“Remember when we saw all his movies at the Great Star Theater?” he asked, opening the fridge to retrieve a carton of Tropicana.
“Oh yeah,” Lindsey replied. She reached out to accept a Bruce Lee mug filled with low-pulp juice.
“Yeah, those are the masterpieces of kung fu cinema. I own all those films now,” he said proudly, gesturing to a stack of videos piled in the living room. He retrieved one of them and said, “Remember seeing this one? It’s really hard to get. I got a bootleg copy from a friend in New York.”
Lindsey really couldn’t have cared less, but she nodded politely. She sat on a couch she recognized as a castoff from Auntie Vivien’s house and surveyed the bachelor pad full of electronic equipment, Japanese animé videos, and, of course, more Bruce memorabilia. She was most impressed by a cubist painting of Bruce attacking Darth Vader with a flying kick to the neck, the light saber falling into a spiral galaxy.
Brandon noticed her admiring the painting. “Nice, huh?” he grunted.
“Yeah, what a postmodern pastiche,” she replied.
Brandon scrunched up his face. He stared at her scornfully for a while, then finally blurted out, “So Kevin says you’re a dairy queen.”
“What?” she said, distracted by the sight of a Bruce doll riding piggyback on a storm-trooper model from The Empire Strikes Back.
“Yeah. Says you only like white guys. What’s up with that?” He pulled a cigarette out of nowhere and lit it. He blew smoke in her face and waited for her to say something.
She thought about Michael for a second, and then said, “I don’t like anyone right now.” She sprung off the sofa and went to the kitchen to place her mug in the sink.
But Brandon didn’t let her off that easily. He followed her to continue his questioning.
“Yeah, well, if you did like someone, he’d be white, huh?” He cornered her by the Fruit Loops.
“Um, I dunno. What do you care?” She crossed her arms.
“Hey, man, don’t give away any Chinese secrets.”
“What secrets? Ancient Chinese secret, huh?” she laughed.
Brandon scowled. “No man, it’s real. Bruce Lee was teaching white guys the Chinese killing techniques, so the Chinese mafia had him assassinated.”
She leaned against the tile counter. “How?”
“I dunno, poisoned him, man. He dropped dead, without any trace of evidence. The Chinese mafia really knows how to kill someone. Professional hit, y’know.”
“So you’re saying I’m gonna get snuffed by the Chinese mafia for dating a white guy?”
“I’m saying you better watch yourself. You don’t know what those Big Noses want.”
“Well, I’ll be careful,” she said. She picked her sweater up off the couch and turned to leave, but Brandon grabbed her arm.
She yanked back her wrist. “This little one’s not worth the effort,” she said. “Come, let me get you something.”
Brandon immediately recognized her words as dialogue from the Star Wars cantina scene. Any vague reference to the science fiction blockbuster usually had a pacifying effect on him.
“Okay,” he said, appeased. “Drive carefully, k?” He lightly punched her on the shoulder and walked her to the door.
Back in her car, Lindsey reminded herself to generally avoid any future conversations with Brandon. As she drove, she recalled the days when they were kids.
About fifteen years earlier, Lindsey, Brandon, and Kevin had spent many afternoons together in a dark movie house in Chinatown, the Great Star Theater on Jackson Street. They were supposed to have been at St. Mary’s Chinese School with their inkbrushes and string-bound paper booklets, practicing their calligraphy. Instead, they’d studied Bruce Lee.
Enter the Dragon. Fists of Fury. The Chinese Connection. Kevin and Brandon had been crazy over these martial arts movies. They begrudgingly allowed Lindsey to tag along because they couldn’t have risked leaving her to purposely or accidentally rat them out.
Each weekday after regular grammar school, a handful of Chinese kids had all had exactly forty-five minutes to get from Franklin and Broadway to the corner of Stockton and Clay for classes in Chinese language, writing, and history. After sitting all day in a third-or fifth-grade classroom, the last thing they’d wanted to do was take the bus across town to sit and learn something else for another three hours.
They would arrive at the corner where St. Mary’s stood with gothic black walls and a gulag gate. But instead of descending the cold, concrete steps to Chinese school, they would head across the street to the friendly cafe that sold thin-crust slices of cheese pizza and twenty-five-cent lime slushes.
