by Dao Strom
The septic tank—a huge, black, submarine-shaped hunk of iron and aluminum—now sat at the top of the driveway. Today Hus and Thien were to drag the tank down the hill and maneuver it into the hole they had dug for it next to the trench. With two thick coils of braided rope, they fastened a harness around the body of the tank. The cousins were playing soccer with a deflated ball on the concrete foundation, the girls running barefoot after them with the hems of their ridiculous dresses flapping, and Tran had set up lawn chairs in front of the trailer for Aunt Mary and Uncle John, who were lounging in the summer morning sun with glasses of iced tea to watch the touted septic tank event (Hus had been proudly expounding on the details of this task to the relatives since the day they’d arrived). As Hus and Thien finished attaching the harness, a black Chevrolet truck appeared at the top of the driveway, its engine was cut off, and a man climbed out.
“Howdy, there.” The man greeted them in the comfortable drawl Hus had grown used to hearing in these hills. People talked much the same way they walked around here, he had noticed, in ambling, calmly investigative tones, so unabashedly, enviably John Wayne American.
“Hi, there,” said Hus, with a little peremptory nod. Hus couldn’t recall having seen this man before, though he recognized the truck from having passed it occasionally on the roads. The man was tall and wiry, not much younger than Hus, dressed in dirty blue jeans and a white pocketed T-shirt with a red design of horses raging across the front. His muscles showed like knots through the thin fabric of the T-shirt, and his forearms were dark with tattooes. The skin on his nose was peeling slightly, his hair was curled tightly against his head, the same unlively brown as tree bark, and he had a beard. His appearance made Hus think of the black house he sometimes passed on one of the nearby roads, with the Harley-Davidson motorcycles always parked out front, the lawn furniture decrepit. Hus had been entertaining a suspicion that a cult lived there.
The man walked down the driveway with his long hands dangling loosely.
Hus stopped halfway up. “Hello,” he said expectantly.
The man slowed and stood a guarded distance from Hus. He looked at Hus, then behind him at the relatives and the children and Tran. He hooked one thumb in his belt loop and rubbed his beard with his other hand. When he spoke, his voice was surprising, deep and mellow and natural. “Hello, neighbor,” he said. “It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?” And there was something cheerful and knowing to the way he clipped his words, making isn’t it sound more like itn’dit.
“Certainly is,” said Hus.
The man stroked his beard, glancing around amiably enough. “Now I hope I’m not interrupting your party or anything here, sir, but I am conducting a little personal investigation of my own. If you like, maybe you could help me. You see, sir, my dog was shot last night.” His eyes shifted, and that was when Hus noticed his motionless eyebrows, betraying the smile on his lips. “She was a damn fine dog, too, never would hurt a fly. A little mean-looking and big, sure, but still no one had the right to go and shoot her in the night like that. Now this morning, I’m just going around to ask people if they seen or heard anything unusual about eleven-thirty or so last night. That’s when I heard all the commotion.”
“I’m afraid I heard nothing out of the ordinary last night,” replied Hus.
The man stood quietly for a moment, one hand still on his chin and the other hooked on his waist, and studied Hus. “Well, sir, she was a nice dog is the fact,” said the man, “and she wasn’t so easily replaceable, you see, as she was partway wolf. I raised her from a pup, after some roaming free agent hopped the fence on one of my German shepherd dogs, made her a mama.” Then slowly, lowering his hands, in gentle, amused disbelief he said, “You mean to tell me you didn’t hear nothing when I heard a great big commotion of barking and strange voices and real live gunfire? You may be on the other side of the hill, sir, but if you’ve noticed, sound carries across this lake. And if there was people out driving, they’d have surely driven past this piece of the road, too. I would think so.”
“I assure you I heard nothing,” said Hus.
“Well, then,” said the man, “could I ask you, then, what you and these folk were up to at about that time last night?”
