“You’re hoisin sauce. You’re a chestnut shell.”
“Hi, I’m Macon and I’m a chestnut.”
“Hi, I’m Jason and I’m an apricot.”
Three months later, when the strike concluded, Jason didn’t want to learn about long division or the science of magnets. His sisters already knew these things and had received straight As on their report cards. Class bored him, and he didn’t see why he should have to go to school when adults could leave their jobs whenever they wished. Instead, he once again took refuge in his imagination.
In his fantasy worlds, he was not Chinese. He was not a bak gui or a hak gui either—he was nothing. He understood how Tarzan felt when, looking into a reflecting pool for the first time, the Jungle man encountered not a soft and fuzzy ape, but an elongated face in a stringy mop of hair. Jason, too, was always surprised to catch a glimpse of himself in a mirror and discover his strawberry nose, full lips, wide cheeks, and ink-black hair. He had his father’s massive calves, “the genetics of rice pickers,” the gym teacher had said, and his mother’s petite frame. These were the things others saw. This was why the Hoffman boy pulled up the corners of his eyes.
He reached his breaking point at the age of twelve, the year he started junior high. Like usual, he was the only Chinese fish in a Black and Jewish ocean, and he had no friends—Macon was in the grade below, still at the elementary school. At the end of his first week, Jason received a form asking him to choose between two electives: Visual Arts or Drama.
“Choose Visual Arts,” Jennifer instructed. “We all took it. Mrs. Sanders will know who you are.”
“She’s very nice,” Jackie added. “She’ll make you feel comfortable.”
“And you’re too shy to act onstage,” laughed Julie.
He marked Drama, despite their protests. He and Macon had outgrown their make-believe games, but he often missed the wonder of those earlier years.
“You go acting class, then go cry cry after?” his mother asked, shaking her head, and with reluctance, she signed her name on theform. When no one was looking, he crossed out her Chinese characters and wrote “Mrs. Chin.”
On the following Monday, he discovered that despite his selection on the form, he had been placed in Visual Arts anyway. Though he hated speaking to adults, he went right up to Mrs. Sanders and pointed out the mistake.
“The Wongs have always been my best students,” she said, but he shook his head and refused to return to his seat.
She sent him to the dean, who asked him to speak to the guidance counselor, who referred him to the assistant principal.
“I’ll tell you a secret, Mr. Wong,” Mr. Gruber said, leaning forward in a confidential manner. “As you know, you’re in our Gifted program. This year, it’s mostly the other kids taking Drama.” He winked. “Our gifted students usually take Visual Arts, as your sisters did. I know you Wongs are smart, quiet kids, not like some of the others.”
“It’s Chin,” Jason replied, not daring to look up at the assistant principal’s face.
“Chin! My apologies, Mr. Chin. It’s not every day that a family changes its surname.” Mr. Gruber laughed.
But Jason did not belong in Visual Arts and wouldn’t go unless they dragged him there on a leash, and so the assistant principal, relenting, signed the form to correct Jason’s schedule.
On his way to Drama, Jason felt a desire to sing loudly in the hallway, or to slide down the stair banisters hollering like Tarzan. He thought about using the girls’ bathroom or opening the windows in the gymnasium and letting the squirrels inside.
He wanted to be bad because nobody thought he was capable.
And yet he stayed good, out of pity for his mother.
It was true that Jason was shy. He avoided auditioning for the big roles and was given the part of Second Watchman; he only needed to announce having captured Balthasar. He and the other side characters spent most of class behind the curtains, where it was dark and smelled like preteen sweat.
Jason liked watching Elaine McIntosh through a slit in the stage curtain. He adored the way she burst onstage and, hands under her chin, whispered, “Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” He was riveted when she drugged herself with imaginary poison and lay shaking into death.
A boy named Caleb Levine played Romeo—he and Elaine were among the handful of bak gui in Drama. During each rehearsal, Caleb and Elaine would hold hands tenderly, and even real-kiss, because Mr. Youdelman insisted that real actors should not be afraid to real-kiss. Jason knew through the grapevine that Elaine had ambitions to be a real actress one day.
One afternoon, Mr. Youdelman asked the class to sit in a circle for a lesson on the Shakespearean sonnets. When Elaine settled beside Jason, he forgot how to breathe. She had candy lips of such a bright red that it looked like she’d eaten a cherry ice for breakfast.
He struggled to pick out a few words worthy of her attention.
“You want to be an actress, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, barely looking at him.
“If you were going to act on Broadway, which play would you pick?”
Elaine put her hand on her chin and pondered the question, her eyes twinkling. “West Side Story.”
