by Anthony Youn
Two and a half weeks. No letter from Gloria.
Three weeks. Nothing.
Four weeks. No letter.
Five weeks. Nada. Which is Spanish for nothing.
Six weeks. Cero. Which is Spanish for zero.
I’ve become a useless lump of flesh. And then I realize—
She never got the letter.
Of course. Stupid crappy inept U.S. mail!
I call her.
She answers on the third ring. Softly. Hint of annoyance. As if she expects someone doing a survey.
“Hello?”
“Gloria. It’s Tony.”
Silence.
“Tony. Tony Youn.”
“I know, Tony, oh my God!”
“How are you?”
“Fine. I’m fine.” She clears her throat. “How are you?”
“Great.”
“Good. Oh, Tony. My God!”
“I know, right? Hey, you know, I sent you this letter and stuff, and I was wondering, you know, kinda, what’s going on? I mean, um, what are you thinking about what I said? Did you get the letter?”
“I did. I got the letter.”
Dead silence. A hole you could drive a truck through.
“So.” I twist the phone cord around my wrist. I toy with the idea of knotting it into a noose. “The letter.”
“The letter,” Gloria says. “Yeah.”
“It means so much.”
Oh, no. Here it comes.
But.
“But I have a boyfriend. I’m so sorry. You’re so sweet, Tony. And so special. I want to be friends. Truly. I wrote you back.”
“Really,” I say.
“I did.”
“Oh. Good. Great.”
Moron. I am a total moron. I want to vanish. I want to change my identity, alter my appearance, and go someplace far away where nobody will find me, ever.
“Tony, I left Pau waiting in the other room—”
Pau. She left Pau. No, Gloria, you left me. You left me standing in the rain. Sobbing over you. Losing my mind over you. I tore my guts out, put it all on the line, and wrote you that stupid fucking five-page letter. I wasted five months of my life pining over you. I am such an idiot.
In a heartbeat, I have gone from heartsick to mad as hell.
“Tony—”
“I have to go. Goodbye, Gloria.”
The phone slips and I slam it down.
Two days later, Gloria’s letter, thin as a blade, appears in my mailbox. I tear it open and read on light blue stationery, flimsy as tissue paper, smelling of her intoxicating perfume, these four cursive handwritten sentences.
Dearest Tony, Your letter touched me so. I will always be your cherished friend. I have a serious boyfriend so more is impossible. I will never forget our time together. With love, Gloria.
With love.
I sign letters to relatives from Korea whom I’ve never met With love. I don’t really remember the exact words she wrote. Because after I read her letter, I tear it up and flush the pieces down the toilet. Right next to my ego. Ripped up and swirling in the crapper.
I’M IN! I’M going to medical school! I have choices, among them Wayne State University and Michigan State. I prefer Michigan State’s kinder, gentler, more hands-on approach over Wayne State’s highly pressurized, academic approach, which appeals to all my science-geek friends who got in to both. They will descend on Wayne State in a pack and pick right up where they left off here. I can’t think of a bigger turnoff or a more compelling reason to attend Michigan State. I want a clean slate. Most people call college the best four years of their lives. Me? No. I call college the worst four years of my life. After the fire-eater, and getting shot down by every girl I ever asked out, including the ones I didn’t want, and the months I wasted on Gloria, I need to find available and interested women. I’m not saying I’m going to med school to get laid—
Screw it. I’m saying it. Chicks love doctors. I’m going to med school to get laid. Sure, I want to care for the sick, and contribute to society, maybe do some research to help find a cure for a dread disease, and be a good provider for my eventual family, and make my parents proud, and carry on my father’s tradition. Absolutely. I said all that stuff at my med-school interviews.
Mainly, I want to get laid.
I haven’t come close in four years. Ponder that. Zero for four years. A goose egg for college. Do you know how hard that is to do?
I’m going to medical school, why?
I, want, to, get, laid.
