Triplines (9781936364107)

by Chang, Leonard

  He sees Frankie picking on a younger kid, another walker returning to school. Frankie pushes him off the sidewalk, and the kid stumbles onto the street. Lenny walks toward them, looking around to make sure no teacher’s aide is nearby. Frankie sees him and backs away.

  “Haven’t you learned anything?” Lenny asks him. He puts down his back pack. The kid on the ground stops sniffling.

  “Why do you pick on weaker kids? Why don’t you pick on me now?” Lenny pushes him hard.

  “You better leave me alone.”

  Impatient, Lenny does a quick roundhouse kick to his face, which connects solidly, Frankie’s head snapping to the side. He falls to the ground, stunned. Lenny kicks him in the stomach and chest, and then gives him one final vicious kick in the face. Frankie howls as his nose bleeds. Frankie curls up tightly, protecting his body and face.

  Lenny turns to the kid in the street, who stares at him in fear. “If he bothers you or anyone else again, let me know.”

  The kid nods his head quickly. Lenny turns back to Frankie. “You are so weak.” He kicks him again, hitting Frankie’s hands covering his face, and viciously stomps on his shoulder. Frankie yelps in pain, sobbing. Lenny finds that he wants to keep kicking him, but stops himself.

  Lenny comes home to Ed packing for his summer trip to California. Ed has done something to his hair—it’s curly and strangely glossy. Lenny asks him about it.

  “Permed a little for the prom,” Ed replies. He takes down his posters and boxes most of his belongings.

  “You’re going to the prom?” Lenny asks. “With who?”

  “With Liz. Down the block.”

  “Is she your girlfriend?”

  He snorts. “No. Just a friend.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  He gives Lenny an incredulous look. “You think any girl wants to go out with an Oriental guy in this town?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Bruce Lee never gets the girl. Chuck Norris does. Shit, even David Carradine is a white guy. You know? That show Kung-fu?”

  “He’s white?”

  Ed laughs. “Oh, man. You’re funny.”

  Lenny isn’t joking, and is puzzled by this new information. Ed asks what Lenny is going to do with his new bedroom.

  “I’m going to buy a TV and then I’m going to hook up illegal cable.”

  “How?”

  “I think I need to hook it up to the wires up on the telephone pole.”

  “Be careful. Don’t get electrocuted. And don’t get caught. Dad will kill you.”

  “I won’t get caught.”

  He points to Lenny’s arms. “You need to work out. You’re too scrawny.” He flexes his large biceps. “You need to bulk up. I told you why I got strong, right?”

  “Yeah. To fight Dad.”

  He says, “When I’m gone he’s going to focus on you. You better be ready.”

  “I’m learning martial arts.”

  “It’s more than what you know, Lenny. It’s how you look. It’s both. That’s my advice to you. Get more muscle.”

  Sal and Lenny discover the trip wire has been triggered. The wire holding the stick and the log lies on the ground. Sal quizzes him on the construction of the trip wire, making sure it couldn’t have fallen accidentally. He tells Lenny to set it up again, which he does, and Sal inspects it.

  “Was it this solid?”

  “Yeah. I checked it a few times.”

  “Goddammit. So someone came by last night?”

  “An animal?”

  Sal checks the plants, looking for leaves chewed on or the dirt dug up, but finds no signs of animals. He bites his upper lip, which exaggerates his underbite. He’s growing a scraggly mustache, and his long, messy hair reaches his neck. He says, “Could be like a raccoon or something just looking around. Those things get pretty big.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Water the plants, set up the trap again, and this time clean the area so that we can maybe see footprints.”

  Lenny examines the ground, but the leaves and hard dirt reveal nothing.

  Sal says, “We just have to till the dirt, make it soft. Then we’ll see if it’s an animal or a person. I have a hand till at the house. I’ll go back and get it. You water the crops and start clearing the leaves and grass.”

