February Thaw

by Tanya Huff

  "What happened to me?" Donna shrugged his hands away and dragged the canvas bag down onto her lap, turning the dragon pin into the light. The tiny golden claws were tipped with red. "What happened to me?" she repeated, just barely holding on to coherency. "Oh, nothing much happened to me."

  *

  "...and then I was home."

  Bradley sighed, a long exhalation that released all the interruptions he'd wanted to make but hadn't throughout her story. She wouldn't let him touch the dragon so he sat and stared at it as she turned it over and over between fingers puckered by almost thirty minutes in the shower.

  She looked up at the sound and waited for him to speak, wondering what he was thinking. Would he think she'd gone crazy? Had she? But he didn't speak and she couldn't read his expression. The silence lengthened until she broke under the weight of it. "Well?"

  "I need a smoke."

  "No, you don't!" The response was automatic older sister and it snapped her past some of what she supposed had to be shock. She sighed in turn and felt the knot in her stomach begin to ease with the wavering breath. "Bradley, please..."

  He spread his hands. "I want to believe you," he said simply.

  And he did. Donna recognized his expression now. Hope. A desperate hope. She thought she'd done all the crying she could in the shower. She was wrong.

  "Jeez, Donna, don't. I mean, you're all right, right? Like that guy didn't hurt you and you're okay. You said, Shing Li-ung came in time. I mean, jeez, please Donna, stop crying."

  Because it was upsetting him, she tried. It took a few minutes. "Why don't you believe me?" she asked when she finally regained control.

  He shrugged, watching her nervously in case she should break down again. "Well, I mean... a dragon?"

  She rubbed her nose on the fuzzy purple sleeve of her old bathrobe. "You're the one who's always going on about Chinese heritage. Dragons are a part of that."

  "Yes..." He turned that over, accepted it.

  "And you know I never lie. Not even when it would keep me out of trouble. Even when it would keep us out of trouble. You always said it was one of my most annoying habits. If I never lied before, why now? And why about something so... so extreme."

  "Why indeed?" His sudden smile illuminated the room. "Donna, this is awesome. A dragon, a real dragon."

  "No, Bradley..."

  "Kae Bing. And what do you mean, no?"

  "It isn't awesome, at least not like you mean. That boy is dead."

  "So?"

  "Dead!" she repeated. "And Shing Li-ung killed him."

  "He deserved to die."

  "It's not that simple," she began but she saw suddenly for Bradley, for Kae Bing, it was that simple. "Look, you can't just go around saying that some people deserve to die."

  "Can't I?" He jerked to his feet, hands balled into fists. "Well, maybe Saint Donna can't, but I can. Get some sleep and forget about that round-eye punk, he got what he deserved." Half out of the room, he paused and looked back. "Oh, and I wouldn't tell Mom or Dad about this. They wouldn't understand."

  Then, to Donna's surprise, he bowed to the bit of enamelled tin she still held in her hand.

  *

  The boy's name had been Alan Ford and all three city papers had a full report of his death. The tabloid even had colour pictures. Not one of the papers mentioned a thirty foot long, scarlet and gold Chinese dragon although all of them mentioned multiple knife wounds.

  To her parents' relief, Donna dropped out of the night school course and unless she had a crowd of friends around her, she stayed off the paths in the daytime as well. But even crowds couldn't stop her reaction to blond hair and leather university jackets.

  Shing Li'ung stayed at home on her dresser, watching its own reflection in the mirror. Donna had no intention of being responsible for releasing the dragon again.

  *

  "I MUST PROTECT YOU."

  "No!"

  "WHY DO YOU FEAR ME?"

  "Because you burn too brightly."

  "I MUST PROTECT YOU."

  "Get out of my dreams!"

  *

  "Mr. Chen?"

  "Yes, I'm David Chen. What is it Officer?"

  "Are you the father of Bradley Chen?"

  Donna came out of the family room, one finger holding her place in a physics text, heart beating so loudly she was certain the two police constables at the front door must be able to hear it.

