by Derwin Mak
“I’m fine. So, uh, about the secret tunnels?”
“Oh, I know. You’ve heard about the secret rooms and passageways, underground tunnels, and all that?”
“I suppose it’s just urban myth, but I’ve wondered—”
She placed one finger against his lips. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s quiet tonight. I only have two tables left. And it’s just my dad, who cooks, plus the dishwasher and me. Would you like to see some secret sights?” She took her finger away.
“Sure,” Ken whispered back. “If it’s okay—”
“But just you. I’m not telling anyone else ’cause my dad would freak. All three of you would make too much noise. Deal?”
“Yeah.”
Cindy made another quick survey of the dining room, then hooked one arm through Ken’s. He smelled light, sweet perfume for the first time. She walked him to a swinging door and slipped through. They entered a small foyer with a windowed door on the left that led to the kitchen and a staircase leading down on the right.
In the little foyer, Cindy leaned into Ken as she looked into the kitchen through the little window. “Okay, downstairs, quick.”
Ken followed her. The steps were made of old wood that gave slightly beneath him. Few buildings in California had basements, and he had never entered one. He felt a tingle of excitement as he descended into the shadows.
The basement was chilly. In the indirect light from upstairs, Ken saw white freezers humming quietly. Shelves held stacks of canned goods. A big pegboard lined the wall. Cast iron pots and pans of all sizes hung from it, fading into shadow far ahead.
“The freezers are full of frozen catfish and chicken,” Cindy whispered, as though this was important. “Come on.” She walked away from the stairs, with her big bow and ponytail throwing exaggerated shadows that swayed against the peg board and its pots and pans. “Some of them have frozen rats.”
“Rats?” Startled, Ken glanced at her before following her deeper into the darkness. A rat skittered away into the shadowed area ahead, and he flinched.
“You see?” Cindy leaned against him, wafting sweet perfume, and she whispered into his ear. “Sometimes we eat them ourselves.”
“What? How do you catch them?”
“We catch ’em with our forks!”
Fighting the beer buzz, Ken tried to picture how that would work but failed.
“And we know you yellows really hate them, so if we don’t like somebody, we serve ’em rats instead of chicken!” She giggled.
“I hope you liked us okay,” Ken muttered.
“Sure!” She pressed her bust against him. “You guys know Grain Belt Golden.”
Still uncertain, Ken allowed her to steer him ahead of her with a dainty hand.
“Look,” she whispered from behind. “I know it’s dark, but there’s a secret passageway.” She drew him toward the wall with the big peg board. “The floor gets uneven. Watch your step, okay?”
He looked down, but in the dim light he could barely see the floor beneath his feet. Then he heard a metallic clank behind him and turned.
Cindy came up close, her mouth approaching his.
Buzzed but happy, he leaned toward her in the shadows. Just before their lips met, something hard slammed against the top of his head, with a low-pitched metallic thud. He staggered, not sure what had happened.
When he looked up, Cindy was drawing an enormous cast iron skillet back over her shoulder with a two-handed grip, like a batter at home plate getting ready for a pitch.
He ducked under a home-run swing that could have sent his brain matter over a centerfield fence. Confused, with his head pounding in pain and his vision blurry, he was in no condition to fight. He ran for the stairs, aware of a giant shadow with a bouncing ponytail along the row of white freezers closing in.
Just as he stretched for the second step, the big pan clanged against the back of his head, sounding oddly like a small Chinese gong. He forced his way up the stairs. Her quick, dainty footsteps hurried right behind him.
As Ken reached the top step and entered the little foyer, he saw the swinging door that led to the dining room. Before he could reach it, the heavy skillet slammed against the top of his head again and he fell to the floor.
Dazed, he was aware of Cindy shouting. Hands tugged at his back pants pockets. He heard male voices, muffled by closed doors, from somewhere behind him and somewhere in front of him.
Groggy from the blows, he tried to stand and then staggered forward, banging the swinging door with his forehead and falling out onto the floor of the dining room.
