Part 10 (1/2)
I watched our parents buy a sofa, then a rug, curtains, chairs to replace the orange and apple crates one by one, now to be used for storage Good At the beginning of the second Coht a car But you could see the relatives and the villagers getting irl second cousins, no boys; their great-grandfather and our grandfather were brothers The great-grandfather was the old reat-uncle was the old man who lived with us When irls eating The old man opened his eyes wide at us and turned in a circle, surrounded His neck tendons stretched out ”Maggots!” he shouted ”Maggots! Where are ots!” He pointed at each one of us, ”Maggot! Maggot! Maggot! Maggot! Maggot! Maggot!” Then he dived into his food, eating fast and getting seconds ”Eat, ots chew”
”He does that at every lish
”Yeah,” we said ”Our old man hates us too What assholes”
Third Grand-Uncle finally did get a boy, though, his only great-grandson The boy's parents and the old -new diapers, new plastic pants-not hoave hiers; they deliberately hadn't given the girls parties, so that no one would notice another girl Their brother got toy trucks that were big enough to cliirls play with his old tricycle and wagon My ht his sisters a typewriter ”They can be clerk-typists,” their father kept saying, but he would not buy the the way ed hi socks
Maybe s like that out loud and so had cut ently afoot to fix er wife came to the laundry one day to have a listen ”You better do soly voice She quacks like a pressed duck” Then she looked at me unnecessarily hard; Chinese do not have to address children directly ”You have e call a pressed-duck voice,” she said This woh it was Aave the Chinese na up to dry in the east , the sound that was my voice would corants and descendants of i us here and for finding us jobs, and she had named my voice
”No,” I quacked ”No, I don't”
”Don't talk back,” h to send us back
I went to the front of the laundry and worked so hard that I i
”Improve that voice,” she had instructed my mother, ”or else you'll never hosts won't have her” So I discovered the next plan to get rid of us: ers' peasant ht alked ho behind locked doors, not overflowing into the streets in front of the benevolent associations, all alit We stood on tiptoes and on one another's shoulders, and through the doorspotlights open on tall singers afire with sequins An opera fro! Usually I did not understand the words in operas, whether because of our obscure dialect or theirs I didn't know, but I heard one line sung out into the night air in a wo on a chair, and she sang, ”Beat hed until the tears rolled down their cheeks while the cyed like firecrackers ”She is playing the part of a new daughter-in-law,” ain and again Itit, the audience broke up laughing Men laughed; woreat tihters-in-laith honey and tied them naked on top of ant nests,” my father said ”A husband may kill a ho disobeys him Confucius said that” Confucius, the rational , yet everyone said, ”Oh, beautiful Beautiful,” when she sang high
Walking ho that h uproariously: Marry a rooster, follow a rooster
Marry a dog, follow a dog
Married to a cudgel, married to a pestle, Be faithful to it Follow it
I learned that youngads in the Gold Mountain News Gold Mountain News to find wives whenthem Suddenly a series of neorkers showed up at the laundry; they each worked for a week before they disappeared They ate with us They talked Chinese with my parents They did not talk to us We were to call theh they were not related to us They were all funny-looking FOB's, Fresh-off-the-Boat's, as the Chinese-Arants FOB's wear high-riding gray slacks and white shi+rts with the sleeves rolled up Their eyes do not focus correctly-shi+fty-eyed-and they hold their ht-jawed irls said to find wives whenthem Suddenly a series of neorkers showed up at the laundry; they each worked for a week before they disappeared They ate with us They talked Chinese with my parents They did not talk to us We were to call theh they were not related to us They were all funny-looking FOB's, Fresh-off-the-Boat's, as the Chinese-Arants FOB's wear high-riding gray slacks and white shi+rts with the sleeves rolled up Their eyes do not focus correctly-shi+fty-eyed-and they hold their ht-jawed irls said they'd they'd never date an FOB Myover our photographs ”This one,” he said, picking up my sister's picture never date an FOB Myover our photographs ”This one,” he said, picking up my sister's picture
”No No,” said my mother ”This one,” my picture ”The oldest first,” she said Good I was an obstacle I would protect my sister andat the kitchen table, I dropped two dishes I foundstick and liht my hand in the knots of my hair I spilled soup on the FOB when I handed hih,” I heardaround and under the FOB's chair-very bad luck because spirits live inside the broom I put on my shoes with the open flaps and flapped about like a Wino Ghost From then on, I wore those shoes to parties, whenever the es The FOB and hosts half invisible, but when he left, my mother yelled at me about the dried-duck voice, the bad temper, the laziness, the clu too ; not one ca your nose?” she scolded ”All the village ladies are talking about your nose They're afraid to eat our pastries because you h” But I couldn't stop at will anye My parents would not give up, though ”Though you can't see it,”around your ankle ties you to the person you'll marry He's already been born, and he's on the other end of the string”
