Placing his sketchpad under the counter, Kai stands and rubs his hands over his eyes. He walks outside, rolling his shoulders to ease the stiffness from sitting so long. Staring out at the crowd, he lets himself adjust. Slowly, the world comes back to him: swatches of color coalesce into shapes, faces; the roaring white noise separating into voices, words emerging out of the noise.
“Jiayou, jiayou, c’mon, little closer now, by the fucking neck —”
“To the left, that’s it, come on, that’s it, you’ve got him —”
“Motherfucker — son of a bitch, fucking hell, useless piece of shit —”
This last invective is from one of the newer attendees, a man Kai has seen once or twice before — always on the sidelines of matches, betting and watching the outcomes. He’s drunk, obvious from the sloppy imprecision of his movements, the redness of his face as he stamps his feet, cursing at the dragon cowering in front of him. As Kai watches, the man grabs the dragon by the skin of its neck, forcing it to its feet. The dragon squeals, claws scrabbling against the ground as it struggles against the hold. “Yes, come on now you piece of shit, get the fuck up and fight —”
“Excuse me,” Kai says, voice loud as he walks toward the man, “I’m going to have to ask you to stop now.”
The man turns, raising bloodshot eyes to Kai. He’s a tall, burly man, forearms tattooed, with the kind of muscle rarely seen outside of bodybuilding magazines and pornography.
“What?” he asks. His tone matches his appearance: drunk with an incredulous edge. “And who the fuck are you?”
“I work here,” Kai says. “And, as acting referee until Lin returns, I’m telling you that unless you have another dragon here, you’re out. We follow regulation practices for elimination — your dragon can’t or doesn’t want to fight, so it’s the other trainer’s win. We’re not in the business of snuff fights.”
“Yeah?” There’s amusement on his face now, easy contempt as the man sneers at him. It’s a familiar expression, one Kai knows well from the faces of a hundred schoolyard bullies, and the derisive police officers who had written up his friends for indecent exposure for kissing in public. “And what do you expect us to do instead, parade these things around like some sort of breed exhibition?”
If Kai were younger, the taunt might have landed. As it is, Kai squares his shoulders and maintains eye contact. “As acting referee, it is my job to tell you what you can do. And what I’m telling you is that you’ve had your chance for the night and lost. Unless you want to deal with the consequences of blatant rule violation, that means you’re done for tonight. That’s all it is.”
“What, all this fighting bother you?” The man leans in, close enough that Kai can almost taste the alcohol on his breath. “Too much for your little heart, princess? Oh, but this,” he says, sending another contemptuous kick at the dragon, who squeals as she curls away, “this ain’t nothing — just a little encouragement. Goddamn animals, you can’t get them to do nothing without a push. Don’t worry though, sweetheart — I won’t let anything too bad happen.”
He smirks, straightening as he turns back to the ring.
“I said,” Kai says, stepping into the man’s path, “you’re going to stop, or you’re going to leave.”
The man stares at him, bristling with anger and irritation. Kai stares back, refusing to look away, to be in any way cowed.
The man glances back at his friends, who shrug; well, so what? Some of them are smiling, not even bothering to conceal their amusement. Kai knows what he looks like from the outside, his short but wiry college student physique against this man with the shoulders of a brawler and the eyes of a man used to getting his way. Kai doesn’t flinch as he holds the man’s gaze.
The man scowls. By his sides, his fists clench tight.
Do it. Kai is surprised by the viciousness of the thought, the strength of his desire for the man to hit him or say something, anything, any excuse for him to hit back —
“Hey! You harassing my staff?”
It’s Mr. Lin, flip flops flapping over hard gravel and hands in the pockets of baggy cargo shorts as he stalks over, but no less imposing for that.
“Well?” Mr. Lin asks, arching an eyebrow as he stops in front of the two of them. “The fuck’s going on here?”
