A Long Stay in a Distant Land Page 17

  He came out and sat back down on the sofa.

  "It's fine to have a healthy ego," she said.

  "I've had a very, very unhealthy ego. I've been thinking of Mirla as my right leg. I used to think that was a compliment."

  "You're my son," she said. It was a silly thing to say, as if being her son alone justified Mirla-as-leg as a compliment. She seemed to know it and waited for him to call her on it, which he didn't.

  "I talked to Louis," she said. "Bo's doing fine."

  "Good."

  "Do you want to know where he met Bo?" she asked.

  "Sure."

  They met at a McDonald's. Louis ate cheeseburgers while they talked. Bo worked in a bakery. Bo was alive and that was good, and Sonny didn't care for the other details about the landlady and her family. He waited for the Benadryl to make his mother drowsy. At around the half-hour mark she leaned back against the sofa cushion and closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed.

  He waited, didn't move, breathed as quietly as he could. He put two fingers under her nostrils and felt the gentle exhalation of air.

  When he was certain she'd fallen deep into sleep, he went to his room. He needed a trip to see mountain ranges and rolling pastures. Tourist attractions. Things he hadn't seen before. Graceland and the Space Needle. A cross-country drive to see so many new things he wouldn't have room left in his head to think about Hersey Collins. Louis would understand.

  He imagined sleeping seven consecutive hours in a quiet motel, the Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the door. He packed his clothes, half his records, and his passport. He packed his cell phone. He packed a toothbrush and a half-empty tube of toothpaste. Reading glasses. His watch. A framed photo of Mirla holding Louis when he was a baby. Then he tiptoed to the kitchen. He peeled several sheets off a yellow Post-it pad and stuck them on the kitchen table:

  Louis,

  Taking a trip. The house is all yours while I'm gone. I left half my records for you. Learn some culture. I'll write again when I'm settled down somewhere.

  Ah-Mah,

  Thanks for staying up with me. Went to see Hersey. Don't follow. I'll be gone before you get there. Don't worry. Won't kill him.

  A Kind of Communion

  (1987-1988)

  Louis' father, Sonny, once visited Golden Harvest Baptist Church. It was a Saturday morning and Louis had been planning to spend the afternoon reading the dictionary when his father came to his room and announced, "Your mom's church is giving food to homeless people."

  Louis was looking at the page beginning with "phenomenalistic" and ending with "philoprogenitiveness."

  "Your mom asked us to stop by."

  "I'm studying for the spelling bee," Louis said.

  His father was standing near the doorway, his immense form blocking it. He looked over Louis's head at the far wall, at the bookshelf that held Louis's encyclopedia set and the dust-covered globe his mother had bought with the hope of improving his geography grade. "I understand," Louis's father said. "That would probably be a much better way to spend a Saturday and I won't force you to come with me."

  "Okay. I'll see you later."

  "You're coming with me."

  "You said you weren't going to force me," Louis said.

  "I thought you'd say yes." His father looked at Louis's dictionary with pity.

  "I'd rather study."

  "I understand," his father said, "but it's your mother. It's church." There was a desperate look in his eyes. "You can't just let me go alone. It'll be thirty, forty-five minutes tops. Then we'll come back and you can study all night if you want. Please."

  "Fine," Louis said.

  "We'll probably be helping them hand out food."

  "Sounds fun," Louis said.

  "You're not the only one suffering, kid."

  On the drive over, Louis's father steered with his left hand and fidgeted with the radio with his right, changing from station to station.

  "Dad."

  "Yeah?"

  "Can we stay on one station?"

  "Having a hard time finding a good one."

  "Okay, but can you leave it on one anyway?"

  "Here." It was an AM news station and they listened to the stock index report the rest of the way to church.

  They arrived to find the sidewalk outside the front entrance of Golden Harvest Baptist Church filled with people. Several long folding tables had been placed end to end, with food stacked on top—loaves of French bread, bricks of Cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese, cans of beans, and bottles of grape juice.

  Louis's mother came outside and handed Louis a small green apron and a pair of white gloves. "Put these on and go give Beth a hand," she said. As he put on the apron and gloves, he noticed his mother was wearing a red bandana on her head and a pair of overalls stained with white paint.

