Monkey Around

by Jadie Jang

  I turned to see who it was and was suddenly eyes-to-chin with … Him. All six feet and muscles hands lips eyelashes of him. The grace of a dancer, the tongue of an angel, and the talent of, well, someone girls palpitated over. Him.

  He backed up a step, surprised. I took in the full blast of him, and my eyes burned.

  “Tez Varela,” I murmured. It was almost a whisper.

  He looked at me, frowning. He’d been about to say something.

  “Hi!” he said, not quite covering the fact that he didn’t recognize me. “How are you?”

  I never forget a face or a name, but have realized over the years that most people do; and I know this tactic for what it is. I was embarrassed and piqued, which overcame my shock.

  “You don’t know me,” I said.

  “Oh.” His confusion increased slightly, evidenced by a line appearing between his perfect eyebrows.

  “I used to go to the poetry slams a lot in college.” His line disappeared; perfection restored. My fangirl came out. “You’re so amazing!”

  “Oh,” he said, looking embarrassed, “yeah, thanks … that was a while ago. … Do you write?”

  It was a blatant bid to get attention off of him. He must not be writing anymore.

  “No,” I said. “Just a fan.”

  “Oh, okay … cool. Um … is Ayo around?” If he weren’t so beautiful, I’d say he looked shifty.

  “She’s in her office. Through there.” I pointed to the door to the back office.

  He went, and I watched him go. Man did I watch him go.

  I couldn’t believe it. Tez Varela. Here.

  Tez was one of the first people I encountered when I came out to the Bay Area to go to Cal (UC Berkeley to you.) During freshman orientation there was a lunch break, and I was sitting out on a patio outside MLK (the Student Union to you) with two Instant Best Friends eating sushi (for lunch! California!) While we tried to act bored and sophisticated, a group of older students wandered into the middle of the patio looking genuinely cool, set their bags and notebooks on the tables, and then, as if it was no big thing, started freestyling. This is what I had come to Berkeley for: beautiful, cool-looking people standing around being intensely creative.

  The rhythm shifted and a boy stepped forward: such a boy! He was tall and muscular and lean, and moved like a stalking lion. Unlike the others, he didn’t twitch his hands, but raised and lowered them slowly, as if he was stroking someone, or sharpening his claws. And his voice! He didn’t seem to have a speaking voice, only a series of purrs, growls, and cries. He could improvise and perform with every part of his body, simultaneously. He switched seamlessly back and forth from English to Spanish, rhyming in both together, and I was so dazzled by this feat, and by his heavy-lidded eyes and perfect mouth, that I could barely pay attention to the sense of what he was saying: something brilliant, angry, and funny about wage slavery.

  The little performance ended abruptly, and the group passed out flyers for an open mic night off-campus. I was scared to leave campus my first week, and couldn’t get anyone to go with me, but I went anyway for a glimpse of him. From that moment until the beginning of my junior year, my head was full of Tez Varela. For two years I went to every open mic, reading, and poetry slam I could find. And when I got involved with Asian American student organizing and saw that he performed at protests, too, it was like a sign from god that activism was the right path for me.

  The crush I had was so all-encompassing, it could almost have been called love, if I had ever gotten to know him—or even, you know, talked to him. But I didn’t. Not once in two years. It was partly because he had such a devastatingly beautiful girlfriend. But it was also, to be honest, because my eyes burned when he performed. I’d thought, for a hot minute, that meant that he was a shapeshifter. I could tell when someone was being deceptive—lying, or hiding their true shape—because my eyes flared when I saw them. It took me a minute to notice that all the other slam poets—and musicians, and actors, and writers, and dancers, etc.—that I saw performing also made my eyes burn. All artists, it turned out, are being deceptive when they produce or perform arts. They’re creating worlds that don’t exist and convincing you that they do exist. It’s a kind of magic.

  I followed him for a few weeks, thinking he was just like me, and then, when the true realization hit, I was so devastated—and embarrassed—that I couldn’t bring myself to approach him. And so it stayed.