“Lin da-ge,” the man says, and though his words are still slurred, his voice is calmer now, almost saccharine in its reasonability. “I’m here trying to get my dragons up and through this round, and then this kid tells me he’s in charge of this place and I need to stop. And I tell him to piss off, but he keeps going, telling me what I’m supposed to do with my own dragons. The nerve of it, the goddamn presumption of the fucking kids today —”
“Enough,” Mr. Lin cuts in, decisively enough that the man actually stops. “I’ll take care of that later,” he says, giving Kai a curt nod. “But right now …” Mr. Lin’s eyes scan the scene before him, level, assessing. Kai can read the conclusions forming as clearly as if he was speaking aloud: the scars patterned over the prominent rib cage, the thin line of scratches down legs and tail — none of them particularly serious, critical points covered by the traditional protective leather, but still painful irritants sure to fester and scar without proper care. The dull, dry look of blue scales, the ragged, cut wings — not technically a legal practice anymore, but not uncommon. Mr. Lin turns again, now evaluating the stranger before them: the bloodshot eyes, the scent of alcohol coming off him in waves.
“Kai’s right,” he says, voice low but controlled. “You treat your dragons like that, we don’t want you here. Sober up or get out.”
The man looks ready to argue, but Mr. Lin matches his glare with his own flat gaze, the one he’s honed on scores of hapless employees and recalcitrant dragons. The man is drunk and angry, but he’s not blind.
“We’re closing early,” Kai says, smile all teeth. “Have a good night.”
“Kai,” Mr. Lin says, turning once the man is a hunched silhouette retreating into the darkness. His voice is a deliberate calm that can only mean trouble. “I’d ask for an explanation, but I’m not sure there is one, is there?”
“Then there’s no point in trying to give one, is there?” Kai asks, equally rhetorical. “He was a jackass, I called him out on it. He deserved it.”
“I’m sure he did. But when this happens, you come and tell me — you don’t go picking fights with strangers. Old man in heaven, Kai, you’ve done this before, you know how to deal with drunks —”
“We should have taken the dragon,” Kai says, still watching the retreating form of the drunk man’s back. “He’s just going to find another ring after this.”
“And what? You think that’ll help, that he won’t just get another dragon if we did? That you’ll what — kidnap every animal or kid that looks vaguely mistreated, and that’ll do it? End all the fucking injustice in the world, happily ever after and no more war ever again?”
“Maybe,” Kai says. “Maybe it would help, at least.” He is aware, vaguely, that he should apologize, try in some way to defuse the stupidity of talking back to the man who controls his paycheck, but he can’t find in it himself to care.
“Go home, Kai,” Mr. Lin says finally, his words controlled as he turns away. “You’re scaring off the other customers.”
Eli’s on his laptop, looking through the pages of foreign exchange programs, when his phone buzzes. He blinks at his phone, surprised, and then sees the name on the screen. The guilt rushes in: his mother. Of course.
“Hi, Mom,” he says, hoping his smile doesn’t look too sheepish as he adjusts the screen.
“Hello to you too, Eli,” his mother says, settling in her seat. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Thought you might have forgotten about me, you know.”
He winces. “Sorry. Things have been busy.”
“Good busy, I hope?”
Eli smiles, hoping the expression isn’t too strained. “For the most part, yeah.”
His mother says nothing, li
ps pressed as she watches him. “As long as you’re having fun.”
“I am. Not too much fun, though. Don’t worry.”
“Oh, so long as it’s a reasonable amount of fun, then,” his mother says, smiling as she leans back. “Speaking of which, Xiang ah-yi’s daughter is having a baby shower — you remember Rebecca, right? She used to boss you around all the time when you were little, made you carry her books and play dress up with her. And now here she is, married and a baby soon too! I was going to buy her something practical, a monitor maybe, but then I saw these dinosaur onesies on Amazon, and now I can’t decide.”
“Don’t babies grow really fast?” Eli asks, leaning back against his headboard. “Maybe a stuffed animal or toy, if you wanted something cute that’ll last longer?”
