softer face and she was taller than Lavinia. Emily’s eyes - brown blackish irises were a tad off-centered as one eye went slightly left and the other went slightly right.
However, I didn’t find those eyes perturbing. They were surprisingly attractive.
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“If you’re good with cats,” Lavinia continued, “then maybe you may be of use...”
Emily seemed at peace because she didn’t have the urge to say anything. She
observed my awkward movements like one of their cats watching a bird. I stared at her
too. Though, I had to look away from time to time. Over the course of a few minutes I
was already more drawn to Emily than her sister.
“Austin’s friend,” Emily finally spoke. “How may we help you?”
“I can ask you two the same question.”
Lavinia smirked and stepped further inside, her hand reaching for the door. But
Emily stepped forward, her face nearly greeting mine. She seemed incredibly perplexed,
as if she wanted to be offended but couldn’t hold such a strong feeling.
“Our brother doesn’t think kindly of us?” she said.
“He thinks kindly. He says you’re very sweet girls. Well I think he was speaking
about you, Emily. But he did tell me that you, Lavinia, were a sharp lady. Smart, I think,
is what he meant. Not to say that Emily isn’t smart.. .he ju st..
“You remind me of Robert,” Lavinia said amidst my babbling. “In such need of
attention. And frantic as hell.”
“Vinnie,” Emily interrupted. “Sir, how may I help you?”
“I guess - I’m here to be your friend.”
Lavinia cackled and walked away. Emily stood tall. It was a warm afternoon
when I knocked on their door, and the sun grew brighter and hotter as I stood there
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waiting for some kind of positive welcome. Emily pointed to the end of the porch where
we could have a private word. I nodded and proceeded to follow along.
“I can always come back a different time,” I said. “When Austin is around.”
“You could,” she thought about it. “The three of us are having dinner tomorrow
night. If you would like to jo in...”
“Certainly!”
“Certainly...” she repeated. She seemed turned off by my eagerness. “Okay.
Tomorrow night it is.”
I left the porch shortly after arranging the dinner. I didn’t feel overwhelmed by
love or lust for either woman. Maybe, a mild curiosity for Emily and confusion about
Lavinia. But I planned on showing up the next evening. And, as I gathered my clothes
and material, as I practiced what I was going say and how I was going to say it, I realized
how transparent my feelings were to others. Austin saw through me. I’m sure his sisters
did too. I was lonesome. I was shy. I was looking for a lady to call my own.
Dinner with Emily did not involve Austin nor Lavinia. It was a great surprise, as
Emily informed me that Austin had another obligation to attend to, business related, and
Lavinia wasn’t feeling well.
“Vinnie,” Emily clarified, “wanted me to tell you that she’s not stricken from a
common illness. She, how do I say this, doesn’t think your presence is good for her.”
“She speaks her mind,” I said. Lavinia. I still didn’t know what to think of her.
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“Speaking her mind is one of her best qualities,” Emily said. “Come join m e...”
Dinner was simple. We had a thin beet soup, two small baked potatoes, and a
meaty little chicken. My favorite was the beet soup because it was hot and comforting,
and whenever Emily would speak, I would automatically reach for my bowl and sip. It
was a habit that I noticed early in evening, a habit that I forced myself to stop especially
when there was barely any soup left. My sips were shorter, yet more deliberate, and I’m
sure I looked foolish.
“I have more,” Emily said. “You don’t have to ration every drop.”
“I’m alright. So, I never asked you, what do you like to do?”
“To do?”
“You know what I mean. A hobby. A vocation.”
“Oh. Yes. I cook. I sew. I tend to the garden. I...” she stopped before admitting
anymore. “I write.”
“Write what?” I caressed the bowl, wishing that I had asked for more soup.
“Little things,” she said. She dung her fork and knife into a piece of chicken
breast. She really didn’t want to talk about it. “Why do you care?”
“To be honest,” I said. “I don’t really care.”
Emily smiled, briefly.
“You’re not going to ask me what I like to do?”
“Honestly,” she smiled again. “I don’t really care, either.”
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We ate in silence for minutes. Despite the silence feeling awkward at first, it
became peaceful. It was as if we were a veteran couple, aged by experience. We didn’t
need to say much in order to have a decent time together. Yet, that comforting aura only
lasted for so long. Emily was still a stranger to me as I was still a stranger to her.
“I’ve only known two Chinese people,” she said suddenly.
“And I am one of them?”
“Yes,” she said. “You, and another man.”
“Oh.”
“He was a traveler like you. But he was also a salesman. He sold jewelry.” She
reached under her collar and revealed a faded blue pendant. “I bought this from him.”
“It’s nice...”
“I suppose,” she quickly tucked it under her collar before I could study it. “I’m
not a huge proprietor of these kind of things. Jewelry. I’m not much for romantics.”
“No? But you bought that necklace.”
“Well, I liked it. It is beautiful. How do you say beauty in your language? In
Chinese?”
“I don’t know,” I hesitated. “I don’t speak Chinese. Cantonese, that is.”
She looked at me, her off-set eyes almost coming together. What did I say to
cause so much attention? I tried to act casual, and grabbed from my bowl which was dry
and empty as hell.
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“You can’t speak your own language?” she asked. “English is your only
language.”
