The Language Inside Read Online Free PDF Page B

doesn’t look up
    when I ask
    if she wants to keep going
    Sam tells me
    to read the whole thing
    again
    and I do
    nice
he says
    and Zena looks up

     
    by then it’s nearly dark outside
    so I tell Zena I’ll see her next week
    and I’ll type this one up
    for her notebook
    Zena spells
t-h-a-n-k u
    and I say
there’s a short way to do that
    and show her how to spell
    39
for
sankyu
—
                   
san
for three
                   
kyu
for nine
    which is how
thank you
sounds
    with a Japanese accent
    I put on my sweatshirt
    tell her I’ll bring poems
    and we’ll write
    more masterpieces
    and Zena
    looks up again

     

it’s after five when we sign out at the nurses’ station
    tell them to tell Lin that we’re leaving
    head down the corridors
    to the elevator
    sign out in the lobby
    and step outside
                             to the slap
    of cold autumn air

     
    Sam says that Chris is coming
    they can give me a ride
    and Chris already called YiaYia
    to tell her she doesn’t have to come
    since my grandmother’s house is
    sort of on the way
    we can wait over there
Sam says
    so we cross the bridge
    over the darkened river
    which we can’t see
    so much as smell
    and which Sam says is
    not a river
    but a canal
    from the mill days
    and we stand in the red and green light
    of a pizza sign

     
    you live with your uncle—Chris?
I say
    and aunt
he says
    is that good?
I ask
living with them?
    yeah, it’s good
                   and I wonder if he’s adopted
                   even though he calls them “uncle” and “aunt”
    but before I can ask he says
    how about you?
    how’s living with your grandmother?
    and I say
    it’s okay
    for now
    that’s all
    because I just don’t want to go into everything
    and he says
    I hear you

     
    we’re standing there
    angled toward each other
    with the neon pizza sign
    splashing red and green swaths across his face
    the smell of pizza reminding me I’m starved
    and right now I don’t want to go home yet
    to my same old music
    and my grandmother and brother
    and my mother and her upcoming surgery
    I just want to go inside this pizza place
    and talk with this guy Sam
    and pretend even briefly
    that everything is normal
    but Chris pulls up in the car
    and Sam gets in the front
    and I get in the back
    and that’s that

     
    in the car we talk about Zena and how she called me a dodo
    and when I tell them she spelled
s-e-x-y m-a-n
    they both crack up and Sam says he bets he knows who it is—
    her sexy man
    who? another patient?
I ask
    no
he says
a poet guy
    I ask about Mr. Sok and Mr. Pen and
    and Sam says that Leap Sok, who he calls
    Lok Ta Leap—Grandfather Leap
    is writing a memoir
    but his hand doesn’t work now
    because of a stroke
    and Lok Ta Chea is writing some letters
    for his grandchildren and a little bit
    about the refugee camp
    but he hasn’t been well lately

     
    refugee camp?
I ask
    Sam says
yeah, in Thailand
    after he escaped Cambodia
    when the Vietnamese
    drove out Pol Pot
    and from that one sentence
    I realize that even though I’m good at geography
    and even though I know those countries’ capitals
    I know hardly any Southeast Asian history
    which seems unforgivable
    having grown up in Japan
    but I nod when Sam turns to look at me
    nod thoughtfully as if I get it
    and I promise myself
    to learn something
    before I see him next
    to figure out
                   what is this language Khmer
                   that he and Mr. Sok and Mr. Pen speak

     
    for now I say
    that sounds tough
    and Sam says
yeah, it can be
    some days I help them with English
    things they don’t know how to say to aides or nurses
    most days Lok Ta Chea can’t get out of bed
    he can barely see and his feet are swollen
    Lok Ta Leap is the one I work with more
    and it’s