Near closing time some friends from other stalls walked by Unknown Pleasures to lightly sprinkle shit on Dwayne for performing so poorly in the eating contest.
“I was thinking about your face and I lost my appetite,” was his standard reply. Dwayne could have come up with something better under normal circumstances, but he wasn’t so sharp after his system cleanse. He wasn’t even up for horsing around during the lulls.
At around one in the morning I left the night market. I’d scrubbed down the side grill and mopped the tiles in the front. Dwayne would take care of the main grill and Frankie, who always left last, would finish everything else. I would be screwed without those guys because honestly they worked like they were family. No days off. I could tell when one of them was feeling sick only by their excessive tea drinking, and even then, neither would ever cop to it. They never seriously complained about anything.
Maybe they felt sorry for me.
I touched Little Fatty on the way out. I don’t believe in luck, superstitions, or gods, but that little pot had saved my life. I know it’s an inanimate object but I will feel a great deal of affection for it until I die.
I walked down the darkened streets that only a few hours ago were choked with people. Death. Why was I thinking about death again, much less my own death? I was alive, in love, and happy. Very happy.
I turned west on Jiantan Road, away from the night market. I continued along the boarded-up future site of the Taipei Performing Arts Center, which looked like a moon base in artist renderings. I was sure that it was going to have many important cultural events that I wouldn’t have the time, money, or desire to attend.
I crossed Chengde Road and stopped at the all-night fruit stand, which had way better deals than the cheats at the night market. I bought a pineapple that had already been shorn of its headpiece and skinned. It’s always good to have one in the fridge.
After I turned the corner, I saw a huge billboard and a wave of foreboding came over me. The giant ad was from a hospital. Like all hospital ads, none of the people in it seemed to require hospitalization. A three-generation family was sitting in their living room, smiling like dopes and pointing to a full moon that was perfectly centered in their apparently high-definition glass window.
the mid-autumn festival: a time to love, declared the ad.
I trudged on about four blocks to Qiangang Park, which was pretty big for a neighborhood park and included an outdoor pool near the obligatory temple to Mazu. My apartment was on the second floor of a generic concrete building that had sprouted up in the 1990s. From the bedroom I had a great view of a lighted small dirt patch in a neglected section of the park. It’s a decent apartment with unwarped floors and gets quite a bit of light. Plumbing’s in great shape, too. I couldn’t understand why the preceding tenants had all broken their leases. Not until my first weekend.
Every Friday and Saturday nights, a pack of stray dogs entered the park and the alpha fought off challengers on that dirt patch. Dogs of all sizes, shapes, colors, and hair lengths let loose with howls of laughter and pain like partying teenagers in American films. It was loud enough to rattle my windows. Nancy refused to stay over on weekends. “Those are incarnations of evil spirits!” she declared.
At about three in the morning, the alpha would pull his head back and wail a saga. He had the general shape of a German shepherd wrapped in knots of long, dirty white hair. His head fringe hung at a rakish angle over his face, covering one of his eyes. By the end of the night, he was often splattered in blood. He would lick it off and smile at the moon. I named him Willie after Willie Nelson.
I watched Willie after his victories. At first I hated him for presiding over all that noise but I came to admire the beast as a decent fellow. The dog wouldn’t kill his defeated rivals, as was his right to. Not only did he forgive them, he seemed to grant them high ranks in the pack as a consolation prize.
How could Willie be an evil spirit?
The Council of Agriculture, which was responsible for rounding up strays, showed up only during the big ferret-badger rabies scare. They were supposed to vaccinate the dogs, as well. But when the guys left their truck for a dinner break, Willie led his top dogs into their cab through an open window and pissed all over the interior. The COA workers called a tow truck and took a cab home. It was all caught on security cameras.
Not only is CCTV the nation’s top crime-fighting tool, it doubles as source material for cable news programs and talk shows. One news station created an animated meme of giant dogs pissing on things, including the Taipei 101 skyscraper, the face of the head of the COA, and the full moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival, turning it yellow.