The Great Star Theater was a short walking distance from the school. Once inside, the threesome would hunch down in a dark row of seats to avoid being quizzed about their truancy. Every once in a while, an old man who worked there would discover them and question them in Chinese. None of them had understood a word he’d said.
The boys had sat enthralled at the fantastic acrobatics and kung fu mastery. While Kevin and Brandon had studied each kick, each twirling of nunchuks, and the various types of blows that could be inflicted with a bamboo stick, Lindsey had eventually gotten bored. With lots of change in her school uniform pocket, she would wander through the lobby and peruse the vending machines.
She’d quickly become addicted to the cups of “chicken soup.” She liked to watch the paper cup fall onto a platform behind a plastic, sliding window. A steady stream of hot water would dissolve a hefty bouillon cube, and the resulting broth had been filled with monosodium glutamate, which had made her see tiny white spots like pretty snowflakes. The salty liquid had tasted just like chicken.
But the vending machine with the tiny Hello Kitty toys had been the real attraction. Here in the private darkness of the movie house, where no white friends could see her, she had spent all her nickels and dimes in pursuit of plastic rings, sparkly necklaces, and puffy stickers. With the complete concentration of a veteran safecracker, eight-year-old Lindsey would carefully crank the silver handle with her sticky little hand and listened to the clicks. She’d watch as the plastic bubbles in the red case jiggled slightly with each turn, until one slid down the chute and stopped on the other side of the square hatch. When she’d flipped open the metal door, untold Kitty treasures had awaited her.
Between acquisitions, she’d fueled up with additional cups of the chicken-flavored drink of champions. She’d gulped the fluorescent yellow broth like an athlete chugging Gatorade.
Theater patrons would look out for her welfare but would occasionally startle her when they would speak to her. “Leyeng neurr, gong tong wah?” they would say, asking her if she spoke Chinese.
If she had actually been sitting in her Chinese language class, perhaps she would have known how to answer them, but instead she’d always run back to her seat and watched the rest of the kung fu action.
She had recently viewed some of the same martial arts movies on late-night cable and had been surprised to find that none of them contained snow scenes. She distinctly remembered seeing blizzards in those films, but eventually she realized all those white spots must have been MSG-induced delusions.
The next day after work Lindsey headed toward the On Lok senior center to drop off Uncle Bill’s medication. Her mom had told her to give the pills to a woman named Barbara, so Lindsey asked for her and loitered in the foyer.
As Lindsey waited she flipped through some magazines and newspapers that were messily strewn atop a low table. She flipped over an Asian Week and the previous day’s newspaper, and then her eyes settled on a free publication that highlighted trends in antiques collecting. She scanned the front page.
The cover story was about those trinkety little dolls with wobbly heads called “nodders.” Lindsey had seen the ones in the likenesses of sports figures like Joe Montana and Barry Bonds and was surprised to read that the springy-headed tchotchkes originated in China. According to the article, they had first been made of a kind of papier-mâché and had
depicted Chinese figures.
She looked up just as a woman in a floral smock approached.
“Are you Barbara?” Lindsey asked.
“Yes, I am. I’ll take those.”
Lindsey handed over the vial of pills, and as Barbara inspected the typing on the label, Lindsey rocked on her heels, trying to think of something to say.
Barbara looked up and smiled warmly. “You want to see him?”
Lindsey was thinking of the Bruce Lee nodder she had spied at Brandon’s apartment. She was confused for a moment. “See who?” she asked.
The attendant smiled patiently and Lindsey said, “Oh, you mean…my uncle?”
Barbara nodded. “He doesn’t have too many visitors. He would probably like to see a familiar face.” She began to walk ahead of Lindsey, leading the way toward Bill’s room. Lindsey stumbled as she ran to catch up. In protest she tried to explain, “Um, I’m not a familiar face. He’s not even my real uncle, I mean, he probably won’t know who I am…”
Barbara came to a door and opened it after a quick two-knuckled knock.
“Someone’s here to see you, Mr. Gin,” she said and soon disappeared, shutting the door behind her with Lindsey inside.