Ken tried to clear his thoughts as he heard several sets of footsteps to his rear. In front of him, he recognized startled shouts from Andy and Garth and their footsteps coming up fast. He drew a deep breath.
“Chill! Andy shouted to someone. “Stay back.”
“She got my wallet,” Ken wheezed. He touched the top of his head and felt blood on his fingers.
“Easy, dude,” Garth said quietly in his ear.
Andy and Garth took his arms and lifted him to his feet, at the same time backing away from the swinging door.
Ken got his footing and turned as his vision cleared. His head pounded in pain. Andy and Garth held him up, and all three watched Cindy as they edged backward.
Cindy stood just this side of the swinging door. Two white men had crowded behind her. One was a balding, heavyset guy wearing a stained apron and holding a long carving knife. The other was a lean, bearded twenty-something with muscular forearms. From the wet apron he wore, Ken guessed he was the dishwasher.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Ken realized Cindy held his bulging wallet in one hand and the cast iron skillet in the other. She smiled at him sweetly and handed the skillet to the dishwasher. Then she pulled the big wad of cash out of his wallet and stuck it into her cleavage with the folded centers down and the open edges of the greenbacks still in view like a flat-edged flower.
“Hey!” Ken started forward, but Andy and Garth held him fast.
Cindy tossed the wallet underhand to them.
Garth caught it.
“Thanks for the big tip!” Cindy laughed, with a sneer in her smile this time. “I just love waiting on you rich yellow bastards! Now get out!”
The two guys behind her laughed.
“Just stay right there, bok gwai lo,” Garth growled, using the Cantonese term, to show solidarity with Ken and Andy.
Andy and Garth began walking Ken backward to the front door.
“Come back any time, guys,” Cindy sneered. She put her hands on her hips and rocked her shoulders, making the greenback-blossom quiver. “The money waves bye-bye! ”
Furious, Ken jerked forward. “That’s my graduation money! ”
“Ooh, college boys!” Cindy giggled. “No wonder I hit the jackpot!”
Ken yanked against Andy and Garth’s hold. “Come on, we can take ’em! There’s just two guys and her.”
On the wall in the rear, the black and white clock tick-tocked, its cat’s eyes switching and its tail swinging. In the far corner, the Anglo family’s table was empty now, except for the dirty dishes. Little candle flames danced on the individual tables in the dim restaurant. Streetlight glowed through the blue and white checked curtains at the front window.
Andy and Garth, still holding him, said nothing.
“Or we can call the cops,” Ken added, his intensity fading.
“It’s cash,” Andy said quietly. “Their word against ours—and we’re on their turf.”
Ken looked around in the shadows amid the flickering candle flames. The place was exotic, alien. It smelled of pan-fried catfish and chicken-fried steak. A Katfish Kitchen. He would never understand these people.
Glaring at Cindy’s smirk and at the thick wad of cash still protruding from her cleavage, he let out a long breath. He forced himself to relax and stand straight, without pulling against Andy and Garth. They released him.
Ken whirled and strode
out of the restaurant. Out in the cool night air, the streetlights threw slanted shadows across the buildings and down the block. He looked in all directions. No one else was out here at this hour. The empty streets of Anglotown seemed dark with menace.
Behind him, Andy and Garth warily backed out the door, making sure no one followed them. When they were safely away from the Chillicothe Katfish Kitchen, the three of them fell into step together, striding briskly down the sidewalk with nervous backward glances.
“I would have treated her right,” Ken said quietly, his head still pounding in pain. “I would have asked her out, spent money on her. Over time, a lot more money than what she took. Who knows, we could have hit it off.”
“Just chill,” said Andy. “That’s not what she wanted.”
Ken stopped and looked back up the street at the restaurant door. Even with the deep, throbbing headache and blood dripping down the back of his neck, he had an urge to go back. He didn’t want it to end this way.
Andy seemed to read his thoughts. “No way, dude.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” said Ken. “I just want to know ... why?”
