The Reeducation of Cherry Truong

by Aimee Phan

  After several hours, Kim-Ly grew bored. She’d depleted nearly half of her leisure money that day, and at the rate they were going, she wouldn’t have enough for dinner.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Kim-Ly asked the twins, whose eyes studied the bingo wall with the intensity of cats stalking prey. “All I’ve had are those drinks and I feel dizzy.”

  “They’ll bring food to the table,” Ba Nhanh said. “All we have to do is ask.”

  “What do they have? I can’t read their menu. Can you tell me if they have anything I could eat?” Kim-Ly felt a sudden pang for the food court at the mall in Little Saigon. Though she complained that some of the vendors skimped on meat in the noodle dishes, at least she could depend on ordering something she knew. What if they only had pizza and hamburgers?

  The twins were not listening. They’d purchased another round of cards and were busy setting up their games. If Kim-Ly didn’t buy another set of cards, she’d have to wait at least another hour for them to finish. Like almost every other player in the bingo parlor, their rear ends seemed intent on remaining parked in those cushy velour seats.

  “I’m calling Lum,” Kim-Ly said, standing from the table. “My grandson will worry. I’m supposed to take my medication.”

  Kim-Ly wandered out of the bingo parlor onto the casino floor. She recognized many of the people sitting at the slots from hours earlier. Two young men her grandsons’ age bumped into her from behind with tall plastic cups of beer. They mumbled apologies and continued to push and laugh at each other.

  Turning the corner, Kim-Ly squinted through the bright lights and saw Viet emerging from behind an island of slot machines. When she called out and waved to him, the man turned and walked away. Kim-Ly lowered her hand and pulled her purse closer. She felt conspicuous in her dark-green ao dai and purple cardigan. She fished into her pocket for Lum’s number and located a pay phone near the public restrooms.

  “Come quick,” Kim-Ly said when she recognized her grandson’s voice on the line. “They’ll kick me out if I’m not gambling.”

  “They won’t kick you out,” Lum said. But he must have believed her. He was there in under fifteen minutes, along with his hooligans. This time Kim-Ly was comforted by their loud, boisterous presence. She held on to her grandson’s elbow for support, which he allowed, and the rest of the boys surrounded them like a protective tortoise shell.

  “I want to try one of those buffets,” she said. “I have discounts.” She waved the coupon book that the bus driver had handed them earlier that day.

  “There’s one at our hotel,” Lum said. “Where are Ba Nhanh and Ba Liem?”

  “They have your number. They can find us later.”

  The nighttime sky looked dusty from the particle lights of the neon-tangled strip. Lum and his friends drove her to what looked like an Egyptian pyramid from the outside but was just a regular casino and hotel on the inside. The buffet restaurant, while not nearly as scintillating as it appeared in the posters and televisions around the hotel, did have all-you-can-eat shrimp and lobster tails. Dissatisfied with the greasy lo mein noodles and dried-out fried rice offered in the Chinese food station, Kim-Ly filled two dinner plates with seafood, butter, and cocktail sauce.

  “So how much money have you lost?” Lum’s friend Huy asked, as they settled down to their massive meals. The boys had rejected the seafood, instead feasting upon thick cuts of prime rib, baked potatoes, spaghetti piles, and pizza slices.

  “It’s my money,” Kim-Ly said. “I do with it what I want.” She put down her fork. “And so do you boys, apparently. School project? Are your parents that dumb?”

  While the boys nervously laughed, Lum sniffed the air, like someone had passed gas. His eyes focused on his grandmother. “Have you been drinking?”

  Kim-Ly plucked a shrimp from her plate and chomped down, tail included.

  “You’ve been gambling and drinking?” Lum asked. “What about your medication?”

  “The doctor said a drink or two was permitted.”

  “Mom asked me to look after you,” Lum said. “If anything happens, guess who they’re going to yell at?”

  “I’m fine,” Kim-Ly retorted. “No one will think badly of you because I wanted to have one drink on my vacation.”

