Chapter Sixteen #2
“ And I’m going to write a letter. To the state parks authority. The cliff we hiked today was dangerous. And I don’t think that ranger is going to do anything about it.”
“You sure are worked up about this,” Bill observed.
“Do you know what Greg Zimmer looks like?” Joan asked Lee the next afternoon. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Jamie had soccer practice after school, during which Joan often brought Lee with her on errands before swinging back to JJS to collect Jamie. “Is he tall or short? Big or little?”
“He’s right there,” Lee said.
Joan looked. There was a hulking student in front of the main building who, even slouched, was nearly Joan’s height.
He had curly blond hair which ended over his eyes and a face bearing strong testimony of its rocky transition to preteen: the soft round fleshiness of the cheeks nearly gone, tapering to a jawline studded with acne.
Another student ran down the steps. This boy, roughly the same age as Jamie, was terribly normal-looking; he appeared to Joan as someone who likely had a good number of friends and played tennis.
The boy passed Greg, and in one smooth motion Greg casually grabbed the handle of his backpack so that the boy was yanked backward.
He stumbled, arms windmilling, and Greg released.
Without looking back, his target quickly righted himself and ran away.
Greg then strolled to the parking lot, stopping near the handicapped spots to straighten his polo shirt. Why, he’s a run-of-the-mill bully, Joan thought. He’s just a little goon !
“He sings sometimes on the blacktop,” Lee said. She was watching Joan, as she could tell when her mother was intensely focused on a subject. “He shouts at Jamie and a few others.”
“What does he say?”
“?‘Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees.’?” Lee held her breath; she knew it was bad, but she didn’t know why it was bad. “What does it mean?”
“Never you mind,” Joan said. She wasn’t sure either. A black Mercedes had entered the lot, which caught her attention. Greg approached the passenger side.
“Who’s that lady in that car?” Lee asked.
“Shh,” Joan said.
“Hey, buddy!” A woman Joan presumed was Greg’s mother leaned out the window, high ponytail bobbing.
“Guess who came too?” If Joan shifted, she could make out a man speaking into a phone in the driver’s seat.
“You have a great day at school?” Joan couldn’t hear Greg’s answer.
A yellow Labrador darted its head out the back window, mouth open, tongue lolling.
The Mercedes continued to idle, presumably while Greg’s father finished his call. The sedan looked freshly washed, and Joan knew enough of cars now from Bill to discern this was a particularly expensive model. Before Greg climbed into the back, he lingered by the open door, scanning the lot.
He’s proud of the vehicle, Joan realized with a start. He wants the other children to see him going into it!
Joan shut off her engine. Should she speak to the parents?
Somehow Joan didn’t think Greg’s mother would be of assistance; she looked to be the sort who drank afternoon margaritas with girlfriends, shouting after her children to “Take it easy, busters!” as they lit insects on fire.
This kind of woman could be gregarious and friendly but didn’t like to be embarrassed; she might even try to make things more difficult for Jamie.
The following week Jamie had soccer again.
Joan lingered after drop-off as she searched for a lipstick which had fallen between the seats.
Once Joan finally wedged loose the tube, she sat up and spotted Jamie walking toward the field.
He was with friends, laughing and joking in that self-conscious swaggery way of young boys; amid the red buildings in their soccer uniforms, they appeared as a moving mass of dark green.
Halfway through the field, Jamie separated—he had forgotten something, Joan assumed—and reversed back to the school.
As Jamie ambled, Joan noted with alarm that his projected path appeared to directly intersect that of Greg Zimmer, who had appeared out of the main JJS building like a goblin-ish apparition.
Move, Joan wanted to shout to her son. Run and stay away from that bully!
Jamie had a way of strolling with his head down, lost in thought; he was a dreamy child, and both Joan and Bill would sometimes grow frustrated as they called him to dinner over and over, to no response.
Joan’s heart jolted when she saw Greg shoot out an arm once Jamie drew near—Greg did not yank on Jamie’s backpack but crammed something into the side pocket, which normally held a water bottle.
