Charlie Chan Is Dead 2

by Jessica Hagedorn

  I called Uncle from the car. After an infinite number of rings, he finally answered the phone. I had just taken a bite of éclair. When I looked up from the wheel, there was a woman in the middle of the road. I braked. The woman dragged her treasures across the street. She turned to me and continued to talk to herself. Circles of rouge dotted her cheeks.

  “Hello, hello?” I shouted into the phone.

  “Ah?” Uncle stammered.

  I swallowed the mouthful of éclair, and it went down like cardboard. “Uncle, it’s me. Georgianna.”

  “Oh my God. Wong Lung Fang-ah?”

  “Yes. It’s Wong Lung Fang.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I came by yesterday. Didn’t you hear me knocking?”

  “I was, oh, yes, taking a bath.”

  “Well, I’m on my way over. In fact, I’m just about there now.”

  Though it was already growing dark out, you could tell the St. Martin’s must have been quite grand in its day. Its façade was covered with soot and streaked with stains, and sections of molding had chipped and cracked, yet the building’s French Renaissance-style architecture gave it a certain historic presence. Several floors had wrought-iron balconies, which extended around the building. The windows were framed like doorways.

  “Uncle? Hello?”

  “Oh my God,” he stammered. “Oh my God.”

  “Open the door, okay?” I said. I double-parked and entered the lobby.

  “Ah?” he said. “Sleeping.”

  Open the door or I’ll break it down with my bare hands, I thought, stumbling over an abandoned plastic doll and nearly twisting an ankle. The doll had long hair and open-and-close eyes.

  “Uncle?” I repeated into the phone.

  There was a click and the line went dead.

  I was banging at the door when my phone rang. I kicked Uncle’s newspaper aside and answered, “God damn it—hello!”

  “Doctor?” Nurse Anderson peeped. “Doctor Wong?”

  “Oh, hi,” I said. My knuckles burned. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you like that. What’s up?”

  “It’s Laurel—”

  I’ve lost her. Jesus, I’ve lost her.

  “Cardiac arrest, but we were able to resuscitate,” she said.

  “What are her vitals? No, never mind, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” I hung up and headed for the stairwell.

  “He comes out at night,” Carlos told me, as I passed him on the landing.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Seven. Sometimes eight or nine.”

  I nodded and raced downstairs. Don’t do this to me, Laurel, I prayed. You’ve got to fight this. In the car, my sugar-coated fingers stuck to the wheel. I raced uptown. Stores and fast-food restaurants blurred past.

  At the clinic, I found Laurel in critical but stable condition. Dr. Brady and I discussed the possibility of surgery and the immediate changes in her treatment plan. She was now being fed intravenously at a rate of forty cubic centimeters an hour, which was to be increased gradually within the next two weeks to one hundred sixty cubic centimeters. This would be the equivalent of two thousand calories per day. From X rays, I could tell there was damage to the heart; the right ventricle had thinned to the point of possible hemorrhage. I was keeping Laurel in intensive care, but I knew that if she had another attack, there’d be little we could do to save her.

  After meeting with Dr. Brady, I spoke with the cardiologist and then sent X rays to his department. Later I went to look in on Laurel in IC. The curtain was drawn partway around her bed. The cardiomonitor beeped: up, down; up, down. The infusion pump gurgled. IV dripped. An oxygen mask covered Laurel’s nose and mouth. The Tungs were already there. Laurel seemed to be asleep, yet her mother was at her side reading out loud from Romeo and Juliet. Mrs. Tung held her daughter’s hand. Mr. Tung was positioned at the foot of the bed. His briefcase was in one hand, his wife’s purse and coat in the other. He looked from his daughter to the IV.

  It had taken this to get him here.

  Mr. Tung loosened his tie. The knot tipped off center. His eyes were glassy and dazed. It was a look I’d seen before: What did I do so wrong? How has it come to this?

  Before I could stop myself, I ducked away, quickly gathered my things from the office, and hurried out of the clinic.

  It was a miracle. Uncle was standing outside the St. Martin’s when I arrived. The poor guy was staring at a piece of litter skipping over the sidewalk. His back was bent; his hands were tucked deep into his coat pockets. He was smaller than I remembered, overexposed to the elements. I tossed the pastry box into a garbage can. There was only one éclair left. My pants dug into the skin at my waist.

  “Uncle?”

  He remained still, frozen in his thoughts. I touched his shoulder and he flinched. He looked at me as if I were a ghost. “Si-mong, ah?”

  “It’s Georgianna, Uncle.”

  He blinked. “Wong Lung Fang-ah?”

  “Yes. Wong Lung Fang. What are you doing out here?”

  He scanned the ground at his feet. He seemed to be checking that he hadn’t dropped anything.

  “Have you eaten?” I asked. “Would you like to get dinner?”

  His head rocked forward and back.

  “Okay, how about that diner on the corner? I can smell burgers from here.” My stomach throbbed painfully. It felt too full, like it might explode.

  Uncle’s head bobbed from right to left. “Ah,” he muttered. His eyes shifted from the space in front of him to the diner. His hands came out of his pockets. He wrung them again and again. They were bloated and leathery, the nails thick and cracked, layered at the tips like eroded sandstone. I wondered if I could get him to a psychiatrist.

  “You don’t have to get a burger,” I said, moving toward the diner. “You could get soup and a sandwich if you like. Or maybe a salad. You like chef salad?” I stepped inside and Uncle followed, pausing in the doorway, checking right and left, right and left.

  The diner smelled of grease and burnt coffee.

