“I’m morally against credit cards.”
“You shouldn’t leave the house without identification,” she said. He felt scolded.
“You’re speaking for the government, right? As a representative of the state, you’re ordering me to have papers on my person at all times?” The Berkeley rumor was that the computers in Washington, D.C., cross-referenced your I.R.S. file with your bank statement with your F.B.I. record with your Motor V Registration. It’s your duty to confound them. Any conspiracy we can get paranoid over, the U.S. Government is already carrying out. “Here’s the number assigned to me by the feds,” he said, handing her his Social Security card.
“A Social Security card is not an i.d.,” she said.
“Why not? I’m the only one in the world with this number, right?” Social Security and the I.R.S. had promised the Americans of Japanese Ancestry that their Social Security numbers and their tax returns would not be used to hunt them down.
“How about your draft registration card?” Oh, shit. Oh fucking shit. She’ll see his expired 2-S. She’ll turn his evasive ass in, and he will go to jail. He gave her the stub from a paycheck, and his A.S.U.C. Activity card, and a party invitation (in a court summons theme). And his library card. Here. This is the most important thing about me—I’m a card-carrying reader. All I really want to do is to sit and read or lie down and read or eat and read or shit and read. I’m a trained reader. I want a job where I get paid for reading books. And I don’t have to make reports on what I read or to apply what I read. Ah, girl, don’t sear me with trade, smear me with toil. Hand over my money and let me get on with it.
“Next time, bring an official picture i.d.,” she said, and gave him a yellow card. She wrote his name and Social Security number in a tiny yellow booklet, stamped the date, and wrote an appointment time. “Your interview is for 1:00. Here’s your literature.”
“Thanks.” Thanks for nothing. My dole and your salary come out of the same budget. “Didn’t you just now interview me? What else do you want to know?”
“I’m registering you. They’ll interview you over there. This isn’t the interview.”
“You mean I stood in line just to get to stand in another line?”
He went to the 11:30 line, calculating that when the cards flipped, that one would say 1:00. His booklet said: “Unemployment Compensation is paid for by employers.” Somebody’s lying. The money has been taken out of our paychecks, everybody knows that. And we’re entitled to get it back. How come so many people say so if it isn’t true? The State of California is putting out “literature” to snow our common knowledge. The truth must be that employers pay at a penultimate step; the workers’ paychecks absorb the money in the long run indirectly.
Wittman had free time, and an old Chinese lady caught a whiff of it. “You Chinese?” she asked. When you have a moment of idleness, an old Chinese lady will always appear, and give you something to do, keep you from going lazy. He looked around, a wise guy, like she could be addressing somebody behind him.
“Yes,” he said.
“Good boy.” She was praising him for accomplishing the excellent geste of being a Chinese boy. “You tell them for me that I can work, and I want work, and I need work. I must have work. I went looking every day this week. I had a job at the Fruitvale Cannery putting three molly-see-no cherries”—maraschino—“in the fruit cocktail. Not two. Not four. Three.” Lowering her voice for a secret—“The boss floorlady told everyone: I—the exactest Chinese lady in the cannery. Do you understand me? I want you to tell them for me. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said. Though she shouldn’t need translation. She spoke back and forth, a shuttling scuttling weaver of Chinese and English.
“Never never eat fruit cocktail. Do you know what a molly-see-no cherry is? An onion. They bleach it white, no more onion smell, no onion taste. Then they soak it in red dye and sugar syrup. Fruit cocktail is bad for you health. Don’t eat fruit cocktail.” She was making him a gift of her insider advice. It was in exchange for the upcoming translation work. “Have an orange,” she said, rummaging in her plastic shopping bag.
“No. No, thank you.”
She came up with an orange in her gloved hand. She was wearing long white prom gloves. “Keep it for later. Don’t eat canned. Do you know how they take skins off peaches? Lye bath. My job is to gwoot out the pit with my fruit knife.” She had her fruit knife in her bag too, and showed him its crescent blade, honed fine by long and abundant peach seasons. “Aiya, I have to learn how to work fast left-handed.”
