by Melanie Mah
“Mo gong la,” my mom says. Don’t talk.
“We were waiting,” he says.
“Sorry. I lost track of time.”
“With that white boy? Ew neiga ma.” Fuck your mother.
My legs wobble.
“He’s my friend,” I say.
“Friends,” he says. “How much per pound? You don’t know. I know how it is.”
“What do you know? What do you know?” I scream.
He screams something, too, about religion.
“What do you know?” I say. “You don’t know him. He’s better to me than you are. You act like nothing happened. The worst things have happened to our family and you act like they were nothing. You don’t help. You just yell and yell and —”
“Fahn leen hee!” he says. I hate you. “All your trouble and you mouthy. You just open the mouth and talk talk talk. You think you so smart.”
“And you think I’m dumb, which shows how smart you are. I’m going to university. I’m going to go as far away from you as I can.”
My mom screams at us not to fight.
“Who will pay?” he says.
“I got scholarships. They’re paying me to go to their school.” I say that, even though u of a only offered a small one.
“Go! I have no kids. Fuck you. All my kids are dead.”
I’m gone. I shove the front door so hard it bounces off the building. I cross Main fast, then jog down Fifty-First. I turn and look, but no one’s following me.
AN HOUR LATER I’m at Anders Park, five blocks from my house. I’m on the swings, going fast and high. If I pump hard enough, I’ll fall off and break my neck. He’d be sorry — or would he?
We fought last year on my birthday, too. Our last big fight. Trina came and got me. I complained about him, his temper, the way he’s never there for us. Now I wish we talked about something else, like, I don’t know, the fact she was planning to walk out on us later that night? Now there’s no one left to look and no one to talk me down.
The nearest payphone is up the street. You can see it from our living room window. When I’m tired of the swings and just full of sadness and yearning, I take the long way there, put a quarter in, dial the number. It starts to ring, I can almost hear it from the street. But my dad picks up, not my mom, so I put the phone back on the cradle.
It’s dinnertime. I could use something to eat. It would have been good tonight, something with tofu, maybe vegetable dumplings. I could use a jacket, too. Hungry, cold, sad, locked out. Happy birthday.
I call Conrad.
“Hey,” I say. “I know we weren’t supposed to hang out till later, but —”
“What’s wrong?”
“We had a fight. I just need a place to be now, please.”
“Of course,” he says. “Yeah. Come over.”
24
*
BY THE TIME I get there, he’s set up candles. Bowls on the kitchen counter, a roasting pan, some vegetables. He’s got an apron on, Snoopy on a weigh scale, Woodstock and his yellow bird friends stacked on his head. Good grief. I need to lose some weight. He asks me if I’m hungry, and I hug him long and hard, tell him I’m starved. He says he’s making dinner. A block of tofu on a plate, another plate on top of it. “To get the water out,” he says. “It’s gonna be simple. I wasn’t expecting you till after dinner, but this is good, too.”
He peels and I chop the vegetables. They go in the roasting pan. Conrad adds spices, puts stuff in a bowl for a marinade. The house is cozy and dim. He asks if I want music. I put something on by the Velvet Underground — a bad name for a band, but I like the picture on the cover: a black and white shot of these guys, one shy in a stripy sweater and cool tall boots, looking away like he doesn’t know a picture’s being taken. I find a blanket and lie on the couch. The music is perfect and sad.
I wake to a good smell, two plates on the table in front of me. A weird mishmash of food. Roasted veggies, tofu in some kind of sauce, rice, and peas from a can. Conrad is sitting on his haunches, feet on the floor, his old mauve recliner tipping forward. He’s watching cartoons, Bugs Bunny on mute.
My dad likes Bugs Bunny, too. He used to watch it and the Flintstones with me while making breakfast or lunch, back when I wasn’t old enough or headstrong enough to be a disappointment.
Light flickers over Conrad’s face. Elmer Fudd in a Viking hat, stabbing a spear into a hole. Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit.
