All That Matters

by Wayson Choy

  Jenny’s eyes rested upon me. Her high cheekbones reminded me of Stepmother’s postcard picture, the one taken beneath a moon gate when she was a young girl standing beside her friend. Jenny’s eyes narrowed. She glanced left, then right, and then stared back at me. I hadn’t noticed before how her small lips could pulse and tense up, turning a wetter pink. When at last she spoke, it was like a soft release of both our breath. I hadn’t realized that I had stopped breathing.

  “Look,” she said. Her long piano fingers reached under a flap of lace and began to unbutton her blouse. The light material spread wide apart like two delicate curtains. Her skin glowed in the summery air. “See?”

  It was my turn to stare.

  Two rising mounds greeted my eyes. I wanted to touch them. I did. I bent down to smell them. Talcum. I stuck out my tongue to lick the tip.

  Jenny pushed me away. The flaps of her blouse closed as quickly as they had opened. Her fingers raced through the tiny pearl-shell buttons.

  “Don’t tell,” she said, as if I didn’t know better. “Just between us.” She took my hand and laid my palm flat and burning against her chest. My other hand rose on its own, a little shaky, and took its fiery place. “What do you think?”

  She knocked my hands away.

  “Pretty,” I said, stumbling. “Real … nice.”

  I clung to the sweet smell of talcum, my palms thrust behind me, pulsing fresh from the incredible touch and push. If I wanted more, I shouldn’t say too much, so I said, catching my breath, “What about my bruise?”

  She giggled and shoved me aside. She bounded down the steps and into the backyard. I regained my balance. My eyes longed to see her skirt fly higher between the rows of tangled vines in the garden. At the back gate beside our shed, she paused. Her right hand rested over her heart; with her other hand, she brushed back her dark hair. She was making up her mind about something. She turned, and I thought she smiled. I waved.

  “Don’t tell!” she shouted, waving back.

  I shook my head. Never!

  She was gone.

  When I turned to the screen door I could see someone standing at the sink, looking back at me, satisfied.

  “Take Liang-Liang to playground,” Poh-Poh said. “Push her on swing. Good exercise for your sore bum.”

  “No more lotion,” I said. I did not want my bruise exposed again, or to be touched there by Poh-Poh.

  “Finish this soup,” Poh-Poh ordered.

  Liang stood waiting for me, grinning.

  I wasn’t allowed out for two weeks, not even to go to any weekend events or picture shows.

  That night while Jung was telling me about the soccer game I had not been able to attend, I lay in bed and couldn’t get out of my head the feel of Jenny’s palm on my backside.

  “You didn’t miss much,” Jung said. But he was anxious to know something else. “Did Father say anything to you about … getting … sloshed?”

  “No,” I said. “Nothing more. Except to go to bed early and get some rest.”

  “Father looked really sad that he kicked you, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Poh-Poh told Gai-mou that Jenny Chong came over.”

  “Oh?” I turned myself over, careful to avoid the tender spot.

  “Why did she come?”

  “Her mother sent her with some soup just for me.”

  For a long moment, there was no response.

  “I still don’t like Jenny very much.” The voice sounded firm. “I still want to kick her.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “And go to sleep.”

  Shadows thrown by the bright moonlight played across the drawn shade. I closed my eyes tight and pretended I was a million miles away. The day’s events began to tumble through my brain. I put my hand deep under my pillow.

  The outside world was changing again.

  I could hear Jung-Sum breathing rhythmically. He had always fallen asleep quickly, as if sleep were a hideaway from all his old memories. But now he often fell asleep as much completely exhausted from the day’s rough play with a gang of his friends as from habit.

  A cat screeched. A garbage can toppled over.

  I pushed off the sheets and walked to the window to see what there was to see. Nothing. The street lamp made a buzzing sound, like the drone of an insect. A sudden and deeper quiet came over me. My fingertips brushed the sheer curtains. Their delicate roughness reminded me of something, and a smell, like talcum, came over me. I put my hand on my groin. Staggered back to bed.

  Like me, Jack had been forbidden to go out because of the drinking. Two weeks passed before we were free to meet again, and we sat on a patch of grass in his backyard. The turf smelled fresh and the air was cool.