“We were asleep,” Hus replied briefly. “I’m sorry I can’t help you anymore. Good luck, however.” He turned his back to walk away, but the man raised his voice to call out after him.
“Well, sir, I have to tell you I’ve been hearing maybe otherwise. Some other fella gave me your address, says you’re the new people here. And he’s seen your truck drive by my place a number of times.”
Hus’s eyes swept over the relatives, who had come up the driveway and were standing now midway up the dirt road, staring at him. He turned to face the man again, but the image of the relatives had stuck in his mind and he saw himself as the man must have seen him, with all his brown-skinned, slant-eyed company in a scattered line behind him, dressed in their cheap secondhand clothing, the scrawny boys in their swim trunks and Huong in her floppy hat and tiger-striped bathing suit, his wife squatting on the ground with her knees in her armpits, in that way he tried to discourage, as she smoked her cigarette. Hus could read the man’s disgust at the sight, and felt a shameful anger flare up inside himself. He understood all too well that feeling of repulsion. Suddenly there was a pain in his stomach. He was terrifically sensitive to stress and different foods and had recently developed an ulcer. Sometimes when the pain occurred, it made him furious at everything, regardless of his true intentions. Hunger and lack of discipline could do this to dogs as well, he often thought. Especially those not-entirely-domestic breeds.
“Now I don’t mean to jump to conclusions,” said the man, “but I don’t know many other people around here who would go out in the night and shoot a man’s dog for no good reason.”
“As I already said, we were asleep.”
“How do I know that for sure?” The man took a step forward and held his palm up toward Hus. Hus felt a flash of apprehension shoot through his body like heat. He saw the man’s other arm hanging at his side, swaying, as if it had been caught by surprise. His skin looked smudged beneath the tattooes, which were a faded, inky, dark green tint—and for some reason this led Hus to think the man must be an alcoholic. “What proof have you got?” the man was demanding, the drawling tones of his voice now in anger sounding fatuous.
“You can ask anyone here,” said Hus.
“And anyone here could be goddamn lying to me,” said the man. “How am I to know what people like you might like to do for sport?”
“You are an insensible man,” said Hus as calmly as he could, “and you are wasting my time.” Behind him then he heard a soft, petulant “Hey!” He twisted around—conscious that the man was looking, too—and was met by the sight of his wife standing a few feet behind him with her hands on her hips and her feet spread. In her broken English she was exclaiming, “I his wife! He was asleep with me last night, I know!” Her eyes were beady beneath her thick glasses.
The man made a hooting noise. “Oh, mama,” he chuckled.
Hus was mortified, on whose behalf more he was not sure. Tran’s face, too, was red and her gaze flinched beneath the man’s mocking attention. Her mouth was fast becoming a thin, disappearing, injured little line.
Hus broke. “What did I just tell you!” he turned and shouted at the man. As Hus strode forward, he was vaguely aware of the fact he had not just told the man anything to justify his shouting this question. The man jumped immediately backward into a fighting stance, fists raised and bobbing in front of his face, and said, “Yeah, c’mon, you sucker.” For Hus there could be little satisfaction in striking an opponent who behaved like this. In Hus’s experience it seemed this was the way most American men fought—with a scrabbling, brutal, at-all-costs type of strength that was effective but lacked any finer sense of—how else could he put it— athletics. He had encountered it first in the U.S. Army.
Hus stopped two feet i
n front of the man and chose the option of pointing at him firmly and menacingly. “You get off my property this instant,” demanded Hus. “Or I swear you’ll regret it. You do not know what you’re dealing with if you don’t get your filthy person off my property this instant.” The blood had drained from his face, and he felt cold. He didn’t want the girls to see him like this.
The man was still bobbing up and down in front of Hus. “You chicken, man? You afraid I might knock you on your chicken shit ass?”
