I wasn’t supposed to be home. I was supposed to be somewhere else. My roommate was in full panic to see I was still home. “My parents are going to be here any minute! They still think I have a male roommate!” But Chris mixed up the dates, my seminar is tomorrow.
“If your parents are that hard-lined, just say I’m your roommate’s girlfriend. I don’t mind.” Money was tight. I lived alone and didn’t need the extra space anymore, so I rented out the spare bedroom. My tenant and I lived in a dorm like setting where we shared responsibility for the common areas, but each other’s bedroom was sacrosanct. Despite him being half my age, he was quite well behaved. I did not regret taking him in.
His Chinese parents were swinging by for the day, visiting their son on their way across the American continent. They would not be able to stay for long, only a few hours, but did not want to miss seeing him in person for the first time in ten years.
There was a knock on the door. His parents were here, several hours ahead of schedule. His parents were both shorter than him, so they teased him mercilessly about growing so tall. I said nothing, but went into the kitchen to see what to cook for them. His father heard me and came to greet his son’s roommate. When he saw me, he bowed out and whispered something in his wife’s ear.
I could feel the temperature drop. I thought I saw my breath.
“Who are you!” To be challenged in my kitchen of my house made it hard to keep a straight face. Chris’ eyes grew large in fear.
“Chris didn’t tell you? I’m sure he told you.” I turned to Chris. “Tell them!” So I’ll know which lie to go along with, please.
“Is this your girlfriend?” His mother now turned on her son.
He flustered and blustered and finally took a large sigh. “This is my landlady, Mother. This is Weaver. We share this condo.” He deflated slightly. His father raised an eyebrow. She stood indignant shock then turned her barrels back to me.
“Are you taking advantage of my son?” I knew what accusations would follow, so instead of playing the usual game, I flipped the table.
“Yes.”
His father struggled to hide a smirk, while Chris stared at me in shock. His mother lost the ability to breathe, and was unable to come up with a retort.
“I live alone, M’am. There are many that would try to take advantage of me. But with your son here, they know there is a man present. If you are asking if I have been improper with your son… No. I haven’t. He is an upstanding gentleman, his honor is a shield around him, and I am fortunate to have a peaceful home.” She stood in the kitchen entryway, trying to find something to turn into an accusation. When she glanced away, I winked at a still shocked Chris. “But since you’re here, I could use your help and advice.” Her attention snapped back to me with a disbelieving glare. “I don’t know what to cook for us tonight. I thought I’d cook for him so he can spend more time with you and his father.”
I watched her pride take over her face. “You can’t cook for my son. Move over. This is my kitchen tonight.” I stood aside with apparent reluctance, while she strode into the kitchen as conqueror. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his father smile and nod with approval, and Chris waver between imminent hysterical laughter and fainting.
I was sent to the grocery store for many a specialty item. Each one she fussed and gloated that I wouldn’t be able to obtain them in an American grocery store. Each one, I called up local associates to find where the niche stores were and brought back precisely what she wanted. I knew I was intentionally being kept out of the condo. I didn’t mind. She hasn’t seen him in a decade. And she was protective of her son. I resolved to tease him mercilessly about this later.
Food was prepared and served (with my assistance). It was clear that despite being the condo owner, I was not welcome by his mother to sit at the table. Not a problem. I mumbled an excuse about having to catch up on work emails and apologized for not being sociable. His mother’s gloating as I left the table made it hard to keep a straight face. She still thought I was taking offense to her actions, that I was being chased away. It was clear to his father what I was doing, and he only subtly nodded in approval and smiled.
So far, so good. Until I unlocked and opened my bedroom door. His mother was watching my retreat from the table so when the door opened, she saw directly into my room. There wasn’t much to see from her vantage point. I had moved most of my witchy woo-woo items away from easy sight, just in case. But I forgot about the ribbon on the wall.
The long white ribbon draped simply over a simple decorative hanger, that was hanging on the wall directly across from the door. Two hanzi characters were vertically embroidered with black silk onto the ribbon. The top character was oriented normally. The bottom character was upside down.
When I heard the sharp intake of breath, I knew she had seen it. From the way she was constantly comparing American culture with her native Chinese culture, I knew she understood the importance of the upside down hanzi. I braced for impact.
“WITCH! And I believed you! YOU ARE PLACING MY SON IN DANGER!” She continued on half shrieking at me, half telling him to pack his things. When she switched to Chinese to continue yelling at her son, I did not need a translator. “Pissed The Fuck Off Mother” is a dialect I knew quite well.
