Money Boy (6 page)

My fingers itch for my cell, to tap out messages, to catch up with pals.

Could you live if you were chopped off at the wrist? No, you bleed to death.

I log onto the game and get directed to the forum. Rebel Command is giving up the fortress. It plans to launch a guerrilla war to attack weaker parts of the enemy, sabotage its supply lines and break its morale.

That kind of a war is bad for the local people, I tap in confidently. The enemy punishes them after our attacks, enslaves them. The people can't protect themselves. They want a final battle that leads to peace. They don't want war to go on forever.

I will lead an army
, I declare.
Warriors who want a battle, follow me!

Someone challenges me.
Rebel Command is right
, he posts.
This way, more of our teams and soldiers will survive.

Coward
, I retort.
You're afraid to fight and die.

No, Steel, you're the coward. You fear failure. You would rather die quickly than work slowly to reduce the enemy's power. Besides, what do you know about ordinary people? You were born into wealth.

My face reddens and my heart starts pounding loudly, even though this chat takes place through cyberspace with total strangers.

People are siding with Rebel Command. I don't see any of my team members jumping in to support me. The generals will discharge me for challenging their orders.

Fart, I'm going to lose a big chunk of my Honor. Why am I being called a coward? I spoke out for the ordinary people! I should have won Honor instead!

“Good morning!” calls out the social worker as she arrives. A line-up of people has formed behind me. I log off, drag my backpack into the office and remind her of my problem.

“Do you have any ID?” she asks. “Driver's license, passport, Permanent Resident Card, social insurance number, bus pass?”

“No.”

“Did anyone in your family write down those numbers?”

I shrug. Niang has my passport and PR card. My SIN card is in my desk somewhere.

“Have you any relatives who will sign a declaration attesting to your identity?”

I don't really understand her so I shake my head.

“I just need my bank card,” I say. “Can you talk to my bank? I know my PIN number.”

She shakes her head and writes down an address for me. “This is the Chinese immigrant agency, in Chinatown. Go tell them your problem. Maybe they can help you.”

Yesterday she made getting new ID sound so simple.

And I don't want to go to Chinatown. That place is for losers.

I was eager to see Church Street and the gay district, but they're as boring as any other street. People line up at bank machines. They take time to choose flowers from buckets. A panhandler holds out her baseball cap in front of the wine store. Trucks double park at stores and restaurants. Cars behind them honk impatiently.

I see coffee bars, pizza places and restaurants. No Chinese food, but there's sushi. A big drugstore fills one corner. The gift shop carries sexy birthday cards. Next door is a movie rental shop, but isn't everything on the Internet? Above the street are signs in windows for AIDS groups and the gay newspaper.

Finally I find something. The dimly lit store has the same new-clothes smell and loud music as in suburban malls. But the mannequins wear a lot of black leather clothing and flimsy underwear. The racks of uniforms for cops, soldiers, superheroes and Japanese schoolgirls are serious. It's no cheap Halloween display. The sign with a line across its red circle declares
Customers must be age eighteen and over.
It makes me feel like I belong here. Under it are rows of rubber models of body parts. They look very real. The super-size ones are amazing.

Where's my cell? I should send pictures to Ba. Show him more of his new homeland.

A hardware store and a little park are farther up on Church, so it feels different from Yonge Street's trendy shops. The Gay Community Centre is the biggest building. Inside, it looks like a travel agency, filled with brochures and waiting-room chairs. Our school has the same ads for safe sex, but now I learn where to get tested for STDs without anyone finding out. Workers rush from one cubicle to another. A copy machine thumps steadily and churns out paper.

On the bulletin board, the club for gay Chinese (Mandarin-speakers) announces a potluck dinner. Another notice warns people about police raids on Boy Street. That must be the place for money boys, but it is several blocks away from Church Street. The group for parents of gays and lesbians meets throughout the Toronto region.

I should tell Ba to attend. Hah!

I head off to a nearby coffee bar. The cashier grins in that friendly Canadian way and asks how things are going. I don't answer. My English isn't good enough.

I head to the back and look over the place. The man near me looks like my vice-principal Mr. McKay: broad shoulders, too-tight short-sleeved shirt and hairy forearms. But this man wears a wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

Two women sit side by side holding hands. With their outside hands they clink each other's cup and lift it to the other's lips. They drink again, eyes on each other's faces.

A man with a pink face and stiff white hair bends over a laptop. Earphones plug him into his machine. What's he streaming? Elton John? Madonna? Pairs of men sit at little tables. Two uniformed fellows look like delivery men. A pair in button-down collars and khaki pants could be IT workers, bankers or undercover cops. At the window, a teenager with gray eyes and red cheeks daydreams as he smiles to himself.