Lindsey stood by the upright scale in the corner and felt a sudden panic at being left alone with the elderly man. He sat on a vinyl armchair in his light blue pajamas and dark blue robe and stared at Lindsey. She hadn’t even said hello to him weeks ago at the family association dinner, and she wondered if he recognized her at all. Jeopardy was playing on the television that was mounted over the mechanical mattress with stainless steel sidebars.
“Hi, Uncle Bill,” she said, still ten feet away.
He smiled, but she could tell that he couldn’t see her with his bad eyes.
“Come closer, closer,” he said, stretching out his arm and moving his hand in an upside-down waving motion, like he was agitating bathwater.
Lindsey approached him and awkwardly squatted down by the side of his chair. She was a little put off by the smell of Vicks VapoRub, but she placed her hand on Uncle Bill’s arm. “How are you?” she asked.
Uncle Bill reached over with his opposite hand and placed it atop hers. The scaly dryness of his palm pressed tightly against her younger skin, and he leaned his face close to hers.
“Siu siu, tschow gerk?” he said, and for a split second Lindsey thought she saw a flash in his cloudy eyes. She smiled, realizing that yes, he did recognize her, but then it dawned on her that the first thought that came to his mind was her stinky malformed foot!
Despite her chagrin, she was pleased to suddenly hear the little nickname that she thought only Pau Pau knew. Even though it meant that someone else was privy to her midget secret, hearing the old man address her as such created an instant connection between them that soothed her uneasiness.
“I know you,” he said. “You eat…lots of rice candy!” A bit of spittle sprayed Lindsey’s face as Uncle Bill laughed jovially and patted her hand over and over.
“You know,” he said, “your grandpa and me…long time ago we live in big house. My uncle who came over before us was cook there. We live in servant room and tiptoe on floors, genuine marble. We run outside and play tiddledywink.” He pronounced this last word very carefully, then continued, “Your grandpa always dream of being president. ‘How can you be president?’ I say, but he learn Pledge Allegiance himself. This on top of regular lesson. Uncle Chang make us learn Chinese Five Classic, Confucius, and Tao Te Ching. Wrote essay and learn many dialect, too. He say learning Chinese will not rot our gut!” The old man laughed and laughed and continued to slap the top of Lindsey’s hand.
“We have only two things left from China. One was old bowl like octagon shape. Other one was cricket in bamboo cage. When it die, your grandpa caught new American cricket to take place,” he said. “Which you think smarter, Chinese cricket or U.S. cricket?”
Lindsey felt uncomfortable. “I don’t know…” she said, trying to gently dislodge her fingers from underneath his, but he clasped her hand tighter.
“I remember when Chinese not safe outside Chinatown. Cross Broadway, you get beat up!” He gazed so intently at Lindsey now that she dared not wriggle away from his grasp. His shaky grip conveyed a sense of desperation that worried, almost frightened, her.
She nodded as he talked excitedly. “There were horse-drawn carriages…how you say? Cly-dale horses, and cars too, sure, sure.” For no reason, he suddenly began to shout. “And whole table of food! Deliver right to your door, with tray and table, waiter carry on his head, no kidding! When done, just leave outside, hai la…”
Uncle Bill quieted down, patting Lindsey’s fingers less vigorously. He lay his palm across her wrist and rested that way for a few seconds. Slowly she inched her hand off his forearm and slipped it into the pocket of her jean jacket.
“I have to go now, Uncle Bill,” she said, slowly straightening out of her crouch and standing upright.
The old man nodded and stared up to the television although he probably couldn’t even see it. “Okay, okay, things to do. I understand,” he said.
Lindsey felt wrong just abandoning him there all alone. But she also could not imagine staying. She didn’t think she had anything more to say and didn’t have the nerve to stay longer. Besides, she was late to meet Mimi.
“Bye,” she said, backing out of the room and quietly shutting the heavy door behind her. Her boots squeaked as she walked down the hall toward the exit. She waved to Barbara, then stepped out into the fresh air. She sighed and buttoned up her jacket, then walked to the corner to catch the bus.