GRADUATION WEEK. WE party, pick up our caps and gowns, and pack up. I meet for coffee and drinks with friends whom I will not see for a while and maybe never again. I look up Gary, my freshman suite-mate, and meet him for drinks at an off-campus dive. As we nurse our beers, I mention Ross. Since we outed him, Ross has become famous, openly and flamboyantly gay. A theater major, he often appears on campus dressed as a woman.
“Maybe we did him a favor,” Gary says.
I suppose that’s possible, in a twisted way. But among the low moments I experienced in college, including the many moments of anxiety and loneliness and depression, my absolute lowest moment remains the night my friends and I taunted Ross at Burger King. Over three years later, I still feel ashamed. I finish my beer, shake hands with Gary, wish him luck, and wander in a loop around campus. I think about the reading I’ve done, the church I now attend, and how I’ve changed. I’ve grown more open-minded, less judgmental. I’m a different person than the immature, clueless, prejudiced guy who made fun of Ross. As soon as I get back to my apartment, I decide to look up Ross’s number and call him.
I enter the quad and walk by the student union. The front door opens and Ross comes out, dressed in creased jeans, polo shirt, loafers, no socks. He looks like a model out of a J. Crew catalog.
“Ross.”
“Tony.”
“This is so weird. I was going home to call you.”
“Yeah?”
“I really was. I wanted to tell you—” I stop. Standing with him, I’m momentarily struck dumb.
“Tony, you all right?”
I nod. Squint into the sun. I face him. I need to tell him. “Ross, that time. At Burger King.”
I realize why this is so hard. I want him to forgive me. I can’t expect that. All I can do is apologize and accept his reaction. I was an asshole, Ross. Start there.
I try again. “That night.”
“It was a long time ago,” Ross says. “We were freshmen.”
“I was a jerk. I was an asshole. Ross, I apologize.” I swallow. “I was stupid. And hurtful. And not at all funny. I’m very sorry.”
To my utter shock, Ross smiles. A soft, kind smile, as if he does know how hard this is for me. “It’s fine. Honest.”
He extends his hand. I look at it as if it’s a foreign object, as if I don’t know what to do with it. After a moment, I reach out and shake it.
“I really appreciate this, Tony. It means a lot.”
Briefly, we hug.
“Good luck, Ross.”
“You, too, Tony.”
Bathed in a shaft of hot sun, I stand in front of the student union and watch him walk away.
II First Year
4
Little Asia
My new life.
Day one.
I drive to East Lansing in my clattering Ford Tempo, the trunk bulging with suitcase and duffel, boxes of books, my guitar, a case of ramen noodles, and a shiny new five-speed road bike, a Huffy purchased at Toys R Us. Nobody—ever—has felt so eager to move on from college. At commencement, when our college president proclaimed at the podium erected in the quad, “Congratulations, graduates, class of 1994!” and we flung our caps into the air, I watched mine sail above me in slow motion, believing that mine and only mine would disappear into the clouds and never return, a fluttering symbol of freedom. I was riding a rocket ship out of Kalamazoo (okay, a used Ford Tempo, but still) and never looking back. Michigan State College of Human Medicine,
lock up your ladies!
My cap shot back down. I missed the catch, and the spinning razor edge became a chakram and nearly sliced my head off. I refused to acknowledge that symbol. I would not accept the remote possibility that, while college sucked, medical school could turn out worse.
. . . .
MY DORM, OWEN Hall, looms before me. Or is that a parking structure? No, that’s my dorm. For the next year, home. I sling my guitar over my back and lug suitcase and duffel to my room, which is roughly the size of a veal pen with none of the charm—four bare walls, a slit in one impersonating a window, and a dull overhead fluorescent light that flickers and chatters. I drop my stuff on the floor, squeeze past, and squint out the window. If I stand on tiptoe and pretzel my neck, I can make out the parking structure next door, which looks exactly like my dorm. The only reason I know it’s a parking structure and not a dorm is cars keep driving into it. I exit my room to grab the rest of my stuff, and I’m assaulted by a smell. Pungent, sharp, brutal. Hits me like tear gas. Nostril-ripping. Eyeball-bending. Sinks me to my knees. One more second in this hallway and I’ll name names, rat out my friends.
I know that smell—
Thai food.
