Then lunch period is over and they don’t know you haven’t eaten anything.
If you have a friend who leaves food on his tray, you can eat that before he throws it out, but I don’t recommend that because even young people here think they’re doing you a favor to feed you their trash. So just forget it and get in line for recess.
Recess is the time to mention Kyle, who is my great friend. I have never been to his house. He lives in Chimney Hill with the Jennifers and Daniel W. His dad painted his room the colors of the Dolphins team and he has more games than I’ve ever seen in my life. Since I live in apartments, it’s too dangerous for him to stay overnight with us, and my mom would be shamed if I went to his house but couldn’t taroff and offer hosting him in return—so we just play at recess.
On the north grounds, we play dodgeball. On the south playground we sit on the roots of a huge tree and talk about football or Final Fantasy games. I break the acorns open and stuff the bitter nuts into nooks of the tree trunk so the squirrels won’t go hungry. Kyle and I met because he was the new kid after me. So he didn’t know anything about me before I could be nice to him.
Sometimes I’ll hear a good yo’ mama joke and write it in my notebook.
Sometimes Kyle will draw monsters in his notebook.
I told him once that Ifrit is a Persian monster.
“The one from Final Fantasy?” he said.
And I said, “Yeah. I mean, that one’s a fire ifrit. There’s all kinds. Like, they’re genies, basically, and demons. But in our stories the demons aren’t all the same. There are some they call ‘the demons who believe in God,’ and those are tragic figures, because they made the mistake of siding with Satan when he rebelled against God, but as soon as they were smashed down to Earth, they regretted it and believed again. But it was too late. They were already cast out. They just wander now and nobody believes that they want to be good, because they look like hairy demons. And they don’t have homes in heaven or hell. They’re just always stuck and disbelieved.”
I realized I had been talking for like ten minutes, because if I didn’t explain everything, he’d think I was making it up. I had said in church once that there might be demons who believe in God, and that’s what happened. Nobody believed me. So I shut up and went back to cracking acorns.
Kyle said, “Cool.”
Which was basically like saying he believed me.
He drew the ifrit with a cross burned into its chest, and it was the coolest picture I’ve ever seen.
When the bells ring and everybody lines up to go back, Kyle and I get in different lines, because we have all different teachers.
We don’t see each other after that.
As we go inside, I usually make sure to be as far away from Brandon Goff as possible. If he sees Meg G. first, he tells “Your mama’s so fat” jokes and if he sees me, he tells “Your mama’s so poor” jokes, like your mama’s so poor she can’t afford to pay attention!
I’m not sure why that one’s even funny.
It’s just true.
She can’t afford to pay attention.
* * *
AFTER SCHOOL THEY HAVE CLUBS. I’m on academic team, Latin team, and cinema club. It is important to have a classroom to go to when the last bell rings, because that’s when people fight the most in the halls and just behind the gym. Never be in the bathrooms when school lets out, for example.
I don’t even know cinema. They’re all movies from when Hollywood was called Tinseltown, and they couldn’t make explosions. I asked if we could watch a van Damme movie and they said it was rated R, and also I’m just the treasurer. Then they told me it wasn’t a “classic.”
I just go for the popcorn and wait till the coast is clear in the halls.
Sometimes I sit with people after clubs while they wait for their parents to pick them up in their own cars. I have my notebook out to hear their jokes, like, “Yo, gimme a quarter.”
That’s not a joke. But I notice they don’t have shame in asking each other for money, so I write it down. There is a candy machine in every hall in the school and some kids have money every day for a Coke, a pack of cookies, and either chewy candies or candy bars. All just for one kid.
When they get fruit chews, other kids usually say, “Don’t be stingy. I’ll get you one back tomorrow.”
And the kid will give them one. I never say that, because they know I’ll never “get them one back” tomorrow. But sometimes they give me a yellow or green, which are the trash flavors. I sometimes say no thanks, so they don’t think I’m a “mooch.”
I just say, “Nah,” which is real cool, like, I don’t need it.
And that wins respect so you can say yes next time.
The lemons are really good too, so it’s a good move.
When their parents come, they sometimes lean over their kid and ask me, “Would you like a ride home?” because they think I live close to them in one of their neighborhoods, but I say, “Nah. Thank you. My mom’s on the way.”
* * *
I WALK HOME ALONE BY the main road so the cars will see me. Sometimes the grown-ups driving by will call the police, but it’s okay because I don’t do drugs or spray paints. Walking through the woods is more dangerous because there are no adults in the woods, just other kids. And kids are dangerous.
On freezing days I have to take bus 209, which is the bus that goes to the apartments, the trailer park outside of town, and all the way out in the boondocks. The farm kids on the bus are super tough and don’t talk much and don’t care about school at all. Meg G. is twice as big as me and knows all about saddling horses. Her hands have rope burns from when she pulls in the steers.
The Jennifers make fun of her all the time, because she has a boy’s haircut, but she’s not a bad person. She even hit Brandon Goff in the face once.
