Antonio looked straight ahead. He had golden skin, a short ’fro, and thick eyebrows. Strange to see him so motionless, so quiet. He was a talkative kid, loved to argue about politics. So much that I’d brought him to a local radio station that wanted to hear what youth thought about the Iraq war.
JB shook his watch, which was decorated with fake diamonds.
“Man,” he mumbled, “ain’t it time to cross back already?”
I thought of Randy and crossed. Earlier that week, I got a call from Rob that Randy had been murdered. He was from the same turf as Keino, about the same age, another lost cousin. We hadn’t hung out since high school, but I remembered the time we slap boxed in an empty basketball gym. He switched into a martial arts stance, and I knew I was in trouble. I’d forgotten he’d taken tae kwon do lessons for years. A roundhouse kick came at my rib cage. I blocked it with my palm, and I felt confident, dropping my hands, but this strike was a setup. He didn’t bring that leg back; instead he recoiled at the knee and snapped another kick at my head. It landed across my cheek, a loud smack.
“Oh shit,” he said. “Sorry, Dickson.”
I laughed and thought it was the coolest shit I’d ever seen. I held onto my cheek and told some of the fellas outside. Randy demonstrated his double kick again. I’d felt embarrassed not knowing martial arts—I was the Asian one.
The friends I’d hung with in high school were the main reason I became a teacher. Many of them never attended college. I’d wanted to reverse the trend of failing schools, failing students.
A student buried her head in the shoulder of a friend. I tried not to cry by using the old make-like-you-got-something-in-your-eye trick. I thought I had it down because of the way I’d rub my fingertips as though I’d found an eyelash.
“Cross the line,” John said, “if you have been touched inappropriately as a child. Or know someone who has been.”
No one moved. It was silent long enough I wasn’t sure if anyone would, but some began to trickle over to the other side.
I was surprised I hadn’t immediately thought of Ga Jeh. It was just a year ago that she’d confided in me about what Bah Ba had done. I was lying in bed watching a basketball game when I picked up her call. She didn’t tell me what exactly happened, just that it did, several times when our dad was living with us. Her tone was calming, like she was at work, at the concierge desk addressing a customer.
“I’m going to talk to him about it,” she said. “I just thought you should know, but don’t say anything to Mom. She’ll go crazy. No need to freak out about this, OK?” She was still trying to take care of her little brother.
She’d given me her old car, a red Honda Civic, lowered with tinted windows, red racing rims, a silver joystick for a gearshift, the exhaust loud enough to set off car alarms—a real rice rocket, souped-up by some guy she’d been dating years ago. I’d thought she cared for it more than anything. Before she handed me the keys, she gave me a long to-do list for the car. Use disinfectant wipes immediately to wipe away bird poop. Use this cleaner for the racing air filter. Use premium gas. Take the car up to Mom’s house to hand-wash it. Bring your own oil for an oil change. Always put up the sunshade.
The first week I drove it, I got into an accident and scraped the fender. I thought Ga Jeh would have a fit, but the only thing she wanted to know was if I was all right.
Before Ga Jeh had called me that night about Bah Ba, she’d also phoned our brother, revealing her secret to him as well, but she wasn’t dissuading us from connecting with our pops. In fact, she was still insisting that we chip in for our dad’s dentures because he had no health insurance. When our dad invited us to Toronto a few months later, Ga Jeh was the first to accept. I assumed she’d forgiven him or, if not forgiven, was at least willing to accept him into her life. Who was I to persuade her otherwise?
“We all have a balloon,” John said, “that we fill up with our hurt. If we don’t deal with that hurt, one day the balloon pops, and everything in it spills onto others.”
We sat in small groups to debrief the day. I bit my lip, and it helped to focus my mind away from my sister.
“For the last activity,” John told us, “we want to hear from you on the mic.”
I was never drawn to public speaking. I stuttered at times and wasn’t confident in my pronunciation, but sometimes in college, I’d be asked to speak at a rally. There weren’t many Asian guys involved in leftist campus politics, and back then I was a sucker for the argument: “If you don’t do it, no one will.” I had tended to ramble, forgetting my point. That’s when I’d throw in a “fuck,” and the crowd would cheer.
“You can say anything about how you feel,” John said, “or about what you’ve learned today.”
I thought about that damn balloon, and I raised my hand. We’d heard how hurt could translate into anger, how hurt explained why kids lashed out, but no one had said anything about how to deal with the hurt, only to be aware of it.
I walked to the microphone, past clusters of small groups. I heard some students cheering my name, but I kept my eyes on the floor, so I wouldn’t trip over anything.
John put his hand on my shoulder. “What’s on your mind, bro?”
I grabbed the microphone, but I wished I had thought more about what I
