Beachhead

By Gene Finney

By Gene Finney and Duwan Chu.
A nude beach in California may seem an unlikely place to begin a spiritual journey. But for a cross-country traveler, its freedoms lead to unexpected experiences that make him question traditional sexual morality. Through beach friendships transcending cultures and generations, this mature man finds himself on a surprising path to self-discovery and a new identity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gene Finney
• Release date: Dec 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310836091

Book preview

What others have said about reading Beachhead

Thoroughly absorbing, and thought-provoking. It seemed intensely real to me. I felt I lived through it with the characters. Tom Devine

I have read your manuscript. In fact I had difficulty putting it down, and the early chapters were an amazing aphrodisiac. The book’s hero comes through as a Christ figure, and the evolution-toward-peace thrust of the story is a powerful message for today. Ret. Bishop E. Otis Charles

A spiritual experience. Stephen Rapp

Beachhead

Gene Finney and Duwan Chu

Copyright by Gene Finney and Duwan Chu

Library of Congress #TXu l852114 (February 11, 2013)

Front cover photo Reflection of Torment

Copyright 2010 Brandon Lee Gorman, Photographer www.brandonleeg.com

Cover wrap photo San Onofre Sunset

Copyright 2011 Rich Brimer Studio, Camarillo, CA www.richbrimer.com

Smashwords Edition

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the work of the authors.

This is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents and places are the products of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously. While this novel refers to historic figures, contemporary personalities, organizations and locales to convey an illusion of reality, such references should not be interpreted to mean that events occurred as portrayed here. It should not be inferred that any person or organization endorses these authors’ views. Any resemblance of the book’s characters and places to actual persons or locales is purely coincidental.

Dedicated to my parents.

Duwan Chu

Dedicated to my two kids.

Eugene Finney

Beachhead: an attained strong position,

offering a foothold for further advance.

Chapter One

Tranquilly placid, the vast Pacific looks ready to quench the August sun. Its waves usually pound, but this Thursday evening they gently lap the shore to grace a cross-country traveler’s return to San Onofre State Beach after a four-year interlude. The solo visitor shifts into relaxation mode as his experiences of today’s headlong drive through the Mojave’s scorching summer swelter fade to memory. Mirage after mirage of infernal desert vistas dwindle in his mind to random mental movies for short-term recall, soon to be reduced to scattered impressions of the trip and eventually honed to just the smell of heat.

Now serenely sequestered at this seaside oasis, Gene Finney unloads the tent and gear from his Mustang, sets up camp, then takes a first stroll southward toward Camp Pendleton and the emerging lights of San Diego well beyond. The descending sun’s warmth bathes his right shoulder throughout the twenty-minute walk along the water’s edge. Before sundown he reaches the unique stretch of beach familiar to him from past visits. Fully sanctioned here, a few other hardy beach buffs nakedly soak in the waning daylight before darkness forces all but the campers to leave this California state park. In a spirit of communion, he sheds shirt and shorts to attain a rare, whole-body experience of freedom—which truly was the genesis for his returning here to celebrate a once-in-a-lifetime milestone on his own ticking oldometer.

22,222 daybreaks and sunsets, now, Gene thinks to himself, looking out upon the ocean. 22,222 planetary rotations. What an awesome expedition life is. Mere sight is gold enough.

Nearly alone on the sand with a soft sea breeze sweeping his skin, he follows the lure of an immense vermilion sun to wade in the surf. Myriad water prisms transiently top mounting swells, fracturing sunlight into a crystalline sea of blinding, shimmering luminescence. With head tipped back, brain chatter silenced and eyes shut, he basks in a blood-red glow below eyelids penetrated by the giant’s energy pulsing effortlessly across ninety-three million miles. Traversing that astronomical space in less than half the time he’d walked the beach mile.

Not too bad a hike, his thoughts resume. No, great hike! Jeez, I could be bored—deskbound—instead of exploring beaches less trekked. Life is phenomenal. Astounding, really.

Or, have whims led me astray? he debates himself, bedeviled by the ghost of conformity. He wonders if a drifting, nomadic existence might permanently eclipse his prior, straightforward life of holding down a taxing marketing job to sustain the costly house in the District.