  “She’s right, Lum,” Huy said. “Listen, she doesn’t tell on us, you won’t tell on her, right?” And to prove his point, when the server passed by to take their drink orders, Huy added a glass of wine for Ba Vo to their several pitchers of beer. “Wine is supposed to be good for the heart, right?”

  “Correct,” Kim-Ly said. “And I’ll overlook how you must have obtained that false driver’s license.” Lum still looked cranky, so she reached over with her fork and pronged his arm. “But I appreciate your concern. It’s nice to finally see your thoughtfulness. Family should watch out for each other.”

  “Yeah?” Lum asked, looking unconvinced.

  “How do you think you got that job at the Vans’ flower shop?” Kim-Ly said, unable to suppress a giggle. “Your mother asked me to call in a favor. The Vans have benefited for years from my generosity.”

  Her laughter must have been infectious, because the boys tittered, all except Lum, who studied his plate, clenching his jaw.

  “Why don’t you tell us, Ba Vo?” Huy said. “How many businesses in Little Saigon have you loaned money to? How many have you shut down?”

  Kim-Ly shrugged, inciting more laughter. She could have told them the truth, that those businesses had sunk themselves, and her mistake was to invest in them in the first place. She knew there were people in Little Saigon who spoke ill of her, but they were too shortsighted to consider the whole picture. She could loan these aspiring entrepreneurs the money, but not the smarts to succeed. They should have felt grateful for the opportunity and resources she had given them.

  For most of her meals, Kim-Ly ate with family or the twins. If her grandson were ever present at a birthday dinner or Tet celebration, he usually sat at the other end of the table with his sister. Kim-Ly took this opportunity to notice what her grandson consumed (lean meat, broccoli, pizza slice) and didn’t (fatty meat, onions, even the beer, since he was the designated driver). She found it useful to see him interacting with his friends in an environment less aggravating than the salon. Though she still believed that they were wasting their potential with too much leisure, she did find some of their interaction sweet and sincere. They shared their dishes and refilled each other’s mugs. Kim-Ly only wished Lum could treat his own cousin Dat in this manner.

  For dessert, they licked cones of vanilla soft-serve ice cream. When they returned to their table, Kim-Ly noticed her grandson was missing.

  “Where is Lum?” she asked. “Did he get lost?”

  His friend Huy and another boy were shaking their heads and bumping shoulders.

  “What’s wrong?” Kim-Ly said.

  Huy shook his head again. “He’s calling Quynh—again … I bet he’s gonna ask her soon.”

  Some of the other guys hushed him, looking uncertainly at Kim-Ly.

  “What?” Huy said. “It’s true. You know they talk about it. We all know that.”

  “You’re kids,” Kim-Ly said. “You’re not even finished with school yet.”

  “Well, you can do anything you want in America,” he said.

  “Shut up, Huy,” one of the hooligans said, leaning over to stuff a bread roll in the inebriated boy’s mouth. “So much beer in you, gotta absorb some of it before you say some more crazy.”

  “But Ba Vo, don’t you like Quynh?” Huy asked.

  “I think she’s a nice girl, very obedient and smart,” Kim-Ly said. “But I’d want my grandson to have a good job and salary if he were going to marry her. She deserves that.”

  “He’s doing all right, Ba Vo,” one of the boys said. “He’ll probably make more money than all of us.”

  “How’s that?” she asked. “His mother tells me his grades. They’re not that impressive.”

  “Have you
seen him playing cards?” They all started to laugh. When Lum returned to the table, they changed the subject. As her grandson talked to his friends and playfully stole a broccoli floret off Huy’s plate, she tried to analyze his face, but his image blurred no matter how much she squinted, and in the soft yellow light of the restaurant, she felt she could barely see him at all.

  Poker. She knew her husband and friends played back in Saigon, and that her sons used to play with their American business clients. Viet ran a poker game when he still lived in Orange County. Early in her marriage, before the children were born, she occasionally sat in on one of her husband’s games and was surprised to discover how well she read other people’s faces and took away their chips. But she was smart enough to realize when to walk away and not lose any money. To understand it was just a game. Card playing indulged such a male vanity. So when the boys drove her back to her hotel, she asked them inside to play at one of the Johnny Luck tables.

