Fresh Off the Boat (5 page)

“What is going on? Why you have the bruise?”

“It’s just basketball, Mom.”

“No, not basketball! Michael Qiao dan
^§
does not have bruise like this.”

“That’s ’cause he’s black, Mom. It doesn’t show up.”

“You lie to me, who hit you?”

“Mom, no one hit me, this is just what happens.”

“If you don’t tell me, you don’t play basketball!”

I had to tell the truth. I was getting picked on, but I didn’t know what to do. When Mom told Dad, he told me he wouldn’t be mad if I got in trouble for fighting, but no one in our family ever went down without a fight and I wasn’t going to be the first. The dude didn’t give me no blueprint; he just told me not to lose! What my parents didn’t understand was that it wasn’t just basketball. I was miserable every hour outside the house.

I kept coming home with infractions, for asking questions or drinking milk through my nose, so she had to have a parent-teacher conference with Ms. Truex. Mom came to school one Friday afternoon to pick me up and spoke to Ms. Truex alone while I sat outside. I couldn’t hear what they talked about, but I could hear my mom raise her voice every few minutes to defend me, saying things like “He comes home with bruise every day! You complain but who protects him?” I remember watching other Asian parents in D.C., whether it was at the grocery store, school, or the mall, get yelled at and picked on by white people, but my mom always spoke up. She wasn’t scared. She would haggle, honk her horn in traffic, push people out of the way if they tried to cut us in line. It was really funny. Mom wasn’t even five feet tall but she was tough. Even when she had parent-teacher conferences, I wasn’t scared if my grades were good, because that’s all she cared about.

“This bitch is an idiot.”

“I told you, Mom! Everyone thinks she’s pretty, too.”

“Pretty? Boring and so slooooow. Take forever to talk to her, talk, talk, talk, all garbage. I tell her get to the point!”

“What’d she say?”

“She say you ask weird questions, but I say you’re student, you supposed to ask! Her job to answer! I say you’re lazy, if student ask, you answer!”

“Yeah! She told me my real great-grandparents are these white people named Adam and Eve!”

“Bullshit! But hey, Xiao Wen, be smart. Why you argue with her about that? You know they believe this stuff, just let them believe.”

“But she told me I was going to Hell if I didn’t believe and told me to ask God into my heart!”

“Ha, ha, yeah, she told me, too, think she do something sooo good to help you. Whatever. You know it’s lies, let those idiots believe. Just focus on
real
school. Don’t be stupid and fight them, you’ll lose.”

Mom was smart. I stopped questioning Ms. Truex about God—but lunch was still a problem. Every day, I got sent to school with Chinese lunch. Some days it was tomato and eggs over fried rice, others it was braised beef and carrots with Chinese broccoli, but every day it smelled like shit. I’d open up the Igloo lunchbox and a stale moist air would waft up with weak traces of soy sauce, peanut oil, and scallions. I didn’t care about the smell, since it was all I knew, but no one wanted to sit with the stinky kid. Even if they didn’t sit with me, they’d stand across the room pointing at me with their noses pinched, eyes pulled back, telling ching-chong jokes. It was embarrassing so I asked Mom to start packing me some white people food.

“What do white people bring to lunch?”

“Like sandwiches, chips, and juice boxes. Everyone likes Capri Sun, Mom!”

“Ohhh, the foil drink? That’s expensive!”

“Mom, it’s worth it! Everyone says it’s really good.”

“What’s wrong with your soy milk? You always like soy milk.”

“It’s different at school, people laugh at you! My stomach hurts when I eat ’cause I get mad.”

It was true, my stomach would cramp into angry knots when those kids clowned me. It got extra shitty when show-and-tell came around. My parents didn’t want to spend money on show-and-tell, so Mom’s idea was to bring something exotic for lunch and kill two birds with one stone. That day, I walked to the front of the room knowing I was about to give the wackest presentation any third grader had ever seen. I opened my lunchbox and took out a plastic container of seaweed salad.

“For show-and-tell today, I brought seaweed salad.”

