Stranger Things Happen (28 page)

The girl detective takes a bite of the underworld.

Chinese restaurants.

I used to eat out a lot. I had a favorite restaurant, which had
really good garlic shrimp, and I liked the pancakes, too, the
scallion pancakes. But you have to be careful. I knew someone,
their fortune said, "Your life right now is like a rollercoaster.
But don't worry, it will soon be over." Now what is that supposed
to mean?

Then it happened to me. The first fortune was ominous. "No one
will ever love you the way that you love them." I thought about it.
Maybe it was true. I came back to the restaurant a week later and I
ordered the shrimp and I ate it and when I opened the fortune
cookie I read, "Your friends are not who you think they are."

I became uneasy. I thought I would stay away for a few weeks. I
ate Thai food instead. Italian. But the thing is, I still wasn't
safe. No restaurants are safe—except maybe truckstops, or automats.
Waiters, waitresses—they pretend to be kind. They bring us what we
ask for. They ask us if there is anything else we want. They are
solicitous of our health. They remember our names when we come back
again.

They are as kind to us as if they were our own mothers, and we
are familiar with them. Sometimes we pinch their fannies.

I don't like to cook for myself. I live alone, and there doesn't
seem to be much point to it. Sometimes I dream about food—for
instance, a cake, it was made of whipped cream. It was the size of
a living room. Just as I was about to take a bite, a dancing girl
kicked out of it. Then another dancing girl. A whole troop of
dancing girls, in fact, all covered in whipped cream. They were
delicious.

I like to eat food made by other people. It feels like a
relationship. But you can't trust other people. Especially not
waiters. They aren't our friends, you see. They aren't our mothers.
They don't give us the food that we long for—not the food that we
dream about—although they could. If they wanted to.

We ask them for recommendations about the menu, but they know so
much more than that—if only they should choose to tell us. They do
not choose to tell us. Their kindnesses are arbitrary, and not to
be counted as lasting. We sit here in this world, and the food that
they bring us isn't of this world, not entirely. They are not like
us. They serve a great mystery.

I returned to the Chinese restaurant like a condemned man. I ate
my last meal. A party of women in big hats and small dresses sat at
the table next to me. They ordered their food and then departed for
the bathroom. Did they ever come back? I never saw them come
back.

The waiter brought me the check and a fortune cookie. I uncurled
my fortune and read my fate. "You will die at the hands of a
stranger." As I went away, the waiter smiled at me. His smile was
inscrutable.

I sit here in my tree, eating takeout food, hauled up on a bit
of string. I put my binoculars down to eat. Who knows what my
fortune will say?

What color is the girl detective's hair?

Some people say that the girl detective is a natural blonde.
Others say that she's a redhead, how could the girl detective be
anything else? Her father just smiles and says she looks just like
her mother. I myself am not even sure that the girl detective
remembers the original color of her hair. She is a master of
disguises. I feel I should make it clear that no one has ever seen
the girl detective in the same room as the aged housekeeper. She
and her father have often been seen dining out together, but I
repeat, the girl detective is a master of disguises. She is capable
of anything.

Further secret origins of the girl
detective.

Some people say that a small child in a grocery store bit her.
It was one of those children who are constantly asking their
parents why the sky is blue and are there really giant
alligators—formerly the pets of other small children—living in the
sewers of the city and if China is directly below us, could we
drill a hole and go right through the center of the earth and if so
would we come up upside down and so on. This child, radioactive
with curiosity, bit the girl detective, and in that instant the
girl detective suddenly saw all of these answers, all at once. She
was so overcome she had to lie down in the middle of the aisle with
the breakfast cereal on one side and the canned tomatoes on the
other, and the store manager came over and asked if she was all
right. She wasn't all right, but she smiled and let him help her
stand up again, and that night she went home and stitched the days
of the week on her underwear, so that if she was ever run over by a
car, at least it would be perfectly clear when the accident had
occurred. She thought this would make her mother happy.

