Outrun the Moon(4)

Is that why Tom has been acting so funny? We’d been as close as two walnut halves growing up, and it only seemed natural that we would end up together. At least to me.

If I were more demure, perhaps Tom would be less ambivalent about our fortuitous match. A respected herbalist needs a proper wife, someone who doesn’t parade down uneven streets. Someone who doesn’t bribe her way into elite schools.

I nearly collide with a water trough, scaring away thoughts of Tom.

Jack pumps his free arm as if to propel us there faster, risking a rip in the too-tight sleeves of his jacket. The towel flaps against his thigh with every step. I pull him slower again. Ah-Suk tonified Jack’s internal energy with his five-flavor tea, but we must avoid overexertion.

“You think they’re as good as Li’l Betties?” he asks.

“You can get Li’l Betties on any street corner. These chocolates are special.”

The mingled scent of garlic and ocean brine signals that North Beach lies ahead. Ba says when he was a kid, he could hawk coffin nails—what he called cigarettes—to twenty different people in the Latin Quarter and not hear the same language twice. Now the Russkies and Paddies have left for sunny Potrero Hill, the Germans have moved to Noe Valley, and les Froggies went wherever they pleased. Today, the area’s mostly Italian, with pockets of Mexicans and South Americans sewn in, each conveniently provided with their own Catholic church, just like the Chinese.

The avenue grows dense with Italians hurrying in and out of shops. Some avert their gaze as we pass, while others make no effort to conceal their distaste for our being there.

Jack squeezes my hand. “The paving stones are newer here. Maybe they’re afraid we’ll track dirt through, and that’s why they’re ngok.” He uses the Chinese word for “hot-tempered.”

“We have the same dirt under our shoes as they do.” We pass through this neighborhood every once in a while to fly kites on the shoreline, and the inhabitants are never happy to see us.

“Are we mad when they use our streets?” he asks.

“Sometimes.” He pans his thin face at me, waiting for an explanation. But how do I explain that to white ghosts, we are animals, which is why they’ve caged us in twelve rickety blocks. We are something to be ogled, lower even than black ghosts. I once read in a brochure that whites could purchase a “heathen experience” in our “labyrinthine passages,” including a trip to an idol-filled joss house, a peek into a real opium den (including a suck on a savage’s pipe for the more adventurous), and a nibble on pig’s feet (as if we ate those every day).

I sigh. “We’re more mad that they’re mad when we use their streets.”

People openly stare at us, even in our western clothes. Ba says that since we were born in Oakland, we are American, and he doesn’t want Jack to wear the queue in his hair since it is unpatriotic. Whites consider the tradition barbaric, but I don’t see how it’s any worse than stuffing horsehair pads into one’s hair to achieve the Edwardian poof.

I realize I’m now pulling Jack and force myself to slow our pace again.

Ahead, a woman with an enormous hat attends to her produce stand. Checking for traffic, I guide Jack across the street to avoid any accusation of stealing. We reach the other side, where a trio of Italian men hunch on crates beneath the red awning of Luciana’s, the swankiest restaurant on this street. A young man with teeth like yellow corn flicks the ash off his cigarette and leers.

I consider crossing back to the opposite side—Mercy the Fearsome is not stupid—but if I let the Italian cow me, I show him and anyone watching that we can be pushed around like the dogs they think us to be.

I attempt to sail by like I have not a care in the world.

But as we pass, the man unfolds himself and peanut shells waterfall off his dungarees. He towers over me by a head. “Pigtail Alley’s that way.” He stabs a tobacco-stained finger toward Chinatown.

“Excuse us. You’re blocking the footpath,” I say evenly.

With a laugh that smells like wine, he glances at the two other men peeling carrots behind him. “Whadyaknow, she speaks English.”

Wouldn’t I like to show him how much English I speak.

Jack tugs at my hand, and I squeeze his palm reassuringly. When life puts a stone in your path, it is best to walk around it.

I pull Jack into the street. We pass the hooligan, but as we regain the curb, I feel my straw bonnet being lifted off my head. The man places it on his greasy locks, presses his hands together, and bows. “No walkee on street without paying ching-chong toll.”

My cheeks flame, and I can feel the button about to pop off my collar. I attempt to snatch back my hat, but he holds it out of reach. “Pay the toll—a dollar for you and the bambino—and maybe I’ll give you your hat back.”

“I will not, even if I did have a dirty dollar to throw at swine like you.”

“Oh ho, she’s got some pepper in her sauce, eh, cugino?” He glances again at his friends, who are now grinning. Through the window, a young woman with mahogany curls moves about the restaurant placing snowball-shaped votives onto the tables.

“G-g-give,” says Jack. His fists clench, and his chest begins to move as quick as a bird’s. “G-g-give it—”

“It’s okay, Jack,” I tell him in Cantonese.