Quiet As They Come. Angie Chau
folds over and we all run. I am running and my shirt has fallen but I don’t care. From half a block away I throw a rock aiming at his head. It grazes his blue fishing hat and clangs off his garage door. He’s tugging the eagle wings of his belt buckle. It’s cinched so high, the eagle soars toward his chest. His other hand is waving above his head, beckoning, daring us to return.
Frank says, “If you’d hit him you would have really been busted.”
I pull my shirt up and say, “I don’t care.”
While Frank ties the bow in back for me he says, “Girl, you’d be sent back to Nam.”
I say, “If I’m lucky.” There’s another chalk rock in my hand. I clutch it so tight it digs dent marks in my fist. I throw it on the ground and watch it break into little pieces.
I want to cry. But I can’t. I know that if I cry, the kids will cry too and I can’t let that man beat us. Make us look stupid, so that everyone would see us, dripping and wet, a bunch of snotty-nosed kids, sorry and parentless, on the Fourth of July.
We walk for two blocks and then little Sophia says, “Hooray, the plane!”
Marcel and Dean point up at the blue sky. Using their Tattoo from Fantasy Island nasally voice they say, “Look boss, the plane, the plane,” cracking each other up.
We speed up because seeing the plane means that we’re almost at the swimming pool. From a distance, the playground looks like a giant piece of aluminum foil. The silver plane is in the middle of a sawdust box surrounded by slides and swing sets. Everything is so shiny it’s blinding. I think we’ll burn if we walk closer. The little kids don’t care. They run ahead.
I scream after them, “Don’t go down the slide. It’ll burn the back of your legs.” Then I turn to Frank and ask, “What’s a Jap anyway?”
He says, “It means Japanese, duh! Why?”
“That’s what the man called us, remember? Japs. Dirty Japs. We’re not even Japanese.”
Frank says, “I know, but we all look the same to them.”
I don’t say anything. I have to think about what it means.
Frank puts his arm around me. He says, “Don’t worry about it. Humpty Dumpty was just a jerk.” He’s walking beside me so close I can hear his stomach growl. I think he’s being a softie because he’s hungry until his hand reaches behind my neck and tries to pull at my bow. “Don’t you remember? Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these!” Frank lifts his shirt and flashes his nipples and sticks his tongue out. “Just like yours!” he says.
Frank disappears into the belly of the plane. On its side in faded black letters it says U.S.S. Coral Sea. It could have been a real plane, used in a real war, like the war we came from. I bet the plane hides lots of secrets too.
I don’t see the kids but I can hear their muffled voices echoing inside as if they’ve been swallowed. I yell down the cockpit and bang on the doors. I want them out. I want to see my sister’s snaggle tooth, and Marcel’s goggle eyes, and Sophia’s pout, and Sammie’s broom hair, and Dean’s furry mole, and Frank with the chin always jutting out like a dare.
“Let’s go swimming. C’mon are you ready or not?” I stomp on the wings with both feet jumping up and down. They don’t answer. They’re shhing each other quiet beneath me. I think of my uncle who my mom said betrayed the family by staying in underground tunnels with the Viet Cong all those years. I yell, “Last one out’s a Commie. See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.” I hear the scuttle of footsteps on tin. They sound like a herd of stallions galloping into the light. This works each time. In our family there is nothing worse than being considered a VC.
At the Charlie Sava Swimming Pool, we wait in line behind a busload of kids. They all have matching blue t-shirts that says San Francisco Chinese Baptist Church on them. The boys wear gold crosses and are eating bologna sandwiches. They drink grape sodas and have purple moustaches above their lips. The girls wear gold crosses and Hello Kitty barrettes and tell the boys they’re not supposed to eat before they swim. They say, “I heard you’ll sink if you eat too much.” I feel so weak, I think I’ll sink because I’ve eaten too little.
My mom says that unless we turn into Chinese Baptists, the church sponsors will kick us out of our house with our dark halls, loose door knobs, wobbly chandeliers, and bathroom lines. My mom says she doesn’t want to be Baptist and neither do my uncles and aunts, but we have to pretend that we do for as long as we can. I just hope if it happens, I don’t have to wear a gold cross. Jewelry gives me a rash.
The line moves as slow as a granny. My little sister is biting the inside of her cheek. Marcel is staring out at the traffic, glassy-eyed. Frank isn’t even looking at the Chinese girls anymore. The smell of chlorine and wet towels is making me sick. My stomach feels like there is somebody kicking it from the inside out. I hold it like a watermelon and try to pat it down. When the lady inside the ticket booth says, “You’re up, honey,” I don’t know what to do.
I reach to pay. We can’t turn around now. But then five-year- old Sammie whispers something into Frank’s ear and starts crying. Sophia sees this and begins to bawl. Frank puts his hand up like a crosswalk guard. He comes to me and says, “The cry babies say they’re too hungry to swim.” Even though Frank wants to act hard, his stomach rumbles loud as a fog horn, louder than the crying kids. He says, “I guess we should spend the money on food?”
At the bus stop, Dean says, “What a waste!”
Michelle my copycat sister says, “What a shame!”
They don’t want to take the bus because if we walk we can save the money for food. It’d be fine except the little ones are holding their bellies and saying they can’t walk any further.
Marcel says, “This sucks! Maybe we should split up.”
I tell him, “Fine, walk. But you won’t get any extra pizza.”
Frank backs me up and says, “Yeah, it’s still a community pot.”
We ride the bus with our eyes looking down. We look at the aisle’s ridges and the gum stuck in the ruts. We don’t notice the blue skies, or the green leaves, or the smiling flowers everywhere. We only see the oil spills that rise like genies from the streets and think one wish, give me just one.
Inside Big Yo’s, it’s dark and the lights are off. The pizza parlor feels like outer space because of the blinking video games and flashing beer signs and the ring from the TV with the volume on high. There’s a man under the TV and he gets up from his stool. The fan on the counter blows his hair into cotton candy clouds. He says, “What you kids want?” But we don’t say anything. “Why aren’t ya barbecuing or something with the rest of the masses out there?” He signals toward the open door and squints against the glare of sun streaming in. We all look down at the black and white checkered floors. He says, “Whatever,” and goes back to his seat.
He’s watching Giants baseball. When he’s not in front of the fan his hair settles into waves like the ones in Malaysia. Not too big and not too small but fun enough. He has nice eyes and big white teeth. He asks me, “See something ya like?”
I blush. I can see my face in the mirrored beer sign all red. I can see my goose bumps because I get cold when I’m hungry. I can see my hair flattened against my head, and my soggy shirt with the little triangles poking through, a shy hello, right under where it says Chips on my chest.
“Just holler,” he says. “It’s the bottom of the ninth and we’re down by two. But we already have two men on base and only one out.” He punches his left palm with his right fist and says, “C’mon now, nice and easy, nice and easy.” When he does this, he looks like Erik Estrada.
The kids are hovering around Ms. Pac-Man. They are fighting over who gets to hold on to the joy stick. Frank is sitting with his head on the table. He’s not being bossy anymore. He’s just holding his stomach with both of his hands. I collect everyone’s