"My tour bus is about to leave, but real quick, could you just explain the history of Chinese painting?"
That's what a Hoarder Lady said to Lindsey just as she was about to take her fifteen-minute break.
"No hablo ingles," Lindsey said, then walked away.
She left the gift shop and took the elevator up to the third-floor gallery. Strolling around for a while, she eventually settled on a bench to study a Chagall painting. She stared at the watery blues and a floating bride, and as she sat there a little longer, tapping her feet on the floor, she suddenly felt hot cigar-breath wafting from behind her head.
She had hoped that today she would be left alone, but she was wrong. Hearing a familiar hissing noise, she anticipated the question she heard every time she tried to wander through the museum like a normal person.
Since the first day she started working in the gift shop she had been harassed by the security guards, all older Filipino men. It seemed they couldn't wait to set her up on dates with their nephews or themselves, and every week they approached her and wiggled their long eyebrows and chewed their bottom lips as they studied her. Today was no different. As she sat and waited, the uniformed man eventually asked the inevitable question:
"Are you married?"
She kept her eyes on the painting and sighed, ignoring him in hopes he would saunter away. Instead, he walked in a circle around her and waited for her reply.
The security guards seemed to have a running bet over her exact ethnicity. Last week as she studied an Yves Tanguy surrealist painting, a guard popped into her field of vision. "Filip-ina?" he inquired with a tinge of hope in his voice. A minute later, over by the ladies' room another blue-uniformed gent sauntered by and ventured, "Korean?" Then, by Rauschen-berg's
Erased DeKooning
, "Thailand girl?"
Lindsey felt a sense of deja vu as she glanced now at a different but equally persistent guard.
"Married?" he said again, stepping closer. Annoyed, she stood up and walked away. She contemplated alerting security to the routine harassment she'd been enduring, but she supposed that would have been futile.
Her fifteen minutes were up, so in a huff she got into the elevator to head back down to the lobby. As the doors shut, she found herself squished behind a group of rowdy twentysomethings. They jostled and shoved one another, paying no mind to the few passengers who were not part of their herd.
Someone said, "Hey, press 'two,' wouldja?"
Another guy responded, "What do I look like, a freakin'
Chinaman
?"
Smashed against the elevator's back wall, Lindsey was taken aback by what she heard. She fumed and wanted to say, "Let me up front, I'm Chinese! I can push the button!" Instead, she stayed quiet and silently hated them all.
Back in the gift shop, she slipped her apron and white gloves back on. After de-dandruffing a Warhol wig, she blew out the bangs with a can of compressed air and used a pick to tease the synthetic strands to rat-nest perfection worthy of the pop icon. Placing the wig back on a Styrofoam head, she saw someone approaching in her peripheral vision. He came forward and was zapped by a crackle of static electricity as he touched the counter. With a spastic motion, he jumped back.
"Ow!" he said. Then added, "Yang!"
She jerked her head up.
Yang
was right. Her hippie aunt, Shirley, referred to sexy guys as "yummy and
yang
," as opposed to "
yin"
which meant feminine. Dustin Lee struck Lindsey at this moment as a good blend of both—handsome and muscular with masculine
yang
but also graceful and well-groomed with perfect skin and feminine
yin
. Either way, there was no denying this time that he was the hottest Chinese guy she had ever laid eyes on, and tonight he was a welcome sight.
"Hey, Miss. I'd like to complain that your carpet just gave me a terrible shock," he said.
"Well, you shouldn't shuffle your feet, then go around touching things. Didn't you learn anything in science class?"
He smiled. "I don't know if you remember, but I was here before."
"Yeah, I know."
"So, do you have any idea who I am?"
"Let's see," she said. "Your name is Dustin Lee, and you may or may not be a direct descendant of the great general, Robert E. Lee. When you were twelve you were uprooted from Texas and went to St. Maude's Elementary School, where you accused other Chinese kids of being rat-eaters and in your spare time worked on your Devo impersonations. Am I right?"
He smiled and leaned in close. "You're fantastic, you know that?"
She allowed a small smile to show, but with trepidation.
"I was so happy when I bumped into you last week," he said. "You turned out really, um, all-right-looking."
