The Trouble Begins

by Linda Himelblau

  That was funny then but now I know, walking home, that what Lin said about my dad is true. He's angry because he doesn't think I work hard enough. I'm worried that he might be really angry this time. When I get home I think I'll try to fix the railing I broke on the front porch.

  At home everything's the same so I forget to worry about my dad being angry. My grandma's sleeping. Thuy and Lin and Vuong are doing homework. I look out the window but the old man isn't spying now. He's probably opening cans of mushy American food to eat. I go outside to look for wood pieces for the railing. I mess around with some metal strips I find. I saw something called a catapult in the social studies book. I bet I could make one if I find some wood. I look in the alley. There's that gray cat I saw on the old man's wall. I wish she'd let me get close enough to pet her. She's even faster than me. She thinks I can't see her sleeping behind the trash cans.

  I go out in front. Nothing's happening in any direction. The Mexican man isn't even fixing his truck or his car. Screech, go somebody's tires. A car comes fast down the street. It's the same kind as my dad's. It is my dad's. Why's he coming home in the middle of the day? Then I remember. He's coming because of stupid Veronica. I go around in back quick. I go in the back door.

  “Where's Du?” I hear him roar in the dining room. No one answers. From the doorway I see his face. His mouth is tight like a sealed box and his eyes are burning. He sees me. I look down. He lunges around the table where the others sit frozen. I'm so scared I run from him. I run around the table. He whacks at me from behind. The others duck out of the way. He knocks over the Buddha light.

  “You bad boy! You lazy boy!” he shouts. I dive under the table. He kicks at me with his shoe but he misses me. I see my grandma's bare feet and the bottom of her black pants.

  “Han, Han,” she says softly. “He is your son.”

  The kicking stops. The room is very quiet but I still crouch under the table.

  “It's all not worth it.” His voice doesn't sound angry now that he's talking to my grandma. It sounds sad. “All the work is for nothing if the children go bad.”

  “They are not bad,” murmurs my grandma. “Du is a good worker. He is new here.”

  “He doesn't work at school.” My dad's voice is stronger now but not angry like before. “He does bad things. He is bad to the teachers. He throws away the money that we work for.”

  I look up from under the table. I can see the window. The old man spy is there, staring in, standing right in the middle of his window. He saw me running and hiding. I hate him.

  I see my dad's feet stalk out of the room. I hear the car screech away as he hurries back to work. I scramble out from under the table. Thuy and Lin and Vuong aren't quiet now. They all yell at me at once.

  “Du, look what you did now. You're nothing but trouble.”

  “You're gonna be a gang boy if you act like that.”

  “You gotta act right at school.”

  “You start your homework right now.” Lin takes a swipe at me as I go by the table but of course I get away and she's swiping the air.

  I follow my grandma into the kitchen. She shakes her head sadly. She doesn't say anything at first. Neither do I. I am ashamed to tell her about Veronica and the backpack. She hands me a bowl of soup. “We waited a long time to come here and we came a long way, Du,” she says softly.

  “I know,” I answer. I don't want to cry.

  Later I tell Vuong how the principal said I was rude when I wasn't. “In America you gotta look at someone when they yell at you,” he answers.

  “Should I look at Ba?” I ask.

  “No,” he laughs. “No, I wouldn't do that if I were you.” So the rule is: Look at angry Americans but don't look at angry Vietnamese. It's all a bunch of little stuff that doesn't matter. Americans stare at everything like that old man looking through our window. I wonder how much my dad has to pay for Veronica's stupid books and her ugly sweater. Maybe I'll make some money.

  I don't care if they go to Orange without me. Thuy says it's a town like in Vietnam but I don't remember Vietnam either. I was too little when I left. My dad says I should stay home because he has to pay for Veronica's dumb library books but I know we wouldn't all fit in the car anyway. I'd be squished between Thuy and Lin and Vuong in the back and they'd be complaining about me. My dad would yell “Quit it” even though I wasn't doing anything. My grandma's sick so she needs to stay home anyway.

