Fish Heads and Duck Skin

by Lindsey Salatka

  “I hated that place, Tina,” Daniel said.

  “You hated it before we got there, solely because of the price tag,” I said, addressing the concrete barrier.

  “Wrong. I hate it because it’s stuffy and ridiculous and they teach ‘maths’ to babies,” he said.

  I turned to him, glowering. “Well, I think that if you put ‘perfect school’ into Google and hit images, there’d be a picture of that school staring back at you.” I turned away again. “But whatever, it doesn’t matter if it’s perfect since it’s no longer an option. We can cross that school off the list with a big fat red pen.”

  “It never was an option,” he said.

  We sat in silence for a while as the list of things I wanted to change grew longer and longer.

  Daniel paused. “Why don’t you go for a run when we get home. I’m leaving tomorrow for three days, and it looks like you need to blow off some steam. I’ll stay with the girls for a while,” he finally said.

  “I’ll probably get lost. I only know how to get to Starbucks and back,” I grumbled.

  “Run to Starbucks then,” he said.

  “Fine.”

  23.

  Running to Starbucks did not improve my spirits. There were too many roads to cross, bikes to dodge, staring people to maneuver around, and nasty puddles to jump to maintain any speed or glean any sort of mind-numbing groove. The large white city buses, and there were loads of them on every block, farted steady black clouds of exhaust. This will be the day I catch cancer, I grumbled to myself before sealing my lips, puffing out my cheeks, and crossing a single lane street behind a line of buses shoe-horned with people.

  When I finally arrived at Starbucks, I stood facing the door and crossed my arms—I didn’t reach for the handle. I sensed that neither a warm nor cold drink would provide the antidote to my grumpitude. I sighed and looked up, silently addressing the green mermaid oracle, what does a person banished to this dreadful town do for distraction?

  Lady Serendipity was apparently friends with the Starbucks Siren because at that very moment, I caught sight of a chalkboard out of the corner of my eye. It was about waist high and perched against a pile of cinder blocks at the entrance to the alley adjacent to Starbucks. The answer I was seeking spoke to me from this chalkboard in large capital letters:

  MASSAGE

  65rmb

  A small arrow scribbled in the corner of the chalkboard pointed to an unlit, unmarked door. It looked derelict. I thought about walking away but hesitated. Seeing the word “massage” reminded me of the tightness on both sides of my spine, reminiscent of a set of over-tuned guitar strings connecting the base of my head to the crest of my butt. Our mattress was barely more than a plank; my right arm fell asleep every night before I did. I need this, I thought and marched up to the door, pressing my forehead against the glass, blocking the light around my head with my hands. Pitch black. Figures, I thought, but pushed on the door just in case. A string of bells tied to the inside handle jingled as I nearly fell in.

  “Hello? Um, ni hao?” I called into the darkness.

  As my eyes adjusted, I could see that the room was empty except for two old red vinyl couches facing each other.

  A small man dressed in black stepped out from behind a faded old curtain on the far wall. He pawed at the air in silence and disappeared behind the curtain again.

  Is he motioning for me to follow him? I thought. I’m not sure. This is sketchy. Why aren’t the lights on? I should leave. Following a stranger into a dark room is something I would instruct my children to never, ever do.

  The man reappeared and pawed at the air again, this time smiling at me. I walked toward him with a shrug.

  I mean, what’s the real risk here? Look at him—he’s five foot nothing and half my weight. He’s wearing slippers for Pete’s sake. What could he actually do? If he attempted to grab me, I could reach around and snap him over my knee like an anemic scrap of kindling.

  Once behind the curtain, the man led me to a tiny closet lit by a bare lightbulb hanging from the center of a spider-webby ceiling tile. He looked me up and down quickly, then reached onto the top left shelf to grab faded but clean-smelling blue and white striped pajamas. He handed them to me with both hands and a small bow. Relief flooded through me because this stack of pajamas meant I didn’t have to get naked, removing a variable I had just started to panic about.

