Buddha Baby (13 page)

Lindsey looked Dustin in the eye, fairly impressed. She'd never heard anyone explain her predicament so succinctly. He obviously knew where she was coming from. Wherever he'd been and whatever he'd done since the sixth grade, he certainly had shared some of her sticky experiences. Trusting him, she said, "I know this city has exponentially more white guy /Asian girl couples than the other way around. If Angry Asian Men view this type of mixed couple as an unfavorable phenomenon, there isn't anything I can do about it. I don't feel responsible for any relationship other than my own.

"Likewise, if Angry Asian Men want to date blondes, I

don't care. If blondes don't want to date them back, that equation has nothing to do with me. I do feel, however, that somehow Angry Asian Men blame me for these… social discrepancies, or whatever. They seem to regard me as an enemy who contributes to a greater whole of racial inequalities, never empathizing even for a moment or perhaps considering that I, too, have to deal with people's misconceptions."

Dustin looked up from his drink and grinned. "So," he said, "I take it you date white guys."

She nodded sheepishly.

"Yeah. I date white girls."

There was a pause, then they both burst into laughter. Dustin ordered more drinks, and after a moment, he said, "So, you're really burning a path to the top, what, working retail?" He rattled the ice cubes in his glass and took a gulp of whiskey.

Her legs had gone slack against the banquette panel, and she noticed now that Dustin was eyeballing her thighs. She nonchalantly pulled her skirt down and closed her legs.

"Don't do that," he said, winking at her.

Embarrassed, she tried to think of something to say. "So, what happened to you? Where did you go after sixth grade?"

"I went to boarding school. Military. Texas. Pure hell. I was the only Chinese kid and got my ass kicked, like, every day."

Dustin scanned the semi-crowded bar, and his eyes lingered at some grungy girls in tank tops who were making cow eyes at him. It was hard for Lindsey to believe that a guy who turned out so handsome was ever a runt that people picked on. He turned his attention back to her.

"Actually, it's not exactly true that Asian girls hate me. I just hardly ever meet any. However, the ones I do see don't seem to want to have anything to do with me. I don't have a big, fat CLK Mercedes, or look like a doctor, or anyone with money or a future, or anything."

"Not all Asian girls are looking for guys with money," Lindsey said.

Dustin shot her a look.

Lindsey thought about the Chinese Math Vortex. Her cousin Sharon. The invention of the abacus.

"Um, what do you do, anyway?" she asked.

He looked straight at her. "My family owns the Golden Phoenix chain of Chinese restaurants. Second biggest in North America. I don't work. I'm a mooch." Changing the subject, he asked, "So how come you don't date Asian guys?"

She had promised Michael she'd keep their engagement a secret for a month or so, until he found her the perfect ring, he said. So instead of telling Dustin she was off the market, she just replied, "What am I supposed to say? After my whole life of not hanging out with other Chinese people at school or at work, am I supposed to walk up to someone and say, 'I'm ready to embrace my Asianness now. Will you be my friend?'"

Dustin nodded and stared into his empty glass. He said, "Believe me, I know what you mean."

People with tiny heads cannot be trusted. That's what Lindsey reminded herself as she used a toothbrush and a cup of diluted bleach to clean between Jesus's toes on the hallway crucifix. Today, the tiny head in question belonged to Sister Boniface. Lindsey could see her now, bawling out a little Chinese girl down by the third grade classroom. As Lindsey continued her Son of God mani-pedi she watched Boniface's beet-red face and quivering puff of orange frizz like a pom-pom of pubic hair poking out of the top of her wimple. She was gesticulating with her tiny fists, hard and mauve like new potatoes, and she boxed the air like a mechanical, menacing garden gnome. The little girl bowed her head in contrition, and Lindsey suddenly imagined herself standing there in those Mary Janes, feeling the pain of the past, reliving the terror she herself felt when she was a St. Maude's student.

To think of Sister Boniface, Lindsey inevitably had to remember the Era of Lost Chinese Children. Under the diminutive nun's tutelage, Chinese children had a particular way of going bye-bye, and Lindsey had always feared she would be dropped down a trap door to a fiery, dungeon furnace.

The first kid to go had been Beethoven Sing. Beethoven was a sullen and grumpy kid from the first day of kindergarten. He hardly ever talked or moved, which was usually considered good behavior by Sister Boniface, and he just sat and stared into space no matter what the other kids were doing. Lindsey and the other children drew maps of the world, learned the names of the planets, and nodded their heads as their militant leader performed scientific experiments too advanced for their age group. The tiny nun showed them how to make explosive devices from everyday items such as baking soda and vinegar. She wired up her contraptions with mangled coat hangers, and presto! Just because they couldn't read yet was no excuse not to engage in a cottage-industry of do-it-yourself domestic bombs for household use. All the kindergartners cheered when Boniface exploded a papier-mache pinata, but Beethoven just sat there with a tight frown, his greasy bangs twittering in the breeze from the open window.

