Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book by Maxine Hong Kingston
“Out of the carriage and into the saddle of her rearing white warhorse leaps Lady Sun, fully armored, silver from head to toe. Your hair curls out of your helmet in waves of gold, and your eyes have caught the blue of the sky and the river. You draw your sword, pare your nails with it. ‘Whom do I have to fight?’ you ask. Your brother’s knights put down the swords that had been forged expressly to kill you.”
Wittman thought that with this story he was praising his lady, and teaching her to call him Beloved. Unbeknownst to him, Taña was getting feminist ideas to apply to his backass self.
“I have been waiting at the river by myself. None of my ships meet me. There are many poems about me weeping on the banks of the Yangtze, which divided kingdoms. The river will separate me from my love, I sing. I mourn for the wonderful year with the princess and for my stay in the country that lies between the Yangtze and the Pacific.
“The soldiers overtake me; twenty ships appear. And you arrive. The well-married couple run up a gangplank together. Warships flying Sun Ch’üan’s flags, running with the wind, chase us to the north shore. We hear drums; there is Grandfather Gwan meeting us with fresh horses.
“That’s it, my present to you,” said Wittman. “Got no money. Got no home. Got story.”
Taña was giving him that impressed look from the party, which she had given to everyone though. He loved that look, she’s interested, beholding him, and others. That’s all it takes, a few seconds of being smiled at, a while of being listened to, and he feels loved. I can go about my life, she loves me.
“I’m your beloved lady in shiny armor?” she said.
“Yes, if you’d like.”
“I’ve already saved you from the draft. Well. Do you want a ride home?”
“Yes.” Got to go home sometime.
“Are you embarrassed to take me home? Is someone there?” She does have me on her E.S.P.
“Yeah. My mother. Do you want to meet her? You feel like driving to Sacramento?” He has access to a car, might as well take advantage to see how the Aged Parents and Grandparent are doing.
“Let’s drive across the Golden Gate,” she said. This weekend, then, he will have crossed three bridges. The Golden Gate, the most bridge-like of bridges, swept them from the green Presidio to the Marin hills, where the manzanita and the bridge are the same red. Fog poured out of the forests. His grandmother liked being taken for Sunday drives. He had been in the backseat when the car radio said the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. “Go to the Golden Gate Bridge,” she said. “I want to drive across it one last time.” PoPo was very good at last wishes. Taña would enjoy meeting her. They didn’t have to worry about meeting Taña’s family; white people don’t have families. They’re free.
He drove the eggshell car around the Bay and through the milky bogland of Suisun, whereinto it merged, sunlight on tan metal, water over peat dirt. Between the whitish water and whitish sky, endless mirrorings, egrets stood on long long legs, mirror-doubled. A lone oak tree cringed like burned. Who is it that shoots the roadsigns? Every pick-up truck has a gun rack. It is eventful enough when a marshbird dips its foot and causes rings of silver going and going.
Somewhere between Fairfield and Vacaville, theirs was the only vehicle on the road. Wittman turned the car radio—shit-kicking caballero music—off. He pulled the Porsche to the roadside and killed the engine. A turn of the ignition key switched off the world’s noise. They twisted out their cigarettes in the ashtray. It’s against the law to toss them because peat smolders. At night, you sometimes see parts of an underground fire, and smell like bread baking. A stream of white butterflies frittered by, on and on. A flock of small black birds came next; the ones at the top were high in the sky, the ones at the bottom flew through the yellowing grass, and they were the same continuous flock. At last the birds tailed away. Next, yellow moths blew about; they will alight in another season, and become the mustard flowers of January. They heard a car at a distance, and then it arrived, and passed them. It had gathered eventfulness, passed, and pulled it away at seventy miles an hour. The silence re-closed. A soul extends in nature, then you are aware of having one. Buildings, jackhammers, etc., chop it up, and you took drugs to feel it. The extent of the soul is from oneself to wherever living beings are.
