by S. G. Browne
It seemed like a reasonable excuse in my head but when the words came out of my mouth, I suddenly realized how petty it sounded.
“Mandy?”
“I can’t believe that poaching luck is more important to you than your own sister’s wedding.”
I tried to explain my actions, but the best I could come up with on short notice was, “It was top-grade soft, though.” Click. “Hello?”
We’ve barely spoken since.
The little boy running around the park’s water fountain races past me and continues his circular journey past an elderly Asian man in sunglasses and a San Francisco Giants baseball cap who has now joined the party and is doing some kind of martial arts exercises. He stands near the bench to my right, swinging his arms back and forth like a monkey. I watch him for a few minutes as the boy runs around the fountain and past the gay, shirtless men and the middle-aged woman reading her paperback.
Now the old man’s rotating his hips.
Now he’s thrusting his pelvis.
Now he’s making gestures that look like simulated masturbation.
It doesn’t seem to faze anyone else in the park, not even the mother of the little boy. Maybe the old man comes here every day and does the same thing, so now he’s just part of the experience. Still, it’s kind of creepy. In a tai chi sort of way.
On my left, a young Chinese woman in a blue bikini top and a pair of denim cutoff shorts walks up and spreads out a towel on the grass, bending over in such a way that I can tell she’s not wearing matching bikini bottoms. I consider going over to introduce myself, but that’s not exactly going to help me figure out what to do about the delivery I’m supposed to make to Tommy Wong. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to offer to rub a little sunscreen on her back.
When I turn to grab my backpack, the old Asian guy is sitting on the bench next to me.
“Nice day,” he says.
I nod. I don’t know how he got over here so fast and sat down without my noticing, but it’s a little weird. Plus he’s sitting right next to me. No buffer. No man space.
“Do I know you?” I ask.
Anyone sitting this close to me, I figure I’ve met them. Or pissed them off. Or attracted them with the bad luck Barry Manilow gave me.
He puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “Not officially.”
Other than a slight tingling sensation in my shoulder, I don’t notice anything’s wrong until I try to respond and I realize my lips are numb and weigh about a thousand pounds.
“Blllbb,” I say.
The old Asian guy is on his phone, calling someone for help, saying he has an emergency. At the edges of my fading vision, people are looking at me, coming my way, offering help. I’m surrounded by naked abs and bikini-clad breasts.
“Blllbb,” I say again.
I hear a siren as an ambulance pulls into view and I feel like I’m floating up into the cosmos.
The Earth spins on its axis, the planets revolve around the sun, the universe continues to expand, and I’m getting sucked into a black hole.
When I wake up, I’m on the floor in a room the size of a leprechaun’s walk-in closet, with no windows and no furniture, just a liter of bottled water on the hardwood floor and a rack of fluorescent lights buzzing into my eyes and frying my brain. My head is pounding and my mouth feels like a used box of cat litter.
The clumping kind.
I close my eyes and roll onto my hands and knees, groping for the water bottle. Once I find it, I unscrew the cap and drink more than half of the contents before I realize I should probably have stopped to think if it was poisoned.
Oh, well. Too late now.
By the time I drain the last of the bottle, my headache is beginning to fade and my mouth no longer feels like it’s filled with Fresh Step. I look around the room and wonder where I am, if I’m still in San Francisco, and how I’m going to get out of here. The door seems like the logical choice, from the other side of which I hear male voices, though they’re not speaking English. Sounds more like Cantonese.
A light switch is on the wall next to the door, which I presume is locked. The door, not the wall. Though I wouldn’t be surprised either way. But when I turn the knob, the door opens and I step into a mostly empty room with hardwood floors, wall-to-wall dust, a single window, a curtain covering another doorway, and a table surrounded by four old Chinese men playing mah-jongg.
“Mei,” says one of the old men without looking up. “Get our friend a chair.”
The old man is the same one who drugged me in Huntington Park. Apparently, he and I have different ideas about friendship.