If I were a westerner, I'd go and introduce myself. I wonder if he has parents like Ba, or parents like Tyson's.

The men look very serious. I wonder if they'll kiss like straight couples do in public. Maybe it's too early in the day. Maybe these people are just friends. The soft murmur of people talking soothes me.

There's free wireless, so I turn on my computer and check my email. My buddies are looking for me. Kevin asks if I've finally found a girlfriend and am hiding out. He still thinks I'm straight. Wei claims to have a pirated copy of an advance release of
Red Cliff
, Part Two. Everyone begs to see it. Mila insists that we all vote for the same singers in the All-China Pop Song Award. Kai's mom won four tickets to a Toronto Maple Leafs game. Who wants to go?

Some of my friends would be all right with me being gay. Wei, Kai and Jenny are cool. Problem is, Mila is the queen of our group, and everyone looks up to Jian because he's on the basketball team. I don't know where those two stand. Do I need my friends more than I need to come out?

If people at school knew I was gay, my locker would get smashed and paint would be poured in. I couldn't go anywhere by myself. I'd get beaten up, thrown into a dumpster or chained inside the girls' washroom. Each day I'd walk to school alone and then go home by myself. I may as well be dead. Tyson won't become a friend. His crowd is all westerners, and they never talk to us.

When Mr. Deluca teaches gay rights, students voice loud opinions. They don't do this on any other topic. They say that gay people should be accepted in society but two men shouldn't kiss in public. They say that no one should care who's gay, straight, bisexual or whatever. But in real life, it's different.

I surf in and out of my favorite music and gaming sites. And I Google the new term I learned today, Boy Street.

When I log onto
Rebel State
, wow! I'm a hero! The forum is full of players who support my let's-fight-now stance. They just learned that guerrilla warfare doesn't let them win as much Honor. They're calling for new leaders at Rebel Command. The losers on the other side, all they can do is post a list of guerrilla wars that were won in the off-line world: China, Vietnam, Cuba.

This is the best life, to be on top of the game. I post to the forum. People reply right away, now that they respect what I'm saying. I get on several threads to argue my position. In Chinese, it's much easier than living in English.

I lean back and shut my eyes.

Just for a minute, I tell myself, give them a rest.

A high-pitched squeal jolts me awake. My arm shoots out. I knock the cup to the floor. It shatters.

Where's my laptop?

It's right in front of me.

The cashier comes running.

“Sorry,” she says, sweeping up the pieces. Her arm is tattooed with a huge graphic full of color and sharp edges.

Cool!

A fellow worker runs a heavy cord from a mike stand to a loudspeaker.

“It's open mike tonight,” the cashier adds. “We have poetry readings every Wednesday night. It fills the place.”

Outside it's getting dark. Of course I'm sleepy. I haven't had a good rest in two nights.

I Google “cheap room Toronto” and find a place that charges twenty-five dollars a night for a bed and towel. Better yet, I see on MapQuest that the hostel is close by. I can walk there. That brief nap restored my strength.

I march past office workers heading home and right into the hostel. I don't pause at the door like I did at the shelter. Instead I go straight to the counter and bang the bell.

On a high wooden board, the rules and rates are posted in simple English. It must be designed for the foreigners who travel here. For the lowest rate, I share a room with three other people. The room is small and smells of dirty gym socks, but it looks clean. It overlooks a downtown parking lot. Showers and bathrooms are down the hallway. The staff will take phone messages for guests.

I'd rather hold my head high than take a free bed in the shelter. A warrior always pays his own way.

In the lobby, Japanese and Korean tourists laugh and practice their English. If I stand by them, I'll look like part of their group.

If only I could follow them onto their airplanes and fly back to Asia! Outside, young westerner men loiter at the entrance. They are neatly dressed, trim and alert. They peer up and down the street, as if waiting for someone.

Are they money boys?

At the pay phone in the hostel lobby, I punch in Ma's number. It's early morning in Beijing, but we need to talk. Is she going to send me money or not? That'll depend on what kind of job she has. If she has money, she'll help me out, I'm sure of that. She never hated me the way I hated her during the divorce. How could she? I didn't do anything to cause the break-up. Besides, she's my mother. Of course she loves me. She must.

She answers the phone in a sleepy voice. For a moment, there's something different. She's struggling to sound bright and cheerful. But her voice resumes its weary tone when she learns that it's me.

“Do you know what time it is?” she scolds.

“I wouldn't do this if I didn't have to.”

“What have you done? What kind of trouble are you in?”

“I'm living on my own now—”

“Who are you?” a man's voice shouts into my ear.

Who's that, and what's he doing at Ma's place so early?

“I'm her son! I'm calling from Canada.”