“I know a smidge of Spanish,” I smirked. “Como Estas?”
“So you write in English?” She leaned forward as if my answer would blow her
back. “Wait. Does it disturb you that you cannot speak your own language?”
“What makes English not my own? Because I’m genetically Chinese? I am bom
here, you know. I am as American as you are Ms. Emily Dickinson.”
“I suppose,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so baffled.”
“If language freaks you out,” I said, keeping that same stupid smirk. “Then I can’t
imagine what you think of inter-racial relationships.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I pointed at her and then I pointed at myself. “This is a date.”
Emily was taken aback at first, her face calm yet searching for something. But,
then, after she thought about it, she guffawed loudly. She pressed a napkin to her mouth
to stop, but she couldn’t. She blurted into the napkin. Then she slouched in her chair,
crumpled with the giggles, and tossed her napkin on the table. I smiled, but only out of
habit, only because I wasn’t trying to be hilarious.
“A whatV She managed to say, still laughing.
“A date,” I said. “Like courting...”
“I know, I know! I haven’t seen an Asian man fancy a Caucasian woman, nor a
Caucasian man fancy an Asian woman. Though I’m aware that there could be such
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relations. Once I’ve seen an African man with a Caucasian woman. They were hugging
and kissing outside a restaurant, among the public, and I thought that was the most
interesting thing.”
“It’s a beautiful thing,” I added.
“Once I heard, from a common fellow, that relationships like that are devilish in
nature.”
“I think your friend is wrong. I think two people from two different backgrounds
who bond together is quite revolutionary. In parts of this country, bonds like that are
down-right rebellious.”
“Are you saying that we are some kind of rebellion?”
“Hard to say.”
“Hmm.. .1 don’t know what exactly we’re rebelling against,” she clinked her fork
against the plate. The first real sound other than our soft voices in her warm dining room.
“Rebelling against the traditions of love?” I suggested.
She stopped with the fork, and looked at me. Then, before I could affirm that what
I said was just a suggestion, she covered her mouth with the napkin and guffawed again.
This time she was much louder, much more grand and willing to look foolish. Her face
was redder than the beet soup that I badly wanted. She was slouching in her chair and
practically crying.
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“Rebelling against the traditions of love," she repeated, wiping away some tears.
“That is the stupidest thing I heard in a while. I don’t even know you. But it’d be nice to
be a part of a rebellion. A little more boring than I would’ve expected it to be.”
“Oh. So you’re saying I’m boring?”
“To be honest?” she said and smiled.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to know the answer. I nudged my empty bowl
closer to her as if I was a hungry creature of her garden. She took my bowl,
understanding my gesture, and brought it into the kitchen. I enjoyed listening to the bowl
being filled. Her pours were delicate, no splashing. No clumsiness. No clanging of the
ladle as she set it aside. My stomach was getting cold, and my craving for something
warm and nourishing intensified. Before I knew it, she came out and placed a full
steaming bowl on the table. Emily was quite pretty. I wondered, right then, what really
made her happy.
“I have more,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said.
Shortly after I finished my meal, we said our goodbyes and I went home. That
was our first dinner together, and possibly the most hopeful one.
I found it hard to see Emily on a weekly basis. Sometimes we would see each
other twice a week, taking long walks in the park, crafting small booklets from old
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newspaper clippings, having simple dinners prepared by herself or Lavinia. Other times,
more often than the latter, I’d see her once every two weeks.
I didn’t like the distance. She didn’t seem to mind.
I still remember this one outing when I decided to tell Emily that I wanted to
spend more time with her. We were sitting in her garden, staring at the abundance of
flowers and shrubs. Her mother planted most of these - the pink hollyhocks, the purple
Lilacs, yellow and white Greville roses. Each species were astonishingly bright. I knew
that this garden was one Emily’s favorite places. As she sat beside me, she looked out
and exhaled proudly.
“My father built this conservatory,” she said. “And my mother tended it.”
“They’ve done a wonderful job.”
“They have,” she stood up and waded closer into the flowers. “Recently I’ve been
thinking of mortality.”
“Quite a grave subject...”
“Not necessarily; I’m not thinking about reapers and blackness and decomposing
matter, please. Life. Death. Cycles. These are things I’m thinking about when I think
about mortality.”
“When I think of mortality, I think of time.'’’’
“Sure,” she said dismissively. “The hollyhocks are so fresh. I am very happy how
they’re blooming this year.”
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“They’re awesome,” I said, wondering how to guide the conversation. “What do
you think of time? I feel like there’s such a small window that we are given as human
beings. We find the things that we love to do, that we need to do, and do them for as long
as we possibly can.”
“I suppose,” she sat next me, a little farther than before. “That’s common sense.”
“Common sense, sure. But I think a little more complex than...” I lost my train of
thought. I didn’t know what I was saying. Emily was so much smarter than I was. Her
words, precise and deliberate. “I don’t know. Just a thought.”
“The real questions are: how would one process the passing of time? And what
happens when something, everything, is over.”
I had no answers.
“We are sitting here,” she said, “and right now we are experiencing the passing of
time. It’s fleeting as I speak. Do you see that bird?”
