by Gus Lee
Pee Wee’s face closed up like a wet fist. He shook, and we swayed, the ladder’s metal pins clacking hollowly. He forced his eyes open, blinking, his pupils huge. His saliva was everywhere. “Get down,” he hissed. “Too heavy. We’ll fall!”
I closed my eyes. “Pee Wee,” I said, my voice unsteady. “I’m scared too. C’mon. We’ll go together.”
He violently shook his head. “No. Go ’way,” he hissed.
I had failed. I wanted to climb down, but this was West Point. I’d be expected to climb the ladder. “Take care, Pee Wee.” I climbed to the top and dropped, for a long time, until I hit the pool, hoping the sound would invite him. It didn’t.
Mr. Flauck and the lieutenant sat in vigil at poolside, taking lunch, dinner, and a vat of coffee. They took turns sleeping. At four sharp the following morning, Pee Wee McCloud fell asleep and dropped into the pool as if Kansas had landed in a bathtub. With a classic, world-record-setting cannonball impact, Pee Wee emptied the hated pool of half its wretched contents. A drenched Mr. Flauck and lieutenant pulled him out before any water got in his lungs. Flauck filled him with hot chocolate and sandwiches. Pee Wee kept pulling on his teeth with trembling, rigid fingers, his body shaking. His teeth and gums hurt from chewing steel.
Mr. Flauck patted him kindly. “Izz okay, young Plebe. Dreenk chocolate.”
The lieutenant stared at Mr. Flauck. This was the man who would detain him from diving into the water to rescue a drowning Plebe until the last possible moment. “Nein, nein—vait, vait! Bubbles, ja? I zink he still moves.”
Pee Wee was placed in the hospital for an overnight psychiatric evaluation. I had introduced him to Mike Benjamin and Sonny Rappa during the Plebe Encampment at Lake Fredericks, and I gathered them for a visit to the one-bed psych ward.
As our heels echoed hollowly down the hall, Mike said, “You know, after graduation, I want to be a doctor.” Sonny and I stopped, open-mouthed. We were being trained to be warriors, not healers.
“Ya picked a doozy of a pre-med program,” said Sonny.
Pee Wee was eating strawberry Jell-O. I wanted some. Mike and Sonny said a few words and left.
“You guys were my first visitors,” said Pee Wee methodically. “If I get stuck up there again, just shoot me. Or, tell me another joke, which’ll have the same effect.” When the shrinks let him out, Pee Wee would have to face Mr. Flauck and the ladder.
“Hope I didn’t make it worse for you.”
He turned his head away. “I just fucked up,” he said.
“You know, Pee Wee, when I was a kid, I went crazy.”
He looked at me. “I thought you went nuts after you got here.”
I laughed. I remembered the insanity god and the kind Chinese woman I used to dream of before Leo Washington took over my nightmares. “I used to laugh when nothing was funny. I couldn’t stop. It happened at the worst times. In public. With my dad.” I was becoming very confessional. Tony would be proud of me. I had never told anyone this. “After a while it went away. This thing—it’s nothing. You’ll beat the ladder. I got better—you will, too.”
“Look at yourself. You call that better?” We laughed. I rubbed my face. He belched and I smelled chlorine. We shook hands, nodding at each other. On my way out, my heart went cold as I passed Duke Troth, the bigot from the Thayer Hotel. Against my own admonition, I had forgotten about him. What did he want with Pee Wee? Troth looked at me the way dogs look at cats as he entered the ward. Remember him, I said to myself.
I doubted my own skills in swimming, but Mr. Flauck validated me, giving me another shot at scuba training. I wanted to learn what frogmen knew. By now it was November and colder than anything I had experienced in San Francisco. I got golf. Golf was not a sport for a Chinese kid. Chinese people couldn’t get into half the golf courses in San Francisco unless it was to empty the trash.
Mr. McWalters raised his eyebrows at my grades. “You’re good in everything ’cept math. How come?”
“Sir, I am not good at mathematics.”
“Whaddyou mean, you’re not good at math? Aren’t you Chinese?”
“Mr. Ting!” called Captain Dozier.
“Yes, sir!” I stood at attention before his desk, some of the chalk from my badly butchered math problem dusting my gray trou. We recited math problems at large, numbered chalkboards which covered the section walls. We were assigned calculus problems based on staggered boards, odd and even, to avoid inadvertent glances at other solutions. Many of the boards, I was sure, were replete with equations marching in rigid horizontal lines of progressive derivation leading to the notation “Q.E.D.” on the bottom, for quod erat demonstrandum, “which was to be demonstrated.”
