Typical American

by Gish Jen

"Do If" Ralph didn't think so until Theresa pulled out some old photos; then it was striking that in profile, he did.

  Helen hung one of these photos next to Ralph's. This was followed by a picture of Ralph and Theresa's mother, to keep

  their father company; and by pictures of her own mother and father, with a little shelf, for flowers. Not that their parents were dead — they were not to make offerings to the pictures, as if their parents had become ancestors. But when, shortly after they hung the shelf, Ralph was blessed with a tenure-track job (Old Chao had put in a word for him), they thanked their parents for whatever help they might have been.

  They did this again when Theresa got her M.D.

  By the time the fall semester began, Helen had found a new, larger place, in Washington Heights. Solid ceilings, she enthused, a room for Mona and Callie, and a dining room that could be made into a room for Theresa. The girls helped by unpacking the boxes almost as fast as Helen could pack them. But finally Helen had crumpled her last piece of newspaper; Ralph had rented a truck. How excited they all were! — though at the last minute, unexpectedly afraid and sentimental too. So long, old apartment. Mona and Callie kissed all the walls good-by. They kissed the stove too, and the radiators, and the crack in the back bedroom, which had gotten much worse. Once the file cabinets were walked away from the wall they could see that actual slivers of sky shone through it, lustrous and white.

  Helen and Ralph furrowed their brows for a long time. Then Ralph climbed up the trap door to the roof, returning to report that the building really needed a turnbuckle or something to keep its corners from falling outward. Like this — he drew a diagram on a napkin. Mona and Callie shook their wispy-haired heads in imitation of everybody else.

  "House could fall down?" Callie asked.

  "Any day," Ralph said, patting her. And to Helen, "Any day that corner could have fallen out, especially with those heavy files there.*'

  Helen shuddered at the idea; Callie shuddered too. Mona laughed.

  But as it happened, the house had held, and now they were moving on.

  in Chinese. The language of outside the house had seeped well inside — Cadillac, Pyrex, subway, Coney Island, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Transistor radio. Theresa and Helen and Ralph slipped from tongue to tongue like turtles taking to land, taking to sea; though one remained their more natural element, both had become essential.

  And yet feeling truly settled was still a novelty. How easily they woke up now, and with what sense of purpose! They might or might not have counted themselves happy, though; happiness as they conceived it then was a thing attained, a grand state, involving a fiefdom to survey from the plump comfort of their dotage. It was only in retrospect that they came to call plain heartsease a happiness too; and though they sometimes thought that a shame, other times they thought differently. For if they had been able to nod and smile and say, How unruffled we are, then too, they might have been able to fret, We fear it all ending. Instead, this way, they were all innocence, all planning. They were, as Ralph thought of it, "going up," every day, with just enough time to take in an occasional movie or ball game, and to be glad that Mona and Callie were happy.

  What a life those girls were going to have! Toddling Callie, wobbling Mona; they seemed to be always emerging from under the kitchen table — Callie on a mysterious errand, Mona forever chasing that sister gone around the corner. Helen and Ralph had agreed that they would have a second family in a few years, another two, who with luck would be boys; but in the meantime, Mona and Callie were as soft as their brothers would be, as enigmatic, bullheaded, goofy. They were a lively, durable luxury, to be "love-loved!" as Helen would say, tweaking their feet. She taught them to jiao ren: Though there was only one relative to name, Helen would ask, Who's that* as Theresa entered the room. And Callie would answer, properly, Gugu! — meaning her father's sister. Mona would clap.

  This was how Callie knew herself to be clever, like Theresa. Everyone said so; she even knew that while her American age

  1*5

  was three-and-a-half, her Chinese age was a year more. Mona at one was good-natured, like Helen.

  "And which is like me?" Ralph would joke. "Ah?"

  "Memememe," the girls clamored in English.

  They climbed over him and pulled at his fingers, his nose, his ears, as if to take them for their own. Mona reached into his mouth for his tongue.

  Ralph, jaw agape, laughed.

  "Won't come out," Callie told her sister.

