by Paul Yee
First I check the map. Church Street was the site of marching bands, rainbow balloons and half-naked men dancing on floats. We laughed when one nervous reporter dropped his mike while talking to men dressed as glamorous women. Jenny wanted to go down and see, but Mila didn’t.
In front of the station, vendors sell hotdogs, flowers and homemade jewelry. The tall buildings, busy stores and masses of people are like my hometown Beijing.
My feet are suddenly rubbery and heavy. I’ve never come downtown alone. I should have grabbed my penknife from my desk for protection. I reach inside my jacket and touch my wallet. My bankcard and cash will keep me safe, let me do whatever I want. I don’t need to be afraid.
Students shuffle past in ragged groups, office workers rush by with shiny leather bags, and seniors riding motor chairs scoot through the crowds. Everyone talks on a cell.
I know Yonge Street, which lies in the other direction. Jian’s girlfriend, Carla, marched there once in a happy parade of Christian church people. He and I walked beside her, waving little flags telling everyone that “Jesus Loves You.” The street’s little shops sell kinky is-this-legal stuff. Goth clerks pierce their faces full of metal.
The Yonge Street coffee bar is full of students and workers, but they’re cool and hip in the latest shoes and jeans. At least one laptop sits on each table. Best of all, the music is a bit edgy.
It feels safe here. But when I buy coffee and a sandwich, my appetite vanishes.
I never eat sandwiches. None of my friends eat sandwiches.
Outside, cars crawl by. A man on a unicycle jerks and zigzags along, legs pumping forward then back, forward then back. Ba would sneer at him. But I like it downtown. Here, customers tap into the coffee bar’s electricity for their laptops. It’s considered good for business. At the Milky Way, the owner covered the electrical outlets with tape.
I log onto Rebel State. Monkey and Long Range complain they couldn’t reach me earlier. The beach battle was delayed because not enough teams showed up. Central unveils its new weapons: Reflect Armor for its soldiers and Attack Wolves. Steel pauses to figure out how to handle them. Between skirmishes, I find the rest of my team: Heaven Hand and Trader. Normally I try not to kill enemy soldiers. Instead I injure them so they cannot wage war again. I earn Honor, not Blood.
The sudden blare of a car horn jolts me. Night has fallen. I lean back and rub my stiff neck. My scores for both Blood and Honor have both risen. I log off.
I love rolling in the thick blanket of Rebel State. Time sails by! You need skill and brains to survive. Steel’s problems are real ones. How do you gain Honor while staying true to The Code? Do you keep playing when you lose Blood?
I eat my rock-hard sandwich. On the sound system, a saxophone plays a light, tricky tune.
At home about this time, I’d be in a panic about homework, having spent my time gaming and surfing for music. I’d be waiting for Niang to bring leftovers from the restaurant. She’ll switch on the Chinese TV station and ask Ba to massage her feet. That’s when I leave the room.
Store windows across the street reflect neon signs. On the road, lines of cars glow red and yellow. Around me, people continue to stare at laptops and sway to their earphones. A café worker clatters by with a tray of dirty dishes.
Up north, it’s closing time, too. Head Cook prepares the end-of-day staff meal as Niang clears the cash register. All day she chats with customers young and old, even my friends. She knows people’s names, birthdays, dates of first arrival in Canada, and most recent visits to China. People bring her gifts from China. She looks good, even without makeup. She can easily hook a rich man. So why does she stay with Ba?
For sex?
Ugh!
She’s the best thing that ever happened to Ba. Graciously, she calls him her business partner when really he is waiter, kitchen help and delivery man. He is happiest when the phone rings with take-out orders and he can go play with his GPS. If Uncle Bei calls for food, then Ba is gone for several hours. That, believe it or not, is good for business. Niang can talk more freely with the male customers.
Jian gets tables with westerners because his English is best among the waiters. Customers give him better tips because he smiles more.