He was leaning over the seat of the bus laughing in her ear about her coat, which I always thought was cool. It’s orange, for hunting. He kept saying she was a big bumpkin pumpkin and I don’t think she would have even done anything except he kept cackling in her ear. Until finally she smacked him right in the face, really hard. It made a wet splat sound, and then she went back to being a stone.
He even swiped at her head, but she didn’t flinch and he backed off, cause all his friends were laughing at him by then.
When I get on the bus, I have very good strategies.
First, I get on last. One time I got on first and took a seat by the window, and a kid named Harley crunched right on top of me and jammed my shoulder into the glass and said, “I didn’t see you there.”
“That’s okay,” I said, cause there was nothing else to say.
“You’re in my seat. No one’s ever in my seat, so I didn’t see you there.”
“I forgive you,” I said.
He smashed me again.
The bus driver said, “Everything alright back there?”
We could see his eyes watching us in the big mirror above him. Harley said, “Yep,” and sat next to me. Then for the rest of the ride, we both stared at the mirror. I tried to hold the driver’s eyes as long as possible, but whenever he’d look down to make a turn or something, Harley would punch me on the thigh or the shoulder, until I could only feel the throbbing where I hadn’t gone numb.
When we got to the trailers, he put his knuckle on my bruised leg and ground it in as he got up. I screamed and the driver looked up again, but it was too late.
Harley said, “My seat,” and left.
The next day my leg was so purple it had patches of green in it.
So I get on last, and I say hello to the driver so he’ll like me and look at me as much as possible.
Strategy two is that you can’t sit up front, which everybody knows, because on a regular bus it would make you a dweeb, and on bus 209 it will send you to the hospital.
Once, there was a kid whose name I don’t know, who sat in the front—straight up like he was first chair clarinet or something. It was like he just got to this c
ountry and didn’t know any strategies.
Brandon Goff only noticed the new kid after we left school. Brandon was all the way in the back, but it was still like putting a big juicy chicken in front of a cartoon fox.
He quickly bent a paper clip in half so the two prongs stuck out—we called those “wasps.” And then he opened the bus window, put the two stingers on the lip and slammed it back down, so the prongs flattened into super sharp blades—we called those “killer wasps.”
The kid had no idea what was about to happen. His posture was super good. I think he was probably on the wrong bus.
Brandon shushed everybody when they giggled, as he took a thick rubber band off of his wrist. He put the killer wasp in it like a slingshot and pulled back so far I thought it would snap in half. I was in the middle of the bus looking back to front, back to front, waiting for the long seconds while Brandon aimed.
It flew so fast I didn’t actually see it.
All I saw was the grin on Brandon’s face.
The snap of the rubber band.
Then nothing.
Then, half a paper clip just popped out of the kid’s neck. The two prongs stabbed right in.
No blood at first.
Another second for the kid to feel it.
Then he shrieked so loud that the driver slammed the brakes.
We all flew forward.
The kid clawed at the paper clip and ripped it out of his neck.
That’s when the blood came from the two holes, and the driver called for help on the bus radio.
We never saw the kid again.
The image we all remember is the little spray of blood from the holes, like two little waterfalls, just before he clutched them and fell over.
* * *
THE THIRD STRATEGY IS to lean down and put your bag on your head.
The fourth is to pick up your feet so they can’t grab your ankles and write on your shoes.
Five is don’t sit in the very back. That’s Brandon’s seat.
Six is open the window in front of you for when they fart on you.
Seven is don’t open the window next to you so they can’t throw your notebooks out.
Eight is to cry if you have to. If they take pennies and flick them at your skull and say, “Money for the poor,” and the pennies hit so hard your eyes go white, and you fall over, then it’s okay to cry to make them stop.
That’s all the strategies.
Meg G. and I sit next to each other, and I hope someday she leaves school and wins 4-H and doesn’t ever have to be around rich people or mall people again.
* * *
WHEN YOU ENTER THE apartment complex, it feels like entering the courtyard of a dead king and his decaying cement kingdom.
You can hear people shout at each other through their windows. There is nothing breakable that isn’t broken. In the open area, Dwight and his brothers play football. If they see me, I can’t run straight for our door, because I’m alone and maybe they’d just push me inside and start hitting me where nobody could see and take my Nintendo.
So if they see me, I run to the gas station across the street and wait till they get hungry and go inside. The gas station has comic books, so I can pretend I’m looking at each one really close, because I’m a shopper.
I say, “Hello. Where are your comics?” so the attendant knows I’m interested and have money. He says, “Over there,” and I say, “Ah! Perfect.”
I don’t go near the candy or the attendant will think I’m stealing and kick me out. The next closest protection is the emergency clinic, but they won’t let me hang around anymore.
The greatest American hero is Logan Wolverine, who is also an immigrant (from Canada) and who can heal from anything.
If I ever get one, I’ll buy his comic book first.
When Dwight and his brothers go inside, I run to our door.
My mom works in the mornings and then goes to Oklahoma University at night to get another master’s degree. An American degree she can use here.