“Why’s that?”
“Do you want to see my hand?” She handed him the orange, the fruit knife, her purse, her shopping bag. She pulled the glove off her right hand, her back to the counter windows. “I can move it a little.” Her thumb and index finger were swollen purple-grey and stretched too far apart. Her hand was tautening into a claw, a fruit knife. “When we talk to them, you tell them I must work. Must. You sabe? It hurts a lot but. I will get Unyimployment, and give my hand a rest.” She pronounced “Unemployment” with a “yim,” as in “salt,” the sweat of labor, the salt of the earth. “Don’t tell them about my hand. Tell them I’m healthy, and can work.”
Grimacing, she pushed her fingers closer together and tugged the glove back on. “This is as tight as I can bring my thumb and pointer together. I can’t shut my hand but. Everything will be all right. Yesterday I went to the Workman’s Comp office. I told them I was hurt on the job. I’ll be all right. I’ll get Workman’s Comp and I’ll get Unyimployment.”
“Wait a minute,” said Wittman. “Can you do that? It says here in this booklet and on this card that you have to be physically able to work.”
“So?”
“Well, what if the Government says you lie?”
“Oh.” He felt very sorry that he was making her falter.
“What happens if Workman’s Comp sends to this office the paper that says you’re too hurt to work, but here you say you are not too hurt to work? And the Government notices that the answers don’t match? Do you see what I mean?”
“No. No, I don’t. No.”
On the cover of the yellow handbook, there was a box around all caps:
PENALTY FOR FALSE STATEMENT—
UNDER THE LAW IT IS A MISDEMEANOR
TO WILLFULLY MAKE A FALSE STATEMENT.
CONVICTION IS PUNISHABLE BY FINE
OR IMPRISONMENT OR BOTH.
“It says here one could go to jail for lying.” He was breaking the news to this innocent: Meat comes from piggies and cowcows and little lost lambs.
“Aiya,” she said. “Here. Change the answer to ‘No.’ ” They were moving up in line. She gave him her card and a pen. He found the question about being physically able. Somebody had written the ‘Yes’ in ballpoint. He rubbed it with spit; tails of paper epidermis rolled off. He wrote “No.”
“You don’t need to stand in line and go through all this,” he advised. “Go home and take care of your hand.” He meant she wasn’t going to qualify anyway.
“But I can work. I use my left hand. Change it back to ‘Yes.’ ”
Her card looked suspect. “Are you sure you want me to do that?” he asked. “Your card will look messy. ‘No.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ”
“What do you think I should do?”
“I think too much trouble to apply for both Workman’s Compensation and Unyimployment. Decide on one, save yourself the standing in line and the paperwork.”
“Oh, I have the time to stand in line. And I get double chances. And win both if I’m lucky.”
“If your hand hurts a lot, then the Government is not going to give you Unyimployment.”
“My hand hurts a lot. Should I leave that square empty and ask the Government lady what’s best to write down?”
“The Government lady is going to say write down what’s true.”
“The best answer is ‘Yes,’ I am going to work. Put ‘Yes.’ ”
“Remember yesterday you filled ou
t a form that said that you’re not able to work, that you want them to pay you because your hand was injured at work.”
“You mean that I best write down on this card the same answer today and yesterday. But.” To hear her think to surrender stuck a pain into his heart. She was co-operating with the authorities, which included himself. “I like work,” she said.
“All right. All right. ‘Yes.’ ” He blackened out the ‘No,’ and wrote ‘Yes’ beside the blot. Enough Unemployment counseling; the Government can do its own dirty work. See what you have to put up with if you want to have community? Any old Chinese lady comes along, she takes your day, you have to do her beckoning. The hippy-dippies don’t know what they’re in for. They couldn’t take Communitas.
