Ride Home

I usually encounter Mr. Tran, or one of his staff, among the waiting taxis and vans at San Jose Airport.  So it is surprising to see him perched on a low wall just outside Security.  He appears much smaller.  He certainly is much smaller than his American-born counterparts.  Here, leaping to his tiny feet as a river of Southwest Airways passengers streams by, he seems part leprechaun.  He and the Chinese woman pushing my wheelchair have a blunt exchange of Asian-accented English.  Proceed directly to the parking structure, he tells her with surprising force.  She is having none of it and snaps right back.  Or she is having all of it and concurs heartily.  I cannot tell.  I cannot tell a lot of things these days.

Tran, which is actually his first name but frequently substitutes as his last, speeds up to baggage claim in a snappy two-door car.  He tells me this will be more comfortable.  No climbing into his high airport van.  Thank you, I say.  Clearly, he is evading airport rules for vans and van drivers, and I am all for it.  No one can say he is not an entrepreneur.

This becomes even clearer on the drive home.  The Sunday suburbs flash by, traffic nonexistent, while Tran holds forth on the general topic of What Bereaved Paul Should Do.  The first objective could not be clearer to him: go to Vietnam and adopt a child.  He will introduce me to his family in Ho Chi Minh City, and they will line up a child.  This has come at me too quickly to laugh off.  He is already explaining.  Not a baby, of course, but a big one.  Say about 15 years old.  

The freeway is sad and old, its businesses unchanging.  Here one can spend the night, and with a little creativity, dine with the Sunnyvale Elks.  There one can work for a French software company.  Beyond, one can rent office space.  Swedish furniture, acres of it, is on offer at IKEA.  I close my eyes and thank Mr. Tran.  He is thinking of me being alone in my apartment, I say, and he wants me to have a companion.  That this companion would be bursting with hormones, fond of harsh music and seriously considering gang membership, does not occur to him.  He is thinking of me.  

Do I get Social Security?  The answer is no, but the fuller explanation is more complicated, having to do with the benefit over time.  Foolishly, I try to explain this to him, the trade-offs involved in signing up now at one level of income, waiting a few years for another, higher level.  Is no shame, he says.  Everyone get this.  I nod.  

Mr. Tran has told me with great admiration of the impending visit of John McCain to his native homeland.  Vietnamese immigrants in America are, like their Cuban counterparts, very drawn to our nation's right wing, staunchly anti-socialist, anti-government and ultra-conservative.  This is a remarkable stance, this support of Social Security.  I make a mental note of this, pleased that the Republicans have not.

By Palo Alto, Tran is even planning my financial future.  Stocks very good, he tells me.  Now very good time.  You buy stocks?  How much?  Mr. Tran has always been like this, voluble and blunt in the way of those who fearlessly stumble into America and its language.  I tell him that, yes, I have invested in stocks.  Daytrading, he says, is the best.  Do I day trade?  Before I can answer, he tells me how exciting this is.  At evening, after his two kids are tucked away and his wife, pregnant with a third, has crashed out for the night, he fires up his computer and has a go at the world economy.  Insurance up one day, he says, down the next.  Maybe next day is up General Motors.  You buy, then you sell.  I respond admiringly.  Mr. Tran has to be right on top of things, missing no opportunities, never late, I say.  Yes, yes, he says.  And so exciting.  He builds his future.  This going to be nest egg.

You have to admire this American land-of-opportunity dream of risk and reward.  Apparently the headlines don't faze him.  Is the game rigged?  He doesn't seem to think so or care enough not to play.  I tell Mr. Tran, thinking this will impress him, that I invest heavily in foreign ventures.  International high-tech mutual funds.  No, no, he tells me.  Don't invest in Asia.  China and Vietnam are about to go to war.  I tell him that he must be joking or, at least, exaggerating.  No, he insists, a shooting war soon.  I must put all my money in the US.  He isn't investing in Asia.  How much you put in stocks, he asks?  Wearily, I gaze out the window, half expecting the familiar Silicon Valley landscape to change.  I tell Mr. Tran that I also own land, actual property, north of Seattle.  Certainly this will impress him, at least divert him from his current course.  Our discussion is getting on my nerves.

What kind of land?  What is on the land?  The odd thing about this ride is that it is so close to the pavement.  Normally, Mr. Tran arrives with a minivan.  Now and then he turns up in his own sedan.  This sports car has created an odd impression.  He could barely get my folding wheelchair in, finally jamming the driver's seat forward and wedging the thing in through the single left door, and not without some impact on my single left shoulder.  Nothing on my land, I tell him.  Just trees.  Unimproved, I say, quoting realtor jargon.  Oh, he says.  Oh, just small.  No big investment.

While this is true, I do not entirely agree.  There is a big investment in time, patience and 32 years of property taxes.  Why I bought the land, what I ever expected to do with it, and what I will do with it now are all imponderable.  Still, it is what it is, five acres of trees on the Egg and I Road, named for the novel, at the site of the literary action near Port Townsend, Washington.  Mr. Tran is puzzled at my investments.  I am childless, and he wants to fix that.  He is a fixer, Mr. Tran, and now I give him one final challenge.  My MasterCard slips out of my hands and between his sporty seats.  No worry, he says.  No worry.  We park in front of the apartment, and I swing my feet to the pavement.  I stare at Mr. Tran's shoes.  They are tiny.  I'm certain that his investment strategy includes buying his wardrobe in the children's department.  I am inclined to explore this matter with him, but we are both involved in a new struggle.

The car is low, way too low for me to stand without help.  Mr. Tran is there to provide the latter and has his arms around my shoulders.  It is difficult to see his plan.  All the weight is on my side.  On his, is sheer ebullience and will.  Okay, okay, he says.  I would stare up at him dumbfounded, but it is too dark to see his face.  This is hopeless.  He is way too small to lift me.  Still, it cannot hurt to apply the general principles of body mechanics.  I show him where to grab me under my right arm, explaining that I will push with my left.  Okay, okay, he says, is okay.  He ignores everything I have just told him, grabs me around the waist and lifts me to my feet in the same way that an ant maneuvers a raisin twice his size.  There is no explaining this, and like so much in nature, there is no documentary camera team to record what has me vertical.  Mr. Tran is now muttering okay, okay, clattering at the back of his sports car to assemble my wheelchair in the dark.  No, I tell him, grabbing his arm and crutching to my front door.  Okay, okay, I find card, he says.  

In moments, he returns with the MasterCard, I sign the receipt.  Hello, Marlou, he says.  Very nice.  My apartment is currently something of a Marlou shrine, her photos everywhere.  This one just inside the front door shows her posed by a holiday table.  She stands demurely in the background, dwarfed by her own dinner work.  The photo captures the essence of my empty house.  It is good to see Mr. Tran so cheery about her photo, acknowledging Marlou in an uncomplicated and artless way, then scooting out the door.  It is my ultimate ambition to do the same.