Slingshot

"Sure," I said, " sure, Mamma. Whatever."

The thing about regulars is that they sometimes get too personal. They, like, totally get on your nerve. They don't leave at closing time. They walk up to the cash register when you're way too busy adding up the bills or something and start kicking it with you, yammering and yacking 'til you'd get real distracted and lose your place and then you just want to tell them to shut the hell up. I mean they pay for good cooking and give a tip for good service but 'scuse me where does it say on the menu that our special dinner combo of spring rolls, salad and curry chicken for $6.99 comes with psychological treatment?

Some regulars just hang around late, you know, and ask if we need help cleaning up, or if we want escort to our apartment after we close even if it's only two blocks away, or what dish we're preparing for tomorrow but like, hello, it's the same menu every day for the last three years. Some of them just didn't wanna go home, period, and I'll tell you why: most regulars are helluva loners.

But U.S. was the worse. Kept telling us how he hated being an American and everything, hated "this damn country," hated how his wife took the kids and skipped out on his sorry ass back to Texas after he came back a little loony tooney from Nam.

Sometimes U.S. 'd get way annoying when he pretended like he's somehow Vietnamese, 'cause he's been there and knew some stuff. Like he knew all about Tet: "you dress up nice and you go visit relatives and you give money in red envelops to little children, am I right, Mrs. Nguyen?" About wedding tradition: "The groom's side of the family comes over to the bride's side bearing gifts wrapped in red. They carry a roasted pig on a big lacquered tray and fruits and tea on the smaller ones, isn't that right, Pammy?" And about funeral arrangements: "You wear white head bands, you burn paper offerings to the dead and you play really sad music. I remember people in the rural areas prefer to live near their ancestors' graves so they can tend to them. Hell, I've even seen graves in people's backyards. Live and die together, that's the way you people are, am I right?"

If that's not enough to yank your chain, there was this helluva annoying phrase U.S. always used when he came in a little tipsy: Toi cung la nguoi Viet Nam ! -- I'm also Vietnamese!-- and sometimes Mamma, when she's in a good mood, she'd laugh and clasp her hands and answer him with her broken English: "Uncle Steve, you, you Viet-Nam people like us." Whenever he heard that, boy, dude'd be beaming like Mamma'd just announced that he'd won the Oscar for best actor or something. But Mamma was only humoring his ass.

I mean, Vietnamese like U.S.? Who was he kidding? A dufus from Texas with receding blond hair, a thick mustache and a beer belly who loves to wear obnoxious smelling cologne and loud Hawaiian shirts on the week-ends?

Puh-leeze, put black pajamas on that dude and he'd be looking more like, I don't know, a cholocalte truffle or something.

Anyway, soon U.S. got way too friendly. He brought us flowers, irises and tulips and daffodils and roses or what have you. Then he'd send us post cards when he traveled. U.S. travels for free or for very little money 'cause he's a baggage handler for Pan Am at SFO. London? Been there. Hong Kong? Been there too. Morocco? Done that. Even if it's only on a long week-end, U.S..'d be going off to some place far.

That one time he came back from France he got gifts for us all. He's got a little purse for Pammy, a blouse for me, a hat for Grandma Thien, who I call Grandma T. the first day she got hired by Mamma to help out with the cooking a few years ago, and for Mamma, a real kick ass turquoise necklace. We all said no, no, no thank you, especially Mamma, who kept saying "no gift, Uncle Steve, no gift. Post card OK, flowers OK, expensive gifts not OK!" and waved her hands in the air like she was hailing a cab but U.S. wouldn't listen. Toi cung la nguoi Viet Nam , he kept saying, Toi cung la nguoi Viet Nam until Mamma pretended to be angry and placed U.S.'s gifts in a pile on the table and he had to give up and offer the loots to Grandma T. And Grandma T. took them, too, cause she has more grandchildren than she could feed.

