My brother had turned our father’s former room into a dumping ground, mostly relics of Goh Goh’s bygone rebate empire. He’d find rebates for electronics, order them online, and sell them for full price. There was hardly space to walk in the room. It was crammed with stacks of boxes, stuff that never sold, also things he’d accumulated over the years but couldn’t part with: cassette tapes, video game systems, Bah Ba’s old mahjong table, and my brother’s childhood desk, the one our father had bought for him, made from maple wood.
It was my summer project to clean out the room. I found in the closest a bag of old clothes, my father’s. The bag was filled not of clothes that Bah Ba had left from his last stay, but these clothes were left behind by my father when he’d first moved to Minnesota years ago. They’d remained in the dresser in Mom’s room, untouched, but when the old North Beach was about to be torn down, Goh Goh threw the clothes into a garbage bag. It’d been unopened since.
I pulled out from the bag a guayabera-style shirt, something Bah Ba probably had brought over when we emigrated from Hong Kong, when he was younger than I was then. I didn’t remember my father wearing the shirt before, or even the shirt itself. It was too stylish for him. I tried it on, but it was too tight. If I arched my back, the shirt would’ve ripped. This was probably for the best, else I would’ve kept it. I didn’t examine the other clothes. I tossed the shirt back into the bag, slung the bag over my shoulder, and went down to the courtyard. I pictured where I stood in relation to our childhood apartment. The sounds were the same, the hum of the cable car tracks, the electricity surging through the poles of a bus trolley in the distance, but nothing else was familiar. Surrounding me were townhouses, neighbors who were strangers to me. I threw the bag into the garbage chute and listened to it as it slid into the dumpster.
tethered
I pass by my father’s apartment often, whenever I’m in town. I ride by on the bus, on the way to my brother’s house. Bah Ba’s neighbors include bars and strip clubs but also an elementary school and a museum dedicated to the Beat Generation. At every stop in that neighborhood, I check out the window to see who’s about to climb on the bus. I have to be ready to step off if I see my father, but the chances of me instantly recognizing him are slim. I haven’t seen him in a decade. When passengers board, I shield my face.
I walk by his place when I meet up with my homie who works at a nearby hotel. There are other routes to reach the hotel that don’t involve having to pass Bah Ba’s apartment building, but this way is the most direct. That’s what I tell myself. In truth, this path, which places me across the street from my father, must be a guilty pleasure, one I haven’t admitted to myself: sneaking a peek at the house of a lost love.
Still, the idea of bumping into Bah Ba terrifies me, in spite of how I put myself in situations to do just that. I don’t know how I’d react if I saw him. I might flip out and go off, put hands on my father, or worse, the opposite might occur, some feeling of pity or mercy.
I don’t stare at Bah Ba’s SRO building. It’s on a side street. I glance at it, but knowing that it’s there is enough. This is as close as I am willing to get to my father, as close as we’ll ever get, unless he finds me first, and that’s not likely. I don’t believe he’s looking for me. He hasn’t called or written since I visited him in Minnesota. He knows from my brother that I don’t want anything to do with him, and I guess that’s all he needs to know.
For my part, I’m not done yet with Bah Ba. Probably never will be. In writing this book, I’d hoped to be freed from my father, that I’d exhaust my obsession with him, but our bond has only strengthened. He’ll remain a permanent character in my story. We’ve become pieces on a board game that will never end.
spirit
They say when an ancestor dies they become a spirit, capable of molding the lives of their descendants. A former girlfriend believed it was her grandma in the afterlife who had brought us together, two lovers joined by a supernatural matchmaker. When we had rocky times, we’d pray to her grandma and ask for guidance.
One day, Bah Ba will leave this world. Declaring that I’ve disowned him will mean nothing. Spirits don’t take orders from the living. He’ll follow me around like all good ancestors do. He may hold a grudge against me for what I’ve written in these pages, and he’ll have the power to exact revenge. The ability to shape my story will be in his hands.
postmortem
Players conduct a postmortem of their chess game once it’s finished. The two former opponents now work together as one. They return to key junctures of the game and consider alternative moves. They test the merits of these moves by playing them out and evaluating the resulting positions.
In chess books, moves from a game are recorded along with variations to the main line. This allows the reader, using their own board, to not only reenact the original but also to diverge from the original, to explore an alternate timeline.
time travelled
I was at a jazz club in North Beach with some guy named Fred. Apparently, we were best buds. “We’re back in 1985,” he said. His mom was playing the piano. We didn’t know who she was until later, when we were back at her apartment. Her boyfriend was hanging out with us
