by Gus Lee
“What?” I asked.
He was quiet for a spell, just breathing. “Your daddy gets killed in the war. You get another daddy. And then he leaves for good, wouldn’t mean nuthin’, right?”
Fathers. Big omen. “You don’ cry. You’re strong,” I said.
He nodded at me, hitting my little fist with his big one. “I’m a man and I do not cry,” he said, while I said, “You a man and you don’ cry,” and we repeated it until our eyes dried.
But something had happened. You can look at our classroom pictures, at Toussaint’s smile after fourth grade, and see it, that although the smile was real, it had been robbed of a parent—a loss that children cannot restore without great outside help. The whole question about Toos’s survival, and mine, was whether that help would come.
But he was always there for me. Toos even explained life to me. “Somethin’s wrong,” I whined, ripe with panic and rich with embarrassment. “My … thing. It—it gets …”
Toos looked confused until he saw where I was pointing. I was gesturing the way fishermen advertise the catch of a lifetime. Exaggeration began early for us.
“Aw, you’re gettin’ a big boner. Normal, man! Ain’t gonna kill ya.” He laughed. Then he frowned. “Leastways, don’ think so.”
“Hurts,” I said.
“Don’ give it no mind. It’ll check out after an hour or two. That’s how babies get made.”
I gave him my funniest look, which made him hit me so I’d change it. “How?” I asked.
“Haven’t figgered that. Somethin’ to do with the moon.”
“Oh, I know dat.” I used to sit next to Sippy Suds on the LaRues’ steps, next to Brooks Mortuary. Once he had babbled about women. “They’s like heaven,” he had breathed. “Oh, God, sweet heaven!” I knew that the goddess Gwan Yin lived in the night sky, in the celestial firmament, sitting on the moon and deciding who got boy babies. She had sent me into the Ting family. I wondered how Sippy knew this without Uncle Shim explaining it to him.
Toos and I had hidden inside a closet in the apartment, with Edna unaware that we had managed to enter through the unlocked back door. My heart slugged with fear. If she caught us…
We had entered the closet to tell each other a mimi, a secret. “You first,” I said under my breath. “What’s yo’ secret?”
“Nawww!” he whispered. “I figured the door. You go first.”
I hitched closer to him. We were wet with sweat from a day of running from the McAllister Car Barn to Sears, Roebuck on Geary, and back to Anza to shoot buckets. I had dribbled the ball a couple miles and played three-on-three, shooting fair and passing good.
“Go ahead!” Toos urged.
“I wanna go ta West Point,” I whispered, below the ears of wupo, ghosts. They were in the closet, in the dark, with us.
“Huh?” he said.
“Shh! Wanna go ta West Point. Be a paratroopa. Don’t tell no one.” Ji hui. The gods had to have heard that. Years from now, they might kill me as I came out of the airplane. I looked into the dark, seeing nothing. Edna’s long coat was in my face. Mothballs. Pitch-black.
“Dang, China,” he whispered. “That Army place?”
I nodded my head vigorously up and down in the dark. Toos and I had talked about being jump-booted paratroopers when we grew up, swaggering like big men down McAllister past Cutty’s Garage.
“That Army place?” he said, louder.
“Yeah! Shhh!” I whispered.
Toos turned the idea around. “Be a soldier,” he said.
I thought of Guan Yu. I nodded. Toussaint’s daddy had been a soldier, too.
“Huh,” he said.
“Good idea?” I whispered. Silence. “Good idea, Toos?” I said.
“Oh, yeah, China, sure,” he whispered lightly. He believed in ghosts, too.
“Don’ tell, cross heart.”
I heard his finger trace loudly, twice, across his old, tattered flannel shirt. “Your turn,” I said.
“China …”
“Yeah.”
“China …”
“Say it!” I hissed.
“Sshhhh!” he answered.
I giggled nervously.
“China. Don’ laugh, man. This is a dream.”
He cleared his throat, making a sound like a roaring Chinese dragon, and I flinched in the dark.
“I want to be a … docta.”
