Read Online Crossing by Andrew Xia Fukuda - Free Book Online

sedate quality prevailed.
    My father and I hunkered down at a rickety table in a little hole in the wall. We slurped at our bowls filled to the brim with speckled thousand-year egg congee. Occasionally, we sipped our tea, gazing outside at the grandmothers at their tai chi. Then on cue, as if by an internal alarm clock, my father looked across the table at me and asked with a look, “Well?”
    We made our way over to the corner of Mott and Canal. It was a little early for most tourists, but not too early to stake our land. Later on in the day, every street corner would be taken over by street vendors hawking their goods: sellers of counterfeit DVDs, bootleg copies of the most recent Top 10 albums, five-dollar I Love New York T-shirts, calligraphers, masseuses astride their makeshift benches.
    For the first two hours, my father dillydallied. It was, as usual, the best part of the day, the part when my father taught me his craft. Back in China, he’d been quite the prodigy at his art school. And it was in these lull times when I saw the artisan, when my father wrapped his hand over mine, held the brush, and, giving instruction in deep monotones, maneuvered my hand. I loved seeing the images form, the sensation of my father’s spirit flowing through my own and spilling out onto the canvas. The pandas we produced, the tigers, the butterflies, the bamboo, the floating water lilies.
    Around noon, the trickle of tourists gorged into a flood. I sat next to my father, sometimes chatting with the customers, but mostly I just watched him work. The tourists always walked by gawking, but the local Chinese passed by with indifference.
    And then, a horrible nightmare.
    In the middle of the crowd, standing in front of my father, was Gina Summers with her family.
    I froze.
    Gina Summers was a classmate, one of the nicest girls I knew. With her blue eyes, blonde hair, and sparkling personality, she was the epitome of all-American beauty. She was one of the few students who didn’t talk slowly or use simple words when speaking to me.
    The truth was that I was deeply ashamed of what my father did. I felt myself cringing inwardly, anticipating that awful moment when Gina Summers would spot me. I went to a school where students were well bred, immaculately groomed, suave, and hip, whose parents were CEOs and doctors and partners of law firms. Not Chinatown hawkers. Not Charlie Chan kowtow specialists who spoke in choppy, sloppy Chinglish, who took in with grubby hands crumpled dollar bills, who were told to keep the change and invariably did.
    I did not want her to know. That the man in front of her was my father. That I was the son of this rust-toned, sunken-cheeked vendor.
    I put my head down into my hands and turned around. The minutes passed interminably.
    “Almost finish, OK. I add some red, then finish, OK?” my father finally said to Gina.
    “What did he say?” someone from her group asked.
    “I paint red, I finish real nice,” my father said, louder.
    In the protracted silence that followed, I sensed the giggles being stifled behind me, the amused glances being shared.
    “ Ah, Xing ,” my father suddenly said to me, “ bei ngoh baat mun .” He needed change.
    To hand over the money to my father was to blow my cover. I would have to turn and uncover my face, and Gina Summers would surely see me.
    So I flaked, something I would never forgive myself for. I just got up and left.
    At first, I walked quickly, but I slowed down after a few minutes. I sat down on the benches at Grand Street Park. Basketball hoodlums were out in full force. The elderly ambled around the park. The sun began to dip, and when it finally disappeared behind a gray building hours later, I trudged slowly back to the street corner.
    My father was already packed up. He didn’t say anything when I walked up to him. I thought he might be angry, might even scold me for deserting him. But when he picked up his case, he looked at me in a tender, understanding way.