The boards tacked and the steel shutters across the windows in the gray before the storm that we hear is for sure, for sure coming, so our college and schools and the offices close, our markets’ lots full up with cars, our last minute shopping, last drive round the island, the private school principal photographs his school for the insurance people, the tardy parents has their son looking out over the vacant playground, and the wind is stirring things and the reports are stirring people, but I don’t think to worry, and I think it’s a good thing now—Ma’s gonna force Pa to drive us around in the beating whips, the beating laps of rain, rippling blur over the windshield---YES, please.
The fridge matai’d right before the storm, and all its insides turned sour. The ice has melted the meat bad, the vegetables dank, the whole smell as you open its door in the morn and go oh shit, why now? But just this evening, the little Korean man, dark skinned, no speaky English too good “You fridgerator broken?”—Yes. So the five foot man and his tall Filipino friend drag the honking metal construction as I clear the way and part the zorries at the door aside, one-two-three heave and it’s out the door down the balcony and worked into a vacant flat. They drag a working one back in, so all is good, we didn’t go shopping but we’ll see, we’ll last, Ma has been praying for one for a long time, maybe this is the monster worth writing about.
MEH-LOR.MEE-LOR I mouth it—Melor, our supertyphoon, I wait for you tonight. But there’s no sign, some rain fall, and gray above and the anticipation.
In the typhoon
A chinese man and his umbrella
Tug-of-war
On the windshield, the pelts are circles, they get tired, lose shape, slide down, from his left comes the wiper.
Driving through garapan, streets are swamped, waiting for trees to fall down.
Now its been raining for hours.
Beyond my screen door
The typhoon
Inward from the door
I type
I am the audience.
I participate.
The tree bows. And bobs its damp head. Under the harsh shower, it swings.
The parking lot is an ocean. The road’s the rivers.
The sky matches the road and pavement.
Ah.
The tree is a broccoli in Melor’s cold stir-fry.
My brothers dart to Lao Lao Bay. A great day today, shirtless and sprinting, touching puddles before pavement.
I find a swamp in the hall.
Running on an empty tank, the steel shutters over the gas stations are telling us to go home.
One is open on middle road. Four long lines of cars.
The man filling his tank is stewpid slow.
The shower has stopped.
The wind is in the green.
5:45 Boys, its furreal.
The light flickers three times then out.
Out on the balcony, I stand on the stool then I sit back down when I see the landlord look at me odd. I hug my knees, the chill, the rain tickles my skin.
Moments before I laid on the couch, looking out in our blackout, the light outside is bluish gray or grayish blue or just me and melor.
But Ah! It’s returned. A time out. The roles reverse, approaching Half-past Six it’s Dark.
Before dark a pair of red wails dancing through the village. It was the ambulances.
I’m alone in the flat.
But I detach, trying to be as good as not here. The phone rings. Success is when it’s just Melor.
The ladle scoops the edges of the creamy lugaw with scallions. A warm pot.
The ladle steals from Pa’s scallion rice-cream.
But before I can succeed. My family’s back. (Not like I was really gonna go zen-mode. Next time?)
They’re back. This means the AC’s back. The TV’s back. The computer’s back.
Writing is active detachment. If I could participate without participating without pen…I think I would. I should.
What separates me and you is the span of a pen.
The chicken is thawing. The chicken is thawing in the sink. Pa slaps it on the board. The slick cold fatty skin pulled off. Hammer the knife through the bone. The boys have brought friends over.
“They’ve finished all the bread…”—My sister.
Thatack! Thatack! thru the cold chicken.
I hear laughter in our bed room. Two little beds. One bunk bed. Two more guests. Usual additional lodgers for the weekend.
Hannah is yapping hyperactive HOLA-NIHAO-HELLO-BONJOUR
I haven’t tickled her little soft belly yet.
Mama’s become a lancheru now(Farmville)
Phoothoowhoothewthewthwoothwoo whistling wind All doors are closed.
What to text?
I need your attention.
The lights blink. Scares Ma off her farm. PC off.
The boys wanted to meet girls at Winchell’s.--donut filling--
“What are there mother’s thinking?—Ma—“Even your Pa planned to send them there!” Typhoon doesn’t dampen hormones.
She’s slicing the garlic with a scowl, gossiping with Pa about a death of a haole.