Still it's got so that U.S. wouldn't think twice about going back to the kitchen and standing there like he was the chef himself, tasting the soup and chatting with Mamma and Grandma T. about this and that, that and this. It didn't matter even when they were way too busy, U.S. would yap, yap, yap. Sometimes, he'd say something stupid to Mamma like, "Mrs. Nguyen, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the river in Ben Tre rise real fast sometimes in the afternoon, especially when it's monsoon season?" And Mamma would stop what she was doing and nod and squint her eyes and stare at the industrial size fridge as if she could see the damn river rising from somewhere behind all that steely grayness. Another time, she was preparing bun tam bi, a Southern Vietnamese dish that uses coconut, mint and pork skin, and a bunch of other good but unidentifiable stuff, and U.S. came in and said, "Mrs. Nguyen there's no better coconut than the ones grown in Ben Tre, am I not right?" And Mamma would giggle and answer, "Uncle Steve, you right, you right. Fresh coconuts over there! Only cans over here! Not the same, no good."

Pammy, too, she's real sweet to U.S. but I guess she's sweet to everybody, that's just the way she is. She's a year older than me but she acts like she's fresh off the boast. Just me, I guess, I'm the one who told the bums to get lost and the doggin' customers to clear out. I'm the one who ambushed Dwayne Kawowski on the bike path that one time at Golden Gate park on that 7th grade field trip and shot him in the knee cap with Papa's slingshot using my favorite ammunition, a jaw breaker -- a purple one at that -- 'cause he kept teasing Tammy, yanking her long braid and stuff. Told that child to cut hers short like mine to avoid assholes like Dwayne but would she listen? No. So, anyway dude was lame for a whole week and couldn't even tell people that a girl shot him with a damn piece of candy.

So guess who was the one to tell U.S. waz'up?

Yup, yours truly. Like that one time, right, when U.S. insisted on staying after closing time and helping me and Pammy clean up. It wasn't necessary, we all said, but dude insisted. Then suddenly, when we were all stacking chairs onto the table to mop the floor, he got all misty eyes and blurted, "You two are my favorite Mekong Delta girls. So smart. So filial. I mean it, Jesus almighty, I adore you both like my own."

Mekong Delta girls! Ewww, waz'up with that crazy, corny shit? I mean out of nowhere, this gringo's confession, major vomit material. I get totally bugging when he'd be talking like that. Like there we were in a dingy little dive in the Tender-full-of-freaks-loin with the smell of fish sauce and Pine-Sol up our nostrils while the bums milled about outside looking like zombies and U.S. talked to us like we were those images in the greased stained brush paintings hanging on our walls: you know, wearing conical hats and planting rice by the river and rowing boats and singing folk songs and leading the oxen home to the village or shit like that. So I said, "U.S., you're crazy if you think we're your girls. That's heinous, alright. We ain't living in your sorry ass Mekong Delta fantasy shit. Get a grip. We took a trip. We're in San Francisco -- like, A-Me-Ri-Ca ? U.S., you ain't no Vietnamese and you know it."

Boy, you should've seen him. Buttsucker had that hurt puppy look. "You're mouthy, Tammy," he said, shaking his head and sighed, "but I know you got a good heart." Then he said, "I know we're in America. I know I'm not Vietnamese, racially. All I'm saying is that, after what I went through, Vietnam is part of me too. I don't know, may be you'll see it someday."

"Yeah," I said. "Sure, U.S.. Whatever."

So it was escalating warfare between U.S. and me 'cause that time of love declaration from U.S. was nothing compared with the other time when U.S. really got me royally bugging and in helluva trouble with Mamma. He saw me and Adam K-- you know, bedroom eyes Adam, tall, brown hair down to his big shoulders, real light skin with the tattoo of a coiling snake with a blood red rose in its mouth on his left arm and with a turquoise ear ring and the best smile in last year's yearbook. Anyway, we were just walking and holding hand on the street, right, and I didn't see U.S. spying on us or nothing but when I got to the restaurant he was all nervous and everything. At first I thought he developed a tic or was having a stroke maybe, but then he said, "I saw you with that Tattoo Guy today, Tammy. Hope you don't mind a piece of advice but I just don't trust the look on that one. I've seen him real chummy with them gang bangers scoring some dope on Hyde the other day. Tell you what I think: He's the type that'll get in trouble sooner or later. So go slow, OK."