We laughed in a pure way that preceded the days when I associated laughter with madness. That was crazy—Toos being a doctor! We almost died, stuffing our fists into our mouths, biting them, writhing on the floor, kicking each other, drumming our feet, trying to be silent. We laughed so hard, so physically, in that tiny closet, that we wept. When tears came out of my eyes I got scared, fearing that laughing had busted something inside me, that I had used some muscles or feelings I wasn’t supposed to be messing with and the gods had punished me for the happiness. Later, when we crept out of the house and onto the street, our eyes still wet, we started laughing all over again, unable to stop until we hit each other. Never, ever, had I ever failed to laugh with him.
Toussaint and I had taken many steps in our youth. He had taught me the big ones. But he had not given me the little plastic cup. It was from his mother, on the day I gave her flowers. That had been last Saturday, a day before I had left for West Point.
Dear Abby had answered my letter with a form letter on flowers. Red roses meant love. I had walked to Podesta Baldocchi’s near Maiden Lane. I couldn’t afford their prices, but I couldn’t afford to not get the best, and wired red roses to Christine in Berkeley. I spent two hours writing, correcting, and restructuring the sentiment, the counter Uttered with my errors. So much rested on the choice of words. Cyrano and Li Po never worked harder. Forget Roxane, Juliet, Dulcinea, Scarlett, Hsi Shih of the Warring States, or Brigitte Bardot and France Nuyen. Christine would read this letter. With the right words, someday she might marry me.
The final product was replete with the fundamental truths of affection, brimming with honest good cheer to last a season, robust with hidden meanings, forthright in its identification of parties and purpose, and not overly verbose:
Dear Christine,
Have a great summer.
Love,
Kai
“Anything else?” the clerk asked.
“Flowers for a mother,” I had said.
Mrs. LaRue looked at me for a moment. It had been three years.
“It’s me, Kai Ting,” I said.
“Oh, Lord, it’s you! All grown!” she cried, putting hands to her cheeks, then stepping onto the porch and opening her arms.
“Hi, Mrs. LaRue.” She was the only woman who hugged me, and now she did it with great purpose. I made myself relax and accepted her strong warmth, letting it take me, holding her, not breathing, weakened by the irrepressible surging of gan ch’ing, human emotion.
“What’s this ‘Mrs. LaRue’?” She separated herself from me. “Now, Kai Ting—what have I done to … to fall from your grace?”
“Momma,” I said. “How are you?”
“Fine! Just a touch of bursitis! I’m so happy you visited! Reminds me of the old times, when you and Toos were just little children.” She smoothed her hair, then her dress, a faded purple down-to-the-floor, probably a discard from one of the households she cleaned. It had an open collar with a missing button. Against her skin lay an old gold necklace with a cross centered on her throat. Her hair had gray, but her youthfully smooth and pretty face and her symmetrical frame had remained largely unchanged in the last decade. She had a tiny mole on her left eyelid, and I smiled when I saw it. “I’m a lot older, and my hair’s a mess.”
“You’re the prettiest lady in the ’hood, Momma.” I handed her the bouquet, called “Spring Glory.”
“Oh, Lord,” she breathed. “You are a case. Thank you, Kai,” she said, holding the flowers at different angles, smelling the yellow roses and the gardenias, the sprigs of green, smiling at them. “Sit, where everybody can
see us.” Here, folks visited in the open air. It promoted neighborliness, allowed women to chat while watching their children, and supported accurate gossip.
Forties big-band music came winding out of her open door from the Emerson radio which Toos had bought her with his first paycheck from the now aged Petrini Plaza Market.
“Momma. Where’s Toussaint?”
“He’s at summer school in L.A. You’ve been gone—how long? Four years?”
“Three years, Momma,” I said.
“Three years, chile! Be sure you come back next week.”
My heart sank. Los Angeles! “Can’t, Momma. I’m leaving—I got into West Point. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Oh, Kai—that’s fantastic news! That was your dream, wasn’t it? Your daddy has to be so proud of you! You be sure to write Toos! After all these years … you best write letters.”
“Toos tell you that?” I asked laughing. “It was a secret.”
She smiled. “You told me, chile, all the time. You wait here.”
She left. Kids ran in the street, tossing balls and thumping bodies, occasionally pausing to check out the Chinese guy on the LaRue steps. One kid came up the steps, squinting at me.
“I ’member you. You Toos’s fren’.”
