by Gish Jen
He was brooding about whether to call home when Grover emerged, dusting himself off, though he didn't look dusty. "What a mess," Grover said.
Ralph heard the metallic scrape of a car starting up outside — the waitress, leaving.
Grover surveyed the dining room. Morose, he examined his hands. "So." His vest was open, his shirt rumpled and misbut-toned, his carnation wilted.
"So," said Ralph.
Grover felt his pants pocket for a handkerchief.
Silence.
Finally Ralph asked, "So where you from?"
"From?"
"Your hometown is where?"
"Hometown!" Grover laughed, instantly recovered. "You've been here how long? And still asking about people's hometown." He shook his head. "I'll let you in on a secret. In this country, the question to ask is: 'So what do you do for a living.' "
"So what you do for a living?"
Grover laughed again.
How did people get so that they could laugh like that? "I'm work on my Ph.D.," Ralph offered. "My field is engineering. Like Old Chao, except my specialty is so-called mechanics."
"Is that right."
"So your field is what?"
"What? Field? My field" — Grover flashed his gold tooth — "is anything."
"Anything?"
It was almost past understanding: Grover was whole or part owner of any number of buildings and restaurants. A stretch of timberland. "You make a few bucks in one business, then you branch out." He described mines he was in on, and rigs. A garment factory. A toy store. "What with babies popping out all over, toys are getting to be big business."
"Whooo," said Ralph. "That's a lot."
"Think so?" Grover preened, straightening his shirt.
"How come you own so many parts of things instead of one big thing?"
"Good question. And the answer, if you understand me, is that that way it's just a mite harder for people to get a fix on you."
"I got you." Ralph nodded. "That's Chinese way."
"What?"
"All the Chinese guys, you know, outside they look like they live some lousy place, but inside, beautiful."
"No kidding."
"Otherwise government ask them pay tax."
"It's the same story here. The government is a pain in the neck."
"Big pain. Make you be crazy."
"You know," said Grover, squinting. "You got some first-class gears twirling around in that upstairs of yours."
"Think so?" Ralph sat up a little. His waistband pulled.
"I'll tell you who you remind me of."
Ralph waited.
"Myself. You remind me of myself, back when I was nobody."
Slouching again, Ralph twiddled his spoon.
"You know, back then, I worked every lousy job in town, you name it. I was a jack-of-all-trades. I painted houses. I drove cab..."
No wonder he drove so well! thought Ralph.
"... I washed dishes. I even sang in a music show, get that."
"Show!"
"My authentic Chinese face got me in the door. South Pacific, a local production. You know, 'Happy talk, keep talkin', happy talk.'"
Ralph clapped.
"That's what you are in this country, if you got no dough, a singing Chinaman." Grover paused. "True or false?"
"True," guessed Ralph.
Grover smiled enigmatically. He explained how he got his break — how he kept his eyes open until one day he met this guy who needed somebody he could trust. "We happened to get to talking, just like we're talking now, and the next thing — bang — I'm a millionaire. A self-made man. What do you think of that?"
"Millionaire! Self-made man!"
"In America, anything is possible."
"Just from one day, happen to get talking!" Ralph was dazed. "Like we're talking now."
"Understand me, I was already the can-do type."
"Doer type. I got you."
"I had die correct attitude. Very important."
"Positive attitude, right? Use imagination?"
"You got it."
" 'I can do all things in Christ who strengthen me,' " quoted Ralph.
"Well, 1*11 be damned. The engineer's done some reading."
" 'Prayerize,' " said Ralph.
" 'Picturize, , " said Grover.
" 'Actualize.'"
Grover slapped his two hands on the table, grinning so that his molars showed.
"A man makes his mind up who he's going be." Ralph grinned with his molars too. "So what business was that?"
"What?"
"Your first business, that you became millionaire."
"That business?" Grover leaned forward conspiratorially. "That was fats and oils. I still have a hand in it." He explained how his factory took leftover cooking grease from restaurants and turned it into nice, white soap. "We make it smell good, you know? That's the important thing, the smell. You can sell anything if it smells right."
"Interesting."
"That's a secret. I'm telling you a secret."
They went on to other secrets. How a self-made man should always say he was born in something like a log cabin, preferably with no running water. How all self-made men found what they needed to know in bookstores. How he should close some deals with handshakes.
"A couple of big deals. No contract. And favors. Favors are important or the story's not right."
Risk was the key to success. Clothes made the man. Ralph wished the night would go on forever. But finally Grover was winding down. "And one last thing."
Ralph cocked his head, already wistful.
"Keep your eyes open."
"Eyes open."
"Keep your ears open."
"Ears open."
"Know who you're dealing with."
"Know who I'm deal with."
"And keep moving." Grover stood up and stretched. "Keep moving." He seemed to be talking to himself. "I'm going to call us a cab."
"What about the car?"
"It's out of gas anyway."
"The bill," Ralph said. "The mess."