“Forget it, Ken,” said Garth. “It’s Anglotown.”
The Polar Bear Carries the Mail
Derwin Mak
PAUL Chu and Jonathan Soong stopped their car and watched the funeral procession pass them. A small crowd of mourners followed the black hearse. To most southerners, these people were simply “Aboriginals,” but after six months in town, Paul knew the names of their nations: Cree, Chipeweyan, Métis, Dene, and Inuit.
A few Chinese walked with the Aboriginals. “We should be with them,” said Paul. “If only Kate’s flight weren’t arriving now. At least we got to the church service.”
“The only whites in the funeral procession are our employees and the locals,” Jonathan observed. “The protesters did not show up like they said they would.”
“It’s good that they didn’t,” said Paul. “They say they mourn for Danny too, but the locals blame them for his death.”
A white environmentalist from Ontario had killed Danny Eastman, a Cree worker at the methane processing plant. Since the death had occurred at a protest where tempers had flared quickly, everyone expected the accused killer to plea bargain for the lesser charge of manslaughter.
“There’s Ray Cassidy,” said Paul, noticing one of the non-Aboriginals, a man in his fifties. “Did you get a chance to talk to him?”
“Briefly. He still will not come back,” Jonathan said.
After the procession had passed, Paul and Jonathan continued driving past the small, short buildings of Churchill, Manitoba. When they reached the outskirts of town, the scenery changed to crooked, weather-beaten trees, a sparse forest at the southern edge of the Arctic.
Near the airport, Paul saw a sign reading:
WELCOME TO CHURCHILL, MANITOBA POLAR BEAR CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
However, Paul had still not seen a polar bear. Like the fish and beluga whales, the polar bears disappeared when the methane acidified the Arctic Ocean.
Massive amounts of methane were frozen in the permafrost twelve thousand years ago. For centuries, the methane had been turning into gas and leaking to the surface. Early in the twenty-first century, the seepage intensified, especially from the ocean floor. Nobody knew why the methane was outgassing. Some scientists suspected human-induced climate change, while others said the planet naturally goes through cycles of heat and cold.
The methane killed most of the marine life and polar bears along the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay. The locals used to fish and show polar bears and beluga whales to tourists. Without fishing and ecotourism, Churchill needed another industry.
Ann Alaralok, Mayor of Churchill, told the town council, “Methane ruined one industry, but it can support another one ...”
The town invited Stanley Aerospace, a Hong Kong company, to build a spaceport at the abandoned research rocket launch facility at Fort Churchill. Stanley Aerospace formed a consortium with several Canadian companies to build Churchill Spaceport.
Jonathan Soong, the spaceport’s first general manager, came with rocket scientists from China, as well as from Stanley’s Canadian partners in Montreal and Toronto. The Chinese brought a Long March CH4-1 rocket, a new model fueled by liquid methane. The Canadians hired the people of Churchill to build the spaceport and a processing plant to harvest methane as rocket fuel. With the new Shanghai process, they could compress methane from gas to liquid cheaply and efficiently with fewer staff than older methods. The locals talked eagerly of starting hotels, restaurants, shops, and other businesses to serve the spaceport’s staff, clients, and tourists.
But environmentalists came from the south to try to stop the spaceport and its methane plant. Last week, when they blockaded the methane plant, a riot broke out, and Danny Eastman was killed.
“Sometimes I think the spaceport is cursed,” Jonathan said as he parked the car. “The protests interrupted construction work. There are no clients waiting to launch anything. The protesters scared ten people into returning to Hong Kong. Then Eastman died. And now Cassidy has quit working at the methane plant.”
“Our luck’s going to change,” Paul predicted. “After Polar Bear’s flight, the space tourism program will take off, clients will line up to launch their satellites, and I’ll be the first Canadian to go into orbit on a rocket launched from Canada.”
“I wish that day would come soon. Then I will finally be able to return to Hong Kong,” Jonathan said.
