by Jadie Jang
“What camp?” I asked, trying to stuff down my suspicion.
“Tule Lake.” Not a lie.
“Wow, heavy,” I said. Tule Lake was for the real go-getters, the ones who’d objected to being deprived of liberty without due process. “Were your grandparents community leaders?”
“Yeah.” My eyes burned again. “Not in any kind of official capacity, but folks in the community kind of looked to them. Not everybody liked them, and they were denounced, which is how they ended up there.” None of that last bit was false, which means that he was telling a true story, but just lying about it being his grandparents. What the hell?
He sipped his drink and I wiped the counter, trying to think of what to say next.
“So,” he said, “should we talk about the—“
“Yes! Yes we should.” I put the damp cloth down, grabbed an apple out of the fridge, and came around to sit next to him. “What do you think about the shapeshifter thing?”
“It’s an interesting idea. But Asians, especially the Japanese—for manga and anime—really don’t think about hybridity or transnationality the same way that we do. In anime and manga most shapeshifting transformations are animal transformations. Then probably the next most common is gender transformations—which is a big thing in Asian mythologies, with demons changing genders to entrap people ’n’ stuff.”
“Whoa! Freudian much? Are there mangas like that? Or depictions of foreigners living in Japan? Or Japanese living abroad?”
He tapped his fingers on his knee, thinking. “For the living abroad thing there’s Ranma 1/2. This father and son go to China and are cursed with transformation there. And for transnationality there’s Ghost in the Shell where the protagonist is a cyborg in this really multinational future city.” He gave me a long, and frankly geeky description of each of these, which I might have found a snooze if anyone else had been telling me, but was fascinating coming from him. “And I can dig up one or two more, I suppose. There’s some new stuff I’ve been meaning to watch. How long do I have?”
“I can give you to the end of the month. I know you write quickly.”
“But think slowly.” He demonstrated, tapping his leg again. It was a nice-looking leg, I had to admit, encased as it was in slightly worn skinny jeans. “I’m trying to connect this to mythology, but it doesn’t really connect. I mean, there are shapeshifter legends in all major cultures. But they’re mostly human-to-animal or animal-to-human. The transformations just have to do with basic human wonders and fears and weird hankerings for their pets. Also: desire for magical solutions to their problems.”
“For example …”
“Oh, uh … well, the most well-known one in East Asia is the fox spirit. It’s called the kitsune in Japanese, huli jing in Chinese, and kumiho in Korean. It’s an ordinary fox that, if it lives to a certain number of years, acquires the ability to change into human form—usually a beautiful young woman, for the purpose of luring men, of course. In Japanese legend it’s a hundred years, but in Korean it’s a thousand. And generally the fox spirit is ambiguous, both good and bad. The Koreans, though, think they’re all bad, because they’re just like that.”
“Paranoid, the lot of ‘em. Not that it isn’t justified, when it comes to you all.” I waved at him indicating he represented Japanese people everywhere.
He chuckled. “Too true. But the fox spirits are basically blamed for a variety of things, or credited with a variety of things: most commonly, I think, men’s wandering eyes. And there’s a lot of Little-Mermaid-type stuff in Chinese legend, like a white snake spirit who turns into a beautiful woman when she falls in love with a human man. And animal spirits and demons who have to learn religion or magic to a certain extent to be able to transform into human form; like humanity is for extra credit. There’s a lot of that; transformation into human form is a reward for perseverance and learning.”
“That must be why I’m human. I studied really hard at Cal,” I said.
He grinned.
“You really know a lot about this stuff.” I got up and went back around the counter to toss my apple core.
Todd’s eyes followed me and he sat forward to lean over the counter, as if trying to maintain contact. “Well, that’s sort of my thing. Folklore and sci-fi and fantasy. They all go hand in hand in the nerd world. It’s why I used to hang here: Ayo is a font of knowledge about all the traditions I don’t know about.”
Which reminded me. “Hey, do you know anything about shadow creatures?” He looked confused. “Oh, I was just thinking that that would be an interesting metaphor for immigrants and sojourners. You know, the invisible subaltern.”
