The Way Home Looks Now Read online

  This was our ritual, our magic: putting a peanut, exactly one peanut still in its shell, on the radio, for the Pirates. I don’t even remember why, exactly, a peanut ended up on the radio, but I do know it happened for the first time during Dock Ellis’s no-hitter, and we’d done it ever since. It didn’t always work, but we’d reached the point that not putting a peanut on the radio seemed downright dangerous. As Nelson said, we had to show that we believed.

  I was in the middle of another windup when I heard the squeak of the back door opening.

  “Peter, have you packed your homework? And, Nelson, you should help your mother get ready.”

  I hung my head. I was the only kid I knew who had to do homework over the summer. Three pages in a workbook, Monday through Friday. Laney had homework, too, but hers was so easy it didn’t really count. This was all Ba’s idea.

  Nelson tried to help me out. “Hey, Ba, why don’t you give Peter a break today? Today is kinda special.”

  There are silences from people who just have nothing to say, and silences from people who say everything by ignoring you. My father had perfected the latter.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, a little too loud. “It’s no big deal.” My father and Nelson had been fighting all summer—over every topic they could think of. That morning, they had fought over Nelson’s hair, which Ba said was too long, and which I thought made him look kind of like Bruce Lee, the kung fu movie star. Nelson probably couldn’t wait to go back to college. Most of the fights were Ba’s fault; our appearance, our grades, our behavior—no matter how good—were never good enough. Laney caught some slack, because she was the youngest and a girl, but that just meant Ba had more energy for me and Nelson.

  When I came back outside, Mom and Nelson were loading our orange cooler into the back of the station wagon. I could hear the glass soda bottles clinking inside.

  “What did you pack?” I asked.

  Mom ticked the items on her fingers. “Fried chicken, potato salad, strawberries, and a cake.” And then, knowing what my next question would be, she added, “Lemon chiffon cake.”

  I should have known she had made a cake because the mixer kept messing up the TV reception last night. Mom always knew the right thing to cook. Lemon cake tartness would cut right through a hot summer day.

  “Hey, Peter,” said Mom. She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a peanut. She blew on it and rubbed it between her hands. “Don’t forget this before we leave.” She tossed it to me. Mom loved the Pirates as much as we did, and had burned more than one shirt getting caught up in listening to a game on the radio while she ironed. Her favorite player was Roberto Clemente. Mom liked to say he was a great player and a true gentleman.

  “We need to get going,” said Ba, locking the front door. “We need to make sure we are there before the game starts.” He turned the knob, testing it.

  “Wait,” I said. “I need to go back inside.”

  Ba sighed. “I already told you to use the bathroom.”

  “It will take just a second,” I pleaded. I tucked the peanut inside my fist. Ba didn’t know about the peanut, and more to the point, he wouldn’t care.

  Ba looked at Mom, and Mom smiled and made a motion with her head. C’mon. Let him in. Ba turned the key and opened the door a crack. I dashed in before he could change his mind.

  When I came back out, Mom and Ba got into the front seat. Then Nelson climbed in the row behind them. I bowed low and pointed to the car. “After you, Lady Elaine,” I said, all gentlemanlike.

  Elaine crossed her arms. “Oh no. I’m not falling for that. You just want me to sit in the middle!”

  “I am distressed,” I said, putting my hands over my heart. “Dismayed by your very accusation!” Elaine was, however, also correct. I hated sitting in the middle of the station wagon. You didn’t get a window, and there was a hump on the floor in front of the middle seat that was too narrow to put both feet on top and too wide to comfortably put one foot on each side.

  “Children.” Ba folded his arms. Elaine and I stared at each other, neither one of us willing to budge.

  “C’mon, Peter. Sit next to me. I’ll help you with your homework,” said Nelson. I got in first, and then Elaine, who smiled like a priss.

  I waited as long as I could, telling Ba that doing homework on the side streets made me carsick. He didn’t argue with me about that. Once we were on the highway, though, Ba told me to take out my workbook.