  I slipped down one side of my pants and showed him the now-faded bruise.

  “Looks like your father’s boot was on target.”

  “And you?”

  “Got whacked a few times across the head.”

  No worse, I thought, than Poh-Poh’s knuckling my head. We didn’t want to think what might have happened at Jeff Eng’s house. His father was known for his strictness. Jack yanked some long blades of grass and handed me one to chew on.

  “Damn,” he said cheerfully, “you and Jeff got to lose your cherry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Getting really drunk,” he said. “That’s like losing your cherry with a girl. That’s what every Irish guy has to do. Puke his guts out a few times.”

  “Well,” I said, “once is good enough for a Chinaman.”

  We slapped four palms in agreement, as if we were Harpo and Chico. We leaned back on our elbows and watched birds in the blue sky. Some cats began yowling in the back alley.

  Over and over in my mind, I felt Jenny’s hand on my skin, relived the moment when she let me bend down and smell her; how she took my hand and let me touch her afterwards. But did she really like me? Or was she making fun of me, testing me? I spat out some chewed-up grass like a baseball player. Jack still chewed his blade. He looked so sure of himself: he would have known what to do if he had been on that back porch. I didn’t want him to know how confused I was and how much I wished for Jenny to lie beside me now.

  I didn’t want anyone to know anything.

  Almost fifteen, I knew that by not saying too much, or by saying only half of whatever I knew, I could keep things simple. I could be with Jack just the way I always was, as his best pal; with Jenny, there was another world growing in my head. I had to be careful not to expose any qualms, as if I couldn’t trust either of them, as if they might appreciate me less or even mock me. Instinct told me that these separate bonds I shared with each of them should never cross; somehow, in my silence, I could belong.

  The back door slammed shut. The Old One came out with Liang to hang up some laundry. Jack waved to them. Liang giggled to see her golden boy sitting on the grass with Big Brother. The laundry line squawked as Poh-Poh pulled it towards her. In seconds, billowing sheets hid them both from view. I threw away the grass and picked up some clover to suck out the drops of nectar.

  Poh-Poh and all the rest of the mahjong ladies, especially Mrs. Chong, would make such a fuss over what happened between Jenny and me. And if Jack found out what had happened on the back porch, he would laugh his head off: “Why didn’t you make a move, Kiam!” No, I didn’t want anything to spoil the secret world Jenny and I had opened up to each other. If she weren’t taunting me, if she liked me in some real way, like the way I thought she meant when she looked back and smiled at me, then what had happened was only between the two of us.

  Enough thinking! I fell back and looked up at the sky. White clouds scudded over us.

  “Restless?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m okay.”

  “Let’s hunt up some ball players.”

  Jack jumped up and gave a Tarzan yell. I was in mid-yell when Poh-Poh yanked back one of the sheets and shot me a no-nonsense look. I choked, as if I had only meant to cough.

  Jack
grinned at Poh-Poh. I called out to Liang to throw me my catcher’s mitt hanging on a hook by the screen door. Giggling, she threw it right to Jack. He caught the thick mitt and jumped over the back fence and into the alleyway. I made it over, and we raced down the narrow lane.

  I took a deep breath and sprinted as fast as I could. When I caught up with Jack, I spat out the last bits of clover, savouring the keen, sweet taste.

  Jack and I had hoped for a game of baseball that day but found ourselves with nothing to do after an hour of bat-and-ball with a couple of other guys. We were too short of players to challenge another gang. And then Kenny Cheng had taken his prized bat and left for home.

  Jack said, “They got new wheels at Haskins this week.”

  We headed down West Hastings to Haskins & Elliott. It was midsummer, afternoon, the sun shining so bright between the drifting clouds that you could look up at the North Shore mountains and see a dozen shades of green; a perfect day to daydream in front of some rare Raleigh ten-speeds, shiny wheels neither of us could afford.

  Then we ran into an East Hastings gang.

  Everyone knew their reputation. They called themselves the Mafia Boys. Three Italian hoods in their twenties, tough-talking, block-your-way, leaning-against-the-wind pomaded-hair guys, had just stepped out of Mario’s Barbershop.

