by Don Lee
“What is your problem?” Joshua said. “I’m telling you, it’s on the up and up. Don’t worry about it. What’s it got to do with you, anyway?”
As it happened, it would have a lot to do with me, for when I got back from another seminar in New York several weeks later, I walked into the second-floor bathroom of the Walker Street house and barged in not on Jessica, but on the young Thai girl. She wasn’t naked, at least, but she was in a somewhat compromising position, sitting on the toilet with her skirt and underwear bunched at her ankles. “Pai hai pon!” she screamed at me, hunching over.
“Oh,” Joshua said. “She got kicked out of the place she was living in, and Jimmy asked if she could sack out on the couch here for a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“I don’t know, a few days, I guess.”
“Why can’t she just stay with Jimmy?” I asked, although I assumed that he’d been sleeping with the girl all along and it’d gotten messy somehow.
“Jimmy’s got a new girlfriend,” Joshua told me.
“Who? Not anyone from the collective.” After Marietta Liu and Danielle Awano, after his shenanigans at Pink Whistle with his staff and clients, Jimmy was persona non grata with the 3AC women.
“Naw, some random chick he met at the Toad,” Joshua said. “Hey, where you been, man? You’re never around anymore. You’ve disappeared on me. First it was Mirielle, now these business trips.”
“You didn’t think to run this by me first?”
“What?”
“The girl staying here.”
Joshua cocked his head to the side. “I know we operate like this is a co-op, but it’s not really a co-op, is it?”
“You’re fucking her, aren’t you?” I said.
“No way. I have some scruples. I don’t partake in jailbait.”
“I thought you said she’s nineteen.”
“She is!” Joshua said. “What is this? The only times I see you, you just rag on me.”
I was short-tempered with nearly everyone those days, overworked and stressed out and more than a little depressed. Yet Joshua in particular nettled me. All of his antics and tirades and lectures and riffs had become tiresome. Everything I used to admire about him now seemed fatuous. He did nothing all day but attend to his whims. He needed to grow up.
“You swear this is aboveboard?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “You see, the thing is, I don’t think the girl likes me very much. In fact, I don’t think she likes men very much. She likes Jessica, though. She seems infatuated with her, actually. Keeps following her around like a newborn pup.”
“What’s she have to say about this?”
“Jessica? She’s fine with it. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t seem to care about anything anymore. Have you talked to her lately?”
Jessica was home less than I was. She had tacked on a fourth job, teaching a beginning painting class at Martinique College of Art as a last-minute replacement for the spring semester, hired on the recommendation of a former RISD professor. Two mornings a week, she would borrow Joshua’s Peugeot and drive up to Beverly to teach, then would rush back to town for her other jobs. The schedule was taking its toll. She was often sick, and she looked terrible—thin and wan.
“Is there any way you could back out of the class now?” I asked her. “The pay’s not really worth the commute, is it?”
“That’s not the point,” Jessica said. “I’m trying to ingratiate myself so maybe I’ll be able to teach there full-time someday or get a tenure-track job somewhere else. I can’t string along these part-time gigs forever. They’re killing me. I need to build up my CV.”
“How’s the installation coming along?”
“You had to ask, didn’t you?”
She had yet to start work on her one-woman show sponsored by the Cambridge Arts Council. The exhibit was scheduled to be shown on the second floor of the City Hall Annex, beginning on May 7, for three weeks. It was almost the end of March.
Nothing had gone right for her this winter. The Creiger-Dane and DNA galleries, after teasing Jessica repeatedly with promises to include her in group shows, passed in the end. She was turned down for every grant and fellowship she applied to. She was delinquent on her student loans. The IRS had nailed her for not paying self-employment tax on an independent contractor job three years ago in New York, and she now owed five hundred in back taxes and interest, plus an additional fifteen hundred in penalties. Her carpal tunnel was flaring up, and she was back to wearing wrist braces while she slept. She’d had a panic attack one day in Bread & Circus, and a shopper had called 911; a phalanx of emergency vehicles had converged on the grocery store, exacerbating the attack even further, and Jessica had to be hospitalized overnight. And, most devastating to her, more than I could have ever imagined, she had been undone, waylaid into dark submission, weeping in her room for days, when Esther had left her.