“You never see this one,” I say. “Turn it up. It’s no good if you can’t hear it.”
So he puts the sound on and we watch it all unfold — the disguises, the chase, the magic and lightning. Bugs Bunny dresses up as a woman and Elmer Fudd falls in love with him, a great courtship, they sing a romantic duet dripping with longing, till Bugs’s helmet and wig fall off and the chase resumes. Bugs Bunny is comforting, predictable, he always wins, except for one time, this time. The magic gets him, his limp body on a rock — can you believe it? He actually dies, and Elmer Fudd carries him away, sorry for what he’s done.
“That’s encouraging,” I say.
Conrad stands up. “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit,” he sings, wagging his head. “Ready to eat?”
I make space for him on the couch and he sits next to me. We watch cartoons over dinner. The food tastes better than it looks. From time to time, Conrad disappears, each time coming back with something else for us to eat. A small second helping, cake, popcorn. We lean against each other on the couch.
He asks about the fight. Was it about him? I say yes, partly, but that he wasn’t the only reason. Conrad defends me, says my dad can’t handle having a smart, independent daughter and that’s his loss. He says people make mistakes and should be forgiven. I don’t want to talk about it, though.
“It’s just a difference of opinion,” I say. “He told me to leave, told me I was dead to him. So I went. I should probably call my mom.”
I find a phone in the next room. My mom picks up. She’s worried and asks me where I am. I ask if my dad’s still mad. “A little,” she says. The tv on on her end. “Dim gai nei gum stubborn?” Why are you so stubborn?
“How come it’s my fault? I should let him yell at me? I said I was sorry. But it’s none of his business who I’m friends with.”
“Respect your olders.”
“My elders aren’t always right.”
“Still, you must respect them.”
A worn blanket around me. Patchwork, fraying. I pull it tighter. My dad’s voice in the background, asking about the show they’re watching.
“Come home,” she says.
“No,” I say. “Sorry, but not tonight. I love you, but I can’t be there right now.” I give her Conrad’s number. I tell her it’s for emergencies only even though my mom’s not one to call a stranger’s house.
I can hear the tv on her side: footfalls and a scuffle. Some-one, maybe the hero, says something self-righteous. Someone yells back. The fight resumes with punching sounds you could make with your mouth.
“Hello? Mom?”
“Yah?” she says. She’s crying.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Do you still have exam?”
“No, it’s all done. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
A fake Hong Kong gun sound.
“Okay?”
A woman screaming.
“Okay?”
Dramatic music.
“Are you there? I’m gonna go if you have nothing else to say.”
But nothing.
“Okay, I love you. Bye.” I put the receiver down, go back and watch tv. Nothing funny, nothing overly dramatic. Cartoons, music videos, Star Trek reruns, infomercials. I’m not a tv person, but we watch all night.
IF YOU ASK a bunch of kids what they’d eat if they didn’t have parents, some would say things like candy, burgers, and chocolate shakes, but lots of them, I bet, would pick proper meals — chicken pot pie and Caesar salad — ordinary foods their pa
rents never make. That’s why, on our first morning together, I decide to make French toast. Because my dad makes oatmeal, he makes pancakes, he makes a mean bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, but he’s never made French toast. Not even once.
I slip out of bed early, with the sun, hours earlier than I would at home. Conrad’s sleeping on his side, drool on his pillow in the shape of Mongolia. I find eggs, bread, a frying pan. This could be my new life. I stir the eggs, dip a slice of bread. Sizzling when I lay it in the pan.
Less than three miles away, my dad will be wearing an old plaid shirt and nylon vest, cutting their morning fruit. He’ll feel a fart coming on and let it rip. Oatmeal slow bubbling on the stove while my mom watches tv.
“Hey,” a voice behind me says. His breath on the back of my neck. Sunny day out the window, a bird. I turn to kiss him on the cheek then pull away with a shy smile that says I want to be loved.
