A is feeling some anxiety as his summer vacation comes to an end. Tomorrow and the day after, he’s playing summer concerts in the park with Pacific Symphony. He’s cool like that. But that means that today is his last day to potato around at home.
Because A isn’t a very good potato though. He can’t stay still, always wanting to go out and be productive. “I want to make the most of today! But I’m also tired and want to stay home..” he told me as I finished my last bite of bagel.
“Why don’t we go out and do what you suggested? We can visit the DMV kiosk at Vons and return our books to the library.” I had borrowed 3 books and finished all 3 well before the due date. A had borrowed 2 and started one (which was now overdue).
“Okay!”
We got ready to go. I wore this amazing skirt that I picked up last weekend from the Arcadia mall (which now has a 99 Ranch Market in it! Truly an Asian mall). Why is the skirt amazing? Because it has pockets, of course.
I wiped down my shoes, dirty from our visit to the coastal trails on the campus of Point Loma Nazarene University.
“My shoes are so dirty!”
“Should we go buy you new shoes?” A asks. For context, A loves shoes. As in, he probably has over 10 pairs of running/trail shoes. For me, a minimalist-wannabe, that’s at least 9 too many. He’s sweet though because he also likes to gift running shoes to his mother and myself (we have matching black Asics).
“No, they’re still okay. Maybe when they’re more worn out.”
At the library, I grabbed a Kevin Kwan novel, Lies and Weddings, as well as a couple other fiction novels by Asian-American novels. We found Princess Mononoke and a documentary about Miyazaki. A also got another book about computer systems. He is extremely dedicated to his education as he pivots into computer science.
“I think I’m a child,” I tell him as we walk out.
“What?” He unlocks the car.
“Well, all I do is read fiction, watch dramas and anime, and dream about being an artist. When we ate omakase the other day, I just thought about how amazing it would be to hone a craft like the chef. You can tell from the way he makes food that there’s so much memory in his hands.”
A is silent as we exit the parking lot and head for Vons.
“Is there anything else you wanted to add to that?” He asks me. We frequently ask each other this before sharing our thoughts or transitioning to a new subject.
“No, I guess not.”
“Hey, do you want to go on a little adventure with me?” He laughs, a bit shyly.
“A side quest?” We’ve been playing Cat Quest 3 (we even pre-ordered it!) and we are all about the side quests.
“Yes, a side quest.”
“Okay, what are we looking for?”
“Well.. when we were at the library, did you notice the homeless man in the courtyard?”
Surprised, I answered, “No, actually.” I had expected our quest to be about food.
“I saw him when we were looking at the books for sale. Anyway, his shoes looked really worn out. The sole looked like it was coming off in the back. You know how we were talking about shopping for shoes earlier? Well, what do you think about getting some shoes for him?”
A had read about my adventure in Little Italy, where I had met Gabino, a homeless man that I had tried to take on a shopping spree at 7-Eleven, only to end up buying a couple of chocolate bars and a soda for him (he promptly split one of the bars with the homeless lady sitting outside the 7-Eleven). So, of course, we would be taking this quest.
“Let’s do it! But do you have any idea what shoe size he wears? Could you tell from looking? Or should we go back and ask?”
“Hm.. I’m not sure how he’d react if we ask. But his feet looked a bit bigger than mine. So maybe like size 9 or 10?”
“Why don’t we buy a few sizes then?”
“But that means we’d have to go back and return the others, right? I guess—darn! I missed the turn.”
He made a U-turn and then pulled into the parking lot at Vons. There was a Walmart on the other side of the plaza.
“Yeah, we’d have to go back, but it’s okay. It makes more sense to have multiple sizes.”
We made a plan: go to the DMV kiosk to renew the car registration, pick up food and water (I suggested a chocolate bar too), and then stop by Walmart to pick up shoes.
Like the indecisive people we are, we stressed over the choices. We hesitated over water bottles: “Maybe we should get the big one—no wait, that’s not really portable.” “Should we get the one with the wide lip? That way he can refill it.” “Regular water or something with electrolytes?”
At Walmart, in the shoe section: “What about these slip-on sneakers?” “Gray or black?” “Ooh, these are size 9, but they’re wide-width. Do you think he has wide feet?” We ended up getting 9W in gray and 10 and 11 in black.
We headed to the self-checkout. Just as the worker pointed us to an open counter, A exclaimed, “Oh wait, what about socks?”
We walked past the Rally’s at the front of the store again and stopped in the sock aisle. The underwear was locked behind glass—the socks were not. We picked up a bag of black crew socks and then circled around to grab a pack of flushable wipes before checking out. A accidentally scanned one of the shoes twice. The attendant casually resolved it, not even checking the amount of shoes we had.
We walked out with our bounty, 2 pairs of slip-on sneakers stuffed into a plastic bag with the wipes and the socks, the 3rd pair swinging from my hand.
“I hope he’s still there,” A says.
“I’m sure he will be,” I assure him.
He laughs, a bit harshly. “Is this stupid? I’m just feeling kinda meh today. When I saw that man, I just wanted to do something. Is that selfish?”