“Let me help you fill out your card right,” she said. “I’ve been coming to this office between seasons for twenty years, so I know. They give the same test questions every week, and we have to give the same answers. Listen now. I teach you. Learn. You ready? Remember these ten answers: ‘No.’ ‘None.’ Number Two is not ‘No.’ The right answer is ‘None.’ Don’t forget, ‘None.’ That’s the tricky part right there. I start over, okay? ‘No.’ ‘None.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ Always answer like that. One more time, okay? ‘No.’ ‘None.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ”
“ ‘No.’ ‘None.’ ‘Yes,’ ” repeated Wittman. “ ‘No.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ” (That first “Yes” is the answer to Number Three, “Were you physically able to work full-time each of the seven days that week?”)
“Ho, la. Smart boy. One wrong answer, they send you inside to the office. And they take the money away. Don’t forget. Always answer like that. One wrong answer—no more money.”
“Why is it better to say ‘No’ to Number Seven?” he asked. “That’s the one that asks, Did anybody in this office or anywhere else tell you about a job?” He considerately told her the question in case she couldn’t read or remember.
“That’s called ‘refer.’ No matter what the refer is, you have to go try for that job. But they hardly ever refer. Twenty seasons of cannery, they referred me one time. I think they drew my name out of a bad-luck lottery. They referred me on the telephone. My mistake, I put ‘No’ on Seven the same as usual. So the Government lady sent me to interrogation. I said, ‘Oh dear, I forgot. Now I remember, you refer. The answer is “Yes.” ’ There had been a Sai Yun voice on the phone.” To call them Sai Yun instead of White Demon shows the classiness of the speaker, and also gives the Caucasian person class. “For punishment, they delayed my Unyimployment for one week.”
The two of them crossed the stripe on the floor together. “How old is she?” asked the Government lady.
“Tell her sixty-five.”
“Sixty-five,” said Wittman.
“Tell her,” said the Government lady, speaking slowly, enunciating, “that I have to inform all the senior citizens that there’s a bill in Congress to deduct Unemployment Compensation from their Social Security checks. So her benefits may total no more than her Social Security. This bill may not pass, but we have to tell senior citizens about it.”
“No sabe,” said the old lady.
“The Government lady says,” said Wittman, “that you get Social Security, you might not get Unyimployment. Maybe. They might subtract one from the other. Sabe?”
“No sabe. Tell her I don’t understand English.” She meant she didn’t like what she was hearing.
“She doesn’t get it.”
The clerk repeated the whole thing. “In other words,” she said, “she could be making extra paperwork for herself, and for us, and she wouldn’t be getting more than her Social Security.”
“I no sabe.” Sometimes if you act stupid, you get your way.
“She wants to apply anyway,” said Wittman.
The clerk marked the answers to Number One and Number Two with red checks. Some of the new Hong Kong people say that writing with red is unlucky, but it’s unclear for whom, the writer or the written about or to. Her red pencil hesitated at the answer to Number Three, which had been worked over. “Is she physically able to work?” she asked.
Wittman said to the popo, somebody else’s grandmother, now his responsibility, “Are you physically able to work?”
“I can do a great many things.” She folded her gloved hands on the counter.
“Can she do her usual job at the cannery?” Good question.
“Better than most people,” answered the popo.
“ ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ ”
“Not outstanding as usual but. I will be okay one day soon.”
The clerk said, “Please sign here for me.”
Her poor hand could not close over the pen. She took it in her left hand and wrote her signature, copying her name that a relative with careful penmanship had written out. Mrs. Chew.
“Have her wait in line D for an interview.”
“Tell her thank you,” said Mrs. Chew.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
As long as he was up here, Wittman pushed his own papers forward.
“Did you work last week?”
He recognized the first question, to which the right answer is “No.” “As a matter of fact, yes,” he said. “Tuesday’s the first day I won’t be going in to work. But I’m eager to get a jump on my paperwork, get the machinery rolling, as it were. In case I don’t find a job right away, possibly later on today, who knows, no time wasted. I have drive. I’m no O.E.O. deadbeat. I’m a go-getter. An active job seeker.” The “literature” said that he had to be “an active job seeker.”