  Lenny begins working, remembering that his father is going to make him clean the yard this weekend for denting the car. The prospect of more gardening annoys him, but it will also give him a chance to inspect the yard for his own garden. Except for mowing the lawn, his father doesn’t really care that much about the yard, and his mother, who used to have a small vegetable garden in the corner, no longer tends it. Lenny doubts either of them could recognize marijuana plants, especially if he scatters them throughout the bushes.

  He clears the perimeter, and when Sal returns with a hand till and a small shovel, they begin turning over the dirt, smoothing it, and then reset the trip line, which they test a few times.

  While doing this, Lenny tells him about ordering the pamphlets and about maybe trying to start his own garden.

  Sal says, “If you do, I can totally sell it for you, with a commission.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifty percent?”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “I guess. But otherwise you’d be taking business from me.”

  “You can buy it off me.”

  He thinks about this. “We’ll talk about it once we finish this crop. If all this gets stolen, then I just might quit trying to grow.”

  He inspects the trip wire one final time and says, “All right, buddy. Let’s roll.”

  That night Lenny finds his mother at the kitchen table, reading through the help wanted sections and working on her resume on an old Remington manual typewriter that shakes the table every time she hits a key. The classifieds are neatly stacked next to her, torn from the paper and folded, and when he sits down next to her and looks at the ads, he sees that she circled various secretarial and office assistant jobs. She says, “There are many openings for office help. I think I can find something good.”

  Lenny reads her resume. Her last job was in Seoul, as a secretary at a mining company. She says, “That was right before I wanted to go to graduate school here.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t come back from work.” She types a few letters, then says, “Someone said she saw him with another woman at a restaurant last week. Maybe he is having an affair.” She continues typing.

  Lenny keeps quiet.

  After a moment she says, “I was stupid and scared to marry your father. I was in this country alone, and your father came along at the right moment.”

  She sighs and reorganizes the ads. “It was worth it because I have you and Mira.”

  She turns to him. “You were so sickly as a baby. The cleft palate, the allergies, the crying. All I prayed was for you to be healthy. And look at you now.”

  “I still have allergies.”

  “Nothing like when you were a baby. And the cleft palate! Even after the surgeon fixed your uvula, you couldn’t swallow anything without it coming through your nose. So you were becoming malnourished. You’d drink milk and it would all spill out. I had to feed you only a little at a time. A sip at a time. It took hours. You had to learn how to drink.”

  Lenny doesn’t tell her that sometimes if he drinks too fast he still spills liquid out of his nose.

  She yawns. He notices the bruise on her cheek is yellowing around the edges. She kisses his forehead and tells him to go to bed. As he leaves the kitchen she asks, “Just to make sure: If your father and I split up, you’d want to live with me, right?”

  He turns to her, incredulous. “Yes. No way I’d want to live with him.”

  She smiles sadly and goes back to the typing. He hears the heavy intermittent clacks as he walks down the darkened hallway to his bedroom.

  24

  Sal and Lenny discover not only the trip li
nes triggered again, but they find scuffmarks in the dirt that could be footprints. But they aren’t sure. Sal curses, and says, “Maybe it was someone covering up footprints.”

  The scuff marks move along the edge of the crops and then circle back. Lenny says, “Could’ve been an animal.”

  “Maybe. But it looks like whoever or whatever was inspecting it. And what kind of animal leaves this kind of trail? Where are the footprints?”

  “A beaver dragging his tail.”

  Sal laughs. “When was the last time you saw a beaver here?”

  “Never know.”

  He stares at the ground, scratching his scraggly goatee. “If it’s a person I’m screwed.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “It’s way too early to harvest. Haven’t even started pruning yet. Crap. I’m going to have to ask Tommy what to do.”

  “Tommy?”

  “A friend who used to do this. He’s the one who sold me the seeds, and gave me the manual. I might have to stay out here and find out who or what it is.”

  “Sleep out here, you mean.”

  “Yeah. Catch him. Then scare him away.”