His mother hums, the low, noncommittal noise that means she’s taking an idea under consideration. “The shower’s not for a couple weeks, so I have plenty of time to agonize over it. Speaking of change, I’ve been thinking of getting someone to repaint some of the house — it’s been a while, you know? Now that you’re leaving, it would be nice to make the place look a little newer. I’ll send you links to the swatches. I know photos are terrible for color quality, but I was thinking either a light blue or green, if you had any preferences?”
“Either’s okay,” Eli says. “I’m sure it’ll look fine.”
“Are you sure? It is your bedroom, after all, and it wouldn’t be any trouble to send you the colors …”
“It’s fine, Mom. Honest. Like you said, it’s not like I’ll be spending much time there in the future. You could rent out the room if you want to, actually feed those grad students you always complain about.”
His mother frowns, the tight line of her lips signaling true disapproval, but she lets it go. “I’ll send you the links anyway — I don’t want any future complaints that I did this without asking.”
Eli nods as she continues talking — the house, her students, news from his high school friends and his father’s family. In his mind, snippets from medical papers and webpages echo, whispers clamoring for attention: before stage four progression, marked primarily by moderate-to-severe lung damage and fatigue associated with everyday activities, patients often experience prolonged coughing fits and increased shortness of breath … toxicity generally confined to respiratory cells, but damage to subcutaneous tissue is also observed, sometimes leading to … though relative stability can be achieved in early stages, if allowed to progress, then …
“Eli,” his mother calls, and the sharpness of her voice snaps Eli’s attention back to his computer. She’s frowning, adjusting her phone. “Sweetheart, is everything all right?”
“What?” he asks. “Of course it is — why wouldn’t it be? Sorry,” he says, attempting to project reassurance with his smile, “it’s just — I guess I’m a little distracted tonight.”
“Elijah,” his mother says, and oh, that is her mothering tone now, the one she reserves for moments of particular stupidity. “Don’t lie to me. Even if I didn’t spend all my time around people who do it for a living, I’m your mother; I can tell when you’re keeping something from me. Something’s bothering you. What is it, Eli?”
Eli considers denying it, but he knows it’s no use hiding the truth — his mother, once on a mission, is ruthless the way only a professional prosecutor can be.
“Have you ever known someone,” he says, “someone who was smart and talented who, for whatever reason, was in trouble and wouldn’t take your help?”
“This is a friend of yours, from Beida?”
“From the lab, yeah.” Kai isn’t technically part of the lab, but it’s close enough to the truth that he doesn’t think she should be able to pick up on it.
“Your grandmother,” she says. “Your father. You, sometimes. Half my family, really; sometimes I wonder if it’s something genetic or if it’s something about me that attracts these types of people.”
“Mom —”
“It’s not a criticism. I love you, Eli. But you’re smart and you’re stubborn, and you’re used to that being enough. If you have a problem, you’d much rather muddle through it on your own than ask for help. But now you’re on the other side of the problem, and it’s terrible because you want to help, you want to fix this, but they won’t let you.”
His mother smiles, and there’s something resigned in it, the same, familiar expression that never failed to make Eli feel guilty. “But you want to help them — him? — then. This friend.”
Eli nods. “Him. And yeah, I do.”
“And he won’t let you?”
“Yeah,” he says. “And I understand it on one level, but on the other, it’s so frustrating. It wouldn’t be anything that big, on my side, but he still won’t take my help — it’s so stupid, Mom, there’s no part of it that makes sense from any angle. It’s like he’s being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.”
“Oh, believe me,” his mother says, smiling through the screen, “I understand that, baobei. Who went on a Little League strike because his coach wouldn’t let him bring his Nintendo DS to practice?”
“Mom.”
“Joking, baobei, just joking. You haven’t changed much since then. Still so serious about everything.”
“Things are serious this time, Mom.”
“I’m not saying they aren’t.” Gratifyingly, his mother seems to mean it, her frown contemplative as she tilts her head to one side, considering the options. “I’m only saying, Eli, that I’ve done this before, and so I know how hard it can be. Some people …” She stops, bites her lip in thought. “You should try talking to him. Be logical about it, honest. You’re smart, sweetheart; I’m sure he would listen to you.”