So what if my bedroom was a box seat to dog mischief? It was still an improvement from my old home, the one in the benignly sleazy Wanhua District that I had grown up in. That was an illegal building that had burned down to the ground more than a month ago. Seems like a former life.
When my parents died, I had been saddled with a family debt related to my grandfather’s gambling habits and a loan from a local crime boss to cover losses. The jiaotou, as these neighborhood bosses are known, was really paying himself back with his own money, since he ran the gambing parlor as well.
Gambling has been a fixture in Taiwan since Chinese people arrived en masse in the 17th century and it’s been a hard habit to break. Organized criminal activity to support gambling and other vices took root under the Japanese colonizers; after they left at the end of World War II, Taiwanese took over.
Jiaotous are local-level guys. Maybe they have a dozen guys and five blocks under their control. They were Taiwanese Taiwanese. Benshengren, descended from Chinese who fled China when the Ming Dynasty collapsed in 1644. They also have aboriginal blood, since nearly all the Chinese who came over were men. Benshengren also speak Taiwanese and only resort to Mandarin Chinese under duress.
The big gangs in Taiwan, the ones that operate on a national level, are mostly staffed with so-called mainlanders, descendants of Chinese who came over in waves after World War II and the Chinese civil war.
One may think that after seventy years there wouldn’t be much difference between the two largest populations of Taiwan, or that the tension would not be noticeable on a day-to-day basis. But memories are long and the past remains present. We worship our ancestors, after all.
Some benshengren are still bitter about their perceived mistreatment at the hands of the mainlanders during the forty-year martial-law era. Mainlanders say benshengren are looking for ways to segregate themselves, which is interesting because that’s what benshengren say about the Hakka, an ethnic minority originally from China. And don’t get anyone started on whose fault it is that the indigenous people of Taiwan continue to be marginalized.
There are many issues we all have with each other and past grievances are stoked every election as the country tears itself apart.
An old friend told me once that criminal organizations offer more stability than the government, and without all the fake promises and red tape. Whenever there are natural disasters in Taiwan—earthquakes, hurricanes, or mudslides—who are the first people on the scene with food, water, blankets, and medical supplies? The gangs.
The rare times that there are stabbings, it’s gangsters killing each other. The police and the community at large don’t have problems with that. Gangsters by code use knives and swords. They disdain guns, which any dissolute amateur can use. No honor in using them.
Taiwan’s gangsters operate outside the law, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a sense of integrity for the profession.
In fact, after the fire that destroyed my old house, the jiaotou who had inherited the lender end of my family debt slashed what I owed and later wiped it away altogether. We had always gotten along on a superficial level, but I was taken aback by his newfound charity. The guy even sent me a little housewarming gift basket when I moved out of Nancy’s place and into the Qiangang Park apartment. Nancy had said I didn’t have to move out, but I felt weird living there, maybe because I’m old-fashioned in the sense that I believe a man should really have his own place. I was also against staying there because a rich married dude had given Nancy the apartment while she was his mistress. He was in jail now for bribing officials, otherwise I would totally be kicking his ass on principle alone.
I entered my apartment and was greeted immediately by thumping from the ceiling. The people above had installed a Japanese-style floor of raised wood planks over a hollow center. The trapped air pocket acted like a layer of insulation that kept the floor cool during hot summer days and warm in the winter. The downside, borne entirely by me, was that every step my neighbors took sounded like a beat of a tom-tom drum. Apparently they were having a stomping party right now, at one-thirty in the morning. I fought back the only way I knew how. I lifted my stereo speakers to the top of my dresser, pointed them upwards and cued up a live recording of Joy Division covering “Sister Ray.” It was the loudest music file I had.
I unbuttoned and peeled off my shirt, which was sweaty in the back and greasy in front. I was normally against wearing a collared shirt, but Nancy said I should look nice in case I was on television during the eating contest. I showered, snaked into a V-neck and light cotton slacks, and brushed my teeth as “Sister Ray” played on. The track was only about seven and a half minutes long, but I had it on repeat. I hoped my neighbors’ hollow floor acted like a subwoofer and throbbed like a bass cabinet under their feet.