Too low in the sky came a black warplane. Its two winglights glared in the bright day. Its flat belly had hatchdoors—for bombs to drop out. The plane was the shape of a winged bomb. That humming and roaring must have been underlying everything for some time. It had no insignia, no colors, no markings, no numbers. It hung heavy in air. It passed overhead and off to the right. Wittman started the car, and drove fast to get out of there. But the plane came back around, skulking around and around. The sky seemed not to have enough room for it. Like a shark of the ocean inside a tank. How is it that I co-exist with that dead impersonal thing which moves, and is more real than the fields and more real than this unprotectable girl? Its noise replaced thought and om. Evil is not an idea. It is that. Sharks swim in schools. This thing was unpaired, singular in the isolation of the sky. Somebody ought to report it in Berkeley. And call Travis Air Force Base; one of their experiments is loose, blindly circling where Primary State 12 intersects 1-80. But people who’ve seen the evil plane and heard it forget to do anything about it when they get back. Its dull blackness and noise are somehow subliminal, and cause helplessness and despair. They just want to hurry and get to their people. Good thing Wittman will be with his mother right away.
Ruby Ah Sing lived in sight of the capitol. A fence went around her property, a flower garden and a house with a porch and a porch swing. The years she had lived in trailer parks and her roomette on the train, she had had a dreamhouse. She’d settled down in old Sac for her boy, to give him a home, which he drove past. Take the long way. He had liked better living on the train, reading funnybooks in his fold-down bunk, everything you own at your toes. Sometimes the window had seemed to be a long television screen scrolling sideways, and sometimes another room, and sometimes a dream. In pajamas, he lay against the window, moving through a city street. Underneath him, hobos and Mexicanos were riding next to the wheels; they fell off in their sleep. Once a circus traveled with them, or they traveled with a circus. The aerialists spoke European, but the clowns were friendly with everyone. He wore his monkey outfit for them. They warned him of the circus tradition of tossing enemies and wise asses off the train. Boys and girls in Europe were riding in cattle cars, and were trampled. That was why he had had to give an anti-jap speech from the caboose. The men around the potbelly stove gave him a yellow flag. A steward let him serve lunch. Never work as an animal trainer; if an elephant shits in the ring, you have to shove a broom up there where the sun don’t shine. Going through a black tunnel, a conductor said, “They say a thousand chinamen used a thousand tons of dynamite to make this cut. I don’t know the truth of that.” The engine puffed out words—“Elephant. Elephant.”—through the semiconscious nights. Trestles, trigonometrical puzzles worked out by ancestors, carried him across canyons. His father waited at stations, where he’d be waving hello or goodbye. The train whistled woo woo. Ruby and Zeppelin had a joke about wooing each other.
“Sutter’s Fort is that way,” said Wittman. “Sac High. I graduated from Sac High. That’s the Greyhound Station. Crocker, who invested in the railroad, built that museum. That’s the old Old Eagle Theatre. The first theater was the Chinese puppet theater on I Street. That’s the Governor’s Mansion. That’s the hotel where congressmen go to wheel and deal.” He drove around the capitol. “Los Immigrantes go in that door to become citizens. There’s the peanut man. I used to buy peanuts from him to feed the squirrels.” It was an easy town to learn. A Street, B Street, C Street, and so on, and the number streets gridding the other way.
“The Land Hotel,” said Taña. “There’s a Land Hotel, isn’t there?”
“Yes. Near the Senator. It’s a fleabag.”
“That’s where we used to stay summers when I was a l
“Well, maybe it wasn’t a fleabag back then.”
Suddenly Wittman was coughing hard. His lungs were not made for an open-air car.
“Are you all right?” asked Taña, patting his shoulder.
“I’m okay. I always cough when I get near home.”
“That’s interesting. Whenever I’ve ridden the bus and heard somebody coughing, and I turn around, most of the time they’re Chinese.”
“Yeah, they’re on their way home.”
“It gets me in the stomach,” said Taña. “Half a bottle of Kaopectate, and I’m ready to see my mother. I’m on my way out the door, and she says right in front of my date, and our double-dates, ‘Are you wearing your bra? Get upstairs, young lady, and put on a brassiere. You’re too big to be going out all over town without a brassiere.’ Does your mother do that? It probably was a fleabag. I remember I always wanted to stay at the other one.”
“The Senator.”
“Yeah. One night, really hot, we had to keep the window open. I heard someone singing down on the street. In the morning, I looked out the window, and there was a sailor asleep in a phone booth. What’s the main street? Is it Main Street?”
“K Street.”