“Oh. Well. … You know … you’d think they’d be everywhere, but actually, they aren’t. Native Americans have a few sort of death creatures that can take the form of a shadow, but other than that, shadows only show up in European tradition as ghosts, mostly. Dead people. ‘Shades’ you know. Also Sprockets. At least, as far as I know. They don’t really show up in Asian mythology.”
“Guess I’ll have to ask Ayo. What about essence-sucking creatures?”
He looked even more confused. “As a sort of … you mean like … a metaphor for deracination or something?”
“Yeah.”
“Uh … well, in Japan there’s a flowering tree that sucks out your soul. And there’s also a dude named Wanyudo who was condemned to wander around as a flaming cart wheel, stealing the souls of whoever looks at him. Like the illicit result of an orgy among Medusa, St. Catherine, and the Wandering Jew. But I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for.”
“I guess not. I was thinking more of a shadow creature that sucks out your soul, kind of thing.”
“That would probably be in the Native American realm. You’d have to ask Ayo.”
“Figures,” I said.
I wasn’t facing the cafe door when I heard the bell jingle and felt a displacement of air, almost like being struck in the chest and losing your breath. “Tez,” I thought immediately, proving that I could habituate myself to anything, as long as it involved a hot, lippy jaguar-boy. Todd, who had been rhapsodizing about Ayo’s breadth of knowledge, frowned at me and looked over his shoulder. He must have seen me stiffen. Argh. If Todd saw it, no doubt Tez saw it too. He was an ambush predator, after all.
“Maya,” Tez said in his creamy chocolate voice. Was it possible to lick the sound of someone’s voice? I turned my head—slowly because I wanted to savor the sight of him.
“Hey, Tez,” I said, as slowly as I could. I didn’t have a luscious voice, and Monkey had me compensate by slowing down. “How’s it going?”
He raised his eyebrows right about the time that Todd raised his. Okay, maybe it was too slow. Tez looked from me to Todd.
“Oh, uh, Tez Varela, meet Todd Wakahisa. Todd’s one of Inscrutable’s editors. We were just talking shop.” Shut up, Monkey said. He doesn’t need to know that this actually quite good-looking guy isn’t in play. Also: isn’t he?
“Hey,” Tez said, giving one of those uber-guyish chin tips. God, it looked good on him, though.
“Hey,” Todd said, with a new, slightly lopsided, wicked smile the likes of which I’d never seen on his face. My god. Why didn’t he lead with that smile? He’d have the world at his freakin’ feet.
He held out his hand, which Tez clearly wasn’t expecting. Tez hesitated for a moment, then took Todd’s hand. It was the first time I’d seen him acting awkwardly. I guess that was the point of the exercise.
They stood there, hands locked, for a moment that seemed to last forever, and I got to take a good look at both of them. They were an illustration of contrasts, with Tez cool and unsmiling and tough, wearing a fitted black t-shirt with a fashionable light-grey screen print of swooping lines on it; Todd grinning wickedly and looking like he was trapped for a moment in a state of suspended animation, wearing a white shirt printed with foxes, rabbits, and hedgehogs, over maroon skinny jeans. They both had black hair, but Todd’s was a shiny blue-black, st
raight, and swooped up into a faux hawk; Tez’s was so dark brown it was actually black, and curly, as far as I could tell, but cropped so short that it barely swerved.
Todd, likely the older of the two, looked five years younger, with his shorter stature, triangular face, and small mouth. He nearly vibrated with energy, always moving some part of his body, tapping fingers, jiggling legs, stretching his neck. Tez’s square, jutting jaw—with its perennial shroud of stubble—had made him look like a man even when he was nineteen, and his broad shoulders and indefinable magnetism gave him a gravitas rarely felt in anyone, much less someone so young. The height didn’t hurt, either. As the moment stretched slightly beyond what was normal and social, Tez seemed to loom over Todd, who was still seated on a high stool. Somehow, Todd didn’t seem lessened by it. Todd was bright where Tez was dark. No, that wasn’t right—Todd was a funhouse mirror and Tez, a glass darkly. Or something—
And the moment was broken. They released each other.