  He was two years ahead of me, so he had graduated by the time I came back for my junior year. After he disappeared from my life I had a couple of starter boyfriends, and eventually, I stopped thinking about him. But it was like he’d been hovering back there, just out of sight. The Platonic ideal of a man, once again made flesh.

  After half an hour in Ayo’s office he came back out, Ayo following him. She gestured to me.

  “Maya MacQueen, this is Tez Varela,” she said.

  “We’ve met,” I said. My eyes flared again, and he saw it.

  “Hi … Maya?” he said, looking a little discomforted.

  “Maya,” Ayo barreled on, “Tez needs some help and I think you can provide it.”

  Tez looked even more uncomfortable. “I’d really rather you—”

  “Maya has my complete confidence,” Ayo said. “And you already know, Tez, that this isn’t really a human issue. I try to keep the balance between us, but there’s only so much I can do.” And she walked away, abruptly, as if to underline this. Yeah, whatever. Ayo thought she was god, so this was a piece of nonsense. Wait— did that mean … ?

  Tez looked doubtfully at me. I had to take the bull by the horns.

  “How can I help you?” I asked, chin up, radiating confidence.

  “You’ll have to discuss it outside of work,” Ayo called across the room. “This’ll be an extra gig. Usual rate.”

  “Why don’t we meet tonight?” I said to Tez, completely forgetting the million other things I needed to do tonight. “Where do you live?”

  “In the City,” he said reluctantly.

  “Me too. Whereabouts?”

  “Mission.”

  “Perfect. Let’s get a drink at Zeitgeist tonight at 9:30. That work for you?”

  “Uh … sure.” He still looked doubtful. My monkey brain knew how to handle that.

  I became him, just long enough to say, in that delicious voice, “Good. See you then.” Then I turned back into myself.

  He jumped back a foot, like a cat hearing a gunshot. His sleepy eyes were completely round.

  I left him standing with his mouth open, and went to bus the tables, pretending to ignore him. But all I could think about was: 1) the fact that he was standing behind me, in my cafe, and 2) he’d made my eyes flare, even when he wasn’t performing. Ayo’s informative little speech clinched it: he wasn’t human.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Wednesday, October 12, 2011

  Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland

  After my shift ended at six, I headed to Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza—where the Occupy encampment was—for the magazine meeting.

  Inscrutable (tagline: Asian by Occident)—now a national glossy magazine of Asian American news and culture—had started as a project of the Berkeley Asian American Students Association where my best friend Baby Aquino and I had met. But we’d made something to be proud of with it, and, after graduation, we’d decided to take it with us out into the real world. We’d been making slow—but steady—progress ever since.

  The magazine staff usually met at Kearny Street Workshop’s gallery, but I’d changed our meeting location that night to a Vietnamese restaurant on Ogawa/Grant Plaza. There’s always a sort of membrane in the middle of the bay between the city and Oakland that San Franciscans are very reluctant to breach. None of the staff had been to Occupy yet, but knowing my folks, once I’d gotten them down here to the encampment, they’d find it much easier to make their way back.

  An empty chair at the head of the long table—cobbled together from a number of smaller tables—wor
e Editor-in-Chief Baby’s perennial cute red hoodie, waiting for her to get back from another of her endless phone calls. Mari Hashimoto, the Publisher, in her usual self-deprecating way, sat next to her, her baby blue sweater hiding some wicked tattoos. Mari, Baby, and I were the only three founders/college friends left at the mag.

  Our CFO Salli Wu, a bunch of tech people, various editors and designers, and “business” folks (all entry-level marketing people professionally, and all world-class partiers) faced off down the length of the table. Salli, a recent recruit, was a coup: a freelance accountant a touch older than the rest of us, and more professional. She was also my Chinatown contact: she consulted with the Hung For Tong’s legitimate businesses on financial and accounting stuff.