I hate grinning at strangers and hoping that they’ll come back to eat again. Niang likes rich Chinese who order the pricey dishes. She chats them up, flatters them and makes them laugh. They treat me like dirt when I pour water and remove their plates. To them, waiters and busboys are immigrants who have failed. Luckily, Jian and I are called in only once a week now, so that we get time to study.
The coffee bar worker passes by again. This round, he stops and says, “. . . blah-blah-something-something-nine.”
Slow down!
My ESL teacher said, “Just say ‘Pardon me?’ and people will repeat themselves. Don’t worry, they don’t mind.”
Huh! The last time I did that, the server at the food court rolled her eyes to the ceiling and then leaned sideways to peer at the line-up behind me.
My laptop is fully charged now, and I scroll through my machine. What I really want is to visit the Rebel State forum but there’s no time. The game is in Chinese. When I chat and argue there, that’s the only time I feel I know anything for sure.
When you speak your own language, you can laugh and debate. At school, if you can’t speak, you melt into the wall like paint.
Teachers point at us immigrants and say, “Speak up, the class wants to hear you. We really do!”
One day in English, the class read a play together. Each student had to read aloud as we went through the lines. Everyone was bored. No one paid attention until I reached the word “awry.” I must have said it wrong because the entire class burst out laughing as if it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. I thought they were too bored to care. Even the teacher smiled.
People wait to jump on our mistakes.
I open a new page to make a plan.
1. Hide computer.
2. Find sleeping spot.
3. Brush teeth with Ultrasonic toothbrush. Hah!
I log onto my bank account. There’s $368.14, enough for several months of Rebel State. It’s all gift money that I’ve been saving.
I wash my coffee down with cold water. No customers are left. The coffee bar offers five kinds of sugar for people who stay all day and spend money. Big fat easy chairs rest under cones of soft light from living-room lamps.
I glance around, reach between my table and the sofa and slip my laptop into the stand bursting with magazines and newspapers.
Outside at the bus stop, three kids sit on the sidewalk in front of a fancy chocolate store. One calls out, “Spare some change?”
I drop cash into their paper cup and hear, “Thanks, man.”
They seem surprised. I doubt that many Chinese people give them money. They’re so young they could be from my school. The boys have thin beards. The girl wears a shiny stud in her nose. Their jeans are open at the knees for that ragged look that was hot when I first arrived in Canada four years ago. They appear well fed. No doubt their parents’ credit cards are tucked into their back pockets.
On their blackened feet, the two boys wear cheap flip-flops. I would never sink so low. Those are for bath houses and swimming pools, and for peasants working illegally in the cities.
In China, Ma always gave money to beggars: children, men, women, young and old alike.
“Stop it!” Ba grumbled. “They’re an organized ring! Those beggars are richer than you and me.”
“It makes me feel good,” Ma said. She clung to a simple thought. If you did good deeds, then good things happened to you.
Ba labeled her a fool. My friends take Ba’s side. Downtown, when they see me stopping at vagrants, they grab me by the collar and pull me away. It’s a joke to them. They have to save me from myself.
Two pol
ice officers stroll by in armored vests. Their billy clubs and leather holsters glow from streetlamps.
I step onto the road and peer into the distance, as if I am waiting for the streetcar. That will explain why a clean-cut kid like me is out here so late.
The lights in the coffee bar flicker and go off. Mr. Blah-blah-something-something-nine hurries out, turns the key and yanks the door to test the lock.
Thank you, sir. Keep my machine safe, all right?
He’s not carrying anything, and he had no time to tidy the place. I know the routine. At our restaurant, the workers who leave right at closing time escape having to mop and disinfect the washrooms. Niang gets someone else to do it the next morning.
My cell has a stack of texts. Mila is giddy about a new MV from Faye Wong. Wei forwards a link to a sexy upload from Korea. Kai rates it Hot-hot-hot-hot. Earlier, Jenny invited people to go for sushi. Carla tells people (again) about her Bible study group’s next meeting. Kevin’s family ate at a new restaurant on Highway 7, but he says the food sucked. Clinton heard about a house party over the weekend where someone pulled a knife. No one got hurt. Now he’s asking to copy someone’s biology homework.
