Typical American

by Gish Jen

  Just as a top-quality family was growing out of a top-quality house; or so Helen believed. Taking her afternoon rest on the living room couch, her feet on the cardboard cocktail table (she was saving up for a new one, and maybe for a love seat too, to

  go in her nook off the kitchen), she couldn't help but wonder — could a house give life to a family? A foolish idea. And yet, the house did seem to have filled itself, to have drawn out of the family roomfuls of activity. Moving day, she remembered, they had clumped together in the living room like a pork ball; for a long moment, she'd almost believed they were always going to find themselves there, just inside the front door, their own intimidation sweeping toward them like a tide of soup. The moment passed, though. A relief. They were people, not ground pig shoulder. But would they always move about the house as if in a department store, trying to make sure that no one got lost? How real a possibility that seemed then; the space seemed like a threat, a challenge.

  Whereas now, what would they do without it? So much livelier they all were! Helen had never seen the children run so much, touch so much, shout so much. They did not contain themselves. Why should they? Theresa talked to herself, Helen noticed, sometimes loudly; Ralph swung his arms around when he walked, sprawled when he sat. Even his papers had begun to proliferate. As for herself, she'd begun leaving the radio on all day, and cooking big complicated meals involving multiple bowls. Also, she breathed more. Or differently, so that for the first time in her life she noticed smells. She still didn't believe she breathed as oddly as Ralph claimed. But it did seem possible that in the city, she hadn't wanted to take in the fumes and gases, everyone else's exhaust; that air was like garbage air. Compared to this. She loved the aromas of the dirt, the grass, the flowers; the rain. Who would have thought the rain would smell? The seasons had their smells too; and indoors, she smelled clean house, soapy children, a medicinal sister-in-law, a sex-strong husband. How amorous Ralph had grown since they moved! He winked at her, he flirted in front of the children. "How many boyfriends you think your mother had before me?" he would ask them; and they would answer, "A thousand," or "A million," or "Ten zillion trillion," the highest numbers they could

  think of, only to have him always say, smiling at her, "More."

  Finally they would turn to her. "So why'd you marry him?"

  And she would answer, "Because he was the best," or "Because he was the smartest," or "Because he was the handsomest."

  He would add, "And the luckiest."

  And later they would laugh about that, about how strange it was that their marriage should have turned so loverlike after so many years. "My mother used to tell me it would be this way," she told him once. "But I didn't believe her"

  "What way?" he said.

  "She used to tell me that marriage would be like a pot of cold water put on the fire. For years it would be cold, she told me, and then slowly it would come to a boil."

  "It was like cold water?" Ralph sounded hurt. "For years?" But a few minutes later, the light was out, and his outspread hand was in her pajamas, circling. "Boil, boil" he whispered. "Are we boiling now? Eh? Are we boiling?"

  She pressed herself against him, stretching. "Let's have more children."

  "As many as you want."

  "Two more."

  "Boys, right?"

  "If we can manage."

  "Boys coming up," said Ralph. "Does it feel like boys?"

  "A boy, anyway." Helen laughed.

  "Hmmm," said Ralph.

  What couldn't the house do.

  In the fall, Callie started kindergarten. Helen bought her a navy blue jumper with a duck for a pocket, a light blue blouse with a Peter Pan collar, matching light blue stretch ankle socks with lace trim, and a pair of marine blue tie-up Buster Browns with such perfectly smooth pale tan leather soles that Callie wouldn't wear them home from the store. "Beautiful!" she said, kissing

  them. "Look, Mommy, beautiful!" "They are beautiful," Helen agreed; and that night she allowed Callie to go to sleep with one hand in each shoe, while envious Mona looked on.

  "Can I have one?"

  "Tomorrow," Callie promised.

  "I want one!"

  "Tomorrow!"

  "I want one now! Now!"

  "Okay," said Callie. "Baby."

  The next morning, the shoe was gone.

  "Where is it!" screeched Callie. "Where is it!"

