Read Online The Natural Laws of Good Luck by Ellen Graf - Free Book Online Page A

off, anticipating a more fluent fellow and greater return on his investment in him. But Zhong-hua and many other students from around the world struggled to understand basic directions and read the blackboard. The immense strain was evident on their faces as they emerged from the building. He said the teacher’s explanations sounded like “Wha, wha, wha, wha.” I gave him a ride the first few times, and then he drove himself. How to drive to Albany and back was the main thing he learned that summer, and in the process he discovered that many promising streets ended in factory yards by the river and that Interstate 90 West would carry him closer to Buffalo and far from home. I continued to piece together income from sculpture commissions and part-time jobs such as scrubbing frat toilets, frying burgers, and the endless pulling of self-justifying weeds.
    Before Zhong-hua arrived I had found myself sweating one Monday up the Statue of Liberty as chaperone to a busload of French teenagers (I don’t speak French), and sweating the next Monday in a chair opposite an Episcopal priest to interview for a job choreographing a dance of death and resurrection. The latter task suited me perfectly, and the congregation loved Jesus and thetwo Marys emoting up the aisles in spandex, but it was a onetime deal. Everyone deserves the satisfaction once of being equal to the task at hand.
    Zhong-hua had brought nothing from his business career in China except a business suit, the black shoes, and two meat grinders still in the box from his friend’s meat-grinder company. Da Jie was visiting our house with her daughter when Zhong-hua announced that he wished to sell meat grinders at the mall. The admonishing words of my Chinese friend Fanwei came back to me as I perched on the arm of Da Jie’s chair:
If your husband has an idea, you should say it is a very good idea, even if you think it is not good. If he has two ideas and wants to know which is the better, you should say both are very good ideas. If your brother-in-law has an idea about what your husband should do, just say, “Very good idea.” If your husband has an idea for something he wants to accomplish, even if you know he cannot do it, you should say, “I’ll help you!” After two years you can tell your husband what you really think
. I opened my mouth, but nothing came. Da Jie chimed in for me, “Yes, yes, good idea. Try, try, try!”
    Da Jie’s daughter had come to America at age thirteen and at twenty did not follow traditional etiquette on not contradicting an elder. She said, “Uncle. This is stupid idea. Americans buy their meat already ground up. They don’t need this kind of thing.” I was both shocked and relieved by my niece’s impertinence. Actually, I wanted to hug her.
    The tedium of earning money was spiced with spurts of industry that saved money. Zhong-hua showed thrift in unexpected ways. During the Cultural Revolution in China, when Zhong-hua was the village schoolteacher, he did double duty as village barber. With a sharpened wedge of wood, he swiftly shaved each male child’s head, leaving only a shock of black hair at the forehead. When I complained that I wished I could visit a beauty parlor because my hair was growing wild and bothering my eyes, Zhong-hua said, “I can do,” and sat me down on a stool outdoors. It was all over in less than two minutes. He left roughly an inch of haireverywhere on my head, which, because of its coarse nature, stood straight up like wire. Fortunately, I am not in the habit of looking in the mirror very often.
    Zhong-hua looked through the lenses of possibility at everything others had cast by the side of the road. I would have been annoyed had I not associated my husband with Hermes, the Greek god who found a turtle shell on the ground and fashioned it into a lute. Some things Zhong-hua created were not as exotic as a lute, such as the shoe tree he made