  “How?”

  Sal shakes his head. The weight of this seems to sag his shoulders, hunching them, and he motions to the stream ahead and says, “Let’s water them.”

  They fill the plastic milk jugs from the stream and water the rows of plant, now fully at Lenny’s height. They’re quiet at first, as they focus on the job, and Lenny likes the peacefulness of the woods, the only sounds the nearby stream and birds chirping above. Then, after they finish, Sal inspects the plants and he gives Lenny an impromptu lesson. He points to the tops, telling him that he will soon clip them to increase the new shoots below. This also prevents the plants from getting too tall. He explains the procedure of sexing the plants—figuring out which ones will be male and female—by waiting until they begin to flower: male plants have pollen-bearing flowers, and the female plants have seed-bearing flowers. “Then you harvest the males because you don’t want them to spread their pollen. The females make stronger weed that way.”

  “You don’t smoke the males?”

  “Oh yeah, you do. They’re pretty strong right before they flower. It’s all about timing, which is why this fucking guy is making everything harder.” He kicks the dirt.

  “Without pollen, you won’t get seeds, though.”

  “No need. You can buy seeds easily. I still have seeds for this crop. You can store them for a while in airtight jars as long as it’s cool and dry. I have a huge jar in the crawlspace.”

  “Can I buy some?”

  “Hell, if this is someone going to rip me off, I’m probably out of business. I’ll give you the seeds.” He sighs and continues inspecting the plants. He says, “I’m not sure what the point of all this is anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I grow it, sell it, and then what? Do it all over again? What’s the point? I’m thinking I need to figure out what I really want to be doing.”

  “For a job?”

  “For everything. You know? I need to figure out my life, man.”

  Lenny thinks about this as he watches the trees swaying in the breeze.

  A new catalog arrives, a publisher of old military manuals from around the world, including fighting techniques of British commandos and books about Ninja techniques, written by former Ninjas. Lenny spends hours studying the catalog, trying to decide what he wants to order. The listing for Secret Techniques of the Ninja is the one that he keeps turning back to, and marks this as his first purchase with the money he’ll make from Sal.

  His father calls him into the living room. Lenny finds him in his usual spot, a tall glass of whiskey with ice sitting on the armrest. He says it’s time for Lenny to work on the yard: rake the front and back yard for any leaves and sweep the sidewalks. Tomorrow morning, Saturday, Lenny will mow the lawns and trim the hedges.

  “Now?” Lenny asks. It’s getting dark.

  “Now?” his father mimics, his lip curling. Lenny gauges that he has had four drinks, maybe five—it’s almost at the turning point, when Lenny has to disappear.

  “Yes, now,” his father says. “The d-dent will cost two hundred dollars to fix.”

  Lenny knows that arguing won’t make a difference, so he puts on his sneakers, and grabs the rake from the garage.

  He moves across the lawn haphazardly, gathering up the few leaves and the many maple keys that cover the lawn. He piles this on the sidewalk, and searches for the broom.

  In the garage he looks up at the attic doorway, wanting to use that space for something, but he isn’t sure what.

  His father appears from the kitchen door. “Why aren’t you working?”

  “I’m looking for the broom.”

  He walks down past the car, staring at the dent, and comes outside. He looks at the lawn and says, “Sloppy. There are leaves under the b-bushes.”

  “You didn’t say rake the bushes.”

  His father turns to Lenny. “Are you g-getting stupid? I told you to rake all the leaves. There are leaves under the b-bushes.”

  Lenny picks up the rake and stabs beneath the bushes, the metal prongs snagging and bending back. His father watches for a moment. He looks down at the sidewalks and says, “You shouldn’t put everything here. You should b-bag the leaves on the lawn.”

  Lenny doesn’t reply, growing angrier. The leaves under the bushes are stuck in there. He has to reach down and yank them out by hand. He turns to see his father kicking the mounds of leaves and seeds across the sidewalk.

