Charlie Chan Is Dead 2

by Jessica Hagedorn

  “I’ve got your back.”

  She pulled out a paper clip from her pocket and I started to laugh. The paper clip method was an old-school way to trigger the phone into thinking a quarter was put in. Of course, it no longer works on these new pay phones with the calling card feature. We called Sam to come and pick us up.

  A week later, my girls and I met in a school parking lot, where they beat me to a pulp. It was a small price to pay for getting out of a gang.

  UNTITLED STORY

  José Garcia Villa

  1

  Father did not understand my love for Vi, so Father sent me to America to study away from her. I could not do anything and I left.

  2

  I was afraid of my father.

  3

  On the boat I was seasick and I could not eat. I thought of home and my girl and I had troubled dreams.

  4

  The blue waves in the young sunlight were like azure dancing flowers but they danced ceaselessly to the tune of the sun, to look at them made me dizzy. Then I would go to my cabin and lie down and sometimes I cried.

  Born in Manila in 1908, JOSÉ GARCIA VILLA emigrated to the United States in 1930. He published four books of poetry and one short story collection in the United States, and a number of books in the Philippines. The recipient of numerous awards, prizes, and honors in his lifetime, the reclusive Villa died on February 8, 1997, in New York City. The Anchored Angel: Selected Writings by José Garcia Villa was published by Kaya Press in 1999.

  5

  We were one month at sea. When I arrived in America I was lonely.

  6

  I window-shopped at Market Street in San Francisco and later when I was in Los Angeles I went to Hollywood but I remained lonely.

  7

  I saw President Hoover’s home in Palo Alto but I did not care for President Hoover.

  8

  In California too I saw a crippled woman selling pencils on a sidewalk. It was night and she sat on the cold concrete like an old hen but she had no brood. She looked at me with dumb faithful eyes.

  9

  The Negro in the Pullman hummed to himself. At night he prepared our berths and he was automatic like a machine. As I looked at him I knew I did not want to be a machine.

  10

  In the university where I went there were no boys yet. It was only August and school would not begin until September. The university was on a hill and there the winds blew strong. In my room at night I could hear the winds howling like helpless young puppies. The winds were little blind dogs crying for their mother.

  11

  Where was the mother of the winds? I lay in bed listening to the wind-children crying for their mother but I would fall asleep before their mother had returned to them.

  12

  During the day the little blind puppies did not whimper much. It was only at night they grew afraid of the dark and then they cried for their mother. Did their mother ever come to them? Maybe their mother had a lover and she loved this lover more than the little blind puppies.

  13

  I had nothing to do and I wrote home to my friends but my friends did not write to me.

  14

  One day a boy knocked at my room. He was young and he said he was alone and wanted to befriend me. He became dear to me.

  15

  The boy’s name was David. He was poor and he wore slovenly clothes but his eyes were soft. He was like a young flower.

  16

  When David was sick I watched over him.

  17

  Afterwards David would not go anywhere without me.

  18

  Of nights David and I would walk through the streets and he would recite poetry to me.“Sunset and evening star And one clear call for me . . .”

  This was the slowness of David, the slowness of the sunset, of the evening star.

  19

  One night David came to me and said he was returning home the next morning. He could not earn enough money on which to go to school.

  20

  I died in myself.

  21

  After David had gone I walked the streets feeling I had lost a great, great something. When I thought of him it hurt very much.

  22

  School opened in September. At my table in the dining hall we were eight. I liked Georgia, Aurora, Louise and Greg. There was another girl and her name was Reynalda but she was a little haughty.

  23

  The boys were Joe and Wiley. Joe came from David’s town and when I asked him about David he said they had been like Jonathan and David in high school. Joe loved David and David, who was far away now, became a bond between Joe and me.

  24

  Sometimes Joe and I got sore at each other but when we thought of David we became friends again.

  25

  Joe wanted to become a preacher and Wiley would be a sports editor. I did not know what I wanted to be. First when I was a boy I wanted to be a movie actor but later I did not want to be a movie actor. I wanted to paint but Father objected to it because he said painters did not make much money.

  26

  Father was a moneymaker. When he had made it he did not want to spend it. When I needed money I went to my mother and she gave it to me because she was not a moneymaker.

