by Noël Alumit
I made a fist. I couldn’t see anything except the darkness my body had made, and I threw my fist out, hitting something. I heard a grunt, then a groan. I hit her. I hit Auntie Yuna.
“Liar. Liar. LIAR!” I said.
She looked at me like she didn’t know what to do. She laughed. She laughed as she locked herself in her room.
I looked at my hands and I realized J was right. Fighting is not so bad sometimes. I looked at my fist and I realized J was wrong. I didn’t have power in my hands, only fear.
CHAPTER SIX
King Cobra
Dear Montgomery Clift, October 7, 1978
At school my teacher wanted to know how I got my fat lip. I told her that my next door neighbor hit me. I didn’t tell her that Auntie Yuna did it. I didn’t tell her that Auntie Yuna drinks. I didn’t tell her that Auntie Yuna wakes up in the middle of the night and tells me to clean up. I didn’t tell her that Auntie Yuna hits me with her witch’s broom. I didn’t tell her how Auntie Yuna keeps saying she has had bad luck beginning with the very first day I arrived.
I didn’t tell her that I don’t feel anything when Auntie Yuna attacks me. I didn’t tell her that Auntie Yuna somehow cast a voodoo spell on me. I become a zombie when Auntie Yuna comes at me like a tiger.
“Do you have any friends?” Mrs. Nice Teacher asked.
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t tell her that I miss my best friend Robert. I call him sometimes but he found new friends.
I didn’t tell her that Big Head Milton tells everyone that I’m an orphan because he never sees my parents pick me up after school. And tells everyone that he sees drunk Auntie Yuna at Cho’s Liquor store smelling like a sewer.
“I have a friend,” I told Mrs. Nice Teacher.
“He’s a soldier.”
“He’s older, then?”
I nodded. I didn’t tell her any more about you. She wouldn’t understand. She wouldn’t understand about spirits.
Mrs. Nice Teacher patted my head, probably to even out my funny haircut, which Auntie Yuna gave me. She cuts my hair this way and that, sometimes cutting a little too close, snagging a little of my skin. I didn’t tell her my hair will never bounce if Auntie Yuna keeps cutting away at it.
Mrs. Nice Teacher looked at my head real close. She looked at my face real close. I didn’t tell her that I don’t want her to be that close to me. I didn’t tell her that I only want J to stand close to me. I didn’t tell her that J would rather spend all his time with Baby Bounce (whose real name is Belinda.) I didn’t tell her that Baby Bounce Belinda became J’s fiancee, making Auntie Yuna pissed.
“Bong?” Mrs. Nice Teacher asked. “Are you OK?”
I didn’t tell her sometimes I go to school and before I know it, the bell rings to go home. I disappear.
“Bong? I’ve been talking to you for five minutes, and it seems like you don’t hear me.”
I didn’t tell her that I hear her. I hear her calling my name. I hear people talking, but it’s all fuzzy.
I didn’t tell Mrs. Nice Teacher anything as I watched her go into the principal’s office.
Auntie Yuna would get up in the middle of the night to get some more King Cobra. The kitchen was connected to the living room. I knew she could see me sleeping.
She’d walk into the living room, and stand over me. My face was always turned away. She’d hover there for a very long time, an eternity it seemed. The light from the kitchen would cast her shadow upon me: a big black shape of ugly. I’d see the shadow of her head in front of me. Her hair messed up like frozen snakes. That’s how she mesmerized me, made me her victim. She was Medusa.
Sometimes she’d wake me and make me do things. She made me clean the apartment or she would cut my hair or talk to me. I didn’t know what to expect.
I’d lie there, waiting to see what she’d do. I would be glad when her shadow pulled away like a wave going back into a dark sea. When the door to her bedroom slammed shut, I knew I was safe for the night. No cleaning. No miserable haircuts. None of her drunken stories. Especially her stories. Her When I Was Young stories.
