by Sanchez, Bob
Rocky got in and didn’t complain about the hot seat. Viseth drove his car down three blocks to the fried chicken emporium and took a left down Mersey Street. Thank God he was away from 11th Street where that dickhead Chea lived. The houses were so squeaky clean, the women so damned high and mighty, he bet they locked their knees together at night. And the cops were so nosy. How many times did they ever come to his neighborhood except to bother the Battboys? That Cambodian cop was next.
He pulled into a rutted driveway in the shade between two houses. The air smelled of garbage. Flies buzzed around a trash bag that probably had been ripped open by one of the stray mongrels that fought each other for meals. In the back was an old Firebird sitting in a sea of weeds, its tires flat, its windows and headlights punched out, bird shit on the hood, “VK SUCKS” spray painted in a Day-Glo challenge on the driver’s side. Whoever had messed with his wheels was going to die. Probably that spic kid Justo who’d made him swallow blood. Justo hadn’t been around lately, which seemed strange.
A month ago, the old Firebird had looked like new: polished and cleaned, and he almost had it running so he could drive it to California, and now this. No decent car, no money. Not until the offer came along. Five hundred in advance. Nobody had ever trusted him like that. Then all he had to do was whack somebody he didn’t know, and he’d get the other half of the thou. Simple, except where the hell was rest of the money? Where the hell was the man? The longer he waited, the more chance some asshole like this kid would point the finger at him.
A pigeon crapped on the roof of the Firebird, and Rocky chased it away with a pebble. Viseth grabbed him by the back of his neck.
“Ow! Ow! What are you doing?” Rocky said.
“Shut up, you little prick.” Viseth pushed Rocky toward the bulkhead at the back of Viseth’s house and lifted the door, a piece of rotting plywood held on by a single rusty hinge. “Get in there,” he said, and he pushed Rocky into the darkness. It was cool down there, cool and dank. The air smelled of must and slow decay. In his hand, he could feel Rocky’s body shaking. “No noise, little Rocky, or I’ll snap your neck.” He jerked Rocky’s head slightly to show just what he meant. Rocky uttered a faint squeal. Scratching noises came from the floor, like rats disturbed from their secret business. Not enough light shone through the dirty cellar windows, and Viseth groped above his head for the light chain. A bare yellow bulb glowed, and a rat dashed for cover behind a barrel. Cobwebs laced the ceiling, trailed to the walls, hung straight down. Viseth trembled as his grip tightened on Rocky. Power gave him a hard-on, and he had power now. Maybe this was what his father had done in Cambodia: held life between his fingertips, ready to crush it at his pleasure.
“You pissed me off, do you know that?” Viseth whispered.
“N-n-no! I-I didn’t know. I want to go home.”
“Throwing those fucking rocks when I told you to stop. One light was all I wanted. Now they’re asking you about the light, aren’t they?”
“N-nobody’s asking me stuff.”
They stood under the bare bulb, and Viseth felt the heat from its glow. The boy’s neck was as cold and clammy as the room. Above them was the sound of someone walking on the first floor. That would be his mother, who screamed last night that she had no control of him, that he would end up dead from a policeman’s gun or a Battboy’s knife.
“Yes, they are! Aren’t they?” Viseth slapped him.
Rocky staggered backward and clasped his face in his hands. “Mommymommymommymommiieeee!” His voice was scarcely more than a whisper. Tears seeped between his trembling fingers.
Viseth fumbled in his pockets for a cigarette, then flicked his lighter. The flame cast a jaundiced light on Rocky and threw jittering shadows against the wall. He inhaled deeply and felt a moment of calm. “Mommy mommy,” he said. “When I’m done with you I’ll go fuck your mommy.”
Rocky’s fingers spread apart and his eyes opened wide. His whispered, “No, don’t!” Then a faint squeal came out of his mouth and made him sound like a tortured puppy.
Viseth bent down and drew his face close to Rocky. He blew smoke in his face. “This is your last chance to be quiet, you little shit.”
Rocky’s body shook as though it would fly apart in a thousand directions. Viseth squeezed Rocky’s head for a moment and then loosened his grip. He rummaged through a pile of rags and found his shotgun.
