Learning to Fly Read online

  Learning to Fly

  Paul Yee

  orca soundings

  Copyright © 2008 Paul Yee

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Yee, Paul

  Learning to fly / written by Paul Yee.

  (Orca soundings)

  ISBN 978-1-55143-955-6 (bound).--ISBN 978-1-55143-953-2 (pbk.)

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS8597.E3L42 2008 jC813’.54 C2008-903026-5

  Summary: Jason, a recent immigrant from China, makes some bad decisions as he comes to terms with small-town racism while trying to fit in.

  First published in the United States, 2008

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2008928578

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC

  Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, STN. B PO BOX 468

  VICTORIA, BC CANADA CUSTER, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.

  11 10 09 08 • 4 3 2 1

  For Jenny Khaki,

  whose cooking keeps me going.

  Chapter One

  Three more hours. One hundred and eighty minutes.

  Milson Mall is busy on weekends, so I am forced to help at my mom’s deli.

  Ten thousand, eight hundred seconds. Ten million, eight hundred thousand milliseconds. Then the mall closes, and I can go roll a joint and inhale those sweet, sweet fumes. Then all the crap in my life will float away, just like the smoke.

  From below, a little girl hands me two dollars. Is she mumbling or am I stupid? I lean over the counter and ask, politely as usual, “What can I get you?”

  This time I think I hear “cookies.”

  “What kind?” Now my words are loud, and strained if you listen hard.

  She looks away and strands of yellow hair swirl up.

  “What kind?” I ask again, wanting to reach out and twist her ear hard.

  After we exchange oatmeal cookies and cash, she runs off. Her mother, a plump woman guarding a stroller, stands far back. It is as if she’s worried that just standing close to the baking will make her fatter.

  The next person has a belly that pokes out like a prize-winning pumpkin. He orders coffee and apple pie.

  “What do you take?” I ask.

  “Huh?” He frowns.

  “How do you take your coffee?” I speak louder. “Black? Cream? Sugar?”

  “Oh! Just milk.”

  My English is not bad, but people do not hear me. They see a Chinese face, and right away they think my English will be poor and broken.

  Bland music fills the mall. Bland shoppers stroll through, licking ice-cream cones. The air in here is stale. This whole town is stale.

  Four kids from school enter through the main door. Right away I squat and pretend to straighten the trays of squares and tarts in the display case. I pray that none of the kids will come near the deli. Through the glass I see one I think of as “sweat-shirt girl” because she is always wearing the same shirt. She is looking over here, searching for a target. Usually she nudges and calls to her friends, and then they all stare at me, giggling or laughing. I don’t even know their names.

  “Jie-xin, where are you?”

  I stand up as Aunt Mei hurries in with Josh. She watches my little brother on weekends.

  “I need to pee-pee,” he says.

  “You take him,” I say, turning away. Aunt Mei and I speak Chinese.

  “You take him!” she retorts. “In the washroom, women do not like to see little boys running around.”

  “I’m too busy.”

  “You have no one here!”

  Ma calls from the back, “Jason, take him!”

  I edge away from her voice.

  “Right now!” Ma shouts.

  I swear under my breath and rip off my apron. Josh smiles at me. I march him past the shoe shop, the drugstore and the crafts place. I press him so close to the walls that he squeals in protest. Maybe we can get through the food court without the kids seeing us. Why are the washrooms right by the eating tables?

  I slow down to keep pace with strolling shoppers so that we will not be noticed. My eyes stay down and watch the ugly brown tiles rush by. Then I hear the guys’ voices.

  “Hey, Jason-baby!”

  “Daddy!”

  “I need to go pooh-pooh too, Papa! Can you take me?”

  We rush into the washroom and into a stall. I slam the door and stand Josh on the rim of the bowl. Someone did not flush the toilet. Spongy brown coils float below. Ugh!

  “Hurry!” I growl.

  His eyes are big. “Were those people laughing at you?” he asks.

  “Who?”

  “Those people.”

  “Don’t know them. Come on, hurry!”

  Josh is only three. He is fourteen years younger than me. No one in my class has a brother or sister who is so many years behind. Everyone pretends to think I am Josh’s father because it is so funny, and because my dad is not living with us. When I arrived in this town, Celine Lapointe, the girl who was assigned as my “buddy,” told me that a thirteen-year-old in grade eight got pregnant. I acted as if it was no big deal.

  When we come out, the kids are waiting. They sit close to the entrance. I can see their faces clearly, all pale and white. They jeer at me.

  “Daddy, bring the kid to school.”

  “Show us how you change diapers and wipe ass!”

  “Hey, are you breast-feeding, Daddy?”

  I check my watch. Time is crawling. Back at the deli, Ma asks brightly, “Did you see your friends?”

  Friends? What friends? I make a grunting sound.

  “At school you must make friends,” Ma adds. With no customers at the deli counter, she speaks Chinese too. “Bring them home and welcome them.”

