Money Boy Read Free Page B

knows how to fight.
    â€œYou know, all my life, I behaved well,” Ba says quietly. “It is important that people respect you.”
    Here comes the standard lecture about proper behavior. Serve the people. Strengthen yourself. Stand tall. Don’t wait until the cooked duck has flown. He complains that we young people have no idea how terribly the Chinese people suffered in earlier times.
    â€œI quit school at age fourteen to help your grandfather,” he starts. “Farmers were finally allowed to sell produce on the free market. Everyone rushed to grow crops.”
    He turns to my chest of drawers and pulls out the top one. He dumps my socks and underwear onto the floor and flings the drawer aside.
    Hey! Niang just did the laundry yesterday. Who’s cleaning this up? Not me!
    â€œFarm life was wretched. Your grandfather forced me to join the army, did you know that?”
    Ba empties more drawers. I sniff the air. Is he drunk?
    â€œHe wanted his son to become a four-star general,” Ba declares sourly. “I served ten years. Then I got discharged. Your grandfather blamed me, called me stupid. He said that so many countries planned to attack China, its leaders would never dare shrink its army!”
    I’ve heard this before, whenever Ba drinks. I never saw Ba show respect to Grandfather, not at family gatherings, not at New Year’s. To be called stupid by Grandfather, was that enough to make Ba angry all his life?
    Ba walks into my closet, bigger than our living room back in China. He dumps my clothes onto the carpet.
    â€œBa!” I shout. “What are you doing?”
    â€œThen I joined the police force,” he says, sighing. He scoops up an armful of my clothes and strolls away.
    By the time I reach the front door, my fashion choices are front-page news on the lawn.
    Luckily, I live by a labels-only motto. Every piece of underwear bears a high-end logo, in case anyone is looking. I run down to grab my jockstrap, even though Ba’s doing a great job of shaming our family all by himself.
    It dawns on me that Ba is throwing me out. This is serious!
    Can he do that?
    Of course he can.
    The autumn was dry, and tattered red and yellow leaves lie everywhere. Across the street, Mrs. Lo is raking her lawn and averting her eyes.
    Ba has gone crazy. You don’t throw your son out of the house just because he visited a few controversial websites.
    Do you?
    I run around the pile of clothes, rescuing items. It took me ages to find the perfect graphics on my T-shirts. My gray hoodie is just two weeks old. Which should I grab, old jeans or newer ones? What about my combats? Jenny liked how mine were different from everyone else’s. I can wear plain white T-shirts with anything.
    Good thing the westerner people live too far down the street to watch us shame ourselves in public. They are friendly enough, always waving and smiling so that no one can accuse them of racism. We take great care never to step on their lawns, and never to park in front of their houses. We must never give them reason to complain about immigrants or to look down at us.
    Ba hurries by with my backpacks and gym bags, and then shakes out my shoes. This must give him great pleasure. He has long grumbled about the steep prices of sneakers and how we own far too many pairs.
    The red ones are for basketball. I wear the white Nikes for gym class. The black high-tops are good for slave labor at the restaurant. And I wear my Jordans when the gang plans a day at the mall or goes to a movie. I should have thrown out the other pairs long ago, but they’re old friends.
    Is Ba going to toss gasoline over them and click his lighter? He might be crazy enough.
    I dash into the house for my laptop. Should I grab my CDs? I told myself to load them onto my iPod long ago. Now it’s too late.
    Ba puts an arm around me and walks me toward the front door.
    â€œCanada was to be a new start,” he says, “but how many