The Good Cry (2/2)
(Ji4Xu4!)
This is what he told me: “Sometimes, I come here, and my brain tell me to do crazy things. Just. . . things.”
That's the last bit of dialog you hear before the music leaps up and hits you in the face, followed by the jump cut to the title screen with the release date and production credits. End of preview.
“What do you mean?”
“When I come here, to school. I don't know why. , , My brain just tells me to do things.”
“Things like what?”
“I don't know. . .”
“Things like what?”
He looked up to the ceiling. He put his left hand on his hip, cocked his hip, put his right hand beneath his chin, cocked his head. I was supposed to infer from this that he was rearranging the furniture to see how the room looked. And working really hard at it.
Yeah, I'd been taken in.
“Like when I'm bad, bad, bad. . .” He'd learned the advantages of repetition for emotional effect since the last time he'd cried. He said the last part with downcast eyes, his head twisting right, then left, then right with each “bad.” “Sometimes, I think I'm just. . ..crazy.”
Either the kid was experiencing some intense form of shame or was trying to sell me on the idea that he was. For a second, there, I wondered how many people there are in the world who only want someone to tell them that they're not crazy. And of those, how many go about getting it by way of duping somebody.
“Look, you wiry, little bastard,” I began, doing my best Bob Elliot. “How old are you? Seven? Eight? Look. Your brain is still new, alright? It's still a new brain you've got. It takes a human being a really long time to learn how to use his or her brain, alright? That's part of why you're in school. That's part of why you're here. I'm trying to teach you how to use your brain in English. You go to your Taiwanese School and your Taiwanese Teacher teaches you a lot of other things. . . And you learn a lot more about using your brain outside of school. Think of the things your Grandpa teaches you, things you don't learn in school. Your brain will still be growing TEN YEARS from now. Think about that. When you're seventeen or eighteen, your brain will still be growing. And you'll still be learning how to use it. Do you understand me?”
“I don't have the full grow brain.”
“Grown. Yes. What else?”
He looks up at the ceiling, then back down at me.
“I'm not crazy.”
“That's right. And I'll tell you another thing, kid. No one would hold it against you, if you were crazy. Your Mom and Dad are never around, and when they are they're unable to meet your emotional demands. . . they're always tired and they yell at you a lot more than they should, but they just don't know any better. . . They pawn you off on us for twenty hours a week and send Grandpa to pick you up. You spend twelve solid hours out of your day in school and then you gotta go home back to your Grandpa's place and listen to that old battle-ax wife of his spout off on how all that television you watch rots your brain. You're wishing to God that she'd just drop dead so you and the old man can go to McDonald's. Then your Mom's outside laying on the horn and you're putting your shoes on to the sound of the old battle-ax harping on you in Taiwanese about how you never eat when you come over. And your mom got some voicemail from your Taiwanese Teacher and she's mad at you for dumping soy sauce in the fish tank and you're hearing all about it on the ride home. By the time you show up at your front door you're ready to fall asleep where you stand. And you're thinking about heading straight for bed when the door swings open and there's your Dad. He's got a drunk-on again. And he's got lipstick on BOTH collars this time and the bottom of his shirt's sticking out of his fly. On account of your Mom not wanting to get smacked again, she grabs you by the ear and throws you to his feet saying “You deal with this, I'm sleeping at my mother's.” And then they both take turns yelling at you. Finally, when one of them indirectly suggests that your present state and your present course of action might be the other's fault, they start fighting with each other. Sure, you hate hearing them fight, but you're glad you've got the opportunity to slip away. And you go into your room and close the door and crawl into bed with your schoolclothes on. You pile on the blankets and stick your heard beneath the pillow and assume the fetal position. You go to sleep listening to your parents shrieking that they wished they'd never married. You wake up the next morning to the sound of your Dad's fist pounding against the locked bathroom door and your mother's crying. You wind up being late for school and your Taiwanese Teacher let's you know she's anything but pleased about it the whole day through. Then you come here and see me. And you worry that you're crazy?”
“Yes.”
“Boy, pray to God Almighty that your mother doesn't tie your father down to the bed and set him on fire with you locked in the closet!”
It's quite possible that I reacted poorly. Maybe he really was experiencing some profound sense of cosmic shame only there to be experienced by the Taiwanese. . . something I just wasn't privy to. . . couldn't grasp it if I wanted to. You know? Insert your form of cultural blindness, here. Still, though, even if the kid was reaching out to me. . . well, look, I'm sure a lobster on heroin would yield at least a glimpse of humanity if you stared at it long enough.
I wonder what he thought he had to win me over for. He left the empty McDonald's containers at his desk, after the bell. The next day, I totally forgot about this episode when I spotted him hitting a three year old girl at the base of her skull.
I only swore not to tell anyone about what that wiry little bastard did to those cats when I took that money from his Dad.
Ju4Zhong1.