, "Mọi người thư giãn đi, bạn tôi cao lắm. Đừng thô lỗ nữa! Quay trở lại bữa ăn của bạn
!" Shaking his head in disgust, he opened his menu.
I waited for an explanation but receiving none, I reached over and snatched the menu out of his hand and demanded, "Are you going to tell me what all that was about, or what?"
Bian quickly jumped in. "It was nothing. Some superstitious grandmother got excited when she saw you, thinking you were a Batutut, the Vietnamese version of a Sasquatch. Greg told them you were just a tall white guy and scolded them for being rude, then told them to shut up and eat their dinner."
"People are weird everywhere, I guess," I said, opening up my own menu. Embarrassed now, I gave Greg his menu back and position my menu to keep me semi-hidden from any prying eyes. I already knew what I wanted - bun rieu, a rice vermicelli noodle soup made with tomato and crab, where the crab patties are made from crabs that have been pounded into a paste - but I wanted to be invisible for a bit. When my food came, I sensed people had stopped looking. Putting the menu down, I ate my meal, enjoying it tremendously.
Truth be told, the old woman's accusations had some merit. While I'd thankfully avoided the Vietnam war draft by enlisting in the Coast Guard, to mistake me for a Vietnamese Sasquatch wasn't really that unreasonable. Technically I was part Sasquatch, just not the Vietnamese kind. My people were from the Pacific Northwest.
I'm Germanicus Julian Heller, named after Germanicus Julius Caesar, a Roman emperor. The 'emperor' name thing is a dumb family tradition, but everybody called me Manny anyway. I'm 31, with bright red Irish hair that I'd inherited from Declan Bohannon, my grandfather. My 7'1" height, 312 pound weight, over-sized hands and 21 EE shoes were courtesy of my great-grandmother Daisy's side of the family.
My human great-grandfather Adam Karpiak was a fur trapper in the Northwest around 1890, and incredible as it sounds, he fell in love and married my great-grandmother Daisy, who was half Sasquatch. Daisy's mother Black Rose was full-blooded, while her father Haggerty was a human like Adam. (At the turn of the 20
th
century Sasquatch women must have been a hot commodity way up in the Northwest.)
When I say Daisy was half Sasquatch, I don't mean she was simply hairy, oh no. My great-grandmother was at least seven feet tall and weighed over 300 pounds. My great-grandfather was around a foot shorter than her, but if you were a man alone in the wilderness, love was love, right?
All the stories I'd heard about Adam said he loved Daisy deeply, and I had no reason to doubt it. They were married for 26 years and had three girls, Marigold, Daffodil, and my grandmother Tulip, who were still clearly part-Sasquatch -- the local Shoshone tribe referred to my great-grandfather as "Tall Daughters" because of it - and after Daisy died in 1920, Adam never remarried. I guess he buried his heart with her.
At 6'2", my human father Ezra Heller was taller than average; at 6'7", my mother Maeve was the same height as my grandmother Tulip. Mom met Dad, a podiatrist, after moving from little Bear Grove, Washington down to the big city of Portland, Oregon after the war ended in 1945. She'd come into his office for a foot appointment (being part-Sasquatch, my mother's side of the family tended to have oversized and problematic feet). One look at her feet, freckles, and red hair was all it took; Ezra was instantly head over heels, professionally and personally, ha-ha. He proposed after their second date, and she accepted. They married in 1946.
Sasquatch females are not known for being prolific breeders (with three daughters my great-grandmother was the exception), so it took until 1949 for me to make an appearance; 31 years later I remained an only child. Since my father had passed two years prior and my mother was now 63, I remained fairly confident this wouldn't change.
Despite our extensive family history, I never really felt 'Sasquatch-y'. As a young boy I'd spent some time with my grandparents, and while Grandma Tulip had some extra light brown hair on her arms and legs, I never got a sense of her being anything other than just extremely tall and beautiful. I guess being three-quarters human kind of diluted her.
As for my mother Maeve, she wasn't hairy anywhere unusual that I could see, and I never felt comfortable asking Dad about it; some questions are better off left unasked, you know? With Mom's pale skin, red hair and green eyes, she just looked Irish like my grandfather. I figured the dwindling Sasquatch genetics had been bred out of both of us by this point, leaving me simply a really tall shy kid with big hands and oversized feet.
There was one time while visiting the family up in Bear Grove, though, when Grandma Tulip pulled me into her lap and told me about being a Sasquatch. "I know you don't think you're a Sasquatch, Germanicus, but I'll bet you have extra-good hearing and sense of smell." I nodded, that seemed true.
