Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting!

by Sandra Tsing Loh

  And God, look at these teachers, I think, leafing through. Mrs. Dean, Mr. Tucker, Mrs. Fonner…

  Jesus. Thinking it over now, I realize my own schooling included good teachers, bad teachers, medium teachers, in-retrospect-what-we-all-realize-now-were drunk teachers, and of course, the rheumy-eyed PE/driver’s ed teacher who put his hand on all the girls’ knees when we downshifted…which was widely regarded as, if not particularly pleasant, a known rite of passage.

  I seem to recall a poetry teacher weeping under her desk (possibly drinking)? Drunk and weeping. Very appropriate if you’re teaching middle-school poetry. That’s where I would be. It’s sort of where I am now.

  In fact, I recall now, in my own educational history, many crappy teachers. Never the solid field it had initially seemed, the aircraft industry actually provided for my father quite a few professional ups and downs. As a result, our family traveled a lot, and it seemed we were always running out of money. We didn’t so much move away from places as flee, first to other cities, then to exotic countries, where my dad would score these strange little professorships (few Americans wanted to relocate so dramatically—this alone rocketed my dad to the top of the science talent heap). And so my own global education was dotted with the rare extraordinary academy amid a sea of crappy schools—for a spate my sister and I studied ballet in Sao Paolo with that crazy Brazilian with frighteningly bad hair named simply “Yolanda!” Hoop earrings, bell-bottoms!

  God. And then my father scored that brief professorship in Egypt. In Cairo, with all those bored Russian expats around, my star-struck mother was able to hire Irina, a drunk ballet mistress from the Kirov. Who tried her best to ignore Kaitlin and me while she gossiped with our mother, chain-smoked, ate little tea cakes, and complained about her bunions.

  And here is a photo of my dad holding—what? His degrees! From Caltech, Stanford, Purdue…In applied physics, applied math, metallurgy.

  He never said, “At school, white people will laugh at you because you’re part Asian.” No. He said what all Asian parents say: “At college, people will laugh at you if you major in the liberal arts.” My dad was obsessed with the great waste of time that was the liberal arts. Every bad thing in life was attributed to it.

  “You’ll starve on the street like animals if you major in the liberal arts.”

  “Forty thousand dollars they lost on a degree in the liberal arts.”

  Kids of other neighborhood families were held up as tragic examples. “Katie? The Andersons’ eldest? Thirty years old. Waitress. New York. Four-hundred-square-foot apartment. No dental insurance. She majored in…the liberal arts.”

  And so of course I went off to college to major in physics.

  I lift out the next yearbook—my Caltech one, and…

  Oh, what flutters out? A funny article I wrote about Caltech in the California Tech. That’s what I did at the great science school, wrote comedic articles.

  That was my Caltech career—bombing my tests and writing funny pieces about it for our unread student paper!

  To wit:

  Academics at Caltech are admittedly complicated.

  Consider, as one example, that beloved academic tradition, the take-home open-book INFINITE TIME EXAM—

  That’s right! Take all the time you want! Won’t really help you because, PS, Problem Number Two? It’s actually impossible. That’s right! It’s a famous impossible conundrum! Even Descartes couldn’t solve it, after working on it…for 37 years. Then he went insane. Had a fight with Foucault, bar in Lyons, few drinks, argument, duel…Funny story, we thought it would be amusing to give this unsolvable drove-Descartes-mad paradox to you freshmen…In Math 1…your very first week at Caltech!”

  But rest assured that Caltech students do learn to fight back, in this intellectual hazing process. Even the mediocre ones. I know, because I am not just one of them, I believe I’m on the short list of candidates for patron saint of those lost at Caltech. Junior year, I have been assigned as physics lab partner classmate Sekhar Chivukula, widely renowned as a genius. Of our pairing it is said: “Sekhar will do the calculations, Sandra will handle the radioactive samples.”

  Never mind—By senior year, I have developed my own law of quantum mechanics that has nothing to do with Wigner-Eckhart’s Theorem or Clebsch-Gordon Coefficients—

  No, Sandra’s Theory is: “On any Phys 106 exam involving the spin of an atom, the answer is at least 60% likely to be -1.” I don’t know why but you’d be amazed how often it works: To skip the calculations and just boldly put down -1 and then scrawl next to it an illegible snarl of curlicues that vaguely resemble any of the Greek symbols—lambda, iota, zeta, tau, ampersand—With any luck a tired Pakistani TA might just look at it, get a headache and throw you a point—!

