“Damn, man, all right, okay,” I said sharply, interrupting him. Rico was starting to talk trash I didn’t want to hear.
He seemed to notice, or at least that’s what I thought. “I’ve had this book a long, long time,” Rico then said, sounding dead serious. It was hard to tell with him, but going to war wasn’t a trifling thing, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Wrong move. I was tricked like a trout rising to a fisherman’s fly.
“I got it years ago,” he went on, fixing me with a sharp look. My intense focus told him I was hooked; it was all he needed to know. He paused dramatically before reeling me in. “Before my first shorthair,” he said in a near whisper. His deadpan continued. “What the shit,” he said as he shrugged his shoulders. “A boy’s gotta’ dream.”
I couldn’t help smiling, despite my sudden irritation and sense of impending loss. Rico didn’t miss a step.
“That book there,” he said, and he repeated himself for emphasis, “that book there even got a name.”
It was too late. Like always, it was his dialogue, just like it was always his dance. I was his straight man and had to play along. I sighed. “What is it, man?”
“Ho’s I Know,” he said, with a master’s timing. Rico studied me, looking at my face for a sign of reaction. I didn’t give him any. To my mind, this was too serious a moment.
“Oh,” I said flatly. I held back and gathered my thoughts before speaking again. “So this is it?” I asked. I listened to myself uttering the words, creating the accusatory question. I’d miss him, which was all the more reason to keep the tone even. In our neighborhood, emotion was for sissies and not to be shown, even to friends. I thought I’d succeeded. I guess I hadn’t.
“Hey,” Rico said. “It ain’t forever.” His voice was softer. I looked at him closely and knew this time he wasn’t setting me up.
“Man, come on by tonight,” I said hopefully. “My folks, dinner . . . you know, a righteous goodbye.”
“Can’t.”
For Rico, “can’t” never meant “maybe.” I pressed him, though, because I figured I had nothing to lose. I unloaded both barrels, or tried to.
“The folks, man,” I started, “they . . .”
“Can’t,” he said again, with a firmness that ended any further appeal to my parents’ affection. He looked at me and didn’t speak until he was convinced I got the message. “Look,” he said finally. “Got some time before I report and I’m gettin’ outta’ town, maybe to Frisco. Ain’t never been there and I’d kinda’ like to go, you know, like Cookie tried to.”
Cookie was our friend, a young black kid we’d grown up with. All he talked about, once he figured out his dick wasn’t just for pissing, was getting laid. He didn’t care whether the girls were black, white, yellow, whatever—a fact attested to by his multicolored progeny and their angry grandparents who universally threatened to harm him. All he cared about was a girl’s attitude, which he hoped was enthusiastic, and finding more eligibles and more places to hide.
Cookie knew Seattle was too small; he kept bumping into relatives of his lovers who wanted to kill him. The last, the brother of a Chinese girl, shot at him but missed. His frustrated assailant shouted at the fleeing Cookie that sooner or later he’d turn him into a barbecue slab and hang him from a hook. The image of his glazed flank hanging in the front window of a Chinatown restaurant frightened Cookie, and he decided it was time to go. He had to figure out where, and thought he’d discovered Heaven when he read about San Francisco and its sexual revolution.
When I last saw him he was growing his hair out, and I listened while he recited a litany of black-power phrases. He explained he was going to San Francisco to poke a commune full of white middle-class hippie girls who, by doing his black butt, would think they were promoting social justice. He’d figured it out. But just as he was about to leave, his draft notice came. Cookie died in Vietnam and never made it to Freakin’ Frisco.
Rico didn’t want to make the same mistake; I knew he had a good reason to leave, so I backed off and let the matter drop. He must have known I’d surrendered, and that giving up wasn’t easy.
“Look,” he said kindly, “it’s hard, ’specially ’cause you and me are like this.” He clenched his fist to illustrate. “You know, tight like brothers.”