"There's something else you need to know, little one," she confided, "there's a wild fury that sleeps deep inside you. It will come out when you or a loved one feel threatened. It's not like getting mad normally. When it happens, every sense you have will be heightened, and your reflexes will become quicker, almost automatic, not to mention dangerous. Your emotions will overrule your rational mind, and it will be very difficult to control. If unconstrained, people can get hurt, or even killed."
Being by nature a placid and shy 7-year-old boy who seldom lost my temper, I couldn't ever imagine ever being that way. I knew Grandma Tulip would never lie to me, but innocently asked, "Are you sure, Grandma?"
She lowered her voice in a quiet conspiratorial tone. "Yes! The fury is in every Sasquatch, and it's real! I once witnessed it myself! I was young girl in the wilderness, 18, and I had just met this handsome boy, your grandfather. We were walking through the woods, and I was distracted by being in love."
She stopped, smiling at her own reminiscing. "He was quite the handsome rake, your grandfather, and when we met he was instantly smitten with me. I was trying to be a good girl like my father taught me, but Declan kept wanting to touch me..."
She stopped and a smile crossed her face, then shook her head and continued. "I'm sorry Manny, you're too young to hear that part. But the important thing was that while we were distracted, three renegades ambushed us. They knocked out Declan with a rock, then threw ropes around my neck and said they'd kill him if I didn't cooperate. Then they led me deeper into the woods and started to tear my clothes off, but I got scared and began to struggle against the ropes."
My eyes got wide. "Did they hurt you, Grandma?"
"Thankfully, no. They were about to when a big rock hit one man in the head; it was thrown by my sister's husband Julius, in full Sasquatch rage. Julius would have killed again, except before he had a chance, your grandfather Declan stuck a knife in the second bad man. The third, a Shoshone, dropped the rope he was holding and started waving a pistol around, but your great-grandfather Adam showed up. My father was very respected by the Shoshone, and was able to persuade him to drop the gun and leave."
My eyes must have been as wide as saucers at this point, but Grandma kept on. "Then there was my cousin Augustus. The fury in Gus came out when a carnival worker beat up a dwarf woman he'd secretly been sweet on. Her name was Polly; when Gus finally got calmed down, she moved into his wagon, and she never moved out. Eventually they ended up getting married. They live up in Issaquah, Washington now." My child's brain was spinning, but Grandma wasn't done yet.
"Always remember, Manny, when your fury comes out, you may find yourself doing things you didn't know you could do." Being 7, I had the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel and was only half-listening, my mind focused on going out to play.
I asked, "Grandma Tulip, can I go outside now?" She stroked my face lovingly, and for some reason it always made me really happy when she did.
"Just one more thing, Germanicus," she said, "the heat of Sasquatch fury ignites another kind of fire afterwards. It makes you want to mate." I wasn't sure exactly what that entailed, but I guessed it had to do with kissing and stuff.
Shuddering, I cried out, "Ewwwww, Grandma, that's gross!" She laughed, patted my bottom, and pushed me towards the door.
After the strange scene in Long Tot, despite not having given it much thought in years, as I drove home Grandma Tulip's warning came back to me. The idea of my having a Sasquatch fury seemed far-fetched, really. I'd always been easy-going and good natured. By grade 5, I stood 6'6" and wasn't done growing yet, so I'd never been bullied by my schoolmates.
During basic training and throughout my Coast Guard career I always got along well with my teammates. I mean, sure, I guess I could have gotten angry in the restaurant, but what was the point? I was definitely a big guy with huge hands and feet, and since superstition plays a major role in Vietnamese life, the elderly Vietnamese woman being upset was understandable. Besides, Bian and Greg handled everything. There was nothing for me to get furious about.
Speaking of driving home, since I was single, I didn't have many possessions, but I did splurge on one thing: a 1986 Ford Econoline Cargo Van. This was not just your standard plain Econoline, not by a long shot; she was customized throughout. Under the hood, she had a big 460 cubic inch motor. On the outside she was painted metallic dark blue, with an air dam with mounted fog lights on the front, a spoiler on the back, custom mag wheels, and best of all, a beautiful custom-airbrushed pirate ship mural on the sides.
Inside, she was fully carpeted with four super-sized captain's chairs for the driver and passengers, while in the rear cargo area, the walls were paneled and there was an extra-long platform bed with storage drawers beneath. It was a tiny RV, basically, perfect for a tall guy like me.
As a bachelor without a mortgage and having worked for 14 years, I loved my van. The only downside? While the roomy interior made it an incredibly comfortable living room on wheels, there were times when all that space felt a little empty. It would have been nice to have a woman to ride in it with me.
While Grandma Tulip said my fury would come out if a loved one was threatened, it would have been nice to actually
have