  I had to do a page of long division with decimals problems, something we had covered in fifth grade. I wouldn’t say learned, because that wouldn’t be accurate. I was there, present in the classroom when it was taught. But it didn’t sink in. I would say thumbscrews, hot coals, and long division with decimals were all forms of torture. I never got that dumb little dot in the right place.

  “Who needs it?” I asked when I checked the answers in the back of the workbook and discovered I hadn’t gotten a single answer right so far. I shut the workbook and tried not to think about throwing it out the window. It probably would have looked like a bird, its white pages flapping in the wind.

  “Here,” said Ba. “Give it to me.” He drove with one hand and wrote with the other, using the dashboard as a desk. “Do it this way.” He handed it back.

  I shook my head. “That’s not the way my teacher taught it.”

  Ba looked at me in the rearview mirror. “This is the way I learned it.”

  “This is American math, not Chinese math.” Ba didn’t know anything about being a kid in America. I constantly had to explain my life to him: slumber parties, tree houses, professional football. Once, on my sixth birthday, I was about to blow out the candles when Ba stopped everything.

  “What does this mean, ‘Make a wish’?” he asked. He’d heard it before, of course, but it was like he was hearing it for the first time.

  We told him that it was just for fun. A birthday custom. Ba made a face and sighed. Children should say “I will work” when they want to say “I wish,” he said. I will work for a new baseball glove. I will work for a new Frisbee. I knew what he was thinking: We were spoiled. Spoiled American children. Now my father sighed again, no doubt thinking that my lack of enthusiasm for long division was another sign of how spoiled and lazy I was. “Peter, mathematics is an international language. A right answer is a right answer.”

  I looked at the way my father had set up the problem. I felt more confused than ever.

  “Try it,” insisted Ba, and the pressure in his voice made me tense up.

  “Hey, hey, hey. What’s going on here?” Nelson slid the workbook away from me and looked at it. “Long division! With decimals! Cool.” The wind whipped his hair into his eyes.

  “You don’t really …” my father started.

  Nelson leaned over so I could hear him better. “You know, if you really like baseball, you should like long division, especially with decimals,” Nelson continued.

  “Long division has nothing to do with baseball,” I said. “Baseball is fun.”

  “What was Clemente’s average last year?” asked Nelson. He grinned. I tapped my cheek, pretending to think, but we both knew what was coming.

  “Three fifty-two,” announced Mom from the front seat. “And he was a Gold Glove, again.”

  “We say three fifty-two, but of course, it’s really …” Nelson wrote imaginary numbers in the air.

  “Point three five two,” I finished for him. I hadn’t thought of it that way. “Because you divide the number of hits by …”

  “… the number of at bats.” Nelson finished my sentence. “Right?”

  “And you can’t get a number greater than one because that would mean the player got more hits than at bats.” Nelson slid my pencil to the left. “So the decimal goes there. Remember, you can always move the decimal point two spots to the right, and that’s the same as the percentage. Clemente was hitting 35.2 percent last year, or about one out of three at bats.”

  Suddenly it all came together. “Yeah! Okay!�
� I looked at the problem again, and now the numbers seemed to snap to attention. It was easier if I approximated the answer first. “I see it now!”

  Mom turned around in her seat. “That was a good idea, Nelson.”

  “Peter could have solved it the other way,” said Ba.

  “But this way, he understands it better,” said Nelson. Nelson was right, of course. He understood how I thought.

  Ba made a noise in his throat. It sounded like the first rumble of a thunderstorm.

  Please don’t fight, I begged silently. Ba had just said all the answers were the same, but of course, he didn’t listen to himself.

  Mom made a clucking noise in her throat. “Hey,” she said, trying to change the subject. “Who thinks Taiwan is going to win again?” Taiwan had won its first Little League World Series two years ago, stunning everybody including the regular Far East champion, Japan. We didn’t talk about anything else for a week; not even school.

  “Me,” we all said together. This we could agree on. Then Elaine piped in, “But it’d be okay if the US won, too.”

  “It’s more important for Taiwan than the US,” said my father.