In early June, a foreign buyer had shanghaied the telecom company that had employed him. Abruptly jobless, Gene adapted to conserving his resources. The Washingtonian was relieved that his kids were educated, married and settled, and that his once-worrisome divorce had unburdened him of providing for two. So, challenging as any transition may be, the anxiety of facing a faltering economic tide was now solely his own. In spite of misgivings gnawing at him to re-engage, he decidedly quit striving—in order to collect himself. To write. To adventure. To coax from life whatever fleeting freedom still existed in this toe-the-line land of independence.

Only near the shore can you see that life progresses in waves. Rising upward then slipping back into the trough is part of the necessary cycle. Even the most powerful, magnificently-crested waves inevitably crash against the beach, only to have their waters ebb back into an eternally churning ocean—to be recycled into the next-forming wave making its beachhead.

Life is about to completely recycle me, just as it has deep-sixed my good friend, Gene fully grasps. That’s to be accepted—even respected—for prompting the appreciation of one’s intrinsically-magical state of being. Standing perfectly naked at the ocean’s boundary and taking it all in, he comprehends: 22,222 incredible days of starstuff beholding stardust. Simply amazing.

An oddly loud conversation between two minimally-clad men—speaking what sounds like Chinese—gradually registers and intrudes on his reverie. Walking briskly side-by-side along the beach, they seem to be arguing. As Gene watches them pass, the shorter, trimmer-looking one says Hello. The other older man offers no acknowledgement. Both are Asian, and the single ‘hello’ is accented with a singsong lilt uncharacteristic of a native-born American.

Gene replies with a Hi, and the two men continue up the coast.

Underwater, shells and sand perceptibly subside under foot as each wave erodes coarse, gritty bits to alter his stance. In due course he summons the energy to dress and amble back northward, lagging well behind the two men who are soon ant-sized in the distance. While he wanders toward his campsite, a swirling dust devil churns at the toe of tall chalky cliffs. Eddies of air trapped in this bowl blend scents. Aromas intertwine. The salty ocean air carries whiffs of resplendent marine life and parched desert dryness as well—smelling of the Mojave.

Gazing northward he sees the oceanfront San Onofre Nuclear Generator—the SONG—glimmering on the dusky horizon. Beyond the double-domed power plant lay San Clemente, Laguna Beach and far-off Los Angeles. Looming bluffs delineate the beach and offer a cocoon of enclosure from the adjacent I-5 freeway that links the Southern California coastal cities.

The oceanfront region here is arrayed from top to bottom with a fascinating variety of beach cultures strung out like a string of pearls. North of the SONG, teens reign over a surfing beach. Next, the nuke plant inhibits beachlife. Below it, the three-mile San Onofre state park offers family-oriented beaches paired with campsites up top along the park’s north-south spine road. Then comes a nearly-empty buffer beach, for at the far, southern end of the park is a small, clothing-optional beach, which generally attracts heterosexual naturist couples and singles. From that park terminus, you could enter onto the remote beach within the Camp Pendleton Marine Base. Although officially off limits, the Marine Corps rarely patrols its beach. So gay men, mostly, and a few lesbians, hang out there—along with sporadic hetero couples wanting privacy.

For the most part, this state park is an appallingly unnatural place for camping. The only reason to stay here is nearness to the beach. Picture Interstate 5 and a coastal railroad line both paralleling the park’s spine road, which is separated from the railroad tracks by only bushy vegetation and a fence. Any trees are small and sparse. Campsites occupy a narrow ten-foot-wide, dusty swath along the park road—scant dozens of yards from the tracks and the freeway. Near the park’s midpoint, a federal Border Patrol immigration inspection station halts all traffic on I-5. Select a campsite within a mile of this station and you’ll get no sleep due to the noise of braking or accelerating cars and trucks as well as the high-powered night lighting that glares over the inspection station with all the ghastly ambiance of a behemoth mall parking lot.

Chemical toilets along the park’s main road—thus a long uphill walk from the beach—are pitiful. If you want to clean up, plan to drive several miles across I-5 to the nearby San Mateo State Park campground, which provides shower facilities for San Onofre campers. Why, then, would anyone want to camp here in what would seem to be a true camper’s hell?

Ah, San Onofre offers its own special inner sanctum if you’re willing to make the effort. Sign up for a walk-in tent site and you can escape the train and road noise, tailpipe fumes, nightlong-droning RV generators and engineered inhumanity. Simply carry your gear from the park’s parking area, down one of the gully paths toward the beach, and—in whatever time you set aside for reclaiming Eden—you can pitch tent on a shorefront plateau. Down below, the hundred foot high cliffs mask all the manmade unpleasantness. The only sound you hear down here is wave noise. Switch off wretched routine humdrum and switch on nirvana.