I was chuckling as I imagined their furniture jerking around from the sound waves when an insistent knock came at the front door. Oh, shit. I’d only ever blasted music at my neighbors, not confronted them in person. That would be rude. Taiwan is mostly a passive, non-confrontational place.
More knocks.
I had no idea what these neighbors looked like. Maybe it was a really big guy. Maybe he wanted to punch my lights out. I should take a weapon to the door, but something not too threatening, in case it was actually, say, an older woman. I grabbed my toothbrush in my right hand. It didn’t look very threatening, but I could poke an eye out with it, if I had to.
My apartment door had a peephole that had been painted over on both ends.
“Who is it?” I called out.
“Jing-nan?” I didn’t recognize the man’s voice. He didn’t sound big or angry.
“Yeah,” I said. “Are you complaining about the noise?”
“What? No. Just open the door.” I could hear his fingernails tapping impatiently.
“It’s really late,” I said. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Fuck this,” said the man. I heard something rattle in the lock. I dropped my toothbrush and grabbed at the chain lock. Before I could slide it into place the door swung open.
I backed up as two men intruded. The guy in front was of a medium build, about the same size as me. He wasn’t happy. The man behind him stood at about six feet three, his muscles spread out over his large frame like the multiple trunks of a banyan tree. The big man had a dull look in his eyes that said, “I would lose zero sleep over your death from prolonged violence.”
“Jing-nan,” said the man who was my size. “Your uncle sent us, so there’s nothing to worry about. Call me Whistle. This is Gao.” His teeth were stained red from chewing betel nut. A ring of keys and lock picks danced around his hairy knuckles.
Contrary to what he said, I became even more apprehensive at the mention of my uncle. “My no-good brother,” as my father used to refer to him. I hadn’t seen him in maybe fifteen years. He had the Chen family habit of accumulating debts. He partially paid them off and then, after a brief cancer scare, he skipped town. There were rumors that he had established himself on a remote island in the Philippines, doing who knew what.
Whistle lifted an open hand to me. “Jing-nan, we have to go,” he said.
“Gonna use the can,” grunted Gao as he pushed his way past me.
“Where are we going?” I asked Whistle.
“We’re taking you to your uncle,” he said, surprised that I wasn’t able to figure that out. “He has to talk to you.”
“Where is he?”
“Taichung City!” said Whistle, surprised that I hadn’t known that, either. Taichung, true to its name, “central Taiwan,” is located above the center of the island, to the southwest from Taipei. It’s about a two-hour drive.
“Couldn’t I talk to him on the phone?” I said, not meaning to whine.
“Jing-nan!” Whistle chided. “He’s all the family you’ve got! You know what time of year it is! You have to see him in person!”
I licked my lips. “Is he in trouble?”
“Of course not. Now, let’s go. Put on some clothes and shoes, not sandals.” I heard a loud hocking sound echo in the bathroom, followed by the toilet flushing.
I can’t pretend to understand how families work in other cultures. I know American kids can’t wait to move out of the house and that they see their grandparents only a handful of times a year. In Taiwan we live in the family house basically until we’re married. You see your grandparents every day because grandma cooks for the entire family and grandpa’s parked on his favorite chair by the window, reading newspapers and eating roasted melon seeds, piling the shells on an already-read section. Your aunts and uncles and their kids are probably living in another room or in an adjacent apartment where the adjoining door is never locked.
I remember in one of the Godfather films someone says to keep your friends close but your enemies closer. In Taiwan we keep our family even closer than our enemies.
