You kneel now and reconnect the bedside phone, unaware, of course, that you have missed Diamonds call. Were you a voice-mail subscriber, like nearly everyone else in America who can still afford telephone service, you could retrieve his unique message, but you chose instead one of those state-of-the-art answering machines that are not much larger than a tarot card. You are suspicious of voice mail. Who knows what pirates might hack into ones stored messages? A businesswoman has to be careful these days.
Unlike the typical Filipina who favors long, often fake, brightly painted nails (even Grandma Mati goes in for them), yours are trim and natural (bitten to the quick, frankly), so you do not hesitate to draw them over Belfords smooth, pink cheeks. He stirs. Mmmmmph.
Wake up, lover boy. Weve got some cliffs to jump off of.
Huh?
Got to make hay while the moon shines.
What?
Belford, you dont by any chance have an enema, do you? The old-fashioned kind?
Abruptly, he sits up. Honey, are you sick?
Probably. But its not what you think. Get dressed, now. I need you to run an errand with me.
TWELVE FIFTY-NINE A.M.
You are all in black. Black jeans, black sneakers, black Jhane Barnes sweater, black beret covering the steadily increasing number of gray strands that violate the blackness of your hair. In your black handbag, you have secreted your spare canister of Mace.
Lets stop by your place first, you say.
But, hon, I told you I dont have any enema stuff.
Thats okay. I think we should check on AndrE.
Thats so sweet. But Im sure hes safe and sound.
Yes, but he may be lonely for us.
Belford regards you adoringly. Well, all right. Hes probably sleeping, though. He and I had a little roughhouse before I locked him up. Boy, is that little rascal strong! I think he got tuckered, though.
Lets take a peek, you say, and Belford aims the Lincoln toward Queen Anne Avenue.
You have not traveled far before the moon that travels with you (sailing above the dirty sorrows and fortified excesses of the city; an unabashed, charismatic reminder of the primordial magic that the institutionalized, technologized mind has never quite succeeded in repressing), that moon is vulgarly, if temporarily, obfuscated by a boogie-woogie of cobalt and ruby oscillations. An ambulance and several police cars are blocking the street, emergency lamps flashing, and a crowd has gathered outside a modest duplex. When you get closer, you spot Smokey and Cecil-dont those two ever go home to their loved ones?-among the cops who are waving onlookers away from a prone figure being attended to by medics on the lawn.
Turn around, you order.
Just a minute.
No? Turn around. Lets get out of here.
Honey, that house … thats the house where I …
I know what house it is, Belford. You got clobbered there. Wasnt once enough?
Belford powers down his window. Excuse me, sir. Whats happened?
Its the Safe Sex Rapist. Guy who lives in that house captured him. Nearly took his head off with a croquet mallet.
Oh, dear.
Come on. Lets leave now. Officer Smokey is looking directly at the Lincoln, gesturing for it to turn around. You lower your head, slump down in the seat. Good grief.
But its a mistake. That poor fellow isnt the rapist. Hes that womans … friend.
You cant be sure of that, and so what if he is? He got what was coming to him.
Judge not lest -
Screw around not lest somebody screw you around. These people have no morals. Lets go.
But I can help. I know these people.
No, you dont! Some nameless lout tries to decapitate you, while his slut of a wife stands there watching with her you-know-what hanging open. You think that makes you boon companions?
Smokey has started to walk in your direction. You slouch down further, causing Belford to inspect you with a perplexity that borders on suspicion. If theres a mix-up, you say, theyll sort it out soon enough. If you dont move us out of here, Im going to get very angry.
Unhappily, Belford shifts into reverse, backs into a driveway, and wheels the Lincoln around. As it pulls away, you bolt upright and blow a kiss at Smokey. You are uncertain if he recognizes you, but he continues to stare until you turn the corner, and that makes you giggle. Belford is not giggling, however. Puzzled and leery, he pouts all the way to his building. Here we are, he announces tersely. You still wanna go up?
Listen, Im sorry I got uptight. I just dont understand why you think you have to hold the hand of every loser who stumbles down the pike.
