Between the Lines (2004)
On the grounds of John Muir Elementary
I am given one of those
chain letters
folded in a fifth grade way
I won’t blame whoever gave it to me
I know the fear of fate in my hands
warning
if I don’t make ten copies of that very chain letter
doom ten of my friends to doom ten of theirs
bad fortune within the next year
I rip the chain letter to shreds
toss into the wastebasket
along with my belief in superstition
luck
a chain letter
That same year
my family is given a letter of their own
the unexpected
drama reserved for after-school specials
we were being evicted
Questions of fate pursue
stir with future and circumstance
I have the fifth grade to worry about already
crushes I have to mentally manage
baggy pants to buy
these questions too early
for a ten-year old
what if we had more money?
what if the landlord wasn’t so greedy?
where are we going to live?
what if we still lived in Torrance with Aunty Marie, Lili and bà nội?
I imagine the questions hit my mother harder
1992
we live in the heat of the UC Berkeley campus
students desperate for a cheap place to live
like us
My parents work as manicurists
giving hands egos
hours of work behind dust masks
days without official business hours
any customers needed
from the rich Park Blvd. residents who have always remembered my birthday
to the local customers trying to skip my father who runs them down
determined not to let anybody cheat him
he is a gambler
Pretty Nails By Kim
open
even on Vietnamese New Year
Sunday morning temple
my parent’s respective birthdays
No time for Buddhism
time is manicurist money
religion can’t pay our bills
so we keep our altar honored
Even manicurist money
can’t pay the rising rent of student housing
inevitable
we move into the back of my aunt’s nail shop
that stole my parents
No heat
only blankets
No privacy
only a sliding door
No bathtub
luckily a shower
No stove
only microwave
Eating fast food with no taste in those slow times
living beneath my silent shame
four years of rubbing alcohol
Lume gel
nail polish
polished laughs from my mom and aunt for extra tips
develop immunity from the fact of living in the back of Pretty Nails By Kim
on Telegraph and Alcatraz
Teach myself to lie to my friends
imagine there are other Vietnamese boys who live the same shame
that has no name that would do justice
because poverty doesn’t suffice
the pain is always more complicated than a single word
Fate or circumstance
or if I had the chance
I would take that chain letter back
screw over ten of my friends for family’s sake
they don’t know the feeling
hiding from the sight of friends riding the morning school bus
creeping out the back gates
uncomfortable in my own skin
They don’t know what it’s like
embarrassed of my own mother
when it’s never her fault
and I don’t know who to blame
UC Berkeley
our ex-landlord
the Vietnam War
the community college teachers who have never been able to teach my mother English adequately
myself
or
that
chain letter
