Tick Tock

beside a classic Corvette: a silver 1963 Sting Ray with boat-tail rear end and split rear window. The driver, an aging surfer type with blond hair and a walrus moustache, looked at the new aqua 'vette and then at Tommy. Tommy made a circle of his thumb and forefinger, letting the stranger know that the Sting Ray was a fine machine, and the guy replied with a smile and a thumbs-up sign, which made Tommy feel like part of a secret club.
    As the end of the century approached, some people said that the American dream was almost extinguished and that the California dream was ashes. Nevertheless, for Tommy Phan on this wonderful autumn afternoon, the promise of his country and the promise of the coast were burning bright.
    The sudden swooping shadow and the inexplicable chill were all but forgotten.
     
    He drove through Laguna Beach and Dana Point to San Clemente, where at last he turned and, as twilight fell, headed north again. Cruising aimlessly. He was getting a feel for the way the Corvette handled. Weighing three thousand two hundred and ninety-eight pounds, it hugged the pavement, low and solid, providing sports car intimacy with the road and incomparable responsiveness. He wove through a number of tree-lined residential streets merely to confirm that the Corvette's curb-to-curb turning diameter was forty feet, as promised.
    Entering Dana Point from the south this time, he switched off the radio, picked up his cellular phone, and called his mother in Huntington Beach. She answered on the second ring, speaking Vietnamese, although she had immigrated to the United States twenty-two years ago, shortly before the fall of Saigon, when Tommy had been only eight years old. He loved her, but sometimes she made him crazy.
    “Hi, Mom.”
    “Tuong?” she said.
    “Tommy,” he reminded her, for he had not used his Vietnamese name for many years. Phan Tran Tuong had long ago become Tommy Phan. He meant no disrespect for his family, but he was far more American now than Vietnamese.
    His mother issued a long-suffering sigh because she would have to use English. A year after they arrived from Vietnam, Tommy had insisted that he would speak only English; even as a little kid, he had been determined to pass eventually for a native-born American.
    “You sound funny,” she said with a heavy accent.
    “It's the cellular phone.”
    “Whose phone?”
    “The car phone.”
    “Why you need car phone, Tuong?”
    “Tommy. They're really handy, couldn't get along without one. Listen, Mom, guess what—”
    “Car phones for big shots.”
    “Not anymore. Everybody's got one.”
    “I don't. Phone and drive too dangerous.”
    Tommy sighed—and was slightly rattled by the realization that his sigh sounded exactly like his mother's. “I've never had an accident, Mom.”
    “You will,” she said firmly.
    Even with one hand, he was able to handle the Corvette with ease on the long straightaways and wide sweeps of the Coast Highway. Rack and pinion steering with power assist. Rear-wheel drive. Four-speed automatic transmission with torque converter. He was gliding.
    His mother changed the subject: “Tuong, haven't seen you in weeks.”
    “We spent Sunday together, Mom. This is only Thursday.”
    They had gone to church together on Sunday. His father was born a Roman Catholic, and his mother converted before marriage, back in Vietnam, but she also kept a small Buddhist shrine in one corner of their living room. There was usually fresh fruit on the red altar, and sticks of incense bristled from ceramic holders.
    “You come to dinner?” she asked.
    “Tonight? Gee, no, I can't. See, I just—”
    “We have com tay cam.”
    “—just bought—”
    “You remember what is com tay cam —or maybe forget all about your mother's cooking?”
    “Of course, I know what it is, Mom. Chicken and rice in a clay pot. It's delicious.”
    “Also having shrimp and watercress soup. You remember shrimp and watercress soup?”
    “I remember, Mom.”
    Night was creeping over the coast. Above the rising land to the east, the heavens were black and stippled with stars. To the west, the ocean was inky near the shore, striped with the silvery foam of incoming breakers, but indigo toward the horizon, where a final blade of bloody sunlight still cleaved the sea from the sky.
    Cruising through the falling darkness, Tommy did feel a little bit like a god, as Jim Shine had promised. But he was unable to enjoy it because, at the same time, he felt too much like a thoughtless and ungrateful son.
    His mother said,