A Long Stay in a Distant Land Page 6

  "We were supposed to get Bo," Larry whispered.

  "You wouldn't have gotten me," Bo whispered back. Crickets were chirping in the background. There was the rush of water in the distance. They were near a river.

  "Bo let us use the tape machine," Sonny whispered. "That's good enough. Ah-Bah's a better mark anyway."

  "How long are we going to sit here?" Larry asked.

  "Until he shows up," Sonny said. "And lower your voice."

  "There he is!" Bo said, excitement in his voice.

  "Quiet," Sonny said. "All of you, shut up."

  There was now just the sound of crickets and the rushing stream. Then Larry began giggling, and soon he was joined by Bo.

  "Quiet!" Sonny whispered firmly. "What's so funny? Where else do you expect the old man to take a piss?"

  "Do it now," Larry said.

  Then, in a scene Esther could clearly picture: Melvin having just urinated into the river, his shorts unzipped and his sons huddled in bushes nearby under cover of darkness, and Sonny shouting in a low, Southern-accented voice, "Bend over, purty boy!"

  "What?" Melvin answered, his voice small and uncertain, with a slight fear that brought a smile to Esther's face as she listened.

  Melvin must have instantly zipped his shorts back up because Sonny shouted again in his accented voice, "Take them shorts off!"

  "Who's there?" Melvin asked. "What do you want?"

  "Take them off, you hairy monkey!"

  "Sonny?" Melvin asked.

  "Let's go," Larry whispered.

  "Wait," Bo whispered back. The firmness in his voice struck Esther, the fact that he was telling his oldest brother what to do, the fact that Bo, in a day, had gone from potential victim to accomplice, having been successfully initiated into his brothers' confidence.

  There was a moment of excitement as the boys nervously tittered and bumped each other. "Don't mess with me!" Melvin said. "I'm a veteran! I've been in combat."

  The boys erupted into laughter.

  "Sonny," Melvin's voice boomed from the distance, "you better run!"

  "Let's go," Sonny said. "Bo, give me the tape deck."

  "Come on!" Larry shouted.

  "I'm going to kick your ass!" Melvin shouted, his voice louder now than it was before.

  "It's too heavy for you," Sonny said, "and we've got to go."

  "Here."

  There was no resistance on Bo's part. He simply gave it up. No cajoling needed. No hesitation.

  She listened to her sons' escape, to the sound of rustling bushes and crackling leaves, of wild shouts, flight, and laughter.

  July 25th

  The sound of Melvin's buzz-saw snoring, of a sleeping bag being unzipped.

  "Hey, where are you going?" Sonny whispered.

  "Out for a walk," Bo said.

  "It's pitch black."

  "I have a flashlight."

  "Go back to sleep and shut up," Larry mumbled.

  The sound of Bo's walking, the sound of Melvin's snoring getting smaller. Crickets chirping loudly now. The sigh of tree leaves bothered by a breeze.

  "Wait up," Sonny said.

  The rush of a river growing louder.

  "Watch yourself," Sonny said. "If you fall, I'm not coming in to get you."

  "I want to be alone," Bo said.

  "You're always alone. Why don't you try being with people for once?"

  Bo didn't answer.

  "Why don't you like us?" Sonny asked.

  "Of course I like you," Bo said. "You're my family."

  "You treat us like we're in the way, usually in the way to your room."

  "You guys are always at each other's throats," Bo said.

  "I get along with Ah-Bah," Sonny said.

  "Every time you come over, either you or Larry end up doing or saying something to make Ah-Mah angry. Then she starts yelling. Then Ah-Bah starts yelling at her to stop yelling. Then you and Larry are yelling back." He paused. "It's quieter in my room."

  "We're brothers," Sonny said.

  "Just because I don't follow you everywhere like Larry—"

  "Larry doesn't follow me everywhere," Sonny said.

  "He's your yes-man."

  "He's loyal."

  "Like a German shepherd," Bo said.

  "What's your problem?"

  "I wanted to be alone."

  "We're in the middle of the woods," Sonny said. "It's pitch black. There's nobody around. What if you fell in the river?"