“Cool shirt,” Todd said. “Is that the route of Magellan?”
I looked again. The screen print went all the way around the shirt and was a stylized map of the world, with route lines.
Tez looked impressed. “Yeah,” he said. “Good eye.”
And both turned to me.
“You have anything for me?” Tez asked.
“Yeah. Excuse us for a second, Todd,” I said. I came back around and led Tez to the other end of the counter, away from Todd. I didn’t look at him until I thought we were far enough away for privacy. But suddenly looking up at him was a bad idea. His closeness, and his intense attention nearly took my breath away again. Cool it, Maya.
“Okay, it’s all set up. She’ll meet us here on Monday evening at six pm. Our evening traffic doesn’t start coming in until about seven, so that gives us some time for conversation.”
“Maya, I appreciate your help contacting her, but I’m not sure you should—”
I cut him off. I’d been expecting the objection. “Look, Tez, I realize this is a family matter, but you called in help because keeping it in the family wasn’t possible anymore and, believe it or not, I know this fight extremely well. And if you meet with her, just the two of you, it’ll go down exactly like it did the last time, or the last 50 times. You need a referee, and maybe a translator.”
That last thought must have gotten through to him somehow, or maybe he’d already come in a receptive mood, because he looked thoughtful, rather than stubborn.
“Translator, huh?”
“I speak Tough Cookie fluently.”
“‘Tough Cookie’?”
“Don’t hate.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “So … How was she?”
“She was … good, I think. She clearly has the respect of the boys, and seems to be working well with Juice, you know the—”
“I know who he is,” Tez said darkly.
“Well, he’s no common thug, that guy, and he seems to be treating her well. She was well dressed. No dark clouds around her head. For now, prying her away might be more of a job than you can manage. However—”
“What?” he asked quickly.
“Well, I got a teeny tiny impression that a very small part of her isn’t entirely down with the situation and would be glad of a way out.”
“Of course! She’s not stupid.” He huffed in frustration. “Where is all this coming from anyway? How are you getting through to her?”
I was grateful he hadn’t asked before. I’d always worried Tez might be a bit of a straight arrow and I didn’t want to look like a loser or a thug in front of him. But the question, and the revelation, was inevitable.
“Tez, I was in a very similar situation, about ten years ago. I got mixed up with some bad people and my foster dad came after me and tried to reason with me. And part of me wanted to go home, but I had left home to prove myself to him in the first place, among other things, and his coming after me may have actually kept me from coming home a half year longer.”
“Chucha isn’t you,” he said stubbornly.
“People are people,” I said. “And any creature with a human aspect has human psychology. You know that. Chucha and I are both tomboys who lost a mother, lived for a while with male authority figures with sticks up their asses, and then fled into a world of toxic masculinity and violence to prove ourselves. It’s not rocket science, Tez.”
“I don’t have a stick up my ass.” Well, at least he picked up on that right away.
I stepped around him and took a good look. His head followed, but he let me.
“As fine an ass as that is, you have a huge stick up it with Chucha’s name written all over it. Here, let me get that for you.”
I reached for him, not really sure what I intended to do if he didn’t react, but he huffed a surprised laugh and grabbed my wrist.
“Thanks, but if my ass is that fine, maybe I should keep it.” He shook my wrist, but didn’t let it go.
“A joke? From Tez Varela? Maybe I should look at your ass more often.”
He grinned slowly, not letting go of my wrist. “Any time, Monkey girl. Any time.”
I smiled back.
I didn’t quite realize we were having a moment until Todd, whose existence I’d completely forgotten, stomped on it.
“Hey, are you done with your conspiracy for world domination yet? We should finish up here.”
I’d thought we were finished, but Monkey kept me from saying so.
Tez, still holding my wrist, looked as if he wanted to say something else, but swallowed it. “Six pm on Monday?” he asked.