“When I was young,” she once said, “I was beautiful. Ten times more beautiful than that stupid girl J loves. When I was young, I worked in bars in Manila. Near Subic Bay. American sailors would want only me to serve them. No one else. Only me. Only me. Only me…”
Then she would cry a little bit, pindrop tears streaming down her cheeks.
“When I was young, your mom looked up to me. She couldn’t wait to get older. So she could leave our province. Who could blame her? Who could blame me? You know we were born in a nipa hut. Our mother was no good. Didn’t care very much. Just let us do what we wanted. She just went away after a while. God knows what happened to our father.
“When I was young no one wanted us. Except Uncle Virgilio. He let me work in his bar. But he’s gone, too. Your mom worked in the bar with me. She was pretty. She could have made lots of money. No. She didn’t have what it took to work in a bar. She didn’t know how to play up to the men. She didn’t know it was OK to let them touch you. Kiss you. Uncle Virgilio just let her clean. I would tell her that she could make a fortune in tips if she waited on men. But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. Stupid Girl.
“When I was young, I could have any man. Your mother could have, too. But no. She went and got hooked up with that troublemaker writer. Your father. Met him in the bar. He came in with flyers to form a union of some kind. He was stupid, stupid, stupid. No one in the bar cared. Uncle Virgilio chased him out. ‘No one wants to hear what you have to say,’ Uncle Virgilio said. ‘Get out!’ So he left. Your mother followed him out. I saw them talk and talk and talk and laugh and talk.
“Your father was a troublemaker. Troublemaker. That no-good communist. Communist. Always complaining of unfair this and unfair that, over throwing the government—”
“What’s a communist?” I asked.
“I don’t know! But that’s what people call people who hate the way things are. Troublemakers are communists! His own family told him to disappear. He was putting his own brothers in jeopardy. You don’t yell about unfairness without somebody getting mad. They were both stupid. Did you hear me?”
She nodded off, then said, “When I was young, your mom did one good thing. She gave me money to go to the States. I wanted to see America. To see where all these sailors came from. To see what made them think they could do whatever they wanted. To see if American girls let American men do those things to them also.
“Your mom gave me her dumb little savings so I could come here. That shows how stupid she was. She gave up all the money she had so I could see the States. When I was young…
“I owe her a favor. But taking care of you, stupid boy, makes us even.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Scent of Boxes and Ajax
Dear Montgomery, January 16, 1979
“Real soon,” mama said. She’d come and get me real soon. Real soon real soon real soon.
J flew to Stockton to marry Baby Bounce Belinda. Then to Hawaii for a honeymoon. Then to Washington. He got a job working for a magazine.
“As soon as we get a place, I’ll write and let you know our address,” he said.
I want to go with you, I thought.
“When will you write?” I asked.
“Maybe in a few months. Real soon,” he said. Real soon real soon real soon.
My school had a food drive to help homeless people begin the New Year. I knocked on all the doors of all the houses on my street.
“Can you donate a can of food to the hungry?” I asked.
Everyone gave one can. Auntie Yuna didn’t want to give anything. She didn’t want to do much of anything.
Once, Auntie Yuna came home smelling like sour milk.
“Who are you?” she asked me. She had trouble standing, the whites of her eyes were filled with red lines.
“I’m your nephew,” I said.
She nodded and went into her bedroom. She didn’t come out for three d
ays. She came out of her room yawning and scratching between her legs.
“I have to go to the liquor store,” she said and left again.
I knocked on all the doors of all the houses on my street again and asked, “Can you donate a can of food to the hungry?”
Everyone gave one can. This time I kept the food for myself. Auntie Yuna stopped buying food. She just bought beer. All of her income went to booze. Our landlord Mr. Boteng knew this.
I recalled him coming into our apartment and yelling at Auntie Yuna, “Where is the rent!?!? Do you want me to kick you out? I will, you know.”
“I’ll get it to you,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Bullshit. You have been saying that for months.”
Auntie Yuna took a deep breath and looked at me, then looked away. “Bong,” she said, “go outside.”
