Rock Paper Tiger

by Lisa Brackmann

  “Yili,” John says, his breath warm in my ear. “What is your apartment number?”

  “What?”

  “Your apartment number. What is it?”

  I open my eyes, and it’s the weirdest thing: my apartment building looms above us.

  Wait, I think. Wait. He doesn’t know my apartment number, but he knows where I live. That doesn’t make sense. How does he know where I live?

  “You told me this, Yili. At the party. Don’t you remember?”

  Did I just say that out loud? I guess I did.

  “Twenty-one oh-five,” I slur.

  I just want to lie down.

  I just want to go home.

  We take the elevator upstairs. It’s empty, the tall stool where the fuwuyuan sits when she’s on duty unoccupied. I stare at it, the empty stool surrounded by mirror tile, fake wood paneling and fluorescent light, and try to conjure up some meaning to it, but I can’t.

  Here we are in the foyer.

  As John fumbles at my door (Does he have my keys? Did I give them to him?), I see a sharp beam of white light, and fucking Mrs. Hua pokes her head out from her apartment.

  “What sort of things are going on now?” she hisses. “This is really more than anyone should bear!”

  John turns his head in her direction. “Your business ends at your eaves, old Auntie.” The way he says it, so cold and matter-of-fact, would scare me—that is, if I could feel afraid right now.

  Mrs. Hua can. She pulls back behind her door. “Show some respect,” she mutters as she slams it shut and locks it with both chain and bar.

  John carries me inside.

  He steps carefully through the maze of computer parts, the cardboard Yao Ming, the piles of clothes and books in the near-dark, the only light in the room what’s leaking in through the windows from a Beijing sky that’s never really dark any more.

  “Which room, Yili?”

  Now, suddenly, I do get scared. “Chuckie?” I say. But my voice is weak, weak like in a dream where you can’t cry out, where you can’t make anyone hear you. “Chuckie?” I try again.

  “No one is here,” John tells me. “Besides, you shouldn’t worry.”

  He takes me into my room and lays me down on my futon. He doesn’t turn on the light, but the nightlight by the door has come on.

  For a moment, he stands over me. His face is in shadow, but he’s staring at me, I can tell.

  “I am going to make you more comfortable,” he says softly.

  He kneels down by the futon. First he takes off my sneakers and socks, balling up the socks and putting them in the shoes, placing the shoes in the closet, lined up neatly.

  Then he hesitates before reaching for the top button of my jeans.

  “Don’t,” I say. “Don’t.”

  “Now, Yili, you cannot be comfortable in these.”

  I can’t stop him. I can barely move. He unbuttons my jeans, lifts me up, and slides them over my butt and then off. He folds them up, looks around, and then puts the jeans on the room’s one chair.

  He kneels down next to me again. His eyes fall on my bad leg, and he reaches out and lightly touches a place where two long scars cross, then the hollow from the chunk of missing muscle. “Oh,” he says, in a curious voice. “You were badly hurt, I think.”

  I bite my lip and nod. Tears stream from my eyes, and I can’t control that either.

  He gives my leg a final, gentle pat. Then he reaches under my back, beneath my shirt, and unhooks my bra. He rocks back on his heels. “Yili, I have to take this off too,” he says, with a trace of apology. Then he peels my shirt up and over my head. For a moment, the shirt catches on my chin, collapses on my face like a death-mask, and as I breathe in, the cotton sealing my nostrils, I think maybe it will suffocate me, and that’s what John wants to do to me. But no. He frees the shirt from my head. Turns it right side out, folds it, and lays it neatly on top of my jeans on the chair.

  He turns back to me, smiling awkwardly. He pulls one bra strap down along my arm until it clears my hand. Then the other. He holds my bra in his hand, and for a moment he stares at my tits. Then he looks away and drapes the bra over the back of the chair.

  I’m lying there naked except for my panties. I’m shaking. The room seems to vibrate.

  John’s back is to me. He’s rummaging through the little dresser next to my closet. “Ah,” he says, satisfied. “This is good.”