  "You look like Aunt Jemima," he said.

  Louis's father elbowed him and said, "You look nice."

  Louis walked to where Beth Carlson was handing out food baskets to the people in line, most of whom were pushing shopping carts filled with rolled-up sleeping bags, tattered woolen coats, and gallon bottles of water.

  "Nice to see you!" Beth said. "You look happy today."

  Louis was frowning, but Beth said that to everyone she met. He stood next to her behind a table and she instructed him on what to do.

  He picked up a wicker basket, stuffed it with bread and cheese, and handed it to a man with torn sneakers and dirty jeans.

  "The juice," the man said, and Louis handed him a half-gallon bottle of grape juice.

  Louis's parents were talking right in front of the church entrance, loud enough for him to hear.

  "I spent a lot of time on it," his mother said. "Just come in for a few minutes."

  "I'm here, Mirla," his father said. "Isn't that enough? I'll help Louis pass out food."

  "Louis doesn't need help."

  At this point, Louis's father looked at Louis, who smiled, not saying a word.

  "I have to go in?" his father asked.

  "Only if you want to," his mother said.

  His father's face underwent a series of agonizing contortions before he finally said, "Fine. Let's go."

  Louis's parents headed through the open doorway and into the church.

  His mother had spent the past Saturday repainting Pastor Elkin's lectern, on which she'd also put a fresh coat of varnish, and she was eager to show off the results of her labor.

  Louis knew his father wouldn't notice the lectern. His father never liked being in church. He would probably spend most of his time looking at the exit.

  Sonny hadn't slept for two days. This was the first funeral he'd attended for an immediate family member and his back ached. He sat in the front pew thinking, How ridiculous for a man to end like this, a man who'd fought in a war, who'd lived fearlessly, moving from the comfort and familiarity of San Francisco's Chinatown to the middle of Orange County, a strange place filled with wide roads, acres of undeveloped land, and square, pristine suburban housing tracts. What a stupid thing it was, how unfair for this man to have been struck down by an ice cream truck while crossing the street in one of these supposedly safe suburbs.

  Sonny looked at the blown-up black-and-white photo of his father, Melvin, dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and skinny black tie. His eyes were stern and his mouth an even, horizontal line. He had the expression of someone angry that he'd been killed by an ice cream truck. This thought made Sonny smile, though he didn't think it was funny. He couldn't help it. He'd been feeling strange all morning, like he wanted to cry, like he wanted to laugh, like he wanted to ride a hundred miles on his bike and just be left alone for a few weeks.

  Mirla tapped his arm and mouthed, Are you okay?

  Sonny nodded.

  While the pastor delivered his message, the only thing Sonny could hear was Joplin's "The Entertainer," that annoying tune that blared unceasingly from the loudspeakers of ice cream trucks, and no doubt was playing on the one that hit his father.


  After the pastor finished delivering his message, Bo came up to speak. Sonny felt constricted. Mirla and Louis sat to his left, and Larry, Helen, and their three kids sat to his right. His father's friends and acquaintances sat behind him. The weight of everybody's presence seemed to push in on his chest, making it hard to breathe. The fabric and wood of the pews gave off a strange smell, like laundry detergent. He felt sick.

  Bo looks so calm, Sonny thought. He looks trim and fit in his suit. That's a nice suit, a blue so dark it looks black. Wonder if he got it on sale. That's a damn good suit.

  "My father was fond of aphorisms," Bo said. "I used to bring my tape player out to dinner and he would feed it his pearls of wisdom. He was particularly fond of saying, 'Cowboys who clean their guns too often will lose gunfights.' I think he was telling me not to masturbate too much."

  There was scattered laughter. Sonny smiled at Bo. Bo smiled back.

  "My father rarely burdened my brothers and me with his personal problems," Bo said. "Whatever troubles he may have had in his life, whatever personal disappointments or tragedies, he kept to himself and I've always respected him for that."

  There was silence, and in this quiet Sonny felt his heart ready to burst. He'd reached his breaking point. He didn't know he'd been heading toward a breaking point, didn't know he'd been so close, but here it was, his heart beating like a jackhammer, blood throbbing through his temples, an overwhelming state of anxiety, and the need to get the hell out of the room. He stood up.