"Forget it," said Grover. "I own this place." He called a taxi, and when it came — a bright yellow Checker, with a loose muffler — he directed the driver to Ralph's address first.
"How do you know where I live?"
"By your able description, remember?" He smiled winningly. "Your landlord's a buddy of mine."
Ralph gaped.
"You'll get that new super one of these days."
They drove home as they'd come, in a deafening wind — Grover had seen to the opening of all four windows. Now, though, instead of magic, what seemed to be flying into the car was everydayness. Grit, chemical smells. As the dark slowly gave way to light, they saw that the day was going to be hazy. Ralph propped his feet up on one of the jump seats, the way Grover had. His bee bite, he noticed, was finally gone. They arrived. Ralph lowered his legs; the jump seat popped right back vertical as though it had already forgotten him.
Grover shook his hand. "Good-by."
"Thank you." To his surprise, Ralph felt his eyes begin to tear. "So much you told me, I know you don't have to."
"Maybe I took a liking to you."
"Did you?" Ralph gripped the door handle. "The way your fats and oil boss liked you?"
Grover laughed. "Come on now. Time to call it a night."
Ralph opened his door.
"But here. My card," said Grover.
"Thank you. Thank you!"
"Give me a ring."
"Good-by." Ralph climbed out. "See you again!"
Who closed the door? It seemed to slam itself shut. Grover leaned back, disappearing from view as the gay yellow cab puttered away, its muffler clattering forlornly after it. Ralph waved at the empty street awhile; even the gas fumes seemed to be evaporating before he was ready. Then his feet turned, and shuffled a few steps, and began climbing the long staircase home.
tree, they were illuminated in pieces — an ear, a finger, a bit of torso. They'd become their
emergency selves, in which lopped-off state they felt humanity stretched smoothly between them like one long wash line. They chatted quiedy about the schools in the suburbs, how coats were marked down Columbus Day, whether the United States was doing the right thing in Korea. Old Chao consulted Theresa on a pain he'd been having. It was as though they were gathered around a bridge game, an activity that set the social level for them, so that they did not have to gauge and give out, gauge and hold back, but could relax, companionable. What friends they were! Unexpected as always, happiness flapped through, brushing them with its soft wing. When Old Chao suggested they might take a walk around the block, just to have a look, they did, all four of them. Then Old Chao suggested they try the neighboring blocks too. They each set out in a different direction, making a cloverleaf, meeting back at the apartment. They made phone calls.
No answer. No answer.
Real worry took a chair. They huddled out the night together, until Helen's hair had straightened like Theresa's; Janis's likewise was turning into a lion's mane. Helen and Theresa borrowed slippers. It began to seem that the room smelled like cigarette smoke. But no; they ascertained that the smell was coming from their clothes. That Grover! Finally, at dawn, news. The car had been found, abandoned at a diner in Pennsylvania.
"They must of drove it 'til the gas run out on 'em," said the sergeant.
What about Grover? Ralph?
The sergeant was sorry.
It was better to have known nothing. Their fears began to circle the abandoned car, then to pile into it, tense new passengers with theories in their laps. Who met Ralph and Grover by the roadside, and what for? Where were they all headed? Was this what Grover was up to, making those phone calls in the bedroom? Helen began to sob in short, ragged bursts, like hie-
cups, gnawing so hard at the base of her thumb that she drew blood.
Theresa called a taxi for them. It was a sticky morning, foggy, with no sunrise that they could see.
"I wanted to go home" explained Ralph.
"You wanted to go home"
"I asked him where we were going"
"You asked him."
"I asked, but we weren't going anywhere. We were driving around"
"Ah."
"I had no choice."
"You were kidnapped?"
"Kidnapped" he affirmed.
"Ah! Did he give you liquor?"
"Dinner," said Ralph. "We had dinner, then lunch, then breakfast, in a diner. He owned it."
"Dinner, then lunch, then breakfast?"
"I had a burger, with ketchup and mustard and relish and a tomato and onion and French fries. And a black-and-white ice cream soda."
"So much!"
"And some other things," finished Ralph.
"How come you didn't call?"
"I thought to call. But I couldn't."
"How did you escape?"
"He called a taxi to take us home."
"There was a phone."
"There was."
"And the taxi took both of you home?"
"It dropped me off first."
Theresa, frowning, stood up to put on some tea.
"It was all Grover's fault." Helen offered this conclusion as though they could make it the truth; all they had to do was agree on it.
"3
Theresa pursed her lips.
And that bit of story-making allowed the family to go on.
"It was" said Ralph, with relief.
Later, though, he regretted having given in, as he thought of it. Was that what a self-made man would have done? Hunched over his small wooden desk, he knew what he should have said instead. He should have said, with sonorous finality, I'm the father in this family. For he was the father, and could do whatever he liked — to remind himself of which, he ripped his soft, gray desk blotter in half and wrote, in large red letters, ACTUALIZE. What exactly did that mean, again? He thought he had better reread that part of the book. In the meantime, he tacked the sign up on the wall in front of him. Then he took out Grover's card. He was an imagineer, invisible, dialing. Secretive, like Helen. Grover's phone was ringing. What was he going to say? Hello. That was right, yes. Hello, and he'd like to be a self-made man too.
