Year of the Dog

by Henry Chang

  Jack wondered if Tat’s Ghosts might be involved, but figured that it was more likely to be a Fukienese setup. The victim and the perps all had mainland Mandarin-sounding names, Zhang instead of Chang, Qiu instead of Chu. In a second Chinatown incident, an unidentified Chinese man had been ambushed by at least two assailants as he left a restaurant and shot numerous times, but was in stable condition at Downtown Hospital. Uniforms from the 0-Five had responded but were unable to get cooperation from area residents or merchants. No surprise there, Jack thought. What caught his attention was the unusual heavy-duty firepower involved, rounds not typical of Chinatown violence: .45 caliber, and .223 rifles, hitters strapping AK-47s, Colt .45, and 9mm Parabellums. The victim had apparently shot back with a .38 revolver, a pea shooter by comparison.

  Power struggle, mused Jack, or someone had a nasty beef to settle.

  Out on the edge of the Ninth, the reports had arrived early. Toys “R” Us had held a 7 AM sale where two shoppers were arrested for bashing each other over a ten-dollar talking Spider-Man doll. At Kmart, a riot had broken out, with aggressive shoppers trampling each other to get to a fifty-dollar color TV.

  For Giving, thanks . . .

  P.O.s and cars to the scene.

  From Black Friday to the days before Christmas, businesses were marching from loss to profitability. Ads for sales and discounts lured shoppers into the stores and malls, feeding the frenzy of shopping that overwhelmed the moral and spiritual message of the holidays. The thought brought back to Jack one of Ma’s Buddhist sayings: To attain nothingness is true happiness. The saying flew in the face of capitalism and did not work well in this city, this country, this modern world of money and machines. A belief better left to monks on high mountain steppes, away from the din and roar of industrialized civilizations everywhere.

  The way that things flowed, the tao, kept him on call, on edge, but even then the Chinatown things crowded back into his head. The killing of the Ping lady, which had provoked the Fukienese demonstrations, the burglaries, the gang crime and brazen gunplay, events outside his jurisdiction pecking at his sense of duty.

  Old Chinese grandmothers get run over by trucks all the time on Canal Street. They walk too slowly and seem to believe no driver will dare run them down. They are at fault yet these are tragedies nonetheless.

  Who really cares?

  In a cop’s life, the more he touched upon tragedy, the more it rubbed off on him, became part of him. Too much tragedy drove some cops to eating their guns.

  Trying to clear the black kharma from his mind, his thoughts came to Alexandra Lee, activista lawyer and friend. He remembered that he needed to thank her for her help in arranging his recent Hawaiian vacation. He decided to visit her NoHo office after the shift, but he’d go down to Chinatown first, drop by on Billy Bow, homeboy, at the tofu factory.

  Approaching meal break, Jack ordered take-out sushi from Avenue B, a trendy joint where you could still get raw fish at 3 AM. Four blocks from the stationhouse, he considered the quick jog to Avenue B and back as exercise, movement of the blood.

  EDP Avenue B

  The trendy sushi spot was still jamming at three in the morning, full of weekend club crawlers slinking out of dance palaces like Webster Hall and Limelight, the party crowd needing to tone down what remained of the Ecstasy rush with sake and raw fish.

  U2 jams kicking off the DJ jukebox.

  Jack was paying for his Nabeyaki Special, a soup-and-sushi combo, when he heard a commotion outside, on the street that had been deserted on his way in.

  The patrons turned their heads.

  The restaurant’s manager, a young Asian Pacific dude, who tried to look yakuza but who struck Jack as more NYU Business Management School, pushed his way out the door to check out the disturbance.

  Pocketing his change, Jack went toward the door.

  When he stepped out onto the street he saw a short white man by the curb, in a fatigue army coat, howling up at the streetlamps beneath the cold black night. His hot breath was a rush of steam in the frozen air. He kept his hands in the coat pockets.

  EDP, Jack recognized, emotionally disturbed person.

  The restaurant manager, deciding how to approach him, kept at a distance.

  “Excuse me, man, excuse me,” the NYU yakuza pleaded.

  The ED man looked to be in his twenties, homeless, snot dripping off his nose. Looked like a bugged-eyed Charlie Manson.