Someone’s cooking Thai food. No. Everyone’s cooking Thai food.
That’s when I notice the students.
Asians.
Every one of them.
They see me and smile happily, welcoming me like I’m their long-lost cousin.
What kind of place is this?
I prowl the halls in search of Caucasians. I see none. Not one. I’m only asking for one lousy non-Asian. One. I know I look like I belong. I look like I fit in. But I don’t! I am an American in a Korean person’s body!
Wait, wait. Two Hispanic women walk by. Two rocking-hot Hispanic women!
“Hey,” I say. Cool. Suave. Killer. The new Tony. Superhero Tony. “Hola,” one mumbles. They both giggle and sprint down the hall. “Nice meeting you,” I shout after them. “It’s Tony!”
“Hi.”
I look down. Hand extended, face grinning behind huge glasses that make her look like a welder. A dwarfish Asian girl.
“Hello,” I say.
“You want to get some dinner?”
“Oh, thank you, no, I have to move in.”
“Stuck-up, huh? You don’t like me? I’m too short? Too Asian?”
“No, no, no, I have all this stuff I have to do—”
“Screw you.”
Where am I?
An hour later, my belongings crammed into my ten-by-ten cell, I lay my guitar down on the threadbare couch that will tonight unfold into my bed. I stack a pile of books high enough to make a night table, then stack two more piles and shove them together to create a precarious stand for my minuscule TV. I’m officially unpacked and settled in. Tomorrow I’ll buy my textbooks, tour the campus, and—
I have nothing else to do for two more days until orientation. Suddenly, I feel unbearably lonely. I hadn’t expected this. It has to be this place. This dorm. This room. All the warmth of a tomb. I feel like an unwanted stranger.
I have to fix this. I need to change the energy. I’m going to go next door and meet my neighbor. I’ll knock on his door and introduce myself. Seems only right, since the two of us share a bathroom.
Outside his door, I hesitate. I feel awkward. Pushy. Get over it, Tony. I ball up my fist and knock cheerfully. The door opens slowly. A rotund Asian man roughly my age—Chinese, I’d guess—stands in the doorway in a half-squat. Eyeglasses dangle from two plump fingers. He pinches his nose, returns his glasses to his face, and nods.
“How you doing,” I say. “I live next door.”
He nods and exhales, his breath coming fast and sour against my cheek. Thai food. The guy’s been eating Thai food. I want to retch, but I stifle a cough.
“I just finished moving in,” I say.
He nods.
“I’m Tony, by the way.”
I offer my hand. He looks at me, confused, then grips it with a hand so wet it feels as if he’s pulled it out of a bucket of water. He nods again and bows.
“Oh. Sorry.” I bow in return. I wave my hand in the general direction of nowhere. “So. Wow. This is exciting. A little nerve-racking. I’m a med student. Not sure what to expect. My father’s a doctor, so I have a vague idea. He’s an ob-gyn. I don’t think that’s for me, though. Not my style. Long hours. It seems like every baby in the world is born at three o’clock in the morning. Ha-ha. I’m kidding. What about you? What program are you in?”
“Goodbye, sir,” he says, and shuts the door in my face.
Am I in hell?
AN HOUR LATER, I turn in for the night. Eight-forty-five. I haven’t gone to bed this early since third grade. Screw it. I have nothing else to do. I’ll read, maybe watch some TV, second-guess coming here, that sort of thing. I strip down to T-shirt and boxers, tuck a comic book under my arm, stick a toothbrush into the corner of my mouth, and hit the head. I fling open the door and nearly swallow my toothbrush. Shirtless, revealing a mountain range of hairless flab, my Chinese neighbor sits on the toilet, his pants bunched at his knees.
“Whoa! Sorry.”
He smiles, nods.
Like an idiot, I nod back and bow.
“So, okay, I’ll come back. Hey, a thought. You might want to lock the door.”
He nods. “Goodbye, sir.”
I dash the hell out of there. I give him a half hour, then slink into the bathroom. I open the door an inch. The smell smokes me. Rocks me back like a shove. “Freaking Thai food,” I say.