I looked at him and nodded agreement, feeling too sad to reply. “Guess this is it,” I said, as I extended my hand. “Better get goin’.”
He took my hand, pulled me toward him, and hugged me awkwardly. “Look,” he said as he released me a moment later. “You’re smart and you’re goin’ to Catholic school . . . college prep and takin’ trig, Buddy. Me, I took shop, and it’s the shop guys that’s goin’. If the shit’s still on in a year from now, get your butt in college. At least you can cut a deal, and if you go you’ll be an officer with a safe job and a desk. Don’t do like I’m about to do and go put yourself in a box.”
He was silent for a minute, maybe more, but I knew it would end. I waited. He stared at the floor and breathed heavily. When he broke the silence, the tone of his voice was like a sudden hard jab, and so was his choice of words.
“Damn,” he muttered without looking up. “Damn,” he said again, louder this time, looking at me. “We’re like brothers, you know, but we’re different. ’Cause I’m the one that’s gotta go.” He paused again before speaking. “Buddy, you got hope. You got hope without ever havin’ to leave town.”
I was stunned and even unnerved. I wasn’t sure if the anger in his voice was aimed at me or his situation. “Rico,” I said, without really knowing what to say next. “I . . .”
“Better leave, man,” he said, cutting me off. “We’re cool, but I need to be alone. Gotta sort it out.”
I just stared at him, blanked out by this new face on my old friend. I froze and stayed seated because I couldn’t accept what I was hearing.
He returned my stare. “Man, you understand English?”
I did, and this time his tone—curt, cold, full of menace—made me rise and begin to take the first steps of my backward shuffle toward the door. I knew that tone well. I’d heard it directed at scores of childhood enemies, but I’d never thought I’d be the target.
He was no longer looking at me, but as I retreated I never took my eyes off him. To this day I’m not sure if it was for fear of what he might do, or for love of a friend I might never see again. I backed through the doorway, and as I did so, Rico became a picture in a frame, a sepia photo, an image in a seam of memory. Through the dim light, I saw him motionless, leaning forward, head bowed, this man with the moves. A seam of memory. Without a word to anyone, I walked out of the gym.
HOMECOMING
Carlos Bulosan
Already, through the coming darkness, he could see landmarks of familiar places. He stirred as he looked out of the window, remembering scenes of childhood. Houses flew by him; the sudden hum of human activity reached his ears. He was nearing home.
He kept his eyes upon the narrowing landscape. When the bus drove into town and stopped under the big arbor tree that was the station, he rushed from his seat and jumped onto the ground, filled with joy and wonder and mystery.
The station was deserted. He found the old road that ran toward his father’s house. He walked in the darkness, between two long rows of houses. A little dog shot out from a house and barked at him. He looked at it with a friendly smile. He wanted to stop and pick up a handful of the earth of home, but thoughts of his people loomed large in his mind. Every step brought vivid recollections of his family. He was bursting with excitement, not knowing what to say. He walked on in the thickening darkness.
He had gone to America twelve years before, when he was fifteen.CARLOS BULOSAN, self-taught Filipino writer and union activist, was born in Pangasinan, the Philippines, in 1911 and became the foremost chronicler of the Filipino/Filipino American struggle. Bulosan arrived in Seattle in 1930 and, until his death in 1956, he wrote in many literary genres. His best-known work is his autobiographi
cal novel, America Is in the Heart, and The Laughter of My Father. Much of his fiction was published in the 1940s in The New Yorker, as well as Harper’s Bazaar and Arizona Quarterly, and in an issue of Amerasia Journal devoted to his life and writings.
And now that he was back, walking on the dirt road that he had known so well, he felt like a boy of fifteen again. Yes, he was barely fifteen when he left home. He began to remember how one evening he ran like mad on this road with some roots that the herbalist needed for his mother, who was sick in bed with a mysterious disease. He had cried then, hugging the roots close to him. He knew that the fate of his mother was in his hands; he knew that they were waiting for him. . . . A mist came to his eyes. Reliving this tragic moment of childhood, he began to weaken with sudden tenderness for his mother. He walked faster, remembering . . .
