Butterfly Yellow Read online

  Even though Bà was too sick to escape by boat with Hằng and Mother, she foresaw thirst, so she packed lemons and plastic bottles of boiled water; foresaw hunger, so she sun-dried slivers of steamed sweet potatoes; foresaw danger, so she sewed disguises.

  But Bà’s imagination extended only to horrors known in her lifetime.

  As soon as Hằng greeted her uncle at the airport yesterday, she told him Bà had insisted they go and reclaim Linh immediately. At the mention of Bà, her uncle’s eyes swelled red. So Hằng understood in the five months since she left home, her grandmother had died from the tumor in her leg. As instructed, their neighbor must have sent word to her uncle.

  Hằng wondered if she should have felt something intense; after all, Bà was truly gone. But all indulgent emotions have long remained on pause. She has yet to mourn her father or mother. Not until she finds her brother. She stared at her uncle and repeated Bà’s wish.

  Her uncle replied, “Listen to me, the child missing, you stay.” He sounded awkward in a language long unused, his pronunciation clashing like spilled pots and lids.

  As soon as he received Bà’s letter right after the war ended, her uncle said he went to the address and found nothing but a ghost town. He waited all day, knocking on the few houses that still had doors. No one answered. He returned twice more before advertising in the local newspaper, then even hired a detective. But the boy had vanished. Now, with Hằng here, he reasoned they could approach new options, in time.

  “I promise we will try new ways to find the boy,” her uncle said. “First, you come home.”

  “I must see for myself,” she insisted.

  En-Di’s father, whom Hằng addresses as Chú Quốc, grew red-faced and gushed a monsoon of reasons why Hằng could not go off on her own. Her lack of English, her inability to read the land and its people, and most importantly, her brother is not at the address. Her uncle clenched his fists. “NO, no, Bà not want wandering on your own,” he stated as if it were true.

  Hằng did not explain that Bà had warned she might need to go around him.

  Chú Quốc alternated between pleading and threatening. Hằng presented a blank expression while mental currents began zapping. It was so easy to plot against a plump, heart-exposed uncle who blinked melty eyes at Hằng and assumed she needed protecting. But he should have guessed that the girl who had been taught to maneuver past the Communists would be able to slip away from her uncle. Now that she was just a bus ride from her Linh, no one would keep her from the final step.

  The car speeds on, more red than maroon. Relieved, Hằng looks to the right where a machine is dipping its long neck into the earth. It straightens as if looking for predators then bends back down, again and again. A parched giraffe made of metal.

  What the machine does she can’t begin to guess, but she can watch it drink all day. Then, despite a ready mash of ginger, the pacified eels jolt awake, resurging the breakfast egg. She snaps her head back to a steady stare. Keeps still, barely breathes. Too late. Sickness grabs her.

  The bus driver continues to hum and chew, vibrating the mass of fat at his nape. Crunchy something, chocolate slabs, gooey round pastries with a hole in the center. He sucks sticky fingers.

  Burps. A rotten sourness invades her air. Her nostrils enlarge. Various organs realign, blood rushing and readying for a crash. Saliva triples every second. Tiny beads of sweat bubble atop her nose. Boring, familiar nausea that clung like saltwater while she was at sea.

  Hằng has just enough time to reach into a side pocket for a plastic bag and position it underneath her mouth. Plenty of plastic bags, plenty of preparation. Ginger rakes with pointy nails coming back up. Her nose bridge burns. A tell-all stench floats on the icy fake wind to the back of the bus.

  Groans, hisses. Hằng understands nothing when English is spoken with such speed and disgust. An entire childhood spent repeating after Clint Eastwood, shredding grammar books, translating National Geographic, yet not a word.

  The driver yells, maybe at her, maybe at passengers in back. Startled, she misaligns the plastic bag and the next eggy gingery rush lands on her cousin’s white shoes.

  Now the driver shouts directly at her. The bus-boat slows and veers off the highway. Screeches to a full stop. A rough right flings her to the window frame. Left into a parking lot. Jerks to park. The eels in her gut are furious.

