Snakes Can't Run

by Ed Lin

  “He says he knows what he’s doing. Andy’s cocky because he went to school in the U.S. He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in Hong Kong and Singapore. But he also says Americans are too lazy and stupid to catch on to him and that Vietnam was the start of the decline of the West and the rise of the East.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  She glanced at me and sighed. “I believe some Americans don’t know when an opportunity presents itself.”

  “I have a girlfriend, Winnie. We already do plenty together.”

  “I’ve slept with married men, Robert. They’ve told me they couldn’t keep their hands off of me.”

  I crossed my arms and shook my head. I couldn’t believe that someone so oblivious to racial and social politics was so active in sexual politics, and she probably had a lot of endorsements from powerful players.

  “Winnie, are you this way because you were sent to an all-girl school? Or is it why you were sent there?”

  “I went to a coed university. You’ve never heard of it, but trust me, it was a lot tougher academically than almost any American college. My senior thesis was about how insecure men try to marginalize aggressive women.”

  “Did you get an A?”

  She moved her hands to one o’clock and eleven o’clock on the wheel and grabbed it tight. “I was thrown out of school,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “When my father found out, he had everything fixed and they granted me my degree. But they still refused to accept my thesis.”

  I was suddenly struck with insight into her character. This didn’t happen too often, and I felt unsettled by it. Because her university wouldn’t accept her thesis, Winnie was applying it in real life as a sexually assertive woman. Maybe being a secretary was also a part of the role-playing.

  “That guy Brian still bothering you?” I asked.

  “He’s a total creep. He doesn’t turn me on at all.”

  “It was your idea to go to where the bodies were found, right?”

  “Yeah, it was. I was just trying to push him a little. He was scared as shit.”

  “I just thought of something, Winnie. Maybe you’re really a snakehead. You only play at being innocent.”

  She chuckled. “It’s actually a fantasy of mine to have male slaves at my beck and call. Sweaty, smelly, and miserable slaves.”

  “That’s my cue to go home.”

  It didn’t take too long to get back to my corner.

  “Are you going to ask me up for some coffee?” she asked.

  “I would ask you up, but I haven’t vacuumed.” I got out and shut the door.

  “You and I could have a good time if you didn’t have so many hang-ups,” Winnie said. “You know, these seats recline all the way back.”

  I leaned over, rested my hands on the passenger door, and said, “That might make enough room for two guys with you in there at the same time.”

  Winnie tore the car away, nearly ripping my hands off at the wrists. I chuckled to myself, but I couldn’t help but wonder where this girl was a year or two ago. I would have burned that crepe dress right off her.

  20

  I WAS DRINKING COFFEE WITH THE MIDGET AT THE TOY STORE. His new air conditioner was working great, and it made the glass in his window rattle loudly enough so that we could have a private conversation right in the open. If we had something important to talk about.

  “Seems like it’s brighter in here,” I said. “Did you get new lights or something?”

  “Naw, I had a new ceiling put in,” said the midget, drinking alternately from a cup of coffee and a mug of hot water. “Asbestos tiles. They were unbelievably cheap!”

  “Asbestos! Are you nuts? You’re going to give all the kids here cancer!”

  “Were you born in the year of the chicken, Robert?”

  “I’m a tiger.”

  “I don’t think a real tiger would be scared of ceilings. Asbestos tiles are safe. The fibers are sealed up. You’d have to grate them up and eat them for them to be a problem.”

  “What about all the cancer lawsuits?”

  “There are slip-and-fall lawsuits in the city. Are you going to stop walking on the sidewalks? Anyway, everything causes cancer. Coffee probably kills more people than asbestos. I’ll bet that the halls of Maxwell House are haunted by ghosts. Maybe that’s why so many people burn Hell Bank Notes in Maxwell House tins.”

  “Hey,” I said, then paused to take in a breath. “Do you believe that we can contact spirits of the dead?”

  “Are you trying to get in touch with your father?”

  “Not really, because I don’t know what I would say. This is a little creepy, but I feel his spirit in me.”

  “He was your father,” said the midget as he shifted a little in his chair. “He is a part of you, genetically.”

  “We were never close, you know?”

  “Of course I know. It’s a typical Chinatown story. The men have to work such long hours or lose themselves to gambling, whoring, and drinking, the kids grow up without fathers. I think these boys want the action figures because they are hungry for male role models.”

  Just then my eyes fell upon a model of an alligator trying to eat a soldier. “What do the girls want?”

  “You don’t know by now?” the midget joked.

  “C’mon, I’m not kidding around,” I said. “I wasn’t close with my father when he was alive, but I’ve been feeling anger from his spirit. And it’s not directed at me, either. It’s the snakeheads.”

  “Everybody hates them. But they’re there because people are willing to do almost anything to come here. They make reliable workers who work overtime, never call in sick or go on vacation. Oh, and they’ll never organize a union. But you know what, Robert? Picking off snakeheads isn’t going to solve the issue. As long as Chinese in China think they can have a better life in America, they’ll make deals with the devil to get here. Especially the Fukienese and Cantonese. Going abroad is in their blood.”