  I would sooner slit my wrists, I think.

  “Your English will improve with new friends.”

  Shut up, I want to shout. You know nothing! You think it’s easy to make friends?

  To have friends you must be cool. You must wear the right clothes. You must know how to make people laugh. And you must look like everyone else.

  Ma lied to me. Before moving here, she told me that many Chinese people lived in North America. She did not say they all lived in the big cities. In Milson, we are the only Chinese. I can never trust Ma again.

  Chapter Two

  “Stop!” barks a voice. “Police!”

  Two people dash through the mall. They run so fast that they blur. They crash through the crowds, chased by the dark blue and shiny black of two cops. People hop out of the way and flatten themselves against the walls. At the water fountain, the two suspects break off from each other and sprint toward the far ends of the mall.

  Aunt Mei scoops Josh up and runs to the back of the deli. Ma yanks open the cash drawer and whips the tray to safety.

  Shoppers hurry toward the exit doors, but I hear no fire alarm. In fact, a deathly silence hangs over the place. We have been told by mall s
ecurity that a steady clang means that store owners should leave the building quickly. A stop-and-start clang means we should hide inside our stores for safety. Or is it a steady clang that tells us to stay? I can’t recall.

  Ma orders me to stay, but I rush after the chase. Did the cops pull out their guns? Hey, if they shoot someone, they’ll shut down the mall with long loops of yellow warning tape. That would be great news. At last I would get part of a Saturday to myself.

  One cop has thrown someone to the ground and is cuffing his hands behind his back. The man is kicking and growling. He has long black hair and wears faded jeans and a jean jacket. A bunch of crests are sewn onto the back. I’ve seen them before. When the cop pulls him to his feet, I realize it is Chief. He goes to my school. His real name is Charles, but he got his nickname because he is First Nations.

  “Leaders of Indian bands are called chiefs,” Celine told me.

  It made sense then. “Indian” was the word we had used in China. There, the word had three parts: yin-di-an.

  Celine said that the people who lived here first recently chose the name “First Nations.” They had been called “Indians” by Columbus. That was a mistake. The explorer thought he was in India after crossing the Pacific Ocean in 1492. I didn’t know any of this until Celine explained it to me.

  When school started this fall, Celine Lapointe walked me through the building and pointed out the washrooms. She helped me with English homework. She introduced the teachers and warned her friends to treat me nicely. But no one bothered to come near me. She also explained the rules. We grade elevens could talk with any grade twelve student who might be in one of our split classes, but we could never look at anyone from a lower grade. Celine was one of the top students in my grade, and very popular.

  I should have tried harder to be her friend. But I never fit in with her crowd. They spoke too fast. They laughed at things I didn’t understand. When Celine tried to explain their jokes, I felt even more stupid. I started staying away from them. That meant I saw Celine less and less.

  Chief grins at the cop. His teeth are bright against his dark skin. He is tall and solidly built.

  “Hey, why don’t you leave him alone?” A First Nations shopper glares at the cop, her arms crossed over her chest. She’s small but not one bit afraid. “He’s just a kid. What’s he done?”

  “Why don’t you shut up?” someone shouts from the crowd.

  The cop does not say a word.

  “You cops always pick on us.” The woman scowls at the circle of people around her. “It’s not fair.”

  I draw back at the sight of the kids from the food court. They are across from me, holding soft drinks and sucking on plastic straws. Their eyes are cool and uncaring. At school, they don’t mix with the First Nations kids.

  Chief catches my eye, but I look away. Who needs trouble with the cops? Celine told me Chief had been captain of the school football team until he hooked up with the potheads. In the hallway, she also pointed out his sister Diane, who is only in grade ten but is already president of the First Nations Club.

  The other cop comes up. She’s pushing someone who also has his hands cuffed. As soon as I see his face, I leave. It’s The Man. He’s my dealer. I buy my pot from him.

  The shoppers are clapping. This town loves law and order. The newspaper is always printing stories about break-and-enters, stolen cars or headstones overturned at the graveyard. The editor blames young people first. Then he blames parents who do not keep track of where their teenage children are. That would be my mother.

  The more they arrest, the better it is,” mutters Aunt Mei. A sour smile twists her face as she watches the cops march their prisoners through the mall and out the door. “I should never have left that coin purse in the car,” she adds. “I bought it at the Huashan temple in Shanghai.”

  One month after we moved to Milson, someone smashed the back window of Ma’s car. Inside, the only thing of value was the little bag of coins for the parking meters. It held less than ten bucks. When we reported it, the police shrugged.

  “It cost me four hundred dollars to fix that window.” Ma sighs. “That was worse.”

  “In China, things were never this bad,” sniffs her sister.

  “Then let’s go home,” I say. “Let’s go back to China right away.”

  It’s what I want most of all in this world. I know we would all be happier there. I would become the perfect son. I promised Ma that. I would do any chore and every job she threw at me. Empty the trash, mop the bathroom, play fewer video games. But Ma ignores me. She has heard it before.

