Charlie's Coming Through the Wire!

Senior Chief Radioman
(RMCS) Decal

I'm 36 years old now.  I was thinking of something this morning that my father said to me about 10 years ago after I had dropped out of school for the second time; "Son, I'm 55 and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up."  I know his intention was to give me hope; to not let me become discouraged and give up trying, but I was shocked.  Not once in my life had I ever suspected him of being unsure of anything.  In an instant he went from being RMCS Piercey United States Navy (retired) to an everyday mild mannered man in my eyes. 

I understand what he was trying to do.  He wanted me to see that it was normal for people to have doubt once and a while.  That it was okay to change directions sometimes; but he failed to realize one thing: I did know what I wanted to be.  I wanted to be sure of myself.  I wanted to be able to make decisions and not second guess them later.  I wanted to be a man of confidence and strength.  I wanted to be just like him.  That's all I ever wanted to be when I grew up. 

After he shared that little secret with me, I felt somewhat lost.  It was no full blown crisis of the soul or anything, but I didn't know what to do with that information.  Ultimately, it became somewhat enlightening.  Part of me still saw my father as the Great and Powerful OZ, all knowing and all seeing, but now there seemed to actually be more to him.  It was as if recognizing him as simply a man made him more enigmatic to me.  It gave him depth.  At the same time, I think I felt closer to him after that.  I still came to him for advice.  I still looked up to him.  Eventually, I realized that I wanted to be like him more than ever, but now it seemed possible.

That brings us back to the present.  The morning of August 27, 2010, where I woke up before the sun had risen to find my oldest daughter had crawled into bed with my wife and me yet again; much like I did with my parents more than 30 years ago.  And before the frustration of the outside world had a chance to sink in, my daughter reminded me of just how far the life's current had carried me.  She reached up and touched my cheek with one hand and whispered around her tiny thumb, "I love you Daddy."  

So I decided that this morning I should take stock of all that I have; to be thankful for life's blessings and ordeals.  In that one magical act of my child expounding her unconditional love for me, I was struck with what can only be described as an epiphany.  That every experience, both good and bad, has led to my happiness.  That even those moments in life when the world seemed to be so very cruel were merely tests of faith and strength.  Nothing more than part of a greater lesson to be learned.  Which brings me to something my father had told me several times throughout my life, "You make your own happiness in this world.  No one can do it for you.  Likewise, no one can make you sad or feel sorry for yourself except you."  Those words alone can seem cruel to a young child.  They can feel like the cold steel voice of a drill sergeant telling a recruit not to be a cry baby.  Or they can be the plain and obvious reality one needs to recognize in order to understand one of the universe's fundamental truths; life is what you make of it.  It can be unfair.  It can be cruel.  It can be utter bliss.  

If I haven't lost you by now, I'd like to share with you the reason for this post today and the origin of its title.  My old friend, Phil, had pointed out to me what he felt to be the hilarious irony of my first name.  It was shortly after we had become friends and I think that I had corrected him when he mistakenly assumed that I was half Korean.  I told him that I was actually half Vietnamese and that my parents had met while my father was stationed in Vietnam during the war.  I remember that he looked at me and gave a short laugh and said that my father must have had a sick sense of humor.  I asked him what he meant and he joyfully pointed out that I was Vietnamese and my father named me Charles.  I didn't get it at first and he simply shouted out, "Charlie's coming through the wire!"  I instantly thought of every Vietnam War movie I had ever seen and burst out laughing at the fact that I had been ignorant of that now seemingly obvious irony my whole life.

The truth is, I spent much of my life trying to deny that I was half Asian.  I had always thought that being half Vietnamese was what was wrong with my life.  It was the reason people teased me as a child.  I didn't want to be a chink or gook.  I wanted to be unnoticed and left alone.  I wanted to be like everyone else.  It's hard to explain.  I've tried so many times in my life to put into words.  I even wrote a story about it last year while at USF.  What follows is NOT an autobiograhy.  It is fiction.  While some things mirror my experiences they are not to be confused with the events that took place in my life.  And please do not think that after all I've said so far that I'm now turning around and calling myself a fraud and a liar.  The story that follows is from the perspective of a young boy who didn't know any better than the natural reactions he had when faced with open predjudice.  It is NOT the persective of the man who wrote it.

     Nguyen was small, even by Vietnamese standards. His jet black hair had that perpetually greasy look that gave you the impression that he either rolled around in bacon fat or simply never bathed. He kept his shirt tucked into his shorts and buttoned all the way to the top. When he spoke, it was obvious that English wasn't his first language. "Fresh off the boat," I heard someone in the back row whisper. I felt relieved that, for the moment at least, I was no longer the class chink. 
     Nguyen surveyed the classroom looking for somewhere to sit and my heart sank. I was certain that he'd want to sit next to the only other Asian in the room and that would only make me a bigger target of ridicule. He looked directly at me. Without a second glance he walked to the back row and sat in the corner farthest from me. 'What the hell is his problem,' I thought. Was I not Asian enough for him? I felt lonlier now than I did before Nguyen came to school.
     At recess I wandered off to my usual corner of the playground away from the swings and jungle gym to play alone. Most of the students divided the school yard between themselves. The different ethnic groups seemed to seperate from each other like oil and water with the exception of a few boys and girls that were too cool to care. Nguyen walked outside behind Bobby and Dale and they all squinted hard in the sunlight. I realized that for a second they all looked Asian with the exception of Bobby's blond hair. Nguyen looked around at everything the playground had to offer a seven year old boy and seemed to be trying to decide what to do next when Seung, one of the Korean boys, ran up and started talking to him.
     I hated Seung. When my family moved to Jacksonville, Seung's little brother was the first boy that I met in my neighborhood. We played together for a while until Seung told me his brother wasn't allowed to play with white boys. I tried to tell him that I was like him and was half Vietnamese but he screamed at me, "I'm Korean!" and he pushed me away.

