1968- Eye Hotel

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  Suddenly, he senses a presence at his side. Someone has jumped into the Cad. “They are going to stop at the Benevolent Association first, next the newspaper office, then at your apartment.”

  Paul looks at the man whose agile body leaped into the moving car.

  “I know this is highly irregular, but I thought you could use some company.”

  Paul nods behind the photo, sucks in his breath. Got to get his composure back.

  “I’m Chen Wen-guang,” says the agile man. “Friend of your father.” He nods at the photo. “He would hate all this”—he looks around at the spectacle, “but—”

  Paul finishes the thought: “It’s irrelevant when you die in Chinatown.” He notices Chen’s white gloves. So he’s one of the pallbearers.

  Chen smiles. “He always said you were a smart kid.”

  The procession comes to a halt. Rest stop: Benevolent Association. His dad’s ghost is halfway to heaven. Time to pay his last respects, eat some boiled chicken, a bit of steamed bun, maybe take a banana for the trip.

  “We’ll talk again later, I promise.” Chen jumps out into the street, again like an acrobat. “What did you put in that casket with your dad? It’s really heavy.”

  Two more stops: the newspaper office on Clay Street and their apartment around the corner on Commercial. Auntie’s planted someone there to open the doors, make sure Paul’s dad gets a good last visit, then shoo his ghost out. The doors on the back of the hearse get flung open. The mortuary director pulls out a wreath of flowers and stands at attention. The brass band plays another Salvation Army tune.

  Finally they get to the edge of Chinatown. They might be a band of old white guys, but the edge of Chinatown is their limit. It’s also the limit for the Cad. Paul gets out and sits shotgun in the hearse with a burning cigar of incense. A motorcycle escort takes over. It’s not that Paul has never left Chinatown, but it’s always foreign out there. Chinatown’s his citadel. But when you die, your bones got to travel thirteen miles south outside the city to the Chinese Cemetery in Colma.

  As Paul speeds away from Chinatown with his dad’s spirit and favorite things, the boys in Vietnam are battling each other through the streets of Hue, house by house, block by block, hand to hand. Boys got to charge into buildings tossing grenades and wipe out the enemy room by room, meter by meter. Citadel’s a concrete stonewall maze, sort of Old World castle city that American boys never seen back home. Center is the Imperial Palace of Peace, surrounded by a city maze of side-by-side stone houses of the clergy, commoners, and bureaucrats. Boys got to put up the flag at the Palace to show they won the battle, but first they got to get the tanks in there with special concrete-piercing shells to blow out the thick walls, got to destroy ten thousand houses and forty percent of the city. Vietnam boys got their own map of trenches and tunnels and sniper positions; time being, it’s their citadel.

  Paul stares into the pit at the coffin, throws in his black armband and his black waistband. It peels away from his waist like a thick skin, exposing his guts for one horrific moment; then suddenly, the tension in his abdomen recedes. No one notices, it seems. Bow ties and white gloves flutter down to the casket. Once again, almost mysteriously, the agile friend of his father, Chen, is at his side; he, like the other pallbearers, tosses his bow tie and gloves, and now his ungloved hand rises to Paul’s shoulder. Paul wants to cry out, but he cannot. Everything gets pushed down deep. He’s still trying to hear, through the fireworks, his dad’s last words. There’s nothing but the soft din of juniper and flowers pelting dark wood.

  Far as any outsider can tell, on the one side it’s American boys and Vietnam boys dying. On the other side, it’s just Vietnam boys dying. ARVN/U.S. versus NVA/VC. Fighting’s fierce, but the ARVN/U.S. have the advantage of their technology, the superiority of aircraft and artillery. To save lives and win the city, we shell and bomb the sacred history of Hue back to the Stone Age. Six thousand residents die in the rubble and one hundred and twenty thousand wander homeless. In retaliation, sacred history is replaced by sacrilegious history: they massacre the enemies of the state, the government officials, the sympathizers, and the Catholics; pop them off in mass graves, three thousand human lives, Vietnamese rounded off to the thousand. Meanwhile, inside the city Citadel, maggots ooze through the strewn corpses, anonymous piles of sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, spouses and lovers, rats and rabid dogs feasting on their bloated corpses, a fog of stench escaping the crumbling maze, groveling in pity at the perfumed moat.