I still don’t know where I am, but it looks like I’m in the city, somewhere in Chinatown. It also looks like the curtained doorway is the only way out, unless I want to try the window. Which I don’t.
A young Chinese woman in a white shirt and black pants appears through the curtained doorway carrying a chair, which she sets near the four men who continue to play mah-jongg. She bows to the old man, then vanishes through the same doorway.
Maybe it’s the hangover from the drugs, but she looks familiar.
“Feeling better?” the old man says, still not looking up from the game.
“I could use something to drink,” I say, taking a seat.
“Mei!”
Seconds later, Mei returns with a tray and a pot of tea with five cups.
I was thinking more along the lines of whiskey. Or maybe a shot of tequila with a lime and some salt. I’d ask for a margarita, but that would probably just be pushing my luck.
“Oolong tea,” says my host as Mei sets the cups on a nearby table and fills them. She never glances up or makes eye contact, but something about her still makes me think we’ve met. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t at Starbucks or Peet’s; otherwise she’d probably throw the cup of tea in my face.
She finishes pouring the tea and exits the room in silence. Before she leaves, I catch a glimpse of a blue bikini top beneath her white shirt, and I realize she’s the same hot young woman from Huntington Park.
I grab a cup of tea and inhale, then I take a sip of the steaming brew, half expecting to go numb and pass out again. But I can still feel my extremities, so I’ve got that going for me.
I glance around the room, which is decorated in early hovel. The walls are yellowed and peeling, the hardwood floors scuffed and water stained. Battered venetian blinds cover the only window, and the single rack of fluorescent lights buzzes uncovered next to a crack in the ceiling. The only decoration is a ceramic lucky-cat sculpture, its left paw raised, sitting on a small, solitary shelf by the curtained doorway.
“You know,” I say, after taking another sip of tea, “for someone who’s supposed to have bought up as much luck as you, I was expecting accommodations that were a little less, I don’t know, crack-addict-prostitute.”
“You should have accepted my earlier invitation from my men,” says the old man. “We would have had dim sum at Yank Sing.”
Tommy Wong finally looks at me and smiles, and I realize he’s not as old as I thought he was. I also realize my backpack is missing. Along with the case of bad luck Barry Manilow gave me.
“What happened to my case?”
“It’s in a safe place,” he says. “At least until I use it.”
“And when will that be?”
“What does it matter? You’re no Samaritan. You have your own troubles to worry about.”
One of the other three Chinese men picks up a discarded mah-jongg tile, eliciting an angry reaction from the man on his left.
“D’iu ne ma la!”
Somehow, I don’t think he’s complimenting his partner’s playing skills.
“So how did you know who I am?” I ask. “Or that I’d be in Huntington Park?”
“When you’re in my line of business, it pays to know who people are.” Tommy sips his tea. “And as I’m sure you’ve come to realize, you and I share a common interest.”
“Philanthropy?”
Tommy lau
ghs, then throws down a tile that elicits an “Aayah!” from the old man across from him. “As for where you’d be, it’s easy to find someone when you know where they’re going.”
Tommy pours the rest of the tea for his playing partners, then calls out for a refill. This time, instead of Mei, an attractive Asian woman walks through the curtained doorway wearing a red dress and red pumps and carrying a fresh pot of tea. The same Asian woman who was in the limo with Barry Manilow.
“I believe you’ve met S’iu Lei,” says Tommy.
She walks over and sets the teapot on the table. “Pleasure to see you again, Mr. Monday.”
“Nice dress,” I say. “Where do you hide your gun?”
She smiles and pours Tommy a fresh cup of tea as he throws down the rest of his tiles in triumph, winning the game and sending the other three men out of the room with their wallets carrying a whole lot less than when they came in.
I need to learn how to play this game.
“I keep track of what goes on in my city,” says Tommy. “So when the mayor of San Francisco lost the shine on his armor, it was only a matter of time before I found the man responsible. A man whose talents I could use.”