Jian wants to know where I am. Probably Niang told him to ask.
I doubt that Ba told them the truth about kicking me out. Instead he’ll say something stupid like, “That idiot son of mine yelled and cursed me, so I told him to get out. I didn’t think he would, but he did. He was glad to leave.”
Jian and Niang will know that Ba is lying, but they won’t challenge him. They’ll let him save face. Niang will get nervous about me but Ba will tell her, “Don’t worry. I took care of myself when I was his age.”
How do I explain this? There’s no good gossip to share. I haven’t had gay sex. I don’t have a boyfriend. I didn’t get drunk and pass out at a gay bar. I’m not like Tyson Somers, the vice-president of the student council who started the year by telling the whole world he’s gay. He’s handsome and on the football team. His father runs a Winners store and his mother is a lawyer. They stand behind him one hundred percent.
But hooligans kicked in Tyson’s locker and emptied a can of paint over his stuff. Then, after a late afternoon football game, he got beat up so badly that he spent a night in hospital. He never named his attackers. Everyone at school thinks they were his former teammates on the football team.
That’s the real world. Life is unfair. Some kids get everything while others have nothing. All my friends struggle with English but I’m the slowest. Mila’s parents are divorced, too, but she’s happy living with cousins and grandparents. Half my friends are virgins (even though they say they’re not), but none of them are gay. Wei’s parents run a restaurant, too, but they don’t demand slave labor from him.
I shut my cell and breathe in the cool air. Freedom! I stroll with my back straight and arms loose but by my side. It is Steel’s warrior walk. No hoodlum will hassle me.
The office towers are bright, their lights perched high up in airplane zone. Condo windows are fogged by the blurry colors of TV screens. Homeless people bed down in bus shelters and squat in bank-machine rooms, guarding their shopping carts. Those tiny spaces must stink. At 24-hour coffee shops, teens with rumpled hair and layers of clothes hang around tables. I won’t go in there and have those kids snicker at me. How do such places make money?
I turn the corner and stop in my tracks. I stand still for only a half a second because I’m not a country bumpkin.
Western movies and TV all show hookers selling sex on streets just like this. I never thought I’d get so close. Real chickens strutting around! And on my first night on my own!
I watch from a bus stop. The women’s short skirts and tight tops reveal bare skin and fleshy curves. They totter back and forth inside little borders of pavement. Even on high heels, they look mean enough to cause serious pain with a quick kick. Their noses leak cigarette smoke across painted faces. Cars slow down while dark windows protect the men inside.
The women give me a passing glance and stay away.
Last year, You-peng told me in an excited email that Beijing police arrested my former classmate Fan Min at a massage parlor. No wonder she could afford the high-end messaging service!
“She’s a public bus,” You-peng wrote. “Everyone gets on.” He said the boys at school started to follow her around. She laughed and told them, “Come back when you can pay my prices.”
I walk away. Maybe I should go to Church Street to watch young men do the same business. In China, boys who sell sex to men are called money boys, while those who offer services to women are called ducks.
I saw one such woman interviewed on China’s national news. Her face was hidden. Sex with her husband was boring, she chirped, so she invited ducks to her home when her husband was at work. She declared that she wasn’t cheating on him.
“Sex and love are separate things,” she said. “I bring home ducks. We go to bed. No emotions are involved. But with my husband, there are feelings. I love him and he loves me. We have known each other all our lives!”
I shudder. If I don’t go home, then money boy work may be my future.
——
In the alley behind the coffee bar, high lamps spread a spooky orange glow over the smells of restaurant garbage. Traffic sounds creep between the buildings. One loading bay has a deep platform with protective shadows.
