My Father, the Panda Killer, page 4
“And your mom’s okay with this?” When she hadn’t accepted my first invitation, it didn’t take long for me to realize that her mom didn’t want her daughter coming to this part of town. I wasn’t mad about it; I was grateful she didn’t make Jackie stop being friends with me. That’s something my parents absolutely would’ve done.
“Jane, I have a car. I go where I want.” She smiles. She isn’t fooling anyone, though. Jackie is as much a Goody Two-shoes as I am.
I look down at Paul, who is sitting in the only other space inside the cramped cashier’s box. He’s engrossed in his game. “If you’re done eating, take these bowls to the office, and you can play there for the next two hours.”
Paul beams with delight. The tiny office next to the bathroom has a small cot, a desk, overflow products, and surveillance video stuff. It’s my favorite part of this place for one reason: no customers.
I unlock the door to the register, aware that Jackie is probably not allowed back here, but I can’t exactly leave her standing outside like a patron, so it hardly seems like I have a choice.
“Hi, Jackie. Bye, Jackie,” Paul says as he slips through the door.
“Make sure you lock it,” I shout after him. He gives a thumbs-up high in the air so I can see as he sprints away.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” I say, wishing I had used some of the countless hours I’ve spent daydreaming while trapped here to make the place less dingy.
Jackie appears to be unfazed by the cracked and blackened tile floor, the crumbling faux-leather chair wrapped in tattered plastic, or the old camping chair—the kind with no legs and a back that requires a human to sit in it to stay propped up. She hands me my drink, slides into the camping chair, leaning into the wall so that the seat almost looks comfortable, and says, “I take it you still haven’t told Paul?”
“You know I haven’t,” I say, glaring at her. She looks at me with an arched eyebrow, and I don’t even bother trying to outstare her. “He’s going to hate me. Why prolong the misery? If I tell him later, he’ll have less time to make me feel guilty.”
“You already feel guilty. You gotta do it, Jane. It’s mean not to.”
I know she’s right, but I don’t know how to go about it. Our family doesn’t share stories or talk about personal problems. My dad never sat on the edge of my bed to ask me how I might feel if he left me alone at the age of eleven to work the register while he smoked outside with my uncles. This type of conversation is so the opposite of how we are. Just the thought of him trying this makes me uncomfortable. I either take care of a problem myself, or I ignore it.
“I haven’t even talked to my dad about it. If he says no, there might not be a point in telling Paul.”
“Um, no. If he says no, you pack a bag, and I drive you to college. Period.”
“You know it’s not that easy.”
“Sometimes, actually, it’s exactly that easy,” she says. When I don’t say anything, she adds, “Part of being an adult is doing things your parents don’t like.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, because I know she’s right, but I still don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to rebel. Other kids do it all the time, but I’m just so…scared.
The back door opens, and my spine sharpens as I jump from my seat to stand. I’m not sure why I feel the need to do so, but sitting doesn’t feel right when I’m pretty sure I’m about to be in trouble.
“Go,” my dad says. On Saturdays, when my dad gets here, we leave to go grocery shopping and clean the house.
I stand there frozen, unsure of what to do because I should tell him Jackie’s here. Saying it before he sees her is definitely the better route (well, the best route would have been to ask permission first, but that ship has sailed). Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, I’m hoping to avoid a confrontation altogether by crossing my fingers and hoping he just doesn’t see her. But then Jackie stands up.
“Uh—” is all I can say before Jackie cuts me off.
“Chào Chú Phúc!” she says spritely.
I see his eyes go wide with suspicion before he recognizes her. “Chào con.” He nods. “Your parents finally not scared to have you come here, huh?” He laughs. Any other person would read this as a scoff, but he’s actually joking.
“I got keys, so…” Jackie smiles, and he laughs too.
“Good, they worry too much. What is there to worry about?” It’s not really a question, and neither of us answers. Without any kind of salutation—those are reserved only for adults—my dad goes to the office.
I turn to Jackie. “We’re going to the store, but then I’ll just be home cleaning if you want to come over?”
Leaning down to pick up her bag, Jackie tosses it across her body before saying, “Can’t, church lets out in like fifteen minutes.”
I laugh. “I see your rebellion is going well for you then.”
“Part of growing up is picking your battles. Sometimes the path of least resistance is the way to go.”
“Have you been reading self-help books or something?”
“Buddhism. Instead of going to church, I’m still being indoctrinated, just not by my parents’ religion.”
“Clever,” I say.
“Same time next week?”
“Sure.”
* * *
Playing the piano is a Chinese, not a Vietnamese, stereotype. Or maybe it is a Vietnamese stereotype, and my mom just didn’t fit it. Despite my mother not guiding my education, I do take piano lessons—more on that later—but it wasn’t my mother who made me. And those straight As I got were not because anyone pushed me to do well in school either. Actually, that’s not true. The white kids who always copy off my tests motivate me to do well. I want them to like me, and them liking me is contingent on my having the right answers—enough to get them a B, anyway.