“In the end, we just do things for ourselves right? But you’re doing something good. I’m sure he will appreciate it.” I squeeze his arm. And I love you for it, I think.
We walk into the library first to check if he’s still there. He is, and we hurry back to the car to grab our quest bounty.
As we walk up to the library door for the 3rd time today, A practices his lines quietly: “Hello sir, my wife and I noticed that your shoes looked worn out. Would you like to try on these shoes? We brought some food for you too. What do you think about that?”
“Sounds good!” I assure him.
We walk through the doors into the library and then walk out to the courtyard. The man looks up as we walk through the doors. He’s the only one sitting outside. His hair is scraggly, and we smell him right away. He sits on a bench with 4 bags piled around him. His feet are on the ground, in between his shoes. The shoes don’t look that worn out, but the heels are folded over. His feet are dirty, all ten nails long and black.
“Hello sir, how is your day going?” A starts. “My wife and I noticed that your shoes were worn out. We have some shoes here. Would you like a pair?”
“Oh well, you see here?” He shows us the back of his shoes. “I got these a few weeks ago. They’re only just starting to be comfortable right now.” He eyes the shoes we’re carrying. “You just happen to have all these shoes with you?”
“Yes, sir. What size do you wear?” A starts pulling them out.
“I wear size 8.”
“We have a size 9,” I offer, holding out the gray pair.
“Well, the bigger the better,” he says. “Oh, those black ones look nice though. I like the black ones.”
“We have size 10 and 11,” A says, placing the size 10 in black down.
“Oh, I like these ones.”
“Why don’t you try them on and see?” A urges. The man put his left foot into the size 10 shoes.
“These feel pretty comfortable. The bigger the better,” he repeats. He tries on the size 9 pair just in case but determines that size 10 is more suitable. “Did you see me and go back to your car for these shoes or something?”
A doesn’t seem to want to tell him that we specifically quested for these shoes. He urges him to keep the pair and packs up the size 9.
“Well, thank you for that. I think I’ll still keep my shoes though.”
“Of course. And would you like some socks too?” A pulls out the bag of socks.
“Oh, yeah, one pair would be good.”
“Oh no, please have the whole bag,” I tell him.
“Well, I’ll take one and share the rest.”
We chat for a bit. He’s wearing a Navy shirt—turns out his parents were in the Navy. San Diego was a Navy town, he tells us. Now, it’s too expensive for me to live here, as you can see, he says. He lives with friends and comes to the library to read books about airplanes—the manual ones that don’t have complicated computer systems.
“I was literate and then I became illiterate,” he says. “Did you two grow up with computers? Did you have them in 3rd and 4th grade, something like that?”
A and I look at each other. “Maybe a bit later than that,” I tell him.
“People get on planes now, and they don’t even look outside their windows at the clouds. They’re just on their phones. I just don’t get computers, you know.” He gestures at the bag of food I’m carrying. “You got some DC-3 parts in there?”
“Some what?” A and I are confused.
“Some DC-3 parts.”
“No, what is that?” A asks.
“Ah, I’m just kidding.” He smiles. He’s missing his top front teeth, from the center around to the left side. “I used to go to all these flea markets, you know, and just ask everyone, ‘Hey, you have any DC-3 parts?’ Some of them would go to the back—” he stands up, walking a few feet to the right as if walking to the back of a flea market stall, “—and ask each other, ‘Hey, do we have DC-3 parts?’ Some of them would come back and say, ‘Yeah, we have those!’ “ We have a laugh as he sits down again.
We chatted a bit longer. He asks us if we’re in school. We tell him that we both went to CSU Fullerton to study music. He asks if we like “that new music stuff”. A says “Not really,” as I say “Kinda”.
He tells us that UCSD used to be known for having a great new music program, really experimental. A lot of interesting groups and performances used to happen there, he says.
“I think it’s still known for that,” I say. A and I have talked about that very program before.
We chat a little longer and then he tells us that he doesn’t want to keep us from our day.
“Oh, we have some food too,” A tells him. I hand him the bag. “There’s a sandwich and water.”
“I wish there was a bottle of Coke in here. Could use that over a sandwich right now,” he says as he turns the sandwich carton over.
“There’s some chocolate in there. If you want something sweet.” I’m a little thrilled actually, because I now knew from experience that something indulgent might be wanted.
“Oh, there is?” He doesn’t seem displeased by that. “Well, thank you for this.”
“Sorry, sir, I didn’t catch your name,” A says.
“It’s Jim.”
“Hi Jim. I’m Arthur, this is my wife Jacky.” But Jim is digging through the bag and I’m not sure he hears.
“Well, thank you two again. You have a nice day. Hang in there.”
“You too, Jim.” We smile and bid farewell again.
“Do you feel better?” I ask A when we finally leave the library, after a restroom break and buying a couple of feminist magazines.
“Yeah, I feel better. Should we go home and eat lunch now?”
“Yep. Ooh, how about those Korean cold noodles we got from H-Mart yesterday?”
“Spicy or soup noodles?”
“Are you okay with cold soup?”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
“Cold soup noodles then.”
We hold hands and walk out of the library.
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