“Hey yourself,” I say.
His ratty white t-shirt, his small loose-fitting shorts, his cowlick. Arm across his belly, his other hand scratching his head. Small feet, his eyes like an old man’s. No boner in his shorts or anything. This one is the one I want.
He looks past me into the frying pan and says somewhere between a period and exclamation point, “Food.”
We eat, then drift in and out of sleep on full stomachs. We talk and read, watch the sun on our arms as we lie in bed. Soon it’s noon. My mom will be trying to keep up with the lunch rush. My dad will be making something in a frying pan. Conrad leaves, comes back two hours later with quiche. Says he made the crust and everything. Quiche.
“I didn’t know we were showboating,” I say. What should I make for dinner? Mushroom burgers. Tacos. Lasagna.
“We weren’t,” he says. “It was good, wasn’t it?”
We go out to Mac’s to get slushes. I kick rocks down the street. The sun is hot on my head and the back of my neck, the street quiet like a ghost town. We wander down the bike path then go into the trailer park. Somehow, we wind up downtown. By the time we round the corner at the Mountview Hotel, Conrad knows where I’m going. He follows me down the block.
“You have to stay outside,” I say.
“I have to get some gloves.”
A big black metal truck, rusted out, chugs up Main.
“Gardening gloves,” he says.
I wish he’d leave.
“It’s June. I gotta plant the beans.”
I stare him down, and he crosses the street. I don’t see where he goes.
It’s around four o’clock, but the store is quiet because it’s summer. No one will see me if I’m careful. I peer around the outside wall. My mom slouches behind the counter, her hands clasped without authority. She looks defeated, but she always looks that way. I go up to the glass door and motion for her to come outside.
“Chrysler,” she starts in before the door’s even closed behind her, “where were you?”
At my first sleepover. “Where’s Dad?” I say.
“At the back, fixing shoes.”
“Is he mad?”
“No. He’s not mad.”
I look in the store. I don’t believe her.
“Mom, what should I do?”
“Come home.”
“I don’t know.”
My mom’s worried look, her stinky breath. “You always cause problems.”
A tall forty-something blonde in denim watches us as she walks by. She turns her head as she passes so she can keep looking, her meaty paw holding the hand of a little boy in denim overall shorts. Don’t touch my son, you ugly chinks.
“You don’t think he’s to blame at all?” I say.
“You know he’s stubborn. Come home.”
I see him through the glass door. Pot-belly, spindly legs. Short for a man. He’s near the back walking mostly with his knees. His thighs have no say in the matter. My dad.
Say it quick. “Mom, I need money.”
She looks around — no one here but us chickens — then awkwardly pulls a roll of bills from her pocket. Green, red, brown. Why so much? I put it deep inside my pocket, like she taught me. And even though she sees me do this, she still says, “Put it deep inside your pocket.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I say. My mom. “I gotta go.”
“Come home,” she says.
I shake my head. “It doesn’t feel right.”
He’s probably already wondering where she is.
“I gotta go. I’ll call you.”
She just stands there, staring at me. I take her hand — warm, thin, bony — and I pull her past the door, past the windows, out of view of the store. Then I put my arms around her, breathe her in.
“What if Trina did the right thing?” I ask. She doesn’t reply. “Dad’s always mad. I don’t want to be here.” Then I get a crazy idea. I know what she’ll say, but I still say it. “Maybe you could come with me.”
“I have to stay,” she says without thinking. “To work.”
It’s not about the money. What then? Duty, keeping herself busy so she doesn’t have to think. Plus, she likes it, she’ll keep selling boots at age eighty if she can. Will I be there to help, to take on the store when she goes, or will it all turn to shit? She holds out her hand. I take it, and she pulls away. Something in my hand. A bank card. Our joint account.
