Fall Semester: Part 1, Indian Summer

For Joseph, summer in suburbia Scarborough, Ontario was sitting quietly by the corner of the wooden porch, watching the family of squirrels diligently racing up and down the grand maple in the backyard to collect various kinds and sizes of nuts and fruits. The smallest one was no larger than the fist of Joseph's young hand; it perked and jerked its furry little body in its own staccato rhythm, ran about vivaciously imitating the demeanor of the older ones. If a butterfly in its zeal strayed too far from mother Ling-lai's flowerbeds of tulips and carnations, the little squirrel would at once drop his collecting chore, bounce, jump and chase his new found plaything with his unique single-mindedness. Towering above, black birds passed by bemusedly over the clear blue sky, sometimes pausing at a high branch to take a breather and witnessed aloofly the family's activities before continuing their laborious journeys. On special occasions, a wandering skunk would lose his way and stumble into Chang's backyard, and that would always cause quite a commotion. The family scrambled quickly and scurried up the maple with eyes pinned on the intruder—father squirrel raised his tail, lowered his head and gated the tree base with his own body in vigilance and tension, until the newcomer eventually found his directional sense and retreated from the grounds peacefully. Such excitement always brought a smile to Joseph's face, who was simply delighted by every turn of events in his microcosmic natural world.

Ling-lai watched his young son lovingly as she washed a handful of plates from afternoon tea in the kitchen sink. Raising his head from his perusal of the Saturday edition of The Toronto Star at the kitchen table, Wah-hung noticed his wife's weak, blissful smile as she stared at the backyard. "He doesn't have many friends, Wah-hong," feeling her husband's glance, she commented with tender concern. "He is happy dear," Wah-hong returned his attention to the paper. Ling-lai laid the cleaned plates carefully on the white plastic dish rack and began chopping green onions and bok-choy with dexterity. A warm, drumming beat began to resonate throughout the small but cozy kitchen, decorated simply with several well-spaced Chinese calligraphy. The late afternoon sun dyed the kitchen walls through the cheap metal blinds in broad stripes of egg-yolk yellow and tangerine orange. "Whee! Whee!" The boiling kettle announced flamboyantly that the jasmine tea refills were ready. "I'll get it," Wah-hung folded his newspaper neatly and walked towards the stove.

******************************************************************

On a warm late summer day in September, the Chang's, whose well weathered Honda Accord was meticulously packed to the top with Joseph's belongings, drove up a long winding driveway that cut across large fields of attentively manicured, lush green grass. The blazing sun pressed hard to leave his fingerprints on the school’s playground with blinding rays and simmering energy. In front of them was a large formidable boarding house in the old English tradition: sturdy red bricks layered one-by-one painstakingly, with large, white window panels and a gently sloped, ceramic-tiled roof built to withstand any Torontonian snow storm. This was where Joseph would again reside in his second year—eighth grade—in St. Stephen's College, a private boy’s school in the northern countryside of Toronto. Staring out of the car window, Joseph looked at the familiar building through his large discerning eyes with both nostalgia and anticipation. What experiences and impressions would a new school year bring to young Joe?

In slow, deliberate motion, the Chang's trekked with blankets and suitcases full of summer and fall clothing laboriously down the long hallway towards Joseph's pre-assigned boarding room. Unexpectedly welcoming them was an early arriving student’s blaring music, booming haughtily, “I am the sun, I am the air …”, that permeated like suffocating black smoke through the hot, sticky air in the corridor. A muscular teen leaned nonchalantly by the entrance to his dorm room with his arms crossed in front of his chest, eyes piercing at his fellow returnees to the old asylum. Dressed in a deep navy polo shirt and rolled-up khaki pants, his tanned bulging arms stood in strong contrast to his soft blond hair shadowing the left half of his young face. "Hey, Ivan,” Joseph acknowledged his unavoidable peer begrudgingly. "Hey yourself, Joe. Summer sun treated ya good, huh? Back to the grind now, you and me," Chewing his bubble gum without a pause, Ivan spoke jovially with his head perfectly still, his eyes following the steady motion of his smaller colleague with sharp focus. "Yeah, back to school. Ain't so bad though. 'Least the weather's nice," Joseph made an effort to reply. "If you say so, Joey boy. Ain't gonna stay nice forever, I tell you. I'd be seeing ya," Ivan shifted his eyes to another returnee. Joseph dug his head and continued his trot to his destination. Ling-lai and Wah-hung watched and trailed their young son in silence.