The honest truth: I’m not that smart. I study a lot. And by “a lot,” I mean, from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep, I think of almost nothing else. If other kids are studying for one hour, I study for two. If I finish all my schoolwork, there are flash cards with SAT words I’m trying to learn. Or extra-credit books that I read. I love extra credit, not because I like doing the extra work but because it gives me a buffer in case I bomb a quiz or a test. But make no mistake, I never understand stuff the first time around. Still, the stereotype of Asians being smart is like a jacket I can’t take off. Some people got varsity jackets for playing sports. I got jacketed as the person you could copy off of.
A stereotype that is true, though, is this: Vietnamese families do not talk. It’s not that we sit around the table in silence, but our conversations are…shallow. They revolve around what time I need to be at the store, when I need to pick up Paul, what needs to be restocked, which pipe burst in the back, who shoplifted and needs to be ousted the next time they come in. Like right now, as I swap places in the cashier booth with my dad, I say, “Ba, is there anything you want me to get at the store?”
“Get some snacks.”
“Dạ,” I say. Amazing. We have a shop full of American chips, nuts, crackers, you name it, but he wants almond cookies, durian wafers, and shrimp crackers. I add those to a running mental list of what I know we’re low on at home: eggs, soy sauce, green onions, beef, chicken, ramen, a couple TV dinners, soup, spaghetti, and milk.
The phone rings and my dad answers. “Hello?”
Someone on the other end of the line speaks and he breaks into a wide grin. “Ah! Má!” He turns to me and hands me the receiver. “Say hi to Grandma before you go.”
“Chào Bà Nội! Bà Nội có khỏe không?” I ask. She tells me she’s well and I stay awkwardly on the line, waiting for her to ask for my dad back. Thankfully, that’s the next thing she says, and I pass him the phone. Phone cards are expensive, so I never have to stay on the call longer than a few minutes.
After grabbing my purse, I poke my head into the office and say, “Hey, I’ve got to go to the store. Get up. C’mon, let’s go.”
“You said two hours. It’s only been one,” Paul complains, but he’s already shutting off his game.
“I know, I’m sorry. You can play the other hour when we get home.”
At the store, I grab a cart and Paul climbs onto the front. While I shop for the things we need, I zigzag through the aisles like we’re on a roller coaster.
“Eggs, two cartons!” I say as I wheel him up to the eggs, but before he can reach for the item, I spin around in a circle. He laughs. “C’mon, two cartons, and make sure you don’t drop them!”
“You drop it, and we’re dead meat,” he says, doing an extremely poor impression of me as he hops off the cart and carefully grabs one carton at a time. Even playing a game, he knows to be careful and not do anything that might get us in trouble with Dad. I roll my eyes, even though I think it’s funny, as I take the cartons from him and place them in the basket. Paul is so freaking lovable, I can’t imagine why anyone would leave him.
* * *
When I was in kindergarten, Ronan, this chubby kid who always carried a tattered gray elephant head attached to strings of threadbare gray fabric, came running to class, screaming, “I’m gonna have a new baby brother!” The teacher spent half the morning talking to him, and us, about what a big responsibility it was to be an older sibling. Ronan nodded along or occasionally rolled his eyes because he’d probably already had this conversation with his parents. And I probably thought, Why would they tell you that? That’s grown-up stuff.
But I would later look back on that day with anxiety, trying to recall all the things I was supposed to know about having a baby brother. Because how I learned I was about to be a big sister was, well, a little less straightforward.
There was no discussion about learning how to share or accepting new responsibilities. No one asked me if I wanted a little brother. No one asked me how I would feel about sharing my toys or if I thought I’d be a good big sister.
We weren’t at home nestled on a comfy couch or in a doctor’s office or anywhere that made sense to reveal such information to me. I caught on while standing in the checkout line at the grocery store—this grocery store, two aisles over, cashier number 5—where I was secretly coveting the Reese’s Pieces Minis candy packets.
My mom, who rarely spoke to strangers, was humming a tune to herself and putting our meat and bread on the conveyor belt when the cashier asked how far along she was.
“Six month.”
“Me too,” the cashier gushed. She stepped back from the register to reveal her round belly. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy.”
“Me too!”
To my immature ears, their conversation sounded a lot like a game of Go Fish, and I giggled.
“Well, aren’t you going to be the best big sister?”
I nodded, eager to please. If she thought I was going to be a good big sister, then I certainly wanted that too. The woman had kind eyes, but I wasn’t used to anyone looking at me so directly and so intensely. I immediately dropped my gaze to the floor.
That’s when I felt my mother’s hand grab my chin and force it up so that I was looking directly at the cashier. “Don’t be rude, she asked you a question.” She spoke in Vietnamese, so no one else would understand, but her tone was clear enough that the cashier jumped to my defense. “Oh, don’t worry. I was so shy when I was your age too.” She laughed.
“Do babies cry a lot?” It was all I could think of to say. I didn’t have a reference point for what questions you were supposed to ask about babies or what I was supposed to say about having a baby brother that would show what a good person I was. The moment was so unexpected that the words came out loud—a shout, really. I didn’t want to talk to this woman. My mother looked down at me sharply, and I knew I was in trouble. I felt such disdain for this stranger, with her stupid, peppy attitude and arrogant, baby-carrying face. Of course, the woman couldn’t have known, but her question and my ornery answer were about to earn me a beating. Mom and I both knew that punishment would be swift when she told my dad I had been rude in public. And I was punished, but that’s not what sticks with me about that day.