I had placed a “Q.E.D.” on my board, but there were no equations of value between my name on top and the Latin initials on the bottom.
“Mr. Ting, this is a routine differential equation. You okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
He lowered his voice. “Having trouble at home? Someone sick?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, did you get a ‘Dear John’ letter? Something like that? Or some upperclassman really on your tail—signature calls?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Ting, are you really Chinese?” he asked.
“You a virgin?” asked Mr. McWalters. “You’re turnin’ red!”
“Sir, I believe I am,” I said. Clint hadn’t warned me about this question.
“You believe you are—what? Turning red, or a virgin?”
“Sir, I do not know if I am a virgin.”
“Whaddyou mean, you don’t know? You mean you don’t know?” His roommates looked up.
“No, sir,” I said.
He laughed. “Well, Ting, have you been laid?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Wow, you really are no rocket scientist, are you?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Well, I never figured you for a goat. You’re in top sections in everything but math. All right. Papa McWalters is gonna give you the straight poop: Wet dreams, Mr. Smack, do not count. That’s a big negative. They’re not so bad—hell, they’re not scheduled. Prevent white-out, internal drowning. But good as they are, when it’s over, you’re still a bona fide government-issue Virgin, one each, capital V. If you haven’t been laid, you’re a virgin. Now, that’s as good as Webster. You’re eighteen, right?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“You a killer, smackhead?”
“Yes, sir!” I shouted.
“Ever kill anyone, Mr. Ting?” he asked, smiling broadly. “IRP!” he shouted.
“SIR, I DO NOT KNOW!” I cried.
He stared at me. “You wanna explain that one? No. As you were: I don’t wanna know. Need a damn encyclopedia for every friggin’ question I ask you. What are you—a damn Eastern mystic or something?”
13
LUCKY
Golden Gate Park, November 22, 1960
Kennedy had been elected President. Edna, my father, and I heard Kennedy speak at the Cow Palace during the primary. That’s where, after the war, Tony Barraza used to fight in front of adoring fans. Siciliano cries for blood and Piedmontese oaths were so loud that he threw torso-crushing combinations into his opponent in time to their rhythmic chants of “Ti-ger, Ti-ger, Ti-ger!”
“My coach used to fight here,” I said without thinking.
“Hush and keep your mouth closed,” said Edna.
Kennedy had mesmerized the audience. The Irish, Italians, Negroes, Hispanics, Slavs, and Japanese, the Filipinos and the Basques, the Russians and the Jews, and the powerful Cantonese political organization of Chinatown had arrived skeptical of a man so young and so Catholic. By the middle of his speech about a new generation of Americans pledged to a world of idealism and freedom, who would use athletic spirit, vigor, and youth to keep America first in the world, San Francisco was his. He spoke of racial equality, and I had developed a political view.
I was happy as I pitched rocks high
over Stow Lake—happy about Kennedy, because he had made it clear that he was a friend of the Negro, and I was sort of a Negro, and I was hopeful that he would like me. I was also happy with my arm. It had been lifting iron for seven years; I could beat everyone except for Toos and Markie in rock throwing for distance.
“Kennedy’s a good man,” Markie T. had said. “Rich white dude on the side a colored people.” He blew a big bubble of Bazooka gum. “Don’t know why he that way, but he is.”
“Kai,” said Toos as I pitched rocks. “C’mere.”
Jerome “Lucky” Washington was waiting for me. His left eye was puffed, trying to clot from a lot of bleeding. Something very hard had hit him, splitting his lip and canting him to the left. So Leo Washington was back. Leo, the sour-bellied, weather-bitching pool cheat, nocturnal groin kicker, daylight sucker puncher, wife beater, and child stomper, cursed the whole ’hood and could kill you with his breath. He was a mean drinker with hard boots, the ambulatory nightmare of the Pandhandle. Leo was Lucky’s father.
Toos was solemn and I cooled my face. Lucky looked like he had been spit out of an old meat grinder. Early on, if there had been two kids and one of them looked like Lucky did now, it would have been me. But Lucky had foul yeh, karma, and I had whipped him in a nighttime fistfight; he wore the tar of being the China boy’s first dunce like a permanent shiner. Now, six years later, as my fortunes rose and his fell, he still had no use for me.