Just hearing about my uncle brought up these feelings of familial ties and the inherent duties. He might indeed be no good but that wasn’t a reason not to hear and obey him. We shared the same name, blood, and fate. It was actually strange for us not to be in touch and our reunion was timely considering the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Whistle and Gao brought me to their Infiniti SUV, which was parked around the corner in the shadows. It was customized with tinted windows. I took a seat in the back. Whistle got behind the wheel and Gao heaved himself into the shotgun seat. He wasn’t armed with a shotgun, though. He was armed with a handgun that he checked before stashing it somewhere under his seat.
Yep, I thought, these guys sure know my uncle.
My neighborhood is never completely quiet at night, but all I could hear inside the car was Whistle making faint slobbering sounds as he chewed gum. He was probably banned from chewing betel nut (and spitting out the juice) while inside the SUV.
I noticed that the tint seal was bubbling in a few places. I tapped my finger to a double bubble. The glass was unusually thick—more than two inches.
Bulletproof.
Just a few months ago I would have been scared out of my mind being in the company of armed criminals. A lot has changed since. I’ve been beat up, shot at, and I even whacked some guy in the head with the butt of a gun. It sounds like a video game but in real life, fighting is exhausting and you feel bad about the people you hurt—even the bad people. Once you experience something like that, it’s easier to remain calm in times of distress.
Then again, I wasn’t being kidnapped. Presumably these two guys were my uncle’s henchmen, and presumably my uncle wished me well. I hadn’t seen him in a long time, but I had good memories of him, despite my father’s misgivings. “Younger Uncle” was how I was taught to address him, but his friends and people in the neighborhood called him “Big Eye.” It was an odd little nickname, because he didn’t have big eyes at all. In fact his eyes were often narrowed and shifty.
Come to think of it, he had a pretty mean-looking face. Yet my uncle was also very generous with me and laughed easily and louder than anybody else. He had given me candy and chocolate. The night before he took off, he asked me if I had what it took to be a man. I said I did, and he let me try cigarettes and beer, turning me off to smoking and drinking for years. Could that have been the plan?
I looked out the bubbly dark windows and watched streetlights and buildings whip through my dark reflection.
Way too late to call or text Nancy. I probably wasn’t in danger, but I wanted to let her know where I was. I tried to write her an email to explain that I’d been called away to visit my uncle. Everything I came up with sounded like I had been abducted and like it was written under duress. In the end, I settled on: “I have gone to visit my uncle because he is having personal problems. I should be back soon but I’m not sure when. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
I copied Dwayne. Frankie didn’t trust email. He didn’t like putting anything in writing because your own words could be twisted and turned against you. If I’d been a political prisoner like him, I’d probably feel the same way.
All three of them would understand. Long-lost relatives could pop in at a wedding, a funeral, or near the Mid-Autumn Festival, as it turns out. My girlfriend and friends would only be alarmed if it turned out to be the last message they ever got from me.
We circled up a ramp to the highway and passed by a roadside betel-nut stand. I watched a so-called betel-nut beauty, dressed in a hot pink halter top and matching miniskirt, standing frozen in the glass window. I thought about my first and lost love, Julia. She had been working as a betel-nut beauty, or posing as one, when she was murdered.
When I was just a kid I was so sure I was going to marry that girl. The pain of losing her for good made me a man better equipped emotionally.
The streetlights passed at a regular pace that entranced me. My eyelids constantly slid shut. Rain began to fall and I watched droplets of water shiver across the windowpane. The last things I saw before I fell asleep were blurry flashes.
I stood before an offering table that was adorned with burning incense, plates of fruit, and a bunch of other sacred objects I’ve never understood the purpose of. Smoke from the joss sticks obscured everything beyond the table but I could feel that my old classmate Guo was near. While he was alive, I used to refer to him by his childhood nickname, Cookie Monster.
“Jing-nan?” he asked. “Is that really you?”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “Where am I?”
“You’re standing at one of the doorways between the world of the living and The Courts.”
“What are ‘The Courts’?”
“I’m being judged and punished for all the wrong I’ve done in my life,” said Guo. He had made some mistakes in life; one of the last ones had been pointing a gun at me. “Jing-nan, the gods here are all mainlanders! And they’re really loud and mean!”
