by Tuttle, Dan;
and ask survivors of. Though not a crime,
it traumatized and also pilloried
the ‘other’ for no reason. First act cruel
distracted (model used for future tools).
8.
Stel thought these things apologetically
and mostly to herself. Time’s since healed parts
of sadness once so strong emetically
so to prevent her writing from the heart.
You’ll read about events that happened since,
as there’s still much to Stel beyond Abu.
But know that her cognition’s dissidence
on that day had first rift and from there grew.
She’ll tense at every border crossing now
not out of fear for self, but memory how
the vagaries of power can disendow
us humans of our kind. In trauma, vow
solidified alongside loneliness:
she’d find way to strike ’gainst Boy’s phoniness.
CHAPTER 16
9.
Clad head to toe in loose-fit garments that
reminded lookers-on of Coolio,
bro Cadence opened stained-glass front door at
the house Tao’s stories told of. Few trees poked
through nearby sidewalks. Shared-wall housing rows
were like Chengdu, but only third as tall.
It seemed that half the block some time ago
was crafted by same hand, from door to wall
to hue to trim to structure, each was same,
cut cookie individuality.
They had more decoration than could claim
Chengdu concrete grim grid brutality.
He knew that afternoon that Stella’d come
to live with them as homestay mother’d done.
10.
“I’m Cade,” he said, extended Chinese hand
like Stel had seen a hundred times before.
She noticed, though, voice tone from different land
where skintone didn’t make you foreigner.
Cade, eighteen, stood before her, looking just
as Chinese as a one could look, and yet
pronounced his English words sans slightest rust.
It was the first occasion that she’d met
a person whose façade explained old roots
without an indication of where they’d
grown up themselves. It begged her mind reboot
by challenging what nearly two decades’
experience had taught her: how you look
determines your insides like cover’s book.
11.
It wasn’t like she knew a thing about
this boy in fat man’s clothes who welcomed her—
but rather that her ears and eyes did doubt
conclusions of the other. Seldom were
they quite so contradictory. “Hello,”
said Stel, “I’m Stella.” “Sweet.” A pause. A fist?
Cade held his fist in universal bro
position waiting for its bump. Stel missed
the signal, then with sigh he dropped it, stepped
back from the doorway so to let her in.
She hoisted suitcase with two hands and schlepped
her way up final stairs inside. Her skin
began to throb with regularity–
she realized that Cade’s posterity
12.
were nowhere to be found: foot thumps she felt
were sonic. Now her ears and skin agreed
(suggesting in the ear-eye bout, ears dealt
the greater share of truth once refereed)
that bodily discomfort stemmed from sound
so booming so as not to emanate
from any one direction, but around.
Stel’s startled face was noticed. “Featherweight!”
exclaimed her host exasperatedly
as if he’d seen the weak act thus before,
“You’ll get it someday.” Captivated, he
continued, “Stuff you can’t hear’s hidden. More
you crank the volume, more you stand to learn.”
He grinned and clockwise gave vol knob a turn.
13.
…my single dog, she tuned in, radio
needs this, they say you can rap – lost the thread –
except for Jesus – something shady hos –
if I talk God my record winds up dead.
The words flowed fast and slow, legato blend
through presto, then andante, back again,
with simplest rhythmic kick at bottom end
and autotuned falsetto howled amen.
When God show me the way because came on,
Cade sang, the Devil tryna break me down,
the only thing I pray, all pretense gone
in mien is that my feet don’t fail me now.
Atop the futon, arms Titanically
thrown open, he was vibing manically.
14.
The chanting undertone of militants
that backed up central vocals faded out,
turned home civilian from this billet gent
on futon tried to make into redoubt.
He turned the volume down, grinned widely, pleased
and clearly amped past equilibrium.
Stel hoped that her expression had appeased
her host. He queued a sequel bigly from
his phone, crouched slightly, folded arms, leaned, faced
her, asked Who’s hot, who not? Tell me who rock?
then booming from the stereo came Mase
verbatim. Who’s Dolce down to tube sock?
Cade knew each line, threw Rolie in the sky,
waved side to side, and shot Stel wolfish eyes.
15.
If whole scene hadn’t been so shocking, Stel
may have had time to think, react, concern
herself with all its implications. Spell
of vibrantly impromptu show had turned
her inner critic off. As audience,
she’d freedom to enjoy absurdities
sans judgment. On the whole, was awed immense-
ly by the way that Cadence stirred, lit. “He’s
a favorite, B.I.G.,” he said, sound low.