Jessica had had an inkling something was amiss when all of a sudden Esther was not home when she was supposed to be and didn’t return her messages right away, when she was mysteriously busy on weekends, when they spent fewer and fewer nights together, Esther saying she was tired or coming down with something. Eventually Jessica forced her to come clean. “It’s another woman, isn’t it?” she asked. “Not exactly,” Esther said, then revealed that she had fallen in love with a Strategic Studies Fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute named Jon Stiegel.
The Tuesday Nighters never met again, and in short order—and not without coincidence, in my view—the 3AC began to lose its fervor and energy. The main problem, actually, arose with the preliminary plans for our website, or, more specifically, the notion that we needed a manifesto, a formal mission statement, to post on it.
First, we affirmed that the 3AC was a not-for-profit organization devoted to the creation, celebration, and dissemination of art by Asian Americans. Simple enough. But then Andy Kim said we should specify art by young Asian Americans, since we wanted to accentuate the hip, the new, not the traditional, and Phil Sudo said that would be ageist, and Annie Yoshikawa said young made it sound like the 3AC was an after-school program for kids, so we changed it to modern, but that word had narrow critical associations, so we settled on contemporary.
We wanted to emphasize the importance of these Sunday night gatherings on Walker Street, so we added that the 3AC was also devoted to creating a foundation to gather and exchange ideas and experiences, but creating was repetitious because we already had creation, so we changed it to building, and foundation was stodgy and made it appear that we were a philanthropic organization, so we changed it to network, and then, because network was too geeky and wonkish and corporate, we changed it to community, and we added that we exchanged resources and information as well. But then Trudy Lun thought this might come off as too insular and cliquey, since we were trying to reach out and disseminate, so we attached a clause that we promoted the intersections between art and audience.
Yet we wanted, too, to declare our commitment to social change, so we modified that to intersections between art, audience, and activism, and asserted that we were dedicated to subverting stereotypes, then decided we should also say we were confronting prejudice and discrimination and oppression against Asian Americans through our art, but scratched the last phrase, since it was something we were trying to do in all facets of our lives, not just through our art, and then we agreed we should also remove Asian Americans there, because weren’t we opposed to the oppression of any group? But then Grace Kwok wondered if this might jeopardize our future 501(c)3 application, since the IRS had restrictions on giving tax-exempt status to organizations that were involved in political campaigns or lobbying, and we thought of deleting the entire sentence, but Joshua said fuck it, this is who we are and what we’re trying to accomplish.
Cindy Wong said she wanted synergy, empowerment, and coalition somewhere in the statement, and Phil threw in diasporic, all of which we liked, but we couldn’t find a place for them. We went back to exc
hanging ideas, experiences, resources, and information because Jay Chi-Ming Lai said the connotation there was still primarily about networking, even though we’d expunged network, and that wasn’t all we espoused, so we put in that the 3AC was devoted—was there another word? I asked. We’d already used devoted twice, along with committed and dedicated—maybe faithful, no, believed in, no, entrusted with, definitely not—we’d fix it later—devoted to nurturing artistic expression. But what about the collaborative nature of the 3AC? Danielle Awano asked, so we inserted collaborative, but then Jessica objected, since it might seem our art projects were produced jointly as a group, so we changed it to individual and collaborative, and then Jimmy said we needed to highlight how many different types of artists comprised the 3AC, so we slid in multidisciplinary.
We had yet to clarify who our target audience was, Sandra Tran reminded us, who our constituents were, and we wrote down that we sought to engage with other Asian Americans, then had to stipulate on a local, statewide, national, and international level, then reconsidered, since what we really wanted to do was engage with people of all racial, socioeconomic, generational, and ethnic strata, don’t forget genders and sexualities and political affiliations, too, so, unable to come up with a solution, we deleted the entire sentence this time, and replaced it with another that said that we sought to build—no, already used it, I said—foster solidarity with other communities of color, or should that be all communities of color, but why just of color, it should extend to everyone, be more encompassing, so we ended the line, as a compromise, with all communities of color and beyond.