  My parents take off work because it's Tet-Trung-Thu. They don't have it in America. It's for Vietnamese parents who work hard—to spend time with their children. Unless the children owe money for chocolate milk–covered library books, I guess. My family is going up to Orange overnight to stay with our cousins and do all the stuff you're supposed to do for this thing. We didn't do Tet-Trung-Thu while we were waiting in the Philippines. I'll ask my grandma. It's probably all dumb stuff anyway.

  I'm not there when they go. They leave for Orange while I'm down the street watching the Mexican guy fix his truck. “Isn't that your car?” he asks when they drive by in our old Honda.

  “Yeah,” I say. I didn't think he knew anything about me. “They go to Orange for stuff with our cousins.”

  “What about you?” He looks at me.

  “I'm taking care of my grandma.” I watch while he scoots under the car.

  “Hand me that wrench,” he calls from under the car. Wrench? I don't want to ask him what that is. I hand him one of the tools. “Here, hold on to this.” I reach down through the pipes. “See this thing?” he says. “Stick the wrench here and hold on tight.”

  I help him a long time. I remember my grandma when shadows come over the yard. “Gotta go. Bye,” I say. I crawl out from under the car. I have black hands. My shirt has big smears of grease like my arms.

  “Just you and that old lady with the hat?” he calls.

  “Yeah, just us.” I hurry home.

  I run into the kitchen, where my grandma is making a cake for Tet-Trung-Thu. When she looks up and sees my shirt and hands she cries out, “Du, you wash.” She says it crabby but I know she doesn't mean it. I scrub hard to get most of the grease off. My shirt stays dirty.

  I know cooking's for girls but I like to break eggs and mix things and taste things. My grandma shows me how to break the eggs and pull the shells apart with only one hand. The other hand keeps mixing. I mess up at first so we eat scrambled eggs. Then we boil eggs and I eat the white part. The hard yolk we drop whole into the cake batter. We're making moon cake. The egg yolk looks like a moon when you slice it and you're lucky if you get it. They're probably having storebought moon cake up in Orange. Those cakes aren't as good and they're not as lucky either.

  We're waiting for the cake to cook so we make the lanterns. My grandma says that the lanterns show how bright the children are. For me, she says, we better make two extrabright ones. We don't have any bamboo but I find some sticks outside. We fold brown paper bags from the market in half and cut the slits for the light to shine through. My grandma shows me how to paste the sticks inside along the edges to make the lanterns strong. I use Lin's markers to make star and diamond designs on them while my grandma makes gold and green tissue paper strips from paper that came wrapped around fruit. We hang a candle holder from the sticks at the top. The candle has to be short or the lantern will burn up. They probably use flashlights up in Orange so they're safe, only one per kid.

  My grandma tells me the story of the carp swimming in the muddy river who wanted to be a dragon ruling the earth so he worked and he worked and he studied and after a long time he was a dragon. I know why they tell this story. So kids'll work hard. It sounds so easy. I tell my grandma I'm already a dragon. She laughs and nods. “You are, you are,” she says. We always talk in Vietnamese. The lanterns are finished. We eat the moon cake still warm. My grandma goes to take a nap.

  Later in the dark we take the lanterns outside. We light both of them at once. I start leaping around with them so the shadows dance all around me. My grandma watches fro
m the steps. I bet that old man's watching from his window. He thinks I'm crazy. He thinks I'm going to burn the yard up, and both our houses. I jump higher. I act crazier just for him.

  I'm sitting on the front steps. I see two guys from my school ride by on bikes. I yell but they don't stop. I don't think they heard me. I wonder where they go. I see my dad's car down the street coming back from Orange. He stops in the street. My mom and Thuy and Lin and Vuong get out. My dad drives off. The others come up the walk and into the house with their bags. They walk slowly like me when I go to my dumb kids' reading group. Vuong sits down at the worktable with his books. He's the best one to ask about things.

  “Where'd Ba go?” I ask. My dad didn't even wave, he was in such a hurry to go.

