Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge
Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge
Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge
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hand, Thanh lashes at the food in the center of the long table, never failing to<br />
pick up marinated sliced pork, slices of cucumber, clumps of rice, strands of<br />
fried limp noodles, and she does so without excusing herself for crossing over<br />
someone, or snatching a piece already in the grasps of another's chopsticks. Ly<br />
Van sits there with her bowl of rice cupped in her palm, waiting to take after the<br />
melee is over.<br />
I ask, "When are we going back? I miss Dad. I miss home."<br />
Mother and Ba Nguyen look at each other from across the table.<br />
Mother opens her mouth wide to speak, but Ba Nguyen intervenes and says,<br />
"Tomorrow. We go back tomorrow. We have two homes. It is only fair."<br />
dark broth.<br />
Thanh dips into the tureen and plucks an eyeball from beneath the<br />
"<br />
The noises Ba Nguyen and his mistresses make keep me up. Their<br />
hands smooth over each other's skin, reshape bones, and arms and legs twine<br />
like rope. Their disjointed hushed breaths fuse into hisses and finally there is<br />
one breath rising and falling, one breath fills the room. In the dark, they start<br />
off as three; they twine and become one swathed in sweat, saliva, semen, and<br />
sheets.<br />
I go to the kitchen for a glass of water. In the dimness of the kitchen<br />
Mother is at the large chopping table, cleaver in hand. A child's clothes are on<br />
the floor. She wipes the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand<br />
before turning the child onto his back and begins. Blood covers the whole table<br />
and drips onto the floor, collecting in large pools. She sees me. Mother stares at<br />
me for a long time while she tries to catch her breath.<br />
"He always bothered me. He was a bad child," she explains.<br />
She grips the boy's wrist, holds up his arm so that she can get a clean<br />
swing at his elbow. She hacks at it several times before it gives. Still holding<br />
the forearm by the wrist, she turns it over in her hand, observing the meat, the<br />
blood. Tossing the forearm to the floor, Mother takes the stump at the elbow,<br />
and chops at the boy's shoulder.<br />
"<br />
<strong>Home</strong>, and we share a bed again. The moonlight shines through my<br />
bedroom window and the geckos are swollen from eating so much. Ba Nguyen<br />
and I sit facing each other with our legs tucked underneath us, only he has his<br />
hands on his knees to support the weight of his voice carrying him forward. I<br />
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