At Chinese school there was a mentally retarded boy who followedthat ere two of a kind He had an enorhed froot confused about what the sounds cohs or cries He barked unhappily He didn't go to classes but hung around the playgrounds We suspected he was not a boy but an adult He wore baggy khaki trousers like ato certain children Whatever you wanted, he'd get it for you-brand-new toys, as many as you could think up in your poverty, all the toys you never had when you were younger We wrote lists, discussed our lists, coave lists to those ere ”Where do you get the toys?” I asked ”I ownstores,” he roared, one word at a tiot handed out to us coloring books, paint sets, model kits But sometiers opening and closing; his legs stiff like Frankenstein's -crying Then we'd have to run, following the old rule, running away from our house
But suddenly he knehere orked He found us;at our laundry Many of the storekeepers invited sitting in their stores, but we did not have sitting because the laundry was hot and because it was outside Chinatown He sweated; he panted, the stubble rising and falling on his fat neck and chin He sat on two large cartons that he brought with him and stacked one on top of the other He said hello tohis heavy head, he lowered himself carefully onto his cartons and sat My parents allowed this They did not chase hi orders for toys I didn't liure that this zoht A's, but nobody see in common with thisand dances, but not for good Chinese girls ”You ought to develop yourself socially as well as mentally,” the American teachers, who took me aside, said
I told nobody about theeither; no mention about the laundry workers who appeared and disappeared; noit all up, and queer e notions did not occur to other people I had better not say a word, then Don't give theiants' BVD's, long underwear even in summertime, T-shi+rts, sweat shi+rts Laundry work is men's clothes, unmarried-men's clothes My back felt sick because it was toward the er IQ points out of the back of my head I maneuvered my work shi+fts so that my brothers would work the afternoons, when he usually caan co, the cool shi+ft Then I would switch back to the afternoon or to the earlyhi her why If she hadn't noticed, then I ,” I'd say Our other sister was a baby, and the brothers were not in danger But the were-person would stalk down our street; his thick face s on the laundry , and when he saorking, he shouldered inside At night I thought I heard his feet dragging around the house, scraping gravel I sat up to listen to our watchdog prowl the yard, pulling her long chain after her, and that worried ht of it scraping her neck fur short And if she alking about, asn't she barking? Maybe so her with raw meat I could not ask for help
Every day the hulk took one drink fro between the presses into the back of the laundry, big shoes clu Then my parents would talk about what could be inside his boxes Were they filled with toys? Withabout it But one day he either stayed in the bathroouarded ”Let's open them up,” said my mother, and she did I looked over her shoulder The two cartons were stuffed with pornography-naked raphs
You would think she'd have thrown hioodness, he's not too stupid to want to find out about women” I heard the old women talk about hoas stupid but very rich
Maybe because I was the one with the tongue cut loose, I had grown inside s that I had to tell s about me and to stop the pain in , I had had only thirty-six items: how I had prayed for a white horse ofme to the attention of the God of the black-and-white nuns who gave us ”holy cards” in the park Hoanted the horse to start the irl and ht candy for everybody I knew, not just brothers and sisters, but strangers too and ghost children Hoas er How I had jumped head-first off the dresser, not accidentally, but so I could fly Then there wereus in the park, which was across the street froet baptized we'd go to a hell like one of the nine Taoist hells forever And the obscene caller that phoned us at home when the adults were at the laundry And the Mexican and Filipino girls at school ent to ”confession,” and how I envied them their white dresses and their chance each Saturday to tell even thoughts that were sinful If only I could let my mother know the list, she-and the world-would becoain I would pick a time of day when my mother was alone and tell her one iteot excruciating and her anger too bad, I'd tell five iteirls, and I'd still be through in a year, maybe ten s when she starched the white shi+rts The laundry would be clean, the gray wood floors sprinkled and sater and wet sawdust She would be wringing shi+rts at the starch tub and not running about My father and sisters and brothers would be at their own jobsfrom the starch, the air cool at last Yes, that would be the tiain why the women in our family have a split nail on our left little toe Whenever we asked our parents about it, they would glance at each other, embarrassed I think I've heard one of theet away” I made up that we are descended fro froht
