by Tuttle, Dan;
alongside eucalyptus crescent leaves.
The monochrome light’s drift left faraway
blue contours where horizon’s line they cleaved.
Expansiveness of field and farm she’d known
back home in Tanzania seemed remote.
She sensed this ecotype had overgrown,
its upward stretch its zygotes’ antidote
to man-made boundaries that left it caged,
exhibit zoolike. Maybe her teenaged
32.
rejection of all governance cast shade
upon her view. She wondered if she’d been
her stupid childhood self when seeing laid
so grand a park, would she have noticed yin
of nature tempered by the yang’s control?
She sensed teen days’ complexity compound
and knew not if the universe on whole
was faster toward full entropy inbound,
or rather if the changing force was how
she saw the things that ’round her’d always been
all present. She decided least for now
to shelve the thought till caffeine coursed within
her blood, the serum separating clear,
clean thought from swirls that morning’d not cohere.
CHAPTER 17
33.
The caffeine she’d accustom to was poured
from curvy spout by hand in four to six
establishments ten minutes’ walk, no more,
from her front door. Devouts nigh Catholic
in dedication to these expert brews
existed, but Stel doubted made up most
the clientele. Instead, the crowdsourced ruse
was one that real estate best diagnosed:
the price of every room too high to bear
without a paying body in it meant
that sitting parlors, offices weren’t there,
the space repurposed for a bed and rent.
So cottage industry of coffee shop
became the low-priced desk for laptops’ lot.
34.
While living at Cade’s residence she’d not
need to enlist in latte nomads’ rank
since it had space the size of Camelot,
and cost that much, or so said Citibank.
The property a century ago
had had a stable, room for servants too.
The city then had yet to westward grow
from wharf. Homestead frontier’s conservant few
had turned some nearby neighborhood of sand
into the park of Golden Gate with poo
of horse and straw and time, so meadowland
took root then soiled the way for worming yew
in Japanese-laid garden, bonsai, ponds
accenting taller eucalyptus fronds.
35.
Victorian beneficence in form,
the house attracted Tao’s young uncle who’d
fled civil war. Its place was slum in norm
and price, its neighbors sought their solitude
for weed and ecstasy and LSD.
Before the Wars on Drugs and Poverty,
they said that life was poor but stressless, free
of three-strikes cop arrests. The polity
lived under radar of policing. Bands
like Grateful Dead, Sly Stone, and Jefferson
Airplane and Joplin grew from such badlands.
He wasn’t part, became a chef. Person
he hoped to be, homeowner, soon he was,
where streets were endlessly alive, abuzz.
36.
He started out as line cook at Mel’s Drive
-In, over on Van Ness, its melamine
and crooning jukebox spinning forty-fives.
He somehow got past city’s average xen-
ophobic tendencies ’gainst immigrants,
and made enough to open up a shop.
Store hadn’t any true discriminants
except that he worked sales nearly nonstop.
Compounding tiny growth in decades prior
to shifting of economy toward tech
meant tourist tchotchke land could be retired:
sell plot to startup, end days with fat check.
His silence in his older age made folks
suspicious he’d forgotten life, uncoaxed
37.
by pressures of the grind to stay aware
of goings-on. Withdrawn, he’d bought antique,
if run-down house, in neighborhood Foursquare
would rate well only after tech there peaked.
He spent days by the fireplace, where he’d think.
Of what? No live observer could explain.
Stel fancied something better shared with shrink
associations bypassing forebrain
in lengthy journey back through memories’
fragmented catacombs, the tunnels toward
the integrated sense of self. Roar, wheeze,
and crack and pop filled room, with untouched cords
awaiting immolation in the wings,
their sacrifice the entropy fire sings.
38.
In reminiscent chimneyed parlor, Cade
sat close enough to Yeye so to leap
if flames excitably had ricocheted
to light his socks, yet far enough so deep
and lengthy introspection could occur
untouched by expectation. So they sat,
with Stella furthest from the red fire’s purr.
They listened to hearth’s common tune, format
arrhythmic as the rains, their thoughts. Stel broke
the unagreed-to silence when two tears
fell out without intention. “It the smoke?”
asked Cade, who’d noticed. “No, it just appears
sometimes when sitting, thinking fondly ’bout…”
Abu. “The travel ban, I know.” “Right. Doubt
39.
who’ll make it through, return…” “And what they did
with those at SFO they turned away.”
They’d earlier discussed how ban in mid-
flight used the bluntest form of dossier
to turn away real humans randomly,
how unjust to let papers leave folks flagged.