  "I can swim."

  A pause.

  "Hey."

  "Relax," Sonny said. "What do you think, I'm following you just so I can push you in with that machine? I want to sit. I'm tired."

  A long pause.

  Some twigs snapped. Was Sonny just realizing that the Super-scope was recording? Did he care?

  "Why'd you bring that, anyway?" Sonny asked. "You should have left it at home."

  "It made Ah-Mah happy for me to take it along."

  "It's too heavy," Sonny said.

  "Yeah."

  "That's what you get for being her favorite," Sonny said, and Esther detected a hint of bitterness in his voice.

  "You don't have to listen to her complain about Ah-Bah," Bo said. "Every night."

  "Why do you think Larry and I used to get out of the house as much as possible?"

  "I want to go somewhere," Bo said.

  "TJ?" Sonny asked.

  "Hong Kong."

  "What are you going to do in Hong Kong?"

  "I don't know," Bo said. "Ah-Bah made it sound like a fun place to live."

  "Kind of far, don't you think?"

  "You'd miss me?" Bo asked.

  "Ah-Mah would. A lot."

  "You don't know how hard it is. I'm cramming for a math exam and she's moaning about Ah-Bah walking around in his underwear."

  Esther made a mental note: Don't complain about Melvin to Bo. But maybe she'd already made herself too much of a burden on him, made herself irrevocably an obstacle in his path, as Sonny had said. And worst of all, it was Melvin who'd planted the seed in Bo, filling his head with visions of Hong Kong, of all places. That overcrowded shopping mall of a city.

  "After I graduate from college, I'm going to leave," Bo said. "If she wants to call, she'll have to complain long distance and pay for it."

  "You're only fifteen," Sonny said.

  "And?"

  "I guess it's okay to plan eight years ahead."

  "You're going to stay in Orange County?" Bo asked.

  "Mirla likes it here," Sonny said. "Besides, after you leave, someone will have to make sure Ah-Mah doesn't kill herself."

  "She won't kill herself."

  "No," Sonny said, "but she's not going to be happy when she hears this."

  Good Form

  (1989-2002)

  After Bo moved to Hong Kong in 1989, Esther thought he'd feel the same way she did when he read her letters, that despite the passing of friends and lovers, they would each remain the most important person to the other.

  She wrote about afternoons gardening and weekends playing mah-jongg with friends in Chinatown. She had the postman take pictures of her every few weeks. She didn't need him to remember her as a younger woman with fewer wrinkles or gray hairs. She wanted him to see her as she was in the here and now.

  Bo wrote about his travels in Hong Kong, sightseeing from atop Victoria Peak, watching the waves from the deck of a harbor ferry, shopping in the various clothing and grocery districts in Kowloon.

  He included photos of concrete skyscrapers cascading down the sides of green hills, fishermen selling the day's catch in makeshift booths of tarp and wood, children hawking Gucci and Christian Dior handbags in alleyways.

  "I bought some pork buns from a street vendor and saw a Mel Gibson movie," he wrote.

  "There's a place here with incredible chicken feet. I can suck on them all day.

  "I've been writing Louis. He's a good kid. Of my nephews, he's the one I like best.

  "You're right. He's the only nephe
w who writes me, but I still like him better than the other ones."

  After he met Julie, he began sending photos of her, and the I changed to We. "We went sightseeing at Victoria Peak. We saw a movie. We ate chicken feet."

  It broke Esther's heart. She wanted him to remain happily alone, to feel as completely fulfilled from receiving her letters as she felt from receiving his.

  After Julie died in '93 from cancer, Bo stopped answering his phone and writing.

  "How do I know if you're sick or not?" she wrote. "Or if you have any money? Can you let me know you're alive and in good health? Tell me you plan to keep on living. I'll come visit if you don't respond."

  It surprised her that Julie's death had affected him so much, and she wondered if her own could affect him even more. She wrote of pains and aches she didn't have, but which her mahjongg friends had talked about. She described arthritis and the occasional tightness in the chest, which she'd heard was like a fist squeezing the heart, and which wasn't actually a tightness so much as it was a pain that made it hurt to breathe. "But don't worry," she wrote Bo. "The pain is very, very severe no more than four times a week. I truly enjoy my new walking cane. It's polished oak."