A skinny, inconspicuous boy with a thick, dark brown mop top stood waiting at the end of the corridor in excited anticipation; his hands were turning pages restlessly back and forth through an already worn copy of Stephen King’s “Christine” in jerky, unnatural movements. His oversized dark rimmed glasses displayed both an innate intelligence and a juvenile bashfulness. He raised his head nervously as the Chang’s approached. "Joseph! Welcome back! Stayed cool in them hot summer days? Hello Mr. and Mrs. Chang." Ben spoke articulately in a pretended mature tone, though his light brown eyes shifted quickly and betrayed his youth and lack of confidence. "Did ya catch King's new 'Christine'? Boy, he's really outdone himself this time, check out this dude here..." Ben continued his speech privately with Joseph in fast, unrelated spurts. "Yeah, I hear ya, I hear ya," Joseph nodded and occasionally smiled faintly in response, both resuming a strange but familiar communication pattern that the pair had long ago established. Ling-lai and Wah-hung again observed in silence as Joseph resumed his fated role in this second-home habitat, one that neither parent was familiar or accustomed to witnessing.

“So Joseph, another year in St. Stephen’s! Do you best and have some fun,” Wah-hung spoke in a fatherly tone as he entered the family’s Honda. The setting sun continued to burn warmly all earthly things within the torch’s range, and the car seats felt soft and searing like pancakes. “Just be careful, okay?” Ling-lai also stepped stoically into the car compartment, hiding well her yearnings and concerns for her only son. “I’ll be fine, ma. I will call you on the weekend … bye,” Joseph spoke casually, searching but unable to read the expressions on his parents’ faces. After an unspeakable moment of silence, Wah-hung pulled away in slow, steady movements; Joseph stood watching at the dorm entrance, leaning against the rusted rail with peeling green paint. It was too hot to touch with bare hands. “Joseph will be fine, right?” Ling-lai whispered under her breath. “My son will survive, somehow, in his world and in his ways,” Wah-hung assured himself and his wife, "we have to let him be, walk his destiny." He sped away without permitting himself to look back.

Invisible: Part 3, in madness

"Candy, are you listening to Ma?" Mom's voice wakes me from my delarium. Curled up tight like an infant inside the frigid, dark apartment in the still of the night, my vision merges with the dim flickering of the television, replaying Casablanca from the sputtering secondhand VCR for the ten thousandth time.
... Just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust...
The dialogues, flood like rainwater and meander like rapid, are poignant, lyrical and mesmorizing; they grab me by the neck tightly and do not let go, demanding my attention every time I throw myself at it. Diametric antagonists fatefully converge in an apocalyptic underworld; serendipity rekindles passion of dead souls; will the weight of destitution prove insurmountable for heroes, or will man himself dictatorially determine the rules of survival? There is one way to tell: life must be lived forwards.

"You watching Casablanca again? Aren't you sick of it yet?"
... Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake...
"It's a good flick, Ma. You know that." I spit out a response nonchalantly.
"Your dad asked about you last night. You know he doesn't talk much. He is worried too, you know."
... A kiss is still a kiss...
"Tell him I said hi. And I will come back. Eventually. So stop worrying lah. I'll call ya later."
... A sigh is just a sigh...

The phone rings again.
"Yeah, Ma."
"It's Jun. Did you remember to lock the liquor cabinet? There was a break-in."
A chill creeps ominiously up my spine. I screwed up.
"Go to the store now. Just... go. The police is there already." Jun mutters with slight irritation. "I told you not to hire no foreigners just because they are cheap. They don't know the Japanese way! Nothing but trouble ... " Minako speaks sarcastically in the background.
I hang up quickly and rush to the store.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I arrive just before midnight. Two policemen are standing by the broken glass door taking photos and scribbling notes. Every jerk and twitch of their bodies reveals their extreme annoyance with the outing in the dead of the wintry night. Behind the broken glass door on the backshelf is an opened liquor cabinet whose content has been emptied. There is no lock on the cabinet door. "You Candy-san, yes? You locked up the store, right?" The short, corpulent policeman speaks plainly and casually. I nod in acknowledgment. "Didn't lock the cabinet, huh?" Great detective work, sir. Look with your own eyes. "You sure it ain't no Chinese friends of yours getting too happy?" My face darkens at the flippant remark, "What are you insinuating?" I growl manically at the smirking officer. "Take it easy, gal. Just a joke. We don't need you anymore. Go home." He turns around and continues his notetaking, ignoring my presence.