  He continued yelling.

  Jack was wondering if any of the neighbors had called 911 yet when the man took a step toward the sushi manager.

  You had to be careful with EDPs, remembered Jack; there was no telling how they’d react.

  State institutions had dumped thousands of them, and many of these walking timebombs had found their way to the city, which was unprepared to deal with them.

  Jack flashed his gold badge, said authoritatively, “ Hey, pal, how’s about we get you into a warm shelter? Get you a hot bowl of soup? A bed?”

  He imagined he heard sirens in the distance.

  The disturbed man turned toward Jack, and smiled, slowly bringing his hands up to his face. He pulled back the outside corners of his eyes, making slanted chinky eyes. Then he laughed, a big howl.

  “Ya Jap muddafukker!” he screamed at Jack. “You ain’t no cop! Ya sneaky cocksucker!” He spat at the Asian manager, who stepped away from Jack.

  Okaay, realized Jack, disturbed, but not so disturbed that he couldn’t dredge up the racism in his soul. The words and curses drove the humanity and compassion out of Jack’s heart. He saw the man now as just another deranged skell, a danger to himself, if not others.

  The skell dropped down into a kind of Kung Fu stance, making catlike Bruce Lee sounds.

  Be cool, Jack thought, taking a step back. The skell’s mind might be screwed up, but that didn’t mean there was anything wrong with his body.

  Suddenly the skell launched himself at Jack.

  Instinctively, Jack twisted his hip and leaned back as the wild man’s foot whipped up, missing Jack but punting his sushi takeout into the street. The Manson clone’s right hand came out of the coat with something metallic, swinging down toward Jack in a wide arc.

  Jack threw up a bow arm that blocked the attack, and stepped into him, hooking his foot, and throwing him off balance. Jack rocketed a stiff palm into his chest and the skell fell backward, into a dive. After he hit the sidewalk, Jack put a knee in his back and slammed his wrist, sending a box cutter skittering along the sidewalk. The fight went out of him when the cuffs went on. Crazy, but not stupid.

  Jack caught his breath while the sushi manager profusely thanked him, the ying hung hero of the moment. Splattered along the gutter were the udon noodles and the hamachi.

  Flashing lights from the patrol car less than a half-mile away.

  Down the avenue, EMS rolling in.

  They’d work out the chain of custody, and the EDP would wind up in Bellevue for psych observation. Homeless outreach services would follow. Eventually, he’d be put back on medication and released, another timebomb, back into the population.

  There would be future victims.

  By the time Jack got it all straightened out with the uniforms he’d lost his appetite, and made his way back to the station-house for the end of the overnight.

  White Devil Medicine

  Sai Go fingered the switch, and stood in the dim yellow light. He noticed it was past 4 AM as he removed his wristwatch and laid it on the counter of the bathroom sink. When he looked in the mirror, he saw a haggard beat-up old man. He was only fifty-nine. Dead eyes that were sinking into the emaciated face. The gray-white crewcut hairs sprouting out, in need of a trim. The stubble spreading from his chin.

  The little plastic bottles were in a line up behind the sliding mirror glass of the medicine cabinet. Although he was proud that he could usually read aloud in his broken English the colorful names assigned to the horses on the racing form, the words on the pill bottles were unfathomable.

/>   Taxol.

  They’d found a tumor in his lung. Nodule. Adenocarcinoma.

  He was finding it hard to stay focused.

  Vinorelbin.

  One pill twice a day. One pill every two days.

  He forgot which was which. The pills had him in a daze.

  The red ones with the white stripe, every third day.

  The blue ones, one a day?

  The yellow tablets, the purple capsules . . .

  Leukocidin.

  Words that were meaningless to him, like small black bugs flitting across the square of prescription notepaper from the clinic. New sounds that rattled in his ears, alien noises.

  Gum Sook, the herbalist, told him to stop smoking, and to brew up some tea of Job’s tears and brown sugar. No lizard or bladder or powder of horn or dried bull penis.

  Chemotherapy.

  Radiation.

  More dancing bugs. He’d lose his hair and be sick a lot.

