Tiger Babies Strike Back by Kim Wong Keltner Page A

other’s company. I asked my aunts what had happened to them. Apparently, my grandmother Ruby busted them up. She was Bill’s older sister, and since their parents were deceased, I suppose she had de facto Tiger Mom jurisdiction over him and effectively got rid of Christine. Grandma Ruby didn’t throw her down a well or anything, but I imagine she somehow told Christine’s family to keep her retarded ass away from her little brother.
    When I remarked to my mother that what happened with Bill and Christine was really horrible, in a moment of surprising clarity, my mom shrugged and rhetorically asked, “See what happens when you listen to your family?”
    As I knew him, Uncle Bill was a very downtrodden man. As far as I could tell, one of his small pleasures in life was to collect decorative hors d’oeuvres toothpicks embossed with the names of the touristy places he visited—Niagara Falls, Honolulu, Las Vegas—but when he died, the packaged souvenirs were all thrown out unused, having never been opened.
    Maybe you could say Bill himself was unused and unopened. He was very shy, and he suffered when Christine had been deemed not good enough. A dud. The Chinese ladies had clucked their tongues, and that was that.
    So Bill did not marry Christine.
    In addition to photos of the “health camp,” in the album there were pictures of Uncle Bill at the U.S. Postal Service office where he worked, sorting big metal baskets of mail. Also, there was a snapshot of him in front of a plaque that read WELCOME TO WAIKIKI ! In the background was a swaying palm tree, and the sky was light blue and peaceful. Bill was wearing a button-down, long-sleeved shirt, a wide black tie, a sweater vest, wool slacks, and black leather shoes, and he had a raincoat folded in his arms.
    I wanted to say, “Hey, Uncle Bill, good thing ya got that raincoat. You never know when a hailstorm might strike.”
    And how, you might wonder, did I come across this sad little photo album and the unused cocktail toothpicks?
    Because I’m the one who threw out the detritus of his entire life. When his siblings decided it was time to move him to assisted living, my husband and I cleaned out his house. We scrubbed the urine off the floors and walls and sorted and recycled junk mail, bills, holiday cards, and vital records going back to 1952. We chiseled off decayed food from the kitchen tile and arranged for Sunset Scavenger to take away sixty-four Hefty bags full of his belongings.
    There were grade-school report cards, long-expired prescription bottles, tax records from two decades ago, and a junk pile full of personal items. But this stuff hadn’t been junk to him. It was his life. I tried to call around to family members to ask if they wanted to save his things, but for every person I phoned, each said the exact same thing: throw that crap out.
    No one could deal with it. No one wanted old photos, cheap dishes, documents, Living with Houseplants , mini weenie forks, souvenir toothpicks, or any gadget ordered from late-night television ads: the coin-flushing bank, lamps that strapped onto your forehead, fake leather satchels, or Chia Pets. Throw it out. Get rid of it. Salvation Army. How the heck should I know? Why are you calling me ? Who is this?
    It’s Kim. I’m your niece. You know, Larry and Irene’s kid. Yeah, Number Three.
    Yes, I was reduced to my birth-order number. Fine. Once they’d ascertained who the hell I was, the answer was still the same: throw that crap out.
    I wanted to know more about Bill’s life, but I didn’t get much out of anybody. No one knew anything, or else they just said nothing. Nothing and everything was none of my freaking business so don’t ask; just stuff your face with long-life noodles at the next Chinese banquet and shut the hell up, Number Three.
    Well, okay then.
    Uncle Bill was a Tiger Baby. A non–Carnegie Hall player. A runt. He was one of us and