Decisions After Birth

The seventeenth of March was the day we all collectively know as The Day We Hated Kevin Zhang. It didn’t happen slowly. For all of kindergarten, leading into grade one, Kevin was everyone’s friend. But this year, everything changed when Ren Buckler transferred into our class a little ways past halfway through the school year.

We all have known Kevin for as long as we can remember. When you’re that young, you get along with everybody. Perhaps there are friendships between two or three people in the general class, but at the same time, the general class was close in a way that could only be when you’re young, friendly, and naive. One can ask anybody to play during recess time and the chances are, they would say yes. That was how you made friends. It’s how I made friends, and it’s how Kevin made friends. One day, we were playing tag in the schoolyard when Kevin came up to us mid-game and asked to join us. “Sure!” said all of us. “Julia’s it!” We’d welcome him with open arms and laughing and giggling. I remember him having the biggest smile once he was included. For the next couple of days, every recess, Kevin would come up to us again and ask to play. We always said yes. Soon, he became a part of our group. It ended up reaching a point where if he was sick one day, or gone from recess for any reason, we’d go, “Hey, where’s Kevin? He’s not here today?” Eventually, Kevin became integral to us, and he became our best friend.

At lunch, inside the classroom, everyone would open their lunchboxes and bring out their food. Whenever I looked around, I would mostly see sandwiches. But Kevin’s lunch was always a highlight. It was just so different. I remember every lunchtime, we’d crowd around Kevin and ask, “Kevin, what do you have for lunch today? Whoa, cool! I want to try that, I’m gonna tell my mom if she can make that for me!” He’d have dumplings, rice, veggie rolls, sometimes noodles; it was different every day and we observed with awe. At the time we didn’t know what any of it was called, but it looked tasty and we’d always beg him to share it with us, just one piece or two. “My momma cooks the best!” Kevin would say. We’d all agree.

When Kevin’s mother would pick him up after school, and we would all be in the yard, she would come in her office skirt, high heels, hair bun, and purse, speaking sounds to Kevin we did not know. He’d speak similar sounds back, as if he understood what she said. And they would go back and forth. I remember all of us watching in awe. The next day, we asked Kevin what all that was about, and he told us that he wasn’t from here and he had been speaking a different language. “Whoa!” we all said. “That’s so cool! Tell us about where you came from!” The teacher would overhear, laugh, and come over to help Kevin talk all about it. We listened with a hungry intent to learn based on wonder. I could speak for all of us when I say we found it more interesting than what two plus two was.

For a while, things seemed so fun with Kevin. He was our best friend. He came to all our birthday parties, and we’d all come to his. He walked home with us. He was one of the fastest runners for tag, and many would say he was the fastest. It was all a blur of good times. But, like I said, all of that changed the next year in grade one, right around the day Ren Buckler joined to our class.

The teacher introduced him to us. She told us his family moved in from the city, and this was his first time living in a suburban town like ours. In my head I imagined a car driving from this industrial, smoky urban place, carrying its smoke in an exhaust to this bright, sunny and green little town that was smoke-free. “Hi,” said Ren. We all said hi back.

Ren seemed nice enough, so when he asked us to play, we all said yes. It didn’t take long for us to find out that he was a really fast runner. Rumours began of him being faster than Kevin. They spread so much that one day, we asked if they could race each other. They have played tag with each other before, with all of us, but they’ve never really had a one versus one showdown before. Ren took one look at Kevin and laughed. 

“Why are you laughing?” asked Robert Hardy.

“You want me to race him?” Ren snorted. “You must be joking, right?”

“Are you scared?” said Amy Jane. “That he’s faster than you?”

“I’m not scared at all. He’s not faster than me. He can never be. It’s all because of a decision he made when he was born.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

For the next few days, every recess, Ren explained himself to the rest of the class. It became almost habitual. Instead of playing any games, we would find him and crowd around him as he talked. Much to some people’s disappointment, especially Kevin’s, who liked tag a lot, we began to play less and less of it. “My mom and dad told me that before everyone is born, they make all these decisions at birth,” said Ren. “What their hair colour is going to be, what their eye colour is going to be, how tall they are going to be. See, for example, I made the decision at birth to have these blue eyes and brown hair. Look at Penny, she decided to make her face really pretty.” He gestured to her as she blushed, everyone saying Oooooooo. “And now, look over here, Tom decided at birth he would have bad eyes and so he would need glasses.” He pointed at him, and when he shrunk everyone laughed.

The next thing I knew, everyone was checking their own traits. I looked around as they pointed to each other’s hair, or looked at each other’s feet and backs, or squinted at each other’s eyes and looked at the back of their hands to find what colour they were. I did the same. With the help of other people, I found out I had light brown, somewhat curly hair and deep brown eyes. My height was average, my skin was in the middle but more on the lighter side. Ren said, “Everyone chooses these traits at birth. Everyone.” I found it to be quite the funny idea, and I thought to myself that I must have chosen my features at birth too then, even if I didn’t remember it.