I’m beginning to think poaching Gordon Knight’s luck wasn’t such a good idea.
“But I was disappointed when my associates told me you refused my offer of employment,” says Tommy.
“Refused is a strong word.” I finish my tea and hand my empty cup to S’iu Lei. “I prefer to think of it as exercising my right of independence.”
“Does your independence allow you to take vacations to Europe and Tahiti? Or to live in a penthouse flat in Pacific Heights?”
“It’s part of my five-year plan.”
“I can make that happen right now,” says Tommy, running his hand along S’iu Lei’s backside as she refills my cup. “No five-year plan. How does that sound?”
“I don’t look good in red.”
Tommy laughs.
“Besides,” I say, “from what I hear, you’ve already got some other poachers on your payroll.”
“Rumors,” says Tommy, waving a dismissive hand in the air.
S’iu Lei sets the pot down next to my cup, then leans in and whispers something to Tommy, who nods.
“Until next time,” she says to me with a wink and a smile before she turns and saunters away, her red curves outlined with sex.
“I’ll pay you twenty-five percent above what you get on the open market,” says Tommy, nodding toward S’iu Lei as she exits the room. “Plus . . . benefits.”
It’s tempting. But like I said, I don’t look good in red. Plus I swore I’d never go corporate.
“No thanks,” I say. “I prefer the entrepreneurial path. Cuts down on the chain of command.”
Though I’m wondering if I’d have a better chance of delivering the bad luck to Tommy if I took his offer. Problem is, I don’t know what to make of S’iu Lei’s role in all of this. Whose side she’s on. Plus I don’t have the bad luck anymore, which is another kind of problem.
“I respect a man who stays true to his nature,” says Tommy, handing me my fresh cup of tea. “Of course, that doesn’t mean I can let you just walk out of here.”
Crap. I hadn’t considered that. I never did plan well for the future. So the thought of actually dying here in this dilapidated room didn’t occur to me. Until now.
I can almost hear my father’s voice, telling me that one way or another, I’d end up paying for my lifestyle in the end.
Tommy seems to read my mind. “No need to worry,” he says, picking up his cup of tea but not taking a drink. “I have no plans to dispose of you. It’s not good business to kill a luck poacher. Besides, I have a feeling you’ll end up changing your mind.”
“Don’t hold your breath. But thanks for not killing me.”
Tommy just smiles at me over the top of his teacup.
“I suppose you’re going to have to blindfold me,” I say, then take a sip of my tea. “Or put a bag over my head.”
“Not exactly,” says Tommy, setting his cup down.
I open my mouth to respond, but all that comes out is “Blllbb.”
I slide off the chair and onto the floor, turning into a puddle of Nick Monday. Tommy steps up to the puddle and leans over.
“Don’t take too long changing your mind, Mr. Monday,” he says, his voice growing muddled and distant. “Otherwise next time, I won’t be such a good host.”
In September 1960, during a speed trial at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, Donald Campbell crashed his car while traveling at 360 miles per hour. The vehicle tumbled multiple times and was destroyed, yet Donald Campbell survived with only a fractured skull. Seven years later, he wasn’t so fortunate, dying while attempting to set the water speed record.
When I wake up, I feel like Donald Campbell. The 1960 version. Not because I feel lucky to be alive, but because I feel like my skull is in several pieces.
I’m in an alley. I don’t know where. Next to me is a guy who smells like desperation and hopelessness and who is passed out in his own urine, so I’m guessing I’m in the Tenderloin. On the wall across from me is written:
TEMPTATION WEIGHTS
Someone needs a spelling lesson. I need some coffee.
Actually what I need is to poach some good luck, any grade, even if it’s diluted. Something to help me get rid of this headache and figure out how I’m going to get out of this mess with Barry Manilow and Tommy Wong. Though I have no idea how I’m supposed to retrieve the stolen bad luck from Tommy so I can make Barry happy, not unless I accept Tommy’s offer to work for him. Which was really more of a threat than an offer.