While dawdling northward, after the two men in the distance disappear from the shoreline, Gene wonders, Why are most campers satisfied with remaining up along the hectic main road?

Secluded on the beach, he pauses again to sit on the sand and marvel at the radiance of the sun settling into the Pacific. Colors change from golden oranges to vivid reds, royal magentas and deep purples—the sunset spectrum at once both infinitely varied and unfathomably beautiful. Soon, an out-of-view sun illuminates the eventide. Gene rises and walks back to camp.

An old, turquoise blue dome tent marks his reclusive turf just a few hundred feet from the water’s edge—twenty feet above the sea on a plateau that offers both protection from the surf and a better view of it. A hundred yards or so north of Gene’s settlement, a newly-established, vivid yellow tent now occupies the same plateau. There’s no one to be seen. Nonetheless, Gene feels some visceral primal comfort from having a comrade in isolation below the cliffs.

Since his drive ended here late in the day, he partially unloaded the car, erected his tent and just dropped his gear inside it before exploring the beach. The box lid that once protected an In-N-Out Burger dinner—now holding traces of a few uneaten fries—landed next to the mini-cooler and his computer case. Gene’s essential remaining tasks are to unroll the sleeping bag and its cushioning foam pad, check for phone messages, then get to sleep.

As he pulls the rolled foam pad from its pack bag, a slithering brown creature skitters out. "Christ! What was that?! God, no scorpion, please!"

Gene uses his flashlight to poke behind the cooler. Out darts a four-inch long chameleon like the ones he’d seen in Florida—his last campsite before heading west.

Whew, his heart calms. Did you ride with me from Canaveral? Gene asks him, or her, then wonders aloud, Why aren’t you green? Quickly zipping closed the last inches of the tent’s screen mesh door and dropping the In-N-Out box over his reticent companion, Gene assesses his next move. Eat the rest of the fries if you want. You’re probably starved.

Coping with the gaunt, spare lizard promptly takes priority. Okay, uh, Jerome. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll go online and see if you can cope with venturing outside on your own.

Gene unpacks and switches on his MacBook, wireless advances having made it commonplace to connect to the internet by phone or computer while traveling. With a backup battery charging in the car, he could e-mail and write from most campsites. Thus from a tent on the beach, he could search worldwide libraries of information on anything, even ‘chameleons.’

Gene learns that Jerome is not actually a chameleon. That’s what people commonly call this cute reptile, due to its ability to change skin color like true chameleons. A Wikipedia webpage reveals that Jerome is properly identified as a ‘Green Anole.’ Their regular habitat is the southeastern United States. Curious and solitary by nature, anoles can be raised as pets. Their normal green skin color imitates the tropical landscape, but changes to brown under stress.

Jerome, you may, understandably, be stressed.

Anoles eat insects and can survive on a diet of crickets purchased from a pet store. They lap water from foliage and will eat an occasional piece of fruit.

Okay, Pal. I’ll get you an apple from the cooler. You will be green again, trust me.

The net further reveals that an anole might grow to nine inches long including its tail, which can detach if it is caught and needs to escape. But the replacement tail is not as functional as the original. The male has a rosy or white throat fan, or ‘dewlap,’ that displays during courtship and territorial disputes. Head-bobbing behavior is seen in anole courtship.

Jerome, do you have a dewlap? Are you one of us?

Gene doesn’t have the balls to release it outside with hawks circling the bluffs. He resolves at breakfast time to find a San Clemente pet shop, for crickets and a cage. You can stay with me and ride back to Florida my next trip there. Hey, I bet you’re starving. He slips a capful of water and an apple slice under the box that has become Jerome’s own tent-within-a-tent.

With no e-mail or phone messages, Gene sets his Mac to backup files onto a portable drive and steps out into the pending night with the remainder of the apple. The turquoise tent fabric glows an eerie blue from computer light within, causing the entire dome to beckon like the Earth as seen from space. Then, stepping away from the shrub-bordered cloister of his site, he sees that the nearby golden yellow tent is awash with light as well. Its dazzling color casts a more commanding appearance—like the blazing sun relative to his blue planet. Listening with focused attention, he hears laughter from the golden tent. Although envious of whatever camaraderie there is playing out, Gene resists intruding into their territory.