  Still Mona pulled, giggling, until finally Ralph extricated her wet fingers and closed his mouth firmly and bounced her on his knee to distract her. "No tongue," he scolded. "My tongue not so good anyway. You should go pick Auntie's."

  Callie, standing, pressed against his other leg. "Am I your little girl?" Her voice was plaintive. ,

  "You are," Ralph reassured her. "You're my litde girl — and you too." He hugged Mona, who had begun to twist. "I'm the father, and you both are my little girls."

  "No-o-oo," Callie said then, singsong, laughing to have set her father up. Mona copied her, in her piping pitch. "No-o."

  "Ye-e-ess," said Ralph, mimicking them.

  "No-o-oo!"

  "Ye-e-ess!"

  "No-o-oo!"

  "Ye-es!" cried Mona, by mistake.

  "Mon-a." Callie tweaked her sister's foot the way her mother did. "You're supposed to say *No-o-oo!' "

  "No-o!" said Mona then.

  "What's the racket going on in here?" demanded Helen, coming in.

  "No-o-ewww!" yodelled Mona.

  They all laughed.

  "No! No! No!" Mona was yelping now.

  "Yes! Yes! Yes!" laughed Helen, and then Theresa was behind her, crying, "Yes! No! Yes! No!"

  "No! Yes!" said Ralph.

  "Yes! Yes! No! No!" Callie shouted. "Yes! Yes!"

  Then everyone was laughing some more, until it was time for supper. Theresa began to talk about moderation, and how too much laughing upset the digestive process, but that was funny too. Even she laughed as she talked; her words meant nothing. They were not like words at all, but like soap bubbles, or like the kisses blown around by a starlet in a motorcade. Was this, finally, the New World? They all noticed that there seemed to be no boundaries anymore. Helen, for instance, had become friends with Janis again, who had happily given birth to a son, Alexander, about Mona's age. No one seemed to mind that Old Chao had not only been granted tenure but was now acting chairman of Ralph's department. And what their super said or hoped didn't matter any more than the way Helen breathed, or how much Theresa talked. "You know why we used to say typical American good-for-nothing?" Theresa said at supper. "That was because we believed we were good for nothing."

  "You mean I thought I was good for nothing." Ralph could laugh about anything these days.

  "Well ..." Theresa tactfully nibbled a slice of stir-fried hot dog. "Anyway, now that you are assistant professor, life has a different look to it, right?"

  "Everything looks different. It's true." Finishing his rice, Ralph handed his bowl to Helen without so much as glancing her way; absentmindedly, elbow on the table, he awaited its return. He had his hand stretched palm up in the air, like a man trying to determine whether it was drizzling.

  "I must confess something then," said Theresa. "Do you remember that scholarship that was cancelled?"

  "Your scholarship?"

  "It wasn't cancelled. I just told you that to make you feel better."

  Ralph's forearm thudded to the table. Helen gingerly placed his steaming bowl in front of it. "Well, it did make me feel better," he acknowledged finally.

  "Also Helen has something to tell you," said Theresa. "About the furnace."

  "Ah, nonono!" said Helen.

  "What furnace?" said Ralph.

  Helen turned her attention to Mona. "Open wide — good girl!" Mona poked one finger in either nostril as Helen fed her.

  "Eh?" said Ralph. "Something else you didn't tell me?"

  "Uh oh." C
allie, precocious master of the helpful disturbance, knocked her chopsticks to the floor. "Took the elevator."

  "I'll get it." Theresa ducked under the table.

  "Anyway, I don't mind," said Ralph.

  "Now that you are an assistant professor, I didn't think you would," said Theresa, feeling among the shoes.

  "Just like now that you are a medical doctor, you mind less that you have no husband, right?"

  Ralph's tone was teasing; still Helen held her breath until Theresa surfaced, brandishing the retrieved chopsticks. "I mind less, it's true. Anyway, since I have a home here, why should I have another one?"

  "No reason," they all agreed. "No reason!"

  "If she marries, she will bring the man come live with us," proclaimed Helen.

  "Sit here," Ralph joked, pulling up a chair.

  "Ya-aa-ay!" cheered Mona and Callie.

  "Family member means not allowed to leave." Ralph wagged his finger at the girls.