Its my Christian duty, Gwen. The weak deserve all the help those of us whore more blessed can give em.
Thats very tender of you, but … I have a … Im acquainted with a, uh, gentleman who claims that the extent to which a society focuses on the needs of its lowest common denominator is the extent to which that societyll be mired in mediocrity. Whereas, if we would aim the bulk of our support at the brightest, most talented, most virtuous instead, then they would have the wherewithal to solve a lot of our problems, to uplift the whole culture, enlighten it or something, so that eventually there wouldnt be so many losers and weaklings impeding evolution and dragging the whole species down. He claims martyrs like you just perpetuate human misery by catering to it. He believes individuals have to take responsibility for their own lives and accept the consequences of their choices.
Belford snorts. Easy for him to say. Probably some privileged stockbroker whos never had to—
He was an autistic child, and now he has cancer.
Oh, dear me. Im sorry to hear that.
Hey, everybody has a hard-luck story. The point is, hes never whined, never given in to fate. Hes—
Well, thats commendable. Its good to be a fighter.
Hes not really a fighter. Hes an adventurer. Theres a difference. He doesnt attack, he engages; he doesnt defend, he expands; he doesnt destroy, he transforms; he doesnt reject, he explores; he doesnt … well, you get the picture. (Where, Gwendolyn, is this coming from?)
Belford studies you, his broad, honest face creased with doubt. Sounds like Mr. Adventure made quite an impression on you. Id enjoy meeting him.
Hes leaving the country in the morning on a six oclock flight.
Belford cannot conceal a breath of relief. Cant blame him, I guess. America certainly cant pretend any longer that its got the best medical care in the world. But, anyway, with all due respect, Id have this to say to him: a great many people out there in the ghetto and the street are incapable of taking responsibility for their lives. Those who arent actually incapacitated are suffering from a decay of the spirit. They cant explore options because they arent aware that options exist. Theyve never been exposed to ideas like transformation and expansion. Worse than that, honey, theyve never been exposed to love. You know? They have zero self-esteem because nobodys ever really loved em. Thats where martyrs like me come in.
You can love em till your well runs dry, Belford, but you can never love em enough, and you know it. No matter how much others might love you, you cant love yourself unless youre in charge of your own actions, and youll never take charge as long as you can get away with blaming your shortcomings and misfortunes on your family or society or your race or gender or Satan or whatever. Sooner or later, a person …
Patiently, he waits for you to resume, but having become keenly aware of how much you are sounding like Diamond, and dimly aware that in the eyes of some, you yourself are less than a shining example of responsible behavior, you let the matter drop. I bet the monkeys awake, you say.
It isnt, but when Belford goes to the kitchen for a glass of water, you kick its cage until it stirs. Ordinarily, it would screech in this situation, but tonight (rather, this morning) it gives you the Mona Lisa look instead. If the fact that there are 550 hairs in the average human eyebrow prompts you to feel superior to the macaque, which is 550 hairs short, you conceal it well. You smile at AndrE conspirato
rially, as if to suggest that only he and you are reading the correct libretto. Wake up, mon ami. Its time to get cracking. The moon is out, and its the color of that big topaz you snitched from the Marquise du Whats-her-name in Monte Carlo. You have to see it, mon ami. Its as bright as a banana Popsicle.
ONE-FORTY A.M.
The Fleet ready-to-use enema (manufactured by the C. B. Fleet Company of Lynchburg, Virginia) costs one dollar and twenty-five cents, is totally disposable, and looks as if it could be used for caulking the planks in a rowboat, filling chinks in a fireplace, or decorating a cake. It consists of a soft, hand-held, plastic dispensary bottle (with a one-way safety valve that controls flow and prevents reflux) containing nineteen grams of monobasic sodium phosphate and seven grams of dibasic sodium phosphate in several ounces of saline solution. The label contains the following caution: Remove orange protective shield from rectal tip before inserting, which seems straightforward enough until you recall that fifty percent of the American population is semiliterate. Ouch! Fool! Thatll teach you to drop out of school.