  Today Salli, per usual, was looking like the Halloween “sexy costume” version of a corporate warrior in her red-slash lipstick, slightly too tight pencil-skirt (revealing a rare Asian bootyliciousness,) and spike heels. She unbuttoned her suit jacket and put it on the back of her chair without getting up, accidentally (or maybe not) loosening the button holding her silk blouse closed over her breasts. I caught a glimpse of a lacy black bra before I averted my eyes. Anyway. That was Salli.

  And grouped around the other end of the table sat Romeo, Han, and Todd, our arts editors. They were always together, and they were also a band. But unlike most other guy-friend-group bands, they were good: individually they were great, but together, they were magic, one of those rare instances where the group transformation created something that was genuinely greater than the sum of its parts. They made my eyes flare, hard, even when they weren’t playing. I called them “Cerberus” behind their backs.

  I stopped inside the restaurant entrance to survey the scene, figure out where to sit, and feel a flush of pride and camaraderie: this was my tribe. As a group, they were one of the faces that the spirit of the Bay Area turned toward me, and I loved them fiercely.

  Baby sat down, the waitress left with our orders, and Mari spoke the ritual: “Shall we begin?”

  We sped through financial and fundraising reports—which I mostly ignored—and chả giò, barely slowed down for marketing and subscriptions and bánh xèo, before we finally turned to the main course—and editorial. I underlined the importance of the magazine supporting Occupy and got everyone on board with a public statement. Then we got down to the nitty-gritty.

  “Why do we suck so much at coming up with features?” Baby asked, after a fruitless half hour. “Holy-moly, do we have holes! We need one feature for fifteen, and a feature and two featurettes for sixteen.”

  For some reason, I was looking over at Cerberus as she said this, and at the same moment, Todd lifted his head and looked directly at me for a moment before looking down again. My eyes flashed, and it seemed … it seemed that it had to do with him only, and not with all three. WTH?

  “Actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while,” I said, as if in a dream. I had no idea what I was about to say, but then blurted out: “Shapeshifters.”

  Whatever instinct I was going on seemed to be correct. Todd’s head came up again and he looked at me piercingly.

  “What about ‘em?” Todd asked, a little too forcefully. It was the first time I’d ever seen him being forceful. First time I’d ever seen him being individual.

  “Well,” I said, thinking furiously, “you know we’ve been talking about wanting to do stuff on identity that isn’t Ethnic Studies 101? I know we don’t focus on Asian cultures at all, but I think it would be fascinating to look at how Asian cultures view losing your identity to western cultures. In anime and manga, I mean. Through physical transformations. Shapechangers, cyborgs, that kind of thing. Why are these hybrids so popular both in Asia and the West?”

  Baby started looking interested. “Huh, a creature-feature. I like that. Would you want to write it or edit it?”

  “Edit,” I said, “I don’t really know much about anime. I was thinking maybe Todd could pick it up. Todd?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Well, I’ll talk to you about it, offline. But I’m not sure I’m really clear on what you’re looking for.”

  “Great! We’ll schedule after the meeting.” And I closed my laptop with a thump before I could “instinct” myself into any more trouble. “And don’t forget, the general assembly is happening right now just outside, so jump in if you feel up to it.”

  We spent the requisite quarter hour splitting the check (we were journalism Asians, not math Asians,) and I had to hold myself back from eating more than three of the orange slices the Chinese-Vietnamese restaurant owners gave us gratis. Then I ran to grab Salli as she was walking out the door.

  She checked her teeth for lipstick, then gave me her thousand-watt, politician’s smile (I’d said the moment I met her that she would be a City Supervisor one day) and we headed out together: she was still inches shorter than I, even slinking around on those heels.

  “Hey, Salli. You were at KSW last night, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, of course! It was the APAture comedy night,” she said. “Prime networking. Where were you?” She smiled to take the sting off.

  “Here, remember?” I pointed the crown of my head at the encampment. “Hey, listen, you remember Wayland?” Salli had been the staffer I’d met Wayland with.

