“Just give her some space,” the boyfriend said. He said it with the authority of a doctor.
“Where’s Goh Goh?” Ga Jeh asked.
“I’ll go outside to talk to him,” I said.
“What are you going to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s probably not a good idea for him to come back,” the Crazy Guy said.
Goh Goh was at the bus stop puffing on a cigarette, a hand in his pocket, shivering. It was chilly. He only had on a T-shirt.
“What the fuck do you want?” he said.
“You can’t come back tonight.”
“Whatever.” He chuckled.
“I’m serious,” I said. “Mom can’t see you. Stay at a friend’s or something.” I tried to sound like an adult, but I think I came off more like a whining little brother. I didn’t wait for Goh Goh’s response.
I closed the front door behind me, sliding the top chain lock. The screws of the bottom lock’s mount had loosened and fallen off. Mom was still muttering to herself. Ga Jeh and the boyfriend sat with her.
“How’d it go?” Ga Jeh asked.
“We’ll see.”
I lay on my bed. On the ceiling was a slight crack. This is where water would leak. Upstairs was a Chinese family. Sometimes the grandma would leave the water on in the kitchen and fall asleep. Water would drip, closer to my bed than my brother’s. I’d grab a bucket and have my mom call maintenance. The grandma would apologize, then do the same thing the next month.
Goh Goh was trying to get in. He turned the key and unlocked the front door. The chain was yanked. My brother began shoving the door, probably with his shoulder. After a few tries, the screws on the mount gave way. The door flung open, the knob punching the wall.
He came into my room, changed into his pajamas, and lay in his bed. I turned over so I was facing the wall. I had a roll of toilet paper next to my pillow. I had allergies. There was also an empty Kleenex box, a makeshift garbage can. When I was a child, I used to pick my nose at night and smear my boogers on the wall. They stuck like spitballs. I’d imagined them as my constellation of stars. One night, Goh Goh snitched to our father, and Bah Ba woke me up and made me wipe down the wall. “If I see this again—” he said. He left the ending to my imagination. The toilet paper and garbage can were my mother’s solution.
It was clear what had to be done: my brother had to go. I went to the bathroom. I needed a place to think. I locked the door and sat on the lid of the toilet. Next to me hanging on the wall was a phone. It was mainly used by my mother. She’d take calls from Willie when she was doing her makeup or getting out of the shower. I picked up the phone and called the only authority my brother would respect.
Half an hour or so later they came. There were two cops, one Asian, one white. After I explained the situation to them, I told my brother someone was at the door for him.
He sat up on his bed. “Who is it?”
“Mr. Lam. Jackson Lam,” one of the cops said from our doorstep. “Please come to the door.”
“What the hell did you do?” my brother said, throwing the covers off.
“Better hurry up,” I said and followed him to the door.
“You got two options,” the Asian cop said, “spend the night in jail or find another place tonight to sleep.”
My brother didn’t argue. Didn’t even shoot me a dirty look. He made a phone call to a friend and packed his stuff. I waited at the front door with the cops. I held the door open as Goh Goh left, his duffle bag slung over his shoulder.
Ga Jeh drove the Crazy Guy home. So for a little while, it was just me and Mom. I knelt next to her bed and examined her head for any bumps. My brother had struck her on the collarbone, she said. As she was knocked down, she’d hit her head on the edge of the doorway.
“Goh Goh’s not coming home tonight,” I said.
She patted my hand and began to nod off. I fixed her bedcover so that it spread neatly over the sides of the bed and tucked the covers in so she was snug.
ga jeh’s room/my room
I try and picture her room. I knew it well. I’d snoop around when Ga Jeh wasn’t home. I dug through her books and cassette tapes. I’d spend hours in that room bobbing my head to Janet Jackson, Latin Freestyle, and I confess, Debbie Gibson. For all the time I spent in her room, I can’t fully picture it.
Some things I can see. Her desk with a cherry finish. An alarm clock sat near its edge. My parents had received the clock as a gift for opening a bank account. Hanging on the wall near the doorway was a caricature portrait of my sister done by a street artist. Her head is gigantic, her neck sprouting from a tiny cable car rolling downhill. The artwork was a birthday present from my father. I don’t know if it was Before or After: a gift used to seduce or a gift used to apologize.
What I can see with clarity is the outside of the door. It was decorated with stickers, Scratch-n-Sniff, Snoopy, My Little Pony, but in the middle of the door, Ga Jeh had taped an old birthday card that I’d made for her. It had a peek-a-boo hole that revealed a lopsided cake that I’d drawn. The card remained on her door until she left when she was twenty-one.
She took off as soon as she finished her associate degree at City. She said our place was too noisy, kids always playing in The Back. My sister had the most sensitive hearing of anybody I knew. I’d be in the living room