  He wrote back, "Ah-Mah, no need to visit. I'm fine, but I'm worried about your health. I asked Sonny to take you to a doctor. I hope you feel better."

  "I don't believe you're fine," she wrote. "Write me more like you used to. I can buy an airplane ticket anytime. I can be there in a couple days. I can't believe you told Sonny."

  "You're not well enough to travel," he wrote. "I'm fine. Here. I'm writing more. Like here. Right now. More."

  To make matters worse, Sonny arrived one afternoon to take her to a doctor. "You're getting a checkup," he said.

  "Nothing's wrong with me," she said, and Sonny talked about her symptoms, the list of pains she'd given Bo, all the aches her youngest son should have kept to himself. "I thought you got a new walking cane," Sonny said. "Why would I need a cane? Go home." She wanted Bo to write more, but she didn't want to anger him by being a continual nag. She would respect his privacy, but he needed to keep her updated on how he was doing. She created a form and sent it each month with a self-addressed stamped envelope. He wouldn't have to write. Wouldn't even have to pay for postage. All he'd have to do was check the boxes. If the most she could have was a set of X's marked in his ink, she would take it.

  She wrote, "I know you're not in the mood to write, but please fill this out:"

  A good response was:

  Bo answered her forms for eight years. He always sent a good response and she believed he'd continue doing so until he stopped.

  The U.S. and Hong Kong post offices had never mishandled a single exchange between her and her son, and Bo had always been prompt in returning the forms.

  She sent an additional form every three weeks and waited for his reply. Given mail delay or delay on Bo's part, a response should still have arrived already. She waited five months before phoning him, which he'd made her promise never to do.

  "Wei?"

  "I'm calling for my son Bo," Esther said in Cantonese. "Can I talk to him?"

  "I'm sorry. He moved out."

  "Where?"

  "He told me not to give out any information, especially to his mother or family."

  Esther felt a bit of satisfaction in the fact that Bo had distinguished her from the rest of the family. "I have a right to know. Are you a mother?"

  "I have a son."

  "As a mother, you have a responsibility to tell me where he is."

  "He made me promise not to tell," the woman said.

  "I'm worried sick."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Tell me."

  "He's alive and in good health. I know this for a fact, so please don't worry."

  "I need to talk to him," Esther said.

  The woman didn't respond.

  "You're a cold-hearted dog!" Esther shouted.

  When it began she thought an illness was surfacing and clouding her vision. The tears fell down her face faster than she could wipe away with her hand. Images she'd repressed now crystallized and she began sobbing for Bo, who in that moment was dead, his body crushed under an overturned taxi, his throat slashed by a mugger, his bones shattered from a leap off a skyscraper.

  Who was this woman to tell her Bo was alive and in good health? For all Esther knew, this woman wasn't even a woman, much less a mother, but a man squeezing his vocal cords to squeak out a high voice.

  Where had he gone? Did he kill himself? Why did he kill himself for Julie when his mother was alive and worth writing to?

  Esther cried and the woman said nothing. She forced herself to quiet down. She sat up straight. She would not present herself badly, sniffling like a little girl. She held the phone away from her face and resurrected Bo. She imagined him slowly sitting up from the sidewalk he'd fallen onto. She saw the slit in his throat close together perfectly, leaving no scar. She saw the taxi flip back upright. Her son rubbed his head, stood, and walked away from the crash.

  "Who the hell are you?" she asked.

  "I was his landlady, and I'm very sorry."

  Esther called Helen and Mick and told them to come to her house the next morning. She called Sonny and Louis, and neither of them answered. She left messages.

  She couldn't sleep that night. She lay awake wondering where Bo had gone. She should have told him the one thing she'd never tell anyone else, that she prized him above his brothers and father. He had no right to disappear on her.

  Hours passed on her alarm clock. She listened to the crickets until they got tired and stopped chirping.