  Chat Choy, the head chef at Tang’s Dynasty, advised him to boil three cloves of garlic, eat them with soy sauce. Longshot Lee, senior waiter at the Garden Palace, said with quiet confidence, “Fry three cloves of garlic in olive oil, add black pepper, ginger, and salt with shiitake mushrooms. Twice a day. Two months.”

  Fifty-nine’s too young to die nowadays.

  Four months left was not enough time.

  Forget all this, he concluded in his exhaustion. We all die sooner or later.

  I’m not taking any more gwailo pills. It was more painful trying to stay alive than to accept dying. His thoughts began to scatter far and wide, somewhere between being high and falling down dizzy. It was all unraveling now. He felt it in his cancer blood, paying for his sins, his life in free fall, spiraling down helpless and hopeless.

  He coughed quietly and swallowed, already tasting the blood in his throat. Flicking off the light, he let his eyes adjust and left the bathroom.

  The living room was dark, but he turned on the television set and let its light fill the room. He thumbed down the volume and rewound the videotape player to the second race at Happy Valley. On the shelves next to the cable box he’d set up his own little wire room operation, where he charged up his cell phones, kept his pads of soluble paper, and reviewed the odds at different overseas race tracks.

  In the glare of electronic light the twenty-year-old living-room set exposed a beat-down convertible sofa bed, matching wood-veneer end tables, and a desk that served as a dining table.

  He sat down on the sofa and started the videotape. A sunny day in Hong Kong, but he could see it was a sloppy track. They’d probably had rain in the morning.

  The riders, with their colorful silk outfits calmed their mounts as they loaded into the gates. He followed the horses: Gung Ho Warrior, Buddha’s Baby, Fool Manchu, Happy Dragon, Sword of Doom, Baby Bok Choy, Noble Emperor, Ming Sing, Chu Chu Chang. Double Happiness, and Secret Asian Man, and Geisha’s Gold. A crowded field of twelve.

  Suddenly, they were off, breaking from the gates. With the volume off, Sai Go was calling the race in his head, seeing the fix with wicked clarity.

  At the break, it’s Geisha’s Gold along the rail, with Noble Emperor challenging for the lead, followed by Buddha’s Baby. Fool Manchu and Baby Bok Choy a length back for third. A gap of two, it’s Double Happiness, Ming Sing outside him, and Chu Chu Chang, settling in toward the rail, with Secret Asian Man and Happy Dragon chasing them. Gung Ho Warrior drops back, with Sword of Doom bringing up the rear as they pound into the first turn.

  It’s Geisha’s Gold and Noble Emperor chased by Fool Manchu a length back, then a close-packed crowd of Buddha’s Baby and Chu Chu Chang in front of Baby Bok Choy, Ming Sing, and Secret Asian Man. Happy Dragon boxed to the rail by Gung Ho Warrior and Double Happiness. In last, Sword of Doom is stalking them all.

  Down the backstretch it’s still Geisha’s Gold and Noble Emperor. Behind them the others are scrambling for position, dropping in, and saving ground, barreling out or breaking sharply, all driving to catch the leader. The pace quickens; Ming Sing is in ninth position. A half mile to go.

  Secret Asian Man dances around the outside and takes the lead. Ming Sing is boxed in along the rail in eighth place. The field is bumping and pushing the leaders.

  They come to the clubhouse turn.

  It’s still Secret Asian Man, with Buddha’s Baby, and Chu Chu Chang ready to pounce. Ming Sing is in seventh.

  They’re three-wide off the turn. Double Happiness, Chu Chu Chang, and Buddha’s Baby. Ming Sing is sixth, the rest of the field digging for the leaders.

  At the top of the stretch, the jockeys are waving their whips.

  The leaders spread apart a gap. Ming Sing dodges out and follows Double Happiness down the middle of the track. Sword of Doom, fighting through horses, chases them. Buddha’s Baby loses ground, and Chu Chu Chang blocks off the rest of the field.

  A mad dash the last three lengths and at the wire it’s Ming Sing by a neck, then Double Happiness, and Sword of Doom. Buddha’s Baby finishes fourth.