“How’s single, mindless memorandum he
signed caused so much distress?” “You hear he gagged
the civil service too? It’s like he can’t
bear hearing anyone that disagrees
and so he fills his crib with sycophants.”
They’d spoken angrily of appointees
that Boy had chosen, filling toady mold,
wall’s Mirror Mirror lying choices gold.
40.
Though Cadence readily would jump right in
to bashing politics, Stel pulled far back
into herself. She sought control within
because, as alien, she had a lack
of vote to change this higher policy.
The company of people – even if
all new – made her feel tad less small. If she
took up Ab’s case, she feared, she’d face sheriff
or equal law enforcement looking for
the smallest reason to call her a threat
they’d subsequently spin to crazed press corps
to turn her into someone who abets
this terrorism-theoretical
invented so marquis heretical
41.
face paints the headlines yellow, stokes the fears
of fact-rejecting base. It had deterred
more than enough to keep this Pioneer
in silence, though the law with her concurred.
Stel breathed and tried to center self as learned
in last few years in China, mindfully
in focus on how each breath in returned
control to conscious choice.
“The grind’ll be
a long one,” Cade continued, trying to bait
Stel back to conversation, “four full years?
It’s worse than that revenge war post-Kuwait!”
She didn’t take it up, but volunteered
that melancholy wasn’t normal mood,
from fear he’d think her past few days quite rude:
42.
“Hey, sorry I’ve been quiet, maybe sour.
I know that hardly makes for good houseguests.
It’s weird, life’s all new… yet again. The power
I’m used to’s gone.” “School?” “Partly, yeah, its tests.”
“Tests! Those are all we’ve got from day to day.
You know My Beautiful and Twisted Dark
drops lines in ‘So Appalled’ from master Jay-
Z on how critics love you when your arc
is starting out, you’re human, hustling
to make it, up on highs and down in lows
until you break through, that’s when fuss’ll bring
you back to gutter, fame leaves you exposed.
You’ve got your times you’re underpaid and those
you’re overrated. All those human woes
43.
you go through on the way are how you get
from place to place. I dunno anyone
who’s crossed their bridge without a drop of sweat.
So don’t go saying sorry when ain’t nun’.”
At that time Stella didn’t really get
the ethos Cadence used to pick his fights
’mong all the questions laid in life’s remit.
She’d later cultivate own copyrights
on personal opinions of the same—
and more than one she’d have to thank him for,
for in ensuing months she’d see his frame
intently balance duties he deplored
against belief whose strength was spidersilk
and oddly sung to him by rappers’ ilk.
44.
“I’m feeling past my jet lag,” Stel began,
“I think my head is finally clear enough
to hear how your arrangement with this man
evolved to where you are today.” “It’s tough
to tell it all,” replied Cade, “maybe it’s
for best if that one’s kept on d and l.”
Stel hesitated, couldn’t call it quits,
and pushed a little. “What if you retell
that history, and in exchange I’ll share
what happened to me when I was a kid?”
She hoped that give-and-take would feel more fair.
Perhaps the precip, or Stel’s teary lids
together made the mood both damp and lit.
His stare turned human under mask, its grit
45.
appearing real first time in flick’ring light.
“You get the cut that’s made for radio,”
Cade said, to limit Stella’s appetite.
“I had my life, then I got played. Free? No.
Got that there skeleton I’m duty-bound
to keep for others. In exchange I eat
and get a bed to sleep in.” Cade showed frown
then quickly squashed it. “You could say it’s suite,”
he kept on, only so to laugh a bit
aloud. Some seconds passed. And then some more
and Stella understood that that was it.
Reciprocally she chose to staunch outpour
of what was in her heart that pushed out tears;
gave meager summary of Chinese years.
46.
She did admit she missed grades’ ladders, as
she’d let slip earlier: Ab’s hard routine
made fine companionship for her pizzazz,
and now without rungs’ bar she felt unseen.
When done, she realized a certain thrill
associated with the keeping close
of secrets of identity. Distill
the truths into more palatable dose?
Not hard, she found. Instinctively she’d glossed
past all incriminating details that
if leaked could get her from this country tossed,
including fact she’d left home’s broken slats
behind with permanence when China came,
a refugee in everything but name.
47.
Both seemed at limit of what they’d disclose,
so crackling fire again filled sonic space.
Some minutes passed in full group soft repose,
the youth like elderly in flames’ embrace.