I climb up and drop my backpack. Sitting down, I picture myself at the Milky Way Café with Kai and Wei, Mila and Jenny, sipping ice coffees. Mine is black, no cream and no sugar. A tough guy’s drink.
“Ba tells me to get out, so I curse him and leave,” I will say. “I go downtown, hang around and then bed down behind the coffee shop. No trouble at all, as long as you don’t mind peeing outside.”
“Why didn’t you call us?” they’ll ask.
“I ran out of the house so fast I didn’t grab my cell.”
I take my cell and stare at it. Kai will let me stay at his place if I ask. His father is working in China now, and his mother enjoys having another male around the house. But she’s a nervous busybody. She’ll want to talk to Ba or Stepmother to make sure they know where I am.
If Ba doesn’t know where I am, he’ll worry about me. And then he’ll be sorry for what he did.
The cold floor sucks away my body heat. Can I sneak into the garage at home and sleep there? I know the code. For sure it’s warmer than this place. But if Ba finds me there, he’ll have won. No way will that happen.
A strong light pokes into my eyes. I block it out with my hands. Cops?
“Sir, are you okay?” someone shouts.
Am I being arrested? I turn my head away. Will I end up in jail?
“I’m not a cop,” a man calls out, coming closer. “I’m with Street Outreach.”
I smell coffee.
“Sir, you want something hot to drink?” he asks.
I pull my baseball cap down over my face. The man mustn’t see that I’m a kid. I push back my shoulders to look bigger.
“Sir, this isn’t a safe place.”
I can take care of myself!
Finally he says, “Okay, I’m going. Here’s my card, all right? If you change your mind and need a place to stay, come look us up. We’re not far away. Have a good night, eh?”
I can’t go with him. Immigrants take care of themselves. If we come and use the welfare system, then other Chinese will have a harder time getting into Canada. That’s what Niang says.
You can’t get angry at Canadians for being helpful. They truly care about the old and the weak, the homeless, the refugees. They help all needy people. High-paid lawyers speak out for them! I’ll gladly pay taxes, if Stepmother would only pay me regular wages. I hate asking Ba for money, but I do.
I’ll be Steel and make my way through these downtown canyons the same way he slides along steep cliffs using only rope
s and muscle.
When teachers get frustrated, they shake their heads and say, “You young people, take a walk in the real world. See how tough life really is!”
Now I am.
——
I awake to pitch black. Pain jabs me, but where, exactly? My head? My knee?
My senses spring alert. I hear heavy breathing. The back of my neck chafes at cold concrete.
Ow! My head bangs the wall. My arms are paralyzed. What happened to them? My lips move but no sound comes out.
A sharp tip pricks my throat. Something smooth and cold slides across my chin. I flinch.
“Money!” hisses a voice. “Where’s your money?”
I shake my head and try to shout, “No money,” but someone with a monstrous hand grips my head like a bowling ball. Then he grabs my throat. I inhale cigarettes and liquor and shit. I thrash about, but my attacker is big and solid as a bear.
“Money!” hisses the voice.
I tear madly at my clothes. My wallet is next to my skin, at my belt. I fumble it like a hot potato. A second later, the attacker and my wallet are gone.
My entire body is shaking. I can’t stop it. I rub my hands together. Finally I force myself to get up and walk back and forth.
Stop shaking, I shout at myself. Some warrior.
All the self-defense that Ba taught me long ago comes flooding into my head. I should have twisted and rolled. I should have kicked out.
Ba should have drilled me harder.
The shrill wail of sirens rises in the distance.
Fire engine? Ambulance?
I hope they’re coming for me.
I don’t want to be out here anymore.
FOUR
I stay awake all night. I need to be ready to fight off a second attacker. In truth, the moment I let my eyelids drop, I feel a cold blade at my neck and my eyes fly open.
I jump up and think to go find a safer, brighter place. How about that 24-hour coffee shop?
Why bother?
The danger is gone. Why defend a fortress after the enemy has driven your soldiers into the forest?