  "We are family," echoed Helen.

  "Team," said Ralph. "We should have name. The Chinese Yankees. Call Chang-kees for short."

  "Chang-kees!" Everyone laughed.

  Ball games became even more fun. Theresa explained how the Yankees had lost the Series to the Dodgers the year before; they rooted for a comeback. "Let's go Chang-kees!" This was in the privacy of their apartment, in front of their newly bought used Zenith TV; the one time they went to an actual game, people had called them names and told them to go back to their laundry.

  They in turn had sat impassive as the scoreboard. Rooting in their hearts, they said later. Anyway, they preferred to stay home and watch. "More comfortable." "More convenient." "Can see better," they agreed.

  These were the same reasons Ralph advocated buying a car.

  "Seems like someone's becoming one-hundred-percent Americanized," Theresa kidded.

  "What's so American? We had a car, growing up. Don't you remember?" Ralph argued that in fact this way they could avoid getting too Americanized. "Everywhere we go, we can keep the children inside. Also they won't catch cold."

  "I thought we agreed the children are going to be American," puzzled Helen.

  Ralph furrowed his brow. When Callie turned three they had decided that Mona and Callie would learn English first, and then Chinese. This was what Janis and Old Chao were planning on doing with Alexander; Janis didn't want him to have an accent. For Ralph and Helen, it was a more practical decision. Callie had seemed confused by outside people sometimes understanding her and sometimes not. Playing with other children in the park, she had several times started to cry, and once or twice to throw things; she had lost a doll this way, and a dragon. Also, one grabby little boy had, in an ensuing ruckus, lost some teeth.

  "Not a lot of teeth," Helen tried to tell his mother.

  Now Ralph drummed his fingers. He stopped and smiled. "And what better way to Americanize the children than to buy a car!"

  Theresa laughed. "Plus this way they won't catch cold, right?"

  "Health is very important," put in Helen.

  "And," said Ralph, "it so happens Old Chao is selling his, to buy a new one."

  "Ahh!" said Theresa. "But since when do friends sell each other cars?"

  "Dear Older Sister. Please allow me to explain — "

  "I know. This isn't China."

  "So smart," said Ralph.

  nosed dandy with a rubbery grin, he was not grinning now. "First thing let me tell you is mirrors. You can't just look front, you gotta look back."

  "Look back," said Ralph.

  That wasn't all. He had to open his eyes up when he looked so the inspector could tell. "Here. Do this." The instructor bugged his eyeballs. Ralph bugged his eyes out too.

  Still, two months later, he flunked again. "Went on the curb," he explained. "Car conked out."

  The instructor rubbed his nose. "Well, okay. Now listen here. First thing let me tell you is mirrors."

  "That's last time you told me. 'Before anything, look back.' " Ralph bugged his eyes.

  The instructor rubbed his nose again. "Well, okay," he said. "First thing let me tell you is signals. You gotta signal like you know what you're doing."

  The third time Ralph flunked, the instructor lit up a cigarette. "You know what you are?" he said. "You're what we call a losing proposition. I tell you this because I'm a nice guy."

  The car was filling with smoke. Ralph rolled down his window. The instructor had flipped open the shiny chrome ashtray in the arm of his door, and was flicking his ashes into it.

  "You're never going to get your license. You know why? Because you don't inspire confidence. I know the inspectors, these guys're friends of mine. They take one look at you and you know what they see?"

  "I already paid this car," said Ralph.

  The instructor drew hard on his cigarette. "Accidents," he said. "You want to get a license, there's only one way. I'll explain it to you simple. Being a nice guy."

  Ralph spread his hand over the horn.

  "It's called grease. This is how it is in America. Certain American palms require a certain American —"

  "Understand," Ralph gripped the wheel as though removing himself to some other place were a matter of steering.

  "What I mean is—"

  "You know," said Ralph, slowly. "In China, my father was government official. Scholar. One-hundred-percent honest type."

  "So my father's a priest. What —"

  "My father was big shot." Ralph opened his door and climbed out, feeling strong, almost athletic. "And I am his son." He crossed to the passenger side of the car, opened that door too.

