“Yeah, this is real thing.”
As James lifts the glass, a hideous, pungent odor of fruity, rotten socks pervades his sinuses. He squeezes his eyes shut, sips, and lets the awful taste spread over his tongue.
“Ha, look at that!” His father gestures at the television.
There’s nothing on the screen except a fenced patio with an open gate. Then an animal lumbers onto the patio, sniffing at the fence. It’s a yearling bear, burnished brown—there’s no mistaking its thick, furry body, the bulk of its rear end, its heavy yet clownish, rolling walk.
A small, stocky black creature torpedoes down a staircase. The creature barks wildly, growling and snapping at the bear, which, after a moment’s stunned confrontation, rises up on its hind legs in dismay. Like a black streak, the dog chases the bear up and down the patio, lunging and nipping at its heels. Panicking, the bear clambers over the fence. The dog, tail up, remains in the patio.
“Ha!” Leo emits a deep belly laugh. “You see that? Just like Alf. French bulldog, best breed in the world!”
James hands him back the tumbler. “Baba,” he says, “you know Dagou isn’t worthless. He can really cook.”
In the pause that follows, James wonders if he’s angered his father. But when Leo Chao speaks, his tone is genial.
“Maybe not worthless,” he says, “but he has an inferiority complex. You American-born Chinese so timid and brainwashed, will do anything for a woman who’ll give you a good lay.”
Did his father just change the subject, or is it all part of the same argument? James doesn’t know. Leo hands the tumbler back; James takes another tiny, terrible sip. He is timid with girls. Is this why he’s halfway through his freshman year in college and still a virgin?
“All you ABCs! You think since you’re not here first, since you have different eyes and dicks, you’re not good enough for fucking around. You got it backwards. We came to America to colonize the place for ourselves. That means spreading seed. Equal opportunity for fucking. You know what’s the biggest disappointment of my life? Seeing my oldest son pussy-whipped by one white woman.”
He frowns at the TV; its dim light flickers over his features. “My stinking son. Brainwashed by his mother and teachers. They say, ‘You’re special,’ ha! ‘You can do anything you want!’ Nobody can do anything they want. Do you think I want this dog’s life? No, I do what I have to do. But my oldest son? He’s trying to find himself. What’s to find? Decides to be musician. Then he leaves the East Coast with his tail between his legs. He’s wasted years of life.”
“He’s amazing in the kitchen,” James says. They watch images move across the screen. “Baba,” he says, “if you can be anything you want to be in America, then why can’t you do what you want? And what if you don’t want to be big and rich? What if you want to be small?”
“Is that what you want?” snorts Leo.
James struggles. How to explain to his father what he wants? It’s something he has only just begun to put into words, and only to himself.
“I’m not ambitious like Ming,” he says. “I don’t want to be super-rich or buy expensive real estate. I’m not ambitious like Dagou, either. I don’t need to be as creative as he is, or to make people happy. It’s not that I don’t want to be interested in my job. I do want to help people. But I mostly want—I want to feel small. To be a small piece in the big mystery of everything.” He stops to think, trying to explain his own curious desire. “I want to get married and have kids, and a dog. I want to walk the dog in the morning, go to work, and come home at night. Mostly what I want is—well, an ordinary life.”
“An ordinary life.” Leo smiles in the half dark. “Blood sacrifice!” he yells, startling James. “I came over in nineteen seventy-two; a pioneer, breaking land. I sacrificed myself—all so my sons could be magnificent! I did all this—only to be dog father. Is anyone grateful?”
“We’re all grateful.”
“I’m going to die dog father. I’m going to die!” Leo yells, glaring up at James. His bellow thins to a theatrical mew. “How is it possible I’ll die so far away from home?”
The face of the man at the train station appears before him. James closes his eyes. “Don’t say that, Baba.”
Leo huffs; invisible sparks fly toward the television. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not going to die.”
“No, Baba,” James says. Although he knows this is impossible, he believes it. “You’ll never die.”
“Not me.” Leo smiles. “Ah, James. My good boy. Not my most accomplished boy, not my most talented boy, but you’re my boy, you love me.”
DECEMBER 22
At the Spiritual House
James and Leo, along with Alf the dog, arrive at the Spiritual House an hour before the luncheon. The sky is heavy with impending snow. Sleet is falling, tiny droplets cling to Alf’s bat-like ears. As they approach the red double doors, the ears twitch. Faint barking echoes from inside. James scoops the dog into his arms. Thirteen inches at the shoulders, Alf has the confidence of a much larger animal. James must keep him from fighting. Also, he must be on Dagou’s side. What will that require?
The moment the door opens, Alf wriggles expertly out of James’s hold and leaps to the floor, collar jingling.
They’re standing in the former gymnasium of an old elementary school. This is the Spiritual House, purchased by Gu Ling Zhu Chi a dozen years ago, when the city shifted its resources to larger educational facilities. Nobody knows how much she paid, or where she found the money; Leo claims the school district was glad to off-load the shabby building at a bargain price. The gym is small, with a stage at one end and doors on either side. Several men from the community and a dozen women, half of them robed in brown, chat in clusters on the wooden basketball court still marked with its colored lines and semicircles. In the center of the court is a table displaying a three-foot porcelain figure of Guan Yin.
While Leo stands grinning, adjusting the strap on his delivery bag, James searches for Dagou. The half-dozen temple dogs circle him and Alf in a delirium of barking, clicking paws, and waving tails. They’re mixed breeds, smooth-haired, ears neither floppy nor exactly pointed, and a few with the long legs, fleet feet, of racing hounds. Two are from the Humane Society. Two are rescue dogs from a meat restaurant in South Korea.
“Some spiritual house,” Leo says, offhand. “More like an asylum for women and dogs.”
Alf stands his ground in the middle of the untidy pack, chest ruffled. He lets himself be sniffed. He begins to growl.
“No, Alf—”
But Alf doesn’t go into battle. He shoots back out from the pack of dogs, whining with happiness.
In the same instant, James is swept into a hug from behind. His mother’s new smell, of wool and incense, suffuses his nostrils. Her hug is so firm and loving that he almost panics, struggling to detach himself. Alf yaps frantically. James manages to get free and turns to greet her.