Tattoo Guy? I couldn't believe my ears! He was like dissing Adam, my bedroom eyes Adam. Worse, U.S. be talking to me like I was his own daughta... not! No wonder Texan wife and kids took off on his sorry ass. Had to. Either that or hari kiri. Besides homey ain't relative no matter how much he fantasized himself to be. A regular's still a customer and he's not suppose to tell his waitress who to date, period. He's suppose to sit at his table, you know, and order and eat and say, "Ah, that was delicious, miss, thank you very much!" and leave a big tip and then leave.

So I totally lost it. I said: "U.S., why don't chew do us all a favor and just FUCK OFF!" Unfortunately Mamma heard it all the way in the kitchen 'cause I said it LOUD and she got real MAD. There were only two Hispanic customers in the afternoon and they were too busy looking in each other's eyes like Romeo and Julietta and they didn't give a hoot what we did. But Mamma, she cared 'cause right away, she came out and made me apologize to U.S. even when she didn't even know a quarter of the story. Now, Mamma, she may not know the true meaning of "fuck off!" but she pretty much guessed that it weren't no nice, respecting phrase like "Hello, mister, how are you today?" or "Are you ready to order, Madam?" But I wouldn't apologize to U.S. Na-uhh, no frick'n way.

"No, Mamma," I said, "no apologies."

"Little Monkey, apologize," Mamma said it again in Vietnamese, her voice steady and cool as cucumber which only meant one thing: Mount Saint Helen Nguyen was ready to blow serious lava. "Don't be rude to him. Uncle Steve, he's just like a relative."

"Hell no," I yelled, "Why should I apologize? He ain't no real uncle. He certainly ain't my father. He ain't nothing, Mamma, a nobody. So, how's he family?"

Mamma didn't answer. She just looked kind of surprised that I blew first. But it was like Mamma didn't even know what happened and she automatically sided with this dude, an outsider. So I went on in this cold, bitchy voice, you know, pretending like I just figured something out that very second. I said, "Oh, oh, wait a minute, Mamma, I get it. He's going to be my new Papa soon, am I right?" and I heard Pammy suck in her breath. I mean I shouldn't have said that, I know. But I was still bugging, and therefore, went too far and dissed mi own madre in the process. So she slapped me -- Slapp!-- right in front of U.S. and Pammy and the Romeo-Julietta couple, who abandoned their banana flambe, threw some money on the table and made like el vapato.

For one thing, no chef should slap no waitress in front of no customers, that's no good for business for sure. For another, no waitress should cry in front of no regulars, but, oh man, I just couldn't help it, I bawled.

"Go ahead, Mamma," I said through my curtain of tears, "you just go ahead and hit me some more to make yourself happy but I ain't apologizing to this wuz, alright. Who asked him to har-rass me in the first place? I don't care if he's been to Ben Tre, Mamma. I don't care if he knew Papa's infantry. I mean, what does it matter now? We're living in the Tender frick'n loin and Papa is dead, buried somewhere in the re-education camp by the goddamn Vietcong and nobody asked me for permission to let this wannabe ruin my life."

I geared myself for the next assault, but it didn't come. Mamma's face suddenly changed from being totally bugging to this real sad look. She raised her hand like she was going to reslap me but she just turned it slowly toward her own face instead. Then she wept into it like a baby. Oh my goodness, even now, after all that happened, even after I did what I did later on, I can still see her thin shoulders tremble and shake.

Shouldn't have said all that stuff, I know, I know. My tongue, I swear, it's sharper than Ginzu knives. Tell you truly, I'd rather she reslap me, no problemas. It' s easier to take than her crying. I couldn't bear it. I felt so hurt inside, like somebody was twisting a knife in my guts or pinching my heart with her long, gnarly nails. So I did what came naturally: I grabbed and hugged her, my Mamma, who once held tiny old me and Pammy in her arms when we sailed out to sea in that old stinking and crowded boat from Ben Tre a zillion nights ago, but who felt suddenly so small in my arms now, so frail, so bony, who suffered so much already.