Greg then seized the top of Jamie’s jersey and spoke into his ear.
Throughout this Jamie stood frozen, head down, until Greg released him.
Before Jamie returned to the field, Joan saw him remove the item Greg had shoved into his backpack, look at it for a long moment, and then toss it into a garbage can.
For a period, Joan struggled to breathe—it was as if she had forgotten how, and her heart fluttered in panic as she gripped the wheel.
When her breath returned, it was ragged and painful.
She sat with her rage, and when it didn’t cool, she rose and stormed from the car.
Fortunately the garbage can was a nearer target than Greg Zimmer, who now sat crouched by the school’s entrance.
If it’d been Greg who was closer, Joan felt she could very well have stormed him .
The garbage was nearly full, so Joan easily plucked out the item.
Her heart again began to pound as she flattened the magazine page with her palms. The woman featured was East Asian, on her hands and knees, entirely naked but for a red lace thong.
She was looking directly at the camera, her mouth open in ecstasy, presumably at the sight of the penis belonging to the two hairy legs straddling the right and left borders of the image (as in the video store downtown, here too the man did none of the marketing, Joan thought with frustration).
Joan did not know how long she stared at the image.
She did sense it was too long, and yet she couldn’t stop.
The composition was neoclassical in that more details were revealed the longer she looked: the rough chunky yarn of the camel rug, speckled with orange and yellow; the woman’s long thin brown nipples, which made double Y’s from her breasts as they sagged toward the ground.
Below her breasts was the caption: Brenda, our Asian Siren.
Oh Lord, Joan thought as she imagined Jamie looking at the image—oh Lord, what had Jamie thought?
Joan had always been aware that there were very few Asian mothers at JJS.
Though until now this had never struck her as a problem.
Because there was Bill. And Bill did look like many of the fathers (albeit older).
He dressed like them and spoke their language and thus, Joan believed, assured a smooth entrance for them all.
Joan had never considered what it might mean for her children that she herself acted and appeared differently.
Even volunteering in the cafeteria—Joan had chosen it because none of the other mothers wanted the job.
Jamie and Lee had never complained that she didn’t volunteer for the Fall Harvest, one of JJS’s signature events, which most of the other mothers did sign up for.
Jamie and Lee had never said anything about her showing up to school one day with a little net in her hair as she passed out chocolate milk next to Beth Ellen, the actual JJS lunch lady.
Joan examined the page again. Behind “Brenda” was a leather couch with a rounded imprint on one cushion, as if she had been seated for some time before climbing down to be photographed. There were red lacquer chopsticks in her hair.
Have I embarrassed my children? Joan thought. Through my choices, have I made their lives more difficult?
She looked up as Greg rose and began to cross the parking lot.
He was not a particularly fast walker: there was a lackluster tension about him, a lazy bully’s scanning of the periphery as he moved.
Still clutching the page, Joan watched him and then, on impulse, ran back to her car.
She rolled slowly across the lot, tapping her foot on and off the brake.
Once she drew close, she stopped and lowered the window.
“Hey!” she shouted. She threw the page at him. Joan had misjudged the density of the paper—it didn’t smack him, as she’d thought it would, but merely bounced off.
Puzzled, Greg stopped and picked up the wadded sheet from the ground. He didn’t appear to recognize it at first. It was only when he opened the page and looked at her again that a sly wariness crossed his face.
“My son is ten years old,” Joan said. “Do you think this is a nice thing to show him?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Greg shot back.
His backpack strap slipped from his shoulder.
Joan felt a flicker of admiration that Greg could defend himself so easily to adults; having been raised in the Confucian tradition, she found his insubordination quite novel.
Here was a boy who’d been taught to firmly defend his behavior even in the face of authority—who believed he had the right to stand firm, occupying an immovable central spot in the universe. A big American boy.
She leaned out of her window. “You said something to Jamie. When you gave him this picture. What was it?”