He pointed at an old Bombardier Q400 turboprop airplane sitting on the runway. “Look, the plane has arrived. Your girlfriend must be waiting for us.”
They walked to the terminal and found Kate waiting for them. She wore a black miniskirt and green jacket with the logo of the St. Patrick’s Society of Montreal, an image of the patron saint of Ireland.
Paul kissed Kate and stroked her brown hair.“Have you been waiting long?” he asked.
Kate shook her head. “No, not long. Just fifteen minutes.”
“I’m sorry about that,” said Jonathan. “We had a short delay along the way.”
“What’s with the black suits?” Kate asked. “You two look like you just came from a funeral.”
“Actually, we did,” Paul said.
Kate gasped. “Oh, my God, now I remember. Danny Eastman.”
“Mr. Soong,” a voice called from a distance. It came from a man whose blond hair was styled in a bowl cut. He wore a green army surplus jacket over a T-shirt showing Hugo Chavez, the notorious Venezuelan dictator of decades ago.
As the man approached them, Paul whispered to Kate, “Here comes trouble.”
Jonathan flinched as the man stared at them with his piercing, brown eyes.
The man said, “Mr. Soong, on behalf of the Churchill Environmental Alliance, I wish to express our regret that Mr. Eastman has died. We offered our condolences to his family.”
Jonathan nodded and muttered, “Thank you. Mr. Eastman was an excellent employee. He was a good person.”
After an awkward pause, the man continued. “Are you uncomfortable around me? That’s so rude of you. You should be happy to see me. That’s the Canadian way.”
The man turned to Kate. “I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’m Dr. Edward Hackbart. Pleased to meet you. And who are you?”
Kate glared at Hackbart. She must have recognized him from the news. Hackbart was a professor of political science at York University in Toronto. Last year, he spent six months in jail for breaking the windows of the Japanese Embassy to protest against whale hunting. The university stripped him of his tenure, and he drifted to Churchill to fight against the spaceport.
“My name’s Kate,” she finally replied.
“And what are you doing here?”
“Just visiting.”
“Really?” said Hackbart. “In a town this small, it’s hard to keep secrets. Aren’t you Mr. Soong’s new assistant, replacing the one who went back to China
?”
“So what if I am?” she replied.
Hackbart grunted. “In the early twentieth century, Manitoba had a law prohibiting Chinese men from hiring white women. It might not have been a fair law, but at least it stopped outsiders from messing with the province.”
Kate scowled.
“Outsiders? You’re from Toronto, just like me,” said Paul. “You didn’t live here until you came up as a protester! You live in a tent near the methane plant.”
“My tent doesn’t spoil the natural beauty of the area, unlike your eyesore methane plant and spaceport,” Hackbart retorted.
“Okay, we need to go to the office,” Jonathan ordered.
“Paul, Kate, come with me.”
Without saying any more to Hackbart, they fled from the terminal.
“Did you hear what he said?” Kate complained. “Was he being racist?”
“He became that way when he noticed that his opponents are mostly Aboriginals and Chinese,” said Jonathan.
He shook his head. “We could have gone to Florida or New Mexico, but we came here.”
They passed the methane plant. “Mr. Ming wanted the tax credits and cheap methane,” Paul said.
When they arrived at Churchill Spaceport, Kate got out of the car and looked at the buildings, roads, and runways around her.
“Wow, this is amazing,” she said. She pulled a small sketchpad and pencil out of her handbag and began drawing a spaceport scene. “I would love to paint this landscape.”
“She has a fine arts degree from McGill,” Paul explained to Jonathan. “She wanted to be a painter.”
“But being executive assistant to the president of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts paid better,” Kate admitted.
“I see,” said Jonathan.
“Oh, there’s your spaceship,” Kate said, staring at the launch pad. A Long March rocket stood beside a supply tower. Atop the rocket was the Polar Bear, the reusable space plane. Despite the red maple leaf painted on her white body, the Polar Bear was made in China.
