China Mountain Zhang (9 page)

Read China Mountain Zhang Online

Authors: Maureen F. McHugh

BOOK: China Mountain Zhang
11Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
I know I’m below two hundred meters, but I’m more worried about pulling the kite out. My bones/frame are screaming with strain and the cross strut breaks away. I drop out of the harness to provide drag, and come into Washington Square too low, too fast. At twenty meters I try to throw the nose up, no longer trying to save the frame and the silk, and the frame distorts as easily as an umbrella turned inside-out by a high wind.
But the silk holds
like a slack sail taking up air. I try to land on my feet, the ground makes my foot skip off it, I can’t get far enough in front of the kite, the balls of my feet keep skipping off the pavement as I try to run, I tumble and the ground comes up hard … .
I come to when they’re cutting the harness off. They cut off the sharkskin jacket, too, because I’ve dislocated my left shoulder. “What happened,” I keep saying, “what happened?”
“An accident,” Georgia says, “you’re okay, honey.”
They’ve given me something, because I’m way out to the vacuum, and I can’t think of the questions I want to ask, so I keep saying, “What happened?”
“Orchid got in. Almost everybody’s in,” Georgia says.
“Who’s not in?”
“Cinnabar,” she says, “he went down in The Swath.”
 
 
Well, of course, you probably remember everything else since it was all over the media. How Cinnabar Chavez broke his spine. That they did surgery, and that it was awhile before they were sure he would live.
He was in bad shape for a long time but he’s okay now. He lives in Brooklyn with his lover, I still see him a lot. He doesn’t fly anymore. Surgery is wonderful, so is therapy, and he’s still a sweet dancer, but he couldn’t trust his reflexes in a race. He has a job as a consultant for Cuo, the company that makes the big kites, and he does commentary for one of the big vid organizations. His income is steady these days.
Mine is pretty good these days, too. I fly a big black and red kite for Citinet; a Chiyue, the new one. My synch numbers are in the 50’s, and my picture’s on the front of
Passion
next month. I’m wearing the red sharkskin jacket—I had it fixed—and the article is titled “Gargoyle’s an Angel!” which is kind of cute.
I fly better these days. Cinnabar bitches about it, he says I’m too far out in front of myself. Sometimes when he says that I think of bringing that Siyue in and trying to get in front of it to stop it. But that’s what the people want, right?
Besides, I can’t say it to him, but I’d rather be dead than not able to fly.
 
