Electioneering in Plymouth, Michigan

An Obama sign in Plymouth…

…and a McCain rejoinder

Several days ago, American presidential candidate John McCain announced that he was suspending his campaign in the state of Michigan, and I breathed a sigh of relief. But he also announced that he was canceling a planned event in Plymouth, my hometown, and I was a little disappointed; I’ve been working, on and off, on the Obama campaign here since mid-July, and it would have been very interesting to see the opposition candidate stumping on what I think of as my turf, perhaps only a few blocks from my family’s home.

I grew up in Plymouth, so I think of the town as my turf without a second of hesitation, though I’m constantly reminded that, politically at least, it really isn’t. My neighbors, whose great grandparents actually built the house in which I live, recently picked up a McCain sign (pictured) and stumped it right along the property line, as if it were thumbing its nose at the Obama sign I put in our front yard three weeks ago.

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V. Flesh

Q called me back. I heard the phone buzz from the bed, crumpled, and stumbled to it, against myself.

“Yeah, hey, we’re going out tonight.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere—meet near your apartment? We’re tired of Lan Kwai…”

“Sure.”

I pressed my hands to my forehead, dry and clammy, dirty feeling, wanting a shower. Cotton mouthed. I tossed the phone onto my mattress and went to freshen up.

I arrived at to the corner of Nathan Road and Argyle at about nine, where I waited for the Koreans to show by a row of ATMS, street glowing with white light, clogged with kids arguing in front of K-joints—a girl leaning, arms folded, against a sharp-angled concrete wall, scrum of make-up over bad skin. They appeared from across Nathan, three overdressed young men, hair barely pulled together and spiked. One white face trailed after. Unusual. Q asked where I wanted to go.

“There’s a bar I heard was good right around here.”

Q nodded, his glasses catching the ATM lights, and we bundled forward, the night sticking to us. We pushed across the intersection, crowds coursing in every direction. I felt like I was coming apart, cracking and reforming beneath blazes of light. Deeply and totally drugged up and out. I saw the bar sign, Mango, from the corner of Argyle and Yim Po Fang, and pointed.

“Are you sure?”

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VI. Windows

[Partly translated by Arthur.]

It hits me like a shot of heroin, and I don’t know why.

Light through rain through the bus window, slamming and diving at my reflection, a blur dissolving into the painted world outside. Like in Fallen Angels. I straighten my tank top. Rain droplets wash through and over, sanding away at the winding city, new towers and old blocks, slick line in a window’s light. Open doors hang in black space, naked limbs just visible between pulled blinds. Towers stretch upwards, bodies and minds separated only by concrete, steel, wood, plaster. I stretch in the seat and wipe, cat-like, at the rain droplets. The bus slides, purring, beneath me. I stood huddled beneath the bamboo when it pulled to a halt, the doors slid open and I ran, rain pelting me, swiped my Octopus, and the doors catch.

Caught inside, and I am trying not to think, only to watch, watch and feel. Running along the second story, the people, ants dwarfed by an ever growing hive—the unfinished husks in south Kowloon glower half lit, tower cranes spiked in red so many meters into the storm—give way entirely. I place my hand over my breast and feel myself breathing. The bus comes to a halt, the brakes catch like a whale’s respiration, someone climbs the stairs behind me in combat boots. When I turn around, I can barely catch sight of two, skirts, jeans, spiked hair and rain soaked jackets. Bizarre Wants Awesome Knows. I turn back to the rain. I can feel it even if the air conditioning is washing over me, even if the window glass melts me into the neon gloom. An HSBC sign passes, a solitary white point sliding further and further away. The window lights fade, and I am only staring at my reflection, my own face melting into the rain. The strap of my tank top has slipped from my left shoulder.

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IV. Explanations

[I called LAX the next morning. After stopping at Watsons, she met me for the train ride towards the Island. We stood at one end of the car and talked. What follows is both translation and transcription. Arthur]

I got the name LAX while I lived in California. San Francisco, mostly. My aunt gave it to me almost as soon as I arrived at the airport. I said I wanted to see Hollywood. I said this in Canto. And she laughed at me, supposedly a warm laugh, but it’s safe to say I already knew better. She spoke in English to me, even, most often, when it was unnecessary. I never should have left whatever home was mine.

“This is the wrong airport, you should have gone to LAX!”

It was not what I had been expecting. America was not what I had been expecting. Whatever in extremis: the name grew wings and crossed the ocean. I had to choose a name when I began applying to work at bars. I do think of it as a form of protection. Beyond this, I’ll attach no significance to it, not important.