  Jack and I, about fifty feet apart, were playing fly ball. Being the smartass, I was tossing my big mitt sky-high when the leader of the Mafia Boys shoved me aside. My leather glove spun, flipped, and plopped down like an oversized plate onto his freshly trimmed head. Instantly, three black suede jackets were sprayed with a fine sooty grit from the impact.

  The tallest guy spun around and hauled me up with his thick-knuckled fists, my feet dangling two feet from the ground. I tried to speak, to apologize, but my yanked-up collar gagged me so tightly that all I could do was sputter.

  Drops and drips of my saliva dotted the veil of grey dust now covering his midnight jacket. He shook me hard, then let go.

  I dropped like a dead weight.

  The three surrounded me. They swore in Italian, then one after the other they stepped away from me. Each one brushed himself off, rubbed his knuckles in ritual glee, and glanced at his pals as if to say, Let me at the little bastard!

  My right foot felt as if it had withered; my left foot went lame. I looked down: I was standing with one running-shoed foot stuck in my offending mitt.

  No one laughed.

  Jack had missed the last fly and had gone chasing after the ball. When he was ready to throw me one, he must have waited for me to catch my tossed mitt, only to witness it thump down to grave consequences.

  Barely breathing, I realized that each second of my life was driving me closer to my end.

  The shortest one of the three, thick chested and mean-looking, started slamming me with the heel of his palm, jolting me backwards. The one behind me, his fedora half off his head, shoved me forward. The tallest guy, smelling of aftershave, grabbed my shoulder. I wished I had worn long sleeves. My skinny elbows shook below my short sleeves.

  “Whatcha doin’ here, Chink!”

  His other hand slipped slowly inside his jacket. He stepped graciously back, as if to invite me to leave the party. I could see the sidewalk opening up between the two of us. His hand was still inside his jacket.

  Smiling weakly back at him, I discreetly tried to yank my stuck foot out of the mitt—the better to run away as quickly as possible—but I stumbled backwards.

  “Hey! We got a chickenshit China-boy here!”

  The shouter stomped on my foot. I yelped. The tall guy swung his long face down towards mine and his forehead cracked into my skull with a sharp and sudden pain. In a daze, I hoped that Jack had escaped. There was nothing even ten fighting Irish boys could do against these three men. These weren’t ordinary bullies.

  The three tightly closed their ranks; they were too close together for me to duck and run. They were breathing hard and hovering above me; their eyes shone like demons’. I heard a soft click.

  I stood still, gasping, waiting for the next blow.

  “Hey!” a familiar voice called. “What’s that Chink doing in Wop-land!”

  It was Jack, moving in. He was just a few inches taller than me, and still about a head shorter than any of the Mafia guys. He shoved his way between two of them, clutching the baseball as if it were a grenade. The two guys pushed back, then they moved like lightning. Jack ducked, and his hand, tightly gripping the softball, deflected something hard.

  The ball snapped back up with a loud thwack!

  Jack held on to the thing, wildly pivoting to bash in a head or two. A fist glanced off his jaw, and a bigger fist plowed into his chest. A half-blocked kick landed in my groin, and I doubled over onto the sidewalk. I saw a heavy black boot rising above my head, ready to stomp.

  A rattling like machine-gun fire grew louder and louder. The faces froze high above me.

  Between someone’s pant legs I saw Mario the barber tapping furiously on his front window with a pair of scissors. Italian words thundered through the plate glass. The three guys slowly dropped their fists.

  “Okay, Papa!” one of them said. “Si, si, Papa!” He gestured his two friends away. “Let’s go! The Chink and his pal got the lesson.”

  The tall guy lingered, still pissed off. He slipped his hand back into his jacket. Napoleon retreating.

  “Don’t waste your time, Gabby!”

  Gabby swore, spat on my face. Then the three marched away. I pushed myself up on my elbows. My chest and neck hurt. Jack felt his jaw for broken bones.

  “Got out of that pretty easy,” he said, wheezing. “That other guy almost killed me.”