Why did the girl detective cross the road?

Because she thought she saw her mother.

Why did the girl detective's mother cross the
road?

If only the girl detective knew!

The girl detective was very small when her mother left. No one
ever speaks of her mother. It causes her father too much pain even
to hear her name spoken. To see it written down. Possibly the girl
detective was named after her mother and this is why we must not
say her name.

No one has ever explained to the girl detective why her mother
left, although it must have been to do something very important.
Possibly she died. That would be important enough, almost
forgivable.

In the girl detective's room there is a single photograph in a
small gold frame of a woman, tall and with a very faint smile,
rising up on her toes. Arms flung open. She is wearing a long skirt
and a shirt with no sleeves, a pair of worn dancing shoes. She is
holding a sheaf of wheat. She looks as if she is dancing. The girl
detective suspects that this is her mother. She studies the
photograph nightly. People dream about lost or stolen things, and
this woman, her mother, is always in these dreams.

She remembers a woman walking in front of her. The girl
detective was holding this woman's hand. The woman said something
to her. It might have been something like, "Always look both ways,"
or "Always wash your hands after you use a public bathroom," or
maybe "I love you," and then the woman stepped into the street.
After that the girl detective isn't sure what happened. There was a
van, red and gold, going fast around the corner. On the side was
"Eat at Mom's Chinese Restaurant." Or maybe "Eat at Moon's." Maybe
it hit the woman.

Maybe it stopped and the woman got in. She said her mother's
name then, and no one said anything back.

The girl detective goes out to eat.

I only leave my tree to go to the bathroom. It's sort of like
camping. I have a roll of toilet paper and a little shovel. At
night I tie myself to the branch with a rope. But I don't really
sleep much. It's about seven o'clock in the evening when the girl
detective leaves her house. "Where are you going," I say, just to
make conversation.

She says that she's going to that new restaurant downtown, if
it's any of my business. She asks if I want to come, but I have
plans. I can tell that something's up. She's disguised as a young
woman. Her eyes are keen and they flash a lot. "Can you bring me
back an order of steamed dumplings?" I call after her, "Some white
rice?"

She pretends she doesn't hear me. Of course I follow her. She
takes a bus. I climb between trees. It's kind of fun. Occasionally
there aren't any trees and I have to make do with telephone poles,
or water towers. Generally I keep off the ground.

There's a nice little potted ficus at Mom's Chinese Restaurant.
I sit in it and ponder the menu. I try not to catch the waiter's
eye. He's a tall, stern-looking man. The girl detective is
obviously trying to make up her mind between the rolling beef and
the glowing squid. Listed under appetizers, there's scallion
pancakes, egg rolls with shrimp, and wantons (which I have ordered
many times. But they always turn out to be wontons instead), also
dancing girls. The girl detective orders a glass of water, no
lemon. Then she asks the waiter, "Where are you from?"

"China," he says.

"I mean, where do you live now," the girl detective says.

"China," he says. "I commute."

The girl detective tries again. "How long has this restaurant
been here?"

"Sometimes, for quite a while," he says. "Don't forget to wash
your hands before you eat."

The girl detective goes to the bathroom.

At the next table there are twelve women wearing dark glasses.
They may have been sitting there for quite a while. They stand up,
they file one by one into the women's bathroom. The girl detective
sits for a minute. Then she follows them. After a minute I follow
her. No one stops me. Why should they? I step carefully from table
to table. I slouch behind the flower arrangements.

In the bathroom there aren't any trees, so I climb up on the
electric dryer and sit with my knees up by my ears and my hands
around my knees. I try to look inconspicuous. There is only one
stall and absolutely no sign of the twelve women. Maybe they're all
in the same stall, but I can see under the door and I don't see any
feet. The girl detective is washing her hands. She washes her hands
thoughtfully, for a long time. Then she comes over and dries them.
"What next?" I ask her.