“Eeeewww! What’s seaweed!”

“It’s like spinach but from the bottom of the ocean.”

“Gross! I would never eat that.”

“If it’s on the bottom that means sharks poop on it!”

“Sharks don’t poop on seaweed! It’s really good for you and tasty.”

“No, it’s not, you eat shark poop!”

The teacher jumped in to stop the other kids, but I had no comebacks. I just went back to my chair and ate my seaweed salad. My mom saw that the relentless food shaming was getting to me and gave in. I loved my mom. We didn’t have much back then, but she always did everything she could to get us what we wanted. I remember being at Chinese school hearing all the kids complain that their parents wouldn’t buy them toys, new clothes, or McDonald’s. Some kids really wanted to be white. I joined in and told jokes about my parents, but I knew they tried hard and that was enough for me. OK, I’d admit that it seemed a lot nicer to be white, but I liked my parents! I was OK without Ninja Turtles and McRibs; I just didn’t want any more stinky Chinese lunch. That night, instead of going to Dong-a Trading or Hong Kong Supermarket for groceries, she took me to Gooding’s and Publix. We walked the polished, halogen-lighted, air-conditioned aisles looking for lunch stuff. She really cared that I ate well and didn’t want to just pack me sandwiches and sugary drinks.

“I like this penguin, Mom!”

“Ha, ha, you always like penguins or pandas.”

“Yeah, they have cool colors and waddle around. They’re friendly.”

“OK, let’s see, what is in this meal? Chicken nuggets, peas, mashed potatoes. What is this called?”

“Kid Cuisine!”

After the nutritional information panel met with her approval, Mom loaded up the cart with Kid Cuisines and Juicy Juices.

The next day at school I couldn’t wait to break for lunch. There was a microwave oven in our classroom and every day a few kids would take their lunches and get in line. I proudly pulled out my Kid Cuisine, still cold in my hand, penguins grinning, and got in line. I was third in line so I wouldn’t have to wait too long.

There was one black kid in our class, Edgar. He had the same trouble I did: he was a loner without many friends. But he was Christian, so at least that was going for him. I was still the buffer between him and the bottom. He lined up behind me.

The two people in front of us were taking too long. Why were they taking so long? What are they doing up there? I stood waiting as our lunch period ticked away; I felt Edgar’s mouth-breathing ass creeping behind me. By the time I finally got up to the microwave, there were only fifteen or twenty minutes left for lunch. I was getting ready to pop open the oven door when Edgar grabbed me by my shirt and threw me to the ground.

“Chinks get to the back!”

I looked up from the ground, dumbfounded.

My dad had told me about the word, and what it meant, but you’re never ready for your first time. It just fucking happens. I waited for Ms. Truex to get involved but she just sat on her fat ass eating lunch like David Stern watching the Malice at the Palace.

Finally, something went off in me. I was nine years old, and I called ’nuff. I jumped up from the floor and went right at Edgar. The boy was bird-chested. I grabbed his arm and threw it in the microwave. With my other hand I grabbed the door and slammed it on his arm as hard as I could. I wanted to kill him. I don’t know if I broke his arm, but he slumped to the floor crying. I stood over him like Ali and wouldn’t back off. I went to kick him and that’s when Ms. Truex finally got involved. She shouted over to another one of the students, the kid named Cole.

“Cole! Help!”

“Yes, Ms. Truex!”

“Cole, you take Eddie to the principal’s office. Take Chris with you to be safe! I’ll take Edgar to the nurse.”

“He hit me first and called me a chink!”

“Eddie, you are in enough trouble! You go straight to the office with Cole and Chris.”

“Eddie, just go to the office, man …”

I walked down the hallway with Cole and Chris flanking me; I was shaking the whole time. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t scared of the principal or Edgar, but something was wrong. I was shaking like crazy and couldn’t even keep my hand still. We got to the principal and I started crying. Cole told him what happened and I was so shook I couldn’t speak. The principal took away my lunch, locked me in a walk-in closet, and wouldn’t even let me out to go to the bathroom. When my mom came to pick me up, they pried open the closet door to find a kid drenched in piss. Mom bugged the fuck out.