I hunkered down between the wall and the wicker basket of shi+rts I had decided to start with the earliest iteainst the white side of the house: it was the first thing I killed I said, clearly, ”I killed a spider,” and it was nothing; she did not hitto s of death shoot through my hand and into my body so that I would surely die So I had to continue, of course, and let her kno important it had been ”I returned every day to look at its smear on the side of the house,” I said ”It was our old house, the one we lived in until I was five I went to the wall every day to look I studied the stain” Relieved because she said nothing but only continued squeezing the starch, I went away feeling pretty good Just two hundred and six o Ior have anything happen to ain I'd tell a couple of easy ones and work up to how I had pulled the quiet girl's hair and how I had enjoyed the year being sick If it was going to be this easy, maybe I could blurt out several a day, ically, or I could work fro on ht I talked about how I had hinted to a ghost girl that I wished I had a doll of ether-that she hadn't given it to enerosity but because I had hinted But on the fifth night (I skipped two to reward myself) I decided it was time to do a really hard one and tell her about the white horse And suddenly the duck voice came out, which I did not use with the fa out talking to es-no, not the sages, more like the buddhas but not real people like the buddhas (they've always lived in the sky and never turned into people like the buddhas)-and you whisper to theicians? What do you call it when you talk to the boss uess”
”I did that Yes That's it That's what I did I talked-to-the-top-ician and asked for a white horse” There Said
”M the starch out of the collar and cuffs But I had talked, and she acted as if she hadn't heard
Perhaps she hadn't understood I had to be more explicit I hated this ”I kneeled on the bed in there, in the laundry bedrooht I heard h the kitchen, and I had promised the God in the movies, the one the Mexicans and Filipinos have, as in ”God Bless America,” that I would not read comic books anymore if he would save me just this once; I had broken that promise, and I needed to tell all this to my mother too-”and in that ludicrous position asked for a horse”
”M
On hts off, I had sat on the floor too but had not said a word
”Mother,” I whispered and quacked
”I can't stand this whispering,” she said looking right at ht I wish you would stop Go away and work Whispering, whispering,your craziness”
So I had to stop, relieved in so at my throat, bite by bite, fros, and too late to get therew old and died
I had probably interrupted her in the middle of her own quiet tiht flew against the s inthe shi+rts for the next day's pressing was probably my mother's time to ride off with the people in her own mind That would explain why she was so far away and did not want to listen tositter, brought a third box now, to rest his feet on He patted his boxes He sat in wait, hunching on his pile of dirt My throat hurt constantly, vocal cords taut to snapping One night when the laundry was so busy that the whole fa dinner there, crowded around the little round table,I looked directly at my mother and at orilla-ape, to go away and never bother us again I knohat you're up to You're thinking he's rich, and we're poor You think we're odd and not pretty and we're not bright You think you can give us away to freaks You better not do that, Mother I don't want to see him or his dirty boxes here tooing away anyway I a I' with my brain Do you knohat the Teacher Ghosts say about me? They tell et into colleges I've already applied I'et A's, and they say I could be a scientist or aand take care of myself So you don't have to find ain I'es, I can write fifteen I can do ghost things even better than ghosts can Not everybody thinks I' to be a slave or a wife Even if I aet sick, I won't let you turnout of here I can't stand living here anymore It's your fault I talk weird The only reason I flunked kindergarten was because you couldn't teach ht s follow in lines at school They take stories and teach us to turn thelish words for et scholarshi+ps, and I'e I'll have the people I like for friends I don't care if their great-greatgrandfather died of TB I don't care if they were our eneet that ape out of here I' to Chinese school any to run for office at Aet enough offices and clubs on e And I can't stand Chinese school anyway; the kids are rowdy and ht And I don't want to listen to any ic They scramble me up You lie with stories You won't tell me a story and then say, 'This is a true story,' or, 'This is just a story' I can't tell the difference I don't even knohat your real names are I can't tell what's real and what youYou tried to cut off ue, but it didn't work” So I told the hardest ten or twelve things on my list all in one outburst
Myat the same time ”I cut it to make you talk more, not less, you duht I didn't say I was going to marry you off Did I ever say that? Did I ever mention that? Those newspaper people were for your sister, not you Who would want you? Who said we could sell you? We can't sell people Can't you take a joke? You can't even tell a joke from real life You're not so setting married, never!”