  He has in his hands a large T-shirt. “I think maybe this will be comfortable for you.”

  He puts it over my head, lifts me up a little, and I can feel the dry heat radiating from his hand pressed flat between my shoulder-blades.

  After he gets the T-shirt on me, he finds the light blanket I use most warm spring nights and covers me with it.

  “Just a minute,” he says, and leaves.

  I lie there. The room is still vibrating, but not so quickly.

  When John returns, he carries a glass of water and something wrapped in a dishcloth. He sits crosslegged by my head. “Here, Yili,” he says. “Have some water.”

  “I don’t… . You put something in it.”

  “Don’t be silly. You are sick. You need some water.”

  He tilts up my head so I won’t choke and pours a little water between my lips. I swallow. He pours some more. It tastes good. Like nectar. Like something I need.

  “There. You see?”

  When I finish, he smoothes the hair from my forehead. “I have some ice,” he says, holding up the dishcloth. “Your face, it’s bruised. I think maybe when I help you in the car, I’m too careless.” He puts the dishcloth against my cheek. “I’m sorry about this, Yili.”

  I feel the cold seep through the cloth to my cheek, soaking into my skull and spreading through my head. Everything slows down.

  “That’s okay,” I say.

  John sits there quietly, holding the ice against my cheek.

  “Why you come to China, Yili?” he finally asks.

  I chuckle. “Trey. He got a job. I came with him.”

  “What kind of work does he do?”

  “Security consultant. For a big corporation.” I laugh again. “Kind of like a really well-paid bodyguard.”

  “Really?”

  “Kind of.” Of course, it’s more than that, really. Trey assesses threats. Looks for holes. Keeps people safe.

  “I see.”

  I must have spoken out loud again, without meaning to.

  “And this pays well?”

  “It pays okay.”

  John brushes a stray hunk of my hair off my face.

  “So, Trey, he does not work for American government.”

  “Big corporation.” I laugh. “What’s the difference?”

  John nods sagely. “You know, here in China, PLA, Peoples’ Liberation Army, owns many businesses. They hide this better now than before, but still it is this way. So maybe this is somewhat the same as America.”

  This irritates me, and I’m not sure why. “It’s the other way around in America,” I tell him. “Companies own the Army. They send us where they want us to go. To do their shit for them. So they can get rich.”

  “Ah. I see. So you are in the Army, Yili?”

  “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

  “Why not? It can be good to talk, I think.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  But I can see it. That’s the thing. I can fucking see it. I don’t want to. I don’t want to see this shit any more. “Oh god,” I say. “Oh, Jesus. Where the fuck were you? You fucking liar.”

  John strokes my face, my hair. “Yili, I am sorry. I don’t want to upset you.”

  I’m crying again. “Fuck you,” I say. “You’re just another liar.”

  He says nothing.

  After a while, he gets up and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

  I lie there. I’m floating. I’m swaddled in clouds. I can’t move.

  “John?” I call out. “John?”

  He doesn’t come. I’m alone.


  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to. I hate myself. I want to die.”

  “Yili, why do you talk like that?”

  “John?”

  Where did he come from? He crouches down next to me. Takes my hand. “Have some water.”

  I drink. I drink like it’s somehow going to save my life. Like it will replenish everything I’ve lost.

  I’m pretty fucked up right now.

  John sighs. “This boyfriend of yours. I don’t understand. Why doesn’t he take better care of you?”

  “He’s busy.”

  “But this is not right,” John states. “If you are together with him, he should take care of you. This is only proper.”

  I stare up at the ceiling. Kaleidoscope patterns fold and unfold on the peeling beige paint. Like flowers in one of those sped-up nature movies.

  “I guess he’s not really my boyfriend,” I say after a while. “I guess we’re just friends, that’s all.”

  “But friends take care of each other too,” John says gravely. “Maybe this fellow, maybe he isn’t really your friend.”

  “He is,” I insist. “He is.”

  “But he left you.”