"Oh, Mommy, I'm sorry," I said, "I'm so sorry," and then Pammy came rushing to us for a team hug and we cried, the three of us, like we were in some weird choir practice. So everything -- Les Vietnam-Miz or whatever-- was happening right in front of U.S. And dude be acting like he was all tied up. He trembled like he was struggling to get out of some invisible rope until finally, his hairy arm slowly reached out like an elephant's trunk toward me and Pammy and Mamma, trying to touch us maybe, but before he could accomplish his mission impossible I shot him my special Medusa laser ray stare and froze that ex-GI in his track.

That was when Grandma T. came out of the kitchen with her ladle. She looked at us for a second or two. Then she sighed and shook her gray head like she'd seen it all before and she waved the ladle in the air like a magic wand. "Troi oi, troi!" She said, her voice low and throaty. "You people are worse than the monsoon. Please, enough with the crying already, my beef soup went sour back there because of your wailing." We all started to giggle 'cause Grandma T's voice was raspy from years of smoking -- she sounded like a Vietnamese Darth Vader or somebody cool like that-- and her wrinkled up face was frowning like a sad old clown. U.S. laughed too, even though he probably didn't get 90% of what she was saying, Mr. I'm Also Vietnamese. But Grandma T. was stern to him. She pointed the ladle toward the door and said, "Uncle Steve, you should go and handle baggage. Let us women folks take care of things." U.S. stared at us like he wanted to say something but nothing came out. So he just looked at Grandma T's ladle like he was really thinking real hard about something and then he nodded and left. Me, I was still bugging and thought dude got away easy. I don't know, I kind of expected Grandma T. to like turn his sorry ass into a wart hog or something.

U.S. did not come back the next day or the next. A week went by, then another. Soon every one started to wonder, including all the other regulars, whatever happened to Uncle Steve, the ex-GI who thought he was Vietnamese? Everyone but me, that is. I mean I didn't care. U.S. was finally out of my hair? Good. Why ask why?

It was like having a vacation. It was like it was raining for a week and then you woke up one day and the sun was out and the sky blue. It was, like, too good to be true. The dark clouds came back pretty quickly. After a month or so, just when I got used to the idea that U.S. was really, really gone, we got a post card from you know who. It showed this pretty Thai babe, a dancer in traditional costume with an intricate pointy head set. Her fingers were bent at an impossible angle, her head leaned to the side, and her eyes wide and flirty. And she had this smile on her like she was real happy but you could tell that she was just pretending.

"Dear Mrs. Nguyen and family," U.S. wrote. "If you all are wondering whatever happened to your Stephen, well don't you worry. As you can tell from the post card, I am in Bangkok, on an extended vacation. I finally decided that I need to take a trip back to 'Nam to look at the past. I am heading home in a few weeks after much needed r&r and then I'll have a very, very precious gift for you and this time you can not possibly refuse, guarantee.

Affectionately yours,

Steve

PS. Hello Pammy and Tammy, how are my favorite gals in the whole world?"

"What's Uncle Steve saying Mamma?" Pammy asked after she was done reading the card out loud for Mamma. "Yeah," I joined in, "what's so precious that we can't possibly refuse? Don't we always refuse? Didn't you say we don't need any charity? We make our own living, right Mamma."

"No charity," Mamma agreed. "Post cards, OK. Flowers ok, expensive gifts, not OK." She studied the post card for a few seconds then pinned it on the board next to the cash register with all the rest like she didn't care but you just know she was still thinking about it.

So that night right when we were getting ready for bed and everything, Pammy dropped the bomb, "I mean what if Uncle Steve wants to marry Mamma?" She said.

"What?" I said. "Miss P. are you on LSD. Puh-leeze, Mamma and U.S.? Like, they haven't even dated. Wait, what am saying: Mamma never ever dated. I just don't see it, Pammy, she's so... virtuous. She lights incense in the altar, praying and talking to Papa and dead ancestors and all that every night for God's sake. She's like 'I must suffer 'cause I'm a totally traditional Confucian Asian' babe."

"Tammy, I swear, someday your tongue will put you in intensive care."

"My tongue nothing. Miss P. if U.S. so much as touches her I'll shoot him right between the eyes with Papa's slingshot, I mean it. He's not right in the head."