  A week later, Auntie calls and says, “We go to Colma for Ching Ming. This year it’s April fifth. It’s a Friday, so you come to my house after school. Don’t worry. I’ll get everything ready, but you pay attention. One of these days it’s going to be your responsibility. You got to do this for your mother and father. For your grandfather. I say to my kids, don’t let us down, especially when we’re dead.”

  Night before Ching Ming, MLK Jr. is standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, gets shot through the neck. Next day, the flags are all at half mast. School’s abuzz. They’re rioting in DC, in Chicago. What’s gonna happen here in SF? The Panthers over in Oakland calling for keeping the peace. It’s not the time to go to the streets. What you want? A bloodbath? They’re pretending they’ve got everything under control. Don’t know that Eldridge Cleaver’s yet to see his soul on ice and Bobby Hutton’s young years got to be cut short.

  Once again Paul’s in a car driving to the Chinese cemetery, squeezed between Auntie and her kids and grandkids. Car smells like roast pig and jai choy. Cousin playing Sly and the Family Stone on the local channel. No assassination’s going to interfere with Chinese tradition. “Better to go to Ching Ming, get outside the city,” Auntie justifies. “Ancestors know better. Get outside the city.”

  “But what about on the way back?”

  “We take safe streets. Inside Chinatown, no trouble. Here,” she says, passing a box of pork bao. “I got extra for you. You must be hungry from school. Are you eating? You didn’t come last week for dinner. What happened?” She nudges him. “Got a girlfriend?”

  Paul’s mouth is filled with bread. “Huh?”

  “It’s O.K. Forty-nine days are past. You can go back to your party life.”

  “Thanks, Auntie.”

  At the cemetery, other Chinese already there for the Clear Brightness Festival. Auntie becomes central command, moves her troops into action. Every kid’s got a job. Sweep, rake, pick out the dead leaves, dump the old flowers, make a nice arrangement of new flowers. Stick the red candles in the soft dirt, get them lighted. Make a spread and it’s a feast. Center attraction is the suckling pig’s head looking all tanned and glazed. Contrasting is a whole white boiled chicken. Then the sautéed jai choy and dim sum. Auntie throws in a boiled egg, an orange, a banana, and an apple. Ancestors get three bowls of rice, three cups of wine, three cups of tea, and three pairs of chopsticks.

  Paul has to light the incense bundle. “Don’t blow on the fire,” Auntie warns. “Bad luck.” She fans the fire with a newspaper.

  One of the kids is holding on to a bag of kitty litter. Auntie rips open the bag. “This is my invention,” she says proudly. “Works good, you know.” She pours the kitty litter into a can and demonstrates how the litter is going to hold up the incense sticks. What’s tradition if you don’t improve on it? It’s also a good bed for burning the joss papers and the otherworld money. Next time the house’s on fire, run to the kitty litter.

  Now it’s the ceremony: three incense sticks per person, three bows per person.

  Paul does his thing obediently, but turning from the altar, he sees Chen coming forward with three sticks of incense.

  Chen greets Auntie and smiles at Paul. She says, “Maybe you are interested in my brother’s books. Talk to my nephew and make a visit to the house.”

  Chen rakes his fingers through his hair and says to Paul, “Have you walked to the other side of the cemetery?” He motions to Auntie. “Don’t worry. I�
��ll drive Paul home.”

  Auntie’s wraps up the food offerings. “Look, you take this home for your dinner.” She hands Paul a hefty shopping bag.

  Paul follows Chen, crisscrossing the tombstones carved with Chinese characters. He points at the names and notes the oldest families, the earliest dates. “No paper names used here. When you die, you use your real name. Too late for immigration to deport you.”

  Paul nods, but he knows his name’s not paper. It’s the real thing. His father’s story is different.

  “I introduced your mother to your father,” Chen says casually. “She was very beautiful, much younger, my age. Twenty years difference, but it didn’t matter. At first they met with their brains. She fell in love with his mind. Well, there was more of course, since you didn’t pop out of their brains. You were born right away.”

  “How did you know my father?”

  “He was a friend of my family in Paris, but I wasn’t even born. He came to Paris to paint around 1920. He hung around Chou En-lai and the others at the Pascal Restaurant, on the Rue de l’Ecole de Medicine.” Chen speaks the last words in French. “He helped Chou stage a protest of the Chinese Legation, traveled around Europe with Chou to get recruits for the Chinese Communist Youth Corps.”

  Paul is hearing this for the first time. “Chou?” he asks.

  “Yes, China’s premier. The same.”