Then he came to the gate of his father’s house. For some moments he stood before the house, his heart pounding painfully. And now he knew. This was what he had come for—a little grass house near the mountains, away from the riot and madness of cities. He had left the civilization of America for this tiny house, and now that he was here, alone, he felt weak inside. He was uncertain.
For a moment he was afraid of what the house would say; he was afraid of what the house would ask him. The journey homeward had been more than eight thousand miles of land and water, but now that he was actually standing before the house, it seemed as if he had come from a place only a few miles away.
He surveyed the house in the dark, lost in his memories. Then he stepped forward, his feet whispering in the sand that filled the path to the house.
A faint gleam of light from the kitchen struck his face. He recalled at once that when he was young, the family always came home late in the evening; and his mother, who did all the domestic chores, served dinner around midnight. He paused a while, feeling a deep love for his mother. Then he crawled under the window, where the light shot across his face. He stood there and waited, breathless, for a moment.
But they were very quiet in the house. He could hear somebody moving toward the stove and stopping there to pour water into a jar. He found a hard object which he knew to be an empty box, and he hoisted himself on it, looking into the kitchen whence the lamp threw a beam of soft light.
Now he could see a large portion of the kitchen. He raised his heels, his eyes roving over the kitchen. Then he caught a quick glimpse of his mother, the old oil lamp in her hand. He was petrified with fear, not knowing what to do. One foot slipped from the side of the box and he hung in mid-air. He wanted to shout to her all the sorrows of his life, but a choking lump came to his throat. He looked, poised, undecided; then his mother disappeared behind a yellow curtain. His mind was a riot of conflict; he shifted from foot to foot. But action came to him at last. He jumped onto the ground and ran to the house.
He climbed up the ladder and stood by the door. His younger sister was setting the table, and his older sister, who was called Francisca, was helping his mother with the boiling pot on the stove. He watched the three women moving mechanically in the kitchen. Then he stepped forward, his leather shoes slapping against the floor. Francisca turned toward him and screamed.
“Mother!”
The mother looked swiftly from the burning stove and found the bewildered face of her son.
“It’s me—Mariano—” he moved toward them, pausing at the table.
“Mother!”
They rushed to him, all of them; the moment was eternity. Marcela, the younger sister, knelt before him; she was crying wordlessly. The mother was in his arms; her white hair fell upon his shoulder. Unable to say anything sensible, he reached for Francisca and said: “You’ve grown . . .”
Francisca could not say a word; she turned away and wept. The tension of this sudden meeting was unbearable to him. And now he was sorry he had come home. He felt that he could never make them happy again; a long period of deterioration would follow this sudden first meeting. He knew it, and he revolted against it. But he also knew that he could never tell them why he had come home.
They prepared a plate for him. He was hungry and he tried to eat everything they put on his plate. They had stopped eating. They were waiting for him to say something; they were watching his every movement. There were many things to talk about, but he did not know where to begin. He was confused. The silence was so deep he could hear the wind among the trees outside. Pausing a while, a thought came to his mind. Father: Where was father?
He looked at Francisca. “Where is father?” he asked.
Francisca turned to her mother for guidance, then to Mariano’s lifted face.
Finally Francisca said: “Father died a year after you left.”
“Father was a very old man,” Marcela added. “He died in his sleep.”
Mariano wanted to believe them, but he felt that they were only trying to make it easy for him. Then he looked at his mother. For the first time he seemed to realize that she had aged enormously. Then he turned to his sisters, who had become full-grown women in his absence. A long time passed before he could say anything.
“I didn’t know that,” he said, looking down at his food.
“We didn’t want you to know,” his mother said.
“I didn’t know that father died,” he repeated.
“Now you know,” Marcela said.