"And you are?" Pammy said, rolling her pretty eyes. "You know what, Tammy, you should have put that slingshot away when you were 12. You're a sophmore now, and you're still playing with that thing. I swear, sometimes I don' t know whether you're going to end up at Stanford or in San Quentin." But that was not the end of that. Pammy paused for a few seconds and then in this totally different voice in Vietnamese, all demure like, she said, "Little Monkey, Mamma's been alone for so long. Mamma should have somebody. We shouldn't stand in the way."

I didn't answer her. I just turned out the light. In the dark, I did what I usually do when I've a hard time falling asleep: I try to remember Papa.

I've this favorite memory of him, so long ago, when I was four or five, before the asshole VCs took him but I remember it super clearly. It's a Kodak moment: A late afternoon in Ben Tre, a golden sun shining over the greenest rice fields you'll ever see and the wind is blowing, making the whole field waver like it's an endless green sea. I am sitting on Papa's lap and we're swinging on this hammock in the back of our house looking at that emerald sea. I'm pulling on the sling with one hand and try to shoot but I don't have the strength and the rock flies for less than three feet. Papa laughs and rubs my hair: "Little Monkey, you'll have to wait until you're older. By then you have to go hunting for wild ducks and rabbits to feed me and your mother."

Papa shows me how he does it. It's so easy for him, so effortless. He puts a rock in the pouch part and holds the handle in his right hand, turns his head slightly so that he'd be looking at it from the corner of his eyes and then he pulls the sling far, far back. He lets the rock zip into the air as he exhales. Phhtoc !-- it hits the trunk of a star fruit tree growing by the edge of the rice paddies some 20 yards away. All of a sudden there's this commotion and a flock of wild parrots, hidden in the branches, take off from the tree top, flashing their red and blue and yellow and green feathers, a squawking rainbow toward the sky. I remember yelling and clapping my hands. It's magic, Papa. It's awesome. Oh my goodness, it's the best moment of my life.

But the replay button in my head didn't work that night. I mean I couldn't see Papa's face clearly, not to save my life. Instead I kept seeing U.S. and Mamma holding hand in my head. Worse, when I fell asleep I dreamed that Grandma T. was scooping soup out of a coffin into a bowl and asked me to drink it but I wouldn't. Then I saw Mamma and U.S. rolling around on this big bed made out of big tree branch in this big old tree house doing the wild thang and I just sat there by the bed and cried and cried but it was like U.S. and Mamma didn't even see me and that bummed me out, totally.

So maybe it was just sheer luck, or maybe it had to happen. Like Grandma T always said: "Be careful what you hate or God will give it to you on a lacquered tray." So when Mr. I'm Also Vietnamese returned one bright Saturday morning to the tender-freak'n-loin from overseas, he was in my target range. I mean usually I wouldn't even think of shooting anybody from the roof top, left alone a paid customer and a regular, no matter how much he gets in my hair. But Adam was with me. And before we saw U.S. we were already on the roof of my building getting stoned on one of his reefers and shooting at the billboard with Papa's slingshot.

The billboard was helluva annoying. It showed this happy couple and their three children holding hands and smiling with impossibly white teeth as they walk out of this white castle. So Adam broke a candy machine the night before and stuffed his army pants pockets with jaw breakers just for me so that fake smiling family didn't stand a chance. We let one colorful piece of candy after another zipping toward the gringo family. Phtooc -- I took out the oldest girl's front tooth with a red jawbreaker. Phtooc -- Adam shot the mother in the chest and Phtoooc -- I shot the father in the forehead. And then I just went for the baby, the one with a Mickey Mouse hat on -- phtoooc, phtooc, phtooc -- I made Swiss cheese out of that little boy.

We shot and shot until the roof was littered with broken candies. It looked like a rainbow had shattered and rained down in pieces. We couldn't stop giggling. It was my second time doing pot but the first didn't really count: nothing happened that first time. So how would I know I was gonna be higher than a kite the second time around? The stuff, as Adam said, was from Colombia, so it had extra strength, extra magic. One puff -- I coughed, cursed, breathed in, breathed out --two puffs -- I had tears in my eyes, pain in my lungs, and my throat hurt like hell -- three -- and boom, I was gone. I was like, Oh my God, Adam, I'm swimming through this thick, gold bright air. My head felt like it had on that gilded traditional hat the Thai dancer was wearing in U.S.'s post card. It felt heavy and weird but kinda cool too, like the sunshine had found a way inside my head and was swirling around inside.