The acronym 3AC troubled Leon Lee. It was familiar shorthand to us, the phrase we all used, and it was catchy, in-the-know, hip, but wasn’t a fundamental principle of organizational marketing to have the name plainly advertise its purpose? We spelled out Asian American (hyphen? categorically no hyphen?) Artists (apostrophe or no apostrophe? singular or plural possessive?) Collective, known as the (cap or lowercase article?) 3AC (space after the number? periods after the letters?).
The real contretemps began when Joshua returned to the original statement, art by contemporary Asian Americans.
“Listen, we should specify that it’s art by and about contemporary Asian Americans,” he said.
I could feel the room curdle.
Although Esther Xing was no longer part of the collective, everyone had heard about my dispute with her, thanks to Rick Wakamatsu and Ali Ong, who now seemed to reveal themselves as converts to Xingism.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” Rick said, “especially pertaining to the goals for my own fiction. At a certain point, if we keep rehashing the same themes, always writing about being Asian, it’s going to get stale.”
“So what?” Joshua asked. “Faulkner said every writer has just one story to tell. It’s all in the telling.”
“It’s just that all this race stuff is starting to come off as, well, whining,” Rick said. “Know what I mean?”
“Maybe it’s time to move on,” Ali said. “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking of doing with my next story.”
“How many stories have you published, Ali?” Joshua asked.
Startled, she said, “None.”
“You, Rick?”
He shrugged, embarrassed.
“Uh-huh,” Joshua said. “I’m glad we can rely on your combined authority and experience to make such pronouncements.”
“Hey,” Jessica said, “that’s a little harsh.”
Joshua launched into a peroration about being true to one’s race, about not playing into the hands of the WSCP, the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy. We’d heard it all before. As much as I agreed with him—more than ever, in fact—I meditated on how monotonous Joshua had become, with a limited reservoir of ideas, some of which he borrowed without attribution, e.g., bell hooks’s WSCP. Nonetheless, it was hard for the group not to be swayed by him. He was the incontestable founder of the 3AC. After all, it was his house, therefore his rules.
There was a general though tepid consensus that we could stick in and about after by, but then we had to pull contemporary, since sometimes we might want to address historical Asia or Asian America. This started a tiff about whether we were being too provincial. If we were going to reference Asia, Jay said, we should include Asian Asians, not just Asian Americans, so we changed it to say art by and about Asians and Asian Americans.
Then another squabble emerged. What did we mean by Asian Americans? Annie asked. We should be specific and say Asian Pacific Americans, Cindy said. But instead of APA, shouldn’t it be APIA, Asian Pacific Islander Americans? Leon wondered. What about splitting the difference, Andy suggested, and using AAPI, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders? But it would confuse the geographic origins further, I said, and by the same token—sorry, a slip of the tongue—what would we then call Asians who were foreigners—no, that had become a pejorative term—okay, nationals? Would we have to enunciate art by and about Asian Pacific Islanders and Asian Pacific Islander Americans? That would be very clunky. What about the biracial among us, or those who were multiracial? Danielle asked. Would we have to adopt a one-drop rule?
Then Trudy mentioned South Asians. Shouldn’t we include them, too? This led to a skirmish about what Asian meant. There was no question that Southeast Asians qualified, even though many were Muslim, so weren’t Pakistanis and Indians and Bangladeshis eligible?
“Russia is technically in the continent of Asia,” Joshua said. “Why not include Russians, too? Hey, man, let’s include everybody! Let anyone in! We can be one big happy multifucking family!”
Five Sunday nights in a row, and we never were able to finish the mission statement, which was revised, elided, diluted, dumbed, appended, particularized, and parentheticalized into incoherence. Slaughtered by committee. After that, fewer people showed up for the meetings. Rick Wakamatsu and Ali Ong dropped out altogether.