“Stay here,” he said. “Remember, no noise.” Under the cellar stairs lay a jumble of cardboard boxes with rags, magazines, broken toys, garden chemicals, rat poison. “It’s a fire trap,” his mother had said. “I wish you would stay out of it. Mister Chea promises to clean it up.”
“He’ll never do it,” Viseth said, which suited him fine. Under a shelf hung a foldout of a Biker of the Month, her legs spread over the seat of her Harley. She wore nothing but a wide-open biker’s jacket, but streaks of oil had dripped down from the shelf across Viseth’s favorite picture. He’d been too quick to throw the shotgun up there and knocked over the motor oil. Too bad. They didn’t get much better than Miss April.
The night of the killing, Viseth had tried to return the shotgun. “Keep it,” the man said. “It’s a bonus.” Now it occurred to Viseth that he might be better off without the evidence.
But the gun had become his secret trophy. He lifted it carefully, as though he hadn’t already spilled the oil. It was time to give Rocky something to remember, something sure to shut him up for good. The gun felt good in his hands as he held the short, hard barrel. He opened the gun and turned to Rocky. Two shells sat inside the barrel as though waiting for orders.
Rocky sat on a cushion and stared, his eyes wide and watery brown. Tears vibrated on the tip of his chin. Viseth pointed to the shells.
“Know what these are gonna do to your head?” Viseth said as he closed the gun.
Now Rocky’s eyes darted back and forth, wild, wild. His palms were planted flat on the cushion.
“Open your mouth and let’s find out.”
In the musty air, Viseth caught a whiff of urine. A dark circle began to form in the crotch of Rocky’s Bermuda shorts.
“Open your mouth or I’ll bust it open!”
The twin barrels barely fit inside Rocky’s mouth. Snot and tears rolled onto the barrels. Viseth heard the rapid, muffled clack-clack-clack of teeth against metal.
He pulled both triggers.
Click.
“Oops,” he said. “These shells are used!” As he pulled away the gun, he giggled until he thought he’d wet his pants, too.
Rocky fainted and fell back on the cushion, the wimp. A pile of junk clattered to the floor.
“Viseth? Son? Is that you downstairs?” His mother had a voice like a dying sparrow. “Ky is on the telephone. She needs you right away.”
“Tell her to wait a minute,” he said. “I’m coming.”
He slapped Rocky’s face until his eyes opened. “This is your last warning, kid. You say anything about this, I’ll use real shells next time. You can bet your dirty little ass I’ll use real shells next time.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sam had started the morning with an irritating pebble in his shoe. He’d walked for two blocks down Mersey Street, speaking to everyone he could find, sometimes in Khmer, sometimes in English. “Do you know Bin Chea?” “Who would want to kill him?” “Why?” “Can you tell me anything, anything at all?”
No one knew anything about Bin Chea, which meant that they knew a lot. The little stone nagged Sam.
The man was sitting on a wooden step, his nicotine-stained thumb and forefinger grasping the stub of a cigarette. A strand of tobacco stuck to his lower lip; crow’s-feet radiated from the corners of his eyes. He looked straight ahead, as if in a trance.
“Who would shoot him in the face? Someone brave,” the man said in Khmer. “With the heart of a tiger and the brains of a fish.”
“Are you saying he was stupid to kill Bin Chea?”
“He can start making his funeral plans.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because Angka will get him before you do.” The man threw his cigarette next to Sam’s feet, then stood up and turned to go inside.
“Wait a minute,” Sam said. “Why Angka?”
“I’m very busy,” he said, and the door closed behind him. There was only one Angka. He remembered it all too well.
The truck full of prisoners rumbled past the main building and through the open gate. Thirty men jammed into the truck bed that was too small for fifteen, while soldiers with automatic rifles rode on the outside and held onto the sideboards. The engine coughed, sputtered, briefly drowned out the buzz of flies and mosquitoes, and died.
A jeep followed with four more soldiers and a rocket launcher. No one spoke.
The main building was two stories of white stucco and had once been widely known as the hub of a small plantation. Its Japanese owners likely lay at the bottom of the pond. Soldiers wearing black and red checkered kramas walked in and out all day long. Sambath was glad he’d never been inside. Glad he only had to watch the action and clean up after it.
