by Harryette Mullen
This is one weird poem—just a paragraph of a lot of unfinished sentences about “them,” like, “They just can’t seem to . . .” and “They never . . .” and “Certainly we can’t forget that they . . .” connected by ellipses. It doesn’t look like any other poem I’ve ever seen, but I found it on a poetry website, so I guess it’s a poem.
Either way, it says a lot to me. Someone’s talking about regrets, I guess. The speaker is trying not to blame “them” outright, but it’s pretty clear that “they” are guilty somehow. Maybe “they” were in a relationship and people are gossiping about them. Or maybe the speaker is saying “they” instead of “he” or “she” and it’s really about one person and what that person did (or didn’t do).
To me, the ellipses represent the unknown and the undone, as if there were a lot of things “they” could have done differently, but we don’t know what they are, exactly. Like, after reading the phrase, “They ought to be more . . .” you could finish it with, “. . . honest” or “. . . forgiving” or “. . . trusting.” But we don’t know for sure what would have worked best.
I think this poem is about guilt and misunderstanding and confusion. Confusion, especially, because of all the unfinished sentences, like the speaker doesn’t know what to say.
35
ANDY CHIN’S PARENTS ARE LEAVING TOWN for two weeks, and he’s having a party this weekend. The girls are staging an intervention and trying to get me to go.
“It’s not healthy to stay at home and obsess by yourself,” says Reggie. “Thom and his friends already have plans, so you don’t have to worry about Caleb.”
“You have to start trying to have fun again,” says Elaine.
“Don’t be a loser,” says Hanh. We’re gathered around Reggie’s locker, and Elaine and Hanh are pushing for a repeat of the homecoming plan.
“Jimmy wants me to be there,” Elaine whines. “We have to go!”
“Talk to your cousin! See if she’ll let us crash after the party,” suggests Hanh, adding hopefully, “maybe the boys can come over.” She means Jimmy and his friend Bao, who she’s been texting with a lot lately. But Reggie is worried about what will happen to the apartment with all of those drunk and drug-addled teenagers around, and what if someone calls the cops? Or worse, a parent?
“We could get in a ton of trouble. My parents are pretty chill, but they would kill me if they found out we had boys over unsupervised. Not to mention drunk.”
“Mine, too. But who says we’re going to get caught? Janet says her sister had a couple of parties at her apartment last summer and it was totally fine. No one called the cops, no one got in trouble,” says Hanh.
“That was at college,” Reggie points out. “This is at Sharon’s. Totally different.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“It’s so unfair that Andy gets to have a whole house to himself and we have to go sneaking around,” Reggie grumbles. “I wish we were boys. Or that our parents were white. It would make things so much easier.”
“C’mon, Reg. Asian pride! You don’t want to be like one of those slutty white girls,” quips Hanh.
“Ha-ha. It’s so messed up. I know my parents used to party when they were younger, back in Hong Kong. I heard my mom saying once how she used to bribe the maid not to tell her parents when she snuck out.”
“That makes both our moms,” Hanh says drily. “Except my mom didn’t have a maid.”
Hanh and Elaine start planning what they will wear to Andy’s party, and I start hoping that everyone will forget about me and I won’t have to go. I manage to hold them off for the entire week, and even all day Saturday. But they are relentless. By Saturday night, I’m receiving a text every five minutes—they must have figured out a schedule between themselves, or maybe even set up a texting bot. All the texts say Sana, come with us! At nine thirty I decide whatever, I’ll just go for a little bit. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I need this. Besides, I’ll never hear the end of it on Monday if I don’t go. I text Reggie:
Fine
Lemme see if my mom will let you pick me up
“Hey, Mom? Reggie just texted—she wants to go to the movies. Can I go?”
Mom glances at the clock and frowns. She hates spur-of-the-moment social plans, and the fact that this one is coming from me, at nine thirty on a Saturday night, has clearly triggered the suspicion-meter in her head.
“No. It’s too late.”
“Mom!”
“You should plan better.” And that’s it. No amount of complaining on my part is going to change her mind. She gets up off the couch and heads to her room to get ready for bed. And somehow, just because she said no, it becomes imperative that I get to that party. I devise a three-phase plan and have a quick text conversation with Reggie:
Hey, Mom says no. I’m still going tho
Yay! We’ll wait for u on Apricot Ave btwn Steinbeck and Cabrillo, and we all can go to Andy’s together
That’s not where Andy lives
Trust me
K fine. Be there around 10:30
This is my plan:
Phase One: Tell Mom I’m going to sleep, wait until ten o’clock, arrange pillows and blankets to look like me under the covers, and sneak out through the window, leaving it open a crack so I can get back in later.
Phase Two: Walk to Andy’s neighborhood, which is barely a mile away, and meet the others at Reggie’s van.
Phase Three: Hang out at the party for a little while, walk home, and be back in bed by midnight.
Mom will never miss me.
Phase One goes smoothly, except for one harrowing moment when I can’t get the screen to pop out, and then when I do it slips out of my fingers and clatters around loudly in the window frame. But I freeze and grit my teeth for five agonizing minutes, and when Mom doesn’t appear, I climb out the window and into the night.
Andy’s neighborhood is a little fancier than mine, and his house is one of those two-story, fake Italian villas with four bedrooms, a study, a “great room,” a living room, and a gourmet kitchen, squeezed onto a square of land that used to be home to a modest bungalow like the one next door. The street is evenly split between the dowdy old houses and the garish new ones. I can’t decide which ones look more out of place. There are cars parked up and down the entire street, and all the lights in Andy’s house are on, and I begin to understand why Reggie wanted to meet two blocks away. When I reach the car, the door opens, and Elaine beckons me in.
I’m still not feeling up to the squeals and hugs that erupt, but I deal with it.
“Okay. Here, Sana. Take two of these.” Hanh shakes two pills out of a little plastic bottle and holds them out. Elaine hands me a water bottle.
“What? What is that?” I did not take Hanh—or anyone here—for a pill popper. This is weird.
“Pepcid AC. It’s for Asian flush.”