The ceaseless rush of dark waves draws the lone camper down to the water for a last meditation before bed. Wading a yard into the surf, he looks up at a few stars visible through the urban cities’ nightwash and the closer nuke’s nightglow. Biting through the taut skin of the apple sets off a cascade of sweet, tart flavors that repeatedly waft through his nasal passages.

Between bites of fruit Gene reflects: The stars still shine. The universe still works without a hitch. No moonlight yet tonight—no problem. Flawless and majestic, really.

Six days? Absurd! How could anyone still believe that on the second day God created a firmament over the Earth? A solid, tent-like dome across the sky? Yeah, right. Were those truly the Creator’s words, wouldn’t God have known He never built a firmament? Ancients didn’t know—couldn’t. 1

But why would religious people change the word ‘firmament’ to ‘expanse’? So ‘Heaven’ matched science? Couldn’t they see they totally discredited God’s Word? Why do we remain caught up in such ancient fabrications?

Adam, no woman’s chomping this apple. I’m eating the fruit of that tree myself. And the serpent’s staying with me. In my tent. Ya’ gotta love the serpent. The serpent’s part of the beauty of it all. Ya’ gotta marvel at every bit of it. Counteracting forces vying and evolving for billions of years, and—by now—it all just works.

Gene shakes his head, then, with all his strength, hurls the apple core out into the Pacific.

Back inside the blue dome he turns off the computer, sprawls naked onto his outlandish bed and allows his mind to resume its nightly buzz of processing his prickly situation.

Like many, this American had achieved a respectable income only to have it disappear when his corporate employer sold out his livelihood. He didn’t think of himself as harboring any bitterness over being too young for Medicare and too old to be rehired. Truthfully, after his turn at mastering the planet, Gene suspected that the American Dream was in for a nerve-racking overhaul. Instead of being paralyzed by that transformation, he chose not to struggle but rather to yield to change. His son, Adam—in starting a landscaping business—had already shown foresight when he said, Pops, no one’s offshoring grass to China. Someone’s got to mow it. ‘Adam’s Gardens,’ he called it—to Gene’s delight.

Indeed, he had devised this trip three weeks ago while phoning Adam and watching the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. By then Gene had had no success in finding a new job, and the bank had zeroed in on taking his house. His palliative was to make a new journey to the west. But first, Gene drove south to Canaveral National Seashore, followed by some quality time with Adam and Holly in Atlanta, before heading west to San Onofre. Next, he’d go north to Cupertino to stay with his daughter, Erin, and her husband, Keith, with a finale at Baker Beach in San Francisco. That was the plan. Camping. Writing. Pretty cool grand tour.

Gene realizes, This trip would have been more meaningful if Randy hadn’t died. But that’s life.

His close friend, Randy Matthews, had died in June from a heart attack—making this harrowing summer all the more difficult for Gene, for he and Randy had always talked through issues affecting either of them. They’d been friends since the 1980s, when Randy also lived in Washington with his wife, Pauline. In 2001, with their daughters in college, the Matthewses had abruptly moved to Mission Viejo, California, where Randy became a counselor. Four years ago Gene drove out to chat with Randy about some mid-life anxieties. That occasioned Randy to reveal he long ago had an out-of-wedlock son named Christian. The real reason they’d moved to California, he admitted, was to help raise this son here, after the boy’s mother contracted cancer.

Gene’s job loss this summer had prevented him from attending Randy’s funeral. So on this current trip, Gene hoped to visit with Pauline, meet Randy’s son, and express condolences.

Perhaps the grim reality of Randy’s death played a role in Gene wearying of advertising and public relations work, and led him to attempt a book about their often spiritually-oriented talks. But after drafting several chapters, his narrative hadn’t coalesced into a coherent story, and Gene questioned whether his concept was publishable. Yet he felt compelled to keep writing—as if deep subconscious issues were persistently streaking toward the surface for resolution.

A faint rustling animates the In-N-Out box. You’re not going to start talking to me, are ya’? Hearing no further sounds, Gene continues, Good. Scheming serpents are, after all, on their last legs. But, hey, hang in there, Jerome. Have faith. You’ll be out of that box tomorrow.