You say potato . . .
Semantics aside, whatever I’m going to do I better do it soon. But first I need some caffeine and some good luck.
I could grab one of the bottles of medium-grade from my apartment, provided neither the Feds nor Tommy Wong’s thugs have ransacked it and taken my stash. Which wouldn’t surprise me considering the way this day is turning out. But consuming good luck and poaching it are two different experiences. It’s like the difference between drinking a beer and dropping acid. Or masturbating and having tantric sex. One just gives you some personal satisfaction while the other is transcendent.
And I’m realizing that giving up this lifestyle might be more of a challenge than I thought.
I walk out of the alley onto Polk Street and hoof it a couple of blocks to Peet’s by Max’s Opera Café, where I order a large mocha and get another phone number from a blond barista with a pageboy haircut and a nose ring who tells me she loves guys who have that rumpled look. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I woke up drugged in an alley, so I pocket her digits and head back to Polk Street to grab an apple fritter from Bob’s Doughnuts.
It’s not so much out of hunger, but the combination of sugar and caffeine helps with the processing of good luck into a marketable form. For others, sugar and alcohol does the trick. I don’t know why, since I never got better than a C in chemistry, but it’s what’s worked for generations. My great-grandma washed down rock candy with straight vodka, while Grandpa swore by powdered doughnuts and Budweiser. For me, it’s cappuccinos or mochas and apple fritters. Beer just makes me sleepy.
And I wouldn’t be caught dead drinking a Budweiser.
Drinking my mocha, I walk up Polk Street, looking for potential marks, but all I see are homeless people trying to sell copies of the Street Sheet and minimum-wage employees standing outside taking a smoke break.
Not exactly the best options for good luck.
Trolling for luck out in the open like this isn’t the smartest idea. First of all, you have to deal with the problem of personal hygiene. Second, without research, you never know what you’re getting.
But sometimes you’re forced to take your chances.
If you’re going to poach luck off the streets or door-to-door in San Francisco, your best bets are Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and the Marina District. With multimi
llion-dollar homes and their central location to tourist attractions and shops, they offer the best combination of wealth and accessibility. No one looks twice at you walking around those neighborhoods. Your chances of walking away with some medium-grade good luck are decent enough to make it worth considering.
Instead of mansions and manicured gardens and beauty salons, I’m walking past the Red Coach Motor Lodge and graffiti-covered awnings and the Shine Day Spa Massage Parlor. I don’t know if Tommy’s getting a cut of their business, but when I look around at the people in this neighborhood, I’m guessing most of them aren’t getting any happy endings.
Why some people are born with good luck and others aren’t, I don’t have an answer. Maybe it has something to do with karma, if you believe in that sort of thing. A reward for making the right decisions or doing the right thing in a past life. Or maybe it’s the reverse. People who had a hard life last time around get a spiritual hall pass to help balance things out.
Or maybe it’s just random chance.
As for luck poachers, I don’t know why we can do what we do. How we were chosen. Why we were born this way. Maybe we are mutants or aliens.
Outside of my family, I’ve never met another luck poacher. Because of our limited numbers, we don’t tend to cross paths all that often. It’s not like we have our own version of Hogwarts to teach us the art and rules and etiquette of stealing luck. And we don’t exactly have support groups to help us understand who we are and what we do. Everything I know about luck poaching I learned from Grandpa. And other than Grandpa, Mom, and Mandy, I’ve never known anyone else I could count on. Anyone who would understand me. Which is another reason why it’s a bad idea to develop relationships: You never know whom you can trust.
So for the most part, it’s just been me, myself, and I.
When I was a kid, I had to learn how to make my own fun. I played in my room, made up games, and poached from other kids. Sometimes I’d hang out with Grandpa or Mandy, but otherwise I spent a lot of time by myself.
In the past two decades, not much has changed.