“Eh? What do you mean? This ribbon? It’s a souvenir.” She stopped screeching. I pulled it off the wall, exited my room, and held the long length in my hands. “This? It’s a memento. That’s all.”
She recoiled visibly from the ribbon. “A souvenir? Do you know what you are holding?”
“A ribbon with the name of the man that helped me one night. That’s all.”
She pointed to the second hanzi. “But… that… is not written right!”
“Yea, it’s upside down. That’s how he wanted it written. He said right side up was bad luck.” He said a lot of other things, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
She started to calm down, but was still unwary. “How did you come by that ribbon? How did you meet a man with that name? Was he Chinese, or an American impersonator?”
Chris tried to get his mother to return to the table, but she was having none of it. She wanted a story. A story I told. A truthful one.
“I was on an adventure. A wandering, again. I was ill, and lost. I wandered into a bad part of the country. Run by Chinese gangs and such. A gang boss saw I was not trouble, and not worth trouble. He gave me shelter, food, and a safe place for me to recover. He told me his name and wrote it out. Yea, I saw the second hanzi was upside down, but he insisted that it had to be written this way. When I left, he gave me this ribbon as a keepsake. He didn’t want me to forget his name.”
She fingered the ends of the silk ribbon. It was just another strip of cloth. Nothing spectacular or interesting caught her attention. I didn’t tell her that because she was a living, breathing person, the ribbon was inert to her.
“This was given… freely?” “Yes, M’am.”
“And you don’t know why this is upside down?” “Well, M’am, I did try to look it up on the Internet. But there’s a lot of bad information about it, and I don’t know which stories are worth paying attention to.” And there’s a lot of good information, and a lot to understand if you can read between the lines, but I wasn’t about to tell her I knew the importance of the hanzi and the puns on the words they represented.
“And you are sure this is his name?” “It’s the name he gave me, M’am. I don’t see gang bosses giving out personal names and such, but this is the name I know him by.”
“Does my son have one?” “No, M’am. This is the only ribbon I have.” Her hand suddenly gripped the ribbon’s end with a tight fist.
“My son should have one! You must go back to this man and ask him for another one!”
“Huh? I can’t just go back there and demand…”
“Yes! Yes, you should! Because my son lives here with you and you owe him for him being the man of the house! You will go back to this…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the name. “You will go back to the Bossman and ask him for another ribbon, and you will bring it back to my son!”
Chris was pulling on his mother’s arm, trying to tell her that Weaver walks through many dangerous areas when traveling. From what little he heard just now, it was clear getting another ribbon would place me at risk. She turned and snapped at him in Chinese. He started to refute her, but his father placed his hand on Chris’ shoulder and severely shook his head.
“Lady, I don’t know why you were first freaking out over this ribbon, and now you’re ready to shank me if I don’t get another one!” Well, actually, yes I do. But anyway… “But you are asking me to go to the Chinese Underworld! Assuming I can even cross the border, you’re talking about intentionally entangling myself in the gangs. Now, think about what you are asking! He helped me because of his own reasons. He even said I did not owe him for his help. If the man is willing to use this as his name, just what kind of debts do you think he will demand for another ribbon? And what makes you think I’ll be the one to pay them?”
I tugged lightly on the ribbon. She didn’t want to release it at first, but as she considered the cost of what she was asking, she nodded grimly and let go. I smoothed out the end of the ribbon, satisfied it had not been stained with sweat from her hands. I still resolved to give it a proper cleaning. Once I found out what a proper cleaning was for it.
I did not think the ribbon was really that important when I came home with it. Just another tchotcke, I thought. But her reaction has made me reconsider. Was there another meaning to his name that I had overlooked? Was there something in the way it was given that made it valuable? It was white silk with black silk thread embroidered on it. Inert against the living, I thought. As Chris’ mother returned to the dinner table in the arm of her son and husband, I began to wonder if my naivete was about to bite me in the ass again.
I closed the door and launched my internet browser. I draped the silk ribbon over my shoulder to remind me what I’m supposed to be focused on. Closing the Tumblr tab, I opened Google in a new tab. A shadow flitted across my window. Turning, I see a familiar sight outside. I realize I’m dreaming and become fully lucid.
“Fine.” I take the silk and hang it on the little hanger I made for it. “I’ll settle this later.” Locking my bedroom door, I open the window, and jump out. But instead of segueing into another scene, I wake up.