They stared at one another until the man pulled himself upright, with a glowering, unfinished look. Hus didn’t budge. The man spat over his shoulder, glared at Hus once more, then turned with an abrupt, jerking motion and strode back to his truck. He climbed into the cab and turned over the ignition, and the truck roared. Its grill hissed. The man rested his tattooed forearm on the window frame and leaned his head out. “Listen, I won’t forget this, you hear me?” he shouted. Then he put the truck in gear and backed out of the driveway, tires spitting pebbles.
Hus turned and walked stiffly back to the septic tank. His wife and the relatives and the children were all looking at him. Thien was kicking at the septic tank with the toe of his sneaker. Tran, her face flushed, still had her hands on her hips.
“That not a very friendly man,” said Aunt Mary, who stood in front of her lawn chair. She looked with concern toward Tran.
Hus said, “She’s all right now. She just has to learn that not everybody in the world is friendly.” He caught his wife’s glance and noticed a darkness in her expression. He didn’t know if this was because of what he had just said or if she was upset about the whole incident. He told himself irritably that she did not understand, that she shouldn’t have stepped in and given the man more to make fun of.
“I just try to help,” she said, seeming to read his thoughts, “that all, but you no appreciate anything I do.” She headed back toward the trailer and Aunt Mary, her back to Hus as she spoke. Sometimes when she got upset she was like a child herself, Hus thought.
“You do not appreciate.” He automatically corrected her grammar. “Of course I appreciate your efforts, but I don’t think you understand what people like that are truly like.”
His wife did not respond. She spoke in Vietnamese with her sister, and again Hus couldn’t tell if they were quarreling or not. Tran was speaking in a curt voice, and Uncle John joined in, also with a raised voice. Hus watched them for a few moments. He tried to chuckle. Loudly, he interjected, “Tell them, Tran, that’s not how everyone out here in the country is.” He realized this would be the story the relatives would tell when they went back to San Diego. They would tell other Vietnamese people they knew, this is what people in the country are like, and this is what Tran Trinh’s new husband is like.
“Tell them now, Mom,” Hus said cheerfully.
***
The man returned about half an hour later, carrying a bottle of wine. Hus and Thien had dragged the septic tank to the edge of the driveway and were beginning to ease it down the slope. The relatives were gathered around watching, and Hus felt he was educating them by allowing them the chance to watch this work being done. Though he didn’t know exactly what to make of their loud and animated, even joyous, exclamations at some moments, as when the tank began to teeter sideways on the slope, or when the ropes caught on an overhead tree branch—what were they cheering in hopes of, he wondered, a rescue or a fiasco? The girls sat above them in a tree with their prized secondhand Barbie dolls that’d been given to them by some previous neighbors in Sacramento (otherwise Hus would not have allowed them to have Barbies). The girls had strung ropes in the branches of the oak tree and were straddling each their own branch, pretending the branches were ponies.
The mother dog was barking as the man came down the driveway.
He raised his arms over his head as he approached. “I came back to apologize, is all,” he announced, and held the bottle of wine out to Hus. “I was jumping the gun earlier and I just wanted to come say how sorry I am for making a mess of your morning like I did.”
Hus looked at the bottle. He was reminded of his ulcer, the reason he no longer drank alcohol.
“That’s fine,” said Hus. “Tran,” he called to his wife, “why don’t you come take this?”
Tran came over from the trailer and took the bottle, smiling politely. Hus thought he should tell her later never to smile so sweetly at a man like this.
The man wiped his hands on his jeans. “My name’s Will, by the way. William Bentley. I live over toward Crooked Mile Court. I do apologize for this morning, truly.” His voice was measured and controlled once more, but now Hus heard a falseness in it. He shook the man’s hand reluctandy, finding it thin and sticky.
“Hus Madsen,” he said. “My wife, Tran.”
“Hello, missus.” The man tipped his head slightly. “I do hope you’ll excuse my rotten behavior this morning.”
“Well, we all okay now,” said Tran brightly. Hus looked at her.