I hold my breath and go in. I discover that the bathroom door has no lock. What a treat. We can walk in on each other at any time. Sweet. Privacy is overrated. My father never had any privacy as a kid, and he survived, although no wonder he spends almost no time in the bathroom. I imagine that Korean farm. Nine kids living almost literally on top of one another. You crapped in a pot in the corner in front of everyone. At least we have a door.
By eleven-thirty, I’m not close to falling asleep. Nothing but negative thoughts jostle around in my brain. I’m officially in need of a sedative or a kick in the head, whichever will do the trick. On my foldout couch with a foam mattress not quite as thick as cardboard, I toss, turn, and stare cross-eyed at the ceiling, my entire body an electrified nerve ending about to snap. Breathe, Tony. Slow, deep breaths. Tomorrow is another day. New start. Breathe—
Bang.
“Ohhhh.”
Bang, bang, bang.
The ceiling grumbles. The room shivers. My joke of a window throbs.
“What is that?”
I sit up, poised to flee what I’m convinced is a tornado tearing up East Lansing. Although my gut tells me to stay put and not to worry—Owen Hall would kick the shit out of any tornado. A stage-five tornado would hit this building, bounce off, and land in the middle of Chicago.
“Ohhhh.”
Wait.
That’s a woman. Moaning. Having . . . sex. Right above my head. Threatening to fall through the ceiling. That would be par for this course.
“Oh. Yeah.”
A man. Moaning. Yep. We’ve got us some sex. Some loud, frantic sex.
“SHELDON!” the woman screams. “SLAP MY ASS!”
Sheldon, slap my ass?
That really annoys me. Not the slap my ass part.
The Sheldon part. Somebody named Sheldon is getting laid, and I can’t?
“Ow! Yes! Harder!”
“This I need,” I say.
Then the Chinese guy groans, followed by a vicious flush.
DAY TWO. I force my butt out of bed after getting exactly no sleep, shower, shave, and stagger out of my room. I need to shake off day one. Put it behind me. Especially Sheldon. I’ll grab some breakfast, then spend a leisurely day getting familiar with the campus, buying supplies, textbooks, a few staples. I need to nest.
I come off the elevator and practically run over the dwarfish Asian girl.
“Hi, you,” she says.
“Oh, hi there.”
“I’m Peggy.”
“Tony.”
“Want to get some breakfast?”
“Oh, no thanks, I’m going to the bookstore.”
“Liar!”
“Excuse me?”
“The bookstore doesn’t open until nine. You are stuck-up.”
“Okay, look, I had a rough night. I got no sleep. I need to regroup. I kind of want to be alone.”
“No problem. I get it. You’re prejudiced against short Asian women. That’s fine. Screw you.”
Is this all a dream?
Day three. I spend the day doing laundry, ducking into the bathroom when my neighbor allows me a five-minute window of opportunity, and dodging Peggy, whose dogged determination to share a meal with me is starting to creep me out. I have a hard time picturing her as a doctor.
“Doctor, are you sure I should have the operation?”
“You don’t want to? Fine. Screw YOU.”
I call it a night before eleven. Tomorrow it truly begins. All of the first-years will convene at ten for orientation. I want to be fresh and alert.
Not in the cards. Around midnight Sheldon goes at it again. More moaning. More ass slapping. Even less sleeping. I had such high hopes going in, and I’m already freaking out. What have I done? Have I made a wrong turn? I lie on my back, jam my eyes shut, and attempt to fight off a debilitating attack of what-ifs.
What if the smell of Thai food never goes away?
What if the image of Sheldon having sex never goes away?
What if I never make a single friend in medical school? So far, I’ve met two people—my neighbor, a large Chinese man who speaks no English and spends all night on the can, and Peggy, a nasty Asian dwarf stalker.
What if my entire class consists of losers from foreign lands? What if everyone else is worse than the Chinese guy and Peggy?
What if I should have gone to Wayne State with my friends?
What if I never should have gone to medical school at all?
Yes, what if . . . I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life?
5
Master of the Shopping Cart
Main lecture hall, administration building.