I did see the bird. It was sitting on a tree branch, nearest to us. I couldn’t tell what
kind of bird; it was light brown with white spots on its wings. I wouldn’t have noticed it
if it weren’t for Emily. An insignificant dot with feathers.
“He will fly from that branch to that one. Then he will fly beyond my garden,
beyond our vision, and perch on something else. His journey seems endless. We are
comfortable with that conclusion. But it’s not. He will die along the way. He will stop
flying.”
“Like I said: quite grave.”
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She gave a light laugh.
A flock of tiny brown birds flew through the garden. The bird that we were
watching disappeared among them. Emily and I watched these birds. They fluttered, they
fought, they played. Some flew beyond our view, some spread among the branches in her
garden. A few of them remained closer to the ground, diving and shifting through the
shrubs. Emily zoned out. She stopped talking, and leaned forward as if she wanted to get
close enough to life but never disturb it. She had done that to me - had leaned in as I
spoke to her and observed. I could never tell what she was thinking, despite glimmers of
affirmation or, if I dare say, love. But what I did learn, what I assume to be truth, is that
Emily respected the moment. She knew how fragile and opaque the present could be.
Then out of nowhere, Robert, Lavinia’s cat, jumped and snatched one of the birds.
He pinned it at first, then rabidly dug his claws into its breast. The bird squawked. It
writhed and fought underneath Robert’s paws. Brown feathers, some of them peppered
with blood, were tossed and floating in the air. Among the feathers and flesh, I saw a
mess of tiny organs. I saw the bird struggle to breathe. Emily stood up and grabbed a
thick branch from the ground. She smacked Robert’s head. Once. Twice. Hard.
Robert leapt from the bird’s carcass, and staggered behind a bush.
“Little bastard,” Emily said quietly. She glanced at me and managed a smile.
I smiled back too. I didn’t feel like telling her that I wanted more time with her. I
figured it was best to see what happened from there and hoped for a change. But, in
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hindsight, I was petrified. Poor Robert - he was seeing stars. Poor bird - he was still
alive. Poor Emily - the moment had passed.
I kissed Emily Dickinson in the middle of a June afternoon. I don’t know what
inspired the kiss: we were quietly sitting in a meadow, observing the nature around us.
We were full from lunch, despite not eating much. We had been silent for a good while,
and hadn’t shared a common laugh that day (we usually did; we usually stumbled upon
something funny at my expense). We sat close because we felt cold. It might have been
the breeze or a gray rain cloud interrupting the sunlight. It might have been the low hum
of insects underneath us, or the light droppings of pollen and dew on our skin. It might
have been the lonely feeling of being the only two people on the grass. It might have been
that we were in love. It might have been that we were bored.
For whatever reason, we kissed. Emily turned to me first. I hadn’t notice her gaze
until a breeze brushed across my cheek. I turned to her, finding her face inches away
from mine. Again, she was leaning into me. I like to think that we both went for it. It’s
hard to remember that detail. I tell people that she kissed me first, but that is a lie. As we
kissed, I slipped my tongue against her tongue. It was soft and moist; and it retracted, like
a shy worm, as soon as it contacted mine. Her eyes slowly opened, revealing those brown
blackish irises.
“What was that?”
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“Here let me try again...” I placed my hands on her soft face but she pushed me
off and giggled like a little girl.
Even though she was a few years older than I was, there were times when she
acted much younger. She had told me that, as a little girl, she found it quite easy to make
friends. She spoke highly of girls and boys whom I had never met; she even had showed
me a beloved copy of R.W. Emerson’s “Poems” that a close friend had given her.
“It is Ben’s copy,” she had said eagerly as she handed me the book. “Be
careful.. .the binding is weak.”
“Okay,” I had said, gingerly flipping the book over. It was a fairly thick black
book, a simple title. Almost like the bible.
“I think it’s better if I just showed you,” she took the book away. “His poems are
so poignant. I love how they get right to his points. ‘A Day’s Ration’: ‘Why need
volumes, if one word suffice?’ This is one of the best gifts that anyone has ever given me.
Ben. Benjamin Newton. If you ever run across to him, he will surely impress you.”
“Do you still hang out with him? Or your other friends?”
“I don’t see them as much,” she had said. “What’s more alarming, to me, is that I
don’t really care to.”
My childhood was different. For years until I turned twenty, I was very shy and
uncomfortable around other people. I couldn’t make friends. But, as I got older, I started
to reach out and literally travel around the country. By age twenty-five I met my first
girlfriend. About five months later, I had my first break-up. This cycle of affairs
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continued on as I began to move from state to state. I am, by no means, a desirable man.
Women don’t naturally flock to me, nor do men want to share jabs and a drink. But, if
one allows me to hang out with them over time, I am able to break through some social
ground and create relationships. At the height of our partnership, Emily and I were
passing through a middle space. I wanted more. She wanted less. It was a matter of time
before we strayed too far into our own spectrums.
“I don’t like it,” she said as I pulled my lips back.
“Don’t like what?” I asked, disappointedly. “The kissing?”
“No, no. The kissing is fine!” she pecked me on the lips. “The tongue. I don’t like
it.”
My entire relationship with Emily Dickinson lasted three months and four days.