  So now that I am graduating, I am proud to say I have a diploma entirely MADE of…partial credit. My degree is glued together, faintly pulsing with radioactivity, graded less on a curve than on a kind of wild hyperbola asymptotically approaching some imaginary actual answer…

  Ha-ha-ha. What a screw-up. The grand sum of $150,000 wasted. Good times, good times.

  And here, my own red Feynman Lectures on Physics!

  Oh, the memories this brings back!

  I myself met Feynman, when I was an undergrad, in 1979.

  We were freshmen in Page House, in a glaze from our first “INFINITE TIME” exam…which has triggered our first series of “all-nighters”—known as “borrowing from tomorrow to pay for yesterday today.” And in walked our first after-dinner guest—author of those great red Bibles: The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Richard Feynman. Feynman. We were sitting there stunned, our mouths hanging open as he spoke. And Feynman, a brilliant anecdotalist who’s used to going into a room and just killing—

  He sees us glazed freshmen for what we are, a dead audience.

  And so, to perk things up, in describing electromagnetic induction via the standard magnetic coil pulling a needle in, out, in, out…

  Feynman suddenly stops, and erupts comedically, in his thick Bronx accent: “Look at that! It’s little like f&*—!”

  And he says the word I got fired for!

  Great.

  I have had the best schooling in the world.

  And what happened? I started as an overachiever. Pushed by my parents, I earned an 800 Math SAT in high school and a perfect score on AP calculus, and then I…somehow lost it. Over the years, all my math gradually drained out of me.

  Today, at forty-two, I can barely complete a basic sudoku puzzle without garnering a massive headache. And I don’t mean the hard sudokus. Oh, I start strong, sprinting confidently out the gate with my No. 2 pencil, smugly filling in all those little boxes—3! 3! 7! 4!…And then the whole thing unravels. It all seems to work except for this line in the north and two murky southern mysteriously “3-heavy” patches.

  I myself did not fix on a career until the age of thirty-four. At the time I was living in a spider-filled bungalow, with health insurance being paid for by VISA—which is to say my sister’s VISA.

  All I have become by my forties is nervous. The only math I do now is shading in little pie charts on airline magazines to keep the plane from falling out of the sky.

  And I had a GOOD education!!!

  What are my children going to face?

  9

  Guavatorina

  The dented white Toyota minivan is being serviced. I am without wheels.

  And perhaps it is appropriate that, at long last, now that I’m finally going to bite the bullet and enroll my daughter at Guavatorina Elementary, the thrumming central vortex, the literal lair of the L.A. Unified dragon, I will be doing so…on foot.

  It’s just three blocks, and it’s a mild Los Angeles day, sunny yet hazy, about seventy-two. So I figure, yes, I can do this.

  I push open the front door, pad down the driveway, turn left.

  The sidewalk seems…in fairly good shape. Check it out! Pretty flat.

  It’s so peculiar, this walking. The
houses and lawns drift by so slowly.

  And ach! There’s a dog! He runs along the chain-link fence: Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!

  By the second block, I feel chafing in my left heel. Good heavens, if I plan to keep it up, all this walking, I really must get different shoes.

  Another left turn and there ’tis, bobbing toward me. The familiar block of low, putty-colored buildings, ringed by chain-linked fence.

  And there’s the familiar marquee, where the announcements on the marquee are…

  In…English. WHAT? Is that ENGLISH? Yes! It says…“Registration”!

  But I think…Wait a minute! I cross to the back of the sign. This is the way I always approach it, from the south, on my driving route, and yes…The other side is in Spanish, as per usual. But hey, this I never noticed, the NORTH side is in English!

  So it’s bilingual, this sign! Bilingual!

  I feel like lifting my arms, with this small victory. “All right! So they’ve got some English here! At Guavatorina Elementary, of the concept of English they are not completely uncognizant! Someone inside that building may even speak it!”