I stagger despondently to the train station. The business street, poorly lit by lackluster, frosty streetlights, is decorated with crushed beer cans, broken bottles and discolored vomit. Blaring Japanese rock music from a nearby pachinko parlor is registering a last attempt to lure late returning salarymen in desperation. Drunk young men and women, stumbling home in rowdy groups with cigarettes in hand, scream obsenities in random intervals. On the train platform, I stand weak and powerless.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Though I drank no liquor, I ride the packed train as drunk as the crowd that surrounds me. Hanging onto the cold metal handrail, I doze in and out of consciousness as I sway submissively with the train's every movement. Is my life a mere despicable tedium, an existence so undeserving that a neutered poodle in a pet shop, wearing hand-knitted sweaters and dangling with silver bracelets, is valued more? Drowning in my dream-like state, I suddenly feel an icy, shivering hand caressing my bottom, probing and exploring slowly further to the back of my legs. Like electricity, the intrusion sends a flash of lightning down my entire body. Turning quickly around, an eery smile flashes across a sinister face of a middle-aged man standing close behind me in black-rimmed glasses and a grey suit. I grab his hand and shove him back against the crowd with all my might. "Hey! You... pervert!" A thousand eyes instantly fix their focuses on me -- the suddenly developing freak show. I freeze at the crush of attention, unable to move or speak in the burning spotlight of the human spectacle. Just then the train sreeches to a stop; I sprint out the door in utter fright.

I run all the way home, tears streaking down my face. Finally arriving at my apartment panting heavily, I collapse on the floor completely exhausted. Lying on the tatami mat face down, a simmering, insatiable itch inside me wells up and propels me to pound the floor with my raw fists ceaselessly. Staring at my blood-red hands, the pain now feels real and personal. The pale moonlight enlivens a cageful of menacing creatures of shadow roaming around me. The dark room takes on a different shade of grey, one that is mutating, breathing and patronizing. I break down at the irony: it took a social deviant to finally make me feel human. "I am alive!! Did you hear me, ya bastards?! I am alive!!" I scream coarsely at the limit of my lungs. Deranged laughter has overcome me.

Invisible: Part 2, in languor

Mom calls again in the late afternoon. "Are you eating well? Aiyah, Candy, why do you torture yourself? Just come back to Hong Kong lah?" Sitting against the wall on the tatami mat watching the setting sun, I crack my knuckles with one hand nonchalantly while I hold the phone with the other. In the distant, a steady train of steam rising out of a long white chimney of an old bath house smears the reddening sky with a stuttering pattern. Haphazardly scattered clouds lightly smudge the expanding rouge with a tinge of dirty grey like cotton puffs on a fresh pastel drawing. A neighboring dog wakes from his mid-afternoon nap and barks energetically at unsuspecting passerby to announce his mighty presence. Soon, the radiant sunlight shifts to cover the left half of my frozen head and blinds me temporarily. A wry smile breaks slightly across my face; I like it. "Let her be, Ma," My older brother Joe voices in the background over the phone. "If she wants to suffer with them beasts, let her suffer. She will learn. You'll see." It is no secret that my overachieving financial planner brother Joe has never liked his half-witted, troublemaking little sister. I couldn't care less; I have grown quite accustomed to his acerbic comments. "Joe, don't be mean!" My mother admolishes helplessly. "Ma, I gotta go to work." I try to end the uncomfortable conversation. "Candy, just call me if you need anything, okay?"

Jun's overbearing wife Minako comes to the store to see me again. Born and raised in Osaka, she is a self-proclaimed protector of Japanese traditions and finds it in her blood to educate each and every "gaijin" foreigner the intricacies of the Japanese way. Today she is dressed again in her favorite kimono and carries a large Mitsukoshi paper bag stuffed to the brim. The pale yellow kimono is covered from the waist down with classically drawn baby blue waterlilies; frail at the collar's edges and light brown on the inner sleeves from unremovable sweat stain, it betrays the owner's habit of overuse and abuse despite determined and periodic cleaning. Matching the outfit is a painted face of concentrated SKII makekup. Layers of whitening powder and semi-professionally drawn eyelines cannot revive a bygone youth that has long ago departed, leaving behind a weary, wrinkled, middle-aged kabuki puppet. Jun grimaces at the sight of his wife approaching the entrance and retreats stealthily to the back room.