At times it was wonderful; other times, it was strange. Towards the end, the day before
we broke up, she handed me a piece of tom envelope. She had written on it:
It’s such a little thing to weep So short a thing to sigh And yet - by Trades - the size of these
We men and women die!
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When she shared the little poem, we were taking walk from her homestead to a
local grove. I wanted to see her room, a place that she spoke little of but so fondly about.
My room conceals true freedom, she had said when I asked her about it. I was intrigued
by the privacy of her spaces. Yet I couldn’t conceive why someone would want to stay in
their room for hours, sometimes days, at a time. The room would get hot and feel much
smaller as the sun went down. The same things, the same arrangements, would bore me.
Besides sleep, what else would I do? Exercise? Why the room would reek of sweat!
Read? I could only read for about an hour before getting a terrible headache! Regardless
of what I thought about rooms, she cherished hers and ultimately denied my request to
see it. She was, however, willing to share some writing; a creative endeavor that I often
wondered about but never asked to read.
“I like it,” I said after quickly reading the poem. I didn’t know what else to say.
To tell you the truth, I wasn’t too impressed. But I’m not really artistic nor an avid fan of
poetry. Sure. I liked it. It sounded wise.
“I don’t care if you like it or not. I just felt like showing you.”
“Uh, thank you.” What else did she want me to say?
She stopped walking and glared at me. “I don’t normally do this.”
“What do you mean?”
“This...” She pointed at everything around and between us. She pointed at the
poem.
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She took that little piece of writing and folded into her pocket. She spoke no more
of her writing, and became quiet for the rest of the walk. I don’t remember what we
talked about at the grove, or what was said when I left her house later that evening. All I
remember is a general feeling of loss. I had done something that offended her, but I didn’t
know what. Was it what I said about her writing? Was it something I didn’t say?
The next evening, I arrived at her family’s homestead expecting a dinner that we
had planned weeks ago. When I knocked on the door, no one answered. I knocked a few
more times, hoping that they could hear me. Eventually the door opened, and Lavinia
stepped out. She was in a navy blue night gown; Robert was dangling and playing in her
arms.
“Hello Lavinia. Is Emily in the kitchen?” I stepped forward but Lavinia stood in
my way. She gave me a stem look.
“No,” she said coldly. “Emily is asleep.”
“Oh. Well, it’s only past seven o’clock. We were supposed-”
“She’s asleep. What don’t you understand?”
“I would like to speak with her.”
“About what? Dinner? It’s not happening. Unless you’ll eat quietly by her bedside
and not disturb her. But that would be weird.”
“I don’t want to do all that..
“I’m being sarcastic.”
“I know; I’m just confused.”
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She let Robert go. He hissed and crawled off.
“You should learn that some people don’t want to be disturbed.”
Before I could retort, as I was becoming frustrated, Emily came to the door. Her
face was fresh and awake. She wasn’t sleeping at all, rather listening from behind the
door. She tugged at her sister’s gown. Lavinia retreated inside, her eyes never leaving
mine.
“What is it, William?” Emily said.
“We’re supposed to have dinner.”
“Oh,” she said. “I changed my mind. I was hoping that you did too.”
“Why would I want to? I was very much looking forward to dinner.”
“Oh. Well. I wasn’t.”
Her face was blank and scary. As if we never spent any of that time together.
“Is this over?”
She leaned in, close to my face, and observed the milky in my eyes.
“Trees die, William. Some don’t grow back. Some do. The cycle is a long and
terrible process. I don’t think I have the patience.”
“What about revolution? Rebellion?”
“Oh rebellion!” She snapped. “Like I said: I’ve known two Chinese people. You,
and another man. I think I know enough to learn that rebellion seems a little overdramatic. Don’t you think?”
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She entered her house and shut the door in my face. I haven’t seen her since, but
I’m pretty sure she’s still up there doing whatever she likes to do, writing her little things.
The break-up was abrupt and terribly shocking at first. When I think about it, it still hurts
a little. I had many failed relationships since her. Some were once good and beneficial.
Some were complete messes. Yet somehow Emily is the only ex-girlfriend that I like
telling stories about and the one who I can’t stop remembering. She had such wonderful
off-set eyes, and she was terribly gifted. I doubt she’ll forget me. Not because I was a
good partner (I really wasn’t). She just seems keen on memory.
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i
ft
Dinosaurs Under Heat
I.
The Great Heat Wave of 1936, one of the hottest summers in the United States,
killed many old men. It killed my great-great grandfather, my great-great grandmother,
several great-great aunts, and a great uncle, an old man if he lived today, who suffocated
in his wooden crib. Reaching 121-degrees among the Northeastern states, the world to
my ancestors was a series of gray dust and drought, deep raw sunburns and slow death.
Not to mention their crops-com, oat, barely, all of it-withered to mulch. When Dad got
really sick, he told me he was lucky that we didn’t live through those times. Those guys,
he said, didn’t even have proper air conditioning. Hard to imagine that we came from
these tough people, that we shared something in common.
That July, on a Nebraskan night when the heat felt thicker than plywood, my great
grandfather, Herman Krause, and his thirteen-year-old son, Joe, slept on their front lawn.
Shirtless, stripped to their white briefs and socks, they rolled a large quilt on the dry grass
and lay on their ache scarred backs. Joe tried not to think about what happened that
morning, what his father saw in the bathroom, as he watched the purple clouds and
brilliant stars, each a white dot, untouched by lamps from a town not too far from their
farm.