  “Wayland Soh? Yeah, he was there last night, as promised. And guess what? He agreed to sponsor APAture next year! Score one for synergy!” She paused for my congratulations. I felt a little sick. APAture was KSW’s annual emerging Asian American artists festival, and the event where I interned a few years ago. It’s the place that really made me feel like I’d found my community, but the org had been having serious money problems, and getting a business sponsorship was really important to keeping it afloat.

  “Why?” Salli asked, concerned at my silence.

  “Oh. Uh, my boss is connected to his family. He, uh, he died last night, and the circumstances were a little suspicious.”

  “Oh my god! Oh shit!” she cried, in rapid succession. I think the “Oh my god” was for Wayland, and the “Oh shit” was for the sponsorship.

  “Do you happen to know if he left KSW after the event?” I asked.

  “What do you mean ‘if’? … I assume he went home or something …”

  “Um …” Wow, this was awkward. “Actually, his body was found just outside.”

  “Oh my god! What happened?”

  “So you didn’t see him leave? Or see him with anyone?”

  “No! No … I mean I was the last to leave ‘cause I was locking up, and I saw him outside talking on his phone. We waved goodbye but I was carpooling with someone else and Wayland had his own car. Did he … was he … Should I be talking to the police about this?”

  “Oh, no. No, the police think it’s a heart attack. It’s his family that is suspicious.”

  “So … is there a reason to think it was … foul play?”

  “Oh no, no, not at all. … Did you know him well?”

  “No, hardly at all. I networked him same as you at that thing last week. I mean, I’d seen him before, but I’m not sure we’d ever been actually introduced. Knew him by reputation.”

  “And what was his reputation? Did he have any enemies?”

  Salli looked worried again. “Um, he was well respected. I never heard anything bad of him. I wouldn’t know about enemies; his family should know that better than me. What’s this really about, Maya?”

  “It’s probably nothing. I just said I’d ask and now I have. I think they were just shocked that he’d have a heart attack on the street with no one around to help him.”

  “Oh, that poor guy. I wish … I wish I could’ve known …”

  “Yeah, it’s so sad … Hey, Salli?”

  “Hm?”

  “You have some connections with the Hung For Tong, right?” I knew she did. She’d hooked us up with a source for an Asian gang story we’d done two issues ago. It was how we recruited her.

  The sweet, volunteer accoun
tant Salli vanished and was replaced by the warier, clear-eyed femme fatale who’d survived Chinatown’s housing projects. I’d only seen this Salli once before.

  “Why you ask, Maya?” Jeez, even her Chinatown accent was peeking out.

  “Was Wayland involved with the Tong?”

  “Oh, they think it’s gang-related?”

  “No, just asking.”

  “No, he wasn’t … not really. I mean, he had to make nice, and they probably smoothed the way for some of his deals … for a consideration, you know.” She rubbed her thumb against her first two fingers. “That’s probably why I’d seen him around. I heard that he headed up some sort of secret benevolent society that might’ve done business with them. But I wouldn’t know the details of stuff like that.”

  Most of that was true, but my eyes flashed deceit at her last sentence. WTF? How would Salli know the details of the Tong’s bribery and smuggling deals? I knew exactly what that “secret benevolent society” was, though—the werecats’ association—and was shockingly discomfited at the thought that Salli might, too.

  “Do you know who Dalisay is?”

  She frowned. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

  “She’s a middle aged Filipina, lives in Daly City. She has some business dealings with Bountiful.”

  “Oh, her. Yeah, I think I’ve met her once or twice. Screechy voice?” She really had met her. This gave me pause.

  “Were you involved in any of her business?” I asked. I couldn’t believe that Salli—

  “Oh, no,” she said, smiling ruefully. “That’s a different vertical.” My eyes flared at that. Wow, catching Salli in a lie. And a lie like that! What was she doing? Cooking the books for Bountiful? Helping them launder the Tong’s money? And did she know what Dalisay was? OMG, did Salli know?

  “Well, Ayo’s a friend of her family’s, too, and she’s been missing for two, no, three days now. The last place they can trace her to is Bountiful’s offices on Saturday night. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”