“So, you folks all Chinese or Japanese?” said the man conversationally. “I knew a Chinese family back in Tracy where I used to live for a while. They were nice people. The missus was a real good seamstress, actually. She could patch any rip in a matter of minutes. She sewed some pretty dresses for my wife.” The man glanced around briefly. “Now all of you don’t live in there, do you?” He nodded toward the trailer.
“No, it’s just my wife and I and our three, the boy here and the two little girls,” said Hus. “My wife’s side of the family is visiting from down south.” Hus made a gesture to Tran, to send her back to the trailer. She went, seeming oblivious.
“And they’re Chinese, too, huh?” said the man.
“Vietnamese,” corrected Hus.
“Is that so?” The man declared this with genuine surprise and a spark of something else. He met Hus’s eye only briefly as his glance skated over the relatives. “Well, Hoss,” said the man (and Hus didn’t bother to correct his pronunciation), “I was on my way over to ask if you wanted to accompany me on a little visit to somebody. You see, I went over to a man named Curt Hopkins’s place just now, and the way he was acting, it occurred to me he might well be the culprit I’m looking for. And I just thought I might enlist a little help talking to him.” The man paused a moment, then focused again on Hus. He did not disguise the growing nastiness in his tone. “But I see you’re probably much too busy for that right now.”
The dog had approached them and was nuzzling Thien’s legs as Thien, at the other end of the septic tank, dropped the piece of rope he’d been holding and knelt beside the dog to absently stroke her head. The dog panted and wagged her tail happily.
“Yes,” said Hus, “we have far too much work to do here right now. I’m sorry about your dog, however.”
“Well, I thank you,” said the man, bowing with a mock salute, two fingers to his forehead. “Enjoy that wine, now.” Then he turned his back and left them.
Hus and Thien got the septic tank down the hill and maneuvered it into position above the hole. They had to brace themselves against the weight of the tank, Hus in front pulling the rope over his shoulder and leaning so far forward his knees almost dug into the ground, and Thien at the back of the tank, pushing. Hus wondered if Thien was pushing hard at all. Soon they would have to pull backward on their ropes to keep the tank from sliding too fast into the hole in the wrong position. The girls had climbed down from their tree and were running about, chasing the chickens out of the way of the oncoming tank, waving their dirty, half-dressed Barbie dolls in front of them. Hus was afraid the girls might fall into the hole or the trench, and it was making him nervous and distracted. “Get out of the way now! Now!” he shouted, when he heard the truck again.
William Bentley walked to the edge of the driveway and stood with his feet spread and his fists on his hips. “Hey!” he called down. “I gotta talk with you, Hoss!”
Hus wiped his brow with his forearm and released the rope. He moved calmly back up the length of
the tank to its end, and stopped beside Thien. They both shielded their eyes and looked up the hill at the man. Hus folded his arms across his chest. For a scant moment it felt as if they were in this together, father and son, both of them sweating and dusty.
“What’s the problem?” Hus called.
“I got a problem with my here dog that was shot last night,” yelled the man.
“I thought we discussed this already,” said Hus.
“I gotta say now, Hoss, I believe you’ve been lying to me.”
Hus took a deep breath. He stared for a moment at his dirty, worn work boots.
“Yeah, I believe you been lying to me,” the man repeated, “and Curt Hopkins isn’t the one who done it, and I know because he proved it to me by giving me some other pertinent news—”
“You need to get off my property right now,” said Hus, raising his voice.
The man paced a few steps back and forth at the edge of the driveway. “What you got here on your property, Hoss”—he gestured at the relatives and their kids standing around—“I know better than to trust a man who’s running a refugee camp on his property. I know what’s normal or not. And I know if anyone shot my dog, it was someone on this here property.”
“No one here shot your dog.” With contained vehemence, Hus got this out.
“Yeah?” The man nodded his chin in the direction of the trailer, where Uncle John was standing. “What about him? I know something you oughtta know, Hoss. I know that boy of yours is damn sneaky enough to have sent someone out to shoot my dog last night, behind your sleeping dumb-ass back, Hoss.”