Shanghai Fools

by Vann Chow

  "I want a selfie with you, Marsha! You're so beautiful!" A man said, holding up his phone, ready to shoot.

  "Let's get inside," I saw Mr. Qi said to his girlfriend, and they rushed into the hotel entrance. Her bodyguards stood watch outside the doors.

  "Hey, over here!" Marvey and Kelvin had also been left outside. I waved them over.

  "Did they just lock us out?" Marvey asked, upset. "This is your wedding. It's almost like they hijacked it into a Marsha Ling's mini-concert."

  "You finally talk like a human being," I said. "But not to worry. Paula texted me about a route from the back." We finally managed to get into the hotel through the back entrance, where the staff was so busy preparing for the celebration they completely ignored us. Nobody noticed that I was the 'groom' despite wearing a tuxedo.

  "They must think you're the emcee or something," Kelvin sneered at my ridiculous outfit.

  "He looked good!" Marvey retorted for my sake, and adjusted my bowtie.

  "You look great as well," I said to Marvey. She had worn the mandarin dress I bought for her. It suited her very well.

  When we were inside the hall, what greeted us was a mind-blowing banquet arrangement with a sea of balloons and white roses. On each table, shiny silverware, gold-rimmed dinner plates and crystal glassware sparkled under the chandeliers. We were two hours away from the beginning of the banquet. I was led up to the bride's room by one of Paula's bridesmaids whose name escaped me.

  "Thank you," I said to the kind bridesmaid who showed me the way as she pushed open the heavy padded doors to the bride's room. In front of me, Paula had sat with her back against me, looking into the mirror as the hairdresser fiddle with her coiffures. When the hairdresser noticed me, she paused and tapped Paula on the shoulder.

  "Your husband is here."

  Paula turned around and immediately tears welled up in her eyes. She rushed towards me to give me a hug. I was momentarily wrapped by layers and layers of white chiffon fabrics. I laughed.

  "Don't be so sentimental," I said to Paula. "We're just getting married, it's no big deal."

  "Thank you, Jong." She pulled back to look at me in the eyes, still sobbing. The makeup artist rushed over to dap tissues under her eyes to catch all the tears, in case they would ruin her makeup. "This is like a dream-come-true."

  "That's good," I said. "My boss's here with us, we can thank him later together."

  "It'll be very busy later. I don't know if there would be a chance," She said.

  "There'll be. Don't worry about it."

  She nodded. And she said, "Jong, trust me, I really, really appreciate this. I really, really appreciate you."

  Every woman in the room gasped. It was an out-of-the-movie romantic moment. Then there was a flash. The wedding photographer had snapped a picture of us.

  "Can you take a picture of us together?" Paula asked her bridesmaids for her cellphone.

  "We'll take lots of pictures together later," I laughed at her eagerness.

  "No, just one. I want one now," She said to me. "I love you," she whispered in my ears as I leaned closer to her for a snap. It was the first time I heard her said 'I love you'. The atmosphere of the wedding did something to her, and I guessed it was okay for her to fall in love with me just a little.

  "Where's your mom and dad?" I asked. "Let me go greet them."

  "...they are somewhere around," she replied, flustered. "I don't know where they are..."

  "And where's Jessie?" I was half-expecting to find him back here, hiding in the bride's room.

  Paula shook her head.

  "Don't worry. I'll find them on my own. You just stay here and finish your hair and makeup."

  I went back into the hall, and spotted Kelvin, together with the rest of my groomsmen chitchatting with the bridesmaids at the reception table that would greet all guests that arrived. They were dressed in gray suits, provided, conveniently by the wedding planner that Mr. Qi's secretary hired. I couldn't thank him enough.

  Slowly guests trickled in. I stood near the entrance to shake their hands, and thanked them for their presence. Paula's dad arrived with a group of younger men in matching suits from the village. He was unusually late for a host of his own daughter's wedding, but I supposed he could relax now that the wedding arrangement was taken cared of by the wedding planner. The planner instructed everyone to their designated tables according to a list.