“I don’t know.” Greg darted a few spaces down to a black car— his black car, Joan recognized.
It was the one from a week earlier, with his mother and father.
Joan steeled herself for a confrontation with rich white people.
I’ll just have to remember what Bill would do, she thought.
After all, he’s a rich white person himself.
Joan realized the car was empty at the same moment as Greg; after jiggling the handle, he pressed a hand to the glass.
Joan guessed his mother must be somewhere in the school—Lee had mentioned Greg had a brother in her year.
A pleasant breeze blew through the lot, scattering cherry blossom petals across the concrete.
Greg turned to face her, his body against the door. Joan crept her car forward. She was so near she could spot the emergence of a painful-looking whitehead on his chin.
Greg scowled. “Stay away from me. You’re crazy.”
“I am crazy,” Joan agreed. “And I feel crazy too. When I see someone being bad to my son, I get filled with a hot, dark feeling. A crazy thing I might do in such a situation is crash into this nice vehicle of yours. Do you want to see?”
“No!” Greg cast a desperate glance across the lot, and Joan checked her mirror. The few parked cars were static, with no signs of life; the only movement came from the soccer field, the players’ bodies crisscrossing in the distance.
Joan released the brake. The engine purred as it moved. Her little BMW was a diesel, and she liked its low sound.
“Stop!” Greg cried. “What are you doing?”
She let the BMW creep to within a few inches of the Mercedes. “What did you say to Jamie?”
“I don’t know!”
“Try and remember.”
“No, I really can’t!”
“Well, then I’ll just have to keep going.”
“I asked if you liked to get on your knees and suck dick.” Greg flushed and kicked the ground. “He doesn’t know what it means!”
“Get on your knees and suck dick,” Joan whispered. “Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees.” She repeated the lines in her head; the words were like soot in her brain.
“It was a joke! I didn’t mean it.”
“But you gave him the picture.”
“I’ve got tons. They’re from these magazines.”
“What magazines? Where did you find them?”
“Upstairs, in my dad’s—” Greg caught himself. He looked hopefully beyond; at something, or someone, coming near.
Joan didn’t bother to see what it was. She released the brake.
She didn’t stamp on the gas but let the car roll forward until there was the crunching of metal.
She felt sorrow only for her own vehicle: she had nearly given it a nickname, something Chinese she could repeat to herself, and now was glad she hadn’t, otherwise she would have cried.
The little maroon BMW had served her so well over the years.
It had been temperamental at times, being German, and as the BMW pressed into the long black Mercedes, Joan felt as if she were committing mechanical fratricide.
It would be Bill who dealt with the insurance.
The impact and damage were both greater than Joan expected—the car was in the shop for months, and Joan had to drive Bill’s Jaguar, which made both her and Bill unhappy.
Greg Zimmer would not bother Jamie again, and in fact Jamie would enjoy a rather unbothered existence for the remainder of his years at JJS.
There were times when teachers would pause at the sight of his name on their roster the first day of school, thinking it sounded familiar; Greg’s mother liked to tell the story, broadly and in great detail, of how Jamie Lauder’s mom had nearly killed her son in the parking lot.
“Asian drivers,” Lainey Zimmer would conclude with a sigh.
Greg would not speak further on the incident.
When his parents asked if he knew the child of the mother who’d hit their car, he shook his head.
Though of all parties, Greg would be the one who recalled the incident most deeply, as sometimes Joan appeared in his dreams. She would haunt him in this fashion even into adulthood; he adopted the habit of being excessively polite to older women, especially foreign ones with dark hair.
As for Joan: she mostly mourned the car.
Bill offered to buy her a new one, given how easily it had crumpled, but she insisted on driving the repaired BMW once it returned from the shop.
It never ran completely the same—the motor made a putt-putt-putt sound as it started up—but she continued to drive it, and after a while Jamie and Lee became used to listening for its metal stutter as Joan approached.
The noise meant that their mother had arrived, and they would come out front to be taken home.