Paul Backalenick

THE PORTAL

His mother’s words rained down like a thunderstorm.

“You’re in the way, Bao. I almost fell on you!”

The small boy, no more than sixty pounds, stumbled to a stop, cringing as his knees buckled. With all his might, he stood up straight and struggled to hold the heavy tub of coconut oil. He needed to carry it across the slippery kitchen floor, and dropping it would be a disaster. He wanted help. He wanted to complain to her, but he knew he would only receive a sharp lecture, if she responded at all. Wishing he could disappear into the hot steamy mist, he staggered to a spot near the wall.

 “I’ll go around you!” she grumbled.

He tightened his little arms around his greasy burden and held it tight against his chest. Drops of sweat stung his eyes and he did his best to blink them away. He looked up at his mother in the dim light but could not see her face through the armload of bok choy she carried.

He heard her drop the white vegetables on a high wooden counter and knew he could move again. He adjusted the tub and resumed walking toward the huge iron stove that was the heart of the Nhà Rộng (Big House) restaurant.

Thick steam filled the kitchen as orange flames licked up from the stovetop. Bao could just make out the silhouette of his father standing alongside two other cooks. All three men busily stirred vegetables, shrimp, and pork in their sizzling woks. He walked carefully toward them. No windows brightened the kitchen. Only a screen door opened to the alley outside. It provided faint light and did nothing to vent the stifling heat.

Bao reached his father and nudged the tub against the man’s leg. Quan turned and looked down at his eldest son. “Give it to me,” he said. Bao strained to lift the tub higher, but only raised it a few inches. “I’ll get it,” his father said as he reached down and swept it from Bao’s arms. The sudden lightness made Bao feel like he might float away. He watched his father place the tub on a shelf next to the stove and resume cooking.

He turned and encountered his mother again.

“Take this out,” she commanded, handing him a dark green, lumpy trash bag nearly as large as he was. Grasping its neck with both hands, he dragged it across the floor to the exit.

Outside, the screen door closed behind him, and he set the bag down on the narrow landing. He stopped there and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Before him, two steps led down to an alley between the restaurant and the laundromat next door. He glanced to his left where the alley dead-ended at a brick wall some thirty feet away. Turning back, he looked across the way at a windowless wall that held a single closed door. He stared at it for a moment before hauling the bag down to the ground and over to the huge dumpster on his right.

A flimsy wooden crate stood alongside the blue metal behemoth, and he climbed onto it. Wrinkling his nose at the odor of rotting trash, he pressed the bag against the side of the dumpster and, pushing up from the bottom, shoved it up and over the top. It landed inside with a soft thump, and his arms collapsed at his sides.

Despite the rancid smell, he remained standing there. A little Vietnamese boy, nearly eight years old, he listened for a moment to the traffic on Manhattan’s Ninth Avenue. Then he stepped down, but instead of returning to the kitchen, he walked deeper into the alley, toward the brick wall at the far end. He felt daring and excited, full of bravado. I can walk away if I want to!

As he neared the wall, he thought he might rest against it for a moment. But a wisp of wind grazed his face, and he entered another world. The air was different, warm and clean, so unlike the soured alley. Rich dark earth felt soft under his sneakers. A curtain of green leaves hung before him in a multitude of shades and shapes and sizes. There were large dark ones as big as a wok and others that were pale green, looking soft and glimmering in the mottled light. They waved to him and he pushed his little hands ahead to part them.

He stepped through the opening he had made and found he was in a clearing. At the far side, he saw big ferns and tall plants with bright yellow, pink, and blue flowers. The world around him had transformed into a lush tropical oasis. He stood still, taking in the dazzling colors, delighting in this sparkling, wondrous new place. For the first time in a long time, he felt happy and free. He knew he couldn’t stay long, but for this brief moment, he could experience beauty and serenity, away from the stifling kitchen.

Then his calm was shattered by a deafening roar that pierced his ears and sent him stumbling backward. He turned and ran through the trees and out of the clearing.

He was back in the alley, and he looked around, trying to understand what had happened. Was it a dream? He didn’t think so. There was no explanation, and he ran back to the kitchen.

As soon as he was inside, his mother grabbed him and shook his bony shoulders. “Where have you been?” she shouted. “I looked everywhere for you.” She let go of him and picked up a bamboo cane she kept on a shelf. She smacked him with it on his side and yelled, “Over two hours!”