  "Come on, Mona," said Helen. "We got to go."

  "It's in jail," said Mona.

  "In jail! Where in jail? Where?"

  Mona giggled.

  "My sho-oe," wailed Callie.

  "Mona!" said Helen. "Where's that shoe! Give it to me! You hear me? Right now!" But even when Helen spanked her and called her a bad bad girl, Mona refused to produce the shoe, and in the end Callie went to school in one old shoe and one new one.

  "You're a dirty rotten," cried Callie.

  Mona shrugged, diffident.

  "Come on, now," said Helen, already out on the front step. "Time to go."

  "You're a baby!" yelled Mona as they left.

  "You are!"

  "You are!"

  "Come on!" shouted Helen. "We got to go! Right now!"

  "See you later, baby," said Callie.

  As the door slammed, Mona's hair whipped across her face and caught in her mouth. She chewed on it.

  Ralph came up behind her. "Taste good?"

  She didn't say anything.

  "Maybe you should have something else to eat?"

  She shook her head.

  "Some" — he thought — "some candy bar?"

  Mona burst into tears.

  He took out his handkerchief. "Ah, Mona." He dabbed gently at her eyes. For a special treat, he allowed her to play in his office, usually off limits, and when she crawled into the kneehole of his desk, he hung an old shirt down the front of it, making a tent. "Ahhrr!" Mona roared, emerging. "I'm a dragon!" Ralph pretended to be scared until Mona grew bored. Then he let her rummage through his desk drawers, rearranging them however she liked.

  smaller even than a pauper's box), but to have to embalm himself first. How lifelike he had to look, how perfectly, robustly professorial! For the gatekeepers of heaven were to review him in state, that they might make their decision: Would this man be a credit to the empyrean* Can you imagine him a colleague of yours* A colleague of yours — for eternity*

  Some of them nodded their long white locks yes. Some of them shook them no. About half and half, Ralph figured.

  Would he ascend or descend?

  In only months, he would know.

  Meanwhile, he hammered at his statements with the small obsession of a woodpecker. He thought he should write them in Chinese, then translate them, but when he sat down, he perversely found that he wanted to compose in English. Was one way better? He'd try it the other way too, then backtrack, then rewrite what he'd written, again and again, until he couldn't even tell if what he was writing was different from what he'd written before. Sometimes he considered that he could not be too careful. At the same time he wondered if, being overcareful, he would never finish his statements at all. In fact, he dreaded finishing; as long as he hadn't finished, there was still hope. (He doesn't look as well as he might, but you know, the embalmer's not done.) He found that whereas when he began his statements he could spend hours on a paragraph, after some practice he could spend days, even weeks; and then he needed to consider what Old Chao would think of it, or Ken Freedberg, who was

  probably going to vote no, no matter what So Ralph wished

  he could believe, at least. Because the times he thought there might be something he could say to change Ken's mind, or Neil Nixon's, or Lou Radin's, or Chris Olsen's, were the times he agonized most. What was the word that would do it? If only the word would occur to him! If only he were a person to whom it would occur!

  Instead what occurred to him were ways of telling people off. It may seem to you that others are transfixed by the clarity of

  your mind, but actua
lly we are just afraid if you don't get your way you will cry. He liked that one. More often, though, the ideas that flocked to him lacked real sting. Your mother would be ashamed to see how mean you've become. Or, So you voted no, you have the brains of a dung fly, and what's more, you have no manners. It was less than satisfying; and yet as his due date neared he kept on, sometimes all night.

  In your next life, I hope you are a sea clam.

  For a break, he analyzed. At four in the morning, hunched over the kitchen table, he made lists. He listed all of his papers. He listed all of his papers graded as he thought the various committee members would grade them; he listed all of his papers with the grades they properly deserved. He listed the various committee members and what they thought of him. He listed the various committee members and what he thought of them. He listed which committee members he would've voted yes on if he had sat on their committees, noting that this list was remarkably similar to the list of committee members he had guessed would vote in his favor. He listed how many of those people were working feverishly on space. Sputnik! What trouble the Russians had made for him. And all this nonsense now about monkeys and rocket-powered airplanes. Weather satellites. Everyone was in love with the moon. Moon rockets! He wished he were a doctor, like his sister. What had happened in medicine since the polio vaccine? Nothing! He listed how many people knew anything about machine tools.