“I have to finish my homework,” I said.
“Just go,” she said, massaging her forehead, looking at Mr. Boteng with a weary expression.
I gathered all my books and sat on the stairwell, noticing the door to J’s apartment slightly ajar. J had been gone for several months and Mr. Boteng had trouble renting the place. No one wanted to live in our building, which seemed to decay in the two and a half years that I lived there.
I went inside J’s old place and saw the emptiness he left behind: the floor barren of his shoes, his furniture. I walked into his bedroom and spread myself across the area where I thought J laid his bed, where he and Baby Bounce bounced. His closet door was wide open, no clothes, only a wooden bar with metal hangers were left.
I inhaled deeply, hoping to find J, hoping to smell his lingering department store smell, but it was gone. The scent of boxes and Ajax took over. It was the smell of change, of going away. J had left, taking his Baby.
I also thought of Robert Bulanan and his departure. I rolled over, hugging my knees. Why do people leave? I wondered. I wanted to lie with Robert on my living room floor one last time. I wanted to hear J and Baby Bounce one last time.
I began to hear noise from Auntie Yuna’s apartment. Mr. Boteng was grunting and sighing and snorting. Auntie Yuna sounded like she was coughing and coughing. I closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears.
I felt the floor tremble. Someone was in J’s apartment. I sat up. I saw black wingtip shoes appear at the edge of the door. I looked up and smiled. Monty chose to visit me that day. He wore his suit, the same one he wore on the cover of The Films of Montgomery Clift. It was a dark suit with a collegiate-looking tie, diagonal stripes ran down it.
He looked down at me. His thick brows hovered over his eyes like parachutes. I was only aware of his eyes. There was so much compassion in his eyes, so much. He knelt down before me. I worried about his well-pressed suit and how it would wrinkle if he stayed on his knees. We looked at each other, all else disappeared. I couldn’t hear Auntie Yuna’s coughs. I reached out to touch him, but as I drew closer, he slowly faded away.
I went back upstairs to Auntie Yuna’s apartment. Mr. Boteng was leaving. A smile across his sagging face. Auntie Yuna was spitting into the sink, spitting her insides out it seemed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Mark on the World
Dear Montgomery, October 11, 1979
I’m going to find mama myself. I have a plan. I’ll save enough cash to fly to the Philippines and find her. I started collecting money, coins and pennies I found on the street. I have two dollars and seventy cents so far.
I looked through the travel section of the newspaper. The cheapest airfare I could find was five hundred and sixty dollars. Holy moly. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to raise that kind of cash. I don’t care. I have to find mama. I have to.
Dear Montgomery, January 17, 1980
I wrote J a letter. I told him Auntie Yuna went to the liquor store and never came back. I told him Dept. of Children Services took me away. I told him I was placed with the Webers in Encino.
Dear Montgomery, April 26, 1981
I want something else. I don’t want the Weber Breads or Mrs. 45, but really 60 or Mr. Touchy Feely Phelps. Please send me something else. I want to live with J and Belinda.
J doesn’t write me as often as before. I’m afraid he’s slipping away from me. For every three letters I send him, he’ll send me one.
In his last letter, he told me he’s writing stories on people, profiles he called them. A profile on a business man donating a million dollars to build a park. A profile on a kid who saved a three legged dog from a burning house. A profile on a woman who helps other women find the right diet for them. He calls it Fluff. But nothing sounds fluffy about it.
Baby Bounce wants to get pregnant and J is working all the time. He wants to have enough money to support a family. Someday there will be three of them. There used to be three of me.
I’m wandering, Monty. I’m wandering from family to family, knowing none of them are my own. They don’t even come close. Please Monty, let my next home be different.
Believe it or not, I was sad when Auntie Yuna left. My parents had gone, Robert Bulanan had gone, and J was on his way out of my life. As much as I hated Auntie Yuna she was the only family I’d had.
She said she was going to a friend’s house and never came back. For two months, I was a twelve-year-old bachelor.