He held up a small hand, trying to defend himself. “No! I went outside, just for a second.”

“A second!” she snorted. “Don’t do that again. You stay here!’

He shivered and looked back toward the screen door. The sky had darkened. It was much later than he expected, and the kitchen was bustling now, well into the dinner hour. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. That was a dream, he told himself sharply. I fell asleep and had a dream. It wasn’t real.

***

One week later, on a late September afternoon when no one was after him to do something, he walked to the screen door and looked out at the alley. Glancing quickly behind him and hoping no one saw him go, he slipped out and stood again at the top of the steps.

He stared blankly across the way, with no particular plan, when a heavyset young woman with long black hair emerged from the door of the laundromat. Normally, that door remained closed, and it surprised him to see anyone come through it.

The woman glanced at him and then turned and strode away to his left, toward the back of the alley. As she neared the brick wall, she vanished. He squinted at the spot where she had been. Where did she go? There was nowhere she could go. She had completely disappeared. He tried to think. Is she with the dinosaurs? Is she a ghost? Another dream?

Throughout his life, Bao had heard chuyện ma, ghost stories. People who died unhappy deaths became ghosts. She must have been a ghost, maybe a bad one. He waited a moment longer, and when she did not reappear, he turned and dashed back into the kitchen.

He found his mother at the vegetable counter just inside the door. Anh was busily slicing a cabbage, and he tugged at her shirt. “Come see! A woman in the alley. A ghost! She disappeared!” He tried to pull her to the door.

“What?” she asked, shaking him off and continuing to cut the cabbage. She did not look at him. “What?” she asked again.

He stared up at her and spread his hands out from his sides. “A ghost. I saw her. She came into the alley and now she’s gone.” He stood on his toes, waiting for a response, but she still did not look his way.

At last, his mother stopped what she was doing and looked down at him. His eyes were wide open and he was trembling slightly. With a shake of her head, she handed him a large plastic trash bag. “Here, hold this,” she said. “Hold it open.”

Bao clenched his teeth, but did as he was told, and she dumped into the bag onion skins, bok choy leaves, loose bean sprouts, and other kitchen scraps.

He tried one more time. “She disappeared! I think she was a ghost!” But his mother said nothing and resumed slicing the cabbage. With a tightly closed mouth, he shoved the bag against the wall next to her and retreated to a corner of the room.

***

At 9:00 p.m. that night, in the Queens apartment that Bao’s family shared with two older cousins, Bao knelt down on the floor next to a lumpy mattress. His five-year-old brother Binh was already asleep, facing the wall. Making space for himself, Bao slid his plastic dinosaur collection off his side of the bed and lay down, but he dared not shut his eyes. He had seen a ghost and he worried it would come back and take him while he slept. With his little brother breathing peacefully beside him, Bao remained awake for many hours before finally falling into a fitful sleep just before dawn.

As the sun rose and light crept in through the pale curtains, everyone else was awake, dressing, heating pho for breakfast, and talking among themselves, but Bao remained asleep. 

His mother reached down and gently squeezed his shoulder. “You must get up, Bao. Time for school.”

The boy looked up at her, blinking his eyes. “What?” he asked, not fully awake. He knew he had been angry with her but could not recall why.

“Happy birthday,” she said. She kissed the top of his head and squeezed his shoulder again. “Up now,” she smiled. He did not move. “Why are you so sleepy?” she asked.

He wiped his eyes and remembered. “At work, in the alley, there’s a ghost. Maybe here too,” he added anxiously.

She peered at him for a moment and shook her head. “Get dressed now.”

He rose slowly, put on his clothes, and said nothing more.

In his second-grade class that day, Bao fell asleep at his desk, earning him a sharp rebuke from Mrs. Robinson, his teacher. Later in the afternoon, back at the restaurant, he found himself standing near the stove, not sure how he had gotten there. In his drowsy state, he nearly stumbled into it, causing a cook to push him away and scold him for being underfoot.

All day he avoided going into the alley or even looking outside, but just before leaving that evening, he stole one furtive glance out the screen door and then quickly turned away.

***

 That night, his mother celebrated his birthday in the American way. Bao, his father, and Binh sat around their little kitchen table as Anh stood behind her older boy. She placed before him a small cake crowded with eight flickering candles and whispered in his ear that he should blow out them out and make a wish. Bao struggled to think of one as the candles burned down.