  Sai Go pumped his fist and cheered quietly. The race, which took merely a minute to run, had been a thing of beauty. He waited for the posting of the payout, thinking that his exotic bets, via his man at Happy Valley, were going to bring in more than ten grand. He had taken Lucky’s pick, Ming Sing, and boxed the bet with other longshots into double and treble wagers. The exotic bets available in Hong Kong made the same type of action in the states seem like standard play; pay-outs in the Fragrant Harbor were astronomically higher.

  He downed a shot of Chivas and sat on the sofa as he waited.

  The numbers came up on the screen.

  The dailo Lucky had won more than six thousand, but Sai Go’s own exotic bets had won him over eleven thousand. Minus the dailo’s money, his take was over five thousand, all from working a hot fix.

  The money would be wired into his U.S. Asia bank account the next day, minus his Happy Valley cohort’s commission and the transaction fee.

  Sai Go rubbed his eyes and turned off the set, plunging the room into blackness. What to do? he wondered. How to enjoy the jackpot? when the irony of it all came back upon him.

  What was he thinking? With four months to live, he was getting excited about taking five thousand out of Happy Valley? Should have made a list, he thought, of all the Chinaman things to do before cashing in.

  Go to Bangkok, drink, and fuck himself to death.

  Go see all the places he’d never been.

  Go home to Hong Kong and China to say good-bye to the few elderly relatives who were still on speaking terms with him.

  Now, closer to the end of the line, he wasn’t sure he wanted to take his death on the road. He considered making his last stand in Chinatown, hunkered down in his rent-controlled one-bedroom walk-up.

  He had about twenty-eight thousand in the bank, and a fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy from Nationwide that still listed his ex-wife as beneficiary. That was it. No wife, no kids, no family. Parents long since passed. His sister and cousins, all estranged. World without end, amen.

  He knew he needed to take his money off the street, call in all debts. He could explain, if necessary, that he was starting a bigger operation, and required a larger financial investment. Once he recouped everything, he told himself, he’d still have time left to do whatever it was that one does at the end of one’s life.

  He thought about getting a haircut, a massage, a Chinese newspaper, but quickly fell asleep on the sofa, in the darkness unsure of where the rest of his life would lead after that.

  Roll By

  In the rush-hour morning, Jack caught the M103 bus running, almost at St. Mark’s. The city bus brought him quickly down to Chinatown. He hopped off near Bayard and went west to Mott Street, past the old tenement where he’d grown up, where Pa had finally died.

  A crowd of old folks had gathered, blocking the sidewalk outside Sam Kee Restaurant. Jack crossed the street, away from the dingy storefronts that had seen the better days of
his youth.

  Billy’s tofu factory was down the block. Billy Bow, the only son of an only son, was Jack’s oldest neighborhood friend. He had been Jack’s extra eyes and ears on the street, and he’d provided Jack with insights and observations into the arcane workings of the old community.

  The Tofu King was the work of three generations of a longtime Chinatown family, the Bows. It was once the biggest distributor of tofu products in Chinatown, but was clearly no longer the king. Competition had grown steadily as new immigrants from China arrived, and the Tofu King now resorted to promotional gimmicks to hang on to its customers. Every Tuesday was Tofu Tuesday, half-price for senior citizens, and after 6 PM daily, rice cakes and dao jeong soybean milk were three for a dollar.

  Billy’s grandfather had started it all by growing his own bean sprouts, then perfected the process of cooking soybeans and passed it on to his son, Billy’s dad, who then hooked up with soybean farmers in Indiana, and expanded the shop. Finally, Billy, conscripted into the family business, targeted their tofu products toward a more diverse health-oriented marketplace, and expanded the shop into the Tofu King. Now the business struggled, not only to maintain its place against the new competition, but also staggering under myriad business costs that kept rising.

  Jack remembered the three rudderless years he’d worked in the Tofu King, in the suffocating backroom, cooking and slopping beans into foo jook tofu skins, and tofu fa custard. That was long after his pal Wing Lee died, but before Jack had finally graduated from City College.

  When he peered through the steamy storefront window, he could see Billy near the back, animated, making faces, and gesturing with his hands.

  Jack stepped into the humid shop and listened as Billy ranted on about the latest atrocities. “The health department, wealth department is what they should call it, comes down with a new regulation every fuckin’ month. Just so they can shake down more money from Chinamen.”

  Preaching to the kitchen help, thought Jack.