I remember the cashier totaled our purchase and said, “It’s going to be $25.73 today. You must be so happy.”
“Yes. So happy.”
So happy. This was the first time I’d ever heard my mother use the word happy. Honestly, up until this point, I didn’t know there was a Vietnamese word for happy. But Paul hadn’t even been born yet, and he already made her happier than I ever could.
So, I resented him.
I also resented the fact that no one had bothered to tell me—that I had discovered it only after a stranger in a supermarket had asked. And I used that resentment to create a divide between myself and Paul. Instead of being excited, I shunned him. Rather than think about all the things we’d get to do together, like play games or share in the misery of having tyrannical parents, I ignored him. He wasn’t even born yet, but I wanted nothing to do with him. I acted like I didn’t care if he existed.
It didn’t help that after I became aware of Paul’s existence, everything seemed to be about him. Aunts and uncles would call, and my mother would be on the phone for hours talking about how great it was that they were finally having a boy.
Okay, the stereotype of Asian families wanting sons more than daughters is real.
In the entirety of my life, the whole nine years up until that point, not once did my mother ever say something complimentary to me. When strangers said I was cute, she would lift my hair, scoff, and say, “With hair as dirty as this?” When a teacher remarked on my ability to subtract single-digit numbers, my mother laughed as though it was the least a five-year-old could do, because when she was my age, she was doing real work like washing clothes along the embankment or separating fish into piles to be sold at the market or sun-dried and fermented.
That I could do simple arithmetic was, to my mother, laughable.
This disdain for everything I did and her love for my perfect unborn brother made me really resent him. I said snide things to him in my mind. I wished for six fingers, a lopsided head, and other deformities. I cursed him every day—that is, until he was born. And then our mother treated him the same way she treated me, like a burden.
He cried a lot, more than is normal, but I was ten at the time, so I didn’t know. Babies were annoying because they cried, and they pooped—that was the extent of my knowledge. I ignored his cries and focused on my schoolwork. But one night, he cried for seven hours straight, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Despite my jealousy, I went to him. He was on the floor in the living room, screaming at the top of his lungs, his tiny fists shaking with fury, and there was my mother, sitting on the couch with a vacant look in her eyes.
Annoyed, I picked him up for the first time. I found a pacifier on the floor, and when I stuck it in his mouth, he immediately stopped crying. Given the force with which he seemed to be sucking on the nipple, I decided to find him some food. To be honest, I’ve never understood the point of a pacifier. Isn’t sucking a biological instinct because we need to eat? Sticking a piece of plastic into a kid’s face rather than just feeding them makes no sense. In the fridge, I found bottles of milk. My mother couldn’t be bothered to pick up her son, but she somehow had the sense to breast-pump. I grabbed one, swooshed it around, and nervously pulled the pacifier from Paul’s mouth. He immediately started screaming until I stuck the bottle in, and that’s when I realized what my mother was doing. She was starving my baby brother.
Unsure of what to do, I borrowed a book from the library called A Guide for First-Time Parents, where I learned about burping, warming the bottle, sanitizing the nipples, and how to treat a diaper rash. It was here that I discovered the point of pacifiers. Apparently, babies don’t know how to “pop” their ears and relieve the pain by swallowing or yawning, and sucking on a pacifier helps. Also, my mother breast-pumped, I learned, because women’s boobs hurt if there’s milk in them and they don’t pump—the book went into horrifyingly graphic detail about this.
Anyway, I was so busy being the parent that I didn’t realize my mother had gone back to her regular life. Every day when I came home from school, Paul would be in the same position—on the floor crying—while she finished getting dressed before heading off to god knows where. It would take her another three years to actually leave, but as far as I’m concerned, she abandoned Paul long before she was physically gone.
As a newborn, Paul was small and soft, and though he cried a lot, he also smiled a lot—mostly in his sleep. I had so many questions that I knew would go unanswered. What was he dreaming about? What good feelings did he already know about, having only been in this world a few days? Was I happy once too? Had the womb been so comfortable and safe that I had had dreams of happy things too? Or were those thoughts only reserved for the boys? Yes, I really thought that. At the time, I was looking for anything that would explain my situation. I’m still looking for answers as to how I ended up here, in this ass-backward family—struggling with how to leave for college.
* * *
“Pick a candy bar. Just one,” I tell Paul as we reach the checkout counter. I watch his eyes go wide as he scans his options. He’s going to hate me when I tell him I’m leaving. Maybe after I earn my degree and start making some money, I can bribe him into loving me again.
“Did Bác Long really hit Ông Nội?” Paul asks.
“What did I say about asking questions?” I say.
“Well, if he could hit Grandpa and he’s the son, why can’t I hit Dad?”
His question throws me. He has a point. “Because that was Vietnam and this is America,” I say, though I’m not fully convinced of my own answer. “Now shhh…no questions until the end.”