  "The bride's side guests are so cheap!" I heard Little Buddha gossiped with Kelvin. "I saw one of the bridesmaids opened their red pockets to enter the amount into the register. Guess what she found inside? It was a one yuan bill! Oh my gosh. I would be embarrassed to show my face if I couldn't even shell out more than fifty for the red pockets."

  "Really?!" Kelvin couldn't believe his ears and frowned. "All of them?"

  "Every single one of them gave only red pockets with one Yuan bill inside!"

  "This is ridiculous!" Kelvin said and beckoned me over.

  "It's just a symbolism." I walked over to talk to them. "It doesn't matter."

  "You're fine that your father-in-law bring all these strangers to the banquet and eat without paying?"

  "When did you become so stingy?" I questioned him. There were a lot of lechers around Kelvin in Shanghai. I wondered why he get so sensitive all of a sudden.

  "Well, I know you can afford it, especially now Mr. Qi will be looking out for you in case you overspend. But these low-class people, they are just going to take advantage of you if you don't say anything."

  "Look, more is coming. They are all giving the same red pockets from the same bank," Little Buddha commented. "Is that a rural bank? Do they only have one Yuan bills?!"

  "Just let it be," I said.

  "Com'on!" Little Buddha shifted his attention to something else. "There were even men in shorts and flip flops. Look, here is one with his tool bag, like he just came from the gym."

  I looked over at the entrance, a few more under-dressed guests came in. The wedding planner was shocked herself, and made sure to double check that their names were on the guest list.

  "Such an embarrassment, these people," Kelvin said. "That's what you get for marrying a girl out of the province."

  "Not everyone out of the province is like that. It's not cheap to get clothes for occasion like this. Like me, I wouldn't have a tuxedo if you didn't insist that I borrow one from you." I pulled at the collar of the shirt. The bowtie was very uncomfortable. I could not wait for the moment when this was all over and I could take it off finally.

  "You guys are so mean." Marvey had been listening the whole time, since she had nothing better to do. My parents, whom she was accompanying, made it very clear that they could not understand a word of the heavily accented Mandarin she spoke and did not want to talk to her. "But I agree that he should at least change into a clean set of clothes before coming."

  "Maybe that's what's in his bag," I ventured a guess.

  "Did you find Jessie?" I asked Marvey. This was the one task I could come up with for Marvey to do that did not require any language skill around here.

  She puffed her cheeks in anxiety and said, "No, sorry, I don't see the little guy."

  "Never mind," I said. "His relatives are everywhere. Probably he is just playing around with the other kids somewhere. He will reappear soon." I noticed that there weren't any young children in the banquet hall. Was there some kind of wedding childcare in the hotel? So the adults could enjoy a moment of respite without them before the banquet started? It was not a bad idea, I thought to myself.

  "The guests are almost all here." The wedding planner, a Miss Chen, came over to inform us of the flow of the banquet. "I think we could start in ten minutes. The lights will dim and the music will start. I need all of you to stand in a line at the front of the stage over there and welcome the bride and groom. Women on the right, men on the left. Don't forget to smile and clap," she said to the group of bridesmaids and groomsmen.

  "And you," she looked at me, "stand in front of them
and wait for the bride." She talked to me like a military officer, no doubt not wanting any of us to screw up her arrangement.

  "When your father-in-law gets to you, he will give the bride's hand to you. Take it in yours and walk up the stage. Then the emcee will tell you what to do."

  "What do I have to do?"

  "The emcee will give an introduction then he will pass you the microphone. Just tell the world how much you love your wife and thank everyone whom you need to thank for being here. That's all. No big deal, okay?"

  I nodded.

  "Relax and smile," she said to me and shook my hand, sending me off on my mission.

  When the tone of Richard Wagner's Wedding March blared from the overhead speakers, all the chandeliers were dimmed. A spotlight from above focused on me. It made me wince. When I reopened my eyes, I saw another spotlight focused on the double doors at the end of the banquet call.

  I looked around. Everyone had put down their drinks and became quiet, waiting for the bride and her father to come in, like they would in a Western style church wedding.