Lindsey blushed. Not only had Dustin turned out to be not bad-looking himself, but as they chatted, she noted a certain charisma that made other patrons in the store turn around and notice him. He carried himself like a celebrity, and said, "How's it goin'?" to complete strangers who nodded and smiled, seeming to feel immediately better about themselves because someone far more beautiful than they had just acknowledged their existence.
Dustin leaned over the glass counter and said, "You really do look great." Then he made a fake-sad face and gave her a puppy-dog look. "But you don't seem all that happy to see me."
His flirtation was boosting her ego but she decided to play it cool. She said, "Let's just say I'm glad you're not dead."
"Well, at least that's a start."
He reached across the counter to touch her hand, and when she hesitantly lifted it away from his, he grabbed and squeezed it, pressing a small, rectangular thing into her palm. He kissed the back of her hand, and said "I'll be in the bar across the street. Come see me when you get off." Then he abruptly turned and walked away.
Dazed by his sudden appearance and quick departure, Lindsey watched him stride out the door. Uncurling her clenched fingers, she found a peace offering, a Hello Kitty eraser. She brought the small, pastel square under her nose and inhaled its pleasing vanilla scent.
Alas, Hello Kitty was like kryptonite. Who knew that pink, plastic crap could be so intoxicating? But, oh, it sure was. For an Asian girl, and presumably others, there was something about that new, plastic smell that consistently delighted. Maybe it was the nostalgia of childhood revisited, the promise of a perfect world where all the pencils were sharp and colors were bright like candy. In the Sanrio world, everyone was a chum, with silly clothes and perky bows. Faces were innocent, wide-eyed, and friendly with no mouths to utter ugly words or get you in trouble with French kissing or fellatio.
The rest of her shift flew by, and by nine, she was counting out her register and replenishing Zone Four with supplies. She freshened up her appearance with the hair-and-makeup kit she kept in her staff locker for nights when she and Michael planned late dinners out. With Michael in Santa Barbara, she rationalized that there was no reason to return so soon to their dark, empty apartment. She headed across the street to where Dustin awaited her.
It was drizzling outside and Lindsey didn't have an umbrella, so she held the edge of her coat over her head. As she stepped off the curb on a green light, she was nearly plowed over by a brown Trans-Am with a flaming, gold eagle painted on the hood. She jumped back, terrified.
Under the streetlight in the well-lit intersection, she could see that the driver was a middle-aged man, an
Asian
man, and as he slowed his car he simultaneously revved the engine. Leaning out the window, he eyeballed her from head to toe, then sneered.
"Look where you're going, you dumb bitch."
Lindsey stood paralyzed as she watched the driver peel across the lanes, burning rubber. Still standing dumbly in the crosswalk like Rainman, she eventually regained her senses, ran to the bus shelter at the curb, then spontaneously burst into tears.
It was raining now, and as she sat there and waited for the patter to lessen, she felt like she had just been assaulted. She took a few deep breaths and considered what had just transpired with the Trans-Am driver. A sudden tide of frustration, resentment, and confusion swelled in her heart, and in her mind she launched into an unspoken tirade against a phenomenon that had troubled her all her post-pubescent life:
The Angry Asian Man. She encountered him every so often, and he could take many forms: a young guy, an old guy, businessman, skateboarder, store clerk, restaurant worker, pedestrian, or like tonight, a guy in a car. An Angry Asian Man was always a stranger, but someone whom, with a single look, a curt word, or with silent body language communicated something to her that struck the core of her being.
The Angry Asian Man inexplicably hated her. When she encountered him she was always caught unaware, perhaps walking innocently when a stream of saliva would land mere inches from her shoes. She would look up to see someone whose physical features made it appear that he could possibly be her relative, but whose unblinking glare and sneering look of disgust
let
her know in no uncertain terms that he found her—her appearance, her presence, her
being—
deserving of nothing but derision.
An Angry Asian Man never looked or spoke to her with any semblance of civility, but in the second or two that he made himself known to her, a sexual tension dominated the exchange. Young or old, immigrant or not, whether he blew smoke at her, made a small noise, or silently glared, one particular gesture was consistent. Every encounter with an Angry Asian Man had involved a split-second moment when he drank her in with his eyes. Without fail, his gaze traveled up and down her body in a quick once-over, and this appraisal of her physique always struck her as a crucial and humiliating focal point of each incident.