  “Well,” I said, catching my own breath, “I think I got the shit kicked out of me.”

  “Kick nothing,” Jack said firmly. “The guy was aiming to kill you, Kiam.”

  Jack pointed to Gabby, several feet away. The man held out a long switchblade and stabbed it neatly into the telephone pole. The blade sliced off a sliver of a poster. Then, in a frenzy, another slash and another, until the poster hung in shreds like torn flesh. The knife snapped shut, and Gabby’s hand went back into his jacket. His friends pulled him away.

  “Definitely killed both of us!”

  My mouth dropped open. “You knew that guy had the knife?”

  “For sure,” Jack said, and laughed like a fool. “He was swinging the blade towards your gut just when I shoved against the other two to get at him.”

  “I was trying to get my shoe out of my mitt,” I said. “I didn’t see the knife at all.”

  “Didn’t you hear it?”

  I shut my eyes. That odd clicking sound came back to me. I nodded.

  Jack held up the ball.

  “Look.”

  The covering had been slashed. The point must have landed just between Jack’s fingers.

  “No bleeding, eh?” I said, and forgot about my own pain.

  He showed me his hand. He wasn’t cut.

  “You okay, Kiam? We could’ve been killed.”

  “He missed,” I said. “The knife didn’t get near me.”

  At the thought of that possibility—thwack!—I took a deep breath and lifted my skinny arms into the air. We both examined my arms: scratched and dirty, but not a single cut. Jack looked over the grimy front of my shirt. Nothing, except for a missing button just below the collar.

  My legs began to shake.

  “Wipe your face, Kiam. Use my sleeve.”

  It just came upon me, the crying.

  Jack handed me my mitt. We sat on the edge of the sidewalk. My shirt was a mess; my pants covered with dirt. We had only been fooling around, playing catch, lusting after shiny new bikes in Haskins’ window … I hurt all over, and Jack’s eye was swelling up.

  Mario banged on the window and waved us to move on.

  “You shouldn’t have been such a hero,” I said, limping slowly, feeling as if my groin were on fire. “Cripes, what were you going to do with
that stupid baseball?”

  Jack laughed. He had enjoyed the adventure.

  “I’m going to have a shiner,” he said.

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  When I finally got home, I was the centre of shocked attention. But the Old One and Stepmother only shook their heads. Father would need to deal with First Son.

  Poh-Poh wanted to knuckle me for my dirty clothes; instead, Stepmother went to the kitchen pantry and gave me some lotion for my bruised arm. “You tell Father what happened, Kiam-Kim,” Stepmother said.

  I explained everything when Father returned home that night. Stepmother sent me up to bed. I thought I had gotten away easily.

  “You die soon,” Poh-Poh said behind me as she guided me up the stairs. I flinched. The kick had left its mark.

  It wasn’t until Jung-Sum came up and helped me pull off my dirt-encrusted pants that I felt lucky.

  He said, “Dai-goh, there’s a big rip here,” and poked three fingers through the Irish tweed.

  A few inches below the crotch of my baggy pants, he wiggled his fingers and laughed.

  Then I remembered O’Connor had butted his way between the two bullies and had caused one of the guys to knock me sideways, full tilt. Reliving the pandemonium before that kick to my groin sent me sprawling, I felt, as in a nightmare, a glancing coldness along my thigh: it was the sliding chill of a steel blade.

  I had some claim to toughness once word got out that the notorious Mafia Boys had picked on Jack and me and that we had lived to tell of our deadly encounter. My reputation only grew after one of them was arrested a week later and charged with the attempted murder of a rival gang member.

  Jack sported his black eye proudly and retold the story of our death-defying escape more times than I could count. When he related details that were not exactly as I had remembered them, I nodded agreeably: Jack was the true hero as far as I was concerned. And he had the wounded baseball to prove to any skeptic how close I—we—had come to being knifed to death.

  In all the telling, Jack never deserted the core of our friendship: he shared the glory with me. I had somehow slipped on my mitt, knocked my elbow against the knife and managed to save him, too. Not as spectacularly, of course, but there was enough in his version to earn me a share of real respect.