Chop-Chop

WEIRD COINCIDENCE 

 

I wake suddenly from an unexpected afternoon nap. My clothes aren't mussed, the tossed pillows are laying on the carpet and the back of my neck aches a little. No sooner do I standup, I begin to hum, no words, just a tinkly rhythm. It comes from I know not where. My senses are not clear at all. I walk towards the kitchen and words begin to materialize. 'Chin Chan!' Period. Nothing else comes out.

 

Mother is in the kitchen preparing dinner. The smell of sizzling bacon, maybe burning a bit in Canola oil, burns my nostrils, reaches me, revolts
me. Strange words escape my lips. 'Oh, no, I HATE that Chinky smell.' 'Ma,' I call to her. 'Please close the door, open the windows. That awful bacon smell is going to make me vomit.' She doesn't answer me but slams the door hard. I can hear her tugging, ughing to open the two little kitchen windows.

 

I return to the sofa, put my head against the hard head rest and sing, 'Chin Chan, China man-stole a pig and away he ran!' Where did that come from? How long and why has it been buried inside of me? I sit still, almost paralyzed trying to put two and two together. No puzzle pieces fit right. At age twenty five I am sure I've never met anyone from China. There has been no opportunity. No Chinese children went to any of my schools. If there were any in my first two years in college, surely I would have at least seen them in the cafeteria, library. 'Chin Chan, China man', sings to an empty mind. There is nothing there but sawdust.

 

I concentrate on the stolen pig. Pigs are dirty and I don't like them nor their smell nor their fat that feeds the world bacon strips.....my mother forces me to eat bacon. 'It's healthy,' she insists and I tell her to tell the pig's mother that. That gets me a slap on my rear end and no bacon on my burger. I keep my mouth shut and am delighted to taste the medium rare huge burgers my mother serves at least once a week.

 

My sleep is disturbed. I wake before the slightest bit of morning shows its beauty. My dream of just a few minutes ago wiggles its way into my conciousness.  I am five or six, have straight ugly hair and my mother has sent me to the corner drugstore to get a box of Ex Lax for my bowels. I remember thinking she said 'towels' and I begged her not to make me go and have to walk past the Chinamen. They have a laundry on my street and my father has warned me to always walk near the gutter when I have to go past the laundry. 'Chinamen are bad, Sweetheart. They steal children and send them away to China.' Of course, I believe him and sometimes after a rain, when the gutters flow like rivers, I defy my father and won't go.

 

The memory comes back. My father used to sing silly things to me and make me rhyme them. He came up with some luloos and the Chinese one was his favorite. I wait until I hear him get out of bed, take my eye brow pencil and slant my eyes with them. I get mother's long silk kimono from the nail on the bathroom door and wait at the bottom of the steps for them to come downstairs.

 

As soon as they get near the kitchen I jump out and sing my song, 'Chin Chan, China Man, stole a pig and away he ran.' They both look at me as if I've  lost my mind.

 

Maybe I have.