  "I'm Bradley's father, yes."

  "Your son has been injured, Mr. Chen."

  "Injured? Bradley? How?"

  Standing just behind her father's shoulder, Donna saw the look they exchanged. How much do we tell him?

  "There was a gang fight in the Dragon Mall, on Spadina."

  "And Bradley got caught in it?"

  No, Dad...

  "No, Mr. Chen. Your son was part of a Chinese gang attempting to force a Vietnamese gang off their turf."

  "That's impossible!" She could feel the indignation coming off her father in waves. "My son would never get involved in something like that."

  "There's no doubt about his involvement, Mr. Chen."

  "Well, you're wrong!"

  No, Dad...

  "We're sorry, Mr. Chen, but..."

  "You said he's injured, where is he?"

  "He's been taken to Wellesley Hospital."

  "Well, I'll go to him. I'll talk to him. You'll see. He wasn't involved in this. You're wrong."

  Again, Donna saw the silent exchange between the two constables.

  "Dad, I'm going with you." She knew without looking that the dragon pin would be missing from her dresser.

  *

  Bradley had remained quiet and unresponsive throughout their father's questioning. He had admitted being part of the gang, his lower lip thrust out in what looked to Donna like a defiant pout, but he had refused to co-operate any further. Finally, the police took their father aside for a private discussion and Donna was left alone with her brother.

  He'd had a hundred and thirty-seven stitches, mostly in his right arm and side. She thought the bandages and the tubes made him look ridiculously young and she couldn't think of what to say.

  Bradley finally broke the silence.

  "It's in the drawer."

  She pulled the pin out of the jumble of personal effects – the contents of his pockets, his watch, an earring... when had he gotten his ear pierced? – and brought it back to the bed.

  "You really sucked me in." His voice had the rough rasp of unshed tears behind it.

  "What?"

  "I believed you. Believed your stupid story about the dragon. There isn't any dragon. There never was."

  Donna closed her fingers so tightly around Shing Li-ung the edges cut into her palm. Anger she could have dealt with, but not this black despair.

  "Oh, stop crying. I've learned my lesson."

  "Good." Donna drew in a long shuddering breath and swiped at her cheeks with her empty hand. "So you'll come home and stop seeing these people and stop this gang stuff. Bradley, I..."

  "Kae Bing!" He spat the name at her. Now, the anger showed. "Shall I tell you what I've learned. I've learned that if we're going to make a place for our people in this country, and hold it, we're going to have to do it one drop of blood at a time." He couldn't move his right arm but his left came up off the bed and his fist punched the air. "If they use knives, we'll use knives. If they use guns, we'll use guns."

  "You sound like a bad remake of West Side Story." She couldn't believe she was hearing this. "You haven't learned anything."

  "I learned the lesson your dragon taught me; we can't count on outside help. We have to do this ourselves." He turned his head on the pillow. "Now get that piece of junk jewellery out of my room. I'm tired."

  "Bradley... I mean, Kae Bing, I want to help..."

  The glimmer of silver between his lids was her only answer. She watched one lone tear roll onto his pillow then, slipping the pin in her bag, she left the room. She didn't know what else to do.

  *

  "Why didn't you protect him?"

  "I WAS NOT GIVEN TO HIM."

  "But you were with him! And he only acted so foolishly because he thought you'd protect him."

  Shing Li'ung looked somewhat taken aback. "YOU DO NOT KNOW THAT."

  "I do know that. You inspired his recklessness."

  "I DID NOT."

  "You did."

  "DID NOT."

  "Did. And now because you didn't show up, he's convinced that the gang answer is the right answer."

  "THE YOUNG CAN CONVINCE THEMSELVES OF ANYTHING."

  "Well, you should have protected him against that too!"

  "THERE IS NO PROTECTION AGAINST YOUTH SAVE TIME. AND BESIDES, I WAS NOT GIVEN TO HIM. I MUST PROTECT THE ONE I HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO." It snorted and the smell of ginger became almost overpowering. "IF THAT ONE IS WORTHY."