  The door flips open and flaming air invades, contrasting with gray ice inside. Her temples begin to thump. The slimy yellow splatter bleeds into her shoes.

  The Others

  Tongues click, heads shake.

  As passengers march out, each gets a bird’s-eye view of the girl’s shapeless cropped hair. Before this nuisance, while judging the back of her head, some had tsk-tsked the type of parents who would send a mere child on the bus, alone. Furthermore, they didn’t even have the decency to put her in shorts or a sundress. Just looking at her, in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt buttoned to her throat, cranks up the temperature.

  One woman in all red from hat to heels says to no one in particular, “These newcomers, they don’t bother to learn the law.”

  “That’s the thing, no law says who can be parents,” another voice answers.

  “You’d think once we let them in, they’d do their part to not drag trouble around with them,” says the one in red.

  A third voice, “Now, now, the poor child got carsick, that’s all.”

  No one helps her.

  They hurry inside the rest stop. They might be from here, but it doesn’t mean they have taken a liking to the West Texas heat and wind. In crisp air-conditioning, greeted by ice cream, pizzas, burgers, and a multicolored row of self-served slushies, they collectively sigh.

  The driver comes out of the bathroom holding two rolls of paper towels, one wet, one dry. As soon as the offending girl staggers out and squints at the sun, he waves her over and hand signals instructions before going in search of an air freshener.

  When he and the others return to the bus, each clutching a heavy plastic bag, the air has regained the comfort of sugar and salt. He sprays Vanilla Cupcake to get everyone settled.

  Neither the girl nor her backpack is on the bus. He honks a faint warning, waits ten beats before easing back to West 287. After all, he did announce before they exited that those who diddle-daddle will find themselves without a ride.

  Kindness From the Stomach Out

  Hằng has put on her aunt’s hat, wide as an umbrella, yet the sun soaks past the fabric, past coarse blue-black hair to sink into her skull. Unlike gooey sticky vapors back home, the dry air here claws moisture from her skin and leaves bee stings in her throat.

  She reaches where the bus should be, touches nothing but scorching waves of heat. More grains of dust land on her cracked lips, cling to watery eyes. She retreats inside.

  Panic begins its slow gnaw as Bà’s words unravel from Hằng’s most inner coils. Deep breath, again, now strategize your next immediate task, no matter a heart drumming thùng thùng, no matter arms and legs softening to noodles.

  Hằng hides behind a standing picture of a sugar-glazed cake the size of her torso. The image alone induces a swollen tongue and a stomachache. It’s 4:27. She must get to A-ma-ri-lo before nightfall, before her brother is put to bed. In case he’s not there, she needs daylight to . . . no, he will be there.

  Hằng hears Bà’s voice again: When in danger look for those who can’t help but be kind, kindness from the stomach out. Tốt từ trong bụng ra.

  Hằng looks: a tall cowboy stomping the floor in heeled boots (no), a wiggly woman with big hair and a tiny waist (no), a laughing couple with hands in each other’s jeans pocket (no), a father scolding his boy (no), three women in doll dresses and boots (no), an older couple, plain of dress, low of voice.

  She inhales and commands herself forward despite a torpedo-ing heart and wavery nerves, knowing outsiders see her as short, quail-boned, narrow-shouldered, and without any fat. But if they look into her eyes, they can’t miss the determination. If a camera were to capture her face, or better yet just her eyes, she can pass for being in her twenties and beyond.

  She tries a simple “Hé-lô,” but lead fills her tongue. Ever prepared, she pulls out cards En-Di had been instructed to write in bold and shoves one at the woman.

  “No thank you, dearie, we don’t want to buy anything.”

  Hằng holds up the card and jabs at the words:

  PLEASE GO TO 405 MESQUITE STREET IN AMARILLO.

  MY BROTHER NEEDS HELP NOW.

  “Is she mute?” the man asks. “I’ll be, who would leave a mute child at a rest stop? She looks about ready to cry on us.”

  Instead of tears, Hằng wants to shout. She feels the humiliating claws of desperation, which holds hands with helplessness. How she hates being helpless. But the couple’s faces are softening. A crying mute she shall become.

