Page 43 - WTPVolI Vol.#4

Eventually, the band parted ways. We were four young women finally finished with school and heading out in the world to make our way. Sarai headed south to the pyramids. Our drummer headed to New York and the bass player stuck around but started working the business side of things, aggressively networking and branding. I was the only one who got a nine-to-five. I was the only one who commuted. I wanted to weep. Why did everyone have to sacrifice life for music? At home I still played and messed around with learning new songs, but I stopped going to live shows or open mics. They made me miss everybody too much. Live music in a crowd filled me up, made me feel like I’d burst open.
“After the age of fifteen, Ling knew she couldn’t strive in the same ways that everyone else did. At night,
after they fell asleep, her body sensed the communal silence and woke up. Into the streets she snuck. Her slim figure crept against the walls feeling for vibra- tions, listening for the sounds that made her heart race. She tailed those sounds until she found herself
at the theater. The back entrance was unlocked, so she slipped in unnoticed and she stayed unnoticed until the security guard, a shriveled and bitter specimen, found her. He’d never gotten over that his wife left to the next world without him and he still struggled with his son (that’s me) being of different romantic persua- sions. Maybe seeing young Ling was what began to soften his heart. Instead of yelling and chasing her out, instead of raising a broom stick at her, he clamped his mouth shut. Ling’s hands were wrapped around the edge of the wall and she peered out at the stage, with a look on her face like that of a child seeing magic. My dad didn’t believe in much, but he believed in love at first sight. Ling, he could see, was in love. He retreated into the dark hallway, let the door fall softly shut. From then on, Ling was there for almost every evening show. My dad was also there. Eventually she began
~
The Tribune clock cast its shadows and the 19th St. BART station exhaled a puff of commuters heading home. At 5:01 Mrs. Ling rounded the corner where King Chung Restaurant sat, picked her way through various bins, and steadily approached where I stood chatting with Sergio the security guard. When she finally passed us, I smiled then handed her a clean
bag filled with rinsed out bottles and cans. Mrs. Ling didn’t look at it or reach out to take it. Instead she spit Cantonese at me. Then she walked on without the bag, muttering and pounding her stick on the sidewalk. Sergio looked from the woman to me to the woman again. I didn’t know why, but a knot tightened in my throat. I was relieved when Sergio took the bag and threw it into the bin. Then he turned back to me.
to call him Uncle and he called her la señorita Ling, though he never told her about the first time he’d seen her. Six months later he was the one who encouraged her to audition for an upcoming musical.
“I’ll tell you a story.”
“Normally auditions were restricted to those who’d already shown talent in other productions, and let me be honest, to those of the fairer-hair variety, but this time a major donor asked that the director look for new, raw talent. Ling auditioned for the part and was awarded with a place in the chorus and a brief appear- ance as the cook. Her one solo was to sing out, ‘Who stole the bacon!’ My dad said he never knew, until he saw her perform, how talent could make a single line come to life. It got everybody laughing at every show. Soon after, Ling was offered to play The Dragon Lady in another musical. The role involved long nails, a
tight dress and an evil demeanor. The director insisted that the role, ‘Belonged to Ling.’ As my dad tells it, she didn’t put much weight into what the director believed belonged or didn’t belong to her, because she had already vowed to herself to sing every song, play every role to her fullest capabilities. Every role would be her role.”
Normally I would have pretended I needed to leave, because his stories always ended up being some kind of love tale, but I decided it couldn’t hurt to listen for a while.
Sergio cleared his throat.
“That woman there, Mrs. Ling, she’s acting kinda ugly now but she wasn’t always that way. My dad was good friends with her. Back in the day he worked at the Grand Palace Theater. He knew her when she first got into acting and singing. In fact, he used to claim that he was the reason she got her start. Maybe that’s true, but I’ll be honest. My dad likes to stick himself into other people’s success stories. Anyways, as he tells it, growing up she lived among her people from Guan- dong, who were striving, always striving. At night she’d fall asleep to the click clack of dishes and the murmur of voices. Only the rain was missing.
I thought of Brenda.
“‘Freedom!’ she liked to scream into the mic in the middle of a show. Everybody loved it when she did that.
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