In the last month of the school year, regular classes ended and we began Intersession, a three-week-long experiential program. Students had several PE-related courses to choose from, and Javon signed up for “Go Wild,” an outdoors course with Shane. They went on a backpacking trip, hiking through redwoods to a cascading waterfall. On another excursion, Javon stepped up to be a leader, guiding his group through an orienteering activity. His indefatigable energy was bottled in the classroom, but in the outdoors, that same energy was prized. When I saw him after his overnight trip, he said, “Next year, you guys gotta make Intersession year-round, Lam.” This is how I want to end Javon’s story, with him thinking of his future.
bus driver
In high school, I wasn’t a troublemaker in class like Javon, but I also needed a kick in the ass. I was a graffiti writer, and I’d cut school to hop the city bus all around San Francisco. I’d sit in the window seat of the last row, unloosen the cap of my marker, and slide the window open, so the smell of ink wouldn’t reach the driver. I’d hit up my name, RANK, on the white panel that ran vertically alongside the window, the letters to my name written top to bottom, a totem pole of letters. I knew all the bus routes, which ones went to which bus yard, how you could shut down the engine of a diesel city bus by flipping a secret switch located on the backside of the vehicle. I’d return to school to nap while my tags stamped on buses zigzagged around the city.
Bus drivers were our adversaries. We tagged when they weren’t looking in the rearview mirror, when they’d lean into a turn, spinning the steering wheel, their eyes fixed on the road. Sometimes we’d get lucky, and a driver would have their mirror aimed away from us. When a driver caught us in the act, usually they’d just shout until we got off. But once, a driver called me up to the front like he was inviting me to sit down in his living room. We were the only ones left on the bus. He gave me a you-could-be-doing-more-with-your-life talk, which somehow didn’t come across as corny.
Another driver stopped the bus and charged at me and my homeboy sitting in the back. The two of us each squeezed through a window and jumped. But the driver wasn’t deterred. He gave chase, on some superhero shit. He abandoned his bus, along with his passengers, in the middle of a one-lane street, cars honking, traffic stalled. I turned back after a couple of blocks. The driver was gaining. I didn’t think I had the stamina to elude him. As soon as I turned the next corner, I stopped while my friend continued. I leaned against the wall, creeping to the edge of the corner, listening for the footsteps of the approaching driver. When he drew close, when I could hear him panting, I slipped past him, speeding off in the opposite direction.
The man my mother had an affair with was also a bus driver. Their relationship started back when I was in elementary school. Willie, a Filipino guy, would come over during his lunch breaks while my father was working in the kitchen of a restaurant in Chinatown. Willie would have on sunglasses, dressed in a brown uniform. My mom would put on makeup before he arrived, heavy blush and blue eye shadow.
They’d go in her room and lock the door. Just looking at photo albums, my mom would say. She had a stack of albums in her closet. There were two types, ones that contained pictures of our family, and ones that contained pictures of her vacations with Willie. He was careful never to be photographed, always the photographer. They’d take trips to Disneyland, Hawaii, and, once, Paris. My mom carried a small wallet, and on the front cover was a picture of her in a bikini, kneeling on the beach, a yellow flower in her hair.
She’d somehow convinced my father that she was going on these trips with friends from her ESL class. In the beginning, I also believed her. As I got older, I began to see through the lies, but I played along like my brother and sister and kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t difficult. Bah Ba never probed or protested, as though his wife taking off was his vacation. While my mother was gone, which couldn’t have added up to more than a week or two a year, we were left alone with our father. One morning, my sister confided to me that she had cried herself to sleep.
I told her I’d done the same. I figured we both really missed our mom. We weren’t used to spending so many hours with our father. Usually he’d be out playing mahjong—he was a gambler—and our home was simply his pit stop. He’d change clothes after work, drink a beer or some Hennessy, make his presence felt through burps and unapologetic farts, and then take off before dinner. We wouldn’t even bother to keep a chair at the dinner table for him. He was an old-school kind of father: bringing home the bacon was his sole obligation.
Back then, I didn’t harbor a grudge against Bah Ba. I’d sit in the chair closest to the front door, waiting for him to come home from work. When he appeared, I’d hurl myself at him. I’d inhale his scent: flour and grease mixed with nicotine. My hugs weren’t entirely selfless. I was trying to set myself apart from the rest of my family. Goh Goh was too cool for such displays. Ga Jeh used to sit on Bah Ba’s lap, but with middle school on the horizon, maybe she thought she was too old for that. My mom kept our father at arm’s length, though she’d suffocate