The lizard remains still, and the camper becomes aware of the background sounds of his setting. Over the regular rushes of cascading waves and rhythmic chirping of insects, he hears faint mechanical noises emanating from some distance up the coast: Sounds of cranes whirring and releasing. Pumps and vehicles burgeoning into activity. An industrial complex’s clack-clacking din mitigated by several miles of cushioning air molecules that diminish the cacophony.

It’s the SONG, Jerome. Is that why so few camp down here by the sea? Do those others know something about the nuke plant that we don’t? He briefly considers if it might be wise to move up to at least the clifftop. Too late now to play it safe, Pal. Chances are we’ll be just fine.

Sometime after midnight, Gene is abruptly awakened by a whooshing sound rocketing off toward the ocean and a brilliant bright light rising above the tent outshining the moonlight, then followed in quick succession by the distinct, rat-a-tat-tat crackling of exploding fireworks.

Hmm, he grumbles internally. Boisterous neighbors.

*

Late next morning, he hikes south again—back to his familiar beach spot—and settles onto the sand. While he lies face up to the sun with his eyes nearly closed, a shadowy figure appears then says, I see you here on beach last night. Gene raises up on elbows, and the looming silhouette blocking the cloudless sky continues, You mind I sit here a too?

Okay. No problem, Gene mutters as he realizes it is one of the two men who had passed him on his evening walk. He thinks to himself, There goes solitude. The stranger drops his beach gear and spreads a large, colorfully-striped blanket about two feet from Gene’s towel.

He is the smaller, younger one of the Asian pair, evidently arriving for a Friday outing. Both he and Gene had opted for the state park’s remote, southernmost beach below the unmanned lifeguard stand, where roughly a hundred people—mostly naturist men, but some women and couples, too—have gathered to worship the fleeting summer sun. Three-fourths of the congregants are fully naked, with their towel-defined outposts randomly spaced about twenty feet apart. The clan’s conduct is, by and large, decent and proper—if you disregard the nudity.

You have nice all-over a tan, the newcomer observes as he places items around his blanket: a foam cooler and umbrella to the far side, sandals near his feet and a tattered orange beach bag at his knees. Wearing a close-fitting T-shirt, cutoff jeans shorts and a wide-brimmed straw hat reminiscent of Van Gogh, he sits staring out to sea for several minutes. Then ending his trance he slips off his shorts and shirt, leaving on nothing but his white plastic-rimmed sunglasses and the hat. Nice warm southern wind, today, the Asian man comments, then introduces himself, My name is Duwan Chu.

I’m Gene—Eugene Finney, he says, shaking Duwan’s gentle hand.

Those your red Chucks? Duwan inquires about the sneakers on the towel.

While owning up to them, Gene is nonetheless curious why anyone would ask.

The two men sit in silence for awhile, simply appreciating the sensational weather. At the water’s edge a man and a woman sit side-by-side, both of them facing the Pacific cross-legged, naked and meditating together. Further down the beach a well-tanned buff guy swings a baseball bat and smacks shells into the breakers.

Feeling awkward about their mute propinquity, Gene turns to ask, Do you live nearby?

I live in Anaheim, Duwan replies and reaches into his cloth bag for sunscreen lotion. In standing up and taking time to vigorously rub it on, he seems to invite his neighbor’s observation.

Thirty-some. Smooth all over, Gene notices about Duwan’s five-foot-six body. No tan lines. Lean, not muscular. Tight stomach. Outie. Almost hairless, except for his black pubic patch. Uncut. Very different. All of him different. Slender Fingers. No rings or tattoos. Not at all scary to be this close. Hair wiry and brushy black. No curl. Attached lobes. Mouth protrudes some, like a boy with braces. Rounded nose. Cute, in a way.

Duwan glances down and asks for help applying the sunscreen to his back. Gene agrees and requests a return of the favor.

O-o-kay, Duwan says, with that songlike accent reappearing as he steps near the towel.

Gene stands, applies lotion to Duwan’s back and immediately notices that his fingers are sensing an incredible softness as they touch smooth, silky skin uninterrupted by body hair.

Duwan queries, Can I ax what book you are reading there with a missing cover?

"The Catcher in the Rye. It’s my bible, Gene admits. The cover fell off, it’s so old."

You live in Orange County? Duwan asks.

No, I’m visiting from the East Coast. Camping here, actually.