“On K Street, there was a captured Japanese plane, tan with big red circles on the wings. An open cockpit, and a ladder. My father made me sit in the cockpit, and I was crying because I thought it was going to fly away with me. My mother got really mad at my father. I sat in it for about five seconds. Don’t laugh,” she said, laughing.
“I’m not,” said Wittman, coughing.
“Later I saw home movies of myself in that Zero, me in my pinafore and white stockings and real long hair, trying to climb out of the cockpit. Alice in Wonderland bombs Pearl Harbor.”
The folks are going to love her, thought Wittman. Ruby and Zeppelin are really going to love her. I love her myself. No brassiere, wow! I have to buy her a leopard-skin bathing suit so we can play Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Me Chimp.
Ruby Ah Sing, Wittman’s mother, had a maple tree, the crown-leaves gold and red now. The crowns of many kings on a hat rack. The pear tree had some pears, and green leaves, and dead black leaves on long offshoots, and flowers. Wild in the time machine.
Through the screen door—the crack clack crash of mah-jongg. Oh, no, mah-jongg day. That’s why, all those Coupe de Villes to have squeezed a parking space among. The son of the house would have turned about but for the girl he was with. Always do the harder thing. He opened the door, went ahead, held it for Taña.
Ruby screamed. “Eeek!” Stood up and screamed again, pointing. And Auntie Sadie screamed, and Auntie Marleese ran to him. His mother eeked him again. “Eeek!” What’s wrong? The white girl? A hobo bumbled after them inside? “What have you done to yourself?!” She put her hands to her cheeks.
“You used to be such a beautiful boy!” shouted Auntie Marleese, looking up at him.
“Too much hair,” said Auntie Sadie. “Much too hairy.”
“You go shave,” said Mother. “Shave it off! Shave it off! Oh, hock geen nay say!” That is, “Scares you to death!” “Gik say nay!” That is, “Irks you to death!” “Galls you to death!” Clack! Clack!
“No act, Ma,” he said.
“Don’t say hello to your mother,” she said.
“Never you mind sticks and stones, honey boy,” said Auntie Bessie. “Have a heart, Ruby.”
A dog jumped on him. “Down, Queenie. Behave,” said Auntie Jadine, its owner. “Where you manners, Queenie?” Those who usually spoke Chinese talked to the yapperdog in English. “Down, Queenie. Come heah.” They spoke English to him and to the dog. American animals.
“GOOD dog,” said Wittman. It mind-fucks dogs to be called good when they’re trying to be fierce.
“Wit Man has come to see his momma,” explained the aunties, one to another. “Good boy. Big boy now.” Clack clack clack. A racket of clack clack clack. “All grow up. College grad, haw, Wit Man?” Nobody asked if he were a doctor or an engineer yet. How tactful. Not asking about work at all. “Sit. Sit. Sit. Here’s an empty chair by me, dearie. Come meet me.” Taña got a side chair at one of the dining tables.
“Oh, I be so sorry I didn’t recognize you, Wit Man,” said Auntie Sadie. “You so changed.”
“That’s okay, Auntie Sadie.”
“Come talk to your Aunt Lilah.”
“Hello, Aunt Lilah. Hello, Auntie Dolly,” said Wittman. “Hello, Aunt Peggy.” He went to each auntie, shaking hands with some, kneeling beside this one and that one for her to take a better look at him. “He was a cute biby.” “Why you not visit Auntie more often?” “Me too, honey boy. Visit you Aunt Sondra too.” The ladies called themselves “ahnt,” and Wittman called them “ant.” “Hair, Big City style, isn’t it, dear?” said Auntie Dolly of San Francisco, ruffling his hair. “Beard in high style, Ruby. Wit Man Big City guy now.”
The ladies at his mother’s table were comforting her. “Hairy face, fashion on a plate,” said Auntie Sophie. “You the one sent him to college, Ruby.” Clack. Clack.
“Where I go wrong, I ask you,” said Wittman’s mother. “He was clean cut. He used to be soo mun.” That is, “He used to be soigné.” “He doesn’t get his grooming from me. Kay ho soo kay ge ba, neh. Gum soo. Soo doc jai.” That is, “He takes too much after his father, neh. So like. Too alike.” “Moong cha cha. Both of them, father and son, moong cha cha.”
“In Hong Kong now, they say m.c.c.,” said Auntie Peggy, who was up on the latest.