  Tears refuse to drop. So annoyed with herself she’s near a growl, probably appearing feral, an expression she has tried to banish but it nonetheless paces beneath her skin.

  “Is her brother in trouble?” The man has an easy, slow, understandable lilt. He looks at his wife. “We have time to give the child a lift?”

  They confer. Heads shake.

  Hằng thrusts a second card at them:

  I COME FROM VIETNAM TO RESCUE MY BROTHER.

  “Vietnam? My word!”

  Hằng nods and nods.

  The couple, in turn, assesses the crowd. They settle on a husband, wife, tall girls. Before they finish explaining, the family walks away. People have been watching and are rushing to emergencies in the bathroom, out in the heat.

  A shiny, tall cowboy walks in. Ripened-papaya hair, speckled face, pillow middle, puffy cheeks, and those eyes, those beaming eyes be
long to someone who has received a sky size of indulgence. The couple rushes toward him.

  Hằng panics. She can’t tell if kindness coils within his stomach. His inside is blank to her. Still, she’s careful. Plenty of blank children grow up evil. She’s certain of only one fact: he’s the cleanest cowboy she’s ever seen.

  He says, “I’m not going that way.” The couple keeps whispering.

  He says, “But I’ve got somewhere I’ve got to be.” The couple reasons with him.

  He says, “Sorry.” The couple tries to give him ten dollars.

  He walks fast outside. They follow and drag along a confused Hằng.

  They all stop at a gleaming red truck. The wife takes the cowboy’s hand, smiles, and places Hằng’s emergency card in his palm. “Take her to this here address. It can’t be but a few minutes out of your way.” She pauses until he looks at her. “It’s the Christian thing to do.”

  She opens the passenger-side door and shoves in Hằng, who catches the woman’s husband tucking ten dollars inside the cowboy’s shirt pocket. “Son, show her some good ol’ Texas hospitality.”

  Hằng could not catch the last word, sounding like “hót-sì-pi-tồ.” Why would they be going to a hospital? Before she could ask, the couple hurries away.

  The cowboy gets in and won’t look at her. Hằng presses against the closed passenger door and shields herself with her bag. She would never have climbed into this soaring truck on her own. For one, the back is encased with a red roof and black windows. Anything can be hidden inside such darkness.

  The truck’s leather seat lights her back and bottom on fire, but she can’t indulge such a worry right now. At her ankle she unsnaps the sheath of a skinning knife borrowed from her uncle. Staring at the spotless cowboy, she calls forth her best Clint Eastwood unforgiving eyes and razor lips.

  Cold Ginger Ale

  Of all things, the ungrateful girl has the nerve to be throwing sideways glares.

  “Hey, I’m not the bad guy here. Minding my own business, just wanting some cold milk, is that too much to ask? Then damn it all to hell, I get roped into being your taxicab. It’s not every day I get a chance to eyeball Bruce Ford. I’ve got to get there early to scout out the best seat. They may not be letting folks in come evening.”

  LeeRoy sighs, and there’s nothing to be done but keep driving. “This ain’t nothing but bullshit,” he spits out. His grammarian mother would have snapped at “ain’t,” but grammar be damned, she’s not the one stuck with a foreign mute bird of a girl.

  He does love the sensation of words buzzing inside his throat, especially loves to wrap them around a Texas contour. He spent all last year in the library looking up cowboy slangs. The more phrases slip through his lips, the more he feels like a cowboy. Bonus that each little saying gets a rise out of his East-Coast, strict-tongue mother.

  When he’s cornered, he talks. When he’s stumped, he talks. When he’s outwitted, he talks. Right now, the conditions for running his mouth are tripping all over themselves.

  “You likely don’t know, but Bruce Ford on a bronc is pure magic. See, what he does is he jacks his feet way up high for greater leg extension, and his riding arm absorbs all the horse’s beating, that’s how he hangs on past eight seconds as easily as you and me breathing. Lots of times he rides on for ten, eleven, just for the fun of it. They say, and I don’t doubt it, he’ll be the first cowboy to pocket a hundred grand for one year’s worth of barebacking. Man, oh man, he could take . . .”