I managed to stock the apartment with canned vegetables, canned ham, canned chicken, canned fruit, canned tuna. I had to be careful where I got my food.
I knocked on all the doors of my neighborhood asking for food to help the homeless. One woman asked me, “Weren’t you here last week collecting food for St. Gregory’s church?”
“Um, yeah,” I stuttered, “now I’m collecting for another church.”
“Which one?”
“St. Montgomery.”
“Which saint was he?”
“I think he is patron saint of lost children.”
“I think that’s Saint Anthony.”
“I mean he is patron saint of lost children looking for their mothers.”
She squinted her eyes and gave me a can of chicken soup.
•
Mr. Boteng reported me to the Department of Children’s Services. It became clear to him that Auntie Yuna was never going to pay him rent and was not going to be around to provide anything else in exchange for rent.
I was placed with the Webers. The Webers kept making me Chinese food so I could feel more at home.
“Love that sweet and sour,” said Mr. Weber.
I knew lots of Chinese in the Philippines. Of course we could tell who was Filipino and who was Chinese. But to the Webers if you were oriental you were Chinese.
“I’m Filipino,” I said.
“That’s real close to China, isn’t it?” was Mr. Weber’s reply.
The Webers let me stay in their guestroom. Pictures of the Grand Canyon filled the walls.
I had seven dollars saved up. The Webers started giving me an allowance. I’d never heard of such a thing. All I had to do was wash dishes every once in a while or take out the garbage. (An allowance is such a unique American idea, because children in the Philippines would never get paid money for chores they were expected to do anyway.)
The Webers had a boy two years younger than me. I didn’t know how the Webers put up with that brat for ten years. His name was Nolan. He looked like one of Auntie Yuna’s saints. He had the yellowest hair I’d ever seen. And eyes greener than watermelon skin. He may have looked like an angel, but he was the devil in disguise.
One day, we walked on the Santa Monica Pier. Nolan saw a white T-shirt with a picture of the band Blondie on it. He wanted it. Mrs. Weber said No. He screamed and yelled until his mother got it for him.
Once, he came into my room and said, “Let’s fight.”
“I’m busy,” I said.
He jumped all over me anyway, hitting me. It was real soft, so it didn’t hurt. It just bothered me. Then he yelled, “Air raid. Air raid!”
Grow up, I thought to myself
.
He pretended he was a plane and crashed into me, making exploding sounds. He shook this way and that until I pushed him off my bed.
“Go to bed or else your parents will get mad,” I said.
“C’mon, let’s play,” he said, hopping around my room.
“Get out of my room or I’ll give you brain damage.” I put on my best monster face. He hopped out.
From the TV shows I saw, I thought white families were supposed to be happy and normal. The Weber Breads showed me otherwise. They fought about money and hated their relatives and complained about getting a raw deal in life.
“It’s because I’m a woman,” Mrs. Weber Bread said. “They promoted two men, but I’m still waiting.”
“Nepotistic bastards,” Mr. Weber Bread said, “the boss’s son gets the corner office, first pick of the prime accounts, and the rest of us have to pick up the ball when he drops it.”
No Good Nolan chased cats around the neighborhood, setting their tails on fire. He lifted girls’ dresses making them scream. He stole newspapers from people’s lawns and threw them away. He caught butterflies and tossed them into spiders’ webs. He burned spiders with the hot rays of the sun through a magnifying glass. He fed Alka Seltzers to birds and watched them get sick and die. He’d put firecrackers into a dog’s ear and let it explode, the dog howling down the street. No Good Nolan screamed with delight. He’d put broken glass under neighbors’ cars. He’d cut garden snakes in half with his dad’s razor.
This was an American family.
I also stayed in Topanga with this nice old woman. Her name was Mrs. Sims. She told everyone that she was forty-five, but she looked sixty. Her house had a real old and musty smell to it.
Mrs. 45, But Really 60 welcomed kids into her home. The Weber Breads said things wouldn’t work out with me.