  “How do we stop them from thinking they need to come here by any means?”

  “We can’t. When their relatives send letters telling them of the hard life they’re having here, they don’t believe it. They just think all the complaining is meant to discourage others from coming in and getting their piece of the pie. It doesn’t help that they send back money and gifts in that fine Chinese tradition of starving yourself to feed your family and friends.”

  “I get it. They see the money and it talks louder than the letter. They should send pictures of the calluses, cuts, and burn marks on their hands.”

  “How about a book of pictures about how hard life is here? About all the hardships.” Then he smirked. “We’ll put you on the cover. That’ll turn off all the ladies.”

  “We’ll use your picture to scare all the kids.”

  “My picture won’t scare anybody. They’ll think that life is a circus here. Trapeze artists, the human cannonball, and, of course, a midget act. Popcorn and peanuts. They won’t know they’ll be shoveling up all the elephant shit.”

  “It’s probably a union job. My father would have been better off shoveling shit.”

  “Your father and every other Chinaman.”

  “My father wasn’t just another Chinaman.”

  “He was the same as all Chinamen in the sense that he worked long and hard at a job he wasn’t guaranteed to have the next day. He had the same slouch. He didn’t talk very much to anybody in his family, but when he ran into another man in the street they could talk so loud and so long, you’d have to pull him away or you’d never eat. I’ll also bet he snored like a garbage truck.”

  “Jesus, he could shake pantry doors open,” I said, smiling. “But you didn’t actually know my dad, did you?”

  The midget shrugged. “The story of men in Chinatown is the story of struggle—the struggle against the same things, unfortunately. The guys who made it out of the cycle, from what I saw, didn’t get out until their kids finished college and
sent back money.” The midget looked up at me, raising an eyebrow. “I guess your dad had it all riding on you. He was treading water, waiting for his son to come back with a lifeboat.”

  “He wasn’t struggling to keep his head up, you know? He gambled away money and spent a good chunk on prostitutes, too!”

  “Robert,” said the midget in a soothing voice, “don’t you know by now that the duty of a Chinese son is to overlook the shortcomings of his parents?”

  “What are the other duties of a son?”

  “Having more sons to continue the line.”

  “That’s it?”

  “You say that like it’s easy to raise kids. You don’t know how hard it is dealing with a smaller version of yourself.”

  I was about to say something when the midget jumped up and pointed his finger at me.

  “No! Don’t you dare say it!” he said, smiling with his mouth open.

  I couldn’t say anything because I was laughing too hard at the thought of it.

  21

  I STOPPED CONDUCTING MY “COMMUNITY SESSIONS” IN THE BACK of the midget’s toy store. It wasn’t fair for me to be bringing people’s problems into a place trying to conduct business. Apart from being dangerous—if more human snakes came in, snakeheads would surely take a serious interest in the place—it was just plain bad feng shui.

  I did miss doing it, though. It was a nice way to wrap up the day, fielding questions and feeling like I was making an immediate difference for the better.

  One day I fought the temptation to go to the store or a bar by going to a late-night over-rice place on Division Street that nobody ever went to. I half suspected the place was a front. I ordered some steamed chicken buns and read through the newspapers.

  Usually the three newspapers would run wildly divergent editorials that made readers think they were reading about Chinese people in three different parallel universes.

  But today they all said the same thing: Ethnic Chinese in newly united Vietnam were catching hell.

  Chinese allegedly had collaborated with American forces during the war. They were branded as bloodsuckers for controlling Vietnam’s economy and not spending any money where they made it. Vietnamese—with a newfound confidence from winning the war—were marching into Chinatowns and confiscating property, raping women, and conducting summary executions.

  It sounded like the Vietnamese had picked up some things from the Americans.

  Ethnic Chinese refugees, some who had been in Vietnam for three or four generations, were trickling into China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. More people had wanted to leave, but the Vietnamese government charged ridiculous “exit fees” to exploit people on the way out.

  I thought about the snakeheads, who exploited Chinese on their way into America.

  Chinamen were exploited around the world whether they wanted to stay put or go anywhere. How would my father have done if he had never left Canton? I wouldn’t have been born, but maybe that was the upside to it. He couldn’t have known that his own people were going to screw him over so badly and that I would grow up to let him down so hard.

  I felt mad again, but the only thing I could do about it right now was chew each bite of the chicken buns well before swallowing.

  A young woman came in and ordered some buns to go. When she saw me, she came over and sat at my table. Her purse made a funny clunking sound when she put it on the empty chair next to her. She had on way too much makeup and perfume.

  “Stephanie,” I said. “Does your dad know you’re out this late?”

  “It’s not even ten P.M.!”

  “You’re not twenty-one yet, are you?”

  “I’m nineteen, okay? I’m old enough to drink!”

  “We’re not talking about a question of age. It’s just not safe for you as a woman to be out this late by yourself. You also shouldn’t be wearing a blouse that I can see your bra through.”

  “Well, why are you looking?”

  “You’re basically shoving it in my face.”

  “I know you can’t help yourself,” she said, lying back in her chair to stretch her blouse tighter against her body. “You’re a man. I’m a woman. It’s a natural reaction.”