He caught her staring at his chain, its swing
still slight from all his shaking. “That’s my dough,
my scrilla, cheese, my hundees, all my bling.”
With ‘BLING’ her instant snap-back to real life
cut legs from under her as if with knife.
16.
She woke half-step away, laid down on couch,
disoriented in both time and space.
She turned her head to survey room, saw slouched
an old man in a sweater who’d replaced
Cade. Stel guessed man was homestay host, who’d served
in same capacity to Tao long back.
He’d aged in ways that seemed to have conserved
a baby face beneath time’s coats shellac.
She said hello and waited. Waited. Then
tried one more time in louder voice. No sign
of recognition was detected, when
descending from the steep staircase incline
came Cade, relieved and laughing slightly. “You
can try to talk to him. Don’t overdo
17.
it though, it’s kind of futile. He’s quite deaf.
It’s why – well, maybe half the reason why –
I play the stereo so loud. As chef
and general caretaker sort of guy
I figured I inherited the right
to also make myself the DJ.” “Huh?”
“He doesn’t hear a thing, so I delight
in setting my own soundtrack. Back when the
now long-gone family was around, I could
like, never do this. Well, if they’re all out,
&
nbsp; abandoning me in this house, I’ll ’hood
it up. I’ll rap. I’ll swag. I’ll vibe. I’ll shout
alongside Homeboy Sandman, J5, Nas,
The Tribe, Madvillain. Biggie taught me floss
18.
and jig on Fortune, that’s the way to be.”
Stel looked across the room at calm old man
who’d scarcely moved from where he flaccidly
had melted, liquid man on gold divan.
Her lengthened time in consciousness birthed quip:
“I get it now. You’re patent twins—the clothes,
the mannerisms, age, and choice of hip-
hop. Clearly all genetics.” Juxtapose
a young adult’s tsunami presence and
dried salt sea’s liveliness of elderly
deprived of sense of senses’ full command
to get a sense of helter-skelter she
perceived right then. “Fo sho’,” he played along,
he pointed toward divan, “his bling game’s strong.”
19.
She laughed, then when it passed came back to clues
about what Tao had hinted went on here.
“So you’re caretaking here, or I’m confused?”
“To outsiders I guess that’s what appears,
but honestly the label don’t mean shit.”
She feared that she’d offended him, but how
she couldn’t guess so backed down. “Did I hit
my head? I think I fainted when you wowed
me with your chains.” Though cast with humor’s hook,
the mention snagged in Stel’s own mental flesh
as brain began to spiral on what took
place back at SFO, how crowds were threshed
as if humanity were wheat and chaff
determined by skin tone on photograph.
20.
“You might have, I dunno. You blacked out right
onto the couch. I guessed you just got slammed
by jet lag, stuff like that from flights.”
He stopped to pop lock Brother Ali’s jam
he’d put on in the background. “You don’t stop?”
a foggy Stella asked from where she lay,
eye-level dance in foreground, with backdrop
of disconnected man with brain decay.
Cade winked, replied, “I can’t, I won’t. It’s all
I got, this hustle. Gave up fighting long
ago.” Stel didn’t grasp his talk of brawl
but came back to the point before the songs
took over air with boomed compression wave
and asked where rest of family was. “Well, they’ve
21.
gone some time back, in search of other stuff.
It’s me and Yeye rockin’ out alone.”
Voice quiver pitch suggested ’twas enough
of that discussion topic. Cade switched tone
and gleefully announced, “That’s why I’m stoked
you’re finally here to warm things up. I spoke
to Auntie Tao. She said that you evoked
thoughts of her younger self, when she got woke
by hanging here.” “I do?” “Yep. High school’s passed.
She hopes you’ll open to life’s multitudes.”
Stel liked that Tao made rosier forecast
than how face felt: cracked porcelain, now glued.
Behind it lay pure loneliness, its grief
too fresh to salve with hip-hop creed relief.
22.
Perhaps jet lag, perhaps the trauma, or
perhaps the simple power of stuff that’s strange
conspired to give her blackout rest, restore
her verve to see the US. Broad was range
of things so far: injustice off the plane
was followed by a so-so BART and bus,
then homestay bro with front like Gucci Mane,
and elder man who heard no thing discussed.
These weren’t the things she’d thought she’d find the first
– or even maybe last – day she’d be here.
Four years in Chinese high school long since nursed
her want to re-become a Pioneer.
Adopted in all ways but legal means
let her and her Ab grow to seventeen
23.
alongside Ai in Sichuan’s breadbasket.
Perhaps more accurately, alongside
her crafty mother Tao, whose dynastic
ties stretched back to the sixties here stateside.