Sooner or later, when the seventeenth of March came, Ren explained why he would inevitably win against Kevin in a race, something he knew for certain even without trying. “It’s what he chose to be,” he said. “Look at him, look at me. I look better, right? And I know for sure I’m faster and stronger, too. That’s just the decisions at birth we both decided to make, it’s what my mom and dad taught me. He chose to make himself like the foods he eats, too. But they’re so weird! Haven’t you seen them? They’re slimy and icky and sometimes have too many veggies! And sometimes he eats those little white turds! They’re gross! Also, look at his eyes! They’re so tiny, like little slits! How can he even see the path ahead of him in a race? I don’t even know why he chose to make them like that at birth. That was such a dumb decision. Maybe he chose to make himself dumb first, so then when he made that decision he was already dumb.”

Kevin’s eyes? It was something that, until now, I had never even noticed before. And then, just like that, for the next few days I began noticing everyone’s features. I could not get it out of my head. I began seeing things like Jenny Ivanov’s big nose, or Johnny Fisher’s thick eyebrows, or Mary Tress’s skin tone and funny way of speaking. But, I don’t mean to say I didn’t know about all of these things before, no. These things were plain to see since day one. But, it’s like it’s only now that I’ve begun to notice them.

It’s like if someone were to show me any book and ask me if I’ve read it before, I can answer yes or no with ease. But now, it’s like I’m actively making a catalog of all the books I’ve read in my life. Sometimes, even rating some above others, too.

Over time, we all increasingly began to agree with Ren. Including me. Our perspective of Kevin changed, from what used to be an awe at his differences into what now was a sort of tense fear. No one crowded to see what he had for lunch anymore. “Hey, look what I have today!” Kevin would say, but now everyone would just say ew and call it gross. “I bet I can catch Calum today! He’s getting fast!” exclaimed Kevin, but since no one agreed with him, he lost his confidence at how fast he really was and would become third, fourth, or even lower in the class rankings. “Why does no one want to play tag with me anymore?” he’d ask, and everyone would either stay silent, or make fun of his little eyes along with Ren. Nothing was the same.

When I went home from school one day, I remember watching an episode of a cartoon on TV about this river full of yellow ducklings on both sides. On one side, the right side, there was a massive population where things were very crowded and some ducklings had all the power in telling the other ducklings what to do. On the other side, the left side, the ducklings lived in peace and had lots of space and were free. They also had a lot of food. Fields and fields of wheat that they baked into bread in abundance for everyone to eat. The story of the episode was that one day, this one duckling from the right side, the home he’s known since forever, decides to journey and cross the river to the other side in search of a better life. But it doesn’t end up going well for him. He builds a home there for himself, through his hard work and determination, but the local ducklings don’t care. All they do is make fun of him and mock him and one day it gets so bad he decides the extra food isn’t worth it, and he goes back home, to the delight of everyone else on the left side of the river.

I get reminded of that cartoon episode every time I think of the story of how Kevin left. It all started when one morning, Kevin sheepishly handed out these envelopes to many of us at school, his closest friends since junior kindergarten. I received one. When I opened it, I was mildly surprised to see an invitation to his birthday party. I mean, we all went to his birthday parties the past two years, but things were different now. It’s obvious his mother had planned it because she doesn’t know we’re not that close to Kevin anymore. 

Some didn’t end up going. The rest of us did, including me. But I got the idea that none of us really wanted to be there. His mother cooked us a barbecue in his backyard, welcoming us with kindness. The backyard had a swimming pool. She also supplied us with water balloons and water guns, telling us to have fun. I had seen Kevin’s mother before, but now, instead of noticing her clothes, shoes, or how her hair was tied, like before, this time I noticed that her eyes were small like Kevin’s. I noticed her hair was black, I noticed her complexion, I noticed her difference. This automatic noticing was like a virus that spread to all of us, and it started with Ren, who had it first. Once we caught it, it was impossible to get rid of it.

During the party, when Kevin said he was going to the bathroom, the kids at the party all came together and decided to prank him. They included me in it, but I decided to opt out, stand by, and watch. Looking back at it now, I should have done something. But it wasn’t that I was scared to intervene, it was that I didn’t inherently disagree with it. I had no opposition to the plan. Till this day I curse myself and understand that it was a cancer that had spread to my brain.

Their plan, once Kevin came out the glass doors to the backyard, was to bombard him all at once with water balloons and spray him with all the water guns. It was a fun little idea, but even at that age I understood that such meanness did not stem from our desire to have fun with Kevin, but instead from our collective new dislike of him. Yet I did nothing. 