  “I don’t know,” Lum said, staring warily at his grandmother.

  “Come on,” Huy said, drunker than he was during dinner. “The blinds are probably tiny here. It’ll be good practice.”

  While the boys fanned through the poker tables, Kim-Ly returned to the bingo parlor, and found the twins sitting where she left them.

  “Have you moved?” she asked. “Don’t you need to use the restroom?”

  The twins waited until the bingo dealer announced a mandatory break in the game. “That’s why you should only snack and not drink during bingo,” Ba Liem said. “While you were off with your grandson, you missed an exciting moment.”

  “Very exciting,” Ba Nhanh echoed.

  “Did you win?” Kim-Ly asked.

  “Almost,” Ba Liem said. “I was feeling the premonition again and had four numbers in a row … but then some old Filipino in the front row called it. The ruckus ruined my concentration.”

  Kim-Ly sat in her old seat, but waved off the eager casino employee who offered her a card pack. “We have more important things to discuss.” She told them about her conversation with the boys and Lum’s plan to trap Quynh in an early marriage.

  “They’re just children!” Ba Liem said.

  “Didn’t you want Dat to marry Quynh?” Ba Nhanh asked.

  “That’s beside the point,” Kim-Ly said. “I don’t think these kids have any idea what responsibility comes with marriage. I’m afraid if I say anything to his mother, she’ll try to encourage the boy. She did the same thing, you remember, eloping without my permission.”

  “Many young people elope in Las Vegas,” Ba Nhanh said, nodding knowingly.

  “Quynh isn’t even here,” Ba Liem said, swatting her sister’s arm.

  Kim-Ly wanted to chat more with her friends, but the ringing bell indicated the break had ended and the twins returned to their obsession. It was disappointing. She had such hopes for her first vacation without her children. The brochures she’d read about Las Vegas promised shows, restaurants, street performers, and so many thrills, she’d likely pass out. But the twins and the rest of their bus travelers felt content sitting in a bingo parlor that didn’t even have windows.

  After half an hour of watching the twins lurch over their bingo cards, clucking in disappointment, and Ba Liem’s forehead scrunching as her intuition neared, Kim-Ly left. Wandering the casino floor, making sure to skirt the walls of the room and avoid intimidating groups of boisterous gamblers, Kim-Ly realized that her delinquent grandson and his friends had provided her better company on this vacation. She secretly hoped they hadn’t left.

  It took some time to find them. While she’d wandered the poker tables on the main floor, she finally spotted one of the boys through the glass windows of an enclosed room of the hotel. When the tall black guard tried to block her entrance at the velvet rope, she yelled at him for his impudence, but he couldn’t understand her. Luckily, Huy heard her from across the room, stepped into the feud, and after a short exchange in English, the guard let her in.

  “Why were you hiding from me?” she asked.

  “We found a tournament,” Huy said. The players in the glass room looked as crazed as the twins in the bingo parlor.

  “And why aren’t you playing?” Kim-Ly asked.

  “I’m already out. We’re just waiting on Lum and the other guys.”

  Barred from sitting near the active tables, Huy led Kim-Ly to a corner reserved for the losers and nonplayers, where they enjoyed hot appetizers and refreshments. Because they were complimentary, Kim-Ly determined that another gin and tonic couldn’t hurt, especially if she had snacks with it.

  Lum and the rest of the boys sprawled at different tables. Kim-Ly wondered if this was a part of their strategy. All the men at Lum’s table looked much older than him. Most were smoking and their clothes looked wrinkled and ill-fitting. This had to happen to many gamblers. They became so concerned with their game they lost all perspective on their appearance. Lum, on the other hand, just looked like a little boy.

  Kim-Ly turned to Huy. “Lum looks scared. Is he in trouble?”

  Huy shook his head, not even turning in Lum’s direction. “Nah, he’s good.”

  She analyzed the chips on the table. Lum’s pile looked comparable to those sitting next to him, but not nearly as large as the chip pile of the heavyset man with the cowboy hat and sunglasses. Cowboy clearly seemed to be intimidating the others. He grunted and used his thumbs a lot to indicate his wishes to the dealer. Only Lum and another player seemed relaxed and willing to stay in the rounds.