  Next to the closet, he shoved aside a dingy pink towel which hung by two nails from a board attached to the corner of the ceiling, revealing a small triangular changing area. A square plastic stool sat against the wall. He plucked the pajamas from my hands and set them on the stool. Then he stood and smiled. His teeth were sparse.

  In a low voice, he said something I couldn’t understand and bowed again, this time turning and walking away, toward yet another curtain on the wall near the opposite corner.

  I paused, watching him leave and the curtain swing back to its resting position. It’s not too late to leave, I thought. And do what? I snapped at myself. Find something else to be miserable about? My back chimed in. “Get your ass in the pajamas,” it said. I stepped inside the towel, pulling it closed. There was a large gap between the towel and the walls on both sides. I changed in record speed.

  When I stepped out, I clutched my running clothes in a ball in one hand and hung my shoes from the middle fingers of the other. A pair of fuzzy, not remotely new, black slippers had been placed in front of a folding chair that was backed against the wall closest to me. The man walked up and pointed to them.

  I mounted my final protest. “Do I have to?” I whined, knowing he didn’t understand. “I’m freaky about my feet and I’m guessing these crusty dogs are rife with someone else’s fungus.” I pointed at the slippers.

  He smiled and wagged his finger at my feet.

  I surrendered, sitting heavily in the folding chair. “Do my socks come off too?” I looked at him. “Like this?” I pulled off my socks and he nodded. “It’s a good thing I packed my foot spray,” I murmured as I slipped my feet into the slippers. I looked at him and nodded, indicating we were on the same page. He smiled and turned to lead me down the hall.

  Behind the curtain lay a large dark room filled with about fifty back-to-back massage tables—a virtual massage factory. Four of the tables were occupied, all by men laying prone in pajamas matching mine. At least one of them was snoring. I followed the man to a vacant table near the other men. He stopped to fold a hand towel around the face ring, and then he walked away.

  I kicked off the slippers and pushed myself backward onto the table. I saw the man washing his hands at a tiny sink in the corner of the room as I turned to lay on my belly. I flopped around like a fish on the vinyl to position my nose into the center of the face hole. At least his hands are clean, I thought and attempted to quiet the alarm bells ringing in my mind.

  I looked up as the man padded back to me. “Not too strong, okay?” I whispered. Even though I knew he didn’t understand, I felt better for having said it. I looked down and felt his presence at my head before he reached out to smooth my hair. Then he took a deep breath and lay his fingers lightly on my temples.

  So began the best massage of my life.

  In a near-trance, I paid the equivalent of eight dollars for my massage and stumbled out the door, the bells jingling, this time signifying gratitude, on my way out. I crossed the road with significantly less fear than usual and ambled in the direction of home. Halfway through the first block, I stumbled onto a pedestrian pathway.

  Kristy had been telling me about this path, but I hadn’t noticed it before, probably because I always fled to the other side of the road for this section of the route home to avoid the fermented tofu vendor who was usually stationed here.

  Nothing compared to the funk of fermented tofu. One whiff would induce a gag reflex in me so powerful, my arm hairs would stand at attention for a solid fifteen minutes as I tried to regain composure and stop my eyes from watering. But on this day, stinky to
fu man wasn’t there and thus, I stayed on that side of the road and noticed the path, which at that moment was softly lit like an angel’s passage and nearly empty, nothing like the sidewalks and gutters of my normal high-traffic route. What the heck, I thought and turned down the path.

  A few old trees lined the pathway which was mostly dirt and small rocks with the occasional blob of busted-up asphalt. After walking for a few minutes, I noticed what looked like light green ceramic tiles peeking through a thin layer of dirt on the ground. I bent down to take a closer look when an unexpected voice nearly caused me to jump out of my skin.

  “It’s a fine day for a walk, isn’t it?” a man’s voice said. My first reaction was to look up, into the tree closest to me. Why would I search a tree for the source of a man’s voice? I have no idea. Maybe I was expecting to see the Cheshire Cat peering down at me, all magenta stripes and giant grin. The voice chuckled (just like that cat would have) and that’s when I spotted the source—an old man tucked into a shadow—in a corner where the path turned, between a chain link fence and an apartment building covered with the same light green tiles that were on the path.