“I’m sorry you’re having a hard time, Cookie, er, Guo. But why are we talking?”
“I had to see you to apologize for trying to kill you,” he said. With all sincerity, he added, “I’m very sorry.”
“It’s all right,” I said.
“You have to say that you forgive me, or it doesn’t count!”
“Okay, I forgive you.”
“Thank you, Jing-nan. Please allow me to apologize to you 9,999 more times.”
“What!”
“Ten thousand times every day for the next ten thousand years.”
“I’ll be dead by then, Guo.”
“That doesn’t matter! All of the dead are apologizing to each other as we try to work our way out of this maze.”
“I forgive you to infinity,” I said. “Please consider the issue closed.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Guo said sadly. I dimly felt my physical body sway and recognized that I was dreaming.
“Say, Guo,” I said, “while I’m here, could I talk to Julia?”
I sensed fear in his response. “You want to talk to Julia? Before your parents? Jing-nan, how could you put anybody before your father and mother?”
“Well, why the hell am I talking to you, then?”
“I’m here to grovel,” said Guo. “Under any other circumstance, you should be paying respects to your family. Nothing’s more important!”
I woke up with a start.
“Sorry, Jing-nan,” said Whistle. “I can’t control shitty drivers on the highway. Please forgive me for waking you up.”
“I forgive you,” I said.
I rolled back into a sleep that was as dreamless and grey as a Taipei afternoon sky.
When I woke up again our wheels were churning along a dirt road. Through the windshield I saw tall reeds on both sides stream by.
“You ever see sugarcane up close, city boy?” asked Whistle. Gao made a short grunt that suggested a small measure of amusement.
“Why are we in a sugarcane field?” I asked.
“You’ll see, Jing-nan,” said Whistle. Gao grunted again.
Ah, they were going to kill me after all and dump my body here. No one would ever find me in the field, at least until the next harvest.
I yanked my door handle. It thumped like a bad knee and didn’t do anything else.
“Hey, calm down there!” called Whistle. “What are you trying to do? Hurt yourself? We’re almost there.”
“I could call the police!” I hissed. “They might not get here on time, but you two won’t get away clean if you kill me!”
Gao roared with laughter, a big baritone sax blaring into a microphone. Whistle’s eyes looked at me sharply in the rearview mirror.
“We’re not going to kill you, Jing-nan,” he said. “And the cops are already here.”
Our bodies were tossed around as the SUV galloped over two ditches. After a turn the sugarcane rows opened up, revealing what looked like a sprawling campsite with six large tents in the middle of the field. What the hell was this? A circus?
We pulled up next to the smallest tent and parked.
“Let’s stretch our legs, shall we?” said Whistle. I saw Gao reach down under his seat for his gun and slide it under his left armpit.
I opened my now-unlocked door and was assaulted by the sound of chugging generators. The predawn air was warm and sticky. A ghostly blue mist from the setting moon mixed with the exhaust fumes and pancake-syrup smell of raw sugarcane. I stepped on some felled stalks, which were segmented like bamboo. I felt some give under my foot and remembered chewing fresh sugarcane, feeling the juice run over my tongue as I crushed the soft pulp. I used to love destroying my teeth with it when I was young, before I discovered chocolate. Still, on a hot and humid day, there’s nothing better than a frothy cup of green sugarcane juice from iced stalks cranked through a cast-iron press. I was tempted to pull down a stalk to gnaw on. I wasn’t a kid anymore, though, and I wanted to present myself as a man to my uncle.
Would I recognize him?
Gao pulled up a flap on a tent and evaluated the situation, his dead eyes revealing nothing. He then gave Whistle the smallest nod and headed in.
“Your uncle’s gonna be excited to see you,” said Whistle. He lifted the flap and cocked his head at the entrance. I rubbed my hands on my pants and stepped in.