A couple years before she’d set her mind
to making sure adopted kids would get
a shot to see her Golden State affined.
No one had thought Abu would be beset
by icy ICE at first step onto land,
to purgatory rather than to goal.
But Stella knew not what to do, her hand
was powerless in land of Super Bowl.
She’d rather focus inward and breathe deep,
in focus plugging cracks through which fears seeped.
24.
Day stroll down gum-lined Page Street innocent,
Stel paused to see the trees for what they were,
abloom with buds and ringed by succulents
in pots fit as if from couturier.
These concrete-punctuating plants’ points drooped
as if they owned the fact that they were there
as cardboard is to theater set, to dupe
quick-passing audience of nature’s flair.
These spiny things betrayed that season’d changed
by shedding all their signs of chlorophyll,
so silhouette of tree was rearranged
to skeleton in floral store of will.
As optical relief from angles’ rights
they softened street despite appearance blight.
25.
Stel’s feet paced rhythms influenced by cracks
where pavement’s slabs were visible in cast,
stride lengthening to platforms’ comfort’s max
so feet touched ground where concrete massed, set past
these artificial fault lines. Were she to
place toes upon these chasms, there was chance
by superstition that she’d then accrue
bad luck. She hadn’t time for that. Askance,
a dreadlocked homeless tan Caucasian, tall,
looked through her with the eyes of living dead
she guessed had come from huffing gasohol
or maybe something higher-class instead.
He passed in peace, which Stel attributed
to luck avoiding cracks distributed.
26.
The street she strode stretched lazily between
the avenue that passer-by called home,
the Haight, (where years ago ten thousand teens
declared the summer ‘Love’ and freely roamed),
and Oak, fast-moving one-way past a park.
A corridor for residents, its mum
demeanor balanced selfies, hashtags, marks
from Facebook checking-ins that hit eardrums
when standing next to Ashbury. Stel liked
proximity to hubbub, but remove.
And so she chose that first time that she’d hike
this thoroughfare until she knew each groove
as DJs do their records, or as she’d
once known her Tanzanian backyard’s weeds.
27.
Commitment to a place, however new
felt somewhat grounding, pardoning the pun.
Pretending long-intended rendezvous
with place she ended up maxed out the fun.
She’d first accepted self when finding out
authentic ways to interact with where
she lived, rejecting other kids’ devout
regard for social hierarchy’s compare.
T
his grounding exercise warmed limbo’s chill,
by actively embracing place as gift.
No matter length of local window, she’ll
make best of it through such a mindset shift.
In sight like from old Annals, eyes latched on
to shiver-leaving redwood lit by dawn.
28.
It stood before a house six feet offset
from pavement, unlike others huddled fore,
its bark deep brown, its spire like minaret
sky-shouting nature’s prayer toward clouds’ low floor.
For just three paces’ time the rising sun
lit haloed sempervirens to become
the orienting axis on which spun
beliefs that all’s divine of deism.
Stel snapped from accidental reverie
to see a lined-faced elder friendlier
than wand’rer passed. Ma’am held accessory
of garden shears in hand, intently her
attention hunting out improper stem,
bud, branch, blade, twig, or weed then trimming them.
29.
Stel stopped as neighbor, faced a butcher’s scowl
appearing when she asked of redwood tree.
“Its root growth’s been impossible! It’s fouled
four water pipes in thirty years, the fee
ten grand each time. I want it dead and gone.”
“But passers-by would lack the sense they’d left
for ancient California. Mastodons
back then were still dwarfed by these as they crept
amid the undergrowth to gobble ferns!
You’ve raised this natural statue linking to
the way this land will rapidly return
if we’re to go extinct. Primordial stew’s
short on ingredients. So, I guess, thanks
for keeping it.” Her mansion showed she’d bank,
30.
so Stel said, “It’s your duty to give back
by paying, cause you can. Sad, isn’t it
when rich wrap selves in blankets of greenbacks?
To covet greed is self-imprisonment.”
Stel turned her back and walked. The gardener
was left befuddled by backhanded words
and didn’t know if she should pardon her
or take them as a compliment. Two birds
flew east to west above their heads, wings swift
and beating, bleating geese’s honk broadcast.
The forceful sound felt prehistoric, gift
from unadulterated epochs past.
Encouragement to tend to nature’s health
was worth the words to neighbors hoarding wealth.
31.
She saw that long ago someone had done
the same, once turning eyes toward end of street:
on intersection’s far side there begun
a vast expanse of greenness, space replete
with cypress trees and pines from Monterey