Behind him, giggling, were Joe’s sisters. The three of them, blonde and fat, under
the age of ten, gathered around the porch and listened to a Little Orphan Annie episode
on the radio. They wouldn’t understand the embarrassment that Joe was feeling, and if
they knew what had happened they’d barrage him with laughter. Their remarks, like tiny
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screws, would drill under his eyes and uproot the tears. If only he could crank the radio
dial to its absolute max and turn them deaf.
“Do you want to talk about it,” Herman whispered.
“I was wrong, sir.” Joe slumped to his side, away from his father, whiffing hints
of the summer’s barley. This morning was the first time he’d ever been caught: briefs
around the kneecaps, orange freckled butt cheeks, and his right hand around his erection.
It happened so quickly, so unforgivingly, as the door swung open, hearty air swept in,
and his father shadow suddenly flooded the bathroom. He had no time to cover up and
pretend he was doing something else. Rubbing his stomach, perhaps. Scratching his inner
thigh.
A large mosquito quivered above them. Joe covered his ears and prayed for sleep
to strike him.
“What’s a young man supposed to do?” Herman said. “Mother’s damned Silver
Screen magazines lying around.”
“I’ll say a thousand Hail Marys and another thousand Our Fathers, sir.”
“That many?” Herman chuckled. “If that’s standard then I say we’re forever in
debt to the Lord.”
Joe felt that he owned an apology to his sorrowful grandparents watching from
Heaven. They washed their hands and feet of him. If the heat destroyed him, what would
he say at the Pearly Gates? How could he explain himself? He had the magazine flipped
to a full length pictorial of Carole Lombard. She fancied herself with bright red lips,
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blonde Garbo curls, and a black and white polka-dotted skirt. For weeks she teased him
with those Alice blue eyes, staring from his mother’s nightstand. He tried to imagine the
sound of her voice: always, somehow, like his grandmother’s deep command. She had
just filmed the “Princess Comes Across” though he had never seen it. He never saw a
motion picture. The thought of one starring Miss Lombard-breathing, reciting poetry,
strutting towards him-was unbearable.
“Fifty Hail Mary’s,” Herman said. “Just fifty.”
The grass around them, the barley field, stirred with starving grasshoppers and
rabbits. Round gnats, the shape of mouse pellets, swarmed close to their ears. The girls
turned off the radio and these creatures amplified in the dark.
“This heat ain’t ever going to let up,” Herman said. “At this point I’ll do anything.
If I can learn a heathen dance, I’ll be hopping in that field day and night. Hopping,
hollering, clapping my hands. Rain! Rain! Rain! You ever see an Indian man doing such
a thing?”
“No, sir.”
“Me neither. You hear about it. But you never see it.” Herman paused, as if he fell
asleep. “My father never talked to me about pretty gals and these kinds of feelings. It’s
something you keep to yourself. You wished the Lord made you a better man, but no
one’s got that kind of will. Maybe a selected few. The Apostles. Christ, respectively.”
The mosquito landed on Joe’s neck and drilled into a vein. He smashed it, felt the
crispness of its wings, and rubbed its blood on the quilt. His father was a fair man,
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merciful than most fathers around these acres. But sometimes he didn’t know when to
stop talking, let things be.
“The first time-Lord, I shouldn’t.” Herman waited for a decision. “Well. The first
time, you see, the first time I touched myself.”
“Sir...” Joe sat up. He tried to erase the thought of his father naked, weakened by
another woman, stroking his thing. But the image was permanent, a large bloody stain on
a white apron.
“Now hold on.” Herman grabbed Joe’s arm as he got up. “I’m only telling this
once.”
Joe rolled on his side, letting the mosquitoes and gnats bite him.
“While back, when I was about your age, your grandmother had a friend named
Annette Blaine. She was about mother’s age, maybe a little younger, and a beautiful lady.
Big black hair among a bunch of blondes like us. She was funny, loud, and really tall too.
Every Sunday morning, she came by the house and helped your grandmother bake bread
for the following week. I watched them from the kitchen doorway, while they yapped
about their dreams and plans, their dumb children and lazy husbands. Sometimes Annette
would look at me and tell me to help them. She’d hand me a spoon and a mixing bowl.
Then she’d slap the mixing bowl like a child’s bottom.
‘“ Mr. Herman,’ she said. ‘If you want respect from anybody you got to work.’
“Oh, son, I fell in love. She smelled of dry apricots and sweet winter-wheat. As
we worked in the kitchen, she complained about her husband. He’d get drunk in the
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mornings, ignore their orchards, and come home at late hours unwilling to admit it. He
wouldn’t touch her, no hugging, no kissing, not even a hand on her shoulder. Did I
mention she was funny? She’d hobble around the kitchen pretending like she was a little
pathetic man who couldn’t speak, couldn’t plant fruit, couldn’t express love. I could’ve
made for a better husband. A better lover.