  Vuong shrugs. “He's all worried about missing work. Ma had to give lots of money to her sister for her uncle's medicine. We all sat around and did a bunch of corny stuff with lanterns. I had to sleep in the car because it was too crowded in the house. It took hours to get back and the car started to smoke.” Vuong looks at me like he is daring me to laugh. I want to tell him how we made delicious sweet cake and I got the lucky moon and how I danced like a crazy guy until the lanterns burned up and I had to jump up and down on them to keep the weeds from burning. I don't because I feel bad about the money again.

  My mom comes to the doorway. “Vuong, you come with me,” she orders. She's yanking a comb through her hair with one hand and buttoning her coat with the other. “They've got extra work tonight.”

  “I'm not sewing!” Vuong almost shouts at her. “Sewing's for girls. Make Thuy and Lin go.”

  “They've got too much studying,” answers my mom. She gives up easier than my dad. She looks sad now.

  “Me too,” says Vuong.

  Money! I think. I could make money to pay for Veronica's stuff. “I'll go!” I jump up.

  “You can't do it. You're too young.” A car honks outside. It's her ride. She turns to leave.

  “I can, I can. Ask grandma.” I run after her.

  “Oh, come,” she says as she opens the door. She stops to look right into my eyes. “You be good, Du. No tricks or you'll be sorry.” I nod because I know I'll be good. I'll make enough money to pay for the library books and her uncle's medicine.

  I am in the car with five women all talking Vietnamese at once. I am crouched on the floor so the police won't stop us for the seat belt law. I am squished. It is a long trip.

  We finally get to the sewing place, which is in somebody's big garage. Sewing machines and chairs are shoved together in crooked rows with boxes of cloth at the front of the rows. Women are already working. My mom sits me down at a machine and leans over me to show me fast how to sew. I pay attention. I'm helping to make Christmas stockings with just two lines of sewing, up one side and down the other. Then I give them to the lady behind me to do something else. We get paid for how many we finish. My mom hurries off to talk to the lady in charge so I start to do what she showed me. She sits down across the room in another row of machines. When I press the the pedal the machine taps its way down one side of the stocking. It's fun. All I can hear are sewing machines and women speaking Vietnamese. It's easy.

  “No good!” yells the lady behind me. She throws the red stocking at my head. “He's no good for this.”

  My mom runs over. “Sorry, sorry.” She bows to the lady. She looks at the bad stocking. She shows me how it's wrong. She leans across me to do a stocking on my machine. “There,” she says. “Like that.” As she straightens up I see her eyes. They plead with me. I bend my head close to watch the line on my next stocking. I make it straight.

  I do ten stockings, twenty, fifty. It's not fun. It's boring, boring. My neck feels stiff and crooked. I glance ahead of me. There are boxes of stockings taller than me at the start of the line. I remember my mom's eyes. I sew more lines and I watch each one closely. I will not let that lady behind me yell again.

  I look up later and only one box is gone. I quit looking. Now my neck and my shoulders have little prickles of pain in them but I stop thinking about it. I watch the lines of stitches across the red cloth. Over and over again. Once my mom comes over to show me how to replace the thread that comes up from the bottom. After that I do it myself. The boxes empty so slowly.

  Women stand up around me. They talk quietly now. I let myself look up. All the piles of boxes from the front of the line are gone. I am so tired. We close the machines and leave.

  Everyone in the car is quiet now so I fall asleep on the floor. My mom wakes me up when we're at our house. It's very dark. “Come,” she says. She pulls me out of the car. I am still almost asleep. “You are a good boy,” she whispers as we let ourselves into the quiet house. “A good worker.” I fall down on the couch in my clothes and go back to sleep.

  I don't sleep very long before my dad shakes me awake. “Get up,” he commands. “We gotta go.” With my dad I don't ask. I get up. I stagger out the door after him and get in the car. I am asleep before he reaches the end of our block. I don't know where we're going.

  When he shakes me again it is just beginning to be light. Where are we? I'm so tired. I drag after him across a street. I wait almost sleeping on my feet while he talks to a man. We get in a different car and drive away. “We'll get home in time for school,” he says. I fall asleep.

  This time when I feel the car stopping I wake myself up. We are home. “Hurry up, lazy boy,” my dad says as he rushes ahead of me into the house. Inside, when I look at the clock, I know school has already started. I grab my backpack before I head for the door.