This was the mahjongg tent. Above the din of voices I could hear the loud clicking sounds of ivory tiles. There were thirty tables packed tightly together. Most of the patrons were men, in every manner of dress ranging from sharkskin suits to worn-thin tank tops and shorts. The women were generally dressed better than the men and seemed to be the more serious players. Everybody was smoking, as if it were an admission requirement. Two upward-blowing fans were propped up on ladders, pointed at side vents. Tripod-mounted LED lamps, bright enough for a surgeon to operate by, cut through the smoke columns.
I followed Whistle to a table all the way in the back. It was only slightly set apart from the other tables, but it was a world away. While nearly everybody else playing was boisterous and happy, the four men in black suits and white shirts at this table were stoic and grim. Their hands only moved during their turn. The smoke trails from their cigarettes dangled in the air.
My uncle hadn’t aged a day but he was dressed better than I remembered. Upon recognizing him, I felt elated and concerned. He was hunched over his tiles, a hand clamping the base of a cognac tumbler to the table. The man didn’t seem to notice my arrival, but within two seconds he stood up and held his hands together in a begging gesture to the other players.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll forgive me, my troubled young nephew has arrived,” he said in Mandarin to the other three men. “I have to attend to him now, but I hope to see all of you soon, my brothers, hopefully under circumstances that are more fortuitous for you.” My uncle bowed. The three glares, heavy as loaded railcars, that were fixed on my uncle switched over to me. I was on the spot, so instinct kicked in and I bowed.
The oldest man, probably in his sixties, nodded and took out his cigarette. He blew out smoke and said nothing. Whistle walked away and my uncle followed.
“Hey, why—” I began to say.
“Shut the fuck up until we’re in the car,” my uncle muttered in Taiwanese and roughly pulled me along by my elbow.
We had only just exited the tent before we heard a commotion behind us. We stopped and turned around and beheld a man with a white beard that flowed over his simple farmer shirt. His slacks were rolled up to the knees, exposing unusually muscular calves and Japanese geta on his feet. He was of average height but his entourage of younger, bigger, and meaner men accorded him an unusual amount of personal space, as if he were radioactive.
“Big Eye,” his voice boomed in menace-laden Mandarin. “Are you leaving my hospitality so soon?”
My uncle stretched his neck and gave a shit-eating grin. “I’m so sorry, Wood Duck,” he said. “I have a bit of an emergency. A family issue. My young nephew has come down from Taipei and he needs my help most urgently.”
Wood Duck stared at my face hard. I couldn’t help but twitch.
“He looks fine to me.”
Big Eye stammered. “He has dysfunction of his private parts. I have special tea to help him.”
Wood Duck reached into the folds of his shirt and withdrew a small pistol. “You’ve been lucky over the last two days, Big Eye,” he said casually. “Very lucky.” The pistol lay sideways in his hand as if it were taking a nap. It was pointed at nobody and everybody.
“Yes, Wood Duck.”
“Maybe we can have just one last bet before you leave. Double or nothing. What do you say?”
“Of course, Wood Duck. I would never deny you. One more game.”
Big Eye began to walk back to the tent, but the old man held up his empty hand. “We’re not going to bet on cards, Big Eye. It’s my right-hand man against yours. Sima against Gao!”
The man named Sima presented himself. He was the same size and build as Gao but his suit was tailored better. The insects in the surrounding field went silent.
Wood Duck reached into his shirt again and withdrew a second pistol.
“Gan,” Whistle swore under his breath.
“A duel, Wood Duck?” Big Eye asked cautiously. “Is that what you want?”
Wood Duck laughed out loud. “No!” he said. “I want a skills competition!”
Two young men in black T-shirts, low-ranking members of Wood Duck’s clique, carried out two donut-shaped glass decanters, each with a hole in the center. I thought pieces like that only existed in liquor ads. Wood Duck watched the men pour bottles of red wine into the decanters and nodded. “Gao!” Wood Duck called. “Your choice. You’re the visitor.”
