Birthday

I'm sitting on a kiddie chair. My knees are pressed against the bottom of a table that's under two feet tall. It's as if I'm crammed in a crate. In front of me I have a drawing pad and eight thick crayons. Sooner or later, the man will find the key to the lock or poke his fist through the door. Before that happens, I want to leave the boy a note, just to let him know I didn't forget his birthday. But unless he's learned to read in the past few months, words will be useless. So I have to say my piece with pictures, and I'm not much when it comes to pictures.

I take up the red crayon and draw a circle; then I put in some eyes. I'm trying for a self-portrait but it's sizing up more feline than Homo sapien. Soon I admit defeat and finish oE' the cat with a pair of triangles for ears.

The man calls my name. "Don't do anything funny while I'm away," he says. His footsteps go down the stairs.

I hurry to the window. The man's walking up the front path. He goes about halfway, turns, and looks back at the house. He catches my eyes and gestures with his hand, like an umpire thumbing a guy out.

I try a yellow crayon. I make another circle, but now I'm distracted by the man's absence. Can't draw with him there, can't draw without him. I go to the window. He's standing at the curb, waiting for the boy, or maybe he's called the police.

Back at the table again, I give my drawing some teeth, big yellow squares. My creation reminds me of my father, though no one else would make the connection.

"What good's a son that .doesn't know who his own father is ?" That's what my father said when I told my parents about the boy and how the three of us planned to set up housekeeping. He dŒdn't care for the idea of his only son adopting a used family. He gritted his false teeth, which he does when he's mad, and said, "Wallace" (he never uses my American name), "don't be such a jerk. There are millions of available Chinese girls. And I'll tell you a secret. The basic anatomy's the same no matter where it comes from. Just say yes, and we'll go to China and find you a nice girl."

My mother nodded, her hair jet black from a beautician's bottle. She said, "Love between lions and sheep has but one consequence." She talks in aphorisms. I don't know if they're the real thing or if she makes them up.

My parents had their hearts set on Connie Chung. "Marry your mother a girl she can talk to without having to use her hands," said my father.

"What makes you think Connie Chung can even speak Chinese?" I said.

"Because she's smart; otherwise, she wouldn't be on TV," said my father.

My mother said, "Only a fool whistles into the wind." At this, even my father shot her a funny look.

On the drive over here I heard a story on the radio about California condors going extinct. I tried to imagine myself as a condor at the dead end of evolution. In my veins I felt the primordial soup bubbling, and my whole entropic bulk quaked as I gazed at the last females of my species. I knew I was supposed to mate, but I wasn't sure how. Yeah, I'd probably have to start by picking a partner. Rut which one? I looked them over, the last three in creation; she'd need to have good genes. Finally, after careful consideration, I chose -- her, the bird with the blond tail feathers. Then I heard my father's voice: "No, not that one, that one."

I wonder if he might be right. Maybe I'd be wise to pack a few suitcases full of Maybelline and soft Italian shoes and go over to China. Plenty of women there in that lipstick-free society. Seduce them with bourgeois decadence, and they'll gladly surrender their governmentally mandated 1.2 children to me.