That week at work Lindsey started to slowly drive herself insane with her imagined thoughts of Michael Cartier’s life. When people called for him, she tried to glean information from the subtle nuances of the way they spoke. She tried to figure out if they were friends, or even—yipes—lovers. She began to think it was her responsibility to be his personal screener, and when a caller identified herself as a salesperson or telemarketer, she’d refuse to put the call through and felt that she had valiantly saved Michael from a terrible inconvenience. She had memorized his extension number, 979, and tried to decipher meaning in the digits. 2979 happened to be her street address, so wasn’t that proof of some cosmic connection?
She particularly noticed if the people who called Michael were female. Anytime a Lisa, Julie, or Jennifer called, she practically fell into a panic. She was relieved when they identified themselves as a copy editor, an affiliate from the travel bureau, or any other mundane, work-related professional.
It was the unqualified female voices that started to drive her crazy. If someone said, “This is Mary calling for Michael,” Lindsey turned into a three-headed dog guarding her crush with ferocity. She’d gently prod for a last name or ask, “Where are you calling from, please?” And sometimes she got the most exasperating answers, like, “Just Sarah,” or “He’ll know who I am.”
Were these interlopers current love interests or romantic candidates who wanted to sink their talons into Lindsey’s enigmatic litterbug of a non-boyfriend? She had no way of knowing for sure. When she buzzed these calls through to Michael and he said “Okay,” she strained to hear any hint of affection, any wisp of emotion that might give her a clue to his life outside work.
Michael was oblivious. Maybe he would have been more revealing if he’d known Lindsey was actually interested in him. But she was often aloof, and her routine of systematically ignoring him confused even her. So she suffered silently, torturing herself with speculation about Michael’s relationship to any and all female callers.
In the early evenings after work, Lindsey walked home, dropped her keys into the green, eight-sided bowl by the rotary dial telephone in the kitchen, and usually snapped open a Crystal Geyser soda. She waited for Pau Pau to come home, or sometimes went out for walks by herself.
Every now and then, thoughts of her cousin Stephanie popped into her head. Stephanie had been the perfect daughter from day one, and
because they were close in age, Lindsey had always compared herself to her. Stephanie was slender and pretty, and as a kid, she’d actually enjoyed her piano and tap dancing lessons, which Lindsey had hated.
In high school Stephanie had been president of the Student Council and head of the Prom Committee while Lindsey had been a Goth outcast who’d gotten sent to the school psychologist for wearing black nail polish. While Lindsey had struggled to pass her remedial math classes at Berkeley, Stephanie had excelled at Stanford and had still found time to go home on the weekends to baby-sit Cammie, whom her parents had adopted from China. Now Stephanie managed to have a high-powered career while Lindsey was still a wage slave. She made more than twice Lindsey’s salary working as a talent coordinator for a local child-modeling agency. But that wasn’t all. The thing that bothered Lindsey most about Stephanie was that she was already married. Stephanie and Mike had been hitched for two years now, and in a couple of months they were expecting their first baby.
Lindsey still remembered details from their distinctly un-Chinese wedding. The bride had worn a sleek Calvin Klein sheath instead of a red cheongsam, and in place of the usual Chinatown banquet, fat-free crudités had been served in a stark, whitewashed gallery. Cammie had been the flower girl, and she’d tossed white orchids with overabundant zeal. Lindsey remembered how she had hit several guests in the head, upsetting a few comb-over hairdos on some baldies.
She remembered that the Oakland relatives had all been quite somber at the wedding. Lindsey suspected the reason why—they were trapped in a repressed holding pattern that seemed common in Chinese families. Chinese parents never volunteered information about “the birds and the bees.” Most figured girls didn’t have to worry about physical particulars or amorous finesse until after they were married, and, supposedly, boys would work things out for themselves.
Lindsey remembered her mother recounting how Pau Pau had never told her about menstruation. When Lillian Gin was in the seventh grade, she ran bleeding to the bathroom while her girlfriends cried uncontrollably, certain she was going to die. None of the girls knew why she was mysteriously bleeding. They huddled together, sobbing, until a female teacher entered the bathroom to see what all the commotion was about. She, not their mothers, explained to them the facts about their developing bodies.
The Dim Sum of All Things Page 8