  “What are you doing?” Lenny yells.

  His father sways as he says, “I’m showing you why you shouldn’t p-pile it on the sidewalk.”

  “But I just raked that!”

  “Rake it again.”

  Lenny throws down the rake. “That’s not fair.”

  “Fair? Life isn’t fair. P-Pick up the rake and finish the job.”

  “If you’re going to mess it up again, why should I?”

  He says in a low voice, “Because I told you to.”

  Lenny wants to defy him, but considering how many drinks his father has had, it’s risky. He remembers what Ed said, that he would be the new target. This is what he has to look forward to. He picks up the rake and continues working, his father hovering. He says, “You need more d-discipline. You are becoming like your b-brother. Lazy. Soft. When I was your age I had to get up b-before dawn to do chores. Your mother b-babies you. She always has. How do you expect to get anywhere in this world by b-being lazy?”

  Remembering Ed’s comment about why he worked out, to be stronger than their father, Lenny knows his father wouldn’t talk to him like this if he wasn’t a kid.

  Lenny smolders and thinks, You just wait.

  His father stares off into nothing, a glazed look in his eyes. His potbelly hangs over his belt, his body settling. Lenny wonders, This man used to kill people?

  By the time Lenny finishes the raking and sweeping, it’s dark and his father has long since returned inside. Exhausted, his hands sore and aching, his nose running from his hay fever, he limps inside. His father has fallen asleep in his lounge chair and his mother has gone to bible study. Mira has found the typewriter their mother left on the kitchen table and is working on her new book.

  Lenny peers over her shoulder, but she covers up the paper. “It’s not ready,” she says.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a novel about the animals who live in the church.”

  “The church across the street?”

  She nods her head.

  “What kind of animals?”

  “All kinds. Mostly mice and bats.”

  “Bats. In the tower?”

  “Oh. I didn’t think of that. These ones live in the rafters.”

  It occurs to him that there must be a way up to the bell tower. There are no real bells, but a loud recording of them that the church plays on special occasions, usually weddings and Easte
r Sunday, but once Lenny saw someone up there cleaning. “Next time we’ll explore it,” he says.

  “And can I sing again?”

  “Yeah. Pick a better song, though.”

  The next morning Lenny wakes up, startled to see his father standing over him. After a minute his father walks briskly to the window, and opens it, saying, “Get up. Time to work on the yard.”

  Lenny looks at the clock. Six a.m.

  “Now?”

  As his father passes his bed he pulls the sheet off and throws it on the floor. He leaves the room and opens all the windows in the house, the shuddering and squeaking runners unused during the winter. The morning chill seeps into Lenny’s room as he dresses, shivering.

  Outside, he’s glad to be moving and exercising. He finds an old pair of hedge trimmers that look like large scissors, and clips away at the overgrown bushes along the side of the house, using this as way to strengthen his arms. He considers this a part of his martial arts training. He also looks for plots of land to grow marijuana, and finds at least fifteen square feet in the back, next to the house, hidden by large leafy bushes. Lenny may be able to use his mother’s old garden, but will have to be careful, since it’s in view of the kitchen window.

  Hard-packed dirt surrounds the back of the house, and he’ll have to do plenty of prep work for it. He considers telling his parents that he’ll take over all the yard work, and then slowly change some of the bushes to shield his crops.

  His father, who has changed into a sweat suit, wheels out the lawn mower and leaves it in the driveway. He stretches his legs and arms for a few minutes. Lenny then watches with surprise when his father jogs down the street and turns the corner.

  The lawn mower doesn’t start. Lenny yanks the starter cord a dozen times, but the engine refuses to turn over. He checks the gas. The tank is full. Finally he has to wake his brother up. Grumbling, Ed checks the same things, and with one quick pull, gets the engine going. It sputters loudly. He kills it.

  He rubs the sleep from his eyes and says, “I’m telling you. You need more muscle. Where’s Dad?”

  “Jogging.”