“Hi,” I said. “Denise’s brother, Alfred. You’re gettin’ big.”
“Yeah,” he smiled. “I am.” He rejoined his buddies, confirming his identification of me. Here, no bikes, trikes, or Flexis; lots of juice and spit while the winos worked their bags. School had been out for a week. Many others had gotten out much sooner.
“Bread from a cold toaster” was the way Reverend Jones said it. Some had moved out; some already had kids, some were pregnant; others were at Youth Authority or in jail. Many were sick with a host of addictions and health ailments abetted by local liquor stores. Willie Mack, the tough, tormenting bully of my early youth, had just up and disappeared, years before. A few, like Lucky and Maurice, who had always flirted with the wild side, had been buried in cold earth before I left. Years before, we had filled the street like a Lion’s Dance parade down Grant Avenue on Chinese New Year.
Two neighbors passed, and I called out, “Hi, Mrs. Green—hello, Mrs. Gibson!” They waved back hesitantly. I could see them saying, Is that the Chinese boy who used to live here?
This had been home—ninety proof whiskey, a hundred proof cement, and 10 percent the Lord Jesus, with the rest in the hands, or the paws, of the rats and the trash-can dogs.
The music stepped up. Momma sat next to me and handed me a newspaper-wrapped package, a gardenia in her hair. It smelled sweet. I kept looking at her. She had a large, rounded forehead that led smoothly into her strong, angular, smart, knowing nose.
It was a worn, green plastic cup—a cousin to the one that had become my personal cup when Toos and I were second-graders. That had been the beginning of my life, when Toussaint had brought me within the embrace of his mother and the sanctuary of their poor apartment with the sureness of a lifeguard throwing a rope.
“Toussaint’s daddy, John LaRue, was a man who shared his water. You remember that, ’cause it’s the spirit of the good Lord Jesus, Kai,” she said, with bright eyes. “You take that with you to the Army. Give me comfort, thinkin’ on you drinkin’ from it.”
“Thank you, Momma,” I said, holding it in both hands. “I will never lose it.” I used to sit here at night, while Sippy slept next to me. I hadn’t seen him, and I didn’t see his signs on the steps.
“Where’s Sippy? And Mrs. Hall?” We never knew her true name. Toos called her that because she lived in the hallway.
Momma looked down. “Mrs. Hall, she died last winter. Sippy, he’s fine. Sweeps up at the church. Name’s now Deloitte. He from ‘Sippi, but he pretends now to be Louisiana folk. Like you passin’ for a colored, his tryin’ to be uptown N’Orlins. Sippy says that Mr. Suds died and went to Kingdom Come. Deloitte is here to work for the Lord. He’s done with fightin’ the bottle. Sleeps in the church with the good Lord, who always forgave him his bad smell.”
She rubbed her hands together, making a rasping noise between her palms, getting ready to say something. “Toos helped me take care of Mrs. Hall. Right painful for him.” She put her head down, and then started to stand. I helped her. “You as strong as Toos! Dang, chile—you got rocks in your arm! Look how tall you are! Time’s surely passin’.”
She squinted off toward the park. Petrini Plaza was doing business putting the hurt on Mrs. Timm’s failing Reliance Market a block away. UC Hospital sat off on Parnassus Hill.
The nurse who had defined for me the two nations of America had come from UC Hospital. In the thicket of the park, a thug had beaten and raped her, taking one eye and her peace.
Toos and I had stood on Fell and watched a magical army of never-before-seen City workers clearing trees and bushes from the Panhandle at Baker Street. “How come?” I asked Toos.
“Nurse lady from the hospital got hurt in there.”
“Folk get cut in there evera night,” I said.
“They ain’t white,” he said.
When we came back from school, the crews had reached Shrader Street. The tall eucalyptuses and pines of our forbidden forest, the divider between the kid gangs of the ’Handle and the Haight, were gone. The axes fell into living wood, and saws toppled trees; and suddenly now, this place where so many had been killed and hurt at night was open and almost indecently naked. It was then I noticed the hate in the white workers’ eyes as they surveyed us, looking at us, muttering and swinging angry axes.
“Mrs. Hall,” said Momma LaRue, “would’ve loved to see your face before she passed on to the Maker. Mrs. Hall missed you.