Without apparent trigger, Cadence pulled
his phone out, touched the screen, and walls revived.
He stretched out further under blanket’s wool
with face of bliss like junkie once deprived
who’d found another hit. The stereo
lit up with hook of Tanzania, Stel
perked up to rhymes that artist buried. Flow
went: Every day I gotta trust, impelled
to hustle hard, my grind is real… ’n dope,
I’m Gladiator like that Russell Crowe.
48.
Inscrutable externally, Yeye
sat just as silhouetted as before
new beats came on. “You know what flippin’ yay
is all about in this one?” Cade implored
her answer. “No,” she absentmindedly
replied. “It’s selling coke, his meaning’s clear:
with hip-hop this bro di’nt decline, kid freed
himself by writing lyrics, all which mirr’red
his life. It’s one by Lupe. Check it out.”
This seemed to be the sole direction Cade
would take for further conversation’s route,
track after track. Stel’d had enough. She bade
the silent shadow man and eager G
a peaceful rest and went upstairs to sleep.
49.
Of things worthwhile to pack for gap year, Stel
chose two specific volumes for suitcase.
The first was one that Tao herself compelled
a younger Stella read, and whose roots traced
to her own childhood: Brocade River Verse.
The second was tome partially forgot,
intent of which was letting her immerse
herself in youth’s adventures. One sore spot
was that once touching down in Chengdu, it
was touched but once: Stel added tai chi trance
by riverside. Life made her sprint. She quit,
stopped finding Annals-worthy circumstance.
Upstairs, she set out Pioneers’ old tome,
mused how to turn blank pages into home.
CHAPTER 18
50.
She lala’ed quite salama up until
alarm dukes unexpectedly clocked in:
with angering amounts of sheer goodwill
excited Cadence unleashed hellish din.
She heard him at the door, fists banged and banged
as if with urgency of life or death,
and in between each uzi round of whangs
he squeezed excited words from wheezing breath.
“Yo! Protest day! It’s protest time! Let’s go!
We got some place to be and Yeye’s good.
The people’s turnin’ out! It’s what we owe
democracy: to stand up when you should!”
Stel’s sleepy mind obeyed, left brain still fogged,
put sweats on, then toward hoary morning slogged.
51.
For early on a windy Saturday
they weren’t alone, the line of them, slow, pressed
toward protest goal beneath a flatter gray
than showed in week of wetness ENSO’d guessed.
Content in slowly coming up to speed,
Stel chose to not ask
questions of her friend.
Her brethren pilgrims had large signs, like she’d
encountered in the airport. All were penned
in fonts of size to be seen from afar,
and had a range of messages, most on
how values once American were tarred
by sending off Hassans, Khans, and Gibrans.
They turned on Grove and there she saw the tall
bronze globe pierce sky of SF City Hall.
52.
They made their way into the throng, past news
vans ringing outer plaza, satellites
extended up to broadcast interviews
with soldiers in this values battle. Fights
were nowhere to be seen, the scene at peace
(to those without ability to hear).
To keep that order were dispatched police,
though Stella saw they didn’t interfere.
Politely threading through the crowd, Cade led
to where most spirited of slogans were.
They parked, ensured no calls were for bloodshed
or brawling, then joined in cicada’s chirr:
the independent voices synchronized
’gainst Boy’s trumped-up campaign of flat-out lies.
53.
They navigated through the body of
the crowd, their shoulders pressed between the cells
comprising creature protesting that love
for those worst-off should truly trump all else.
These cells were groups of like and like who’d come
together, altogether swarm behaved
like group in any public setting from
the concert to the stadium: one slaved
to get from edge to center through the clumps.
They ended up amid a group who knew
each other, fists a-throb with accent pumps.
In Stella’s last five years in packed Chengdu
she’d never seen a crush of folks this dense,
self-organized in common self-defense.
54.
They’d easily joined in to chorus chant
and with a growing sense of ease surveyed
the signs brought as a basis to incant,
surprised at breadth of arguments displayed.
THE PILGRIMS WERE UNDOCUMENTED said
one, other JESUS WAS A REFUGEE,
some claimed defeating ISIS would instead
be better waged and more effectually
in places it existed, per the facts.
Perhaps, though, Stella’s favorite were two dogs
both labeled #ALTERNATIVECATS.
Each person seemed prepared for snapshots, vlogs
and blogs and Twitter bites and evening news,
if given channel to broadcast their views.
55.
They got that chance, it seemed, with smartphone fix.
A Valley full of techno-junkies held