O-oh, you camp a too. I am camping here. In a tent, down on the beach.

Me, too. Gene senses a first flicker of amazement. What color is your tent?

Yellow. Okay, now you turn round and I do you.

Cool, Gene says as lotion is applied to his back. I think you’re close to my blue tent.

O-oh, yes. We next to each other. You hairy. Very nice. You set up tent before me.

Yes, Gene answers while wondering, Hairiness is nice? So, we both arrived yesterday.

A’yes. We are next to each other, Duwan confirms. How long you gonna camp?

Um, probably through Tuesday. I’m sure I heard voices from his tent. You?

I will stay three more nights, into Labors Day. I must work again on Tuesday.

Gene can’t resist asking, Did you set off the fireworks last night?

No, that is my boyfriend with the fireworks. In silence Chu applies sunscreen to Gene’s lower back and up the hillock of his buttocks then asks, Where you are from?

Oh, a lot of places, but mostly, Washington, D.C. Gene feels somewhat uneasy about Duwan’s hand slipping below his back. Okay, that’s enough sunscreen. Is your boyfriend here?

He goes back home to Newport Beach. Is busy holiday weekend. He owns restaurant and wants things going well. Duwan adds, Actually, he does not enjoy camping like me.

But he stayed with you last night? Gene inquires as he sits down again.

O-oh, yes. I stay at his house once a week. For change, we have nice a night in tent.

Apparently—climaxing with fireworks. So, you don’t live together?

No, we are not partners. I am his boyfriend ten years. I see him weekly.

As Chu returns to his blanket Finney asks, What’s your boyfriend’s name?

His name is Lee Chin. He is from China. My birthplace is Taiwan. Is big a island off China, you know? I come here from Taiwan in 1985 to attend Cal Poly—in Pomona.

Same year Tim died. Twenty-three years ago. So, you and Lee share the same language?

O-oh, yes. We speak English. My parents are from China, but they go to Taiwan to excape the Communists. Raise a family there. Now they live in a Los Angeles area.

New sunbathers continue to arrive, filling empty spaces between towels. Increasingly, the view toward the Pacific includes naked beachwalkers on morning hikes up and down the beach. Many newly-arriving men carry their gear southward past the nude sector into the area partially blocked by a chain link fence. The fence holds a warning sign posting notice that the area beyond is ‘Government Property,’ but that does not deter people from proceeding deep into Camp Pendleton, for which the fence is its northern boundary. You see them—most of them individual men—hiking south, either along the bottom of the cliffs or along the shoreline, to far-off points.

What you are doing here? Duwan probes. You married?

Divorced, Gene reveals, almost six years. I’m taking a breather after losing my job. Drove out to visit my daughter and her husband up near San Jose.

I see. The Taiwanese man thinks silently then asks, She is your only child?

No. Besides my daughter, Erin, I have a son, Adam—in Atlanta. He’s married, too.

That is nice, Duwan says with a forced half-smile. One of each.

Yes, they’re great company to me. Having kids is the best…. Gene notices Duwan looks disinterested in talking about children. Could be a sensitive subject.

After several minutes Duwan resumes conversation, asking, What kind of job you lose?

I was an advertising and public relations writer for a cell phone company, which was bought out by another—a Chinese telecom company. At my age it’s not easy finding new work. I decided to break from the routine and try writing a book about a friend who died….

Duwan interrupts, You are a writer! This is my lucky day—my reward for goodness in past a life. I have a family story to tell, and my writing is not good. I need interpreter.

Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese. That’s why I lost my job.

No, no, Duwan shakes his head, not that kind of interpreter. I am not skilled at your language. I need help putting ideas into words. Maybe you will write our story in a book.

This is bizarre. We’ve just met and… You’d trust me—a stranger—to tell your family story? That’s crazy. I don’t know a thing about them or where they’re from.

I can teach you about Taiwan and China. Who else is gonna write our story?

Sitting cross-legged, Duwan finds a plastic bottle of beige liquid in his cooler and offers, You like some green tea? I make this at home. Gene declines. Green tea is very good for the skin. Makes it smooth. Here, touch my arm. See, green tea makes it very smooth.

Gene reaches over to touch the elegantly hairless arm held out to him and again feels that unusual smoothness. He nods to acknowledge Duwan’s soft skin then inquires about his work.