  Why should I listen to you, with all that hair in your nose?

  In the daytime, he continued to teach, and to grace meetings with his most authoritative manner, and to hold office hours. He continued to smile and nod agreeably when people spoke. "You're right! I agree one hundred percent." He strove to appear sure he would get tenure. When people asked how he thought the decision would go, he answered, "What decision ?" He was surprised how easy this was. He tried not to avoid any members of the committee, even if he thought they were going to vote

  no. If anything, he was friendliest to them. How were their children, he asked, their wives?

  No children? Not married?

  Such stumbling was rare. Except that the world buzzed and that he shook all the time, he thought he was doing remarkably well. Who else could hear the world buzzing, after all? Every now and then, he would ask, casually, "Do you hear a buzz?" No one else could hear it. (Ting bu jian!) As for the shaking, he simply kept stones in his pockets — a rough one in the right pocket, a smooth one in the left. These he grasped, loads to dampen the vibration. He thought they must be working. No one said to him, "Ralph, you're shaking." They said only, "You must be nervous, with your decision coming up."

  "What decision?"

  May. Helen was deadheading the rhododendrons. Time to present his file to the department. At home, he was alarmed, picking it up, at how light it seemed — bodiless. He imagined the committee gathered around a scale, shaking their heads. Outside, though, as he loaded it into the car, he was surprised to feel a sudden surge of confidence. Maybe it was only that he had worried himself out. In any case, he felt the morning flow into his mind through his ears and nose and mouth, even through his eyes; and when he considered his box — that same too-light box of just minutes before — he believed, Yes, it would indeed be returned to him with congratulations. He could not lose his job, and with it, this solid house, with its ever-growing lawn and maturing ornamental shrubbery. He would not imagine it. What he imagined instead was handing his file to Old Chao, who told him, Don't worry. You'll get it.

  Really?

  Everyone agrees. We might not even bother to vote. The feeling's that unanimous.

  Really?

  But at school, Old Chao's office door was closed. Ralph could hear Old Chao talking to someone inside. He put his free hand

  in his coat pocket, to weigh it down with the stone. Dampen the vibration. He decided to come back later.

  No sooner had he settled into his own office, though, than he heard Old Chao's steps in the hall — a firm patter, deliberate, squeaky. He jumped up. Old Chao had just turned the corner at the far end of the corridor. Ralph hurried after him. As Old Chao was walking briskly himself, Ralph was not gaining ground. Should he run? Unprofessional. File in arms, Ralph chased Old Chao down another hall, then another, then another. They crossed a wing that the chemistry department had recently abandoned and headed toward a seldom-used lounge.

  "An affair!" Ralph told Helen.

  "Impossible" she said. "Chinese people don't do such things."

  "Then Old Chao isn't Chinese anymore"

  "You're surer

  "I saw them"

  "What did she look like*"

  "Chinese."

  "You're sure it wasn't Janisf"

  "Skinnier. I couldn't quite see because the door swung shut. Also, I was so shocked, I dropped my file box."

  "On the floor?"

  "Papers everywhere."

  "Ohhh-noo." Helen shook her head. "Were they doing any-thing?"

  "Eating lunch. I saw them opening brown bags."

  "I should tell Janis."

  " 'Better to do nothing than to overdo,'" quoted Ralph. "Don't make trouble." He started a new list, What Old Chao's Affair Means.

  i. May be preoccupied.

  2. May be doing many things other people don't know.

  3. May not be chairman forever.

  May not be chairman forever. Was it possible? The very idea felt like a revelation of sorts.

  "A Chinese woman" mused Helen.