But the sight of new prisoners, three or four truckloads a day, kept his muscles tight and his guts aching. When would his own turn come to meet Angka? A soldier passed close by and dropped a cigarette at Sambath’s feet. “I love Angka,” Sambath said aloud as he swept up the butt.
“I’ll kill them,” Vacheran mumbled. Sambath froze. Vacheran almost never spoke at all, and never like this. He was going to get himself killed.
Nearby, two soldiers seemed oblivious. They talked while Sambath pretended not to listen. One wore the krama on his head instead of around his neck. “Comrade Bin says we need more security now that those prisoners almost escaped.”
Sambath knew the whispered story. Yesterday a truckload of prisoners had bolted and run, but they had been gunned down in a road and shoved into a ditch. Someone had escaped alive into the jungle, but those were whispers, only whispers.
“Took the whole day to find him,” the soldier said. He pointed at the body behind the jeep. The man was tied to the rear bumper with one end of the rope tied around his wrists.
The other soldiers jumped off the sideboards and began pulling men off the back of the truck.
A soldier raised the butt of his rifle at a prisoner. “Get in line, you!” he said. “Wait for an announcement by Comrade Bin.” The prisoners had purple bruises and crimson scrapes on their arms and faces. They shuffled in place, looking down at their bare feet.
Sambath worried about Vacheran. He’d never seen him this way before, his eyes burning with vengeance.
Sambath turned away and inspected the smooth ground for pebbles that weren’t there. They swept the courtyard with brooms that had heavy wooden handles. The stiff bristles were grass that grew along the far edge of the pond. Comrade Bin demanded a clean courtyard, so they swept the ground smooth. They brushed away leaves and smoothed out the tire tracks that the trucks left in the morning. From time to time, they brushed dirt over dark red patches of blood. When their brooms disintegrated, they swept up the pieces with other brooms.
Vacheran usually grinned like a simpleton as he tied new grass to the heavy broom handle. Now his lips were pursed in a tight line of fury. Was Vacheran rushing his fate?
By the lake shore, a worker dumped a bucket of leeches on a fire, which vomited billows of black smoke straight into the sky. Above Sambath’s head a loudspeaker hung atop a pole and spat screeches and static.
And then came the voice from the loudspeaker, high and raspy. “Enemies of Democratic Kampuchea,” the voice began. “Comrade Bin welcomes you to Little Mountain. You will be well taken care of here. You have admitted your past crimes, and soon you will meet Angka. You will see that Angka forgives you.”
Forgives them for what? The prisoners all knew about Angka--The Organization. Meet it and die.
“Go to the soccer field to the left of the pond and wait,” the voice said. “We are going to show you a movie, and then Comrade Sihanouk will give a speech.”
In single file, they followed a pair of soldiers down a muddy path. Sambath glanced toward the school building as Comrade Bin stepped out.
“I love Angka,” Sambath shouted. “The world quakes--” He put his hand to his mouth to hold in his breakfast. The world quakes before mighty Kampuchea, he’d planned to say. But the wind had shifted, and now the smoke from dead leeches stung his nostrils and turned his insides into a raging typhoon.
How many soldiers believed the lies about Prince Sihanouk? For all Sambath knew, the Prince wasn’t even in the country. And there couldn’t be a movie screen within a hundred miles. Why did Comrade Bin even bother making up a story? The prisoners already bowed their heads because they knew their fate.
Sambath cultivated the blank look that Angka wanted to see on everyone’s face. Vacheran, playing the contented fool, kept all his thoughts inside. When Comrade Bin finished speaking, the truck turned around and lumbered down the road.
Comrade Bin was probably pure Khmer, with his black hair and deep golden skin. His voice was usually soft when he spoke directly to a worker. He saved his harsh voice for bigger audiences.
Comrade Bin pulled a leaf out of his pocket, then bent over near Vacheran as though he’d made a discovery on the ground. “What is this?” he shouted, like an actor on a stage. “This courtyard is filthy!”
Vacheran lifted his broom and pulled back. He’s going to kill him. He’s going to smash his head.