  My heart started pounding — we called this physical response 'a little ram bombarding the heart' in Chinese. I hated being in the spotlight, and now I was literally in the spotlight. I secretly prayed that this would be over soon, and wiped my sweaty palms on the side of my pants.

  Just then I heard the hinges of the big double doors creaked.

  This was the moment that Paula and her dad would come through.

  The big moment.

  This was it.

  Chapter 38

  "I love you, Jong. You're mine!" Jenny ran through the double doors towards me in a massive pink wedding gown and headdress. She was welding a big knife in her hand. It glistened under the spotlight.

  "It's Jenny!" Kelvin turned around to look at me.

  What was she doing here? And where was Paula?

  "I'm who you should be marrying, Jong!" She screamed as she ran towards me.

  Everybody gasped at the unexpected Halloween party Jenny made out of my wedding.

  The bridesmaids and groomsmen were heard screaming. They scrambled away from me as Jenny swung her massive knife at me. It would surely cut me in half.

  I dodged to the right and avoided her stab. She fell forward and lost her footing, but she tried again and slashed towards my direction. I ducked and missed the blade of her knife by probably just a centimeter.

  From behind the double doors, I saw Paula's father racing towards me. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and took it off when he almost reached us. Without saying a word, he throw the suit jacket over Jenny's face and pushed her to the ground when she was confused momentarily, still slashing like a mad man in my general direction. A group of men from the nearby table had gotten up and lunged at her. They pinned her to the floor. I kicked her knife out of her hand.

  All the lights were turned back on.

  "Hey, hey," I said. "That's enough. She's just a woman!" I had to forced my way through the thrashing arms and legs of the group to protect Jenny from getting a beating from the angry men.

  "You're supposed to marry me!" Jenny screamed on the top of her lungs and cried when I pulled off the veil from her face. There were blood everywhere. I guess she really did stab something along the way. "How could you abandon me?!" I scanned myself and then at her body to find where the blood came from, as she gushed all her disgruntleness at me.

  "Ouch..." Paula's dad groaned, blood was gushing from a cut on his right arm. It had drenched the side of his shirt and his sleeves completely red.

  "Somebody knows first aid?!" I asked.

  "Shut the fuck up!" Suddenly he pointed a gun at my temple with his trembling arm. "Shut the fuck up!" And he fired three times towards the ceiling.

  "What?!" Kelvin squealed.

  "Everyone squat down!" He demanded. "Everyone, I said." He pointed the gun at Kelvin, who was trembling from head to toe. He was staring at something.

  I cranked my neck to see that he was looking at Marvey, who didn't understand any of what was happening and was standing still, just like him.

  I pulled the leg of his trousers.

  "Just listen to him. Squat, Marv! Get down, Kelvin," I begged, not wanting any of them to get hurt.

  "Stupid fucking bitch!" He bellowed at Jenny. His arm was still bleeding. He pulled out a chair from the nearest table and plopped down on it. "You! Come over here! Yes, you! Come over here before I shoot!" He looked at one of the bridesmaids, who reluctantly complied. "Wrap these linens around my arm!" he instructed. Gingerly, the girl picked up two table linens and got to work as instructed.

  As soon as people complied and squatted on the ground as low as they could, for fear that they would stand out from the crowd and become the victim of their hostility, I understood what was happening.

  Those men that Little Buddha and Kelvin spotted earlier giving us single Yuan bills all had guns in their hands, and they were pointing them towards the guests around them. These men were all part of the gang. They did not come here for the food, they had come here to rob and steal.

  "What are you doing?" I asked the old man that I thought was Paula's dad. "And where's Paula. She must be scared."

  "Don't worry, she's with us," he sneered.

  "What do you mean 'with you'?"

  He ignored my inquiry.

  "What should we do now, Axe?" The man in shorts and flipflops carried his gym bag over and opened it. It was full of weapons and other utility materials. From inside the bag, he pulled out a few big hemp bags that used to hold rice and corns.

  The man whom I had known as Paula's father was apparently the man he referred to as Axe. Axe said in replied to him, "Tie up Marsha Ling, go grab Paula, and then we'll leave."