“And if he doesn’t want to listen?”
He knows what she’s thinking about, because his mind is on the same thing. The phone calls stretching into the night, the hushed arguments and, eventually, the begging. His grandmother’s responses, offered with a crispness unsuited to someone with a terminal illness, I’m sorry, but I can’t. This is my home, and I can’t leave. The dull acceptance, almost relief, when it finally happened, Eli away at college and staring at his mother’s grainy image on his laptop as she told him the news —
“Then you try again,” his mother says, and over the fuzzy connection he can’t tell if it’s simply him projecting or not, but her voice sounds stronger, more decided. “You have to give them the right to decide, of course — it’s still their decision in the end. But you have the right to try too, Eli. That’s your right, baobei. You have to try.”
“Why, exactly, are we here again?” Kai asks, expression nearly as mutinous as clouds above them.
Eli takes a moment before answering, taking in the day around him. The Qixi Festival means that couples swarm the walkways around them, holding hands and smiling adoringly at each other in front of unsmiling monuments. Pink lanterns hang from trees for the holiday, swaying slightly in the breeze coming off Kunming Lake. A tour boat glides past, gilt and green dragon snarling from the prow and dwarfing the rented rowboats.
“Because it’s a lovely day,” Eli says, as the scent of fried food and sugar wafts through the air. “And because it’ll be fun? Also Dr. Wang all but forced us to go to this play, and you wouldn’t be so awful as to leave me alone with my lab mates.”
“I was certainly tempted,” Kai mutters, hands in his pockets as they weave their way past a pair of giggling teenaged lovebirds. “I don’t know why she’s insisting in the first place — Qixi’s not culturally important, it’s an excuse for companies to sell chocolate and roses to high school kids and middle-aged businessmen.”
“Hm,” Eli says, resisting the urge to buy a flower from a nearby street vendor solely to see Kai’s reaction. “High school kids I can understand, but middle-aged businessmen?”
“They have to make up for the emotional neglect somehow, don’t they?”
“Eli, Kaifei!” Dr. Wang says, smiling as they approach her spot beneath the will
ow trees. Beside her, Mr. Lin looks almost as unimpressed as Kai by the festivities around them. “So glad to see you here!”
“Hi, Dr. Wang, Mr. Lin,” Eli says. Kai nods a greeting to both his boss and Dr. Wang. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Oh, them? They’ll be here in an hour or so — I told them to come a little later, closer to the start of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, but I wanted to talk to you before that. The two of you, to be more accurate. I’m so glad you could get Kai out here as well. We got the results today. From the board meeting, about funding a program for studying dragons.”
“Oh?” Eli says, partially because Dr. Wang seems to expect it and partially because he is surprised. Given all of Dr. Wang’s warnings about academic bureaucracy, he had expected the process to take much longer. “What did they say?”
“What I expected,” Dr. Wang says, leaning back against the tree. “That the project was a long shot, but given the number of departments expressing interest they were approving it. As long as I don’t mind sharing responsibility with other professors. I can’t complain about that. In any case,” she says, nodding at Kai, “Beida is still deliberating on how much funding they’re willing to give, but they’re giving us a provisional grant so we can start a scaled-down version of the project. It’ll take some strategic budgeting, but with help from the veterinary schools we can house fifteen to twenty dragons, maybe more if they’re small. The money should last us until spring, when the committee will review our results and decide whether to extend funding for a three- or five-year-long project.”
“They’ll give you all that?”
“Well,” Dr. Wang says, crossing her arms across her chest, “I would have preferred if they gave us the three or five years upfront, as those are the kinds of time scales you need to produce substantial results. Still, a year’s not bad. At the very least, the fact that the university is giving us money instead of deliberating the issue for another five or six meetings shows that they think the idea has merit. We just need to do our job properly and make sure that opinion doesn’t change.”
After the Dragons Page 11