“M.c.c.” “M.c.c.” The aunties tried the new Hong Kong slang. “Moong cha cha” means “spacy,” spaced out and having to grope like a blindman.
Meanwhile, at Taña’s table, Aunt Dolly, who was sophisticated, was saying, “What’s your name, honey? Tan-ah. What a pretty name. Russian? Do you play, Tan-ah? I’ll show you how to play. This is a very famous Chinese game. Mah-jongg. Can you say ‘mah-jongg’?” Auntie Dolly had been a showgirl in New York, and knew how to endear herself to foreigners. She did introductions. Good. Wittman did not want to announce Taña to the room, and he was not about to tablehop with her like a wedding couple. “That’s Madame S. Y. Chin. This is Madame Gordon Fong.” Et cetera. “Hello,” said Taña. Well, you can’t expect her to say, “How do you do, Madame.” And if she said, “How do you do, Mrs.,” the lady would feel demoted. Meet Madame Wadsworth Woo. How do you do, Woo? “Madame” to you. Madame. Shit. Madame Chiang Kai Shek. Madame Sun Yat Sen. Mesdames Charles Jones Soong and T. V. Soong. Madame Nhu. All the cookbook ladies are madames too. And all the restaurant guys are generals. Generalissimo. “Let me show you how to play, honey.” Don’t trust anybody who calls you “honey,” Taña. It’s a verbal tic.
“My name is Maydene Lam,” said Auntie Maydene. “Call me Maydene, dear.”
“How do you do, Maydene.”
“I’ve always liked your name,” said Auntie Lily Rose. “Such a pretty stage name. Maydene Lam.”
“Isn’t it delicious? There are four little girls named after me in the Valley.” Clickity clackity.
“What beautiful hair you have, Tan-ah. She’s gorgeous, Wit Man!” yelled Aunt Dolly. “You are so fair. Isn’t she fair?!”
“Thank you,” said Taña, who hadn’t yet learned that compliments need to be denied and returned.
Every auntie had jet-black dyed hair. Why do women as they get older have to have fixed hair? Because of beauty fixed at 1945. These were the glamour girls of World War II. Taking after the Soong sisters and Anna Chennault, who married guys in uniform. Whenever the aunties’ pictures appeared in the papers—Chinese or English—they were identified as “the lovely Madame Houston W. P. Fong,” “the beauteous Madame Johnny Tom.” They were professional beauties. To this day the old fut judges vote for the Miss Chinatown U.S.A. who most reminds them of these ladies. Quite a few of them had been Wongettes—“Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Eddie Pond proudly welcomes to the Kubla Khan
“Ciao!” “Poong!” “Kong!” Action. “Eight ten thousands!” “Mah-jongg!” Clack! Crash! “Mah-jongg!”
“Wit Man, over here,” said Ruby.
“Coming, Mother,” said Wittman. He stood behind her to look at her winning hand.
“Talk to See Nigh here,” said the mother.
“You enjoying the game, See Nigh?” he said to the lady whom he had never met before.
“Oh, how well behaved,” said the See Nigh, the Lady. “So dock-yee. And such good manners. Most boys with beards are bum-how. He doesn’t have to call me See Nigh. You call me Auntie, Wit Man.”
His mother spoke sotto voce, in Chinese, “Who’s the girl?”
“My friend. A good friend,” he said in English. One shouldn’t speak a foreign language in front of people who don’t understand it, especially when talking about them. Don’t add to the paranoia level of the universe.
“Serious?”
“Sure.”
“How serious?”
“Serious, okay?”
Gary Snyder had gone to Japan to meditate for years, and could now spend five minutes in the same room with his mother. Beat his record.
“So you walk with her,” said Auntie Sophie. She was translating “go with.” She meant “So you go with her.”
“Mixing with girls,” teased Auntie Marleese. “Old enough to mix the girls.” Go after girls with an eggbeater.
“She’s so rude, she’s not talking to me,” said Mom. “She’s hurt my feelings, Wit Man.”
“Introduce you gal to you mama, young man,” said Auntie Sophie. Clack!
“Hey, Taña,” he called over to her table. “Meet my mother, Ruby Ah Sing. Ma, meet my pahng yow, Tan-ah.” “Pahng yow” means “friend”; maybe Taña would think it meant “wife.”