  He’s so busy talking he hasn’t bothered to turn on the cassette tape. It wouldn’t be right listening to rap right now anyhow. Rap requires a happy mood. He should be mad, downright furious. But he’s never liked how anger plugs the hole in his throat, messing with his breathing. It does help that the girl knows to hush.

  “It took me eighteen long years to get some distance from my parents. Well-meaning and all, but they got ideas. Would have loved to ship my bee-hind to Yale, their pride and joy, but man, did I surprise them. This cowboy life, it’s not a choice, it’s a calling that . . .”

  When he finally glances at his passenger, she’s mighty green. Probably from bundling up neck to toes. No right-minded Texan would ever be caught with sleeves down in this heat. Her one hand squeezes her mouth, the other fumbles at the front pocket of her backpack.

  “Listen up, this here is a brand-new truck.”

  She does not look like she cares. He eases to the shoulder, remembering his parents’ warning about getting his side mirror ripped right off. But an emergency is an emergency.

  The girl frees a plastic bag and places it under her mouth just in time. He stares at her, has stopped talking and driving to really look. Sees a girl in need of comfort. He rolls down the window for airing, then goes to the back of the truck.

  He hands over a cold ginger ale. “It’ll do you wonders.”

  She reads the label, stretches the cold can across her forehead.

  “No, you drink it, like this.” He takes the can, pops it, and pretends a tilt toward his mouth. “My mom always gave me ginger ale when I felt poorly. She’s good like that.”

  The girl now holds it upright on her forehead, seemingly annoyed that it can no longer be sideways.

  If anyone has a right to be annoyed, it’s certainly not this little missy turning up her nose at a perfectly good ice-cold coke. LeeRoy has a mind to leave her right here on the side of the highway. But he would waste more time circling back.

  Before driving on, he starts to roll up the window. She shakes her head like she’s flinging off a spider, points to her throat. He tries to turn on the air conditioner. She nips that move too.

  He has to admit hot wind is better than smelling vomit. But not much better. He grabs the can and gulps its bubbly goodness. Burps.

  “Shows you.”

  Without so much as a glance at him, the girl snatches back the empty can and presses it sideways against her forehead.

  LeeRoy looks on down the highway. It’s already an awfully long day.

  Red Line Across Pale Throat

  The can, albeit warmer now, revives her like a gigantic piece of ginger. She’s relieved to not be gnawing a nub in front of the cowboy, who would say the root looks like a deformed hand. Then he would insist on tasting it and drown her with opinions about its scorching rawness.

  Hằng doesn’t want to talk, even if her English were perfect. The quiet soothes her, allowing concentration on the one goal that will make worthwhile the six years of planning and the twelve days at sea. Then there were the three days on the island and the four and a half months in a refugee camp, an unusually short stay because of her Extreme Trauma status. All of it, even the worst of it, will be erased upon clutching her brother.

  A year after the war, her uncle had written that Linh had vanished. Bà then swirled up plans for herself, Hằng, and Mother to cross the world and look for him themselves. Saving money remained the priority. They needed enough gold to secure three places on an escape boat. Prices kept rising as some Saigonese began bribing their way onto flimsy fishing vessels. Their old paper money was worthless after the new regime adopted new currency; their men were imprisoned in reeducation camps; their homes were confiscated; their children would be taught Communist thinking. And mostly everyone was hungry.

  The goal was to reach international waters and hope for mercy from a friendly ship. If not that, then escapees aimed for the Philippines (the most welcoming) or Indonesia or Malaysia. Everyone knew to steer clear of Thailand, whose gulf was ruled by fishermen turned pirates. But it wasn’t always possible to control the direction of the wind or the strengths of currents.

  The savings would take years, as her uncle could only send a few hundred dollars annually. Any more and the Communists would record them as rich. Being rich brought attention, which brought resentment, which brought trouble.

  Last year they received great news. Various countries would begin accepting refugees under the Orderly Departure Program, which meant flying out instead of chancing death on rickety boats. Too many bodies were being buried at sea.