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HOW I BECAME DUMB AND HAPPY
I had taken the first big step on the long, hard road to dumbness -- vowing never again to set foot in a building with an elevator for the purpose of working. The next step, of course, was vowing never again to wrap a colorful strip of fabric tightly around my neck as a pre-work ritual. I had over a hundred such strips, most costing about the equivalent of three months' wages of the average Chinese. A hangman's noose, I'm sure, is cheap by comparison, proving that it's always more costly to do anything by degrees. It took me a while just getting used to being home in a tee-shirt on a weekday morning. It was unreal and scary. I was guilt-ridden, as though I were flouting every law of god and man. It took me an hour of sitting in front of my PC just to cope with the guilt.
I had ultimately decided against applying my non-existent carpentry skills toward building a cabin in the mountains. Instead, I would write the great Asian American novel. The prospect had thrilled me but now it scared me. What if I were just another liberal arts grad who had deluded himself into believing he harbored latent literary genius? The thought made me break out in a cold sweat. Throwing away a long, grueling and expensive education, not to mention long years of executive experience, to sit at home and peck away at a novel no one would want to publish? What was I, crazy? I broke into a cold sweat. The phone rang. My mother. "You really going to stay home?" "Yep." "And not work?" "I'm working." "What kind of work you do at home?" Her voice was dripping with bitter irony. Clearly, she neither expected nor wanted an answer. "So you going back after one year?" "We'll see." The amenities over, my mother exploded into the tirade I had already heard a dozen times. "Why you want to throw away such a wonderful education? Shame on you. How many diplomas you need to stay home? You don't need nothing to stay home! You don't even need a high school diploma! That Chin Boy stays home too! You want to be a Chin Boy?" She was referring to the schizophrenic son of one of her close friends. In our family "Chin Boy" had always been shorthand for "an embarrassment for the whole family". I listened for a while, then hung up and turned off the ringer. There's no other way to end a call gone bad with my mother. It took me a lot of deep breathing to get Chin Boy out of my mind. The phone rang again as soon as I turned the ringer back on. It was my boss Jack. What Jack had going for him was a big handsome head with a classic Roman profile, flinty blue eyes and terribly distinguished-looking salt-and-pepper hair. That was enough to ensure him power, prestige and an awesome salary. |
"We're sitting here gazing mournfully out at the rain and wondering how you're doing, Fat." I have to admit Jack had a warm, gravelly voice which successfully hid an intellect utterly devoid of the normal human interest in the details of his work. Wiping Jack's ass had always been my unofficial job description. "I'm great, Jack." "What did you say you were doing ?" I knew that Jack knew damned well what I was supposed to be doing but he just wanted to force me to say it, to rub my nose in my own foolishness. "Writing a novel." I almost choked on the last syllable. "A novel, you say? How's that going?" "Getting warmed up," I lied. Actually, I had spent the morning wrestling my conscience and had only typed "The", then deleted it, slowly. "If you're half as good at that as at your job, I'll buy a copy." "Thanks, Jack." "Got enough nuts salted away so the family won't do without?" "We'll manage." There was a silence before Jack said, "Just sit and watch the river flow by?" "Well, I..." I was about to protest politely but firmly that we had already gone over all this three weeks earlier, but Jack cut me short. "Life is a river, Fat. I'm still hoping you'll come to your senses before it all gets too far downstream." "But Jack...." "Just a friendly little heads up, Fat." That was when I realized that Jack had called to hand me an ultimatum. Come back now or expect no guarantees. My belly clutched. Another part of me rebelled. "I better get back to my novel." As I hung up I was angry as hell at myself that my hands were shaking. Had my years as a corporate slave castrated me so completely? PAGE 3
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