Cold and alone and dead and dead a long time in hotel room.
He was a regular at church.
7:00 pm
“You need ginger?”
“I need garlic, onions, peel the radish.”
Ma rubs her eye with a bending wrist. Her blinding onion. Exasperation. Ma and Pa unappreciated master chefs every night.
“Hannah get me some water please?”
The ugly brown scabs fall off circumskin this radish in her hand
What to text?
I need your attention.
“Dennis, cook rice. Dennis cook rice.”
Snaps me out of a fantasy.
Pa’s scowling at the unchopped raddish. Ma retired to her bed to read. Lazy.
Thatud! Slicing them at an angle. Pa’s red. I see the bulb on his shiny red head.
He says, “I’ll cook the rice.”
“Why?”
“I’ll just cook it.”
Ok.
“This rice is the same from lunch, right?” Pa scooping out sticky leftovers into bowl. Washes pot. Water gurgles. Work off rice with sponge and fingers. Then rinse. I know. I don’t have to watch. Lift the trash lid. Wet yuck rice dumped in. He scrubs again. He is our Mr. Clean. Mister meticulous. I would’ve had the pot in the cooker by now. This is Pa tonight. is Pa every time he cooks
Writing is a lonely activity. “Dennis put the candles out.”
I stretch on my sister’s bed with her stuffed friends. “Hannah will you stop jumping?” “Hannah, you’re too close to the TV.”
“Dennis, hush, turn off the light.”
Stupid tv show. Stupid catchy song laptop-noise. Follow the sudden spite it leads back to Me Aware is alone
The butane stove is on, its little blue flame under black deep round stove. I smell. I hear my stomach.
SUDDENLY
“You crying?!” “Why you crying?!” He lights up loud “Why you crying, ah?!’ He booms.
Hannah’s pout runs away and she runs away to her room. I hear her sniffing. Ma storms out. TV off. Ma scolds “Why don’t you listen. We already told you.” I hear Hannah’s clogged nose sniff-whimper/hiccup. “Stop!” She stops. Ma needs her sleep.
I know this happened before. All this happened it already has it already will—the bewildering mundane.
Aware is alone and watching
“Dennis open the door.” The smoke from the fry is too strong.
I find the typhoon still there.
I make ripples in the bowl. Looking up, I see the little bathroom window, a screen of dust with some holes and along the corner where wall meets wall there are spider webs—specks in them like rat droppings, bugs done with bugging, a hammock for the dead, one bug legs kicking—with a finger-hook I could twirl it apart round my pointy, cotton candy.
Webs look like age, and these one’s have come from nowhere, one thread blows broken below the screen, hanging on to wall, a flag. But I know they’ve been here awhile
all I had to do was look up. Aware is Whitman and he is in all
The stir-fry gets going. The loud tsssssssssssss!shimmer of oil when the garlic and onions are put in.
Pa’s procedure and tips
-let the wife be the kitchen helper
-fry chicken first and separate
-fry onions and garlic till brown translucent
-add washed clean radish cutss
-add Chinese chili sauce and black bean sauce, oyster sauce, Chinese wine
-half-spoon of sugar
-put a lid on it
(I sneak a piece of chicken, in my mouth soft tender delish)
-add some water
-add some chicken oil from pot of separated chicken into the stew
-add a little more water
Pa takes a break, flips over the newspaper on the table; he scowls “turn on the aircon very hot” The perspiration on his shiny head
-add chicken
-stir around, mix contents, spoon ladle into bottom, bring the below to the top, top to the below, let every piece of chicken taste the stew
-add more of each sauce and wine to help chicken
-put lid on, steam
Now the radish are soaked in the brown, you can see the stew run in them like veins over their skin. The stew is bubbling
-most important, be Chinese
Next day, 6:00 pm
“Batt, that typhoon was minor.”
It rained on the Chinese moon festivals, but when it all cleared
In tonight
The milky bulb
blemishes and all
During school one day, She said “Fachina!”
“Yknow,like a war cry, but it sounds like, you know…”
Tera-cotta warriors shaking the dust off their shoulders and armor and mustaches, charging and shouting—FACHINAAA!
Happy belated china.
My chinky scowl
My chinky smile
Melor hushed me into the house so I could shut up and watch.