The disposable squeeze bottle is the only type of enema sold in the only all-night pharmacy in greater Seattle. Belford predicted as much. He said that to obtain an old-fashioned, rubber, bag-and-tube enema apparatus nowadays, you would probably have to go to a hospital supply store. He also said that according to an article in Nature magazine, the enema was invented by South American Indians, who sometimes employed the device to administer hallucinogenic mixtures through the rectum. Two days ago, such base and altogether useless information would have filled you with disgust. Now, it brings Larry Diamond luridly to mind and-well, to tell the truth, it still fills you with disgust, all the more so because it was passed along by Belford Dunn, whose tame Lutheran Realtors brain could scarcely be thought a repository of the grossly weird. Are there no innocents anymore? Could some magazine scanned in a barbershop somewhere also have acquainted Belford with the arcane practice of licking frogs?
Frustrated by the drugstore-although you were hardly looking forward to the embarrassment of purchasing enema equipment-you pick up several items from the vitamin and school-supplies departments, and return to the Lincoln.
Guess youll just have to wait till morning, sweetness. Im sorry. Gee, you know, I think the little rascal wants to eat again.
I cant wait, you say, much to Belfords bewilderment. And AndrEs just going to have to.
Because he had been feeling guilty about confining him to his old cage again, Belford did not have to be persuaded to bring AndrE along on your trip to the pharmacy, and now monkey and master are staring at you beseechingly, they in the front seat, you in the rear. You stare them down. Later, you say coldly. Right now were heading to Chinatown.
TWO OH-SIX A.M.
In other areas of the city, any city, neon is just so much electrified signage, but in Chinatown, neon is song, theme music, the visual soundtrack to the neighborhood. Tourists are yanked into Chinatown by shivering tentacles of unnatural color, to be swallowed up by a radiant carp maw infected with exotica. Among Chinas many contributions to the world, from gunpowder to pasta, one cannot list neon lighting, yet Chinatown without neon is as unthinkable as the South Seas without palm trees: how else can one be sure that one is there? If food is the Holy Grail of Chinatown, neon is the Grails aura, its halo, as well as the pendulous lodestone whose swaying luminescence hypnotizes each and every visitor, clouding their minds with illusions of forbidden pleasures and a romantic elsewhere. The neon of Chinatown is a neon of mystery, a neon of joy. FONG, says the neon. FU, it says. Well, all right then! FONG FU it is. Mysterious and joyful FONG FU. The neon can also say IMPERIAL GARDEN or MOON TEMPLE, and while the words are ordinary English, the letters that form the words might have been blown out of a Shanghai opium pipe. Imitating calligraphy like small boys imitating their grandfathers, the letters are ridiculous yet somehow charming; corny yet entirely correct. There is an appropriateness even to those whose elements have been fashioned to resemble stalks of bamboo. And the neon gas that courses through them like a supernatural plasma, pumping life into images of dragons, pagodas, and rice bowls, this gas is the hue of barbecue sauce, the hue of pickled duck feet, the hue of opera. Hue of hibiscus and ginseng, silkworm and firecracker. Neon pushes its embroidery needle in and out of the sky above Chinatown, decorating the canopy that will both protect and advertise it, setting it apart from other parts of town.
The profusion and the nature of its neon signs is the first indication that you and your companions have reached Seattles Chinatown. The next indications are the deteriorating low-rise buildings, the Buddha-shadows thrown against old brick walls, and the shamble of busted bok choy crates on every corner. The sidewalks of Chinatown are where the outer leaves of green vegetables come to die.
In Seattle, Chinatown is officially referred to as the International District, a polite term that is accurate in one regard and dead wrong in another. Europeans neither reside nor keep businesses in the district, nor do people from Africa, South America, Australia, or the Middle East, so it is hardly international. On the other hand, the Chinese there have been joined by Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, and, yes, Filipinos. A more fitting name might be Asiatown. In any case, Freddie Mati does not live there in order to rub shoulders with other Asians. Freddie Mati lives in Chinatown because it is close to the clubs, because the police are paid to stay away, and, primarily, because it is cheap.
