Disoriented

I was back in M — , Massachusetts. Three years ago, my dad had moved the family out to Japan so that he could work at an American corporation that sold golf balls and cigarettes. It was a great time for me and my siblings, because we loved the anime, sweets, and free-roaming lifestyle. And then we came back to America. We returned to the very same town we had left, as if we were time-travelling, and I was plopped into fifth grade. Kids I had known in first grade were now three years older. One of them came up to me and said, “Hi, we used to be best friends!” and I had no idea who he was.

I wasn’t necessarily coming back to the best of memories. My mother had wanted me to be a respectable little boy, but nobody’s respectable in America, or else you’re a loser. First birthday party I got invited to, she dressed me up in a little gray suit, with a tie and everything, and stuck a flower in my hand. The mother of the birthday kid picked me up on the street in her car, and said, “Oh, don’t you look nice,” but she looked worried for me. Well, where did we end up going? McDonald’s. All the kids were throwing French fries at each other in t-shirts and shorts while I was trying to scooch my butt down the Happy Meal slide in dress pants — it was awkward. I was already on the fringe.

‘Course, my mother always wanted me to be a misunderstood genius. What could be better than that, she thought? Beethoven, Nostradamus — these were interesting men who were probably traumatized in their youth. Why couldn’t she make one of those? I admit, it’s a noble undertaking as a mother. But I don’t know where that desire came from. Maybe she felt like she had been too ordinary in her life.

So why were we here? I guess my dad found out he had integrity after all. He wanted to quit his job as a big shot corporate man working for the system and instead start his own business — selling sea urchin, of all things. He was getting back to the roots of what it means to be American — or something? But sea urchin? I think he was just trying to prove he could do something on his own. That too, is a noble undertaking.

There was also comfort. It was good to be back with the Irish-American family on my father’s side— my grandparents, the nine aunts and uncles and their spouses, with their kids running around insanely at the “Shoe,” the big house on Reedsdale Road. This was an old farm house that was built at the beginning of the century, and now it was in the middle of a suburban town. It was bigger than any house I had seen in Japan and very comfortable. We had weekends full of card games, conversation, TV, and billiards (or what little kids pretended was billiards), but it was never quite the same as Japan. I mean, I missed the anime.

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And the worst part was school. How could you take all those mean kids? They left you out, and then when they didn’t leave you out they were chasing you home from school.

But there was one girl who was very nice. Her name was Sarah. She was blonde and beautiful, with soft features, light just oozing out of her like some halo. She was an artist just like me, fantastic at drawing. I suppose she was even better than me. I would follow her home after school, just about 50 feet behind, watching her glide down the street like some kind of distant angel. I could not approach her to tell her how she made me feel. She was amazing. She was…

Well, I should explain that my mother was Japanese. Now, overall I did not see this as a hinderance. I was short, so maybe that was one side-effect of the genes. I also had straight hair and was quiet, like many Asian kids are. Those things don’t help. I’m not sure what the other kids thought of me. Maybe they thought I was latino if I didn’t register in any known category to them.

I had white relatives, all on my father’s side, and with them I didn’t think about it much. But when I was out in society I wanted to blend into some sense of normalcy. I wanted to be in the center of things, where objects don’t move around so much. The fulcrum.

But I’m pretty sure Sarah liked me despite my ambiguous race, because she pressed my thumb once in Heads up, Seven Up (I peeked when she came around), and yet when it was my turn to name the culprit I picked some other kid because I was too embarrassed to point her out in front of the class, and she looked upset. I guess that fear drove my life more than anything, and that is a consequence of feeling that I don’t deserve to be happy. I never talked to her, now that I think of it. I just planned to talk to her.

I continue to spin, in a reverie of confusion, around the center of America. I cannot land on a spot, my legs are stumbling. I would like to conquer this centrifugal force to get to the center so that I would not have to be disoriented anymore.