  So I turn now and stand before Guavatorina. I take a moment to actually gaze upon it, from the front. It is a humble fifties-era building, concrete stairs leading up into a tan alcove framing two brown double doors. The grass isn’t emerald-green lush, but it’s not actually dead. Nor is it the type of CRAZY grass one sees around far-flung Chatsworth methamphetamine flophouses—you know, that hairy, weedy, leathery crabgrass that is much like Don King’s hair…C-c-c-razy!!!!!!

  Really, I have to say that studying the front of Guavatorina, I find nothing violently wrong so far. Overall, the impression one gets is that of a government building in a small, not insanely prosperous—but not horribly destitute—country. There is no royal circle of dwarf palms royally sweeping you in, nor are there homeless people camped out in front, in tatters. Guavatorina would be perhaps in a small, slightly tropical country…the Department of Motor Vehicles.

  So if Guavatorina is not a First World or a Third World country, it is perhaps like a…Second World country.

  Coming closer, I notice the signage.

  On the left double door is taped a poster, with a picture of a smiling yellow sun:

  START YOUR DAY WITH A GOOD BREAKFAST! Ditto in Spanish.

  Well, I cannot fault the thought expressed here. One should start the day with a good breakfast.

  A poster to the right, with a picture of a green book with a happy face in it, reads:

  READ TO YOUR CHILD EVERY DAY! Ditto in Spanish, I presume.

  Attached to the chain-link fence is a bilingual banner depicting a “BOOK DRIVE!” Another reads: JUMP ROPE FOR HEART HEALTH DAY.

  None of these bulletins sing to me. None of these notions cause my spirit to soar within me like a great lifting bird. I don’t hear Ravel, either in reality or in my mind. However, at the same time, one must admit there is nothing here that technically violates the concept of an elementary school. There are no posters that say:

  GOLD JEWELRY AND GUNS PAWNED HERE FOR GANG HOS, INQUIRE WITHIN.

  TODAY IS 20% OFF ON ALL CRACK!

  Or simply:

  SYRINGES, SYRINGES, SYRINGES! And then again, en español!

  The signs express an intent, at least, that within the building, conventional schoolish-type things should happen.

  I push open the double doors to the hallway inside (ceiling fan, beige walls with kids’ drawings pasted up, white linoleum). I push open another door and there is the front office, containing a wooden counter, a small hive of desks, and—what can I tell you—sitting in the middle is…?

  Oh, please God, no.

  The sullen-faced, round-shouldered nightmare government employee. We are talking big curls of oddly colored dark hair with some streaks of purple, some of gray, Bride of Frankenstein–ish, a silky aqua Boogie shirt, chunky gold jewelry, plucked eyebrows, and strange, faintly apricot-hued makeup. She is the woman at the DMV who tells you to stand in yet a fourth line after you’ve already stood in three for a total of five hours.

  Sitting quietly on two chairs, waiting, as if for Godot, are what appear to be two Mexican abuelitas, in country dresses. Grandmothers.

  I slip into the open chair next to them.

  Ah yes. I remember this from the DMV. Waiting. And waiting. And waiting…

  While the Bride of Frankenstein chews gum and continues to type.

  I look at the clock. I look at the flag. I am half transported to my own public-school days in California, waiting to see the principal…

  When it occurs to me maybe the abuelitas aren’t actually waiting for anything.

  “Are you—?” I ask them, waving toward the Bride of Frankenstein.

  They put up their hands, in polite surprise: “Oh no no no no no!” Either they have been helped already or—in this Second which I am now considering downgrading to Third World country—they have accepted the fact that waiting is a futile act.

  Either way, I now have license to approach the counter.

  “Uh, excuse me?” I murmur to the Bride of the DMV.

  She continues typing. Behind her I now notice the Bear Flag of California.

  A bit louder, I say, “Hello?”

  More typing.

  The Bride stops typing for a moment…

  Looks down to recheck her pad…

  Then continues typing.

  My heart sinks. How far I have fallen! We are back at Square One, not just at Square One but Square Minus One.

  I have been swept into the V.I.P. rooms of Hancock Park mansions, where velvet ropes parted. At frickin’ Wonder Canyon I was waved into the frosted-glass inner sanctum. Even at Luther Hall, I got immediate service. It was cheerfully hateful service, but I was at least SEEN.