  The instructor slid out of his seat. His brilliantined head gleamed like a bowling ball.

  "Thank you. I do not need any more your help." Ralph gave the door a good push.

  Had he done the right thing? Ralph retook the driver's test by himself in June; and every day after that, as soon he came home from work, he'd rifle through the family mail, hoping. Sometimes he'd wander outside to look at his car, rev the engine, play with the mirrors. He'd flash the headlights, considering the postal system. How many letters did they lose a day? He imagined the bins they used for sorting. He imagined the clerks, up all night. He imagined the letter from the Department of Motor Vehicles, that one most important letter, flipped so that it whizzed close to the right bin, but landed, finally, in the wrong bin. He thought about selling the car.

  One day, though, the letter finally did arrive — an ordinary letter, come without incident through the ordinary channels, with a large ballpoint X just where he wanted it. Ralph took the whole family out for a drive to celebrate; even Theresa came, though she'd been up all night at the hospital.

  "Are you have fun?" he said.

  "Fun?" they answered. Then, "Yes, we're having fun! We're having a great time!"

  It was relatively bearable out for July. Too bright, too warm, and too stuffy, but the street garbage did not seem to be emanating gases the way it sometimes did, and most people were

  wearing clothes; only a few men sauntered around in their potbellies. Helen and Mona and Callie bobbed on the springy front seat with Ralph. Theresa, in the middle of the back, bounced less; though sitting forward, she said, she could see and hear as well as anyone — really!

  Hands at ten of two, Ralph maneuvered the car around the block. "Can you feel when I switch gear?"

  The passengers closed their eyes. Ralph took extra care to let up slowly on the clutch.

  "Can't tell at all!"

  Ralph beamed. "Important to use mirror," he informed them. "Before do anything, look back."

  "Am I in your way?" asked Theresa in Chinese.

  "No, no," said Ralph, although it was also true that when he looked back, all he saw was her.

  Around the block again. When a bum senselessly gnashed his gums at them, Ralph sped up. "Let's see something nice!" he said. They headed for Central Park, crossing and recrossing it, stopping once for Good Humor ice cream. Then all the way down Fifth Avenue. Of
course, Helen and Theresa and Ralph had all been to Fifth Avenue before, but it was different from a car. Now they beheld more than they experienced, observing how it was a lot like Shanghai, only newer. And with no rickshaws, and no one starving in public.

  Downtown some more, to Chinatown. English-speaking or not, Mona and Callie knew this much Chinese: da bao were big buns with chicken and egg and juicy chunks of Chinese sausage (unless they had a red dot on them, those were sweet bean paste); cha shao was roast pork. Zongzi were lotus leaf-wrapped bundles of sticky rice — the girls liked the savory ones, which came tied up in pairs. "More! More! Buy more!" they urged Helen. Jiaozi were the pork dumplings they went down the block to eat with jiang you and vinegar, counting. "I ate six!" "Ten!" "Eleven!"

  As they left Chinatown, Ralph braked a moment, nodding

  casually toward a fresh-killed meat store. "I used to work in a store like that."

  "Where?" Callie said.

  "Really? You never told me that before" said Helen.

  Ralph slowed down again on the way home, partway up the West Side. "This is where my advisor used to live" He was surprised how unimposing the brownstone looked now. The yews sprawled, yellowish and ungainly; the stone steps had the grimy, unswept look of a city institution. And what color was that door? A kind of gloomy, once-was-green. Ralph shook his head to himself. The door swung open.

  He drove on quickly, up through Harlem, slowing a third time in front of some dilapidated old buildings.

  "How come we're going here?" Callie demanded.

  "You forgot already?" wondered Theresa.

  Like Fifth Avenue, their old block looked much different from the car than it had from the sidewalk. For one thing, they could now see that the building next door was missing two groups of three or four windowpanes; it looked as though it had been shot in the eyes. Also, their building was missing its nose. Had it always been that way? They circled.

  "Look!" Theresa exclaimed. "Look! Look! Look!"

  Ralph braked. That corner of their building with the crack had actually fallen off, exposing a cutaway section not only of their old back bedroom, but their living room too.