  “He had to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because… .” I squeeze my eyes shut. Then I open them, because little armies keep marching across my eyelids, and I don’t want them there. “Because he had to.”

  John sighs. “Yili, why are you so sure that this man is good guy? What do you really know about him?”

  For a moment, I can’t think of anything at all. I stare at the ceiling. The peeling paint curls and uncurls.

  “Maybe he is okay guy like you say,” John continues. “But maybe now he is mixed up in something that is bad.”

  I turn my head to look at him. John stares at me intently, his eyes shining.

  And it doesn’t matter how fucked up I am, how much bad shit I’m seeing in my head, and how scared I was before. I know exactly what this is about. He can’t hide it from me any more.

  “This is about the Uighur guy, right? You know what, John? You’re an asshole. You could’ve just asked me. You didn’t have to do all this. You didn’t have to… .”

  I can’t finish. I’m feeling this sob coming up from my gut, choking me. I want to scream; I want to hit something; I want to run and run and never stop. But I still can’t move. I lie there crying like a fucking five-year-old, and I hate myself for it.

  John’s eyes widen, look away then look back, like he isn’t sure what to do now. “Yili, I—”

  “Shut the fuck up. I don’t care any more. I really don’t.”

  I manage to lift my hand up to wipe my face. “You could have just asked me,” I repeat. “And I would have told you. I don’t know anything. Nothing.”

  Silently, John takes the damp dishcloth that held the ice and dabs my face with it, cleans off the tears and the snot.

  “Lao Zhang’s an artist. He’s got a lot of friends. People crash with him all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  I can’t keep my eyes open any more. I feel like everything’s dissolving into foam. “Just leave me alone,” I mumble.

  “Okay, Yili,” I hear John say from far away. “I let you sleep now. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

  Right, I think. Right. I’ll feel better.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHAT I REMEMBER most, from that first day in the sandbox, is how fucking hot it was, and how I was so thirsty because there wasn’t enough bottled water, and the donkey.

  I was looking out the window of the Humvee, trying to make out the landscape through three inches of dirty glass, and it was almost like being under water. I saw desert: flat, endless scrub, different shades of dirt, an occasional clump of cinderblock buildings that blended into the gray dust.

  We ground to a stop at the outskirts of some little town—just a crossroads and a couple of telephone poles stuck between mud-brick houses and a few painted cement storefronts. A truck was broken down in front of us.

  Across from me, tied to one of those poles, was a donkey hooked up to a cart. Flanks crisscrossed by whip scars, ribs sticking out, head hanging down, like it’d had a lifetime of getting the shit kicked out of it.

  “Heard Hajji’s rigging donkey carts with explosives,” the soldier next to me said.

  I must have looked scared. I was scared. I’d joined the National Guard, not the fucking Marines. I was nineteen years old. I’d enlisted in the Guard after high school and trained as a medic. I thought I’d learn a skill, get some money for college. I didn’t think I’d be doing this.

  “Hey, it’s just a rumor.” He gave me an awkward pat and stared out the window. A little gaggle of kids hung out by the block wall surrounding one of the houses, laughing, shoving, daring each other to approach us. A couple of them waved. Behind them I saw two women, dressed head to toe in black abayas, looking like some kind of flightless crows.

  “Most of these people are glad we’re here,” the soldier told me. “You’ll see.”

  I START TO wake up, and I don’t know where I am. Behind my eyes, everything’s bright and yellow, and I’m filled with dread, because I don’t want to be there again, in that place.

  Except … except … I miss it too.

  I open my eyes. I can’t get oriented. The direction of my bed doesn’t make any sense, the wall is on the wrong side of the room, my head’s facing the wrong way, like I’m sleeping in the Bizarro universe. Then everything shifts into position, to where it belongs. I’m not over there. I’m lying on my futon in my little room in Chuckie’s apartment off Wudaokou Dajie.

  I lie there for a minute, rubbing my face, which feels kind of numb. My eyes feel swollen. I close them. Start sinking back into sleep.