Her eyes flash keenly. She pushes open the door of the stall
with her foot. It swings. Both of us can see that the stall is
empty. Furthermore there isn't even a toilet in it. Instead there
is a staircase going down. A draft is coming up. I almost think I
can hear alligators, scratching and slithering around somewhere
further down the stairs.

The girl detective goes to the underworld.

She has a flashlight of course. She stands at the top of the
stairs and looks back at me. The light from the flashlight puddles
around her feet. "Are you coming or not?" she says. What can I say?
I fall in love with the girl detective all over again. I come down
off the dryer. "I guess," I say. We start down the stairs.

The underworld is everything I've been telling you. It's really
big. We don't see any alligators, but that doesn't mean that there
aren't any. It's dark. It's a little bit cool and I'm glad that I'm
wearing my cardigan. There are trees with moss on them. The moss
glows. I take to the trees. I swing from branch to branch. I was
always good at gym. Beneath me the girl detective strides forward
purposefully, her large feet lit up like two boats. I am in love
with the top of her head, with the tidy part straight down the
middle. I feel tenderly towards this part. I secretly vow to
preserve it. Not one hair on her head shall come to harm.

But then we come to a river. It's a wide river and probably
deep. I sit in a tree at the edge of the river, and I can't make up
my mind to climb down. Not even for the sake of the part in the
hair of the girl detective. She looks up at me and shrugs. "Suit
yourself," she says.

"I'll wait right here," I say. There are cute little canoes by
the side of the river. Some people say that the girl detective can
walk on water, but I see her climb in one of the canoes. This isn't
the kind of river that you want to stick your toes in. It's too
spick-and-span. You might leave footprints.

I watch her go across the river. I see her get out on the other
side. There is a nightclub on the other side, with a veranda and a
big sign over the veranda. DANCE WITH BEAUTIFUL
GIRLS
. 
There is a woman standing on the
veranda. People are dancing. There is music playing. Up in my tree,
my feet are tapping air. Someone says, "Mom?" Someone embraces
someone else. Everyone is dancing. "Where have you been?" someone
says. "Spring cleaning," someone says.

It is hard to see what is going on across the river. Chinese
waiters in elegant tuxedos are dipping dancing princesses. There
are a lot of sequins. They are dancing so fast, things get blurry.
Things run together. I think I see alligators dancing. I see a fat
old man dancing with the girl detective's mother. Maybe even the
housekeeper is dancing. It's hard to tell if their feet are even
touching the ground. There are sparks. Fireworks. The musicians are
dancing, too, but they don't stop playing. I'm dancing up in my
tree. The leaves shake and the branch groans, but the branch
doesn't break.

We dance for hours. Maybe for days. It's hard to tell when it
stays dark all the time. Then there is a line of dancers coming
across the river. They skip across the backs of the white
alligators, who snap at their heels. They are hand in hand,
spinning and turning and falling back, and leaping forward. It's
hard to see them, they're moving so fast. It's so dark down here.
Is that a dancing princess, or a bank robber? Is that a fat old
man, or an alligator, or a housekeeper? I wish I knew. Is that the
girl detective or is it her mother? One looks back at the other and
smiles. She doesn't say a thing, she just smiles.

I look, and in the mossy glow they all look like the girl
detective. Or maybe the girl detective looks like all of them. They
all look so happy. Passing in the opposite direction is a line of
Chinese waiters. They swing the first line as they pass. They cut
across and dosey-do. They clap hands. They clutch each other,
across the breast and the back, and tango. But the girl detectives
keep up towards the restaurant and the bathroom and the secret
staircase. The waiters keep on towards the water, towards the
nightclub. Down in that nightclub, there's a bathroom. In the
bathroom, there's another staircase. The waiters are going home to
bed.

I'm exhausted. I can't keep up with the girl detectives. "Wait!"
I yell. "Hold it for just a second. I'm coming with you."