 
Zhang
 
I am unemployed.
The man who hands me the application says, “Filled out one before.” It’s supposed to be a question. He doesn’t look up to see my answer so I don’t say anything. I hope my interviewer will be
waiguoren
—not Chinese. Or if Chinese, at least
huaqiao,
like me. Perhaps an overseas person will be more sympathetic to another overseas person, unless perhaps they have to prove that they’re as tough as a Chinese with citizenship. You can never tell, but I always feel Chinese are the worst.
I sit at the carrell. Surname: Zhang. Given name: Zhong Shan. China Mountain Zhang. My foolish mother. It’s so clearly a
huaqiao
name, like naming someone Vladimir Lenin Smith or Karl Marx Johnson. Zhong Shan, better known in the West as Sun Yat-sen, one of the early leaders of the great revolution in China, back in the first days, the days of virtue. The man who held up the sky, like a mountain. Irony.
But better that than Rafael Luis.
I give my address, really Peter’s address out in Coney Island
as I’m Without Residence. When one has no job one cannot afford the decadent luxury of paying one’s landlord, and one must accept government housing or stay with friends or family. I have been staying with Peter for almost six months. Soon I’ll have to apply for government housing, I can’t keep living with Peter. Living in Virginia won’t be so bad, it is only ninety minutes to Journal Square Station in New Jersey, lots of people do it every day. If one is unemployed, the train is free at off-peak hours.
IDEX: 415-64-4557-zs816. Trade Designation: Construction Tech. Job Index: Comex Constr., 65997. Comex Constr. wants administrative experience I don’t have, but I have three years experience in construction. In school, I wanted to be an Engineering Tech and my math scores were good, but there were no openings that year. I have an Assoc. Certificate instead of the full Bach. Sci.
I should study on the side, teach myself, take the exam. I should. Maybe when I get a job, have a place of my own again, I’ll study in the evening after I get home from work, spend less time going out, waste less time and money. I’ve said it before, every time I was without a job.
I hand my application to the man at the desk, he glances up at me, his lips move while he keys into the network and puts my application on file, then he peels the contact off his wrist. “Have a seat,” he says. I sit and read my paper. The waiting room is large, large enough to be a cafeteria or something. There are a lot of people, twenty or thirty, but that’s not enough for the size of the room. While I’m reading more people hand in applications, people waiting are called for interviews. I want to check the time, but why? Time doesn’t matter to me, I’m unemployed.
Still, I notice it is almost an hour before I’m called. My interviewer is a woman, a
huaqiao
I am sure. She looks too New York to be from China itself.
“Zhang,” she says in English, “you have insufficient administrative experience for the job you are applying for.” Her hair is
pulled smoothly back from her face, shining as if lacquered. It is caught with a red cord, and the short ponytail curves under like a “c.”
I nod.
She looks at the screen in front of her. “You have turned down two alternative offerings.”
“I had hoped to stay in New York,” I say. One job was in Maryland, the other was in Arizona. If I turn down another alternative it will go on my record. Perhaps she won’t have an alternative.
She says to me in Mandarin, “You are from New York?” She is clearly
huaqiao,
she has a New York accent.
“I’m from Brooklyn,” I say.
“I’m from Brooklyn, too,” she says. “You like Coney Island?”
“I am staying with a friend, but I like it much better than I expected,” I say. “When I get a job I expect to get a place there.”
“I am thinking of joining a co-op group,” she says.
So nice! An interviewer has never talked to me so personally. No doubt it is because of the address, but maybe she’ll give me the job. I study her. Watch her bite her bottom lip in concentration. She has lines at the corners of her eyes, but the way she frowns makes her look very young.
Finally she sighs.
“Bukeqi, tongzhi,
” she says. I am sorry citizen. “I cannot give this to someone with so little admin experience.” The polite address softens the blow.
I nod. I understand. I thank her.
“Let me check new listings,” she says, “Sometimes things do not get posted.” She feels bad, she wants to offer me something.
It is a kindness, I should not expect anything but I cannot help hoping. She is relieved she can do something. I watch her flick through entries. She stops and I become more hopeful. She reads quickly then flicks expressionlessly forward. At each flick she shakes her head slightly. Her lips are the perfect rose of a doll’s mouth. They shine like satin. She begins to flush, she is not so
happy now. Something is wrong. An alternative, not a good one, I am sure. Do not offer it, I think, pretend you didn’t see it.
She straightens her shoulders. “Zhang, I have a job available for someone of your experience,” she says, in English. She names a salary which is three times my present salary. She doesn’t look at me. “It is working at a research center, the salary is high because you will have to live at the facility, but it is a six-month contract with the option to extend or renew.”
“Where is it?” I ask.
“Baffin Island.”
Baffin Island? Where the hell is Baffin Island?
“It is in the Arctic Circle,” she says primly, handing me a card with the specs, but not looking at me. “You have forty-eight hours to decide on the job, should you want me to hold it for you, otherwise you risk someone taking it from you while you make up your mind.”
“Don’t hold it,” I say.
 
 
The Arctic Circle, Arctic Circle, Arctic Circle, the train to Brooklyn rumbles. We stop at Arctic Avenue, and then I realize it is Atlantic and I get out to transfer. It is my third alternative. If no one takes it in forty-eight hours, I will have turned it down. That means I will be dropped from the category of prime candidates, I will only be offered jobs that have been available to prime applicants for fourteen days. No New York job will be available after fourteen days.
Why did she offer it? Maybe there is some rule that she had to. But who would ever know? It wasn’t even posted. She knew I wanted to stay in New York. She was angry at something. She is a bitch. She has ruined my life. If only she didn’t try to do me a favor. I would never have applied for so risky a position as the Comex Constr. job if they had had the Arctic Circle posted, for fear it would be my alternative.
I go back to Peter’s. Peter is at work, he works in an office, doing paper sorting and filing for a dental clinic. I find beer in the box and sit down. Peter is supposed to get off work at four-thirty, but I’m not surprised when he doesn’t get home by six. At nine-thirty he comes home. “Rafael?” he calls as he comes in, and the lights come up. I have been sitting in the dark.
“Hello, Peter,” I say.
“What are you doing sitting in the dark?” He goes into the kitchen to put away groceries. I hear a low whistle. “Drink our dinner, did we. Good day at the employment office, no doubt.”
“Celebration,” I call, a little thick. “I think I have a job.”
“Congratulations,” he says, “In that case I don’t care if you drank most of the beer.” He sings something quietly as he puts things away, I hear him open a beer and he comes in to sit down. Blond Peter with his Eastern-European heritage and his easy, sleepy way. He is a good friend, bright yang to my dark yin. “Tell me the particulars,” he says.
“It is a six-month contract,” I say, “with option to renew or extend.” I name the salary. His pale eyebrows arch, he is waiting for the punchline, but I draw it out, saying it is my third alternative.
“What’s the kick,” he says.
I smile. “It is on Baffin Island, somewhere up around the North Pole.”
“Oh shit,” he says. “You didn’t take it, did you?”
“Not yet,” I say. “There is a chance that during”—I check my watch—“the next forty-two hours, someone will snatch this wonderful opportunity away from me.”
“You think maybe the salary will tempt someone?”
“No, do you?”
“It can’t be that bad,” Peter says gamely, “lots of people would be willing to do it for six months. Turn it down, you can stay here.”
Good of him, the apartment is really too small for two roommates
who aren’t in love with each other. It is not that I don’t love Peter, I love Peter more than anyone in the world, but I’m not in love with him. I was once, and he with me, but that was years ago.
“It’s only six months,” I say. “I’ll use the extra time to study for my engineering license.”
“Six months in Siberia,” he says. “Six months for you to brood yourself into catatonia.”
“But then I will have three alternatives when I get back. I can get a job in New York.” I am being very practical. “Besides, catatonia is a symptom of bourgeois or maladaptive thinking, something swept away by the revolution.”
Peter is looking at me in a way that says he is exasperated with me, that he doesn’t trust me. Normally he would laugh, since we are clearly maladapted by virtue of our preference. Angry, he says, “Don’t drink any more beer tonight.”
“It’s your beer,” I say.
“That’s right,” he says.
And now we are both hurt and angry. He makes himself some dinner, I am too drunk to be hungry. There is not much to say. He goes into his room where he probably watches a vid, and I make my bed on the couch and go to sleep.
I don’t see much of Peter the next day, which is my fault. The day after that I go back to the employment office. The Baffin Island job is still posted. I take it.
 
