Change 3–Day 81

I hate that fracking stuffed chicken.

The stupid, useless, uncooperative chicken that refuses to act even a teeny bit chicken-like. I have one week to make the prop seem like it’s running across the stage instead of being dragged like a toddler’s blanket. Seems simple enough. But no. It either bounces across the stage comically, or is lifelessly towed, or gets stuck on the floor so that when I reel it from the other side of the stage, it springs ten feet into the air, more often than not hitting one of my carefully painted trees, or knocking over the cardboard Milky-White cow, which is comedy, sure, but not the sort of comic relief Mr. Wood is after.

“No one wants to be upstaged by a chicken, Miss Kim,” he told me last chicken-fail.

“Got it, Mr. Wood.”

Thank goodness I have Michelle Hu, science goddess (which she jokes is really the only stereotypically “Asian thing” about her), to help me navigate the physics of chicken propulsion.

“I think it’s going to be about the friction,” she posits when I present the problem to her after school.

“That’s what she said.”

“Har har har,” Michelle cracks, as she turns the stuffed chicken every which way in her hands, really considering the conundrum I put to her, like if she solves it, the universe as we know it will become a better place—and for me, it will. “Gotta figure a way to reduce the drag, or at least control it, so with a continuous tug, its velocity is kept at a more constant rather than variable rate.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I say.

“I think I can do this. My mom has some stuff in the garage I can use,” she goes on, still pondering. “Mind if I take her home? Alter her a bit? Nothing obvious.”

“Like Monsanto?”

“Less insidious. But yeah.”

“Genetic engineer away.”

“Shoot, dinner’s in twenty,” Michelle says, checking her digital watch and stuffing the chicken into her backpack. “I’m really glad you decided to join the ACC. I think you’re going to have fun.”

On that front, Michelle was mostly right. I did have fun at the Asian Cultural Club dinner. The spotlight was on South Asia this month, so the venue was Punjab Palace in the mall. It wasn’t Fun with a capital F, but it was definitely lowercase material. Lowercase because while Amy, Adelle, Christine, Sarita, and (another) Kim, plus Henry (the only guy brave enough to hang) were all cool and kind and friendly, and we laughed a lot and the food was decent, and nobody was throwing shade at anybody, I couldn’t help feeling like the imposter I am.

It was like I was back at the “black kids table” all over again. Oh yes, I’m the great pretender. Tracy would say I’m not pretending anything. That once you inhabit a V, and the world responds to you as that V, you are that V, period. She has a point, I guess. But being Asian, or black, or differently abled, or anything outside the Barbie–Ken doll norm for one year isn’t exactly the same as being that way your whole life. As John Legend would say, I can change. And my new friends who are feeling me because they see themselves in me, well, they don’t know that this is like an outfit I can ultimately take off if I choose to. And if I do choose to? What does that say about them?

There they were accepting and taking me in over veggie samosas and pakoras, but only because of what they thought I was. Not anything on the inside, just this general, regional familiarity. In truth, I actually couldn’t relate to a lot of the stuff they were saying, not any of the familial or cultural in-jokes. And to front and agree and laugh along would make me feel like a big ol’ racist. (I bet Tracy never felt like a racist in her entire life. She probably went way overboard and did accents and crap—all in the name of finding her best self.)

I know I’m not living in some refugee camp in Turkey, or emptying Porta-Potties at seven dollars an hour for a living, but all this circular thinking is making me crazy, like a hamster in a Habitrail. Around me is all clear plastic that makes it look like freedom’s right on the other side, but ultimately, part of me knows I’ll never escape.

I guess in a lot of ways, I’m still a white boy who grew up outside of New York City and loves to skate. At least, that’s my history. I guess that is the million-dollar Changer question: what matters most, the past you’ve been given or the future you choose?

To which I say a definitive . . .

For now, I guess it’s cool to have the Asians of Central High on my side. Because at least for the year I’ll have a group I “fit” into. Even if I actually don’t fit.

What do I know for sure?

1. I am what I am on the inside.

2. And I am what I am on the outside (for now).

3. I fit with Audrey.

I can say that again. I fit with Audrey as Drew. And I fit with her as Oryon.

Do I fit with her as Kim? H. E. double hockey sticks NO. But who can tell? We haven’t even hung out. Maybe we will. Somehow. If the core of her could reemerge and connect with the core of me. (That sounds gross. Who am I now, Turner the Lives Coach?)

Why do I still care about her so much?

Because you do, Kris would say. The “why” hardly matters.

Which is good advice for this whole Changer gig.