“You stupid ass! How do you do this to my son! He was hit first!”

“Mrs. Huang, your son was out of control today and severely injured another student.”

“He called him a chink! You think that’s OK? Words hurt, too. I hear you people say that words hurt like sticks! Look at him!”

My mom would always get sayings wrong, but they knew what she meant. I was never happier to see her. Every day I went to this bullshit school alone and no one ever had my back besides my mom. But despite her best efforts, I was never the same. She always talks about how I was a happy kid, deep-thinking, liked to read books, and didn’t bother with drama. Even when other kids in the neighborhood got caught up, I’d just shoot hoops, ride my bike, or listen to music. I tried to fit in and get along, but people weren’t havin’ it. Edgar forced me into my William Wallace moment. From that day forward, I promised that I would be the trouble in my life. I wouldn’t wait for people to pick on me or back me into a corner. Whether it was race, height, weight, or my personality that people didn’t like, it was now their fucking problem. If anyone said anything to me, I’d go back at them harder, and if that didn’t work, too bad for them: I’d catch them outside after school.

WHEN MY DAD
got home, he took the whole family out for dinner as if he’d been waiting for this day. I couldn’t believe it. He was prepared. We all piled in his Lincoln Town Car and went for a ride over to Chinese Choo-Choo’s fast food on Orange Blossom Trail. My dad told me a story about when he was a bartender at my uncle’s restaurant. These customers ordered a martini straight up so he went to pick it up at the bar. There wasn’t a garnish on the drink, though, and he couldn’t remember whether it was supposed to get an olive or a cherry so he just put a cherry in, figuring it wasn’t a big deal. When he finally got to the table, these assholes clowned him for being an FOB, so he came back and threw olives on the table, but he never forgot it. We weren’t Americans like everyone else. We’d always be the other in this bullshit country. From that point on, he put me in kung fu classes, started sparring with me, and gave me a belt to wear to school. If anyone fucked with me, he said to use the belt. It was the most important thing my father ever gave me: A License to Ill. Things started to change.

When I played ball now, I emulated Charles Barkley. I was short, but I boxed people out, posted them on the block, and stuck my elbows out on pick-and-rolls. I went to five schools in seven years because I stayed in trouble: knocked a dude out in a parking lot, fought kids at the JCC playing ball, and hit a twenty-three-year-old dude at McDonald’s with a bat when he broke my friend’s hand in a fight.
^‖
Anyone who had something to say, I dealt with it. I was never proud of it. My psyche just clocked out that day and gave up. No more diplomacy. It’s not OK for people to say “Ching Chong Eddie Huang” or squint their eyes at me. It was the most important decision I made in my life. China went through the Cultural Revolution and a lot of bad decisions by Mao, but you know what? That man expelled the barbarians and so did I: everybody out.

One interesting thing happened that year. A man called Master Wu came to Orlando, Florida, as part of a global tour. He was a chi gong master who also practiced Taoist face reading. I didn’t understand the concepts, but he was revered. After Chinese school one night, the parents threw a big potluck dinner in his honor and everyone was invited. I remember wandering around with a party plate of food, huddling with Emery and Evan to avoid parents, when all of a sudden, he pointed toward me.

“This one! He has the face of an emperor!
Ta hwai jwo gwan!
” (He will be a public servant.)

I certainly didn’t look like an emperor with half-chewed Taiwanese
mei fun
hanging out the side of my mouth.

“Hi.”

“What is your name? Whose son is this?”

“Huang Xiao Ming. That’s my mom.”

I pointed toward my mom, and she’d never been that happy to claim me.

“He is my son!”

A few weeks later, Master Wu came to Atlantic Bay because he wanted to meet me. I’d never seen my parents that proud, and the best part was I didn’t have to do anything for this guy to pick me out of a crowd like I was Kung-Fu Panda. He read my palms, checked out my face, talked to me about
chi
, and declared I surely had the face of an emperor. I was confused, but Emery had a great time with it.