“Hurry,” his mother urged.

He decided to wish that the ghost would go away, and he announced that wish out loud. Everyone, even Binh, laughed at that. Shaking her head a little, his mother leaned over his shoulder and cut a small piece of cake for him. “Happy birthday,” she said.

Although pleased by her attention, Bao only took a small bite and stared silently at the table.

***

After a week of restless nights and sleep-deprived days, Bao summoned the courage to investigate the alley. She’s a good ghost, he insisted to himself. In the fading afternoon light, he pushed cautiously through the screen door and walked down the steps. Nobody saw him leave, but a dishwasher from the restaurant stood outside in the alley smoking a cigarette. Bao started toward the man, who shook his head, turned, and walked farther down the alley. Bao decided the man wanted to be left alone, so he climbed back up the steps and watched from there.

As the man neared the far wall, he vanished. It happened again. He disappeared! He must be another ghost! Bao ran inside and tried to tell his mother, but she would not listen. Instead she pointed to a mop and bucket in a corner. “Mop this floor,” she ordered.

When the dishwasher had not come back that night or the next day, Mr. Trong, Bao’s uncle and the owner of Nhà Rộng, told everyone the man had decided not to return to work. But Bao knew differently. Although he rarely spoke to his rich uncle, who lived in his own big house, Bao tried to explain. “He turned into a ghost.”

Uncle Trong looked down at him as if he were considering the possibility. “No, he just went away. He’s somewhere else now.”

Bao nodded gravely. He believed the dishwasher had joined the other ghost.

***

At home a few nights later, Anh sat at the kitchen table and opened a letter from Mrs. Robinson. She carefully read the teacher’s words. Bao’s performance had declined drastically. He was sleeping in class, telling wild stories, disrupting the other children, and his schoolwork was suffering. The teacher suggested maybe Bao was working too many hours at the family restaurant.

Anh threw down the letter, stood up, and found her son. “Bao, work harder in school,” she shouted. “What’s the matter with you!”

Bao attempted to explain yet again about the ghosts and the disappearing people, but his mother had no patience with him. “Stop telling stories!” she yelled. “You must do better.” Bao sputtered in protest, but she pinched his upper arm. He whimpered at the pain and burst into tears. She looked down at him, her eyes fiery with rage. “You must work harder! Now go to bed.”

Bao wiped the tears from his cheeks with his small fists and ran to his mattress.

The next morning, he sorted through his dinosaur collection until he found the little plastic Triceratops. Thinking it looked fierce and strong, he put it in his pants pocket.

That afternoon his mother was working in the front of the restaurant, and Bao saw an opportunity to slip away. No one saw him leave the kitchen and walk out the door and into the alley. One step from the wall, he hesitated, fearing the ghosts beyond, but then he sensed a breeze and the sweet smell of rich plant life, and he stepped through the portal.

As before, moist air warmed his arms. Again he faced a curtain of large tropical leaves swaying in the wind, and he pushed through these. He was back in the clearing. A wide grin filled his face. Across the way, he saw the leafy plants, big ferns, and bright flowers. He loved it here, and he rushed across the grass, avoiding some rocks and muddy spots. At the other side he stopped, panting with excitement, and felt a shiver of expectation shoot through his chest. He took a deep breath.

Standing before the second leafy curtain, he heard faint whooshing sounds and snorting grunts. He pushed the branches and leaves aside and poked his head through. A vast lake glowed in the sun, and gigantic long-necked dinosaurs stood in the shallow water, chewing on waving grasses. Bao craned his neck, trying to see everything in the wide watery landscape. He felt the little Triceratops in his pocket and thought this time when I come back, I will bring a dinosaur with me. He was determined to lead a dinosaur back and send it rampaging through Nhà Rộng.

Then something touched his shoulder from behind, and he whirled around. The dishwasher, who had vanished days before, waved at him with one hand and gripped his upper arm with the other. He pulled Bao back into the clearing.

Bao wrenched his arm free, but he tripped and fell face down in the grass and dirt, muddying his shirt and scraping his knee on a sharp rock. He staggered back to his feet and brushed some of the dirt off his chest. The dishwasher grabbed his arm again, tighter this time.

“Let me go!” Bao said, trying to wriggle away.

“Quiet!” the dishwasher hissed and pulled Bao back to the other side of the clearing. The man looked around fearfully. “We can talk here,” he said.