“Hey, Lucky,” I said.
“Hey,” he managed, thickly.
Lucky’s tongue ran over his ripped lip. “Yo’ daddy has a gun. I want it, bad. Jus’ one time, man.” His shoulders quaked and he looked away, quickly swabbing his eyes with a forearm.
I looked away. I felt sorry for him. It wasn’t the first time.
“He gonna kill my momma,” Lucky said. “Gotta stop that sonofabitch. He gonna git her when she come home tonight. Gimme yo’ daddy’s gun, China. I gotta shoot ’im ta stop ’im.”
Titus B., Markie T., and Alvin Sharpes had joined in. I didn’t know what to say. I shook my head, violently. I wasn’t allowed to have my elbows on the table—how the heck was he going to get away with shooting his daddy? My face showed my doubts.
“Oh, man!” moaned Lucky.
“Yo’ daddy’s gun work?” asked Titus. “It’s not all rusted up?”
I nodded, then shook my head.
“Then let Lucky use it, chump!”
“Fergit it!” said Markie T. “We ain’t killin’ nobody.” Markie was like Toussaint—a peacemaker.
“What do I do, Toos?” I asked, panic in my voice. They didn’t ask me for much—to play skins on a cold day or to retrieve long-hit balls over a fence—I didn’t mind. Saying no could be ji hui, bad luck, and take from me the acceptance I had earned. I didn’t want to be k’ung hsu, abandoned, again.
“Gonna tell you again, Lucky,” said Toos. “Pack yo’ bags and git. Tell yo’ momma to meet at my place. Momma’ll know what to do. May have to crash with us. Maybe at the church. But don’t go back there with no gun.”
“Toos,” said Lucky, his low voice gravelly, “he gonna kill us. He like a dog who can track. He find us! He find us at yo’ place, he kill you and yo’ momma. At the church, he kill the Rev’rend.”
He looked at Toos, his left eye a bolus of red meat. “Help me, man.” He pointed at me with an arm that was shadowed in darkening bruises. “Git ’im ta gimme his daddy’s gun! Can’t kill ’im wif my hands. I pull a knife, he’ll cut me till I’m dead.”
“Gun’s no better than a knife, Lucky,” said Toos. “Besides, I know Mr. Ting. He ain’t never gonna let us do this. Lucky, you ain’t gonna make this boy steal from his own daddy. Mr. Ting ain’t gonna help you kill Leo.”
I nodded. Yes, that was the right thing to say.
“An’ I ain’t either,” said Mark T. softly. “Ain’t the answer.”
“Then I gonna die!” Lucky cried, his face in anguish.
“My momma,” said Toos, “told me that Leo Washington’s gonna die by his own hand. An’ that’s what’s gonna be. No guns.”
“Poison the mothafucka,” said Titus B. in his hard, high voice. “Put roach and rat poison in his drink. Leo, he like Sippy—he drink anything. Lucky, don’t he drink after he beat you?”
Lucky nodded. “Red plum wine,” he said.
“You gotta let him hit you, Jerome,” said Titus. “It gonna hurt like a bitch, your eye all fucked up. Hell, you could lose it. But then you know he take his slug, and you know what be in it.” He looked at Toos. I worked my mouth, which was dry.
“Let’s get Hector Pueblo an’ them to help,” I squeaked.
“No way!” spat Lucky. “No growed man gonna cotton ta helpin’ kids kill. Hector, he’s cool, but he go pop his muscles in fronta my daddy an’ that’ll be the end a me! That’s suicide!”
“You know, Hector, he’d say this is wrong,” said Alvin Sharpes. “I gotta tell you straight. My daddy, he’d think this is bad shit, and not to be done.” Everyone looked up to Mr. Sharpes. He drove a Muni rail car and didn’t drink. There was silence.
“Dead on, Alvin Sharpes,” said Toos. “Lucky, don’ try killin’ yo’ daddy, even if he be Leo Washington. Get yo’ momma outa town. He won’t follow. He’ll find someone else to beat on close by. He’s too lazy to chase.”
“Toussaint,” said Lucky, “he track down his firs’ wife and baby girl and killed them dead! They was in Atlanta, and she run from him and he caught ’em in De-troit. Sometime he hit my momma he call her the same name, an that firs’ woman, she’s dead.”
“Okay, Lucky,” said Toos, “I help you run. But God tol’ Moses to say ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ an’ I lissen to that. You lissen to that.”