“I spent a lot time in my quarters thinking about her.” Herman sighed and swatted
a mosquito off Joe’s back. “I got excited when she called me Mr. Herman. You know,
like I was an adult. One morning, even after saying the Lord’s Prayer, I couldn’t help
myself. I thought of her working in the kitchen, slapping that bowl, and gripped hold of
my damned thing. Then, damn, she caught me. Snuck in my quarters like a spider.
Wanted to recruit me for mixing duty again. It was the loudest laugh I had ever heard.
She told me to put it away before she’d snip it off with a pair of sewing scissors.”
“Sir?”
“Yep.”
“May I sleep inside?”
Herman nodded, sighed as if he had admitted the greatest sin, and whispered the
rest of the memory to himself. Joe went straight to the bathroom. The magazine, left from
this morning, crumpled on the floor. Even as wrinkled cover, Miss Lombard’s right eye
trained on him. What was she looking at? What was she asking for? He gingerly lifted the
comers of the magazine and glanced over his shoulder. His ancestors, those angels,
would never let him in.
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II
In the summer of 1980 another heat wave seared through the mid-western states.
Heat from the north and south ridges of the Great Plains trapped what lay between its
tattered lands and baked it. About seventeen hundred people died as a result, and over
seventy people were injured from a thunderous derecho that followed. Three weeks
before he passed, Dad told me that summer was the most uncomfortable time in his life.
You should be thankful, he said, that I didn’t drag you to places where heat like that
existed.
Driving through those plains, on their way back to California, my grandfather Joe
and his son, Christopher, had enough of each other. Christopher was sixteen, an only
child ragged in a jean jacket and green leather boots. They spent almost five hours on
silent, hot road without offering a single apology to one another. To make matters worse,
the van’s air conditioner broke during that stretch of border between Nebraska and
Colorado. The interior leather stuck to their sweaty flesh and their seatbelts latched onto
their chests like hot layers of metal rope.
“Who does that?” Joe said. He could not sleep last night, and veered the van over
the line. “Who steals smut from a gas station? And,” his voice thinned, “masturbates in a
public restroom?”
“I don’t know.” The headphones that hung around Christopher’s neck rattled with
a perfectly wicked scream: I, said, I want you right now! He loved his Walkman because
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if he wanted to tune out God revering dorks, then he could crank the volume and party.
“Scumbag perverts?”
“Chris. I’m talking about you.”
“Calling me a scumbag pervert. I get it.”
“I’m not calling you that.” Joe veered again. “But you embarrassed me.”
“I don’t see what’s so bad about fucking yourself.”
“Come on!” Joe let the wheels upset the roadside gravel. “Thank the Lord your
mother decided to stay home and work. She’d snatch your mouth out. That clerk was a
few words away from calling the State Troopers. I’m beginning think this trip was a
waste time. Did you learn anything? Seeing the farm and all?”
“Definitely. Learned a lot. Middle America is fucking bogus.”
“Enough with that word!”
Everything that came out of Joe’s mouth, well intentioned or not, pierced like
needles into Christopher’s gut. Christopher told himself, if he had more control, he could
dump the attitude. But certain things were automatically punishable. Like his father’s
Jimmy Carter inspired haircut and that bright pink polo shirt, buttoned way up the neck,
cutting the circulation to the head. A head so bloated with lame, holier-than-thou blood
that it’d take one more act of transgression to pop it. Christopher wrapped the
headphones over his ears.
“I thought...”Joe yawned and tightened his grip on the wheel. It didn’t matter if
Christopher could hear or not. “I thought this trip was a good idea.”
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Interstate 80 was a stretch of straight road, flat black fields along either side. After
monotony dried the eyes, an expanse of corn stalks slowly appeared, growing taller by
the mile. Christopher fell asleep, his forehead cooking against the window. He had agreed
to the trip because he wanted to escape Fresno and party in big cities like Vegas or
Denver or Chicago. When his father proposed the idea, he wasn’t thinking. MC5, blitzed
drunk and amped on cocaine, toured the country. So did renegade hobos who sacrificed a
steady living for a lifetime of unadulterated freedom. Awesome. He was in.
But the road was nothing like that. It was long and boring and full of dad.
When Christopher awoke, the van was pulled to the side. His father napped in the
driver’s seat, mouth slung open and breathing heavy. He stepped out of the van, tore his
jacket off, and grabbed his crotch, adjusting the whining erection that he had since the
gas station. This pressure had to be released, shot out, onto the hot gravel. If not, then
he’d stagger the entire day with a painful nag in his balls.
By the age of sixteen, he masturbated in multiple public restrooms: McDonalds,
4-Day Tire stores, Candlestick Park, and now a nameless gas station, measly and rustic
when you pulled into it, guarded by a nosy clerk. At the station he found a black sleeved
rack of nude magazines-a prime opportunity, a gift. His imagination had the fortune of
never working too hard. The thought of a girl, any girl, excited him. When the clerk
attended his father, he grabbed the first cover he saw-a dark Asian model-and stuffed it
in his jeans. He went to the restroom, a single stall, thinking he’d finish in less than five
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minutes. Before he knew it an impatient line, including his father, grew by the restroom
door. Someone knocked but he ignored it.
“Get out!” Christopher said as Joe and the clerk busted in.
“No!” Joe said. “You get out!”
