Before He Actually Does So

The afternoon was mid-evaporation when I began my jaunt.  I needed to bike over to my wife’s studio to get the car, return back to get the daughter to drive daughter over to the singing class.  I managed all this, with that Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros song “Morning Sun” playing out as I pedaled off and along beneath the weeping willow branches. 

My daughter’s singing class isn’t far.   Too far though for her to bike, though.  A few years back we took them to a class down near Guo Mao.  What a schlepp that was.  These days she’s got a teacher who lives a neighboring villa complex.  I had heard of this place: Arcadia, but never visited.  A friend I’ve made had told me he lived there.  “What’s it like?”  I asked him.  Can you compare it to this one?  Is it more like that one?  He mentioned it was not bad but that the developer had now planned to fill in the central lake and build out more units, which had all the existing owners up in arms. 

I’ve been here tree times now with this routine.  We roll up to the gate and act like we live here and sure enough the gate swings up for us.  The compound has strange architectural flourishes like turret towers that look they were designed for archers to shoot from.  “What’s it like?  I ask my daughter, realizing as I say it that I have asked this question of her before, the last time we were here.  “It’s OK.  There’s a lot of space inside.”  I’ve seen the inside of just about every other villa around here.   Everyone is an oversized compromise of one sort or another.  Might these be tasteful an affordable?  I would so like to never have to search for an apartment in Beijing again. 

“You should just sit here, you know.  I’m done in forty-five minutes.”  She’s right. Returning home and sitting there for fifteen minutes before coming back is silly.  But I don’t have a book with me and her suggestion is anxiety producing.  I could do something like Chinese flash cards with my phone.  I notice that the gas tank is low and this gives me a purpose. 

I roll in to the nearby station and the gent tells me to wait.  The nozzle I need is filling the white Maserati parked at an odd angle to my left.  I wait and I wait.  My eyes are drawn to a woman who has stepped out of the Toyota off to the right.  The wind is blowing up her dress Marylyn-like and she’s clasped it trying to make it behave.  A guy in a white sport shirt cuts across my view of her and I determine that this is the Maserati driver.   I automatically assume he sold one and bought two apartments a few dozen times.   Who knows?

The nozzle is still filling the car up after what seems to be an interminable amount of time.  The guy hops in his car and turns on the ignition, which seems a bit foolhardy with the nozzle still in the tank.  He exchanges money with the gas attendant.  I begin to imagine his driving off with the nozzle still in the car, before he actually does so.  This all seems especially alarming and I yell out around the same time the kids does and he stops before we were all blown up in a fiery petroleum ball.

Later I drive in a big rectangle, left, straight, left straight, left, straight, trying to overcome the feeling that there was nothing anywhere of any interest to see.