Sometimes Lindsey tried to talk to him. When one of the parents made cupcakes to celebrate Annunciation Day, Lindsey asked, "Beethoven, do you want vanilla or chocolate?" He sat stock-still like a P.O.W. who refused to utter a sound under questioning. Sister Boniface interjected, "He doesn't get a thing. His mother says he's allergic to chocolate, milk products, yeast, dust, and fun." His left eyelid twitched and several kids took it as a sign that they could eat his cupcake for him.

As the months unfolded, the kindergartners made nifty napkin rings out of pipe cleaners and learned the alphabet. They sang "Waltzing Matilda" and "My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean." For two whole months Beethoven sat motionless in his plastic chair. Sometimes the rest of the class forgot he was even there at the back of the room.

That is, until the day the kindergarten classroom received a new record player.

In addition to being an enthusiastic proponent of noontime calisthenics, Sister Boniface fancied herself a music aficionado. She called the newfangled device a phonograph and played religious records for the children. Near Christmastime, Lindsey and the other kids learned "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing."

"Away in a Manger," and "Joy to the World." The old LPs were made of colored vinyl, and one day Sister Boniface removed a turquoise disc from its sleeve and placed it on the turntable. After a few crackles of the needle, two or three notes played through the speaker and Beethoven suddenly sat bolt upright. It was as if all the past months he was a deactivated toy and this music instantly unlocked a secret code in the corroded microchip of his brain.

The song was "O, Little Town of Bethlehem," and as the other kids sang with lazy, slack tongues, each of them couldn't help but notice the effect this particular tune had on the little, spiky-haired curmudgeon. Beethoven sat on his hands and began to rock. He started out slowly, taking in the soothing, lulling lyrics. His shoulders then unlocked and propelled his neck back and forth. By the second stanza he was pitching his head forward as if knocking against an imaginary wall, and his chin banged against his chest. At the third verse, he really put his lower back into it. He rocked harder and harder, like a heavy-metal headbanger. All he needed to complete his performance was to bust out in an air-guitar solo.

"And in the dark street shineth…" the children sang hesitantly, worried about their little classmate. Sister Boniface tried to alleviate their concerns.

"It's okay, children," she said. "I'm going to box his ears!" With the deliberate, slow-motion steps of a trained assassin, she quietly snuck up behind Beethoven, whose bangs, by this time, were flying wildly out of control. The legs of his chair wobbled from the force of his weight. Sister Boniface spread her fists wide and was about to administer two crushing cauli-flower ears on the poor fellow, when suddenly the song ended and Beethoven's flailing torso also came to an abrupt halt.

He immediately returned to his previous catatonic state and once again stared straight ahead without moving a muscle. Sister Boniface stood behind him, her arms still outstretched. She looked disappointed that her opportunity to smash the boy's head like another papier-mache pinata had now so cruelly been torn from her grasp.

They all stared at Beethoven as "We Three Kings" began to play. Through two choruses they eyeballed him, none of them singing, just watching expectantly. He was exactly like that singing frog in the cartoons, sitting now like a lump after a rousing performance. They stared at Beethoven until the end of another song. He remained completely still as if nothing had happened. They all began to suspect that they had collectively imagined his rhythmic flailing.

Sister Boniface tiptoed to the turntable and returned the needle to the beginning of the turquoise disc. As the notes of "O, Little Town of Bethlehem" began again, sure enough, the little froggie came back to life, throwing his body back and forth like a daredevil riding a roller coaster. The other kids were all just spectators watching sheepishly from the sidelines.

The recess bell rang and the students ran from the classroom, all except Beethoven, who was still hooked on a feeling. Thirty minutes later, when they returned from the schoolyard, Beethoven had disappeared. No one ever saw that grumpy little boy again, and it crossed Lindsey's mind that perhaps the nuns had simply killed him.

Two weeks later, the kindergartners were invited to the first-grade classroom to visit the older kids' newly acquired pet guinea pig. Suddenly, it all made sense. Lindsey knew exactly what had happened to Beethoven. The docile rodent's fur was the same jet-black color as Beethoven's short-nap hair, and he twitched just the same way. She was convinced the boy had been transformed into the little animal. Every kid knew that nuns had magical powers. This spell they had cast on Beethoven was just the sort of thing Lindsey suspected was their forte.

The first graders described how the guinea pig liked to eat apples and lettuce. A couple of Lindsey's classmates who also suspected sorcery piped up, "He's allergic to chocolate. Don't feed it to him!"

"That's right. Chocolate is bad for animals," Sister Colleen affirmed. "Any other comments?"

"And no milk!" another girl advised.

"Keep his cage clean. He hates dust!" Lindsey interjected.

They all filed past the cage and took turns petting the creature's soft fur. When it came Lindseys turn, she scratched Beethoven's neck and vowed that next year, when this would be her classroom, she would stay after school every day and sing "O, Little Town of Bethlehem" to him. She imagined a gaze of gentle gratitude in Beethoven's eyes, and it was then, at the tender age of five, that Lindsey wondered if Beethoven's being Chinese had anything to do with his sealed fate.