  “It’s also a baseball game,” said Nelson, half joking.

  “If Taiwan wins this most American of games, the US must pay attention to Taiwan, not just China,” said Ba, not getting the joke.

  “Did you read about that kid on the other team?” said Mom. “What’s his name? McClendon?”

  “Yeah, they’re starting to call him Legendary Lloyd. And he’s had four home runs so far in the tournament,” I said. Nelson nodded.

  “He’s also their pitcher,” said Mom. “He’s had a shutout, too.”

  I couldn’t believe these players were my age. They were going to be on TV, playing for the right to be world champions.

  Ba pointed at my workbook. “Finish your work, Peter. I’ll check it when you’re done.”

  There is a steep hill down to the Howard J. Lamade Stadium, which makes it look like a stage, with the hills and sky behind it a perfect backdrop. You need tickets to sit in the bleachers, but you can sit on the grassy hill beyond the outfield for free. That’s where we sat, along with what seemed like every other Chinese person on the East Coast.

  Mom spread out a blanket for us to sit on. A man walked by and gave us little flags for Taiwan. Taiwan’s colors are also red, white, and blue—a solid red field with a blue rectangle with a white sun in the upper left-hand corner. Elaine found a US flag, too, and waved both while she ran around.

  “You should really just pick one side,” I told her.

  Laney shook her head. “I don’t want anyone to feel bad,” she told me. Then she skipped away.

  Mom and Ba talked to the other Chinese families sitting on nearby blankets. Mom reported that the coach for Taiwan had announced that he would rather lose with honor than intentionally walk McClendon. I also overheard some of the families talk about hei ren, black people. The newspapers had said that the team from Gary was the first all-black team to play in the championships. Most of the players from Taiwan, I guessed, had probably never seen a black person up close before, and it was probably vice versa for the players from Gary.

  The US team jumped out to a three-run lead in the first inning when McClendon hit a long ball for a homer that drove in two other runners. He didn’t even look like he was swinging hard—he was that good. My father put his hands over his head and groaned.

  We were in the middle of a scoreless second inning when a pair of legs interrupted my view.

  “Hiiii, Peter,” said the legs. It was Clarissa Liao. Her mom and dad, who I called Liao Ai Yi and Liao Su Su, were my parents’ best friends. Clarissa was good friends with Elaine, even though she was closer to my age.

  “Do you mind not blocking my view?” I asked. I couldn’t just shove her to one side because my parents were there. She probably knew that, too. At least she was skinny enough that she couldn’t block the entire game. I could still see home plate.

  “Yech, you actually care about this game? It’s boring.” She flopped down next to me and sat too close on purpose. Her bony shoulder pressed against me. I scooted away.

  “Actually, I do. And what’s that smell? Are you wearing bug spray?” I waved my hand in front of my face.

  “It’s a new perfume. My mom bought it from our neighbor who is an Avon lady. It’s called Firefly.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and almost hit me in the eye.

  “Rest assured, it smells exactly like fireflies,” I told her. “Dead ones.”

  “Why, you, oh!” Clarissa sputtered. She jumped up and stomped back to her own blanket. Elaine followed her, and they began whispering and giggling.

  I went back to watching the game, swatting at the gnats. I hadn’t noticed them before, so maybe Clarissa’s perfume was really a bug attractor.

  Nelson leaned over. “You know she likes you, right, Peter?”

  “Who?”

  “Clarissa. That’s why she came over here.” Nelson looked over his shoulder. “She’s kind of cute, you know.”

  I took a quick peek at Clarissa. “I suppose if you like long black hair, big bug eyes, and stinky perfume, she’s not so bad.” Girls were completely mysterious to me. They traveled in packs, and they spent lots of time talking behind cupped hands.

  Nelson laughed. “When you’re my age, you’ll understand.”

  “If she had a Chinese Taipei jersey, then we could talk,” I said.