  "Let's take the white girl, too!" One of the man was grabbing Marvey's arm, who was trying to wriggle out of his grip. "Who knows, her parents might think she's worth just as much money as Marsha!"

  Axe nodded.

  "Hey!" I shouted to get his attention. "Where are you taking them? Where's Paula, and where's my son?"

  "Jong. Oh, poor Jong..." he repeated my name. "Don't you get it still?" Axe shook his head disappointedly. "Your wife is part of us. Your son is also part of us. We're bandits!"

  BAM.

  And I was knocked unconscious by the side of his gun.

  The last thing I heard was Jenny's screams.

  "Jong! Wake up! Wake up!"

  Wasn't it funny? One second she wanted to kill me, and the next she was afraid to see me die.

  Chapter 39

  "I can pay, I can pay!" Mr. Qi was sitting with his arms crossed in front of his chest, arguing with a police officer. "Just tell them to name a price!"

  "We haven't identified the members of the gang yet. Just stay calm," the police officer appeased him.

  "Jong's wife is with them. Tell him to give you her number!" Mr. Qi bellowed angrily.

  "We've found her phone in the bride's room. She's left it here, probably so that we couldn't track her."

  Only about half an hour after the bandits left with Paula, Marsha and Marvey, the police finally arrived at the hotel's banquet hall. They took Jenny to the hospital immediately, seeing how she was covered in blood, still shellshocked and shaking from the whole affair. When she was carried out of the hall on a stretcher, I caught a glimpse of the outside. A group of curious onlookers and journalists had arrived. They were snapping pictures feverishly at Jenny, who was strapped down like a mad person.

  "Jong's crush is kidnapped by the bandits her wife belongs to and his ex-girlfriend just tried to kill him, but wounding the head of the group instead. This is something straight out of soap operas," Little Buddha said to Kelvin, who for once, had no humor left in him and couldn't laugh. Seeing how Kelvin was not interested in his joke, he came over to my side and tried to talk to me. I was just being revived by a medical officer. He repeated his observation to me again, and added, "It's so unlucky to be in a relationship with you, Jong."

  I co
ughed to get rid of the foul smell of the cloth the medical officer had shoved near my nose earlier to try to revive me, and gagged.

  "Jeeze, Jong," he stroked my back to make me feel better. I rubbed the place where Axe had hit me with the butt of his gun. It had swollen and it hurt a lot.

  Brother Fei, a police officer himself, had conversed with the local police and let them know the sequence of events that transpired before they arrived. Then he kneeled next to me and shooed Little Buddha off. "Jong, where's your phone? They would probably try to contact you soon, once they have settled down."

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket. The screen had broken earlier from my struggle with Jenny but it still functioned. It had only around 20% of battery left.

  "You need to keep it on," he said. "Somebody has a charger around here?" Brother Fei took it upon himself to look for a charger for me.

  I crawled my way towards Kelvin and gave him a manly hug. I was no doubt surprised by the turns of events, but I felt okay. Kelvin was on the other hand utterly frightened. I had seen a lot of things in my life, hanging out on the streets in poor communities in bad areas of Shanghai when I was young until we moved out into the city center when I got a job that could allow me to pay for our apartment in the city. Kelvin never had that kind of experience. His parents pretty much moved him from the serene Feng Cheng Village directly into an upscale neighborhood in Shanghai where the rich and famous lived, guarded by body guards, helpers and butlers everywhere he went. The event today had scared the wits out of him. Needless to say, he was also worried about Marvey, just like me.

  Kelvin was usually the calmer one, but this time I had to stay calm for both of us. "We'll get her back. We'll get all of them back safely."

  "If they want money," he said, "I can ask my dad..."

  "Let's see," I said. It was nice to have a rich dad, of course, especially in situation like this. Let's hope the bandits were only after money and nothing else.

  Just then, Brother Fei returned and gave me a bad news. "Jong, listen. The Guangyuan police checked out Paula's home address in Lizhou, and they couldn't find her family nor anyone who knows her."