The snow outside, the bluish ambiance, the two amber street lights, reminds me of that night I was returning from work. It was snowing, but not a blizzard; it was the snow between the two big blizzards. I saw a police car, the only thing moving, slowly making its way through the tough streets of Bridgeport, one of the saddest cities in the Northeast. I imagined a story.
I imagined my Dad waiting at the Bridgeport train station. He rarely has any expression on. And on that night, in my imagination, it was no different. He was standing there, his gloveless hands held crossed over his belly. He doesn't usually wear gloves even though he carries them. He doesn't like the feeling of them. And if you look at his hands, you might make yourself believe that the inch-thick callous would work well as an insulator. He was a high school teacher back in China, but they also made him do a lot of manual work during the Cultural Revolution. He did a lot of manual work after coming to this country, before working as a clerk. So I don't know where his callouses came from. Perhaps simply from being stubborn at not wearing gloves on a wintry night like this.
The snow was falling slowly, big flakes, but not a lot. The platform was deserted except for his presence. He stood under one of those greenish lights, mercury, is it?, makes someone's face look very sickly. He was standing next to the automated ticket machine.
I imagined the story because I was thinking about relationships that didn't work. My mind had been engulfed in my own struggles with one relationship or another that hadn't been working. And I imagined the relationship of my parents. They weren't in love, but their marriage at least wasn't arranged as their parents' were. I am not clear on why they got married. Maybe they liked each other. Why do people need to fall in love in order to get married? Their marriage has always had problems. But it lasted all the way till now. It lasted because my Dad could swallow anything. Unlike me, he had the patience of a saint; you could slap both his cheeks and he would smile if that was what was expected. My Mother never slapped him, but she had always been a difficult person, for everyone.
But in my imagination, I thought they had a fight, and she left him. She was working as a nanny, or a caretaker for old people, in Bridgeport, some seventy-five minutes from New York City, where they had lived. What inspired me was the quietness of the setting. My Dad's eyes moved a little when he saw the police car slowly navigating through the snowy streets. But the rest of his body didn't move. He was afraid of the police, and taught me to be afraid, too. The Chinese police would get you for saying things they didn't like, and the Americans would get you because you're an immigrant. His eyes turned back at staring at the distance, the dark chasm between his New York bound platform and the other one. He was waiting for my Mother to show up. Occasionally, a piece of snow fell from the eaves above him and made a splash on the platform edge in front of him, making no sounds. He didn't move. He wasn't even thinking, let alone worried about the confrontation that we might expect. He was almost falling asleep, as it seemed. His eyebrows were graying, his thinning hair still mostly dark, uncovered by any hat. He has little whiskers on his lips. He used to teach me how he removed hair, before I had any facial hair myself. He used two quarters and basically plucked out his facial hair, the little that most Asian men had. I never bothered to show him the razor; he wouldn't find it useful.
Then the sounds of steps. A stranger? Yes. In my imagination, it was a black woman all bundled up, not unlike the black woman that sat next to me the previous morning after boarding from the same train to New York. She, too, had no expression; no reason to show anything on this frigid day. My Dad didn't notice her, or at least, remained a statue. She threw him a look and walked past him toward the center of the platform.
More steps, this time my Dad stirred. After more than forty years together, you know very well the fingerprint of your partner's steps, regardless of the surface walked on, the shoes worn. He wet his lips a little with his tongue, as if he had woken up from a stupor. My Mother showed up at the top of the stairs, looked at him with as much disdain as she could, but not a sign of surprise. One time in a hospital bed my Mother told my Dad that she wanted a divorce, and he simply said nothing. She now looked down as she approached him, while he smiled. It was that shy smile, where his eyes, swollen with age, got even narrower. Age has also made his back hunched more, but when he smiled like that, he hunched even more, to show humility.
He had a plastic bag in one of his bare hands. I have never seen him carry any bag besides plastic bags. At least my Mother owns a fake leather handbag, but my Dad has always used a plastic bag from some store in Chinatown. He gestured the bag and said, "Some hot pork buns, if you're hungry."
"How can they be hot in this cold weather? Are you stupid?" darted my Mom. The smile didn't fade, but the shoulders moved up a little to show acquiescence. She took the bag, anyway, looked inside, touched something, and said, "They are not hot."
A pair of yellow lights appeared behind them in the distance. The black woman was pacing slowly, interrupted only by the acknowledgment of the coming train. The city remains quiet. The police car has disappeared somewhere. Around this pair of aged immigrants and a stranger there was just the withering industries of America's past glory. And yet, the peacefulness for a moment made us forget the negative evaluations of the present. The dilapidated buildings, shuttered stores, abandoned factories, empty parking lots, all sleeping under a blanket of old snow and a fresh new, white one of the current shower. In the distant that you couldn't see, was the big body of water that separated Long Island from the three strangers. At the southwestern tip of that island was where they were returning to, after, I imagine, a few days of separation. Just a few days. Because my parents, however different they are, however incompatible they are, however much they shouldn't have been together for so long, remained as one. As she timidly munched the cold, white pork bun, she kept quiet. It was this mutual silence that bore the words of yet another reconciliation. They didn't know what would make them happy. They never really knew. Having children was too complicated. Having cable TV to watch all day didn't get them closer to happiness, even though they were able to see what life was like in their home country that was changing by the second. But now they had their silence, and it was enough to erase whatever that caused the angry and bitter words between them a few days ago. Yes, my Dad, being so quiet, seeming so gentle, could come out very ferocious; perhaps it is this contrast between a peaceful man and an explosive one that could hold down my Mother who always complained and never was satisfied.
So the police car in the snow in Bridgeport inspired me to think about my Dad. I count myself lucky that he's still so healthy. For someone who has experienced so much social upheaval and personal struggles, it's a wonder he is sick with something. In the end, his quietness, which could be unexpectedly pierced by anger, matched really well the peace that was being enforced but also possibly broken by the police car roaming around, looking for trouble.
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