Gao walked up to Wood Duck without glancing at Big Eye. He looked over the two pistols in Wood Duck’s open hands, picked up both and weighed them. He stuck with the one that had been in Wood Duck’s left hand and replaced the other one. Wood Duck nodded and tossed the other pistol to Sima, who caught it nonchalantly in one hand.
Two women in long sparkly dresses came forth, each holding small red apples. They walked up to the two flunkies and plugged the fruit into the decanters’ holes. The women slinked off to the side and lit cigarettes for each other.
Wood Duck jerked his head to a bare table that was about fifty yards away. It had probably been used to burn incense and fake money to the field gods before the gambling got underway. The decanter bearers fast-walked the fifty yards and set down the vessels side by side on the table. Wood Duck slyly produced a string of Buddhist beads and with his left hand began to count off the 108 afflictions of the material world. Big Eye registered the action. It was a tell that the old man was nervous.
“Since Gao picked the pistol,” Wood Duck declared, “Sima gets the first shot. If he hits the apple and Gao hits the decanter, then Big Eye loses all his winnings. If Sima misses and Gao hits his target, Big Eye can leave with his money doubled. But if they both hit the apple, then Big Eye has to stay another night—for the sake of restoring his luck!”
There was one more possible outcome. All my years of preparing to study in America, a country where everybody was expected to speak out against the teacher, forced me to ask a question.
“What if they both hit their decanters?” I challenged.
Everybody, even the indifferent smoking women and the stoic flunkies, turned and stared at me.
Wood Duck expressed his extreme displeasure by laughing hysterically and clapping. The Buddhist beads rattled a warning. “Who is this little boy?” he exclaimed. “Of course he’s from up north! Taipei people don’t understand the courtesies of country folk.” He pried his lips back, showed his teeth and rubbed his cheek as if I’d slapped him. “If both of them miss—which is almost impossible—then we’ll have a second round! Happy now, little boy?”
I nodded. I felt Big Eye’s stare sticking me with poisoned thorns.
“Now! Sima! Stand right here!” Wood Duck pointed with his right hand to a circular spot where something had been burned. His left thumb clacked away at the beads.
He should be nervous. Wood Duck stood to lose a lot of money, but more importantly, his reputation was on the line. If he lost, how could he live this episode down? There had to be at least two hundred people here.
Wood Duck had partially protected himself by having a proxy take the shot. If Sima won, people would remember tonight as Wood Duck’s triumph. If Sima missed, people would primarily remember that fucking loser Sima.
Sima threw his head back and shook his hair like he was about to launch into a guitar solo. He raised his right arm and fired. There was deafening silence.
“You idiot!” yelled Wood Duck. “You didn’t even hit the decanter!”
“It’s a hard shot,” Sima said to his left armpit as he bowed out.
Gao didn’t wait to be cued. He stepped to exactly where Sima had stood and held his pistol at waist level in his right hand. The man kept his eyes on his decanter, his left hand caressing the gun.
His swung up his right arm and fired twice. Two soft punching sounds came back. Nobody moved or said anything. Except for Whistle.
“I’ll go start the car, get the AC going,” he said, walking away briskly.
“Impossible!” yelled Wood Duck. He twitched his head at the taller of the two flunkies. The man ran out to the table and returned with two cored apples. Wood Duck grabbed them and stared at them hard, willing those bullet holes to close up.
“Wood Duck,” Big Eye said, “let’s put my additional winnings in the books. We can settle up later.” He said to Gao softly, “Nice.” Gao blinked.
Big Eye and Gao stepped away. I lingered, looking at Wood Duck and Sima. The slinking women had already disappeared and the other people in the clique were quickly falling away like Antarctic ice shelves in the face of global warming. Why did I stay? I liked watching losers. I have empathy these days.
Sima stood with his head bowed. Wood Duck crushed the apple in his right hand and mashed the applesauce all over Sima’s face.
“Open your mouth!” Wood Duck ordered. Sima complied and Wood Duck tucked the other apple between Sima’s teeth. “Stay like that until I come for you!” Wood Duck flapped his hands clean and headed back into the tent.