  27

  Then I fell in love with Georgia. Georgia had golden hair and I became enamored of it. In my country all the girls were blackhaired. I asked Georgia to let me feel her hair and when I ran my fingers through it I became crazy about her.

  28

  Georgia and I went running around. Afterwards she wrote me love letters.

  29

  In one letter she called me My Lord, in another Beloved. But I called her just Georgia although sometimes I called her Georgie. When I called her Georgie I smiled because it was like a boy’s name.

  30

  One day Georgia and I quarrelled and many nights thereafter I walked the streets muttering to myself. I did not know what I was saying. I called myself, “You . . .” but the sentence did not get finished. I would look at the sky and behold the stars and talk to myself.

  31

  One night I stopped talking to myself. I was no longer incoherent and the sentence on my lips that began with “You . . .” got finished.

  32

  The finished sentence was beauteous as a dancer in the dawn. The sentence was finished at night but it was not like the night but like the dawn.

  33

  Later Georgia and I made up but everything was not as it used to be. The finished sentence was beauteous like a dancer in the dawn. After a time I did not care for Georgia nor she for me.

  34

  I went to school but I did not like going to school.

  35

  I said to myself I would be through with girls and love only the girl back home. I wondered if what had happened to me had happened too or was happening to Vi. As I thought it I got angry not at myself but with Vi.

  36

  A girl should be constant.

  37

  I was angry with Vi and in my fancy I saw many pictures of her with other boys. She was dancing and smiling and she had no thoughts of me.

  38

  Finally I dreamt Vi had got married and I woke up crying. Then I was no longer angry with Vi but with my father who had separated us. I wrote Father an angry letter blaming him. I said I would quit studying and did not care if he cut me off.

  39

  I was very angry I became a poet. In fancy my anger became a gorgeous purple flower. I made love to it with my long fingers. Then when I had won it and it shone like a resplendent gem in my hands I offered it to my father.

  40

  My father could not understand the meaning of the gorgeous purple flower. When I gave it to him he threw it on the floor. Then I said, “My father is not a lover.”

  41

  I picked the flower and it lived because my father refused it.

  42

  One morning at
breakfast I told Wiley and Joe and the girls that I was quitting school and leaving for New York that afternoon. At first they would not believe me but I was quiet and pensive throughout the meal and finally they believed me. They wanted to know why I was leaving but I told them I did not know it myself.

  43

  At lunch they looked at me wistfully and I said, “This is our last meal together.” I became very sad.

  44

  I shook their hands and Louise and Aurora asked me if I would write to them. When I left the table they followed me softly with their eyes until I turned at the door.

  45

  Joe and Wiley walked with me to my room at the dorm. They did not want to leave me and in my room I said they must go for I must pack my things. They wanted to help me but I said I was not packing many things. I made them go after we had shaken hands and promised to write each other. Joe and Wiley wanted to go to the station to see me off but I begged them not to. It would make me feel bad, I said.

  46

  And so I made Joe and Wiley go but when they had left my room I went to the window and looked at them long and I cried. I liked Joe and Wiley and Aurora and Louise—why was I leaving them?

  47

  Then I lay on the bed without moving. All the time I knew I was not truly leaving for New York yet I felt greatly hurt. In myself I was leaving and behind me I would leave Joe and Wiley and the girls. I would be lonely again as when I had first come to America.

  48

  I had said I was leaving for New York but it was not true. I was a liar because I had felt like telling a lie and I was angry with my father and in my mind I wanted to do something rash like leaving college and going about starving in a big city like New York.

  49

  In the big city of New York, where I had never been, I was hungry and without money. I lived in a little dark room and it was dark and ugly for the rent was cheap. There was only one little window in the room and it was tight to open.

  50

  One night I opened the little window and a piece of paper blew in. It settled on the floor and then my mind began to work about it.—I am not alone. A lover is waiting for me outside. She has written me a letter calling me to her side. . . . “I will go to you, sweetheart,” I whispered tenderly.

  51

  Then a strong wind blew in and the paper moved.—It is a white flower trembling with love. It is God’s white flower.—It made me think of my gorgeous purple flower which my father had refused and I wanted it to become God’s white flower. Make my purple flower white, God, I prayed.