I was laughing like a mad and messed up chic that I was when I saw over the embankment an all too familiar shape. He had on this conical hat on his head and a red and yellow Hawaiian shirt full of flowers and in his arms he had a brown vase wrapped in a red ribbon. If you asked me U.S. looked like he was depriving some village somewhere of an idiot.

"That's him, Adam," I said, giggling still, "that's him. He's back. That's the dude who's going to try to marry my Mamma. Look, he's even got a wedding gift wrapped in red for her, see."

"That shithead down there with the funny hat?" Adam said. "He's the one who called me Tattoo Boy?"

"Tattoo Guy."

"Who gives a fuck," Adam said. Then he had this look on his face, like he just thought of something funny. "Hey," he said, "Tammy, listen, you can prevent a wedding."

"How?" I said and kept staring at the bleeding rose in the snake's mouth on his arm. When he flexed it, it seemed like it was slithering.

Adam turned to look at me like I was real stupid. "What 'd you mean how? Look down, babe, that ain't no toy in your hand. "

I looked. Papa's slingshot, made of mahoganny and smoothed by years of use, was glowing like wild fire. Adam took out an orange jaw breaker from his pants pocket, blew on it for good luck and took my hand and made me squeeze it. Then he kissed me. "Do it, baby," he whispered into my face. I closed my eyes. I could taste the sweetness of his breath, feel the intense heat emanating from his body, smell his salty sweat. "Do it. Hurry, before he's out of range."

What happened next I see it now like watching TV, in slo-mo. I see me putting the jaw breaker in the sling and pulling it far, far back. I see me taking aim at U.S., and then the jaw breaker just flew. It took forever to reach that conical hatted figure down below....

Years...

Decades...

Centuries...

And for a moment I thought it would never reach him. But how could it not? Papa's slingshot was magicked. That morning was magicked. And so was Adam's candy. It hit U.S.'s upper left shoulder with a small thud and he automatically jerked forward, yelped and the vase in his hand fell out of his grasp to shatter on the sidewalk in this nasty, cracking noise.

"No," he wailed and stepped one step forward before sinking to his knees. Then he checked his shoulder to see if he was bleeding but of course he wasn't. "Who did this? Who did this?" He yelled and took off the conical hat and looked around but didn't see anybody. So he looked down again at the mess. "Oh, Jesus! Jesus almighty."

By then Adam had pulled me back away from the embankment, out of U.S.'s sight. "Holy fuck'n shit, Tammy," he kept hugging me and laughing like a mad man. "You're my girl! You're in Da House!" but I wasn't even listening to him anymore. U.S.'s voice was the only thing that registered. It sounded so wounded, so hurt down there, like an injured dog.

I pushed Adam away. I went to the embankment and looked again. U.S. was still down there on his knees, busy now gathering the damaged goods into the hat while yelling something like "all that work, all that negotiation..." to himself but his voice trailed off in the morning wind. A strange gray-white powder had spilled from the broken vase and was spiraling upward from his hands and into the sky like smoke.

I must have moved then 'cause U.S. looked up and our eyes met. Suddenly the giggle went out of me. His eyes were in tears and his face, tanned and smeared with that gray white powder, was in such pain and hurt that it took my breath away. I mean I didn't recognize it at all but, at the same time, it felt like I've been staring at it all my life.

When he spoke his voice was all choked up, "These are your father's ashes. I brought them back from Nam -- For you... for the family."

Something had gone off in my head that moment, a flash, I guess, or a flood of light and it formed a circle between us. We were somewhere else, another place, another morning. The street below was fast turning into a dark river and the light poles were sprouting silvery fronds. I could almost smell the jasmine fragrance of the rice fields in the air, hear the paroquets squabbling somewhere in the sky, feel the burning heat of a tropical sun on my back.