So, that was it. That was how Aretha and Waldo finally got the kid they'd always dreamed of. She probably didn't look like they'd imagined her to, but Waldo considered himself lucky to be having any description of child at his age. It was a kind of miracle. He knew Aretha'd be thrilled.
Saifon's passport arrived registered mail on the Monday. When she told Waldo she'd be gone by the end of the week he felt cheated somehow. It was like he was losing a daughter. They was sitting watching the Beverly Hillbillies. Just watching it. Granny was stuck up a tree and there was this lion below her. Beverly Hills seemed like a dangerous place.
"Where you going then?" They watched another ten minutes of granny making friends with the lion and setting him on Jed just for the heck of it, before Saifon answered. It was one hell of an answer. (I'd better warn y'all now there's some depressing shit coming up that might just kill off any good mood you thought you was in. If you'd sooner not know, I guess you could skip the next couple of pages. But don't blame me if you get lost later.)
"Waldo, something real bad happened. I mean real bad. It happened when I was a little girl. I was bought up by some frigging old witch aunt in Laos who didn't want me. I guess, if the old witch was to be believed, my parents had gotten themselves shot. I don't remember 'em. When I was seven or eight years old, the aunt sold me."
"Jees, Saifon. They sell kids where you come from?"
"It ain't usual. I just got lucky."
She was talking to Waldo through the TV. Didn't take her eyes off it. I guess it was easier to tell Granny Clampett than telling Waldo. "Some guy drove me and some other girls the same age across into Thailand in the back of a truck. A few days later and we was in the stinking hold of a tanker. Nowhere to pee or wash. No light. We was scared shitless, Waldo."
"I can't even imagine how terrible it must of been. This tanker, it's like a boat, right?"
"Yeah. A big empty son of a bitch. Every sound echoed around inside it like some big giant was clanking around. And that's how I got to America. Now, we gotta interrupt this exciting story for a cup of coffee. Stay tuned for further installments."
She went off to the kitchen and left Waldo sitting there all dumbfounded. What she'd told him was so far out, it might as well of been science fiction. He believed her sure enough, but he couldn't never put himself in her shoes. And he got a feeling this was only the start of one nasty story.
She come back with two coffees, handed one to Waldo and kept right on talking like she hadn't let up.
"So that's why I been saving, Waldo. That's why I been working two jobs to get the money together to do what I gotta do, and go where I gotta go."
"Where you gotta go, Saifon?"
"Back there."
"To Laos?"
"Yeah. Man, I make a mean cup of coffee."
"Why the hell you wanna go back there after what they done to you?"
"I wanna go back because of what they done."
Waldo tried to think of a fitting passage from the bible but nothing come to mind, so he made something up.
"Lord said, 'revenge maketh man as sinful as the original person what sinned in the first place …against the revenger'."
"Shit. Sinning's the last thing I'm worried about. If he ain't struck me down yet then I got away with it. I don't just want revenge. I want to be sure this shit ain't still happening.
When I got to New York, they fed us up and cleaned us and dressed us pretty. I remember they took us to this big …like, closed down theatre full of guys in suits. They paraded us up and down on the stage and they was bidding for us, like cows, Waldo. Like cows.
"The guy that got me handed over eleven hundred-dollar bills. That's eleven hundred bucks and that was fifteen years ago. That was a hell of a lot of money, and I bet you anything the trade's still going strong. I sure ain't seen nothing about it getting uncovered in the newspapers."
"Me neither."
"And if they'd busted the ring, it would have made news."
"Saifon, honey. We should tell the cops about this."
"Man, I been in contact with the cops. But you see I ain't got no proof. I can't recall where we landed, where they took me, where they sold me, nothing. All I remember was getting away and this cop taking me in his car. I couldn't tell no one what happened. They sent me to social services. I guess I was pretty fucked up by then. Excuse my mouth. Cause by the time they worked out what language I was talking and they found me a Lao social worker, I didn't wanna talk to no one. I was one evil little bitch in them days, although you wouldn't believe it when you see how sweet I turned out."
"I believe it."
"Thank you. They tried to force some learning down my throat but I wasn't having none of it. I did get into English, but. I could see that being real useful for me so I was the ace student in English class. That's why I speak English so good now.
"It wasn't till four years ago I got this hankering to close them kid smugglers down. I went looking for the cop that picked me up when I escaped. He'd retired already but he was interested in the story, and I guess he believed me. He told some pals that was still working. But there weren't nothing he could do without evidence.
"The old cop drove me around in his car, but I didn't see nothing I recognized. I gotta go back over it. Go back to the start. Retrace like every step. See if anything comes back to me. If them people are still trading little girls, I gotta do something about it. Know what I mean, Waldo?"
Waldo's head was spinning. I don't mean rotating. I mean he was real confused and shocked. Being a parent wasn't going to be a piece of cake at all.
"Saifon, what you're suggesting here ain't gonna be easy."
"No."
"And it ain't gonna be safe."
"I know."
"Fact is, there's a lot of money in this people smuggling business. Where there's money there's corruption, and where there's corruption, there's people who'll shoot you for a share of that money. You could get yourself killed."
Saifon smiled. Then there was the longest silence while Waldo lined up all the details and possibilities in his mind. She thought he'd wandered off the subject altogether till he finally said,
"So, I guess I'll go with you." She didn't see nothing funny about that joke.
"You what?"
"What kind of a daddy would I be if I let my only daughter go off and get herself killed?"
"Waldo, that's only on paper. You don't got no obligation."
"Aretha wouldn't never forgive me."
"She never met me. Waldo you …"
"No, my mind's made up."
"That's crazy, man. Shit. Where you gonna find the money to travel to Asia? I sure as hell can't pay for you."
Waldo went across to the desk, took his bankbook out of a drawer, and let her look at his last deposit.
"Damn, Waldo. You rob a bank or something?"
"It's from the Mexico sting. The cops salvaged it."
Her eyes rolled in desperation.
"Absolutely frigging not. I don't want no big ball of lard there with me. What frigging good would you be to me in a fight? And you can't frigging run. And how the frigging hell would I go about disguising a three hundred fifty pound nigger in a country where nobody's over three feet? You'd screw everything up."
He wasn't offended.
"That's okay. I know you're just talking like this to test my will."
"No. I'm talking like this cause I think I just heard the stupidest thing I ever heard. Get it out of your fool head. Ain't no way in the world you're coming to Laos. Jees."