“She's busy.”

“Let me talk to my mother!”

The line goes dead. I punch redial but now the line is busy.

I slump to the wall and let myself sink to the floor.

Ma isn't sending money, and I'm not going to China.

I'm a child again, hearing of events long after they happen. My parents are divorcing? No one tells me until Ma suddenly vanishes and Niang comes to pack my bag and take me to her place. Two years later, we're moving to Canada? No one tells me until the nurse at the hospital complains about the extra paperwork for immigration checkups.

During those two years, Grandfather didn't need to take care of me but he visited. He and Ba stopped arguing. Maybe it was because Grandfather came as a guest to Niang's house or because sometimes she sent a car to bring him over and take him home. But when the topic of Canada came up, Grandfather asked Ba several times if I could stay behind with him even though he lived in a tiny little place. He was so heartbroken that he refused to go to the airport to see me off.

Grandfather was a man of honor. I wish Ma had been more like him.

In one of China's tear-jerking but award-winning movies, a village girl treks to the city to work. The only job she can get is at a massage parlor. She swallows her shame and tells her parents that she's working in a factory. She sends them money regularly. They buy a fridge and a TV and build a new house. They become known for being generous neighbors. When they look for a son-in-law, they get a mountain of offers. People know the daughter sends money home but no one knows how she earns it. She lands a fine husband but her marriage ends when he learns the truth about her.

I'm sure Ma is selling tofu. It's the easiest job she can get. It's like how paper bowls of instant noodles were Ma's best dishes at home. During primary school, if I watched TV instead of doing homework, she joined me on the sofa. If I avoided a school exam by playing sick, she let me stay home.

She told me to work hard at school but she never did the same at the jobs she had. She nagged Ba to stop smoking, but then she bought cigarettes. When we went shopping, she warned me to keep my hands to myself. But at department stores, she tried on lipsticks at makeup counters.

If Ma had been more like Niang, Ba would have stayed with her. Niang uses computer spreadsheets even though she has less schooling than Ma. Her restaurant is thriving and people tell her to run for the Beijing Association's executive. If Ma had one-fifth of Niang's ambition, she'd be rich and I'd be in China right now. Ma would send me to a top school where everyone speaks my mother tongue. All it takes is money.

My stomach growls. I walk through the dusk to Chinatown for a rice box, the cheapest meal around. People who live and shop around here have pinched and guarded faces. They belong to a lower class than the Chinese up north. But without my wallet and bank account, I've become one of them. I eat in a food court, where diners leave hardly any food behind. They slurp at their bowls to drink every drop of soup, suck every string of noodle.

I walk back to the hostel slowly. Where the hell is that father of mine? Has he been phoning my cell, trying to reach me? All he has to say is Sorry and I'll go home. But I won't be glad to go back to school.

It's tough out here. I need a job. But I don't want to work in a restaurant or coffee shop, clearing tables and pouring coffee and smiling at customers all day long. I don't want Ba calling me a loser.

At the hostel, the door to my room hangs open. I pause, frowning. I had locked it. Did my roommates come back?

I run to the bed and reach under the pillow.

My laptop is gone! I pat down the covers. I throw the blankets to the floor. The room spins around me. The door has not been forced.

In a daze, I stumble down the hallway. Some doors are wide open. Guests are propped on floors, lying on beds, plugged into Shuffles and iPods, playing with their laptops.

Their laptops, not mine. I run into the washroom, but it's empty.

At the front desk, I croak, “My laptop is gone!”

The clerk looks up from a paperback and frowns.

Oh, no, I've disturbed his evening.

He repeats my words and sighs, as if the world's dirtiest job just landed on him. He rummages for a pen.

My stomach churns. My MVs and video clips are all gone. So is the backup that I started for my iPod. All my favorite songs, lost. Three years of emails from China are wiped out, along with all my friends' addresses. All the photos of the best times of my life. I'll never track them down again.

That's my entire life! Did I back up my files to the desktop? No.

Now I notice the big sign:
Watch your belongings. Hostel is not liable for lost or missing items.

The clerk asks me questions to fill out a form. He talks too fast. I don't understand a word he says.

My arm sweeps over the counter. The sign-in book, tourist maps, business cards and a basket of candies crash to the floor. The vase smashes into pieces and water creeps toward the door. A potted plant lands on the ground, too, so black soil suddenly dirties the white tiles.

I pound the counter and scream, “Fuck you! Fuck this stupid hole!”

“Hey!” The clerk grabs the phone. “I'm calling the cops!”

I turn and run. There's no traffic on the road. Dusty shops sell used CDs, junk furniture and second-hand clothes. Thick metal bars protect store windows. Troubled people live here. They could have gotten into my room easily from the window.