Ha Jin - A Free Life

"Who's living next door?" Heidi asked Pingping, pointing at the decaying house.

"Gerald Brown. He's electrician, a good guy. His wife left him."

"What a shame he doesn't take care of his property. The neighborhood should do something about it. If he doesn't put his home in order, he should be thrown out of the community. What an eyesore this mess is in the middle of such a nice area."

Pingping said nothing. A bad taste was seeping into her mouth, and she sighed, shaking her head to indicate that it was impossible to make Gerald mend his ways.

WITHOUT much persuasion Livia left with her mother, and Ping-ping and Nan felt relieved. For days the Wus had been talking about their neighbor Gerald, who lately wouldn't come out of his house. He had been ill and unemployed since June, and his front yard was messier than before. Sometimes at night pickups would even park on his lawn for trysts and leave behind beer bottles, paper bags, Styro-foam boxes, and even used condoms on the grass, which hadn't been cut for three months. Whenever Nan or Pingping mowed their lawn, they would cut the part of Gerald's front yard adjacent to theirs, but that had made Gerald's lawn appear even more neglected.

Then one morning as the Wus were about to leave for work, three police cruisers pulled into Gerald's driveway and lawn. In his front yard gathered dozens of people from the neighborhood, to watch him being evicted. Mrs. Lodge, shaped like a potato, was among them and kept shaking her white head and saying, "Poor guy. What a shame."

Alan was also standing nearby. He sidled up to Nan and Pingping. With a grin that made his eyes crinkle, he said, "It's high time for him to go. Finally they're doing something."

Still bewildered, Nan asked, "Where's Gerald?"

"I've no idea. They couldn't find him."

"Why they're doing this?" Pingping said.

"Gerald hasn't paid his bills for a long time, so the bank was sick of him. Now they've come to repossess his property."

Dumbstruck, the Wus stared at the commotion, never having seen somebody being thrown out of his own home. From inside the house and its basement, a team of Mexican workers was dragging out Gerald's possessions and dropping them on the grass. There was all kinds of stuff, most of which he had taken from construction sites: scraps and rolls of rugs, broken chairs and tables, battered floor lamps, utensils coated with grease, stacks of plastic pails, two wheel-less barrows, hundreds of old magazines, boxes of electric wires, assorted pieces of lumber, several rusty jigsaws, a brand-new toilet with an oak lid, two used air conditioners. A beefy policeman with a pair of handcuffs on his hip kicked a floppy baby carriage and told the spectators, "Gerald Brown has twenty-four hours to remove his stuff. After that, you can pick up whatever you want."

From the backyard came the moaning of a tow truck. One of Gerald's junk cars emerged from the corner of the house and was hauled away. Nan noticed many eyes eagerly searching through Gerald's belongings scattered on the grass, and he was sure that before dark some people would come and scavenge through this mess. He was afraid they might damage his lawn, since some of Gerald's possessions had already overflowed onto the Wus' front yard. Unable to delay any longer, Nan and Pingping set off for work, talking about the eviction all the way.

Both of them were shaken by the scene, which reminded them that they hadn't paid off their mortgage yet. They still owed Mr. Wolf $38,000. If their business folded or if they fell ill, their home might be repossessed as well. By all means they must get rid of the mortgage as soon as possible.

Shubo stopped by at noon to get from Niyan the key to their safe-deposit box in the bank. Nowadays he worked at Grand Buddha as its barkeep and made decent wages. He and Nan got along well, so he often came in to chat or to give Nan a magazine or newspaper that carried something interesting. Nan was amazed by Shubo's manner, which bore no trace of his academic background. Who could imagine this fellow had earned a Ph.D. in sociology? In every way he looked like a menial worker, with a weather-beaten face and shadowy eyes. When the Wus told him about their neighbor's eviction, Shubo said, "Americans are tough. They live more naturally, close to animals."

Nan laughed and asked, "What do you mean by 'close to animals'? Animals don't have to work to make money and pay mortgages and car loans."

"I mean, if you're strong you survive here, if you're weak you die."

"It's the same everywhere."

"But lots of Americans won't grumble if bad luck strikes. They take it just as something that happens."

Nan wasn't certain if Shubo's observation was accurate, though he had noticed that in general Americans didn't complain much and seemed more able to endure frustrations and misfortunes.

Early that afternoon, when the busy hours were over, Nan went back to see the eviction again and also to check on his own property. He feared that the movers might have damaged the steel fence dividing his backyard from Gerald's. As he was approaching his home, suddenly hundreds of blackbirds took off from Gerald's front lawn, veering away, their wings whirring, and casting a drifting shadow on the ground. Nobody was at Gerald's, and his possessions were strewn around the house, which was sealed, a lockbox hanging on the door handle. Other than the two wheelless barrows, everything was still there. Nan walked around a little and saw that his backyard fence was intact. He entered Gerald's front porch. On a windowsill was propped open a magazine displaying a young couple copulating in doggie fashion. Nan swiped it to the ground; it was an old copy of Hustler. Most of its pages had been crinkled by rainwater. Gerald must have picked it up somewhere, maybe from a trash can. Nan thought about keeping it for a day or two, then changed his mind and kicked it to a pile of newspapers and posters.

As he stepped from the porch, to his surprise, he saw Gerald standing at the edge of his yard, holding a blue bicycle and gazing at the piles of his belongings with large, dazed eyes. The man looked as if he were afraid to step on the lawn, his feet on the pavement, his right hand holding the handlebar of the bike. He raised his head and caught sight of Nan. Nan had never seen Gerald so small and so frail, his eyes lackluster and his chin covered with grizzling bristles. Nan waved and walked toward him, wondering what consoling words he should say. But Gerald spun around, leaped on the bicycle, and trundled away, the chain clinking its guard and the rear-wheel fender. A gust of wind lifted his hair into a tuft and swelled the back of his gray shirt, making him resemble a large bird. Nan exhaled a long sigh.

HAILEE was going to be one year old on September 16, and Janet had been busy preparing the birthday party, to which the Wus were invited. As the nominal mother Pingping had agreed to go, but Nan was reluctant. Six weeks ago he and his wife had attended a party at the Mitchells', and he had felt out of place among the crowd there. This time, afraid he might again feel left out, he decided to stay at the Gold Wok that evening. Besides, there was so much to do at the restaurant that either he or Pingping had to be around during the busy hours. So Pingping went to the Mitchells' alone with a picture book in Chinese as a present for the baby. When she arrived, most of the people hadn't shown up yet. Janet told Pingping that several of Hailee's godparents were coming too.

Dave was watching a baseball game with their daughter on his lap while Janet was busy in the kitchen, unwrapping cheese and pouring a jar of salsa into a soup bowl. A large woman holding a glass of seltzer came up to Pingping, introducing herself as Christine, and they entered into conversation. To Pingping's surprise, Christine had taught nursing at a medical school in Taiwan for a year and was reminiscing about her experiences there fondly. She said she missed the night snacks sold at the streetside eateries in Taipei. Pingping noticed that her left eye was bloodshot and a little puffy, so she asked her, "What happen to your eye?"