  Bo looked at him with a confused look.

  "Sorry," Sonny said. "Keep going. It's a good speech." And with that Sonny hurried out of the pew, past Mirla and Louis, and ran down the aisle toward the exit.

  Outside he vomited that morning's orange juice, eggs, and hash browns onto the front lawn. Then he began coughing, bent over, one hand on the church's wall for support.

  Next thing he knew, Mirla was holding him, rubbing his back, and saying, "You're not going crazy."

  He couldn't actually remember standing upright and moving toward her, and he didn't remember saying, "I'm going crazy," but he must have given her that response. What he did remember was hyperventilating in her arms and leaning on her for support.

  The homeless people had scattered and leftover food dotted the tables.

  Louis's parents came back outside and his mother handed him a loaf of French bread and a bottle of grape juice. "Take them home," she said. "I'll make garlic bread."

  Louis's father looked like he'd just finished a tough math exam. "You ready?" he asked Louis.

  "Yeah," Louis said.

  "You can stay if you want," his mother said to him. "We're going to Pastor Elkin's house for music."

  Pastor Elkin sometimes held Saturday afternoon music shows at his house. Accompanied by his wife on the electric keyboard, he'd belt out renditions of Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing at All [Lord]," Hall and Oates's "[Lucifer is a] Man-eater," and other modified easy-listening standards.

  "No, thanks," Louis said.

  "Are you sure?" his mother asked.

  "Definitely."

  His mother walked them to the car. Louis put the French bread and grape juice in the backseat, then got in the front passenger seat. His father kissed his mother on the cheek, then got in the car. His mother watched as they sped out of the parking lot.

  "So what'd you think?" Louis asked.

  "She did a good job." His father scratched his head. "I really wasn't paying attention."

  "My mind wanders when I'm in church, too."

  "I'll never understand how you do it. Every Sunday morning."

  "I just think about something else. I think about all the words I'll know later that day."

  His father smiled for the first time all day. "Then let's get you home fast." He hit the pedal and they zipped sixty-five in a forty-five zone toward home.

  Sonny and Mirla were waiting outside the church as the mourners exited. By now Sonny had dried his eyes and had resumed normal breathing. Mirla continued rubbing small circles on his back with one hand as Louis approached.

  "Are you sick?" Louis asked him.

  Sonny shook his head, afraid that if he tried to speak, the words would be accompanied by a new flood of tears. He kept his mouth shut tight.

  "No," Mirla said. "Dad's just tired."

  "Okay." Louis then ran to his cousins, saying, "Look at my tie. I did it myself."

  The funeral director came outside and started counting heads. The mourners were to drive to Rose Hills Memorial Park, where Sonny's father would be buried. The train of cars would be accompanied by two CHP escorts.

  "Nine cars total, including family and friends," the director told the officers.

  Larry was going to drive Helen and their kids. Bo was going with Ah-Mah, and Sonny was supposed to drive Mirla and Louis, but Ah-Mah said, "Why don't you ride with Bo and me?"

  Mirla said, "Go with your mother," and Sonny nodded.

  The first CHP officer led the train out of the parking lot and the second rode behind it. Bo's car was the first in the group and Sonny kept his eyes fixed on the CHP motorcycle's brake light as his brother drove.

  Ah-Mah sat in the back, quiet.

  The radio had been turned off, the air conditioner had been set on medium, and the only sound was the flow of air from the vents. Soon they were on the 605 Freeway heading north. Sonny hadn't even noticed getting on the freeway.

  "I wanted to tell you two first," Ah-Mah said. "I didn't think Larry would care much, and it would be better if you told him anyway, Sonny."

  "Tell us what?" Bo asked.

  "Your father never killed anyone in World War II."

  "Okay," Bo said.

  "I just thought you should know," Ah-Mah said. "I want you two to have a truthful understanding of your father."

  "It doesn't change my opinion of him," Bo said. "I always assumed it was a story anyway, all that talk of him fighting back the Nazis."

  "He was a good man," Ah-Mah said.

  "I know that," Bo said, and Sonny heard defensiveness in his brother's voice. "It doesn't change my opinion of him. But Louis and the other kids already believe Ah-Bah killed lots of Nazis."