“I’ll support you,” she says.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Oh,” she says, remembering something. “Tong mai gnoa yao bao shun bei nei.” She goes back inside, comes out with an envelope: S&B Contests International. The writing contest. I open it and read the letter. I got second place, the prize is travel vouchers. It’s like that stupid O. Henry story where the couple gives each other useless gifts. But when I tell my mom — about the contest, the prize, everything — she says, “Good to win.”
“Thanks,” I say, then walk away.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, I’m in the IGA. It’s weird being here alone, amidst daytime-shopping moms and their screaming kids.
I’d like to think you can tell something from the things a person has in their cart. Sugary cereal means kids or white trash; flats of cans at a case lot sale means a big house, thriftiness, or both; and canned ham, well, it depends, but generally, it means the person’s poor, or has been through some kind of famine. When I see an old person with a can of ham in her cart, I wonder what she’s seen. Maybe someday my dad will buy it, too.
Standing in line at checkout, I realize I grabbed too much. I put half my food away then pay. I pick up the bags, thinking I’m pretty badass. I can do this. I carry freight at work. I help my dad with groceries and parcels all the time. We have a hand cart, though. The first time I put the bags down to rest my arms, I’m still in the parking lot, sweat trickling down my neck and forehead.
Sometime around the forty-minute point, despair kicks in, but then I turn a corner and see his house. I walk the entire block without putting down the bags. I turn onto the walkway with authority, like someone who actually lives here, and ring the bell. I wait then ring again. No one answers, so I plop down on the step. Across the way a mom is getting bags from her trunk. I look down. There are ants. When I was young, I liked kicking in their hills. I liked watching them go all crazy trying to figure out what to do. Now it’s good enough to watch them crawl around carrying stuff, bits of food, maybe nothing, in their crooked triple file.
Neighbourhood moms and dads are starting to come home from jobs and errands. Rush hour in a small town is not a lively affair — just one car at a time, several minutes before the next. Maybe Conrad’s staying away for a reason. It might have been something I said or did. Maybe he doesn’t want me here. The sun is in my eyes.
A little while later, a speck on the horizon that might be him. How do you know? I have a feeling. The clothes are shaped like his and maybe the speck is wearing a hat. How long do you maintain eye contact? I squint at the sun. I bought all this food, carried it all over, for what?
“You again,” he says, as I’m looking down at my knee
s. “Can’t get rid of you.”
I shrug. He doesn’t want me. I shouldn’t be here. But I can’t go home. Don’t say it. If you say it, it makes it truer.
“You don’t want me here,” I say.
“I want you here. But I want you here because you want to be here, not because you have nowhere else to go. You know how I feel about you.”
I don’t say anything. He touches me on the back of the neck then sits beside me.
“Food,” he says, looking at the bags.
“Yeah, dinner.”
“Really big dinner.”
We see an ant. It’s carrying a dead something. Another ant.
“You get your gloves?” I ask.
“Yeah. Stopped by your store after you left. If you were there, I would’ve walked right past.”
“You see my parents?”
“They looked how I thought they would. Your dad is small and wiry — perfectly capable of kicking my ass. He didn’t see me, though. But your mom sold me two pairs of gloves.”
I smile. Typical Mom.
“She convinced me I needed two kinds, a heavy duty one for weeds and another for bumming around.”
“How did she seem? Nice?”
“She seemed sad.” A fly comes to hum around our heads, one of the slow, stupid ones you feel sorry for killing. “She was nice, shy, eager to help.”
“She’s also distant and responsible.”
He shrugs. “I wouldn’t know.” The fly goes away.
“I hate you having to sneak around like that.”
There’s something weird about that, the existence of two sets of people you care about and who care about you who will never actually meet. It’s sad, but there’s no other way.
We go inside. I make lasagna — fry stuff, season it, grate cheese and boil noodles, put it all together. I can do this. It’s delicious. Conrad thinks so, too. I cut us an extra serving because it’s novel — something I made — and because I’m feeling something, I don’t know what, but I hope eating more will make the feeling go away.
25