  The coach from Taiwan decided to reconsider his promise not to intentionally walk McClendon. Then Taiwan tied things up in the fourth inning when a run came in on a wild overthrow. It was anyone’s game now. There were two more innings to go in regulation. Ba cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, “Jia you!” which made me jump. My father never shouted in public, but he was joining the Taiwan fans. Jia you meant “add gas” or “go!”

  The game stretched beyond the regulation six innings. Mom opened the cooler and began putting together paper plates full of food, serving Ba first. I could barely eat. I nibbled at the chicken, and then looked over Nelson’s shoulder. He was scoring the game. The batter struck out looking; Nelson wrote in a backwards K.

  “I never go down looking,” I said.

  “It happens,” said Nelson. “It’s happened to me. You get fooled sometimes.”

  “Nothing worse than getting caught flat-footed, right? That’s why you score it differently from the guy who was at least swinging away.”

  “You’re doing your job, the pitcher is doing his job. That’s all.”

  I supposed. There were lots of guys going down at the plate. McClendon and Taiwan’s pitcher, Chin-Mu Hsu, battled from the mound. Hsu threw strikeout after strikeout.

  The crowd grew louder. We all chanted together:

  Hsu Chin-Mu Chin-Mu Hsu

  Bie huang Don’t be afraid

  Bie ji Don’t be nervous

  Jiu hao hao tou qiu Just keep pitching well

  Seventh inning. Eighth inning. We ate the lemon cake and finished off our Cokes.

  “They’re both good teams,” said Mom, stretching her arms. “It’s just a matter of who is going to last longer.” It didn’t seem fair that the Taiwan team could lose; they had to fly halfway around the world to come play. If they lost, they would have that whole long flight back home to stew about it. And I didn’t even want to think about what Ba would do if they lost. I stared at the game and tried to will the team to play better.

  Finally, in the ninth inning, Taiwan broke loose. They scored nine runs in a collection of hits, bunts, and bad throws from the US team. Even from far away in the field, I could see McClendon lower his head and begin to sob, his shoulders shaking. His coach walked over, put his arm around him, and led him off the mound. I felt kind of bad for him, but at the same time, the United States would need a miracle to win at this point.

  As the home team, the US team had the last at bat, but they couldn’t score. When the ump called the last strike, the crowd bro
ke open into the loudest roar I had ever heard. It sounded like the ocean, with no beginning or end. Nelson cupped his hands around his mouth and joined them, so I did, too, our voices blending into the sound.

  Mom and Ba shook hands with all the Chinese fans who sat near us. Clarissa tried to give me a hug, but I managed to duck away at the last minute by pretending I needed to tie my shoe.

  It took a while for us to make our way back to the station wagon. By then, it was getting dark, and the real fireflies were starting to come out. Mom rested her head on Ba’s shoulder and looked at us right before we got in the car. “What a perfect day with our family,” she said. “That was some game.” She looked pleased, as though all of this had happened just for us.

  “It is a good day for Taiwan,” said Ba.

  “It was going to be a good day either way, because we’re Chinese and American. Right?” asked Elaine.

  Mom reached out her hand and stroked Elaine’s hair. “Yes, Laney.”

  Ba drove us home. Mom and Laney sat in the back with me, and Nelson sat up front with Ba. No one fought. We were on the highway for just a minute when Mom and Elaine fell asleep. Happiness, it seemed, could be very tiring.

  IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE BEFORE, BA AND NELSON never stopped fighting. If they were not arguing, it was because one of them was not at home.

  “Take it off!” said Ba. We were eating breakfast, and Ba was pointing at the button Nelson was wearing on his shirt. Even though our trip to Williamsport had only been a few days before, that warm feeling had already been stripped away.

  Nelson’s button showed a hand holding up two fingers for peace. Then it said 1-2-3-4, W.D.W.Y.F.W. Nelson said it basically stood for “We Don’t Want Your War” and I could figure out the “F” part for myself. The war in Vietnam had been going on for as long as I could remember; everyone was tired of it.

  “Are you saying I can’t protest the war?” said Nelson.

  “That button is not appropriate,” said Ba. Then an idea occurred to him. “Have you been participating in those protests at school?”