 
Two weeks later, the first week in October, and I am sitting in a copter. Five hours ago I was in Montreal, changing flights. Now, since I only had a fifteen-minute transfer in Montreal and barely made my plane, I am torturing myself about whether my luggage was transferred. We will land in Hebron, Labrador. I have discovered that Labrador is part of the province of Newfoundland. I have already heard my first Newfie joke. In Hebron they still have the old-fashioned manhole covers that can be pried up with a
crowbar, big round metal things. A Newfie is jumping up and down on the manhole cover saying, “Sixty-seven! Sixty-seven!” every time he jumps. A man visiting on business stops to stare and the Newfie beckons him over, explains that what he is doing is a way of relieving stress. (This is told with a Newfie accent, every sentence ends with, “ay?”) He tells the businessman to try. The businessman is not sure that he wants to, but slowly he is convinced to step on the manhole cover. He jumps into the air and says “Sixty-seven.”
The Newfie says that he’s got to put more into it (ay), really shout it out. So the businessman jumps and shouts “Sixty-seven!” He finds it is kind of fun, so he jumps higher, shouting “Sixty-seven!” louder and louder, until he’s red in the face and his long coattails are flying. He jumps really high, shouts “Sixty-seven!” and the Newfie whisks the manhole cover off and the businessman disappears into the manhole. Then the Newfie puts the cover back on and starts jumping up and down shouting, “Sixty-eight!”
I wonder what Baffies do to American Born Chinese.
The field at Hebron, Newfoundland is small, most of the traffic seems to be freight. It doesn’t have the usual amenities of public fields, there’s no arcade of shops, and no vendors wandering around hawking things. It just slowly stops being an airfield and becomes a town. The town is all ancient pre-fabricated housing (the kind shipped on trucks and fitted together) but the units have been painted and added onto, sometimes fantastically ornamented in vividly tinted aqua and red aluminum and plastics. It is terribly tacky and antique-looking, but very very real. I think I like it. There is one little restaurant. Once I have convinced myself that my luggage has transferred, I go into the little restaurant. It is run by Thais, which surprises me, although I guess there are Thai restaurants everywhere. I order Thai-Moo Shu, and it comes, pork and cabbage in a spicy coconut sauce, wrapped up in a pancake. The restaurant has a screen door that leads to what looks like a mechanic’s yard where a gray and white dog with pale eyes is tied
to a doghouse made out of blue tinted chrome/aluminum, but the Thai food tastes exactly like it would at any little Thai hole-in-the-wall back in New York. The restaurant is filled with men and women in coveralls. I feel a little conspicuous, everybody knows everybody else, but the beer and the food are reassuring.
Maybe there will be a Thai restaurant on Baffin Island, too. If so, I will probably go every day for the whole six months.
My last flight is a copter, smaller than the one I came in on. There is no one on it except for myself and the pilot and co-pilot. I imagine Baffin Island will be like Hebron. I left New York at eight A.M., at 7:22 P.M. we land at Borden Station, Baffin Island.

Other books

Vienna Secrets by Frank Tallis
This Can't be Life by Cannon, Shakara
Poems 1959-2009 by Frederick Seidel
The Witch's Key by Dana Donovan
Capture by Melissa Darnell