I am a teller, Duwan says, for a bank Feds take over and merge into another not too steady either. I worry about losing my job, like you. But I think I am safe for now, you know?

Yes, one never knows. We’re all just puppets to the guys holding the strings.

O-oh, yes. We are puppets. We dancing puppets. I am good a dancer. I like to dance.

Literally, you mean? You like dancing…like in clubs?

O-oh, yes. I am dancing a queen. Duwan grins while singing the old ABBA song and shimmying to his own music: Friday night and the lights are low….2

Gene smiles. A dancing teller. You are too much.

O-oh, yes. I am too much. Lee says I am too much a too. Not easy to live together. Not easy to live with anyone. I have just cats—a black and a white. They fight sometimes. Not easy to care for. But they are good at catching mice. Cats, like a womens, need lot of attention, you know? They are lotta work. You know what I mean? Duwan repeats to elicit a response.

Yes, a lot of work. You can say that again. Maybe I’ll take you up on the green tea.

O-o-kay. I have plenty of tea. He gives Gene one of his recycled water bottles he’d filled at home with tea. Green tea is very good for you, you know?

Gene is already cruising past the ‘you know’s and merely starting new conversation. How did you get to be a bank teller?

When we come to America, Duwan explains, my father says computers are booming. So I go to Cal Poly for electrical engineering. Then I get job with a computer company. To save money they use me as consultant, then let me go. I have to go back home to live with my parents. That is not good for me. So I go work for the bank. Maybe is safe job, maybe not, you know.

Right, nothing’s safe anymore, the American concurs. An old classmate of mine lost his dependable college teaching job. Now he’s in China—teaching English to high-schoolers.

He is at what city in China? Duwan asks.

Jen Joe, or something like that. Its name begins with a ‘Z.’

"Zhengzhou. Zhengzhou! That is big, big a city near my father’s hometown. Your friend is in same area where my father lives when he excapes from Communists! This is a sign. Like we camp in same place at same time. This is a sign. I must tell you my story. Then you write it."

Well, it is quite a coincidence about your father’s city, but that doesn’t make it a sign.

We see. We see. Duwan seems sold on the notion of Gene writing whatever story had influenced his life. "Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan province in eastern China. Provinces are like your states. Henan is China’s most populated province. It has a hundred million people—about one-third a population of the United States. But is smaller than state of Missouri.

Zhengzhou is on the Yellow River, you know? Duwan continues without pausing for a response. Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilization. In second war with Japan, in 1938, Chiang Kai-shek heads the Chinese Nationalist Army. They are being chased through China by invading Japanese troops. To stop them, Chiang Kai-shek blows up levees holding back Yellow River. The flood kills many as nine hundred thousand Chinese and lotta Japanese soldiers.

Wait a second. Did you say nine hundred thousand? Gene can’t believe the numbers. You mean the Chinese army leader ordered a military action that killed nearly a million people!? A MILLION!? And most were his own countrymen!?

Yes, Chu says matter-of-factly. Maybe a million. Flood devastates vast area. Ruins farms, factories and towns. Actually, my father’s family’s land west of Zhengzhou is not ruined. Is behind big a mountain—Mount Mon—so flood goes around family land. Family wealth is safe from flood and Japanese invasion. Loses land only when Communists take over, you know?

Not really. No, I don’t know, Gene frowns. But is that the story you want me to write? I mean, it’s sort of mind blowing we Americans don’t know brutal shit like this about China—a million people killed. We know about Hitler’s Holocaust or Stalin’s Gulags. But China….

Duwan interrupts. You think Chiang blowing up levees is a brutal act?

Well, hundreds of thousands of people killed by his actions—that seems brutal to me.

You not know a brutality Chiang struggles against. You not know what Japan is capable of. Chiang saves Chinese from deaths much worse than a drown. I will tell you about Nanjing.

Well, Gene counters, our leaders and historians would certainly know of such events in China. So writing the story you’re telling me would not be new information.

No, no, Duwan shrugs. This is only tiny a bit touching on family story. You gonna see. I will tell you the whole thing. Then you will write. You will see.

Is he for real? This guy’s tenacious, Gene realizes. Okay, so your family left China for Taiwan. What was your life like in Taiwan?

My mother and father separately go to Taiwan to excape Chinese Communists. They meet in Taiwan, not leaving from China together as family. Okay?

Gene gestures that he understands.