No answer.
He let the phone ring twenty times, thirty, tried the line again, let it ring forty times. But Grover didn't answer that day, or the next day, or the next week. Was the card a phony card? Was the number a phony number? Ralph couldn't believe it. He was an imagineer! This wasn't supposed to happen. Should he check the number? He could check it, he supposed, with the new super, a tough-talking veteran with a pit bull.
Ralph, though, never did. Partly he was afraid of what he might find out. Mosdy, though, he wanted to have faith. Wasn't imagineering a matter of faith, like going to church? And indeed, in church, he often considered Grover. He worked to dispel his doubts about his friend as though to pass another test, like his ordeal in the park. He sat with his eyes closed in the pew. He felt his knees.
News: Janis and Old Chao's child had been stillborn. "Dead?" said Ralph. "A little baby?" Helen cooked pots of food. Janis
wouldn't eat. "She cries all day/' Helen reported. "She doesn't change her clothes. She doesn't wash her dishes." Then, "She doesn't want me to come visit anymore. She thinks she's bad luck."
Ralph began to think then of what children meant, and how Helen ought to rest more. Man man zou, he told her — go slowly, take it easy. Xiuxi, xiuxi — rest.
And he bought a new desk pad, that, like a real father, who needed to make a real living, he might apply himself to the doctorate on which the future of his children depended. "Crack Stress of Airplane Bodies by Computer Analysis" — he was looking for a numerical solution to analytically insoluble equations. Every day he punched cards, punched and punched, trying to avoid instability, divergence, distortion.
his own secrets now, a barrier between them that was at the same time a kind of bond.
Was it enough? She hoped so, prayed so, haunted as she was by her latest, most dangerous secret: that the night Ralph disappeared, she'd worried not only after him, but also after Grover — winking, rich, handsome Grover. What a scoundrel that man was! She knew it. Still she saw herself as though in a magazine. A lady again after all, and more — she saw herself wildly in love. He lived for her, only for her. And in her dreams, she lived for him too, this man her parents would never have picked.
Callie — in Chinese her name was Kailan, Open Orchid — was two weeks early, a blizzard baby. The storm curled along the coast like a question mark; all over the city people braced themselves. Food. Blankets. Helen and Ralph and Theresa stocked their cupboards like everyone else, only to have to leave them. It was a hard delivery, long and painful; Helen felt as if she were giving slow birth to a rock. Outside the window, the sky mocked her with its spectacular spill. Until finally — finally— there was a sliding and a bawl. A girl! Theresa didn't mind, but Helen and Ralph were disappointed until they held her, and saw the way she nestled her plump cheek into her shoulder, as though she had no neck. And then they could not imagine how parents drowned their daughters, as they knew farmers in China often did — bathing the baby, it was called. They were won over by her extremities. Her mashed-in nose, her downy ears, her miniature fingers with their miniature nails and wrinkly knuckles. Her toes — five stubs, like a little stub family, on each fat foot. Her head was conical, an extremity too, and so thick with black hair that she almost needed a haircut. What wasn't perfect? Gently trying her working parts — her elbows, her wrists, her knees — they decided they'd have their boy next time, who'd be a scholar, and maybe a millionaire too How much more work a boy would have been anyway,
all that schooling. As it was, they had their hands full just learning how to fuss. Proper bundling was important, that she not catch cold. Were all babies this floppy? They experimented with different techniques.
to writing up his results. And by the time Mona was born (so vigorous and wriggly that she managed to get herself
dropped on the floor first thing; Helen named her Mengna, Dream Graceful, all the same), Ralph had finally finished. Hands were shaken, backs slapped.
Graduation was ninety-eight humid degrees, the sort of day when even the rare breeze feels like the fond approach of a hairy, panting animal. Still Ralph heard every word of every speech as though it were the crystalline note of an ice chime. For the occasion, Theresa had borrowed a second camera, so they would not be relying on one picture-taker for the big moment; now Ralph, accepting his diploma, hesitated, to be sure to give the women a good shot. Everyone was clapping. He turned to the audience and waved a little, like a movie star. He, Ralph Chang, was now Doctor Chang!
"Congratulations," said the president of the university, loudly, again. He was a tall, narrow man, like one of the marble pillars, except that, sheathed in sweat, he gleamed more.
Ralph shook his hand a second time. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just wish my father, mother, could be here."
The president mopped his brow patiently. "I understand," he said.
The pictures came out so beautifully that Helen hardly knew which of them to frame, and finally had two of them done, professionally, as well as his diploma. She hung these in the living room, near the wedding pictures. Level? Ralph backed up to look. "Level," he affirmed. Then, to his amazement, he started crying. "Father/' he said. "Mother."
"They would have been so proud!" Theresa turned emotional too. "You know, in the pictures, you look like Father."