This is Entry 10 of an ongoing serialized memoir.
Start at the beginning → Superpower
I’ve all but given up on hearing back from Lawrence Kline but will give him a few more days before I send out an Inmate Request Form asking for a public defender. My calls to his office reveal nothing more than a deepening sense of abandonment…that familiar, hollow echo of unworthiness.
My first guided meditation came in 8th grade health class. Our teacher this small, soft spoken man of Italian decent who loved to sing doo-wop. I’m pretty sure my mom sold him a house shortly after she got her real estate license - surprised at the disciplined lifestyle he must be living to be able to pay cash for his house. Health class was already an eye roller because of the sex education part of it so you can bet that the half of class we spent on meditation was met with a fair bit of incredulity. John Perricone also had black belt in karate. Maybe it was the first time anything of Asian culture was being presented in class by anyone other than my mother who would help us bring in Chinese New Year with a won ton folding class. For whatever reason, I took it seriously.
That evening, in the darkened family room with my dad pounding away at his exercises upstairs, I experimented with what we had learned. With focus, I could tune out my surroundings completely. I already had a couple books from the school library out on ESP and telekinesis. Maybe, with focus, I could move the objects on the table. Maybe, with focus, I could disappear. Somewhere in that delicate balance between focus and letting go, I could access something that felt familiar and maybe even safe. In the shadow of all those books, I could just separate from my body and disappear. Then my father would say a curt, “Now.” and, from wherever they were, my brothers would appear and go to their rooms to do “EXERCISE”.
I can’t say when Exercise started but it had been a part of my life since the first house that I can remember living in on Woodberry Dr. I think that my father must have gotten it from compulsory basic training that the displaced Chinese went through in Taiwan. From as far back as I can remember every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, my father would get home from work, strip to his underwear, lay out a sheet at the landing at the top of the steps and do Exercise. Four movements made up the routine. “Push-ups, Sit-ups, Lift-ups and Stand-ups”. The Lift-up a bicep curl where he used his other arm as resistance. The Stand-up a form of a deep knee bend. 400 repetitions of each. The movements accompanied by breathless counting in Chinese.
During Exercise, the brothers would lurk about the house waiting. Doing homework, flipping through the collection of National Geographics and, later, listening to records in the basement. No matter where we were held hostage by the intensity of the shouted count in Chinese and on alert for that spoken, “Now.” after which we would go to our rooms and in the darkened house start doing exercise as well. Over all the years, the exercises never really evolved away from the same four exercises but eventually my father had made up strips of papers with each of the exercises written out in block letters and a square where we would write the number of repetitions which we handed him before joining him in the shower. I don’t know if I could ever do 100 push ups but, on paper, I did.
Somewhere there’s a memory rendered in jittery Super 8. My father holds his best Schwarzenegger pose while my brothers and I clamor over each other like unweaned puppies to hold onto his flexed arms.
We are all giggling - still unafraid to muss up his hair or stretch his white t-shirt into deformity.
This was the era of trips to the V Drive-In.
Superman.
The Return of the Dragon.
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
I so much wanted to see E.T. but never got the chance.
Still haven’t.
Out in the yard, an overweight Lakota boy plays three on three basketball. His extra large waist doesn’t match his extra short legs. So he has to roll up his pants to make them fit. Running across the court to on defense, his pants suddenly come unfurled sending him spilling across the concrete. He curses and then stumbles onto a solution. He pulls his pink socks high and tucks his pants into them. So proud now, he smiles and looks around for an audience. A wide-striped harlequin with his pant legs now blousing out over his socks. A court jester!
He catches me watching, makes a goofy face and then takes a bow.
Let in on the joke, a guffaw escapes from my chest. The foreignness of my laughter takes me by surprise. For half a second, I let it run unbridled and then catch myself and suck it back in before anyone catches me smiling.
D’ya play Spades?
More challenge than invitation.
Ya, sure.
Four years of playing Wist in college, makes Spades an easy game to pick up. I’m good at tracking cards and suits and know how to read my partners. I quickly climb the ranks and end up completing a foursome with the OGs of the pod. Tail, Running Bear, and some guy who’s been brought in on conspiracy/“king pin” charges. I’m happy to sit with big dogs. Although probably capable of extreme violence, it feels like there is a deliberateness to how they move.
It’s the young rattlesnakes you got to worry about.
That said, when they talk story, my ears go wide at the sounds of SWAT team arrests and flash bang grenades. Running Bear stuns us into silence as he recalls how he accelerated through a police barricade. His pale arm shooting forward and rotating to indicate the car he flipped three times after glancing off a cruiser.
Small and sinewy, Running Bear has a long, straight scar running over one eye, pulling his right lid down sleepy. Shark-black eyes. A rattail braid drips down his back almost to his waist. His sallow skin and pink, scratchy scars make him look like a vampire.
When I was fourteen, I got busted watching pornos over at my best friend’s house. His mom chased me out of there but, then, the next time I was over, she asked me if I knew what to do with “that thing”.
I said, ‘Hell Yeah!’ and we got busy. Ended up going back to my buddy’s house after school everyday. I had to figure out how to dodge him but I kept perfect attendance.
She ended getting pregnant and put the kid up for adoption.
To this day, my buddy doesn’t know his sister was my daughter.
As we are exchanging glances of disbelief, Running Bear is off on another one.
He’s driving his cousin and her boyfriend down the interstate.
Rolling joints and steering with his knees. The couple starts arguing and it escalates into a fist fight.
They are pulling at each other.
Pulling at his seatbelt.
He loses control and the car flips five times.
He does that thing with his hand again.
Ejects them.
Running Bear description drifts over the part where the boyfriend doesn’t make it - cracked his head open - and lands on his cousin — bloodied, shirt torn and he holds his hands out feeling their weight.
Big ol’ titties hanging out.
Somebody at our table pipes up.
But, wait, her boyfriend died.
Yeah. He didn’t make it. There grey stuff coming out of his head. I had to go on the run because his family was hunting for me.
Shit, bro, I’m never getting in a car with you.
What do you mean? It wasn’t my fault.
Whose fault was it, then?
He shrugs.
Rearranges some cards in his hand.
Must have been the car’s.
I’m having a hard time getting used to it but when you are slow to play your turn in Spades there it is.
Hey…Wang.
Yeah?
It’s on you.
Click there to go to the next installment —> The Paint Huffer