Okay, Duwan continues in a more pleasing tone. "My life in Taiwan is very good. My mother is a teacher, and my father is chemical engineer for big a company. We have happy life. I have three older sisters. I am the only son. Very playful as a gymnast in high school—good on parallel bars. I like music—dancing and music. We listen to tapes of American singers and watch American TV shows. Bewitched. I Dream of Jeannie. Charlie’s Angels. They are broadcast by a Taipei station. We know America by your TV shows. Taiwan and America are friends. Allies, you know what I mean? Taiwan is always a wanting relationship with America."

Did you have boyfriends in Taiwan?

O-oh, no. My family does not know I am gay, Duwan divulges. They still not know.

You don’t think they might suspect?

Maybe some. But we do not talk about it.

Did you date girls when you were in school?

Not really. I always have, you know, interest in men. But no experiences until in army. In Taiwan all must go into military for two years. My first gay experiences are in the barracks, but very secret, you know. Military is gonna punish you if you do gay acts. They kick you out and shame you. Shame your family a too. Know what I mean?

Yes. Same as the American military. Especially in those days. Bush hasn’t changed things, either. Bring on the election. Eight years is enough of him.

Duwan asks, O-oh, you are Democrat a too? Gene nods and Duwan smiles. Very good! He stands and pulls on his blanket to overlap the edge of Gene’s towel. Then sitting again he opens his cooler, takes out a package of small cakes and offers one. This is a moon cake. Very special in China at Mid-Autumn Festival when we always eat moon cake.

Gene samples the dense cake and instantly washes it down with tea. How can they eat this? What is this—yuck—thick yellow stuff inside? He politely utters, Interesting. What’s in these cakes?

That is salted egg yolk in middle. Symbol like full moon. Moon cakes made with lard, flour, sugar and filling inside, round a yolk. This lotus seed filling is very good. Some have sweet kidney bean paste or jujube paste. He holds out one of his uneaten cakes. Moon cakes have Chinese symbol stamped on top. See, this is ‘harmony.’ Moon cakes are a delicacy in China.

They’re good, not, but different. Different from European-style cakes.

O-oh, yes. Different. But very good a too. Eating moon cake is a tradition. I am sort of old fashioned. Duwan smiles timidly. I like old traditions. Old music a too.

You mean old, traditional Chinese music?

No, no. I like classical music of Europe, Duwan says amid bites of moon cake. I like singers with beautiful voices. After a swallow of tea he asks, You know Nana?

Nana? No. Nana who?

Nana Mouskouri. She is Greek a singer with beautiful voice. She is very popular in Taiwan and Asia. Here, you listen to Nana. He retrieves an old CD player from his beach bag, hands over the headphones and pushes the ‘play’ button.

Instantly, Gene identifies the music. Nana is singing part of Schubert’s majestic Winterreise that he’d loved for many years. After listening for awhile, Gene removes the headphones and agrees, It’s beautiful. She has a really beautiful voice.

She is singing ‘Der Lindenbaum,’ Duwan notes. Do you know it? Without waiting for a reply he begins to sing—in his own softly beautiful voice—the German words Gene had just heard from the CD player:

"Am Brunnen vor dem Tore da steht ein Lindenbaum

Ich träumt in seinem Schatten so manchen süßen Traum…."

Duwan knows ‘Der Lindenbaum’ by heart. His serenade is enchanting, and Gene grows captivated by the peaceful mood. As Duwan finishes the song in German, he asks if Gene knows what the song is about. For as many years as he’d enjoyed this classic, he had never sought an English translation of the song. No, I love the music, but I don’t know what the words mean.

It is from a poem about the linden tree. ‘Der Lindenbaum’ means ‘the linden tree,’ Duwan informs him, then proceeds to flawlessly sing the lyrics in English: 3

"At wellside, past the ramparts, there stands a linden tree.

While sleeping in its shadow, sweet dreams it sent to me.

And in its bark I chiseled my messages of love.

My pleasures and my sorrows were welcomed from above.

Today I had to pass it, well in the depth of night.

And still, in all the darkness, my eyes closed to its sight.

Its branches bent and rustled, as if they called to me:

Come here, come here, companion, your haven I shall be.

The icy winds were blowing, straight in my face they ground.

The hat tore off my forehead. I did not turn around.

Away I walked for hours whence stands the linden tree,

And still I hear it whispering: You'll find your peace