My mom announced the move by email. It was as if she’d forgotten I had already returned from California, and was only at school. She wasn’t sure how to talk to me anymore—American had made it harder. But, whatever, within a couple weeks it was done. There were the movers, dad’s growing neurosis, the bottles of 7-11 whiskey that lined his mantle to be disposed of. I hid in Mei’s and my room, door pulled shut, the street whirling up to me through the open window as I sat cross-legged on the bed. The air conditioner silenced, I tried to meditate, but instead I began inventorying everything I’d miss. In America, I’d gotten so sick of the overdose of space, the long, silent, carpet stifled halls from bedroom to bedroom. Lonely, homelessness. Here, I could reach out and nearly touch both dull walls.

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File: Report: D0

Rain runs down glass (looking at it). Stereo set. Under and over. Stood smoking a cigarette under an eve. A women with blue hair slips, falls, her umbrella smacking against her neighbor. A man down the street turns, wearing orange, hawker color.

D. and I met at a tea canteen about half past six—storefront beneath the MK Road pass. I ordered dumplings and noodles, plus one coke. D. ordered—nothing, though the waiter did bring him a beer.

D. was stressed, his tie poorly knotted (missing its dimple) his jacket slumped and peeled over one shoulder. He did not bother properly closing his umbrella. We sat beneath a cracked mirror, a scrawled sign promising prosperity. I ate unhurriedly. D. did not say much for a while—he talked about the rain, some horses, some gossip. How he was tired of hearing the same songs over and over again at the pub—and mind you, D. is not some LKF teenybopper, he’s a bar man, a K singing specialist with the hot stuff for the young Connie Chan, if I remember correctly. Don’t blame me if I don’t, I really couldn’t give a damn about who D. had the hots for. Like I said, he was in a bad mood. Mong Kok is very busy, yes, and Hong Kong is a safe place, but sometimes bad things do happen to good people.

But I seem to be losing the thread of my argument (oh how I wish I had graduated high school!)—D.—perhaps not such a good person. Anyhow.

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Jackhammer Nights

Photo by Christopher DeWolf

I had trouble finding the bar. Street after street flashed into focus and flashed out again, all looking more or less like each other. The same crowds, the same intense and overexposed light. The same unreal feeling, as if the city never ended or altered but ran this way forever. To have realized what a desire is is not to realize a desire. The lengthening night baffled me, hiding landmarks, adding new ones in blazes of light, making every street run backwards, disappearing behind neon.

When I turned onto a sidestreet the only difference I could notice came in the form of a lessening, a few minor pen-tick alterations, lowered shop grates, more shadow swathed, visibly rotting concrete. I don’t doubt that the differences take time to notice: all lost in that first great big head charge of difference. I finally did find my way, after what seemed like hours of searching, dodging, doubling back, trying to remember storefronts for future reference. I finally did—the windowless walls covered over in posters advertising NASCAR, down a quiet block across from the train tracks. A hoodie-clad bar girl smiling. Lin Na chilling behind the bar. I swung my shoulders, said “excuse me,” turned, and arrived.

“Hey, where were you?”

“Lost,” I answered simply.

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Only Decent?

Translated by Arthur.

I live in Shatin, which is only decent. It would be radical if I could walk to a good bakery.

I received a phone call last night, in my bedroom. I don’t think anybody else heard the phone ring. Not my sister, not my mother, no one. After taking the call, I stepped to the window and stared down at the river. It lay stiff, straight, and silent, center black, banks ghostly white. The last train to Lo Wu had already snaked by. I closed the blinds and changed quickly, lights off. Within five minutes I was dressed, dressed if not washed, and on the elevator. Reaching the podium, I walked down a flight of underlit stairs and onto the scrape of Shatin, already sweating into my hoodie. I walked a little distance, closer to the KCR station, before catching a cab. The driver had cracked the windows somewhat, and the wind stripped the sweat from my skin. An empty lot, swathed in barbed wire, whistled past.

The cab lurched slightly as it swiveled onto the highway, international pop hits on the dial, and I remember staring at the fans, counting them even, as we sailed under the mountains and into Kowloon. I got out, paid up, and began walking again. I curled back into my hoodie, kept one hand on the cash in my pocket. The rows of tenements stacked like black paint smudges against the even blacker smudge of the mountains. I hadn’t had time to mess with a purse, and anyway, I was afraid of attracting attention. She met me at the corner, as underdressed as I was, biting her lip.

“Hey Wendy, you okay?”

She nodded and bit her lip harder. And together we began walking.

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Mong Kok Fiction: AC

One Night in Mongkok. Photo by Christopher DeWolf.

Wet. One second standing on the sidewalk, screaming at my cell, flick the clock forward, sopping wet. An air conditioner box exploded over my head. I remember it as a cutting, little slivers of time; first droplet, expected if unwanted, second, began inching towards the street, third, full, and I’m standing in abrupt silence, the phone running water and beginning to buzz. I watched water roll down the LCD for a naked minute before looking up. Rationalize, really, it’s like getting rained on out of nowhere, happens a lot in this city, doesn’t it? Sure the water’s dirty, but don’t kid yourself, so’s the rain. But, rationalizing the real damage was harder — but fuck, the cell phone!

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