Vietnamese name for a special beef broth with spaghetti-like noodles and slices of meat. I ordered a large portion.
“You call here a few minute ago?” the woman at the counter asked me. With my soup she gave me a small dish of bean sprouts and a little branch of some fragrant, spicy leaves.
“Yes,” I told her. “My name is Jerzy.”
“Okay.”
I paid, sat down, and started to eat. The pho was delicious. When I was half-through, Vinh Vo appeared from behind the counter and came to sit across from me.
“Hi, Mister Yuppie,” said Vinh in his flatly accented American English.
“Hi, Vinh. Can we talk here?”
He nodded and lit one of his unfiltered cigarettes.
“I need a new passport,” I told him.
Vinh Vo looked puzzled and disappointed. “But I want to sell you Y9707 chips!”
“I don’t know that I really need any.”
“If you won’t buy any chips, I won’t do business with you,” said Vinh. “I need to start unloading them.”
It occurred to me that it might actually be useful to be able to build some robots of my own sometime down the line. Assuming Vinh’s chips were any good. “Well, okay, I’ll take four of them. Four hundred eighty dollars. Give me a passport as well and I’ll make it a thousand. And if the chips are okay, I might order more of them.”
Vinh smoked quietly for a minute. “Okay,” he said finally. “I can arrange your passport. I’ll have to drive you to the place. Do you have the money?”
“I’ll have the money on Friday. But let’s get the passport today.”
“You’re asking me for credit?” said Vinh Vo unbelievingly. “For a passport? No way, Mister Yuppie. Come back Friday with the cash.”
“Should I call first?”
“I’ll be here.” Vinh lit a second cigarette from the stub of the first.
“I’ll be coming later in the day,” I cautioned. “Around four-thirty.”
“No problem.”
Vinh stuck his cigarette into the corner of his mouth, walked behind the counter, and disappeared back through the kitchen. He moved like a gangster in a stiff ballet. The butt in the ashtray was fuming. My pho had gone cold and gnarly. I went outside.
If I would be leaving the country soon, it would be a good idea to visit with my family. I drove across town to Carol’s. Carol and Hiroshi were still at work, but Tom and Ida were home from school, peacefully grubbing about. Tom was in the kitchen eating ice cream, and Ida was on the phone with a friend. It did my heart good to see my larvae.
“Hi, kids!”
“Hi, Da!”
“You kids want to do something? You want to go for a last hike with me before I go on trial? Who knows, it might be a long time till we get another chance.”
“Poor Da.”
Since we were already on the east side, I drove over to Alum Rock Park. There were lots of teenagers and Mexican families. We took a loop trail that led past some hot springs and zigzagged to the top of a foothill.
“Are you scared, Daddy?” asked Tom. He looked so vulnerable with his teenage complexion and his braces. “We talked to Sorrel last night. She wanted to know if she should skip finals and fly out.”
“For the trial?”
“Ida and me are going to be there,” said Tom. “Mommy said she’ll get us excused from school.”
“Carol’s coming to the trial too? Ma?”
“Yes,” said Ida in her calm, deep voice. “We all love you, Da. Maybe if the jury sees you have a family, they’ll feel sorry for you.”
“Aw. That’s wonderful. You’re so sweet to stand behind me. I’m deeply touched. I love you.” I put my arms around them.
All of San Jose lay spread out before us, and beyond San Jose, Silicon Valley stretched north like a chip-laden motherboard. The great old concrete blimp hangers of Moffat Field stuck up like heavy-duty capacitors. It was such a clear day that, looking farther, we could see all the way up the Bay to the tiny smudges of Oakland and San Francisco. A strong, steady breeze swept down the Bay, across Silicon Valley, and over the crest of our hill.
“The Lord hates Daddy’s ants,” said Tom presently, and poked me high up under my ribs.
“Suckling pigs on Daddy style,” intoned Ida, and poked my other side. We laughed and wrestled for a minute, and then the kids let me be.
“I’m getting to hate the ants, too,” I said when I caught my breath. “If I could find a way to kill them all, I’d do it. They’ve made so much trouble already, and now it might get worse.”
“Are they going to break TV some more?”
“Maybe, but what I’m most worried about today is that the ants might infect the software for those new robots I worked on for West West. Whatever you do in the near future, don’t go close to any of those robots.”
“Is Studly in jail?” asked Ida.
“Sort of. The police are keeping him for an exhibit in the trial.”
“Do you think he might go hyper and kill everyone in the courtroom if they turn him on at the trial?” asked Tom, arching his high eyebrows.
“It might be a good idea not to come for that day of the trial, actually,” I said. “If they don’t stop the trial first.”
“Why would they stop the trial?” asked Tom.
“Well… maybe if some of the main people stopped coming. The judge or the lawyer or somebody.” I gave him a long look, and he got the picture.
“I’m flying,” said Ida, holding out her arms and letting the breeze beat at her sleeves. “I’m flying away!” Tom and I held out our arms to fly too, and then we ran off, flying, down the zigzags of the rest of the loop trail.
Carol was home when I brought the kids back to the apartment. I didn’t really want to go in, but before I knew it, Carol had me sitting on the couch with a cup of hot tea.
“I can’t stay long,” I said. These tete-a-tetes with Carol made me acutely uncomfortable. After all the pain of our separation, I didn’t want to contemplate getting back together with her.
“Okay, but what should I tell Sorrel about the trial? Why don’t you call her? She’s upset.”
“Good idea.”
I dialed Sorrel’s number on Carol’s phone. Someone on her dorm hall answered and trudged off in search of Sorrel. Then my firstborn’s bright voice came through the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Sorrel, it’s Da.”
“Da, I have a problem. I want to be there for your trial, but I have finals all next week.”
“When were you originally planning to come home?”
“June fifth,” put in Carol, who was sitting on a chair next to the couch. “The ticket she has is for next Friday.”
“Well, don’t change your ticket, Sorrel, it’ll cost a lot more. And there’s no point missing your exams. I’ll just be sitting on a chair in a room with a judge.”
“But what if you go to jail? I want to take a last walk with you, Da.”
“I do, too, honey. Actually, they’re revoking my bail on Tuesday, so I might be in jail from then on.” My voice cracked in despair and self-pity. “I’ve got an idea-why don’t you come home just for a day. Fly out here tomorrow morning, spend tomorrow night and all day Friday here, and fly back to school on Saturday. Then you can still study on Sunday and be ready for your tests.”
“Should I really?”
“I’ll pay. Get a direct flight into San Francisco and rent a car.”
“I don’t have to rent a car. Tom or Ida can pick me up.”
“It’ll be easier all around if you drive.” I was thinking of uses for that rental car. “Just write checks or charge it and I’ll pay you back in cash.”