The Government lady asked him the rest of the questions. He was grateful to Mrs. Chew for the answer (“No”) to Number Four, which is one of those negative subjunctive questions that if you stop to think about it too much, your brain gets confused, doubling back, turning around. “ ‘Was there any other reason you could not have worked full-time each workday?’ ”
He wished that this were not a force-choice test. He would say, like an Englishman, “Would that there were. Ah, would that there were.”
“You have to go to two more interviews—the intake interview for a new claimant—that’s you—and a job counseling appointment at the Employment Office.”
He followed the green stripe to sit next to Mrs. Chew in line D, which was the row of chairs against the wall. Aiya, there ought to be a nice waiting room for us like at the dentist’s with carpets and magazines. Where are the potted plants and music? Where’s a receptionist offering coffee or tea? No comforts for the unemployed. They’re punishing us for losing our jobs. When they ought to be honoring us. We people who have unbusied ourselves to scout around, to review the system, to do some doubting and questioning, the ones who try if it’s possible yet for the human race to live on air and sun.
The two Chinese-Americans, who looked like relatives, ate an orange. Its peelings filled the stand-up ashtray that Mrs. Chew had found and pushed between them. “Now we’re going to be interrogated,” she said. “This is the worst part. They give you bad news in that inside office. You should avoid going in there if you can. You are coming in with me, aren’t you?” It was now 1:45, as he could tell by looking on the wrists of people who owned watches.
“Sure,” he said. “Don’t you worry.”
“Are you married?” she asked. “Do you have kidboys?”
“No. Yes. No. No kids.”
“Don’t worry. I know a very kind rich girl. Fix you up, okay? She puts in the money; you do the hard work, you do the English-speaking; you can have a restaurant, children, everything. You’re clever enough, I can tell. You remind me of the boys from China I met on Angel Island. You’re older than most of them but. You’ll get down to business and work harder. They were fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old, not broken in. They had no patience for I.N.S. red tape. They didn’t like the food, they had
food fights. I didn’t like the food myself. Noodles with tomato sauce. Jell-O. We didn’t know how to eat Jell-O. We spread it on the white bread. Jell-O sandwiches.” She laughed at the greenhorns they used to be. “There was too much we didn’t know. The ground on Angel Island is covered with jade. We walked on dark green jade clink-clinking underfoot from the boat to the Wooden House. When the soldiers turned their backs, I picked up a piece. We thought, the island is made of jade; the mainland must be made of gold. Now I know, it’s just mock jade. Monterey jade. For breaking rules, the boys got locked up one at a time in the closet. They built a trapdoor which was a dove-tail puzzle. It was also their shit- and pisshole. The closet was always clean no matter how long a boy was locked up. That’s how Chinese got the reputation for being able to hold it in.
“We ladies had a big bathroom with flush commodes and showers. But we didn’t shower; we bathed using basins. Whenever in the middle of the night, we heard someone in the showers, we knew that a woman was going to hang herself. We wouldn’t try to stop her because she had her reason—she failed her interrogation or she couldn’t bear the waiting any longer or nobody came for her or she was being deported. It was her own business. The suicides wore their wedding dresses; they tied the sashes around their necks, and hung themselves from the shower pipes. The commodes sat up on stands all in a row. The women, who were from the country, were very modest. For privacy, they put pillowcases over their heads. Can you picture it? A row of peasant ladies shitting and pissing with bags over their heads.”
Mrs. Chew didn’t need to go, did she? “Do you have to go to the bathroom?” Wittman asked. “Do you want me to go look for the ladies’ seesaw?”
“No, thank you. You’re very considerate. I know you would make that kind rich girl a good husband. I’m just talking-story to pass the time.”
“I thought you were about to tell me a hero story. Didn’t any of those guys try to escape through the trapdoor and swim to the Big City? I don’t think we ought to spread crap stories about how tightass and clean we are, and how sneaky sly we are.” Chinese do not have a thing about boxing them/ourselves up inside puzzle mazes; Kafka was the one, made that up. And we didn’t come here to make money off of America; we burn money.
Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (Vintage International) Page 31