Your father occupies the fourth and uppermost floor of a small building belonging to the Li Po Trading Company, an importer and wholesaler of convict-made bric-a-brac. His windows are lit, which does not surprise you, for Freddie seldom retires before dawn, and since the clubs are closed for the observance of Easter, he would have nowhere else to go. Belford thinks it is sweet that you are dropping in on your dad, although the hour is rather odd. He insists on accompanying you, due to the fact that the stairs are steep and poorly lit and also because he is eager to foster cordial relations with the prospective in-law.
Freddie is slow to answer your knock, and you can smell marijuana smoke escaping through the jambs. You dont know if Belford is ready for this. On the other hand, you dont know if Freddie is ready for the monkey that is bouncing up and down on its hind legs in the gloom.
Squeak! shouts Freddie when he at last cracks the door. Far out! Hey!
Although you rarely return your fathers calls and visit him no more than once or twice a year, he never complains, and when you do see him, he is invariably grateful and glad. Under the circumstances, his cheerfulness is unsettling. You would almost prefer that he reproach you.
My Squeak baby. Come in, Squeak baby. Who dat wit you? He notices AndrE. Oh, wow! I cant believe Im seeing dis, man! Obviously delighted by the sight of the macaque, Freddie begins to giggle and dance around. In fact, his antics and the monkeys are not dissimilar. Somebody juking me? Wow, man! Dis a true monkey or a robot? Hey, I think dis monkey for real!
He sure is, Mr. Mati. Real as you or me. Good evening. My names Belford Dunn.
If Belford is expecting Freddie to say, Oh, yes, my daughter has told me so much about you, he is destined to be disappointed. Even now, you are not inclined to help them get acquainted, although you suppose it no longer matters whether or not Belford learns that your father uses drugs. More than likely, it never would have mattered to Belford, anyway. Belford despises drugs, but Freddie, financially disadvantaged and a member of an ethnic minority, would be the recipient of far more pity than scorn. In any case, they will have to work things out on their own. Barely have you crossed the threshold than you excuse yourself and Druid through a Stonehenge of cardboard boxes, record albums, tapes, compact discs, books, and drums, finding your way to the bathroom.
You dont bother to pull the string that dangles like a strand of spaghetti from the meatball-sized overhead bulb. You know what you are looking for, and the neon gleam sputtering through the window from the signs outside is quite sufficient to illuminate it. In fact, it takes you only
a moment to find it. There is an order to Freddies untidiness, and you are well aware that despite Grandma Matis complaints, he has never thrown away anything that once belonged to your mother: for example, all those books on the loft floor, stacked, occasionally dusted, used as pedestals for bongos and wine bottles, but no longer read. It is not a book that you drop into your handbag, however, although there are books that are treated with no more dignity.
As a subterfuge, you flush the toilet, quite possibly a mistake since you hear it overflowing as you walk out the door.
Your parents never shared this loft, Freddie having landed it during your freshman year in college when his wife was six years dead, yet signs of your mother are much in evidence. Not only does her old walnut desk occupy a prominent space in the sitting area, but her incense burner, ink bottles, rhyming dictionary, and collection of photographs of Dylan Thomas still sit atop it, as if awaiting her return. Despite your need to get on with the nights precarious enterprise, you pause there for a moment or two before rejoining Belford and Freddie. The men have scarcely advanced beyond the entranceway, but they appear to be enjoying each others company, quickly establishing one of those relationships based on jocular disagreement, common among males and virtually nonexistent among women. They have, in fact, traded propaganda, Freddie pressing a radical anarchist pamphlet upon Belford, who has countered with some sort of Lutheran tract.
Squeak, you all in black, baby. Looking fine! Make me happy to see you dress so black.
Yeah, Papa, I guess weve taken to shopping in the same boutiques. He grins at this, although in truth, the belt that holds up your jeans cost more than Freddies entire ensemble, turtleneck to sandals. (There is a distinct possibility, however, that money is still owed on the belt.)
Well, hate to hit and run, Papa, but …
You splitting already?
We were passing by and saw your light, just ran up to say hi. Belford shoots you a puzzled, almost accusatory glance. Its pretty late.
Night time da right time, Squeak. Course, you gotta go you job in da morning.