  "Well, it's up to you what you want your son to believe about his grandfather," Ah-Mah said to Sonny.

  Sonny wanted to say he agreed with Bo, that his father's actions in war had no bearing on the affection he held for his father, but the mere thought of that black-and-white photo, accompanied by the memory of Joplin's "The Entertainer," quickened his heart and brought him close to that breaking point once again. He bit his lip.

  Why not let Louis continue believing his grandfather had shot lots of Nazis? Wouldn't it only generate affection in the boy if he believed his grandfather had done heroic things in France?

  "You need to puke again, Sonny?" Bo asked.

  Ah-Mah caught the worry in Bo's face and poked her head up to take a look at Sonny's. "Are you sick?"

  Sonny was breathing quickly and he fought to calm down. He squeezed his knee with his right hand. "I'm not going crazy."

  "We didn't say you were," Bo said. "Do you want me to pull over?"

  Sonny kept his eyes on the CHP officer riding so calmly ahead, the sun gleaming off the silver chrome of the bike's tailpipe.

  "No. Keep driving."

  "Are you sure?" Bo asked.

  "Just keep going."

  "Is this about what I said?" Ah-Mah asked.

  "No," Sonny said. "Nothing to do with you."

  As they drove by barren, brown hills that swelled along the right side of the freeway, Sonny wondered what effect the truth would have on Louis. Probably none. His son hadn't been fazed by the funeral proceedings, and had seemed more curious than grieved.

  Sonny's father was dead, killed on a warm, quiet Saturday afternoon, and there was nothing in this world that could change that fact. The CHP officer signaled right and diverted the train of cars toward the freeway exit. Sonny's eyes followed the officer, sitting erect
and alert on his motorcycle. As the car approached the rising green pastures of Rose Hills, Sonny thought over and over, hoping repetition would make the wish reality, Let me never feel this way again. Never again.

  Hersey Collins

  (2002)

  Sonny had always been touched by Louis calling him old bean. It'd been a term only his son used. Because of that, it'd been a term of endearment even when Louis was angry, as when Sonny refused to buy him a Nintendo game cartridge.

  "Old bean!" Louis had said. "You're such a stingy old bean!" The memory of Louis standing in the Toys "R" Us aisle and refusing to move made Sonny smile. He was disappointed Louis had discovered the correct tone because old bean was, as Mirla had often said, such a nice touch.

  It was selfish of him not to have corrected Louis, to have let the boy grow up using poor Cantonese for his satisfaction, to have avoided being called an old man.

  He was now an old man visiting a young man, with butterflies in his stomach. He felt silly for being nervous, for this queasiness similar to what he'd felt on his first date with Mirla. He was confronting the man who'd killed her, and he felt like a fifteen-year- old boy picking up a girl. He didn't know what he'd say, how he'd stand, whether to put his hands in his pockets or not. Didn't know how Hersey would respond. It was three-thirty in the morning. He'd probably be sleeping.

  Sonny gripped the wheel tightly and drove through quiet, empty streets. He knew the path to Hersey's well, having driven it in his head thousands of times. Hersey lived in a duplex in Garden Grove, where rent was cheaper than nearby Huntington Beach or Costa Mesa. Adult book stores and strip clubs had lowered property values.

  He lived four miles away, a very short distance by car, a drive that was over before Sonny had even thought of turning on the radio.

  It was a cream-colored building with dark brown shingles, with a front yard that was more dirt than lawn, and there Hersey Collins stood in a baby-blue bathrobe and green flip-flops watering the front dirt with a garden hose.

  Sonny tooted his horn, as if to let a friend know he'd arrived. He felt stupid after he did it. He wasn't a friend and this wasn't a friendly visit. He got out of the car and as he approached, his shadow enveloped the young man. Sonny noticed the wideness of his own body. Because he used to ride so much, he'd become accustomed to taking in a high number of calories to make up for the calories burned. After he stopped riding, he continued eating the same amount without working off the excess—late night snacks of salty chips and ice cream had fattened him, given him a protruding gut and love handles that he pulled on when he was frustrated. Louis was right. He needed to lose twenty pounds.