  52

  In New Mexico I had prayed before about my father, mother and sisters but in New York I prayed about a flower.

  53

  In New York it was colder than in New Mexico.

  54

  I wanted to buy a new suit and go to see a new UFA film but I had no money.

  55

  Because I wanted to have a new suit and to see a new German film and I had no money I walked around in the streets. I looked at the haberdashery windows and gazed at the new styles. There was a wine-colored suit with padded shoulders and if I only had money I could have it. It cost sixty-five dollars.

  56

  In front of the big cinema it was very bright. In San Francisco I saw the Fox Theatre and I thought it was very big but this was much bigger. It was very lavish. Rich young ladies and thin gay gentlemen poured in. They laughed goldenly.

  57

  Then I got tired walking and I returned to my little dark room and the dark made me want a woman.

  58

  It was cold in the room and I thought if I had a woman I would not feel so cold. We would share each other’s warmth.

  59

  “Warming woman, warming woman,” I sang. How beautiful the words. How beautiful the thought.

  60

  Then I turned on the light and in the lighted room I took a book and read. The story was about a liar. I thought of myself. I had lied to Joe and Wiley and to Aurora and Louise and to every one at the table. It had occurred to me to lie and I did and now I was living up to my lie.

  61

  All these adventures in New York I have been telling you about happened in my room as I lay on the bed crying because I was a liar. But I was not afraid to cry.

  62

  Later I dressed and pretended I was going to the station where I was leaving. After a time when I got dressed I did not want to merely pretend and I left my room to go to the station.

  63

  On the way I met Aurora. She walked with me to the street corner to bid me good-bye. She held my hands long and her hold was tight. Her hands were soft like flowers and thin like roots but they were strong lovers. Her hands made cruel love to my hands.

  64

  “Write to me,” her mouth said—but her hands, “Have we not touched the touch to last us forever? the touch of music that knows no forgetting?”

  65

  When I had already gotten into the bus and the bus started Aurora did not move. She stood at the corner, her eyes following me. She stood there long, immobile, and I waved my hand at her but only her eyes moved. Her hands that had been lovers were quiet now. Her whole body has become a quiet lover. As the bus moved away, in the far corner she was no longer a quiet lover but a song of serenity.

  66

  In the bus strange thoughts came to me: I have touched her hands. Why do I not love her the way I loved Georgia? Why have I not asked to touch her hair? Maybe if I touched her hair I would love her like I was maddened by Georgia. . . . I should have touched her hair. She would have liked it. We would have become lovers.

  67

  As to Georgia I did not bid her good-bye and I did not care.—I touched her hair. I ran my fingers through her hair. After I finished the sentence that was beauteous as a dancer in the dawn I did not care to touch her hair.—In the bus I could not understand why and it made feel sad.

  68

  I got off at the station and waited for the 5:30 train. It came and then it left. I watched it till I could not see it. I wondered if I was in it.

  69

  Had I bidden myself good-bye?

  70

  Afterwards I walked through the town as if I had gone out of myself. I looked for myself vainly. I was nowhere. I was now only a shell, a house. The house of myself was empty.

  71

  My god had flown away and carried with him my gorgeous purple flower. Will Father laugh now?

  72

  Where had my god fled? Where was he taking my purple flower which my father had refused?

  73

  In the morning, on the campus, I met Aurora and she said I fooled her. Later everybody said I fooled them. But to Aurora, as I thought of her as she stood at the street corner, her hands making love to my hands, and of her when she was a song of serenity, I said: “Your hands have told me an unforgettable story. Your song of serenity has awakened me. Now let me feel your hair . . .”

  74

  My god was in her hair. My god was there with my purple flower pressed gently to his breast. I opened his hands and he yielded to me my flower. I pinned it to Aurora’s hair. And as the purple petals kissed the soft dark of her hair, my flower turned silver, then white—became God’s white flower. Then I was no longer angry with my father.

  EYE CONTACT

  an outtake from AMERICAN KNEES

  Shawn Wong

  Being the only two Asians at a party, they tried to avoid each other, but failed. They touched accidentally several times. They watched each other furtively from across the room.