Alvin Sharpes said, “Amen to that.”
“Don’ be using the Book on him!” shouted Titus, his rasping voice cracking with emphasis. “Tha’s fo’ grown-up people, an’ prob’ly for grown-up white people. God don’ give a shit ’bout us. We’s goin’ up against Leo. It’s be David an’ that big shit-kickin’ black nigga mothafucka Go-liath! Toos, you’s all wrong ’bout this. Lookit here—Lucky’s got no room to move—no room, man! Man, all he askin’ for is a slingshot to go up against Leo!” He paced, raising clouds of fine red dust from the trail as Toos, Markie, and Alvin Sharpes argued with Titus.
I didn’t want to hear it—not about beatings, or killings, or guns, or the Good Book. Where were the men? Where was Uncle Shim’s changgiao t’ungchih—rule by elders? Where was a place where this didn’t happen? This was the biggest trouble since Leo knifed Mathey Roache, back when Mathey had just returned from the Korean War and I had cried when I saw Leo throw Lucky’s momma down the hard stairs into the street. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to jump a freight with Toos. This didn’t happen in the Hanlin Kuan, in the Pen Forest. We shouldn’t have to hope for God to avoid murder. I had to do something, to stop this bitter, bad luck talk.
“I can call the po-lice,” I said.
“Oh, shit—screw them!” hissed Lucky. “They won’t do nuthin’. Figger it’s a man’s right, beat his wife.”
We were quiet for a moment. I didn’t know the answer to that. Dave Neumark at the Y was a cop. He wouldn’t let this happen.
“I know a cop,” I said, “who don’t think like that.”
They looked at me. Kai Ting from China knows a cop. I was always full of surprises.
“Well, I don’t,” said Lucky. “ ’Nuff flappin’ lip. Gonna take Leo down tonight or die tryin’. Gonna keep my momma out of it. You serious, my momma can stay wif you?” he asked Toos. “Or wif you?”
Markie T. nodded. “You got it.” Toos nodded.
“My place, too, if my daddy says okay,” said Alvin Sharpes.
“Don’t mean nothin’,” whispered Toos, hitting Lucky on his arm. Lucky’s uninjured eye blazed with weeping hurt. That’s how it had been for me when I had to fight Lucky, six years back: no way out. I wanted to ask Toos what I should do, but Titus was yell
ing at Toos and Markie about everyone ganging up on Leo with baseball bats, renewing the argument, and they left, leaving me at the lakeshore.
I stood on the red gravel path, fingering a round rock, wanting to throw it over the moon, wanting to call Dave Neumark and tell him that murder was going to happen. I wanted him to fix things. I remembered that cops had come into the Haight, gone into the wrong apartment and shot the wrong person, seeing no difference between Negro killer and Negro victim.
But Dave Neumark would get it right; he was smart, and worked as a cop volunteer for Barney Lewis, chief of instruction at the Y. Barney was a Negro. Dave Neumark would approach Leo, telling him to be cool. Leo was a bully; he’d smile and make jokes, shake hands and talk about the weather. Later, he’d kill me.
I imagined calling Tony, Barney, or Pinoy. I knew what they’d say: tell your father. Chinese fathers were out of reach. All evening long, I looked at the phone at the Y, and later, I stared at the one in the living room. I touched it, but couldn’t call, stopped by the terror of facing Leo, of imagining Edna while I tried to explain this problem to my father. I knew it wouldn’t save Lucky and would somehow make everything far worse.
I lay in my bed and spoke to Dave Neumark a hundred times, silently, each time telling him more and more about Leo and what he did to his son and wife. I tried to imagine why Leo was this way. I figured his daddy beat him. I imagined a place where kids didn’t have to think so hard.
Leo Washington came home, drank a good portion of a bottle of plum wine, and became ill. He dumped the bottle into a bowl in the kitchen and found a residue in it. He went looking for Lucky.
In the morning, Momma LaRue and Mrs. Timm found fourteen-year-old Jerome “Lucky” Washington in the hallway outside his door. He had been dead for a while, cut and stabbed beyond the reach of earthly pain, further bad fortune, and the pains of foul yuing chi. Leo was in his living room, without wife or son to hamper his wandering ways, his swollen purple tongue filling his gaping mouth, stained by cheap wine vomitus that had choked him to death. Leo had been done in by his own hand.