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hundreds of rubber-slipper-shod feet as we waited our turn to view his body.
    Fan had a place in the line along with most of her clan, listening to them talk about Joseph’s wasted future. Usually this sort of chatter is merely just that, the idle blather of pipe dreams, but it was agreed Joseph really could have been one of those few who end up making a life as a Charter. For there are rare instances of B-Mors being recruited by Charter talent scouts for looks or athletic prowess—Joseph’s parents had been contacted after his stellar performance in the soccer playoffs—to be models or actors or professional athletes. The only other way was, of course, to do extremely well on the yearly aptitude Exam that the Charters let our children take at the age of twelve, then allowing those who place in the top 2 percent of Charter scores to be eligible for promotion and adoption by a Charter family. Such performance on the test was even rarer, though members of Fan’s clan could brag—and often did—that one of theirs had been promoted, if years ago; a sibling of Fan’s, in fact, a boy named Liwei, whom she had never known because of the difference in their ages.
    When Fan ascended to the top of the stoop, we could all see her. Maybe some mourner inside was taking an especially long time over the casket because Fan seemed to be perched there forever. It was a sunny day post storm and she wore the wraparound sunglasses she preferred, her bob of black hair curling under ever so slightly at the ends to cup the delicate lines of her jaw, and you could almost imagine her as one of those people who end up doing something that was far beyond what we B-Mors can ever expect, such as being a programs personality or an actor. Again, Fan was not beautiful but rather distinctive in her presence, which was one of more than merely being petite but like a distillation, this purity by way of exquisite scale, and to view her perfect little hand clutching the railing, and the tense purse of her mouth as she awaited her turn inside, was enough to tap a fresh well of admiration in your heart.
    For the viewing, everybody was routed through the kitchen and eventually deposited in the shared alley that separates the rear yards of the houses. Fan saw exactly what we saw: there he was, reclined in a heavy cardboard coffin in the cramped front living room, asleep in his death robes, the amazing color of his face courtesy of Tang, the senior B-Mor mortician. And maybe it was to compensate for the stone hue of his subject, or just because he’d lost his touch, but old Tang truly went too far, for poor Joseph looked as though he had just trotted off the field after a hard-fought match. He appeared
too
alive, (perhaps literally) flushed with lifeblood, as if he might pop up at any moment and ask for a sports drink. Then, too, someone had placed a mini soccer ball in his hand and you could see that Joseph had a real grip on it, the soft plastic surface ever slightly deformed, and though it was just a toy ball, the sensation we had as we stood beside him was that he was squeezing
us
, not menacingly or in admonition like the dead normally would, but with the gentlest press of solidarity.
    I know, Joseph seemed to say. I know.
    Then we shuffled into the adjacent kitchen where one of his aunts ushered people out to the small rear yard. There on long tables they had put out the customary feast, though this time including some homemade delicacies like Shanxi-style smoked pork belly, stuff you hardly ever see these days. The fatty, peppery scent of the dish was absolutely transporting and would have been cause for a wink of wicked glee at another wake, but at Joseph’s it was a cloud you kept wishing would blow away, so you could taste only woe. The smell was too good, too luscious, our salty tears an embittering drink for our tingly, watering mouths, and we would have tipped down the whole platter at once to repel the emptiness had his parents and now lone