Mariano tried to swallow the hot rice in his mouth, but a big lump of pain came to his throat. He could not eat anymore. He washed his hands and reached for the cloth on the wall above the table.
“I’ve had enough,” he said.
Marcela and Francisca washed the dishes in a tall wooden tub. The mother went to the living room and spread the thin mat on the floor. Mariano sat on the long bench, near the stove. He was waiting for them to ask questions. His eyes roved around the house, becoming intimate with the furniture. When the mother came to the kitchen, Marcela took the lamp from the wall and placed it on one end of the bench. The light rose directly toward Mariano’s face.
The mother paused. “Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?” she asked.
“I wanted to surprise you,” he lied.
“I’m glad you are with us again.”
“We’re very glad,” Francisca said.
“Yes,” Marcela said.
Then the mother closed the window. Mariano looked at Marcela, but the light dazzled him. Now he felt angry with himself. He wanted to tell the truth, but could not. How could he make them understand that he had failed in America? How could he let them realize that he had come home because there was no other place for him in the world? At twenty-seven, he felt through with life; he knew that he had come home to die. America had crushed his spirit.
He wanted to say something, but did not know where to begin. He was confused, now that he was home. All he could say was: “I came home . . .”
A strong wind blew into the house, extinguishing the lamp. The house was thrown into complete darkness. He could hear Marcela moving around, fumbling for matches under the stove. In the brief instant of darkness that wrapped the house he remembered his years in the hospital. He recalled the day of his operation, when the doctor had worked on his right lung. It all came back to him. Strange: unconsciously, he placed a hand on his chest. When the match spurted in Marcela’s cupped palms, Mariano drew back his hand. He watched the lamp grow brighter until the house was all lighted again.
Then he said: “I wanted to write, but there was nothing I could say.”
“We knew that,” the mother said.
They were silent. Mariano looked at their faces. He knew now that he could never tell them what the doctor had told him before he sailed for home. Two years perhaps, the doctor had said. Yes, he had only two years left to live in the world. Two years: How much could he do in so brief a time? He began to feel weak. He looked at their faces.
Now it was his turn. Touching Marcela by the hand, he asked: “Are you all right? I mean . . . since father died . . .”
“I take laundr
y from students,” Marcela said. “But it’s barely enough. And sister here—”
Francisca rose suddenly and ran to the living room. The mother looked at Marcela. The house was electrified with fear and sadness.
“When students go back to their home towns, we have nothing.”
“Is Francisca working?”
“She takes care of the Judge’s children. Sister doesn’t like to work in that house, but it’s the only available work in town.”
His heart was dying slowly.
“Mother can’t go around anymore. Sister and I work to the bones. We’ve never known peace.”
Mariano closed his eyes for a brief moment and pushed the existence of his sister out of his consciousness. The mother got up from the floor and joined Francisca in the living room. Now Mariano could hear Francisca weeping. Marcela was tougher; she looked toward the living room with hard, unsentimental eyes. Mariano was frightened, knowing what Marcela could do in a harsh world.
“Sister isn’t pretty anymore,” Marcela said.
Mariano was paralyzed with the sudden fear. He looked at Marcela. Yes, she too was not pretty anymore. But she did not care about herself; she was concerned over her sister. He looked at her cotton dress, torn at the bottom. Then he felt like smashing the whole world; he was burning with anger. He was angry against all the forces that had made his sisters ugly.
Suddenly, he knelt before Marcela. He took her hands, comprehending. Marcela’s palms were rough. Her fingernails were torn like matchsticks. Mariano bit his lower lip until it bled. He knew he would say something horrible if he opened his mouth. Instead he got up and took the lamp and went to the living room.
Francisca was weeping in her mother’s arms. Mariano held the lamp above them, watching Francisca’s face. She turned her face away, ashamed. But Mariano saw, and now he knew. Francisca was not pretty anymore. He wanted to cry.
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