"Konichiwa, Candy-chan!" From a brilliant smile on bright red lips booms the greeting across the store. "How is your Japanese study going along? Where is Jun? ... nevermind, guess what I brought with me today?" Laying the paper bag on the counter, she reveals a large stack of roughly cut Japanese paper. So it appears she has just returned from her "shodo" calligraphy class. "We started a new cursive style 'sosho' today. Too fast! The teacher is awfully demanding on us," She pulls a carefully marked piece out of the stack and holds it up against the sun. Her eyes glitter with pride in the bright light. "You know this character? It is pronounced 'oya' or 'shitashii'; it means 'parents' or 'intimate'. Why we practice such complex characters in sosho, I don't know. They are too hard for us mere beginners," she speaks humbly as she ostentatiously displays her masterpiece in grand view. I dare not to tell her that it is woefully slanted and off-balanced -- it is hideous. After staring at it for ten seconds, I utter in propriety, "It is beautiful," She glances sideways to take in fully my appreciative facial expression. Sufficiently satisfied with my reaction, she says, "Why don't I give it to you as a present? It may help your Japanese study," she hands the poorly scribbled blurb to me. Stupid woman. I could write that character in my sleep in 2nd grade. "Thank you so very much. I will hang it in my room." Staring at it for five more seconds, I accept it with two hands, row it up slowly and place it in my bag under the counter. "You are a lovely child. You will speak wonderful Japanese in no time. Tell Jun I dropped by." In triumph, she marches out of the store confidently in broad steps.

Seeing his wife has departed, Jun drifts slowly from the back room to the counter. Lost in thoughts straddling by the hot food stand -- hot dogs and red bean buns turn perpetually on round metal tops inside glass casing, he looks pensively at the rowed up calligraphy. Wrinkle lines begin to form on his large forehead as he narrows his fatigued eyes and rubs his stubbled chin in slow strokes. He senses my observing eyes and speaks in embarrassment, "Just ... just go back to work." He mechanically stacks the refrigirated section with newly delivered bentos.

Invisible: Part 1, in convenience store

My mother calls often and asks me why I am in Tokyo. I lazily murmur something barely discernable while staring blankly at meaningless Japanese variety shows running in mute on an old cathode ray tube television set. The tiny apartment, worn and poorly insulated, is cold and damp with paper-thin walls that every scream and shout in the neighborhood is audible. The building shakes slightly with every passing train. Why do I intentionally place my soul in the unwelcoming land of bloodless monsters?

Today is work day, and I dress myself in a poorly fitted gaudy red uniform and stand behind an overstocked counter in a corner covenience store. Above my right shirt pocket pins a ridiculously large circular tag displaying my surname in Katakana. In the day time, rowdy young crowds enter in groups, chatting and laughing boisterously, buy sodas and colorfully packaged junk food in large portion. In the evening, legions of middle-aged "salarymen", carrying nondescript black suitcases and dressed in dreary dark suits, march in single file with their heads hanging down. With heavy rings deeply carved under their eyes, they pick out one of many unhealthy, refrigerated bentos, perhaps a can of cheap beer or hot coffee, throw money on the counter and exit without muttering a word. At night, the barely employed young men in their twenties stroll in silently and line the magazine rack like bathroom's urinals. They hold the adult-targeted comics and fashion magazines closely, read and reread them till they are wrinkled and smeared, and after an hour or two, leave as aimlessly as they enter without any purchases. To all who come, I am neither male nor female, neither human nor machine; I am a pathetic wallflower -- spurred annoyingly out of an off-white cement wall crack -- that exists purely by accident and out-of-place, whose life is not celebrated, whose death is not mourned or noticed. I am invisible in a city of perpetually buzzing street cars and bright neon lights, in the heart of the empire of the sun.

At work I am most fascinated by the occasional young, fashionable Japanese women who pick out a warm bottle of hot green tea or a low-calorie nutrient bar during lunch or afternoon breaks. Rail thin and heavy with makeup, they are always impeccably dressed -- tightly wrapped fishnet stockings behind long polished leather boots, knee-long mini-skirts with wool blazers seem the popular items now in winter -- with seductive, elongated eyelashes and dyed-brown and perfectly iron-curled long wavy hair. Money, gripped loosely by slender fingers with carefully manicured, multiple-painted fingernails, is always taken out from the latest European handbag costing at least twice my monthly salary. To think we are the same-aged girls occupying the same time and dimension, to fathom we breathe the same city air only meters apart ...

"Hey!! She asked you if you have any cigarettes! Are you listening?!" The muscular young man standing next to the female customer shouts. Smelling of smoke and wearing tea-colored and gold-rimmed sunglasses, a black leather jacket and long shiny chains across his jeans' pockets, he tries hard to present a menacing appearance. You bastard. If I were six-foot tall, you would whimper meekly like a neutered dog trying hard not to pee on the spot. Sensing a sign of disturbance, the owner of the store rushes and steps in front of me immediately, "Cigarettes? Right away madam. What brand would you like?" The owner, Ozaki Jun, a balding, thin man in his 30's with no sense of humor speaks quickly in an overly obsequious manner. The couple, staring about in a newly acquired air of superiority, seems temporarily satisfied and leaves with their purchases in pretended triumph. "Go back to China if you can't speak Japanese, bitch." The young man mutters in a low tone audible enough for the store audience to hear as they exit the door. That's right, flee, you pathetic dog. Once a coward always a coward. I stare after him in hatred. Feeling a bit embarrassed, Jun whispers, "Just... just go back to work." I mechanically check out the next customer waiting anxiously and nervously in line.