  “You’re asking for trouble, Stephanie.”

  “But I feel very safe with you, Robert.” She leaned across the table and tilted her head at an angle.

  “Do you feel safe because I’m a cop or because you’ve got a gun in your purse?”

  She jerked back and crossed her arms. “You have no right to search through my purse!”

  “I don’t have to. It’s as obvious as your bra.”

  “It’s not mine, okay?”

  “I know. You’re just holding it for your wannabe-gangster boyfriend, right?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend. It’s my father’s gun. I took it so I could protect myself. There are gunshots all the time!”

  “Because chumps like you are arming themselves. Do you even know how to shoot a gun?”

  “It’s not hard. Switch the safety off and pull the trigger.”

  I shook my head. This was why Chinese kids shot bystanders more often than the intended targets. They never aimed carefully, never kept their wrists straight, and fired their Saturday night specials with one hand without bracing with the other hand. I heard about a punk who broke his own nose when he punched himself in the face as the gun kicked back.

  I looked hard at Stephanie.

  “Look, little girl,” I said. “Don’t you know that—statistically—if you carry a gun, you’re more likely to get shot?”

  “But at least I get to shoot back!”

  “Why does your dad even have a gun, Stephanie? Is it because he’s involved with human smuggling and needs to protect himself?”

  “He meets with a lot of illegals, but he’s not the one bringing them over. He only has the gun because he gets death threats from the anti-Communists!”

  “You ever hear anyone call him Brother Five?”

  “No. He doesn’t even have any brothers.”

  “I see. In any case, I’m going to have to take that gun, Stephanie.”

  “What! No, please don’t! My father will kill me!”

  “He won’t do it with this gun, at least.” I opened up a cloth napkin and pushed it to her. “Take the gun out, put it under this, and slide it back to me.”

  She sighed and followed my instructions. It was a .45 automatic. I took out the clip and put it under my right thigh. I wrapped the gun in the napkin and put it under my right elbow.

  “You’re lucky I’m not charging you with unlawful possession of a firearm. If your father wants his gun back, tell him to come see me. Of course, I’ll need to see his gun permit as well. He has one, right?”

  “Of course he does. Anyway, everybody knows you guys are on the side of the KMT!”

  “No we’re not! If you were Chiang Kai-shek I’d still take your gun.”

  “You always have representatives at the KMT events. Your captain even went to the Greater China Association’s New Year’s banquet.”

  “He did?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “That’s not surprising. We send representatives to all the major events in Chinatown.”

  “Almost all of those are aligned with the KMT, because they’ve been here longer and they scare people with their anti-Communist propaganda. Mainland China associations are smaller, but we’re growing quickly. In a decade we’ll be a real political force.”

  “What do you care, Stephanie? You won’t be in Chinatown by that point.”

  “Who the hell are you to question my political conviction? I intend to be here after law school and for sure my father will be in Chinatown. By then, the U.S. will have full diplomatic ties with China—not with Taiwan or the KMT!”

  “No way. That would be a slap in the face to everyone who fought Communism in Vietnam.”

  “Vietnam was a huge mistake, Robert. America deserved to lose.”

  “So men deserved to die?”

&
nbsp; “You told me yourself,” Stephanie said, getting up. “If you carry a gun, you’re more likely to get shot.”

  I hate it when people turn around what you said to them. They should really come up with their own shit.

  I saw Paul back at the apartment.

  “Robert, what were you doing with that girl in the restaurant?” he asked. “I was walking by, but you looked too busy to say ‘Hi’ to me.”

  “I didn’t go there to meet her or anything. I was there and she happened to show up.”

  “A girl who looks like that only shows up when she’s called.”

  “Stephanie’s a decent girl. She goes to Yale. She just likes to dress provocatively.”

  “For what?”

  “Some women try to control men with their sex appeal.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Let me ask you something. If that girl had come up to you and asked you to buy her dinner, would you do it?”

  “It depends on what I would get in return.”

  “Whoa, tiger! You might be getting a lot more than you bargained for!” I showed him the empty gun. “Look at this. Some girls are loaded with more than looks.”

  Early the next day Stephanie’s dad, Mr. Song, came into the detective squad office and conferred briefly with English. The only words I picked up were “lawyer,” “illegal search,” and “jerk.”

  Then English came over to me. “Let’s just make this easy on everybody. Just give him his piece back.”

  “He’s got a CCW?” I asked, already opening my middle drawer for Song’s automatic.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “But his daughter doesn’t.”

  “She took it without my knowledge!” said Mr. Song, stepping over to my desk. “Sometimes she’s very irresponsible.”

  I gave him back his automatic and the bullet clip.

  “Mr. Song,” I said, walking downstairs with him. “I’m sorry I inconvenienced you. Could I take you to lunch to make up for it? I’d like to talk to you about some personal things, too.”

  “Well, okay, but not in this part of town,” he grumbled.

  He took me to a place on Catherine Street that I’d never been to. It wasn’t a fancy joint, but Mr. Song got the royal treatment on the way in and the cooks came out to shake his hand. He didn’t bother to introduce me and nobody asked him who I was.