The Asiatic Flu

There will be much more about finally being allowed, at the age of eleven, to live with my mother again; more stories; some deaths; shoplifting; sex; cocaine. But I want to jump back first. I want to finish some of the travels and hold onto my anger for a while, the anger with my father that eats at me still, though only occasionally, in the middle of the night perhaps, or when my mind wanders as I'm stuck on the freeway.

On a trip to Asia when I am seven, our dad, Adam, tries unsuccessfully to get us into Red China. This is the '70s. Carter may be following Nixon's let's-be-friends-with-China example but it's still very difficult for Americans to get the permission to travel there.

To me, it's hard to imagine my father in a totalitarian state unless he is the totalitarian.

He does manage to get us permission to go to Vietnam even though the war's effects are still being felt. My passport from that time even has a visa for Vietnam stamped in it. Before we board the plane, though, someplace at or near the airport in Saigon is bombed by someone or other and we can't go, but I don't mind. The hotel in Bangkok has a petting zoo, and the cooks in the restaurant there knew how to make scrambled eggs the way I like them, hard, nothing gooey or wet like the hotel in Cairo. Thankfully I am not aware of Thailand's burgeoning trade in boy prostitutes. If someone tells me I am sure to run away and sell myself. Give myself, really, for free to all comers.

Instead of going to Vietnam we end up in Hong Kong, where every one of our dollars is worth five! I love that. I feel very lah-dee-dah at the mall there, spending $50 on a Corgi car set, my first experience with actual cash in many a moon. The hotel provides guests with silk robes my father tells us we can take with us when we leave, though it is unclear to me how the hotel management feels about it.

My half-sister Betsy (I just call her my sister) has been born by then and is tagging along. Traveling with a baby is a drag, especially since her mother, Laura, my step-mother, insists on breastfeeding her everywhere. Laura's breasts don't bother me, but the fact that when she does it people can see her hairy underarms mortifies me. And the diaper situation is dire. Laura will only use cloth diapers which means stinky diaper pails and a faint odor of ammonia wherever we stay. I don't care if landfills kill the planet, I don't want to live in a world without disposable diapers. Or air-conditioning.

The Asian travels go on for a couple of months, and seem pointless in a way. Most of the time we sit around the hotel. Dad goes off and does things that I have no knowledge of or concern about. We aren't even tourists really. Just odd Americans ordering a lot of room service and stinking up the place with dirty diapers.

Our return to Blanco, Texas is to be temporary as my dad is building the first of his ranches and we are in town waiting for the houses to be constructed.

My aborted attempt at running away still resonates through our household. A war of attrition is beginning. Adam often tries to talk me out of wanting to leave, to explain, patiently, hypnotically, how his influence is so crucial to my development, how his superior knowledge and far thinking genius is what will make the difference in my life, how it will turn me from the selfish materialist that I am into a caring, brilliant adult.

I think he's full of shit. But all I do is nod and repeat over and over to him that although I know he is right, I still want to live with my mother. Occasionally my hatred and resentment bubbles through and I forget to preface my request with the requisite "I know you are right," but those times are rare.

The ranch makes it all worse to me since to this day I hate the outdoors and anything rustic. Adam and Laura are to be in the main house with my sister Betsy. It is a strikingly designed building with a soaring cathedral ceiling on one side of the house and a glass bridge going over to the bedrooms that occupy the other side of the second story.

My brothers and I are to live in what we call the bunkhouse, so named, one assumes, since we sleep in actual bunk beds.

I may be unhappy about living with my dad and step-mother, but my unhappiness is mitigated by the prospect of having my own house. I think of it as mine, even though it is shared. This is not an unusual reaction for me to have. Adam calls me selfish. Others will echo the judgment. I think of it as just trying to stay alive.