Never short tails, never the long ones. She is very religious and she believes in Marx and Mao Zedong. Do not make the mistake of thinking her stupid; she has to juggle a lot of Kierkegaard and Heiler to explain but she manages a full wipe.
'Hello,' she says and takes my arm. I am never sure I am her son, although I don't rationally doubt it. It's just that the connection between us is very tenuous. Perhaps I have so few of her genes that we are more like cousins.
'Zhong Shan, what's wrong?' Zhong Shan is my Chinese name, Rafael is my Spanish name. There isn't any similarity. I am named for a Chinese revolutionary, and for her Spanish great-great-grandfather, who was a union organizer before the great collapse. He was a party member in the secret days of the Second Depression, and later, during the American Liberation War, a martyr.
'I am in trouble,' I say, and tell her about Foreman Qian. While I am talking I watch the copper marks under the skin of her wrist. Then I watch the copper marks on my wrist, almost like bruises. She ties into her terminal every day, I use my jacks only when I'm working with machinery. With those jacks, Foreman Qian can access my records. But only my surface records, not my deep records, he doesn't have clearance. There is nothing personal in my surface records, and my mother's name is listed as Li Taiming, her name from when she was active in the party.
When I am finished she says, 'The Chinese are the worst racists in the world.' This is not surprising, nor is it helpful. Nor is it a good political thing to say but everybody knows it. 'What are you going to do?' she asks.
'Turn him down. I don't even know the girl. Even if it worked out when I apply they'll do a medical. They'll do a background check. If I pass a medical I'll still fail the background check.' Legally everyone is equal, even here at the other end of the world in the Socialist Union of American States we all know better than that. Be it Rome or Beijing, we bring tribute but we are not admitted. Unfortunate day I was born.
'You can go to dinner,' she says. 'Maybe the daughter won't like you. Maybe you'll forget your upbringing and sneeze at the table.'
'It's a lie,' I say, 'and you always told me that a lie always creates complications.' But my face is a lie as well, and she condoned that. I am sure she hears the accusation, but we never talk about my mother's contradictions.
She does not touch me, although for a moment I think she is going to cover my hand with hers and I am afraid.
'It is not the revolution that is at fault,' she says, 'it is the people who are implementing it.'
I don't believe in socialism but I don't believe in capitalism either. We are small, governments are large, we survive in the cracks. Cold comfort.
There is a game I play when I am out by myself among people. I play it on my way home, descending into the bowels of the city, taking a three hundred year old train to the bottom of the island and under the choked harbor to Brooklyn. The subway sways and like idiots we all nod together. My game is this: I become other people.
A man reading a cheatsheet flimsie, picking the horses. On office clerk in his boxy suit. Or this evening I am a power tech, a young woman with sturdy calves outlined by the tight legs of her coveralls. All day she sells and channels power and I imagine the city's energy pouring through her hands, the hair on her head rising with the build-up of static charge. Of course that's not true, she sits at a terminal and feeds information, watches the lines, drains the power reservoirs when they're needed and fills them when demand falls. The train stops a Lawrence and the doors open. My power tech gets off and I'm just Zhang: 1.80 meters (almost) 64 kilos, leaning against the door with my feet spread to brace myself, right under the sign that says in English, Spanish and Chinese 'Do not lean against doors.' I could go cruising, stay on the train and head for Coney Island and see what I could pick up. But that's just to avoid thinking about Foreman Qian and anyway, I'm too tired from work.
Still, I don't get off at my stop, I ride the train all the way to the end. Coney Island used to be a nice neighborhood, condos on the water and all, until the smell in the water drove everybody away. The smell is better now, what with the project to filter all the water that comes into the bay, but Coney Island is still the end of the line. The young couples are starting to move in and brave the crime to get permits to cheap condos and establish communes where everybody knows everybody else in the building. Pretty soon everybody will be begging permits to move out here and the little free-market green grocers will open up, but right now Coney Island is gray in the transition and the hawks like me ride the train there to spread our wings.
Gray is a good word; when I come up on the street it's twilight, the buildings are gray, the wind off the water smells gray and ashy. It's quiet. A quiet neighborhood is a bad sign out here. My jacket isn't very warm but I walk down to the water. I wonder if part of the harbor has been burning again, but the ash at the water's edge could be old.
I walk the cracked concrete walk beside the water, my shoes crunching in the sand blown across it. A young man leans against a bench and my heart quickens. He looks twenty, younger than me. He is wearing coveralls, utility blue, and they hug his legs and pelvis. He is dark though, and I have blond Peter on my mind. Our eyes meet and he is arrogant, dangerous looking, but his gaze lingers with the possibility of invitation. I think about slowing down, asking him what he's doing, I just keep walking. I didn't really come out here for a coney. When I glance back he is prowling stiff-legged in the other direction.
So I find a public call box. The chain on the bracelet is short, to reduce the chances that someone will yank it out, so once I get the bracelet on I have to fumble one-handed for my number book. I read Peter's number, the call clicks through. Waiting for him to answer, the only part of me that's warm is my wrist where the contact's made, and that's just an illusion anyway, just excited nerves at the periphery of contact.
'It's Zhang,' I say.
'Hey,' Peter says, looking preoccupied, by which I mean he is looking at something on his lap rather than me.
'Hey. I'm out on the beach.'
That perks him up, blue-gray eyes on me and he sounds interested, 'Yeah? Come up.'
Peter lives in a wretched commune, Lenin knows how they ever got a permit. Just goes to prove that five years ago anyone could get permission to live in Coney Island. The slogan over the door says, 'The force at the core of the people is the Revolution' from the
I climb the stairs because I have a theory that Peter's building dislikes me and I won't get in the elevator. Peter only lives two flights up. I knock on the door and he opens it and kisses me there in the hall. He swears nobody cares but I still hate when he does it, if anyone suspected I'm bent it could cost me my job. Not that Lisa and Aruba, who live next door, are in any position to complain about our morals.
' China Mountain,' he says, 'where the hell have you been?' China Mountain is a possible translation of my name, Peter likes it.
'I work,' I say, 'got any
He hands me a beer. Peter and I lived together for three months, we're still friends. Better friends than lovers. 'Want to go to the kite races?' he asks. Peter works in an office but sleep deprivation has never seemed to bother him.
No, I don't want to go to the kite races. 'Foreman Qian wants to sponsor me to Shanghai University.' I sit in one of his big cushions, sink into it like it was a hug and it thrums gently and starts to warm me up.
'Isn't that kind of surprising?' Peter frowns. Three little lines appear in the middle of his forehead. His eyebrows arch like gull wings. They are lighter than his summer tan, just beginning to fade.
'He wants me to marry his daughter. Then I'll go to the university, get a job in China, and he can retire back inside.'
For a moment Peter looks as if he is going to laugh but he takes a long pull on his beer instead. 'He's kidding isn't he? I mean, arranged marriages are pretty feudal, you know.'
'He's a pretty feudal kind of guy.'
He thinks a moment. 'Can you tell him you already have a fiance?'
'No, he's asked before.'
Peter shakes his head. 'You have such a complicated personal life.'
No kidding.
'Hey, China Mountain, don't sit there all stoney. You're all in your skull again. Come on, Rafael, don't go all