  “He never said.”

  “They parted ways. Chou returned to China to fight with Sun Yat Sen. Your father came home. What he really wanted was to return to his painting, and his family was here. His father died suddenly. Your auntie was a young girl, and he was the only son. He was a Marxist, but also filial.”

  Paul is quiet. He isn’t a Marxist, but he already knows it’s going to be impossible to be filial.

  “I looked him up when I came to study. He remembered my family from those days in Paris. When I met him, he was living and painting in the Monkey Block.”

  “Monkey Block?”

  “That’s what they called the block on Montgomery at Washington. The street was a hangout for artists and writers. The building was full of artist studios. Used to be the Black Cat Café in the basement.”

  Paul follows Chen. Chen’s a stroller, reading the stones and throwing out anecdotes. Paul’s trying to grab his past as Chen tosses it over his shoulders. “Let’s take that pig’s head and head on home,” Chen says. “I’m famished.”

  Paul thinks famished is an interesting word.

  Back at the house, Chen clears off the kitchen table, washes the dishes, rummages around the drawers and finds a tablecloth that hasn’t been used since Paul’s mother was alive. He spreads that out, boils water for tea, sets the table. Paul’s not famished, he’s starving, but Chen’s got to have a pot of rice too. Far as Paul knows, it’s high dining. Chen fills glasses with foaming beer and toasts. “Now,” he says, settling in with the food and steaming rice, “eat slowly. Think about your father. And Martin Luther King.” He shakes his head. “I teach at San Francisco State. I cancelled my classes today. A great loss.”

  Paul sips at the foam across his glass of beer. Acid bubbles singe his senses. Suddenly it occurs to him. He could get stupidly wasted, like every other high school kid with that opportunity. Chen seems oblivious, cutting into the pig’s head, relishing every bite. It’s an empty freedom.

  Next day, he doesn’t know why, but he starts to clean his dad’s house like he’s looking for something. Those paintings in the corners. Dust, sweep, polish, wipe, classify. It’s like he’s one of Auntie’s kids, commandeered to tidy up the gravesite. All summer he’s into it. Auntie comes round to see what he’s up to. She’s pleased, but he doesn’t stop. The dark grain of the wood floors and paneling is shining back at her. Smells like Pledge. “Is this healthy?” she asks timidly. She’s looking at her brother’s old paintings. Kid’s got them hanging on the walls. “Are you having a psychological crisis? You should enjoy the summer with your friends. It’s not normal to be alone inside this old house.”

  “I’m fine, Auntie.” He’s distracted. On the television, Walter’s talking about Chicago. Police clubbing and gassing protestors at the Democratic Convention.

  End of summer he knows the house, every shelf, every drawer, every corner, everything. House is immaculate. Day after Labor Day he steps out, locks the door. Heads off to SFSC. Got to see Chen to find the real keys to get back in.

  Chen’s got a class in contemporary Chinese literature. He lectures without notes. It’s all in his head. This cat’s amazing. Quotes passages. Talks dates, anecdotes. Like he knows the authors. Maybe he does. Paul goes home and finds the books. It’s all there in his library, in Chinese and in translation. His dad’s scribbling’s in the margins, but it’s mostly in Chinese. Paul’s got to use a dictionary to decipher it, or ask Chen. Chen says, “You know Yat Min Lee? Calls himself Edmund. He sits in the back. I’ll introduce you. He can read it all for you. And in return, you can lend him the books. He doesn’t have the money to buy them.”

  Turns out Edmund is the smartest kid in class. Reads everything in the original Chinese, criticizes the translations. Paul tries to be friendly, but Edmund’s too busy. He comes around when he can, hangs out in Paul’s library, but he’s got a job busing tables at Fisherman’s Wharf. That’s his routine. Got to make money to keep from taking it from his family’s table. Family’s loud and noisy, crowded into two rooms above a laundry. His business is everybody’s. As for Paul, his dad always had rent money coming in from his properties. Now Paul’s got to do the accounting every month. Two boys wishing they had the other’s problems.

  Today Chen’s on to Lu Hsun. “Mao Tse-Tung has said that Lu Hsun is his favorite writer.” Everyone perks up at this. Mao, he’s the man. Lu Hsun’s got to be our favorite too. Chen goes on to give the details. Lu Hsun was studying medicine in Japan when he saw these imperialist war slides of Japanese soldiers chopping off the head of a Chinese spy. What disgusted him were the bored Chinese in the pictures who were forced to see the spectacle. That’s it. Lu Hsun gives up medicine. What’s the point? He could study all he wanted to make his people healthy in body, but they were sick in their minds, dig. Now this might seem like a jump, but Lu Hsun thinks the answer is literature. So he starts a new life writing.

