You meet him so often you’ve taken notice. He's a man whose presence tiptoes around things, a man who will walk into a room and no one will notice, a man who even in public seems to claim less than his fair share of space. He's the kind of person that the mind easily forgets. So to notice him, for you, is something special. You’ve noticed, for instance, that the side
pocket zipper of his backpack bag is broken, that he keeps to the right edge of
the pavement and walks in a straight line and that he has a scar behind his left ear, which you first mistook for a tattoo of a crescent. Mostly, you’ve
noticed that he’s a man of incredible regularity and who keeps to his schedule like
clockwork. Even the way he walks - how he plants his left foot ahead and then the
right – is so regular and timed you’d think his feet respond to a beat, to a metronome planted somewhere in his head. A symmetric rhythm. You see him every evening when you go for your runs or take your walks. He’s become a feature of your landscape, a
monument, a landmark. Him and his blue bag.
You used to pass each other like ships in the dark.
Now you say hello and jog on. Or walk on. You’ve become acquaintances of sorts. Sometimes you pass and when moments later you look back, what
do you see? Him keeping that regular pace of his, looking down at his little feet,
plodding ahead, going home. To his family. To his dog. To his video game. To his book perhaps. He reminds you of drive.
Secretly you call him Xing because, hell, dude looks
Chinese. He might not be but he looks like one. Often times you've tried to imagine how he’d react if one day instead
of your usual hellos and how-are-yous you said, “Mr. Xing, sorry to disrupt
your walk but I really do like your scarf. May I know where you purchased it if you don't mind...I’d
love to get me one like that.”
Now, homeboy's phone might ring at this point, "The" Nokia tune that you know so well because your first ever phone was a Nokia, an ugly thing the shape of a Lifebuoy soap, which despite its ugliness you adored like the light of a new sun. He will raise his finger to motion to you to allow him answer it first, then he'll reach into his blue bag and grab it. “Salome, mia dakika apar kende abiro. Pod wach moro omaka kae matin,” he'll say, which
will knock the wind clean out of you and perhaps push you to take a step from the concrete
pavement into the grass. And have you reach out for the street-lamp post to support
yourself and catch some breath because you’ll feel a little dizzy and short of
air. Naturally, he'll step into the grass too, out of concern and he’ll ask if you’re
okay, if he should call an ambulance for you. You’ll say you are dandy but in
your heart of hearts you’ll know you lied to your friend here. Later, though, while you lie in bed in your apartment going over the incident in your mind you'll say to yourself that the lie served him right for pulling a coup de surprise on your ass the way he did...what if he killed you? He'll put the phone back into the bag and say, “Sorry man, am not Xing. They call me Onyango Rabet Sibuor Owadgi Awino,”Holy bag of shit. This is when a weaker man might take off.
Maybe he will not tell you anything. Maybe he’ll stop dead on his tracks and look straight into your eye and not utter a word the whole time. Now, let me tell you something about that look of his. There are looks that break a man in two, if you know what I mean. Looks that say shut the fuck uuup!!!. Mothers are known to go for them when they’ve had enough of your horseplay; that evil side-eye that pins you down and suffocates you in three seconds flat. Homeboy's look here is that kind times fifty four thousand; it leaves you feeling scorched lovely. You'll feel the gaze penetrate you with a fever-dream slowness and you’ll wish you never said the X word but that won't matter; t'will be too late. You’ll be embarrassed something awful. Little beads of sweat will gather in your face and armpits and your back too, perhaps. And he'll stand there not
taking his eyes off you for a full minute. And your head will be bowed in defeat like you’re the victim of an Isis beheading orgy, looking at your feet and noticing for the first time that your shoes have aged some. You won’t know what to do with your hands so you’ll bury them in your
pockets and keep them buried...and wait. After what will seem to you like a lifetime he'll walk away.
Maybe he’ll tell you his name is Shao, not Xing and you’ll be like,
“Sure Shao I apologize; I don’t know why my friend Xing keeps leaping into my
head today” like liars everywhere. And he’ll say no problem no problem (twice), seeing
clean through your lie. Bad start. Another guy might not like you for being so shameless but Shao is not that other guy.
Shao will see a friend in you and invite you to hang out during the weekend
which you’ll agree to and while you hang out with him and Ming (his
girlfriend) that weekend he will launch into a little life story. You'll get to know him a little better: that
he first came to the United States two years ago to visit an uncle in New York; that he stayed
a month and visited Seattle and San Francisco and D.C. and The Grand Canyon as well. And
that when his visit was over he decided he liked the experience and wanted to come
back. That he went back to Beijing and sent applications to several colleges but got
rejected by all but one, the one he almost didn’t apply to in the first place. Here,
his voice will trail a little and take a small bow and Ming will reach over and rub his arm ever so gently. You
will notice that he did indeed looove America because he will talk about her
the way one talks about a lover – in a manner more touch than sound, like
it’s something for the heart alone. Something to be felt. He will compare America and China and
comment on many varied things, words spilling out of him like bats flying
from their cribs at dusk to chase the sun. He’ll say that Donald Trump is an
asshole. And you’ll laugh then ask if he has friends who’re down with Trump but
your question will hang above the room unnoticed because Ming will already
be telling a story about this Goth group she recently joined that is Oh my God... total gold dust!. Shao will then ask
you about yourself, which will strike you as one of those unintentionally broad
and unanswerable questions. Now, I don’t know about you but how do you answer a
question like: tell me about yourself
or who are you? Being ever so quick on the draw, you’ll string words together and give to him and hope his Chinese ass asks no more questions. Ming. Ming will surprise you. She'll pussyfoot into the living room at some point holding a half-rolled blunt and ask if you smoke. She'll say it with so much charm, in that silvery voice of her's, you'll feel tempted to consider the offer but you'll say, politely of course, that you don't. And what will she do? Quote a Wiz Khalifa line about how not smoking pot takes your country a whole generation back and then some. No, she'll rap the whole damn song line for line while she lights the joint before she takes a puff. She'll then pass it to Shao. And as she waits for him to pass the joint back she'll pull her sleeve up and show you a tattoo of Wiz Khalifa's album title Rolling Papers. A die-hard fan. A certified stoner and rap enthusiast. Shao will tell you that Sundays he likes to eat noodles and go downtown to play
pingpong with buddies of his: Guang, Cheng, Hong, Mani and another dude -Park - who you'll remember because he sold you a bike on craigslist weeks ago.
Maybe Xing will straight out ignore you. Maybe he’ll have had a bad day
and feels kinda bitchy. And doesn’t take too kindly to being stopped on the way
home by funny looking evening running halfwits to answer to questions about
scarves. You will stand there watching him walk away, you feeling rejected and
him walking faster than you ever saw him do. Then he’ll look back at some point
and you’ll think to yourself “Xing sure got attitude today”...then you'll get back to your running.