“Listen, sweetnin’, this is Momma talkin’. Ain’t right, driftin’ in an’ out of people’s lives. Some men are that way but you got to be different. I know you lost your momma and your daddy works hard, but you are not trash.” She looked at me, and I felt hollow, and bad. She poked me with an iron finger to drive the point deeper.
“I’m sorry. I can’t believe she’s dead. She was so tough. She used to wear those old, men’s shoes without the laces, walking with those sticks.” I was not comfortable thinking about her, a dead woman who had cared for me. “Glad for Sippy.”
“Deloitte,” she said. “You say hello to him. He’s one of the folk who asks after you. Wouldn’t be right, you visitin’ me and not him.” She smiled. “You know, there was some who never took a cotton to you. But not him. He always said you were special.”
I nodded. Sippy Suds. I liked him when I was little, charmed by his unrated pro-welterweight past, warmed by his acceptance of me. But as I grew older I saw him more clearly: he was a smelly old drunk who messed his own pants and couldn’t walk a straight line for a free drink. But Toos had always liked him.
Toos was in L.A. I had to see him. I couldn’t not see him.
“I know you tryin’ ta speak. No need. I know your feelin’s, and it warms my heart. Just hold on to all those good feelin’s. Now don’ drift away. You hear me? Now, ’nuff scoldin’ you. You’ve grown so! Put your young man’s arms around me, and give Momma a big hug.”
We embraced, and I moaned as she rubbed my back.
“You’d best write, Kai. Don’ drift out on us. Promise me now.”
“I do,” I said, not wanting to leave, not even for West Point.
I watched him on the bench. I had been his least promising pupil. But he had never told me to take a hike, to jump in a lake, to take a flying leap. Now I was leaving him, and I didn’t know how to do it. I tried to say hello, but couldn’t. I tried again.
“Hi, Tony.”
“Pass yur duties ta Johnny Moore?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
Johnny was the next president of the Junior Leaders. He would assign Leaders to the Y classes. The hard part was training my replacement in the men’s locker room. The new guy fumbled with the register, forgot members’ names and habits. I felt bad leaving Leroy and the counter. I
t was my job, and now I was leaving.
“Kid, gimme a spot. Gettin’ old and it’s pissin’ me off.”
He had six 45-pound Yorks and two quarter plates on a standard bar—365 pounds. Tony believed that any normal person should bench a pound for every day of the year.
The bald spot was growing in the middle of a jet-black scalp. The thick muscles forced between his big frame corded while he steadily pressed the bar. Fourteen years out of the ring, he was still 225 pounds of gristle and bone graced by a relentless beard and enough body hair for twenty of me. I grimaced as he exhaled bitter bagnacauda fumes from his lunch. He did ten reps without help, banged down the bar, and sat up. “Yur leavin’. Well, shit, kid.” He looked down.
“Gee, Tony, thanks for the good word.”
“ ’Member what I told you, ’bout war?”
“I know it’s hard,” I said.
“Hard? Hey, it’s fuckin’ impossible, ’scuse my French. It don’ mean spit ta study it. And it don’ mean spit there ain’t no war now, cuz there’s always a friggin’ war later. Know what I mean?”
I frowned. This is not what I wanted from him.
“Look, kid. Ya never wanted to hear this.” He drew his forearm across his nose while flexing his nasal passages. He was squinting.
“Excuse me, are you using that bench?” asked a new member.
“Yeah, I’m usin’ it ta sit,” said Tony without looking up. “Ya got skills but ya ain’t a fighter. Toe ta toe with a fighter, yur screwed twelve outa ten. And shit—it’s all my goddamm fault.”
“Whaddya mean?” I asked. “I help teach it!”
“Aw, shit, kid. Yur a good coach, patient as a dead man. Not sayin’ this ta bust yur bones. Tryin’ ta tell ya who ya are. Ya got no taste fer blood. I know why ya get inna ring,” he said, his face twisted. “Ya get in there fer me. The Science saved yur skinny butt ten years ago, when that bully come inta yur life. Now the ring’s yur church. Me, I’m the fuckin’ priest, ’scuse my French. ’Cept I ain’t a goddamm peacemaker. Shit, kid. You are.”