Standing by the road, no other cars in sight, he stared at vast corn field. There
wouldn’t be another chance until Denver, maybe at a McDonalds. He headed through the
tall green stalks and walked in a direction until he reached the center of everything. The
van and road not visible anymore. He couldn’t tell the time of the day. Sun on the West,
sun on the East, sun directly above his head. To his right, his left, no one watched him.
Not even the headless scarecrow crucified a few yards away.
He unbuckled his belt and rolled down his jeans, just enough to cup below the
underwear. Then he peeled his underwear and rested it on the jeans. Layers, he prepared,
to yank up once someone got too close. He lived for these quiet, rigorous moments. The
open air on his thighs and erection-though hot and dry-was refreshing. He began to
recount all the girls that he had ever seen and pictured each of them naked.
“Chris!” Joe shouted from Lord knew where, from every angle of the field.
“Come out right now! I will drag you back!”
Christopher kept stroking. The temperature, racing with his frantic breath, rose
inside and outside his body. Sweat depleted, cotton mouth, he felt like he was on a
different planet. Mars came to mind. Mars with rods of kernels and dirt. No signs of
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human beings and pathetic fathers. Just heat beating the ground, becoming part of the
skin.
Ill
The most deaths-man, animal, crop-of the 2006 North American Heat Wave
occurred in California. In the central valley we could smell thousands of dying utters
from our bedroom windows. Cattle and dairy production plummeted and certain
manufacturers, the ones that panicked, started laying off people. It’s been about a year
since Dad passed, the anniversary coming around the comer, and I can’t help but think
that his life turned for the worst because of those layoffs. He became reckless and angry,
and believed that people were assholes, that life was nothing but an ugly looking thing
gunning to take him out.
During that summer, when I was fifteen, we spent a lot of time together. He
promised me a pool, but never signed a down payment on one. We lived on Mom’s
salary. She taught the summer session at St. Mary’s College as a religious and theology
professor, her forte: Missionaries of the sixteenth century and Colonization of the
Philippines. When he first dropped the news that he couldn’t return to work, she
reassured him that everything was going to be fine and he’d get up on his feet before the
fall season. But as weeks passed, and he refused to search for another job, she got sick of
reinforcing his daily mope and wanted to punch him. They fought every night. Their
screams, after a while, began losing sense.
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Instead of buying our own pool, we snuck into our neighbor’s backyard and
jumped into theirs. On Monday morning we waited an hour after the Leongs left for
work. Dad teased Mr. and Mrs. Leong, saying “howdy!” to them before they got into
their navy blue BMW. Mr. Leong reluctantly waved back, and as they drove down the
street, Dad smirked at me and said, “Get your trunks. It’s going to be another hot fucking
day.”
We hopped the fence, stripping to our swim trunks and bare feet, diving butt first
to the cold bottom, sinking fast in a lotus position. I never worried about being caught,
knowing that Dad would take most of the blame. If the neighborhood knew what we did
beyond swimming in their pools, they would price a bounty on our heads. I imagined
wanted signs posted around Fresno County:
Hundred bucks per head.
Christopher and Jared Krause:
The Notorious Pool Pissers
Thieves o f Barbeque Silverware.
We were an ugly duo. We stood at 5’6, our shoulders slumped, our heads bowed
to the ground, gazing at the angle of our pigeon-toed feet. We had ache scarred skin and
round purple nipples. But his hair was dirty blond and mine was light brown. His eyes
were rotund and mine thin slots. Mom’s from the Philippines, immigrated to California
when she was six-years-old. Her traits tightened my face, darkened my color. But I had
Dad’s shape, his hefty farm-boy structure that had most people saying, “Just like you,
Chris.”
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The Leong’s pool was a blue rimmed beauty. Oval like an egg, eighteen feet deep,
it spanned the length of our front lawn. The white diving board shimmered in silver
glitter, and rubber cup holders were installed along the rim of the shallow end. In the
water we were animals. Slapping each other’s arms, tossing waves over the rim, we
cackled until our throats hurt. When we got tired of swimming, we tanned on their green
lawn chairs and left impressions of our dripping backsides.
Dad liked to bullshit about everything. Mostly about his younger years of
torturing his father, and occasionally about women, though I didn’t know a thing. He sat
at the edge of the pool, cracking open a can of Budweiser that he took from Mr. Leong’s
cooler. He had these moods, these depressions, and made sense of them by talking about
the old men before him. They seemed to calm him down as if they shouted advice from
above or below-wherever they were-and reminded him that everything that had
happened, every gene that had been passed down, now circulated within him and his son.
“It’s crazy. The responsibility.” He chugged Mr. Leong’s beer, dumping the can
in a cup holder. “We have to pass it on before we’re dead as dinosaurs.”
He went to the backdoor and looked through the glass. As he spoke, he closed his
fist and jabbed the door.
“I wonder how much George Leong makes,” he said to me like I knew. “I wonder
how many asses he’s kissed to get to where he’s at. One, probably. A big fat white ass
sitting on corporate hill. That’s one thing you can say about me, J. I don’t kiss ass.
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Despite what Mom says, I got fired because they wanted someone to blame. I didn’t kill
those cows. But they treated me like I was the goddamned heat.”
“Hey!” I jumped in the pool and pissed in it. “Guess what I’m doing?”