Comrade Bin stood up quickly, his hands up to show what he had found, paying no attention to the sweepers. He held the leaf high in the air for the other soldiers to see.
The broom began its arc when Sambath thought Oh no Vacheran, don’t do that! Please don’t. He reached out to grab the broom, to stop his friend from committing suicide. and then it connected with Comrade Bin’s ribs with a crack.
The second crack followed as Vacheran reared back for another blow. The bullet caught him in the shoulder, and he crumpled to the ground at Sambath’s feet. Two soldiers ran to Vacheran to finish him off.
“Stop!” Bin screamed, and the soldiers stopped. Sambath knelt down by his bleeding friend for a moment, for longer than he dared.
Vacheran, you fool, you sweet fool. You never spoke, even to me. You always waddled like a constipated duck and laughed at the clouds, and they mistook you for a harmless idiot. Why did you have to change?
They lashed Vacheran to stakes several centimeters above hot coals, where he slowly blistered like a pig on a spit. Hours later, when the sunset blazed like an orange coal, a soldier untied him and tossed him on the ground.
“Finish him.” Comrade Bin’s command electrified Sambath. “We know you are his friend.”
Sambath looked into Vacheran’s eyes.
“Kill me, Sambath. Please kill me.”
“I love you, dear Vacheran. Forgive me,” Sambath said. He placed his hands around Vacheran’s throat and applied gentle pressure. But the gurgle he heard came from his own throat, not Vacheran’s. Sambath recognized the taste of shame.
“Comrade,” Bin said in his soft voice, “look at me. Your friend hurt me terribly.”
The soldier smashed a pistol butt against Sambath’s jaw, and the pain nearly made him faint.
While Vacheran had suffered over the fire, Chea must have gone into the house to change; now he wore a clean shirt with a neat red and white krama that he wore as an ascot. He held up Vacheran’s broom and smiled a passionless smile. His dark brown eyes showed no feeling at all. How could the comrade leader not show anger? Only the lines around his eyes betrayed the pain he must have felt from Vacheran’s attack.
Comrade Bin nodded to the soldier, who held out a bamboo pole. “Use this,” Bin said. “I suggest a quick blow to the head. You have one chance before the wheel of history crushes you.”
Sambath raised the pole slowly, desperate for the courage to finish off Comrade Bin. Would it be so bad to join his family in death? Could he wash away his sins wit
h a single blow at the enemy, as Vacheran had done? Maybe in his next life he would marry, raise a family, live in peace.
This life was finished.
Vacheran looked up at Sambath and whispered. “Kill me quickly. Please.”
A dozen soldiers and all the workers stood in a circle. Sambath held the bamboo pole high, then brought it straight down onto Vacheran’s head.
Sam couldn’t stand the rock in his shoe anymore. His shirt was soaked with sweat, and it clung to his skin as he stood in the shade of a porch and took off his shoe.
It bounced twice and fell between two porch slats. How could something so small have caused him so much trouble?
He finished working the block, then headed back to his car.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Viseth Kim shook the dice and rolled a ten.
“About time,” he said. “Haven’t won anything all day.” Six of the Battboys sat cross-legged in the middle of his living room and played for the pile of fives and tens inside the circle. The VCR was playing a Kung-fu movie in Chinese with Cambodian subtitles. No one paid attention. Viseth’s mother was upstairs with the bedroom door shut, and his father was at a bar either getting drunk or trying to get laid. Both parents knew enough to mind their business when it came to the Battboys. The back of Viseth’s hand across his father’s face was enough to keep both parents in line.
The room was thick with tobacco and marijuana smoke and the smell of beer. Moist air brought in by the window fan turned it into soup. Viseth reached for the money as Chun reached for his arm. Chun had a breath like a mongrel in a garbage can.
“I haven’t rolled yet,” said Chun. “You rolled ten, I’ll roll eleven.” The dice went down, and a pair of sixes came up. This whole day was going to shit.
Huon and Vanney laughed. Nak took a deep toke from a joint and scratched his balls while Souvann reached for another beer and farted. Chun scooped up a fistful of crumpled bills.
“How much you got left?” Souvann asked.
“Seventy-five,” Viseth said.