  Lum’s chips dwindled. He’d challenged Cowboy in two consecutive hands and lost. Kim-Ly felt torn between wanting him kicked out so they could leave, and wanting him to prevail over the fat bastard. His face expressed no worry as he patiently moved his chips and held his cards with the utmost aplomb. It was the same confident expression Viet always wore whenever he assured his mother he’d pay back her small loan, that she only needed to have faith in him.

  On the other side of the table, Cowboy smirked, his mustache twitching, his left index finger caressing a white chip. He was going to beat her grandson, she felt sure of it. Kim-Ly wished she could see Lum’s cards. The poker room appeared friendly with complimentary drinks and food, luxurious chairs, and pretty girls, but it was a trap. All of them were lured to this hotel built in America’s wasteland just to take away their money. Cowboy probably worked for the casino. Perhaps he was Johnny Luck. Narrowing her eyes, she realized Cowboy had blurred until he became one orange, flaming mass. She put down her perspiring drink.

  “Are you all right, Ba Vo?” Huy asked.

  She couldn’t say anything. She could only hear her heartbeat thumping louder and faster, reverberating to the top of her skull and crashing to the bottom of her stomach. Clutching her hands to her chest, she tried to quiet it, and looked down at her purple cardigan, covered with the crumbs of all those tiny quiches and minitoasts. Her heart grew louder, faster, higher, hotter, until Kim-Ly couldn’t stand it any longer. She stretched her neck back, her eyes confronted by the orange lights shining from the ceiling, filling her line of vision, and she screamed.

  She didn’t remember closing her mouth, collapsing to the floor, her head cushioned by the rose plush casino carpet. What she could recall was Viet’s face above her as her eyes blinked open.

  “Don’t leave me,” she pleaded. “You know I am not well. I need you.”

  Viet sighed, unmoved. “You’re going to be fine, Mother. You’ll always be fine.”

  When she blinked again, Kim-Ly realized it was Lum’s face hovering over her. He was crying. A man and a woman in white uniforms had wrapped something tight around her arm and were shining tiny flashlights into her face. The stethoscope chilled her skin. They were asking her all sorts of questions and the boys were quickly shouting their translations. If she could see them, hear them, feel her hands and feet. Kim-Ly ignored all their questions, turned her head until she could see her grandson, and asked to go home.

  “Do you want to go to a h
ospital? Do you want to see a doctor?”

  She shook her head. “I want to go home.”

  Kim-Ly didn’t know what happened with the poker game and she didn’t want to ask. The other boys stayed behind.

  “We don’t have to tell anyone,” Kim-Ly said, pacing her voice to sound friendly, gentle. “Your mother and aunties would only worry.”

  “Maybe they should.” The lights of an oncoming car briefly illuminated his angry, tight face. “They checked your purse, Grandmother. You didn’t have your medication on you. Why is that?”

  “I must have left it in another bag.”

  “You can’t do that, Grandmother. Do you realize you could have died tonight?”

  “Pills can’t keep me from dying.”

  “Are you kidding?” Lum whipped his head to stare at her. “After complaining to Mom that I don’t take you to your doctor’s appointments?”

  “You don’t.”

  “Because you always want Dat to take you.”

  “Is this what it’s about?” Kim-Ly asked, pouncing on the opportunity to deflect. “You should not let your jealousy control you this way.”

  “Trust me, Grandmother, I’m not jealous of Dat.”

  They fell silent for many miles. Kim-Ly looked out the window to a casino that the twins had pointed out on the ride into Vegas, nestled on the California–Nevada border. One step over and gambling was illegal. One step back and the money was yours to lose.

  “Did you know I was never allowed to hold you as a baby?” she said. “Your mother was very cruel to me. If you’re not allowed to hold your grandson, how can you ever know him? I may understand Dat better, but that is not my fault.”

  “I know you disowned us, Grandmother,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Kim-Ly said. “Your mother takes everything so literally.”