In her experience, being a slightly built Asian-American woman with a California accent and primarily pink wardrobe was its own ticking time bomb. When an Angry Asian Man looked at her, she knew his reaction to her had everything to do with the battle of the sexes. It had to do with the tension specifically between Asian men and Asian women, and also between Asian men and non-Asian women, and to say that such a thing was not a sore spot would be a lie.
Lindsey knew of the struggles of Asian men and the history of bachelor societies in the early days of immigration. She knew of the hardships of fathers and grandfathers who were beaten down—sometimes literally—in mining camps and on railroad crews. She knew Chinese men took jobs as cooks, houseservants and laundrymen, swallowing their pride to do "women's work" lest their families starve. She admired that ingenuity, loyalty, and humility for the sake of survival, but somehow, to an Angry Asian Man, she did not deserve the right to offer sympathy. And he certainly did not want her pity.
She didn't expect an instant lovefest every time she met an Asian man on the street, but it really troubled and shocked her that the Angry Asian Man never even gave her a chance. He immediately shut her out, but also seemed to resent her for not knocking at his door, for not falling down at his nonexistent welcome mat and beating her breast while wailing to be let in. Was she supposed to hold herself to an invisible sense of racial honor and stand in the corner like a wallflower until an Angry Asian Man flicked his cigarette her way or deigned to find her attractive?
Screw that noise.
Lindsey sat at the bus stop and dried her tears. She pulled out a tube of lipstick and with three quick smudges put her game face back on. Standing up, she headed toward the bar.
Dustin was sitting at a table right near the door so she spotted him immediately. He hugged her and said, "So, what's up with you these days?"
She tossed her bag down and slid into the seat next to him.
"Asian guys hate me."
He laughed, then briefly turned away to order their drinks from the bartender.
"That's not true. I'm Asian and I don't hate you."
"Well…" she hesitated.
"C'mon, tell me your problems," Dustin said, setting a drink in front of her and sitting down.
Without engaging in the usual small talk or polite niceties, Lindsey launched into a description of the Angry Asian Man phenomenon. She explained, "Maybe it only happens twice a year, or maybe once every couple of years, but these guys do exist. I've never mentioned it to anyone, and actually feel kind of silly talking about it now."
Perhaps it was the combination of Dustin being sort of a stranger, but also somewhat familiar that made Lindsey feel comfortable enough to spill her guts at this moment. Maybe it was just the intent way he was staring at her. For whatever reason, she continued,
"I don't know. Angry Asian Men resent me for reasons I'll probably never know. Summing me up by my clothes, or whatever, their disapproving stares are so intense they both scare me and piss me off. Are they prejudiced against me because they think I was born with advantages, or do they disapprove of choices they think I've made? They act like they already know all about me. I don't know why my appearance inspires such vitriol, but I feel like a bull's-eye in a mysterious, hostile game of target practice within my own ethnic group."
A moment before, Dustin had signaled to the bartender to keep the drinks coming. As another round arrived, Dustin considered her words carefully, and nodded. He said, "If it's any consolation, Asian girls hate me, too."
Lindsey's interest was piqued. "Really?"
"Yeah. You and I have a lot in common." He picked up his glass and held it up to the light. "See, if you were a beverage, I bet you would be a peppy soda pop rather than a heavy, murky tea. As I recall, when you're not belting me with a lunchbox, that's your personality for the most part. When white people see you and realize you wear the same kind of clothes as they do and you don't speak with an accent, they probably welcome your hint of Chinese flavor, assuming you're filled with empty calories but are nonetheless… refreshing. They like that you're different enough to be entertaining, but not strong enough to upset their stomachs. On the other hand, some Chinese people, Angry Asian Men included, take one look at your packaging and immediately judge you. They assume you're too bubbly, or have some kind of gimmick. They might think you're too sweet to be any good, or think you've designed yourself to cater to Western palates. In all of two seconds of seeing you, they take it upon themselves to proclaim that your character consists of inferior ingredients devoid of any authentic Chinese flavor."