  You know, even walk into a McDonald’s and you get a “How may I help you?” Even at Target, ask a question, “Where would I find Swiffer pads?” and red-vested stock people, however disenchanted they may be with their lot, will at least respond.

  Now I am standing at an LAUSD counter in Van Nuys and no one is even acknowledging my presence. I feel the first whiff of hysteria grip me, the validation of the forgone conclusion. That’s the way it is in U.S. public education! It is a factory! Worse than Detroit. It’s Guavatorina. API = 683. It’s a fuckin’ 3! Why did I even come?

  “EXCUSE ME!” I half yell.

  The Bride jumps. Takes something out of her ear. Turns to me, startled, a bit amazed.

  “I’m here to register my daughter for kindergarten for the fall?” I say. “And to…inquire about a tour?”

  “A what?” the Bride queries, in a strange nasal Persian (?) voice. What is that accent? Is it Russian? It’s very thick.

  “A tour?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You know, a tour. To…look into the classroom. See what it’s like.”

  “You want a tour?” the Bride repeats.

  This is becoming a bit like a “Who’s on first?” routine, but without the wit.

  “Yes, a tour!”

  “What?”

  “A tour!”

  “Tour?”

  “Yes! Tour!”

  The Bride gets up slowly, fishes a thick registration packet out of a stack, and slides it across the counter. “You can register her but…If she is coming to Guavatorina, anyway? Why would you…? No one has ever asked for a tour,” she finishes, baffled.

  “But I can’t send her here if I can’t even see what the inside of a classroom looks like!” I exclaim, starting to lose it.

  She presses an intercom button: “Martin.” I hear a staticky voice: “Yes, Kokik.” That’s what her name sounds like—Kokik. “A lady here says she wants a tour?”

  A door beyond flies open and out shoots a balding white fifty-something man, with a clipped beard, khaki pants, a red tie and blue button-down shirt, and a nest of tags hanging off him.

  “Yes?” he says. His attitude is brisk, wide-eyed, efficient. “I’m Ma
rtin Byrnes, assistant principal here at Guavatorina. How may I help you?”

  I feel tearful. There is a lump in my throat. But I’ve dragged myself this far across this hell pit called Los Angeles…The last three hundred feet on foot! Literally on foot! I am like a dog with barely the strength to sink his aching yellowed jaws into his last bone. My voice is a tiny squeak: “I’m registering my daughter for September and I would like a tour.”

  “We don’t typically have those this month, but if you’d like to come with me now for a few minutes, I can show you around.”

  “Really? I would like that,” I admit.

  “Mm.” Martin turns. “Kokik, did you call Building and Safety? There’s still that smell.”

  The Bride’s expression does not change. “I called twice, left a message. They just sent an e-mail, will be here by two.”

  “Good,” Martin says, a tad fretfully. “’Cause there’s still that smell. It’s giving me a migraine.” He reaches into a jar of M&M’s and pops a small handful into his mouth, turns back to me.

  “Kindergarten?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say, and…I notice an amazing thing then, in this vast dark land of L.A. Unified, the lair of the dragon. When Martin Byrnes fixes his bright blue eyes on me…I see it, unmistakable, his magical talisman. A secret totemic marker, a small lighthouse in the wasteland of this blasted Lord of the Rings world.

  Which is to say, under the left ear of Martin Byrnes, I see a very, very tiny, very, very discreet…gold earring.

  Oh my God, is he gay? The assistant principal of Guavatorina, is he a gay?

  And the tie…Are those…little yellow school buses flying across it? With little wings?

  “Thank heavens!” I want to scream. “Inside Guavatorina…The mark of civilization. Praise the Lord, IT’S A GAY!”

  Martin picks up a second set of papers, clips them neatly together with—he takes just a second to select the perfect one—a color-coordinated paper clip, and hands them to me. But as he does, something in his manner exhorts me…to comport myself. To maintain a certain decorum. To not throw up my hands and shriek, “Oh my GAWD—this whole crazy plan just MAY work out! I am going to be your new best friend because I see that you are gay!” To not immediately assume that Martin Byrnes and I are going to be singing old Culture Club tunes together, doubled over laughing like girlfriends in twenty-something club-kid mode.