     Nguyen tried to talk to me after school that day as we sat waiting for our parents to pick us up. "Seung said that you're from Vietnam," he said. I recognized the language, having heard my mom speak in her native tongue with her friends my whole life, but couldn't speak it.
     "I don't speak Vietnamese," I almost shouted at him.
     "Oh. Sorry. I thought that....well because of what Seung said that..." He spoke English like my mother. "Are you Vietnamese?"
     "No. I'm American." I was annoyed with him. My mother never taught me Vietnamese. My father didn't want English to be a second language for his children. I was instantly jealous of all of the things that Nguyen could understand about my own mother that I could not.
     "Are you half...."
     "What a half-breed?" I screemed at him.
     "No. Half Vietnamese... I mean....never mind." He looked like he was going to cry.
     "Yes," I said as he began to turn away. He looked back at me like a lost child in the mall who finally finds his mother.
     "My name is Nguyen."
     "I'm Chuck," I replied.
     "Chuck?" He looked at me like I had just farted.
     "It's short for Charles," I explained. His eyes widened slightly in recognition. "Were you born in Vietnam?" I asked.
     "California. My parents moved there before I was born."
     Just then a rancid green station wagon with artificial wood paneling on the side pulled up in front of us. There were two short Asian women in the front seats. I didn't know the driver, who sat forward in the seat in order to be able to see clearly over the dashboard, but I could have recognized the passenger in a dark room with my eyes closed. My mom climbed out of the car and opened the back door for me. Before I could even take a step, Nguyen had tossed his backpack into the car and dove in after. I gave my mother a suprised look then looked at the driver who I'd never seen before. She had turned around in her seat and was hugging Nguyen. "Come on Chuckie," my mom shouted, "Ye Yeung is gonna drive us home." Dutifully, I climbed in. "Buckle your belt seat."
     "Seat belts mom! How many times do I gotta tell you, they're called seat belts!" I was embarrassed. Even in front of two virtual stangers who probably spoke English worse than my mother did. I buckled up and sank back into my seat.
     "Chuckie, this is Ye Yeung." My mom said something to Yeung in Vietnamese that I didn't understand but could hear my name mentioned midway through. Yeung smiled her crooked smile at me in the rearview mirror.
     "You meet Nguyen already?" she asked.
     "Yeah," Nguyen said before I could answer. "We're in the same class."
     Both women looked at each other and sailed into a rapidly spoken dialogue in Vietnamese. Nguyen leaned forward to hear better over the sound of wind rushing through his open window. Occassionally he jumped in and the three of them had their own private conversation in the car while we drove home. I withdrew from the situation and leaned my head against the window.I watched the pavement slip by like water; alone in a car full of people.
    
     "Whatcha eatin' Chink?" Marcus always called me Chink, even in front of teachers. I wanted to kick him in the teeth everytime that he did but feared what my father would say if he found out. I tried my best to ignore him but he and his friends wanted to have a laugh.
     "Don't chinks eat dogs?" Cole said loud enough for half of the cafeteria to hear. Marcus leaned in and made a big show of sniffing my sandwich.
     "Smells like rotten dog meat to me."
     "Ewww, he's a dog eater!" Cole shouted. As if on cue, others at the table around me started chanting.
     "Dog Eater. Dog Eater." I wanted to cry. I wanted smash my sandwich in Cole's face. I only had enough nerve to get up and walk away. I threw my lunch in the garbage on my way out to the playground, after one bite of my sandwich, my bologna smelled like a wet dog now.
     When I got home after school I decided to ask my mother the one question that had been burning in the back of my head all afternoon. "Mom, when you lived in Vietnam did you ever eat dogs?"
     My mother looked at me and with a straight face said, "If you don't get your room cleaned before dinner you might come home tomorrow and wonder where Ting Ting is." I dropped my books and stormed off to my room. There was no way that I was going to clean it now.
     The next day at school was miserable. The comedic value of my new nickname was so rich that everyone was using it. I was more alone than usual; the few friends that I had avoided me for fear of becoming collateral damage. I avoided the cafeteria all together and headed straight for the playground without eating lunch. This gave me a few minutes of peace until Cole and Marcus came outside. We crossed paths at the water fountain and the name calling resumed. But I was fed up by now. They started with Dog Eater but when that didn't get a rise out of me they progressed through the long list of slurs that they knew so well. "Chink! Gook! Slanty Eyed Jap!" They knew I wouldn't fight them over it. They knew that they would never get into any kind of trouble for picking on me. I knew it too.
     After school, my father was there to pick me up. I climbed into the car without a word and buckled up. "What's wrong?" my father asked.
     "Dad, why did I have to have eyes like Mom? Why couldn't I look like you?"

I'll end my story there.  The ending I had originally written seems too contrived now.  Quite frankly, I have a hard time explaining how a boy like that could ever grow up to be anything like me.  The only answer that comes to mind is simply, "By choice."  I chose to believe everything my father taught me.  I chose not to hate but instead to pity.  I chose to recognize the obvious truth that had been laid out before me.  It all seems so easy now.

-"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant."-MLK