  I feel my heart thudding too fast in my chest before I actually remember what happened last night.

  Was it really last night? Did that really happen? I have this sudden flash of myself lying in bed, John taking off my bra. I shudder. I think I’m going to throw up.

  I struggle to stand up, rising first to my knees, grasping the back of the chair. My limbs feel like they’re filled with sand.

  As I brace myself against the chair and stagger to my feet, I see my jeans folded neatly on the seat, my shirt resting on top of that, my bra draped across the shirt like it’s some kind of post-modern window display.

  The bra was on the chair back, I think dimly. That’s where John put it last night. He must have moved it.

  I stumble into the bathroom, thinking I’m going to puke. But I don’t. Instead, I splash some water on my face. Stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes look huge. Everything still glows around the edges.

  What the fuck did he give me?

  Okay, I think, okay. Whatever that was all about, he’s gone, I’m here, and I’m okay now.

  As I come out of the bathroom, I hear a lot of noise coming from Chuckie’s bedroom.

  For a minute I just stand there, my heart pounding in my throat. I’m thinking, what if John’s still here?

  But then I hear a crash that sounds like falling books, and Chuckie curses.

  Okay.

  I go back to my room and put on my pants—not the ones on the chair: I don’t want to touch that pile of clothes just yet. I wander out into the kitchen. Slanting yellow light comes in through the window. It’s past two in the afternoon.

  I pour myself some water from the fridge. And notice something weird: all the dirty dishes have been washed and are sitting neatly in the dish rack.

  Not Chuckie, I think. In general, Chuckie doesn’t do dishes. He lives on takeout. So do I. That’s about two week’s worth of dishes from both of us in that rack.

  I shudder again and leave the kitchen.

  Here’s Chuckie coming out of his room, carrying an armload of clothes and a duffel bag.

  He sees me and jerks back like he’s stuck his finger in a light socket. Then he looks away.

  “What’s
up?” I ask.

  “Going home to see the family,” he mutters.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Chuckie can’t stand his family. At least that’s what he always says to me. “They are just idiots,” he complains. “Hopeless.” And they live in Bumfuck Shanxi—nowhere Chuckie wants to hang.

  “For a little while. My mother says she wants me to come.”

  I see his face. Pale. Scared.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  His eyes dart around like he’s being buzzed by gnats and can’t figure out where they’re coming from. He shakes his head, fractionally.

  “You wanna go downstairs, get a cup of coffee?”

  He nods.

  There’s this DVD store/coffeehouse in the collection of shops that make up the ground floor of the buildings facing Wudaokou Dajie. The coffee isn’t great, but it doesn’t totally suck either. I go there sometimes when there are no beans in the house.

  Chuckie and I grab our coffees at the orange countertop and sit at a little round table by the window with a scenic view of the parking lot and the lovely four-lane thoroughfare that is Wudaokou. Taxis and private cars whiz by while knots of pedestrians make their way across the street like avatars in some Nintendo game, risking all to gain the treasure on the other side.

  Chuckie rips open two packs of sugar and dumps them in his coffee.

  “So, what happened?” I finally ask. “You get busted at the Matrix, or what?”

  “Or what,” Chuckie says eventually.

  I’m confused by this until I realize that he’s attempting to play with the language. “You got busted by somebody else?”

  Chuckie doesn’t exactly nod. He stirs his coffee, catching sugar grit between the spoon and the side of the ceramic cup.

  “I am going to go home for a while,” he says, not looking at me. “You should not stay here.”

  It’s not his fault; I know it isn’t, but I’m still so angry it’s hard for me to speak. “Is this about Lao Zhang, Chuckie? Is it? ’Cause I haven’t done anything wrong. You know that.”

  “Meiguanxi.” Doesn’t matter.

  Neither of us says anything for a while. I stare out the window. Amid the taxis and cars and buses, a donkey cart piled high with bricks makes its way down the street, pausing for a minute so the donkey can crap in the gutter. The guy driving it, a peasant in patched clothes and a battered Mao cap, talks on his cell phone.