We would never fulfill any of our grand ambitions to sponsor exhibitions, showcases, or publications. Although the 3AC would persist as an ersatz organization for seven more years, with the Sunday potlucks rotating to various members’ apartments, and although many of us would remain close friends, the 3AC’s activities would recede into just holding parties, playing poker and charades, singing karaoke, and watching Wong Kar-wai films.
Maybe everything that happened with the 3AC was Joshua’s fault, or even mine, but I would always resent Esther Xing’s intrusion, however brief, into our cozy little collective. She introduced the first kernels of division into the 3AC, and I would forever wish I could blame her for its eventual demise.
In early April, Jessica finalized the concept for her installation, which she would be calling Dis/Orienting Proportions, and she said she would need my help for the project. As she detailed what she required of me, I was certain she was joking.
“Funny,” I said. “Anything to eat in the house?” I had just returned from a two-day road trip to Vermont, meeting with the list broker for our direct-mail campaign in Rutland and the CSRs at our printer/lettershop in Essex.
“It’s not a joke,” Jessica said. “If you do this for me, I’ll buy you dinner at the B-Side.”
“It’d take a lot more than that. Are you really serious?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve gone completely off the deep end, haven’t you?”
“Maybe,” she said. “I think it’s going to be great, though. I got the idea after seeing W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism at the Film Archive the other day. Will you do it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You have to. Who else am I going to ask? Jimmy Fung?” she asked.
“I’m sure he’d be willing.”
“Too willing.”
“Exactly. No one but someone like Jimmy would do it.”
“Joshua did,” she said.
My imagination reeled with lurid scenarios. “When?” I asked, subsumed with jealousy.
“Last night,” Jessica said. “I just need
one more. It’s not a big deal. It’s kind of clinical, the whole procedure.”
“I don’t think anyone would ever compare it to a simple doctor’s visit. Not by a long shot. It’s kind of sick, to be frank. It’s fucking weird and totally depraved, actually. Can’t you see that?”
She couldn’t, and after I made us a quick dinner of linguine with shredded zucchini, onions, garlic, chopped walnuts, and parmesan, during which Jessica badgered me continuously, I consented, mainly because I wanted to know precisely what she had done with Joshua.
“Where is Joshua, anyway?” I asked.
“He went to a rave in Northampton. He took the girl with him.”
“Like on a date? That fucking asshole. I knew it wouldn’t stay innocent for long. She was only supposed to be here a couple of days.”
“They went with Jimmy. They won’t be back until morning.”
“Convenient,” I said.
“She keeps stealing my clothes.”
“Joshua thinks she’s infatuated with you.”
“Or it could be that we’re the same size and she likes my taste and she’s a thief.” After we finished washing the dishes, Jessica said, “There’s something I need you to do first.”
“What?”
“Shave.”
“Shave?” Instinctually I rubbed the stubble on my chin.
“Your pubic hair.”
This was a mistake—a terrible mistake. “All of it?”
“All of it. Your balls, too.”
“How can I shave my balls? Don’t I need to get them waxed or something?” I asked, although waxing seemed a more painful alternative.
“I’ll shave them for you, if you want.”
“Have you gotten into S&M? Is that it? You’re getting off now by cutting people?”
I opted to do it myself, although Jessica insisted on standing outside the bathroom door, shouting instructions. First I sat on the toilet and trimmed my pubic hair with scissors (“Crop it as close as you can!”). Then I took a hot shower (“Really steam up the room! You want to soften up the skin and relax the follicles”). Then I had to exfoliate with a cleanser and a washcloth (“That’ll get rid of dead skin cells”). Next, I dabbed on some shaving oil, keeping my skin damp (“It’ll make the razor glide better and prevent razor burn”), and used a brush to apply a special cream called Brave Soldier Brave Shave, which had been originally formulated for bicyclists, swimmers, and bodybuilders, but which was now favored for extracurricular body shaving (“Work the brush in circles!”).