  Chen pulls it out of his head: Lu Hsun’s preface to his collection of short stories. He’s got a photographic memory, but if you want to check, you can follow along in the book: “When I was young, I, too, had many dreams. Most of them came to be forgotten, but I see nothing in this to regret. For although recalling the past may make you happy, it may sometimes also make you lonely, and there is no point in clinging in spirit to lonely bygone days. However, my trouble is that I cannot forget completely, and these stories have resulted from what I have been unable to erase from my memory.” Chen’s voice trails off like he’s forgotten what he’s on to, but Paul knows he’s talking to him. Why is the call to write so strong? Only a writer knows. You can give any excuse you want.

  Paul says to Edmund, “Chinese students meeting today. You going?”

  “I have to work,” Edmund says. “Let me know what happens.”

  Later, Paul reports. It’s one of the ICSA Chinese who speaks. That’s Intercollegiate Chinese Students Association. Fills in for a Chinese BSU. Chinese cat wears these shades that he never takes off. Works on being intimidating. He says, “What we are trying to do is to expose the contradictions of this society to our communities, separate fact from fiction. Fiction is that the Chinese have never suffered as much as the black or brown communities. Fact is the Chinese community has the same basic problems. Difference is that we got the neon lights and tourist restaurants. Fact is the restaurants are staffed by illiterate Chinese who work fourteen hours a day, six days a week. Fiction is Chinese businessman is doing good business. Fact is this is exploitation of Chinese immigrants who can only find work in sweatshops, laundries, and restaurants in Chinatown.”

  Edmund says, “I’m not il
literate. What’s he talking about?”

  Paul says, “It’s not about you. It’s about the others.”

  Edmund says, “I am the others.”

  Paul says, “There’s another meeting. This one is Third World. You get in if you’re Chinese.”

  “I have to go home and work,” Edmund says. He always has to go home and work. Paul doesn’t have to go anywhere. And no one’s waiting at home for him.

  Stokely Carmichael’s the main attraction. You get in to hear him if you got some color in your skin. BSU stands at the door and checks you out. Right on, brother. Paul likes this feeling of attitude rippling under his skin. Some white brother who’s sympathetic wants to get in. Says he knows Stokely personally. BSU takes him aside. “Nothing personal, brother, but this is about self-determination, you dig?” Paul files the information: self-determination.

  Stokely tells it like it is. In a nutshell: you got to get control over the power structure. It’s not about you getting some Swahili classes. It’s about getting the methodology and the ideology. We got to heighten the contradictions to politically awaken our people. Easy to die for your people, but more difficult to live to work and kill for your people.

  Then some other BSU cats get up and talk about the War of the Flea. Get down to the strategy, dig? How we are going to wear down the man. Paul nods; this is a Chinese thing. Guerilla practice of Uncles Ho and Mao. Lao Tzu. Art of War. Asians the brains behind the operation.

  Next day in Chen’s class, it’s Mao Tse-Tung’s poetry. At least that’s the syllabus. But Mao’s practice comes to class instead. BSU and TWLF students walk in with their leather jackets, Afros, dark glasses, berets, what have you, but mostly attitude, and announce: This class is over. We are on strike until the pig administration meets our non-negotiable demands. Someone lights a match in the trash can, and everyone files out. War of the flea.

  Month later, it’s more than fleas out there warring. Buses lining up at Holloway and Nineteenth, black folks stepping out like it’s a church function. All the big honchos of the community arrive: Reverends Cecil Williams and Lloyd Wake of Glide Memorial, California Assembly Rep. Willie Brown, Economic Opportunity Director and Delegate to the Democratic Convention Ron Dellums, and physician-publisher of the Sun-Reporter Dr. Carlton Goodlett. Besides which, some of these men are alumni of SF State. It’s a we-shall-overcome protest gathering. Even so, the students are in charge: On strike! Shut it down! We want the puppet! They pelt the windows of the administration building with rocks. Throw garbage cans at the doors. Turn over the cafeteria tables. Throw typewriters out the windows. Run into the library and push the books off the shelves. Stuff them down the toilets. War of the flea.