  I recognized him right away—he was the same man who had helped Piper down from the monkey bars at the park a few weeks prior. He sat on a flat rock, and on his lap rested an accordion. He crossed his hands on his instrument and blinked at me. He was so earnest and unexpected, plunked on this path in his black beret and baggy gray jumpsuit, I had to stifle a laugh. I turned toward him.

  “I’d like to play a song for you,” he said, and suddenly, “Happy Birthday” boomed from his accordion. For squeezebox neophytes, the accordion has two volume settings: LOUD and EXTREMELY LOUD. The song blared from his instrument as his hands maneuvered the bellows back and forth and his eyes literally twinkled. I couldn’t make this up. I also could no longer stifle.

  It wasn’t a polite tee-hee type of laughter that bubbled up. It was a shriek, howl, snort type of laughter. I doubled over and crossed my legs for fear I’d wet myself. I must have been overdue for a good laugh because this moment wasn’t particularly funny; he could really play that thing! Plus, I didn’t want to insult him. I tried to stop and listen, but every time I slowed my laughter down, I would guffaw again, hooting, tears streaming. I had no control. The laughter was my master.

  He stopped playing. “You don’t like this song?”

  “No, I do!” I crowed. “It’s a wonderful song, an important song! Keep playing! Don’t pay attention to me!” I wiped the tears from my eyes and tried again to get my act together.

  He waited for me to quiet down. “This song is American, like you,” he finally said, nodding.

  “How do you know I’m American?”

  “I can see,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Of course. It’s easy to see—Americans are happy. They smile,” he said, grinning at me with a straight line of gums. “Even their bodies are happy. Their knees bounce and their arms swing when they walk.” He let go of his accordion to flap his arms. “And Americans look up, not down. Not so serious. Very happy. I can see.”

  “Well that may be how I’m walking today.” I flapped my arms back at him and smiled, “But on most days you probably wouldn’t guess that I’m American because I’m typically grouchy.”

  He looked confused. “Eh?”

  “I mean I’m not always happy.”

  “Yes, yes you are,” he disagreed. “You’re happy in here.” He thumped on his chest with his palm. “Happy in your heart, because you’re lucky.”

  I smiled. “I didn’t know we Americans did all that bouncing and moving.”

  “It’s true. You could ask anyone in my building here, but they can’t speak English like I can.”

  “How did you learn English?”

  “I learned it a long time ago. And now that you’re my friend, I can practice it with you,” he said. “Soon you come back here, speak English with me. I’ll play shǒufēngqín for you again, make you laugh more. Trade favors we will.”

  I felt it coming again, from just below my lowest ribs. My eyes widened and I raised my hand. “Please don’t talk like Yoda. I’ll laugh again.”

  “I don’t know this Yoda,” he said, replicating Yoda.

  I blinked and pressed my lips together. “I have to go. Thank you.” I turned to walk away and stopped. “Wait, what’s your name?”

  “You can call me Mr. Han. What is your name?”

  “I’m Tina.”

  “Very nice to meet you, Miss Ting-ah. When will you walk here again?”

  “Hopefully in four days,” I said, already dreaming of my next massage. “Goodbye, Mr. Han.”

  “Goodbye, my friend.” He paused, then called after me, “I call you Ting Ting, okay? See you soon, Ting Ting!” Then he launched into a slower, sadder song, one I didn’t recognize.

  24.

  Dear Jennifer,

  I bought a bike today—a cruiser—because it’s now November, which means rain—pounding, sleeting, dumping rain. San Diego hasn’t experienced a whole day of rain like this since its inception, and we’ve been drenched by water cascading from the sky here for two straight weeks with no sign of let-up. The bottom floor of my apartment building is one giant murky, slippery cesspond. It’s cold to wade through, even in rain boots, and it smells like dead things.