  She stared at the ceiling and wished Bo good health wherever he was. She wished him delicious meals, a firm bed, and warm blankets. She tried to remember all she could see, hear, and touch of him. Everything her memory would allow.

  Lucky Boy

  (1988)

  The summer Louis's parents decided to vacation in Montreal was the summer he'd been planning to learn nine thousand new words so he could go guns blazing in his school's next spelling bee.

  His father, Sonny, had just received a raise that afforded them five days in an exotic, but not too exotic, locale. Louis overheard the travel plans through their bedroom door.

  "Paris?" his father asked. "We don't have enough money for Paris."

  "Boston's exotic?" his mother asked.

  "What about Tijuana?"

  There was silence that must have been initiated by his mother's stare of rebuke, given out for C grades and incorrect travel suggestions.

  "Toronto?" his father asked softly.

  "Same continent," his mother said.

  "They speak French in Montreal, Mirla."

  There was a long pause before his mother said, "Fine," with a note of disappointment in her voice.

  She came out and broke the news to him.

  "Can't you leave me here?" he asked. He'd typed a schedule for the coming months and didn't want to sacrifice five days that could be used to memorize words De through Eg.

  "Do you have any idea how fortunate you are to have parents willing to take you to a foreign country?" she asked. "When I was your age, I got weekend trips to the Garden Grove Sears."

  She was not interested in his quest to take the school spelling title from Jason Hahn, the defending champion. She felt that because geography was the only subject he was getting C's in, geography was what he should be focusing on. Her disappointment only encouraged him not to focus on geography.

  Learning to spell correctly was a righteous undertaking to Louis. A word could have various meanings, alternative pronunciations, a language of origin, and an etymology. An entire history behind each combination of letters.

  Why waste time memorizing cities and countries? That's what atlases were for. Words were more interesting. Like the word cleave, which meant either adhering to or dividing. It had opposite meanings, which Jason Hahn couldn't fathom when he said, "Louis, you can't say, 'The baby panda cleaved to his m
other.' You can't use cleaved that way." What good was knowing how to spell a word without knowing the meaning(s)? That was morally irresponsible and proved that Jason did not deserve the spelling title.

  "I'll bring my word lists with me," Louis said to his mother.

  "This is a vacation," she said. "None of us is bringing any work. No studying. Why are you so obsessed with the spelling bee? How is knowing how to spell loquacious going to help you in life? Why do you think we keep a dictionary in the house?"

  "Because you and Dad can't spell."

  "Do you even know where Montreal is?"

  "Of course," Louis said even though he had no idea. "It's directly north of us."

  "So if I draw a line that runs straight from Orange County up through Canada, I'll pass Montreal?"

  He nodded and waited for her to tell him he was wrong. When she didn't, he felt a swell of pride. He smiled, expecting her to apologize for underestimating his knowledge of Canadian cities. "I'm exactly right, of course."

  "Of course," she said.

  "It's wonderful how we're flying a straight line north from southern California," his mother said, not looking up from her in-flight shopping catalog. Louis sat between her and his father, who was snoring softly, his head pressed against the window as if he was looking out at the white clouds below them that dotted the blue sky.

  Before they'd taken off, his mother had asked a stewardess to show him their route. The stewardess had pulled out a map of North America and drawn with her finger a line that ran northeast from the red dot of Los Angeles to a red dot on the other side of the continent.

  Louis ignored his mother and she continued flipping through the catalog.

  When the stewardess came by with the beverage cart, he refused his peanuts and soda. "I'm fasting until I return to my country," he said. "And definitely no legumes. L-e-g-u-me-s. Legumes."

  His mother closed the catalog and set it on her lap. She folded down her tray table and requested an orange soda and a bag of peanuts. Then she looked at him. "You might not appreciate this trip now. But I want you to know you are a very lucky boy.

  When you're older, you'll look back on this day and realize how ungrateful you've acted toward me.

  "When you were born, your grandmother wanted to have you. She wanted a baby around her house. She wanted to raise another child. She said to me, 'I would give anything to have Louis.'"