“With bells.”
With one more look, he dropped my hand, chin-tipped Todd, and whooshed out of the cafe, taking my breath with him. I stood, looking out the door a while after he disappeared.
“Hot date?” Todd broke my breathless reverie again. He was a real buzzkill.
“Cold date,” I said flatly.
“Tonight?” He looked a little anxious, and frankly, I was annoyed with him for interrupting my moment with Big Cat.
“Nope.” I went back behind the counter and started wiping the already spotlessly clean counter.
“Busy tonight then?” A smiling note in his voice made me look up. He was smiling that wicked, lopsided smile again. Whew. I didn’t know if I had any more impressed to give anyone today, but damn, that was a good smile.
“Well,” I said, no longer flatly, “I’m helping with an antiracism training at Occupy, as soon as Stoney relieves me here, then joining the protest at rush hour, then going to the general assembly.”
“Of course,” he said, with exaggerated thoughtfulness, “I should be going with you, being a badass social justice warrior and all.”
“You have to keep up your end.”
“And after that?”
I shrugged. It depended on Ayo getting ahold of the werecats, which might not happen tonight.
“My band is playing tonight at 10. Wanna come?”
“Maybe.”
“Guess what our new band name is. Just guess.”
“No idea.”
He looked even more wicked. “Cerberus.”
My heart stopped. “‘Cerberus’?” I squeaked. “You’re calling your band ‘Cerberus’ now?”
He laughed. “Baby told me that’s what you call the three of us. It’s so much better a name than the last five we came up with, so we took it. Tonight will be our debut as Cerberus. So, you have to come, and drink champagne. I’ll put you on the guest list. Plus one, if you wanna bring Baby.”
How could I say no to that?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Starry Plough Bar, Berkeley
“So you think he was gonna ask you out?” Baby asked. Baby’s enthusiasm for my Tez-crush had never waned, part of the reason I loved her. About the current situation I’d told her only that Tez had some family connection with Ayo; the rest of the story was more or less Baby-safe. Baby knew about (and was fascinated by) my hi
story with the Celestials (although, of course, she merely thought I was an expert martial artist; she had no idea about my supernatural abilities), so she understood why Ayo would think I was a good choice for the job. I wavered between feeling guilty and feeling delicious about the secrets I kept from Baby.
“I don’t know. But we were having a moment,” I said, exaggerating my frustration. “Damn, why did Todd have to be there?”
“You think Todd’s into you?”
“I have no idea. I mean, he was flirting with me, but—”
“But he flirts with everyone,” Baby agreed.
Really? That hadn’t been what I was about to say, and I realized in that moment that Todd had never flirted with me before. Why not, if he flirted with everyone? “You know, I’ve known Todd for three years or so, but until today, I didn’t know anything about him. Did you?”
She shrugged. “Not much. I mean he’s from the central coast, he’s a demon on the uke, and he writes like a motherfucker. What else do I need to know?” She thought for a moment. “But he is cute, I guess, now that you mention it”—I hadn’t, but didn’t say—“so I’m gonna pay more attention to him tonight, see what’s up.”
Baby was the boy-craziest lesbian I’d ever met, although she was focusing especially hard on my nonexistent love life right now because she was taking a six-month “celibacy break.” (Don’t ask.) She’d taught me how to be girl-crazy out loud (I did occasionally date women, although I hadn’t yet progressed to a relationship with one; Baby called me a LUG to tease me, but I wasn’t sure she was wrong,) but she hadn’t at all needed me to reciprocate since she had a low-stakes, fun, flirtatious way with men, and she genuinely enjoyed their company, whereas my enjoyment of them often tended to be in indirect proportion to how attractive I found them. Come to think of it, Baby had taught me a lot about relating to boys, too.
“You do that,” I mumbled, adjusting my bra. My clothes were all made from my own hairs, but I still wasn’t good at nice lingerie, and when we went out I liked to wear the lacy stuff, even though it was considerably less comfortable than my usual. I don’t disparage my powers, but they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.