Bao stared up at his captor, studying him. “You’re not a ghost?”

“No.” The dishwasher shook his head. “We must go back now. It is dangerous here. Do you know the way?”

“I want to get a dinosaur.”

“You’re crazy. I saw a lady get hurt. We have to leave now.”

Bao tried to remain planted where he was. He had only been there ten minutes or so, and he wished to explore further. “I don’t want to go back yet,” he said. “I want to stay here,” but the man held his arm, clearly afraid to be in this place another moment.

Bao had no choice. This grown man towed him along the edge of the clearing. Finally they came to a stop. The dishwasher flailed with his free hand. “Where? Where?” he demanded.

Bao knew exactly where he had entered, and he pointed hesitantly to a spot a few yards ahead. He hated to leave without a dinosaur, but the man pulled him hard, dragging him to the stand of trees Bao had indicated.

If I stay here, Má will worry I’m not back, Bao thought.  I can come back later. He reached with his free hand and showed the dishwasher the opening through which he had come.

Still clutching Bao’s arm tightly, the man rushed through, pulling the boy after him. A moment later, they were back in the alley, and Bao sniffed the familiar sour smell. He looked back to the wall behind him, but the man yanked him toward the kitchen. “Come!” he insisted.

With Bao stumbling behind him, the dishwasher pulled the boy up the steps to the door and entered the kitchen. Bao noticed his mother was not at the counter to his left. He decided she was still out front and he thought she would not know he had been gone fifteen minutes.

At the stove, Quan noticed a slight shift in the air as the door behind him opened. He stopped stirring vegetables and turned, hoping his son might have come through the door. Instead, he saw the missing dishwasher. But a moment later, he spied Bao behind the man. His son was dressed in a dirty shirt and torn pants, with one knee exposed.

Quan dropped his chuan, his spatula, and ran across the kitchen. He reached around the dishwasher and lifted up his boy, hugging him tightly. “Oh, oh Bao,” he shouted, “We were so worried. We could not find you. Where have you been? You were gone so long!” He looked angrily at the dishwasher. “Were you with this man all this time?”

In his father’s arms, Bao felt like he was being crushed, but he had never felt so loved. “It wasn’t so long,” he said.

“It has been over two weeks! Your mother and I, your cousins, your brother; we were all so worried. And now you are here. I must call your mother.” He put Bao down and hurried to the wall phone in the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the restaurant.

Ahn was home staring at the street through their kitchen window. She jumped up to answer the ringing phone and heard her husband shout, “He’s here!”

“Bring him home now!” she yelled back.

Saying nothing to the dishwasher or his fellow cooks, Quan pulled his son through the restaurant and out the front door. “We’re going home.”

Bao thought it was too early to leave work. “Why?” he asked, his little feet rushing to keep up with his father.

Out on the sidewalk, Quan looked down at his boy and shook his head. “You’ve been gone for two weeks, even more. We thought we would never see you again! Your mother has been very upset. The police, everyone, looked for you. We thought you were lost. Come now.”

“Two weeks?” Bao asked. It seemed like fifteen minutes.

They walked to the corner bus stop where Quan paused and squatted down, eye-to-eye with his boy. “Where were you all this time?”

Bao thought for a moment as cars, trucks, and buses roared down the avenue. Horns honked and brakes squealed. A herd of dinosaurs swirled through his mind, and he put a hand in his pocket and squeezed his tiny Triceratops. No one believed me before. He will not believe me now. He shook his head and stared at the sidewalk. “I don’t know,” he said.

Quan placed his hands on his son’s shoulders. “You scared us very much, all of us. We love you. Please don’t run away again.” He paused and studied Bao’s downcast eyes. “You weren’t with that man?”

Bao shook his head.

“Was it because you were working too much at the restaurant?”

Bao looked into his father’s dark eyes. “Yes,” he whispered.

“So you ran away. Why didn’t you tell us? You should have said something.”

Bao’s throat tightened up, his mouth dry. His tongue felt thick and he could not speak for a moment. But then he squeezed the dinosaur in his pocket again and said softly, “I wanted to.” It was more than that, he thought, more than the restaurant. He went on, “I tried to. Nobody would listen to me.”

Quan squeezed his boy’s shoulders and nodded. “We will change that.”

Paul Backalenick    ©    2024