My sister has a million after-school activities so she can get into Harvard.
Ray—while they were divorced—wasn’t around. Then after they got married again, he would be at work at a bank till really late.
So I turn on the lights in the kitchen, and the two bedrooms, and even the bathroom. Then it feels like people are around.
* * *
I CAN COOK ALL KINDS of things.
My top dishes are:
1. Eggs with stewed tomatoes and onions on pita bread
2. Tuna salad mixed with egg salad, also on pita
Most days, my mom has a carton of bean sprouts waiting for me. I get out a pan and put it on high heat. Then I put a chunk of butter in there. It has to be so hot the butter melts right away. I let it bubble, then drop the whole carton of bean sprouts.
They make a giant sizzle. I can move the pan back and forth like a chef so the sprouts turn without a spatula, so I do that.
When the sprouts are starting to shrivel, I pour in a bunch of soy sauce. It sizzles again, then turns the sprouts brown.
That’s my specialty.
It might be a Japanese dish. I don’t know.
I eat a whole bowl of sprouts and watch TV for three hours until people get home.
My mom comes home exhausted every night.
I have never seen her not exhausted.
And also, I have never seen her not working.
People in Oklahoma think this must be how refugees are—never sitting, never sleeping, like they have no knees and no dreams. Maybe people think that’s just the way my mom talks, kinda panicky and chipper at the same time, like someone scared who doesn’t want you to think she’s scared—even maybe like you’re the one she’s scared of.
She is only as tall as a house plant.
Her eyes are almond-shaped, which is the Persian shape for eyes.
She comes home and goes straight into the kitchen. I don’t mean that she comes home, goes to her room to change clothes, wanders into the bathroom, picks through mail, and then finally arrives at the refrigerator.
I mean she walks through the door, drops her bags and coat on the chair by the door without stopping on her way straight into the kitchen to start cooking.
She’s probably the best mom in my whole school. Sometimes I walk out of my room and don’t even know she was there.
She says, “Hi baby joon. Did you do your homeworks?”
I say yes, even though I do all my homework in the time at the beginning of class while the teacher takes attendance and tries to get everyone to be quiet.
Then we eat a big feast.
My sister will be home by then too, and we get plates of buttery rice with beef chunks and kidney beans stewed in green onions, mint, and parsley.
My mom takes the yogurt she makes herself and cuts cucumbers into it with salt and pepper. And she bakes bread—real bread to dip into it. And she has jars of mixed pickles.
And she grows radishes.
And for dessert she has fried dough balls in rosewater syrup, and baklava, and saffron cookies stuffed with cinnamon, sugar, and walnuts—all of it she baked over the weekends.
And she brews black tea.
And none of it is from cans or anything.
We eat as if we’re the shahs of Oklahoma City.
She asks if school is fine, and it’s easy to say yeah with a mouthful of cookie. This is the best part of the day, and the only time I think my mom is happy.
We leave the table when Ray gets home and pretend it’s so we can do homework. My sister works on her business plan, and I play Final Fantasy. If they get loud in the kitchen, I turn the volume up.
If Ray isn’t mad, he’ll put on a van Damme movie and show me kicks.
Or everyone goes to bed and I hide under my blanket reading The Hobbit. I stay up as long as I possibly can, so I can be alone. I stay up until my eyes hurt.
The second I close my eyes, it all starts over again.
I hate w
aking up.
I stay up so late that I always sleep past the alarm clock and miss the bus.
And that’s it.
That’s a whole day.
If you’re a kid who’s counting the memories of your grandpa’s hands, and your dad’s laugh, and a whole country full of different flower smells, and birds you woke up to, and your grandma’s craggy face—geez, you could barely even picture it—and all the words to a language people think you made up, then all the days you spent getting beat up in Oklahoma aren’t even worth collecting.
So you can keep this one if you want to.
* * *
OKLAHOMA IS BEAUTIFUL SOMETIMES. People who are kind and feed poor kids are always beautiful. It depends on how you imagine the state shape.
Either it’s a soup pot sitting on a fire with cozy steam lines coming from it, from the soup that someone in church will share with you, like this:
Or if you draw the lines straight, suddenly it looks like a cleaver cutting into something soft like this:
In the maps, they don’t draw the extra lines, so you don’t know which Oklahoma is which.
* * *
BUT FIRST THERE’S THIS poem from Rumi that my dad says sometimes. It’s important. It goes:
That fly
Sailing
On a leaf
Of hay
On a sea
Of donkey piss
Raised his head
A sea captain.
Obviously the best thing to be in that story is the donkey. But if not that, then the fly who is an adventurer of new lands and not a refugee. But definitely don’t be the pee river. And definitely don’t be the leaf wallowing in it.
* * *
OKAY, THIS IS THE STORY of how my Lionheart mom got a Death Warrant on her head and had Nowhere to Run for a while. Those were all van Damme movies, by the way, where lots of people die. Get yourself ready. Go poop now if you have to, cause I won’t pause the movie if you have to go in the middle.
Everything Sad Is Untrue Page 12