  "Oh that's it. You didn't find my brother worthy so you let him almost die?"

  "IT DID NOT COME TO THAT. I MUST FIRST BE GIVEN." Obviously considering that to be the final word on the matter, it twisted back on itself and disappeared.

  "Come back here! This is my dream and I'll tell you when you can leave! Shing Li-ung! Shing Li-ung!"

  Her anger almost woke her but she fought her way deeper into sleep, searching for the dragon, chasing a gleam of scarlet and gold.

  *

  Winter broke before Bradley left the hospital and Donna suspected the weather, not his injuries or the terms of his probation, kept him home. He spent long hours on the telephone, talking, she was sure, with his friends from downtown, keeping the anger alive. It didn't help that most of the kids at school considered him some kind of hero.

  Donna tried to understand what he was angry about, but it seemed directed at being Chinese – not because he didn't want to be, but because he did. Her own anger she reserved for her family, who seemed to think that by ignoring the problem, it'd go away.

  She buried Shing Li-ung in her underwear drawer.

  In March, when the snow stopped and the air began to warm, the patterns of the previous autumn reappeared.

  *

  "Say, Donna, isn't that your brother?"

  If it was, he'd skipped his afternoon classes again. "Where?"

  "On the corner, with those other two guys. I didn't know he smoked."

  "He doesn't."

  "He is."

  The other two guys were all angles and edges with slicked back hair and muscles pulled tight over bone. Inside their expensive clothes and heavy jewelry, they moved with the boneless grace of alley cats anticipating a fight. What bothered Donna the most was not how different Bradley looked, but how much the same.

  "I better go over and talk to him."

  "He doesn't look like he wants to be bothered."

  "Tough." But by the time she got across the street, they'd already begun to move and she had to hurry to catch up.

  "...be there tonight."

  "I'll be there." Bradley tossed his cigarette in the gutter. "Jade Garden Night Club Restaurant. One-thirty in the am."

  "Why don't you just tell the world?" hissed the taller of his companions.

  Bradley's laugh scraped at the hair on the back of Donna's neck. "We'll have the guns," he pointed out. "Who's going to stop us?"

  That's my cue, Donna thought, feet suddenly rooted to the sidewalk as the trio pulled ahead and turned the corner onto Beverly without ever seeing her. Jade Garden Night Club Restaurant. One-thirty am. We'll have the guns.

  I could tell the police; if nothing else, Bradley's breaking probation. Except that he was her brother and, as much as it was the sensible, right thing to do, she couldn't do it.

  I could tell Mom and Dad, and they'd say boys will be boys and insist he's given up all that gang nonsense, that he swears he's given it up. " It would never occur to them that someone who gets into knife fights in shopping malls could be lying."

  "What?"

  "Nothing..." She flushed and started walking, ignoring the worried looks shot her way by the two elderly women who'd heard her talking to herself. Their parents expected both her and Bradley to fit neatly into the lives they'd devised for them. That she did made it even harder on Bradley who didn't. The incident last fall had shaken their belief in the system only for a moment.

  So. It looks like it's up to me. She fought with a sudden irrational desire to rip open her jacket and yell, "This is a job for, Shing Li-ung!"

  If the dragon deigned to make an appearance. It had already refused to rescue her brother once.

  *

  And what are you going to do if Shing Li-ung doesn't show? Donna asked herself later that night, emotions trembling on the edge of hysteria. Stick the bad guys with the rusty pin and hope they get tetanus? She'd told her parents she had to go back downtown to use the library. It was the first time she'd been out after dark on her own since...

  A tall young man across the subway gave her a speculative look. Donna jerked her head away and stared fixedly at her reflection. Don't try anything, buddy. I've got a dragon in my pocket.

  She stayed at the library until it closed at eleven and then closed down the coffee shop across the street at twelve. The Jade Garden Night Club Restaurant was on Baldwin between Beverly and McCall, right in the heart of Chinatown. The library – and the coffee shop – was only five blocks north – five short blocks – so she arrived just before twelve thirty, the dragon clutched in a sweaty hand, heart leaping into her throat at any and every noise.