Glorious Sunset: Part 5, to shoreline

Squeezed between the ultra-liberal politics and world-renowned academics driven Berkeley and the rough-and-tumble blue-collar industrial Oakland in the East Bay is the city of Emeryville, a small enclave of middle-upper class residential high-rises and yuppie upscale restaurants. Unabashedly staring at the city of San Francisco in its full glory from a sea-level ventage point, Martha and I have long ago found the shoreline of Emeryville a hidden gem for a reflective evening stroll after a subdued dinner for two. Driving alone from Ben's firm in San Francisco downtown over the worn and colorless Bay bridge, overlooking the infamous island prison Alcatraz, trespassing the historic Treasure Island on the way, places filled with long dormant memories flash by on my side like soulless black birds flying mindlessly to pre-destined, unescapable ends. Today's unsually strong melancholy has prompted me to our place of soul asylum, hoping it will rekindle a moment of serenity and peace. Times like this I admit guiltily that I miss my Martha very much.

The sun is setting as I park my car by the famed Chinese restaurant that has fortuitously found a home on rocky shores of west Emeryville. As I step out of the car, a cold wind welcomes me to the beaten narrow path by the shore lying and waiting in front of me, one that Martha and I have set foot together hand-in-hand hundreds of times. Like a passer-by searching for a lost gold coin he carelessly dropped, I pace the path cautiously, looking half-heartedly everywhere for something dear I cannot be sure. The sound of my shoes crunching meekly the sand below synchronizes with the perpetual and ceaseless waves; the retiring sun somehow inexplicably casts me two shadows -- one full-bodied and distinct, another elongated and faded. Suddenly, among the fast diminishing rays of a setting sun, images of our youthful past -- snuggling closely for warmth on the stone bench on the right, laughing to tears over a silly pun by the water fountain on the left, conversing giddly in excitement on the pending birth of our child -- appear sporatically like ghosts in front of my eyes. My walk has become a recounting of our short but cherished happenings in rapid and uncontrollable sequences. I watch these soundless wonderful illusions with a tender and broken heart, in awe and in infinite affection. Then my flashback comes to a poignant crescendo. Martha died in a car accident on her daily walk home from buying groceries for our evening supper. A drunk driver took her life and his own in a matter of seconds. If I had only taken Ben and her out for dinner that evening; if we had visited Mable; if I had only returned home early, caressed her, held her, kissed her... I once again torment myself with accusing questions I have tormented myself over and again the past nine years. However calmly and logically one can reason away guilt, I simply could not find the strength to speak to Ben about his mother's death because deep inside, I ultimately have succumbed to the weight of the consequence of my inability to protect my beloved wife. Martha is gone, and daily I pay for the sin from which I can never recover. I stop and stare blankly upwards as the darkening sky starts to fill itself with twinkling stars; the air is cool, crisp and light to the exposed skin. I long to be closer to her; I am ready to go whereever she is now.

I startle when my phone suddenly rings. I hurrily fumble the seldomly used phone out of my pocket and hear a familiar voice, "Dad, are you okay? I went to the cafe and they said you have long left." Ben has caught up to me. "Sorry, Ben ... just thinking about things today ... just thinking, I mean," I search for words clumsily as I struggle to regain my senses. A long silence ensues. How can I tell my son after all these years, after he has grown and matured into a man -- a well-educated, industrious professional in a modern world not my own, that as a father I have long ago failed him miserably, that I am sorry for not protecting his mother and save him from his deep sorrow?

Perhaps God was listening sympathetically from the stars; maybe Martha has whispered softly in the cold breeze; somehow the awkwardness has transmitted my pathos over the air. Ben finally speaks, "It's mom's birthday next Thursday, right? Why don't you come over for dinner? We can celebrate her life then ... you know, just talk about her." I stand motionless staring at the disappearing scarlet horizon; by grace, the black, heavy anvil I have endured for years is gently being lifted away from my aching back. It seems eternity has passed before I can utter a response, "I would like that, Ben ... thank you. See you next Thursday." I hang up the phone in darkness; the night stars barely illuminate my surrounding enough that I can discern my wrinkled hands clinching tightly to the phone. The sun has retired from another day of honest work and receives its rest for the following day. Perhaps after years of mourning, we can finally be a family of three again.