When he came out the door, everyone did as planned. He screamed in confusion and when everyone began to laugh, he began crying. He was trying to get past the watery assault in closed eyes, and then, somewhere during all of the chaos, Philip Harrison pushed him into the pool. There was a large splash. He then shouted insults at him. “Take that, you Ching Chong! Bet you didn’t see that coming because of your tiny eyes! Ching Chong, Ching Chong!” It was a name that, before that day, I had only heard Ren use.

I had never seen Philip do anything like that before. I always thought of him as a quiet, rule-following kid. And, unbeknownst to us during the chaos, Kevin’s mother had come out the door a minute after him. She had seen the whole thing, more or less. Seeing Kevin crying as he held the edge of the pool and floated there--thank goodness he knew how to swim--and all of us staring at her, I thought she was going to get angry and throw a fit. But she didn’t. Instead, she did the strangest thing. Something that stuck to me till this day. She just stood there, staring at seemingly nothing in particular, as if lost in a trance. But in her paralyzed moment, deep in reflection, I could sense within her a deep sadness. A great melancholy that disturbed her to her core, something of which was what made her inactive for so long. Like a revelation she did not want to know.

Eventually, she told everyone to move inside. We all felt guilty, so we did quietly and without question. She helped Kevin out of the water. She stayed with him in the backyard, kneeling down to talk with him as he wiped the tears from his eyes. The glass doors were closed. Everyone could see Kevin and his mother through them, but couldn’t hear a thing. I was naturally curious to listen, so I went to the kitchen and found that there was an open window which I could slightly see them and hear their conversation through. I listened from there.

I could barely make out what she was saying, but I got the general idea of it. She told Kevin not to play with these kids anymore, that she didn’t know what their parents were teaching them. She told him to ignore everything they said and that everything would be fine, she was going to do something about it. Then I saw her embrace him in her arms.

When grade two started, we all learned that Kevin was not going to stay. He was leaving to go back home with his family. I remember talking with him when it was just the two of us. “Home?” I asked. “Do you mean that country you told us you came from?”

“Yes,” he said.

“But isn’t this your home? Here?”

“Momma wanted it that way. But she said it’s not possible. Things people say to her and Poppa at work, things people say to me.”

“But have you ever been there?”

“Nah. I was born here.”

“How can you call over there home? You live here. This is your home. Why are you leaving?”

He shook his head. “Back where Momma’s from, all the people there think the decisions at birth we make are good ones. And over there, they make fun of the decisions at birth people make here, like Ren’s. So I belong there. Sorry, Ian.”

Both sides criticized the other side’s decisions at birth? He made me think of a curious possibility.

What if there were no such things as bad decisions at birth? 

When Kevin left, some said goodbye to him, but most didn’t say a word to him. We never saw him again.

I spent the rest of my life wondering what Kevin’s mother was thinking or feeling in that moment during the birthday party, and if there was any way I could find Kevin again and apologize for those kids’ actions, because I never did. Kevin’s mother seemed to have a certain wisdom to understand something in that moment for her son, a silent truth. It’s something I’ll never know.

I remember that on the night of that birthday party, I had a dream of the cartoon episode about the ducklings and the river. Every event of the story played out normally. But this time, the duckling that crossed over came with many others. Dozens of them. And they stayed and helped the ducklings on the other side cultivate their wheat farms and lands, giving them a huge amount of food that turned them into a prosperous civilization. The ducklings that already lived there congratulated them for being a part of it all, after they had done so much work on the farms, and they said they were forever thankful and in debt. They told them they belonged there and were welcome to stay forever, as well as their children, and their children’s children, and so on, and that they all could always call the left side of the river home. I had a smile on my face in bed that night.

We used to be good friends with Kevin. All of us. We played tag with him, we shared our snacks with him, we hung out after school with him. He was an integral member of our group. But then, one day, all of that stopped and we began to hate him, make fun of him, shun him. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know why.

Today, I don’t believe in what Ren Buckler said anymore. He never gave any evidence for his theory, or I suppose his parents’ theory, about decisions at birth. But today I keep on thinking, that if it were even true, and Kevin did choose all the traits he had at birth, he could have stayed here with us and not have gone back with his parents. Because if it’s possible for him to make decisions at birth, then we and him should all have the power to make certain decisions about each other after birth, too. 

If I could make one now, I would start with the decision to keep Kevin as my friend. But as long as there are people like Ren out there, making the decisions about people like Kevin for me, I can’t make my own decisions. But I suppose making them anyway is how I fight back the people like Ren. That’s what I’ve learned, over the years while growing up, that people secretly do whenever there’s only one public opinion. So, till this day, I make them anyway. No matter how far away Kevin is, no matter where he is, he is my friend. If he ever comes back when he’s older, and he brings his entire family, I’m going to make it my sworn duty to make them feel as welcome and loved as possible. And I want to make it clear: I’m not going to do it just because Ren bullied him (as if he’s just being pitied by me), but because he was always my friend to begin with, ever since kindergarten, and no one can take that away from us or make me forget. Even if they tried.

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