  The restaurant was locked although she could see people moving around inside, lifting chairs onto tables, sweeping the floor.

  Am I too late? Has it happened?

  Moving slowly and carefully, trying to see everything at once, she backed to the edge of the sidewalk. The health food store across the road had large empty plywood bins out front, a perfect hiding place if she wanted to watch and wait for Bradley then... then... then what? She still didn't know.

  This is ridiculous. I should have told someone. I don't know what I'm doing here.

  But she went and hid in the bin anyway, crawling through the open back, trying to ignore the rotting bits of vegetable on the pavement. She was the oldest. Bradley was her responsibility. Just for an instant, she envied him his ability, or at least his attempt, to break free of the conditioning they'd faced all their lives. But if I break free, little brother, where does that leave you?

  The car pulled up at twelve fifty, when only one light remained on in the restaurant and most of the staff had left. It cruised by not two feet from where Donna knelt, turned into the alley beside the store, and cut the engine.

  No.

  It hadn't happened.

  This was it.

  The silence thickened until it lay over the street like a fog, enclosing it, isolating it. The steady traffic on Beverly, only two short blocks to the west, sounded muffled and distant. She wouldn't have heard the car doors or the approaching footsteps had she not been listening so desperately for them.

  "He's still inside. That's his car down the street."

  They were leaning on the outside of her bin. Donna peered through the crack where moisture had warped the boards apart. Her brother looked like a stranger, all angles and edges.

  "Remember, full automatic. Don't worry about accuracy. We've got to do them and get out of here."

  "Them?" She could see the curve of a black tube cradled in Bradley's arms. It took her a moment to realize it was part of a gun. She'd never seen a gun before. "What do you mean them? I thought we were after Bui? We take out the leader of the most powerful Vietnamese gang and the gang falls apart. I mean, that was the plan."

  "Hey, Kae Bing, chill out. Bui owns this place and the guy who manages it for him is in gang business up to his balls. He launders the gambling money, stores the dope, pimps for the whores. We do him too."

  "Besides..." The second of Bradley's companions took a long pull on his cigarette. "...they'll come out together. It's all or nothing."

  Nothing, Donna prayed. Please God, nothing. Her brother's jacket brushed up against the bin. She could slip the dragon pin through the space between the boards and drop it into his pocket. Give him the dragon. There was nothing she could do about the two men in the restaurant, but at least Bradley would be safe.

  "What's taking them so long?"

  "You scared, Kae Bing?"

  "Fuck you."

  He was scared. She could hear it in the bravado. Holding Shing Li-ung by the very end of its tail, Donna pushed the other end at the crack. There was just barely enough room – if only there'd be enough time. Then the clasp caught on a sliver of wood and jerked the dragon out of her grip. It twisted back on itself, hit her shoulder, her knee, and rang against the pavement under the bin.

  "Hey, what was that?"

  She froze, too frightened even to blink.

  "What was what?"

  "I heard something under here." Bradley slapped his palm down and the wood over Donna's head boomed.

  "Probably a rat. Or a cat, or something."

  "Well, I'm going to look."

  "No time. Here they come."

  It suddenly didn't matter if they heard her. She pressed her face up to the boards as the door to the restaurant opened and three people came out onto the step.

  "Hey wait!" She saw Bradley's arm go out, stopping the surge forward. "There's a waitress with them."

  "So?" They shook free of his restraint. "Come on. We've got to do them before they reach the bottom of the stairs."

  "You can't shoot her!"

  "Wanna bet?"

  Donna, eye tight against the hole, saw her brother break into a run towards the three figures on the steps and knew without a doubt what he was going to do. Desperately, she scraped the pavement with her fingers, searching for the dragon.

  He'd gone four steps when she found it.

  Six when she threw herself out of the bin.

  Seven and the guns came up.

  Eight, he grabbed the terrified woman by the arm.

  Nine, he threw her out of the way.

  On ten, they opened fire.

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