  Ralph started another list, What It Would Mean If Old Chao Were To Have To Resign In Shame.

  i. Would never have to see Old Chao again.

  What a prospect! Ralph felt so exhilarated that he immediately started a third list, What I Would Do If I Never Had To See Old Chao Again.

  Miss him, Ralph thought, but he couldn't write that. "Someone Chinese!" Helen shook her head.

  By the day of the decision, Ralph had talked himself out of wanting to be a professor anyway. First of all, he was not interested in engineering. Secondly, he was not interested in research. Thirdly, he was not interested in teaching. So why should he be a scholar? Just because Old Chao was? He decided that he would rather be a fireman. A funeral director, Anything that didn't require books, or a slide rule. What he'd give never to have to see a slide rule again for the rest of his life!

  "You got it!"

  Ralph was so surprised to hear Old Chao shout that he almost couldn't understand what his friend was saying.

  "You got it! You got it!"

  "Tenure f" The phone waves seemed to be generating a harmonic in his stomach.

  "Tenure! You got it! Congratulations! With everyone going over to space, we really did need someone in straight mechanics."

  Helen invited Old Chao and Janis over to celebrate.

  "You know what Ym going to buy?" she told Ralph. "Cham : „ pagne!"

  "What fun!" he enthused. "Great idea!"

  The only wet firecracker was that Theresa couldn't come.

  "Department dinner," she explained, as she and Helen put away dishes.

  "So last-minute" Helen said.

  Theresa fussed with a dish. "Well, you know" she said. "Typical American no-consideration-for-other-people."

  "Maybe we can move the date. It's rude, hut — "

  "Oh, nonono. Don't worry about it." Being tall, Theresa was in charge of the high shelves. Now she stretched, trying to make room for a large Pyrex casserole.

  "I don't know if that's going to go," Helen warned.

  "We//, it has to." Theresa tried to maneuver it in.

  "We'll find another place for it."

  "No, no. It'll go. It will."

  "Don't worry about it."

  Theresa set her jaw. "It'll go."

  Helen peered at her carefully. "Are you tired?"

  "Tired?"

  "You seem a little

  Theresa reorganized some other dishes.

  "Just found out today, huh. About the meeting."

  "That's right. Today."

  "You didn't kn
ow until today?" asked Helen again.

  "Why do you ask?" Theresa countered — casually, she hoped.

  But as she spoke, the casserole tipped out of the cabinet and plummeted to the floor.

  thing to keep to herself. Her hearing sharpened. A neighbor's screen door opened and clacked shut. A police car radio cackled raucously. Crickets. The month had been unusually wet; certain pools of water had reappeared so often on the driveway that Theresa actually recognized them now. Three larger ones, one smaller.

  Ten-forty-five. Finally she snuck around to the front of the house, feet sinking in the soft dirt. Trying not to disturb the azaleas, she peeked in the dining room window. There they all were, a little round of people. Two couples, each half of a group. There being only four of them, the china matched. The chandelier glittered, its crystal teardrops like small golden suns. Would she never sit at a table like that? Everyone was leaning forward, toward one another; even Old Chao seemed to be enjoying himself hugely. Listening closely, Theresa could just make out his words as, his face bright with liquor, he repeated a joke she'd told him that afternoon. She waited for the punch line, her shoes growing soggy.

  She ate lunch with Old Chao in the lounge. "They think we're having an affair."

  He stroked her hand with his thumb. Back and forth.

  "A rotten egg, my brother called me, to my face. 'Chinese people don't do such things/ he said."

  "Did you tell them the truth?"

  "I tried." She regarded her feet. "Anyway. What others think makes no difference to me one way or another. 'True gold does not fear fire/ right?"

  So she said. And yet after three weeks of reprehension — Helen was short, Ralph cool, even the girls seemed wary of her — she began to feel her attitude weakening. Perceptions shaped her; proving her only human, a social being. She was disappointed to be misperceived, and more angered than ever — this time she could not box herself up — and these emotions opened others. Curiosity. Recklessness. For these she would not atone.