“George, whose ass do you kiss?” He slapped the knob, jiggled it, and then
delightfully groaned. “J! Come here! It’s open.”
The Leong’s carpet, baby blue and vacuumed, was as soft as fleece between my
damp toes. The aroma of crushed coffee beans bedded the air as we crept through the
living room. Dad lifted their Xbox, taunted me with it, and said, “They don’t even have
kids.” The house was cleaner than ours, remodeled in the places where we accrued the
most damages. Like their kitchen, bright red linoleum and black marble countertops, and
their bathrooms, two of them, nickel plated mirrors and paper white tiles. No brownish
green crud between the grout. No smudges in the toilet. Their air conditioner blasted each
room, even though nobody was home.
Dad searched through the kitchen drawers for a set of steak knives. A couple
weeks ago he stole metal tongs from their nine piece barbeque collection. “Odd number,”
he said. “They won’t know the difference.” He rummaged violently, cursing, grunting, as
if to get even with Mr. Leong who hadn’t done anything to us.
I wandered into the master bedroom. At home I didn’t venture into my parents’
room unless one of them was ill or when a huge fight exploded between them and
something was thrown. The Leong’s room was decorated in a rancid burgundy, the shade
of raspberry vomit. Everything was burgundy: wallpaper, drapes, lampshades, pillows. I
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peeked in their dresser, expecting to find burgundy undershirts and bras. But I found
nothing out of the ordinary: a few dimes and quarters (which I took), white t-shirts, boxer
briefs. Connected to the master bedroom was a small office that smelled of moldy bibles.
This office, a glorified closet, contained more books and magazines than we did in our
entire house. They had shelves of coverless law books and racks of National
Geographies. Dad hated reading. He used my school textbooks as coasters and doorstops.
Besides the literature, a black MacBook waited on a glass desk. Dad said don’t
touch anything. But, then again, we didn’t own a computer. I opened the MacBook and
its desktop, a plain burgundy background, illuminated my face. I knew something about
computers. At school I messed around in the lab, diving into the internet, looking at weird
things. Most of the time, when no one supervised me, I typed naked girls or large tits or
something of that nature in Google search. When I saw an image-swelling tits in a golden
tube top or even naked women of the Yanomamo Tribe collecting their harvest-I’d get an
immediate erection.
Sex, even though I hadn’t done it yet, had priority over my concerns. Nothing else
could compare to it and have a tighter stronghold. Dad talked about women, but never
about sex. He said that they loved when they wanted to love and good selfless ones took
lifetimes to find. But he didn’t share the juicy details, the things I wanted to know, until I
was much older. He didn’t explain why you woke up at six in the morning and that
erection, angry at you for the last eight hours, rammed through the sheets. He didn’t
mention the countless fantasies that you would have about women at inappropriate
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places, like Mom’s favorite salon or Nordstrom’s perfume department or even at Mass.
He didn’t warn you about the crushes that you might have, and that crushed feeling when
girls said you were ugly. And he definitely didn’t purvey you to pornography other than
it’s out there and waiting to be discovered.
On the Leong’s MacBook the browser was already open to several websites:
ESPN-The World Wide Leader in Sports, Aol.com-Financial Statement, Sammy’s Big
Stallion. I clicked Sammy’s Big Stallion and found a gray amateur page that contained a
single, five minute long video of a skinny girl and her massive white horse. I checked
behind me before clicking play. The Leongs seemed like normal people.
The skinny girl, wearing a straw cowboy hat and jean skirt, ran a tussled brush
against the horse’s neck. She spoke to it, saying it’s a good boy, a champion. The horse
jostled its blond head into the pillar that it was tied to, stamping its hooves onto the clay
ground and blowing heavy, white steam from its nostrils. Then a bulky man in a red plaid
shirt and ripped brown jeans entered the scene. He carried a tin bucket of green slop and
dumped it by the horse’s stable. The horse reared back. When the skinny girl went to
calm the animal, the burly man snatched her neck and shoved her to the ground. He
pointed to the horse like it had the final say about what would happen next. There was
something blank and evil about both horse and man’s gaze. With a horribly fake Texas’s
accent, the burly man said, “Our mare ran off this morning. Why don’t you get under
him?”
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Before Dad passed last July during the brink of another heat wave, the driest
season in California, I wanted to talk to him about the things that we kept to ourselves.
He caught me watching that video. I used to think that he forgot about it, considering
everything that happened to him later: the Leong’s pressing charges, the divorce, the
reluctant move to Modesto, the end-of-the-world fight on my twentieth birthday that
separated us for over a year, the cancer. But I don’t think he forgot. I think, like all the
old men before him, he didn’t know the right thing to say. If staying quiet was the best he
could do then maybe I should’ve thanked him or, at the very least, reassured him that I
knew he meant well.
The skinny girl bent underneath the horse and flexed her abs. The burly man
pulled the horse closer to her white legs. Its long erection flying side to side, then straight
upwards like a piercing sword. I pressed mute.
“Look at these stainless steel...”
“Wait!” I shouted as Dad breached the doorway. My face rushed on fire.
The video kept rolling. Muted penetration. Raw light pounding the office. Dad
tried not to drop the steak knives. He watched for a few seconds, figuring out what the
hell was going on, and then looked to me for answers.