  I lean over the Chinese newspaper. It is only two weeks late. Ma won’t let me read it when I’m working. She fears it may insult customers, but right now she’s busy talking to Aunt Mei.

  “At least in China people respect the law,” she says, thrusting the money tray back into the cash register. “Here lawyers have more power than the police. Robbers have more rights than their victims.”

  “And those Native people are the worst!” exclaims Aunt Mei. “Newspapers say the courts and judges are gentler when it is time to punish them. It’s the law of the land! It’s madness!”

  Aunt Mei is waltzing through this life while her eyes are taped shut. She believes she is happy because she lives in North America. Many people in China want to move here, but it’s not easy to get in. Aunt Mei acts as if she is smarter and better than the local people. She loves to brag about China: factories sprout up on farmland, the number of rich people is growing and shoppers can buy foreign goods. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? She’s here, but she thinks things are better back in China. That’s how some immigrants are. They come here hoping for a better life but don’t find it. So, to make themselves feel better, they praise life in China and think that one day they may go back. Me, I want to go back to China because I fit in there, not because it’s better.

  So why the hell is Aunt Mei living here?

  I know why. So she can push Ma to complain about rising taxes, the high prices for food and the icy winters. So they can grumble about their neighbors, about how those people’s mouths smile and spout nice words while their eyes stay cold and hard.

  The two women never mention what really makes Ma sad. My dad, Ba, left her for another woman. He dumped Ma, even after she traveled across the Pacific Ocean and bore him another son. What a jerk Ba turned out to be. He had gone ahead of us to North America to find work and set up house here. Nobody ever thought he would get a new girlfriend too.

  Ma and I arrived two years after him. My brother was born a year later. Then, right after Josh’s first birthday, Ba moved out. Ma cried for hours and wouldn’t step outside the house for weeks. When I finished grade ten earlier this year, we moved to Milson. I didn’t want to come here. All my friends lived in the city. But Ma said she needed to get far away from Ba, so she grabbed the chance to buy the deli.

  I hate my father a million times more than my mother does. If my parents were still married, I could head back to China right away, by myself. But as long as Ma lives alone here, I have to stay and look after her.

  “You stay away from those Native people,” Aunt Mei says to me. “They will lead you into trouble.”

  She knows nothing. Nothing!

  Chapter Three

  Today is a bad day. Very bad.

  First class of the day, I get dragged to the front of the room. Lines of numbers and letters run across the blackboard like little frightened birds. I feel people staring.

  “Show the class how to prove this identity,” sings out the math teacher as she hands me some chalk. “It’s easy.”

  What is she talking about?

  “I just gave you the model,” she adds. “Do you need a hint to get started?”

  In English, the teacher springs a surprise quiz on the class. Everyone groans. I did not read the novel, so my sheet is blank.

  Mr. Mills waves it around and exclaims, “Look, Mr. Shen doesn’t waste ink or paper! We should call him Mr. Green!”
>
  You idiot! I shout in my head.

  In chemistry, no one wants to be my lab partner, so I do the lab alone. The others in class finish ahead of me and find free time to visit and chat. Nobody comes near me in the back row. I have to read the lesson, tinker with the pipettes, read the lesson again, pour the solvents into small flasks, reread the lesson, measure the changes and write down the results. If only I had four pairs of hands. What if I record false numbers and see if the teacher can spot them?

  At lunchtime, I run across the football field to the oak trees. It’s where the potheads usually hang out. No one is there today. I debate whether or not to smoke a joint if I’m there by myself. In the end I do.I light up and hold the smoke as long as my lungs can bear. When I exhale, the smoke takes away the pain. It’s as if a clanking, belching garbage truck ran over my chest earlier. Now the ground beneath me softens and the breeze cools my anger and carries it away. The green grass and blue sky leave me feeling calm and rested.

  “Mr. Shen.”

  The name hammers at me. Hey, it’s mine!

  “Mr. Shen, wake up!”

  I sit bolt upright.

  “Mr. Shen, didn’t you go to bed last night?”

  “What? And make more babies?” someone whispers.

  My classmates snicker. They think potheads live on a cloud. I think smoking pot makes me more alert. At least when I’m awake.

  I look straight ahead. Mr. Cooper is the social studies teacher. From behind his thick beard, he usually mumbles and yells in slang. He thinks those words help him to connect with students. I can’t always follow his meanings. He wears bright Hawaiian shirts and tons of fake gold around his neck and fingers. No teacher in China ever dressed like him. He has no idea how stupid he looks.

  “Do you know where you are, Mr. Shen?” he asks.

  His voice is sharp. His questions are meant to cut and claw into me. I force myself to nod.

  “Where are you, then? Tell the class, so we can be sure that you are really with us.”

  The smoke has relaxed me too much. I giggle.

  “What’s so funny, Mr. Shen?”