We found another club but it was last call. We downed shots of whisky. We stepped outside. It was sunny somehow, a warm heat. I saw my mother up the hill. She was wearing a red scarf and headed our way. We didn’t want to disrupt the time-space continuum, so me and Fred ducked back into the club as she sauntered by.
This couldn’t be why we’d traveled back in time, to be neutral bystanders. Maybe we’d been sent back to fix something that had gone awry, like Kitty Pryde of the X-Men, who’d also time travelled,
but from the ’80s. She had to prevent the assassination of a senator by fellow mutants, an event that would eventually lead to a mutant genocide, a dystopian future.
I thought about the year, 1985, what tragedies occurred that I could prevent. It was the year my father began creeping into my sister’s room.
I could go to Ga Jeh’s school and warn her, but I wouldn’t be able to get past her teachers. They wouldn’t let a stranger talk to a child in private. I could work my way into the school as a volunteer, but that would take too long. Paperwork had to be cleared.
I decided to find my father. I told Fred I had to do this alone. I waited for Bah Ba outside Tea House. I stood where I could see both exits, the front door and the back door in the alley. My father left through the front entrance. He still had his apron on.
“Bah Ba,” I said, “it’s Dickson.”
He ignored me like I was asking him for change.
“Tai hah ngoh goh yeuhng,” I shouted. Look at my face! Look at me, I’m your son.
“You’re a man.” He stepped toward me, furrowing his brow.
“Don’t try to figure this out,” I said. I had the feeling that at any moment, I’d be jerked back to my time. “In the future, your kids are going to abandon you, but you can stop this from happening. No, don’t leave! Please, just listen. Just listen to me.”
And he waited to hear what I’d say next.
* * * * * *
Notes
Epi. “My aunt haunts me…” from The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston. Alfred A. Knopf, 1976, p. 16.
Epi. “You must take your opponent…” from Chess for Success: Using an Old Game to Build New Strengths in Children and Teens by Maurice Ashley. Broadway Books, 2005, p. 191-192.
Ch 1 Quotes from homicide inspector and district spokeswoman from “SAN FRANCISCO/Hunters Point Killing Called Result of Running Clash between Gangs” by Jaxon Van Derbeken. SFGate, 12 Apr. 2005.
Ch 1 Deng Xiaoping’s evaluation of Mao from Mao: A Biography by Ross Terrill. Stanford University Press, 1999, p. 471.
Ch 1 Book of sculpted scenes from Rent Collection Courtyard: Sculptures of Oppression and Revolt by Revolutionary Chinese Art Workers Group. Athena Books, 2004.
Ch 2 Tea House as “arguably the best dim sum restaurant in the country” from “Where the Twain Meet-Deliciously” by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo. New York Times, 5 Dec. 1982.
Ch 3 Demographics of North Beach Housing Projects from “The Impact of Perceptions on Interpersonal Interactions in an African American/Asian American Housing Project” by Patricia Guthrie and Janis Hutchinson. Journal of Black Studies, vol. 25, no. 3, Jan. 1995, p. 383.
Ch 4 “The Chinese people have stood up!” from Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung: Volume V by Mao Tse-Tung. Foreign Language Press, 1977, p. 15.
Ch 4 “Oppressors are people…” from Mao Zedong by Jonathan D. Spence. Viking, 1999, p. 36.
Ch 4 Mao generation poem from “Generation Names in China: Past, Present, and Future” by Li Zhonghua and Edwin D. Lawson. Names, vol. 50, no. 3, Nov. 2002, p. 4.
Ch 4 “The outstanding thing…” from Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung by Mao Tse-tung. Foreign Language Press, 1972, p. 36.
Ch 4 “If I could drain away…” from The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X. Ballantine Books, 1987, p. 232.
Ch 4 Angel Island poem from Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940 by Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung. University of Washington Press, 1991, p. 92.
Ch 5 Parent survey results from “Children Left Behind Face Tough Road.” China Daily, 2 June 2004.
Ch 5 Children survey results from “Paying the Price for Economic Development: The Children of Migrant Workers in China” by Aris Chan. China Labour Bulletin, Nov. 2009, p. 10.
Ch 5 The quotes “If I hurt my hands…” and “I used to miss my parents…” from ibid., pp. 14-15.
Ch 5 “What’s the big deal…” from “Left-Behind Children of China’s Migrant Workers Bear Grown-Up Burdens: About 61 Million Chinese Kids Haven’t Seen One or Both Parents for at Least Three Months” by Andrew Browne. The Wall Street Journal, 17 Jan. 2014.
Ch 5 Statistic that ninety percent of sexual assault cases involve left-behind girls from “The Vulnerability of China’s Left-Behind Children” by Maura Elizabeth Cunningham. The Wall Street Journal, 21 Mar. 2014.
Ch 5 “Many of these tragedies…” from “Paying the Price for Economic Development: The Children of Migrant Workers in China” by Aris Chan. China Labour Bulletin, Nov. 2009, p. 12.
Ch 5 “Just ’cause you…” from Malcolm X: “Democracy is Hypocrisy” Speech. Educational Video Group, 1960. Transcript.
Ch 5 Asian American magazine was Giant Robot, issue 10, 1997.
Ch 5 “I know you two guys are crazy…” from “Richard Aoki Interview.” APEX Express. KPFA, Berkeley, 30 Apr. 2009.
Ch 5 Article about 3F written by Robert Capp. “Taggers, Bangers, and the Battle for SF Graffiti,” dated 1993 but went unpublished until self-published on personal website. Accessed 27 Mar. 2013.
Ch 5 “The game of chess…” sampled in “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’” by Wu-Tang Clan. Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), Loud, 1993.
Ch 5 “These days…” from Mao: A Biography
