Don Lee - The Collective

When we got out of the van near the club, Joshua pulled me (and I pulled Didi) into an alleyway. “We’ve got to get in the proper mood for this,” he said, and produced a pipe and a lighter from his jacket pocket. Mac was known as a haven for potheads, so I wasn’t surprised that Joshua had gotten hold of some weed. “This is primo Buddha,” he said. “Thai stick. Phoebe, ladies get the honors.”

“It’s Didi,” I said.

Didi seemed somewhat hesitant, but gamely fired up the lighter and took a toke, then promptly gagged and hacked.

“Yeah, it’s righteous strong shit,” Joshua said. “It might have some opium laced in it.”

Between the three of us, we smoked two bowls, and then went in for the show. An all-girl punk band did an opening set that was shrieky and uninteresting, but I was enthralled just being inside the club. Until then, my only concert experiences had been at the Hollywood Bowl and the Forum in L.A.

Sonic Youth took the stage with “Teen Age Riot,” which commenced slowly, quietly, but once the band started lashing into the main part of the song, the crowd came alive, everyone raising their arms and headbanging and pogoing, and it didn’t stop for an hour and a half, the energy overwhelming and exhilarating.

“I’m going in!” Joshua said after a few songs, and he waded toward the mosh pit that had formed in front of the stage.

He disappeared for the rest of the show. Only occasionally would we glimpse him bouncing in the mob. Near the end, I had to pee. I didn’t want to miss anything, but I had to go. “Stay here,” I yelled to Didi.

When I returned from the bathroom — a forever ordeal — I couldn’t find Didi at first, but then caught sight of her on the far side of the floor.

“You missed Joni Mitchell!” she told me.

“What?”

“Joni Mitchell came out and played a song with them!”

This sounded odd. Joshua had said one of the songs, “Hey Joni,” was partially a tribute to Joni Mitchell, but it seemed improbable she would appear with Sonic Youth. “Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said. She blinked. “I think.” Confused now, she rolled her tongue around her lips. “Wait, maybe it wasn’t Joni Mitchell?” The Buddha had gotten to her.

I turned toward the mosh pit. People were flailing and slam-dancing and stage-diving, and in the midst of it all was Joshua, who had been lifted into the air and was being passed overhead from hand to hand while lying stiffly supine, arms akimbo in crucifixion, a smug grin on his face. Then he vanished. Someone had dropped him. A ruckus broke out. Bouncers converged.

In the van to campus, Joshua told us what had transpired. “Racist skinhead dickwad,” he said, elated. His eye was welting, his cheek and neck were scratched, his knuckles were cratered and bleeding. “Cracker called me a chink and told me to get back on the boat. I clocked the motherfucker. I put him down .”

When we returned to Mac, we made our way to Wallace, the party dorm, where there were several rooms hosting festivities, everyone sweating in the close quarters. We flitted from room to room, toking and drinking, until Didi passed out. I half carried her to Turck. “Not the bed, not the bed,” she kept saying when we got to her floor, so I took her into the women’s bathroom, where there was a tub. I set her down inside of it. She was already snoring away, drooling. I could have sold tickets: Yeah, five dollars, grow your vegetables here.

The following afternoon, I sat with Joshua in the library, trying to finish the rest of The Quiet American . His eye was puffed and bruised black, the lid half closed.

“That guy really called you a chink?” I asked.

“You think I’d lie about something like that?”

In my entire life, I had never been on the receiving end of such a slur. I could not deny that there were ethnic tensions in Southern California, but I’d never been affected by anything directly. In this respect, there was comfort in numbers: there were so many Asian Americans in the L.A. area, I could throw a stick in any direction and hit six of them. “I’m just surprised, that’s all,” I said to Joshua. “Everyone’s been so friendly here. I thought maybe people might look at me funny once in a while, but it’s never happened. Not that I’ve noticed, anyway.”

“Don’t buy the whole ‘Minnesota nice’ thing,” he said. “This place is as racist as anywhere else. It’s because of all the Hmong refugees. They think we’re boat people, man. It’s as bad as Boston. Over there, you’ve got the ofays in Southie, the yokels in Dorchester — you know exactly what to expect from them — but the more sinister, corrosive, subtle shit comes from people like your chickadee, what’s her name, Didi.”

“What about her?”

“Were you purposely looking for WASP City?”

“She’s Catholic.”

“You know what I mean. She’s so white-bread. She’s, like, the apotheosis of white-bread. She’s sour dough , man. She has no soul. She’s never suffered or wanted for anything a day in her life.”

“I like her.”

“Do you, or you just on bush patrol? The story about the bell get to you?”

“Of course not.”

“Yeah, right. Listen, she’s a lemon sucker.”

“What?”

“A yellow dipper, a paddy melt, a Chiquita muncher. California slang for white chicks who want a taste of Asian.”

“How come I’m from California and I’ve never heard of any of these terms?”

“I can’t account for your ignorance,” Joshua said. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Sourdough is just slumming, man. It’s a phase, like every chick in college needing to go girl-on-girl at some point. Chicks like Sourdough like to think they’re pluralistic, but when it gets down to it, they’ll stick to their own kind.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning Sourdough would never get serious about you.”

“Jesus,” I said, “we’re just hanging out. Who said anything about getting serious?”

“Just so you understand. Have fun, wet your wick, but don’t expect it could ever go beyond that.”

I didn’t believe Joshua, not really, but I kept thinking about what he had told me, and, against my better judgment, I started scrutinizing everything Didi said and did, as if searching for incriminating evidence. Was it significant, for example, that she bought a silk happi coat (Exhibit A) and began wearing it around campus? Was there something to her having a late-night craving for moo shu pork (Exhibit B) and making us take the bus up Snelling to the House of Dynasty on University Avenue? Should I have been perturbed that she once sang the chorus to the song “Turning Japanese” (Exhibit C) apropos of nothing? What about the fact that she wanted to learn tai chi (Exhibit D), or the time she uncupped her hands to give me an origami (Exhibit E) of a tiny blue bird?

Then there was the night she wanted to cook me dinner, an odd whim, because she couldn’t cook — at all. Turck had a lounge on every floor with a stove, sink, and microwave, and there she whipped up an unholy concoction of frozen vegetables, shredded day-old chicken-salad sandwiches from the snack bar with the bread (which was sourdough!), a sprinkling of cashew nuts, and an entire jar of plum sauce (Exhibit F), all mashed together and sautéed in a wok (Exhibit G) and served in rice bowls (Exhibit H) with chopsticks (Exhibit I).

“It’s good!” I told her, naturally.

And then there was this conversation:

“Your hair is so straight,” she said. “Is it this straight all over?” (Exhibit J.)

“All over? Well, not completely straight. A little wavier, maybe.”

“Let me see.” She lifted my left arm and peered through the sleeve at my armpit. Then she said, “What about down there?”