  My mom comes out of the bedroom like she just woke up. My grandma comes from the kitchen. “Where have you been with him?” my mom asks. She sounds worried.

  “I heard about a better car for us from Van. I wanted to get it fast so I took Du.” He took me so he could drive in the diamond lane. He needs two people to drive there. “He's a lazy boy. He just sleeps,” adds my dad scornfully. My mom and grandma both talk at once. My mom tells him how I sewed as good as anyone with all of us working until two in the morning. She tells him I made money. My dad was gone when we went to sew so he didn't even know I went with her. Her voice is high and loud.

  He stands quiet for a few moments before he starts to laugh. “So not such a lazy boy,” he laughs. “I'll drive you to school.” I've never been driven to school. “I'll tell your teacher why you're late.”

  “He eats first.” Now it is my grandma's turn with her soft voice. She gives me rice and vegetables. I eat fast standing up.

  My dad mutters “lazy boy” and laughs some more when he drives me to school. But I know he is laughing at himself, not me.

  He walks with me to my class. Mrs. Dorfman looks up when we are standing in the door. Her mouth is tight like she ate a lemon. “Yes?” she says. The class is quiet because they want to hear what's happening.

  “Du late. He has work to do for his family. Important work.” I don't know the right English but I know how he says it is not right. I look down. I wait for the snickers of laughter. I clench my fist. “School is important,” he says. “Du not late again.” He walks across the class to Mrs. Dorfman's desk. I look up. He is smiling. He does not bow. He holds out his hand like an American. She struggles quickly out of her chair to shake his hand. She is smiling. The class is quiet. In one minute they know they can't laugh at my dad. There is something important about him even with his bad English. Mrs. Dorfman doesn't say “Go to the office.” She smiles and nods politely as he leaves. “Du, we're on page twenty-two in spelling,” she says kindly. I sit down. I'm still tired but I'm happy. I'm a kid who does important stuff for his family.

  The next morning I ask my mom if I can sew again. She looks quickly over at my grandma. “You were very good, Du. You learned so quickly and you kept up with everybody,” she answers. “But you are too young. It is better for you to do your schoolwork.” My grandma smiles a little smile at the stove.

  The Trap

  There are ghosts in America too.
I'm trying to sleep but I can hear them outside in the dark, moaning and yowling. My grandma tells me stories about ghosts in Vietnam but Thuy and Lin and Vuong laugh. They say there aren't any ghosts in America. The reading teacher read a story about a ghost at school. In the picture it looked like a little kid with a sheet on and big eyes and it didn't do anything bad but it was a ghost. The kind that are outside making all that noise sound more like the ones in Vietnam. The ghosts there come for revenge because something bad happened when they died. I can't sleep. I wonder if anyone else can hear them. I wonder if they ever come inside.

  That's a car door slamming. The ghosts stop moaning. It's very quiet. Footsteps on the front porch stairs. For a moment I'm scared. Stupid me. My mom is coming home from work. “Hi,” I say when she opens the door.

  “Why are you awake?” she grumbles like she's mad but I know she isn't. She doesn't sleep so good either. Sometimes we meet each other walking around the house in the dark. Thuy says she's thinking about her family left behind in Vietnam. I'm just thinking about all kinds of stuff.

  “Do you hear anything?” I ask. I don't want to say ghosts because I don't want her to know I'm afraid. I think she believes in ghosts too, at least in Vietnam. She sits on the end of the couch. She holds my foot through the blanket while we listen.

  “There,” I whisper. The moaning has started again. I feel her hand grip tighter. We scarcely breathe, listening.

  She shakes my foot. I hear a smile in her voice. “It's just cats,” she whispers. “There's a cat outside with some boyfriends.” I laugh but very quietly.

  “I've seen the cat on the wall,” I say. “She's big and gray and from the way they're yowling she's got a lot of big loud boyfriends.” I laugh at myself for being afraid of cats. That's what the darkness does to me sometimes.

  Slowly my mom gets to her feet. Ever since I went sewing with her I can feel myself how tired she is. “You go to sleep now,” she says.