  I bought a bike because guess what taxis do when it’s raining? Drive other people. Anyone but me. I see how it is. The people who win taxis in rainstorms aggressively assert themselves in the center of the road with an all or nothing approach; you either take me, or you kill me. But I just can’t do it. I mean I’m gutsy enough, but I’ve got a stroller, and it just feels wrong. Also, I tried it once, and we all nearly perished. Besides, it didn’t work—the driver weaved and then picked up a person ten feet beyond me. Someone without two screaming kids and an extra-large, extra-wet apparatus for transporting them.

  Enter: the bike. It has two child seats—one in the front, one in the back. The back seat is less a seat and more a basket. To be clear, it’s an actual basket—woven probably from some form of bamboo. *Factoid Alert* There exists a species of bamboo that grows three feet in one day. If the amount of rain equals the amount of growth, I get it. Do I see bamboo growing here, in the concrete jungle? No. But it must grow (and rapidly!) nearby, because so many things are made from bamboo here, including, but not limited to: ladders, scaffolding for high-rise buildings, and child bike seats. It’s strange to me that the strongest, most durable material around here is not a metal. But who am I kidding? It’s all strange. Strange and wet.

  I bought a large plastic poncho to complement my bike. It has a long train, kinda like Princess Di’s wedding dress, except it’s long in the front, too, and also see-through. I mount my bike and flip the back train over Piper in the back seat, the front train over Lila in the front seat, et voila! The kids remain dry. And they don’t suffocate! Which is a plus. I stay mostly dry too, except for my face, which is wet, frozen, and feels like it belongs to someone else when I touch it.

  I ride my bike cautiously in the gutters and on the sidewalks slammed with people, ringing my bell with abandon. People love me! Okay, not really, but I’m too cold and wet to care. Plus, bike rides entertain the kids for long stretches. And without school or friends or more than a small collection of toys which have all lost their luster, child entertainment is my raison d’être right now. My friend Kristy has sensed my desperation and kindly agreed to accompany me to a local market—one specializing in knock-off toys—for shopping and translation assistance. We’ve had to reschedule this much needed outing for two straight weeks because of the deluge. But things are looking up—the forecast says no rain for 1.5 days! Toy status improvement is imminent. Can you feel my joy over this crappy excuse for a modem?

  -Tina

  P.S. My clothing status improvement is not imminent, and I will tell you why once my PTSD has subsided. In case you’re wondering what to send in my first care package, make it a c
ute shirt. And chocolate bars. And diapers. And cereal. And chocolate bars. What can I send you from Shanghai? How about toads and water snakes? They sell them on the street in front of my house. For dinner. I guess everything is delicious somewhere. xxx

  25.

  “There’s a fly in my nose!” I blustered the next day, halting mid-stride in the teeming local market to shake my head wildly while exhaling in bursts through flared nostrils, blowing hard enough to dislodge an insect without releasing shrapnel. The ground in the market swarmed with people; the air abounded with flies.

  Kristy stopped and turned around as locals bumped, shouted, and wriggled around us. “Keep walking,” she barked. “We’ll get it out when we get to the handbag shop.”

  “What? I’m not here for a purse, I need toys for the kids!”

  Kristy faced me with her hands on her hips and her brows in a V. “I know, but the purses are on the way to the toys, and I need to buy a Frauda backpack for my mother-in-law today if I’m going to get it to the UK by Christmas.”

  A man stopped directly in front of me, well within my personal space. He bent over and reached for Lila’s feet. “No!” I yelled at him. He looked at me with a blank expression and kept reaching. “I said no! No, no, no!” I pushed his shoulder away. He stepped out to get his balance, then stood, muttering, and shuffled away. I turned to Kristy. “This place is terrible. I’ve never in my life seen so many flies.”

  “Two things,” Kristy said. “One, it’s only fly-infested because we’re by the meat, and two, you should say bùyào.”

  I looked at her for a moment. “Huh?”

  She continued. “Bùyào is how you say ‘no.’ Well, one of the ways … but if you say bùyào when someone is doing something you don’t like, they’ll understand you, and you won’t need to shove them.”