  “Sit and I’ll be right back,” I said, racing for the bathroom at the rear of the restaurant. There was barely enough time to get the toilet seat up. A mess of chocolatey cream forced its way up my gullet and exploded into the bowl. I hugged my arms around my stomach. Weakness drew me to my knees. When the retching stopped, I stared at the brown mixture swirling around and around, small particles clinging at the water’s edge, and thought, It’s back.

  I flushed the toilet and wiped the tears from around my swollen, red eyes. I rinsed my mouth and spit. A brown spot stained the front of my shirt. I wiped it clean, only to create a large damp circle over my left breast. My knees ached. I glanced in the mirror, fixed a loose strand of hair, and told myself, Under no circumstances may that ever recur.

  When I returned to the dining area, I heard the owner yelling out the front door. “What did I say about coming in here, huh?” Through the grease-streaked glass, I could see the curve of Uncle’s back outside. His thin frame wavering in the wind.

  I rushed to the front of the diner. “Excuse me,” I said, tapping the owner on the back. “That man you are yelling at happens to be my uncle.”

  He looked me up and down. “So?”

  “We were planning on dining here this evening.”

  “We close in fifteen minutes,” he said, and slammed the door in my face.

  Uncle stared at the spot in front of him on the sidewalk. His hands were low in his pockets.

  “I’m so sorry,” I told him. “Is there another place you’d like to go?”

  We walked a block in silence and entered a Latino restaurant with glittery Formica tables and haggard polyester booths. The radio played a Spanish rendition of “Like a Virgin.” At one table, a Latino family of three had started dinner. The woman was heavily made up with foundation and thick black eyeliner; her hair was pulled back into a long braid. Her daughter wore a ruffled pink party dress and had a pink ribbon in her hair.

  Uncle and I took the
booth closest to the bathroom.

  “Chicken and rice? Chocolate milk?” the waitress asked from behind the counter. She had a chipped front tooth.

  Uncle nodded. I said, “Just a diet Coke for me.”

  The waitress stuck her head through the sliding door that led to the kitchen. “Chicken rice, chocolate milk, diet Coke!” she shouted.

  I laughed. “I like this place.”

  “There’s music,” Uncle said.

  On the radio the singer switched into English: “Like a virgin, woh oh-oh, like a virgin.”

  “Nice touch.” I glanced at my watch. It was six-forty, and I knew I should call Mark.

  Uncle’s hands slid out of his pockets. He wrung them over the table. “Ah? Where’s your ma?”

  “Hong Kong,” I answered. “I think they want to move back.”

  “Move? Oh my God.” His hands circled around and around.

  “It’s okay. I’ll bring anything you need.” I slid the envelope across the table and placed my hand over his. Uncle leaped out of his seat. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  He glanced helplessly at his hands, wringing them faster.

  Somehow I understood. “Here,” I said, slipping the envelope into place. He nodded and disappeared into the bathroom. The waitress leaned back into the kitchen. “Keep warm,” she yelled. She checked her nails, and reached into her apron pocket for a file.

  From the bathroom, I could hear the faucets gushing, water splashing. I pictured Uncle compulsively washing his hands, and wondered whether medication might improve his condition. Would he agree to see a psychiatrist? Likely not.

  Minutes passed. Finally I got up and knocked at the door. The waitress looked at me. When Uncle failed to answer, she went back to shaping her nails. I couldn’t get Laurel out of my head. Those sit-ups and the expression on her face. Up, down; up, down. A bad feeling came over me.

  My phone rang. I pulled the cellular from my purse and watched until it went silent. My hands trembled. I noticed chocolate cake on the counter.

  “Do you have any fresh fruit—apples, maybe?” I asked the waitress.

  “Fruit?” she said.

  “Never mind.” I placed the phone on the table. I could hear water splashing onto the floor in the bathroom. I ordered a piece of chocolate cake. Just one bite, I told myself.

  After I’d devoured the cake, I knocked again. “Uncle? I have to go soon, okay?” By now the family of three had eaten, paid, and left.

  Ten minutes later, Uncle used his feet to kick open the bathroom door. He had the timing down so that he didn’t have to touch the door with his hands. The waitress mumbled something in Spanish and shook her head.

  Uncle continued to wring his hands. His knuckles were red, almost steaming.

  The food arrived. The waitress set Uncle’s plate in front of him. She placed the glasses, pinched between her fingers, at the center of the table. Her thumb was in my drink. She dropped a clump of napkins near Uncle’s plate.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you have any utensils?”

  “Utensils?”

  The wringing stopped. From his pocket, Uncle withdrew a set of wood chopsticks. He fished them through the rice and hovered protectively over his plate.

  “Oh,” I said.

  The woman shot me a look: You’re the stranger here.

  I excused myself to the bathroom. Everything was wet—toilet seat, walls, and ceiling. The mirror dripped. Streaks distorted my reflection. “Don’t do this,” I said. But carefully, so as not to touch anything, I leaned over the toilet and cried.

  “You’re not hungry?” Uncle asked, glancing up from his dish.

  I felt weak all over. “My husband and I are going out for dinner tonight.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “It’s okay. He’ll wait.”

  “Ni?” You? he said. “Married?”

  Great—Ma hadn’t even told him. “Yeah. His name is Mark.” I dug out a wedding photo.

  “Oh my God.”

  “Yes, he’s black.”

  He stared at the photo the way he had stared at the spot in front of him. “Si-mong,” he whispered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ah,” Uncle whispered thoughtfully. Suddenly everything seemed to make sense to him. He picked up the last grain of rice with his chopsticks, inserted it into his mouth, chewed patiently. He placed the tips of his chopsticks against the edge of the plate and with one hand pushed one chopstick over the other, over the other.

  “Spanish?” he asked.

  “Excuse me? Oh, you mean tonight? With Mark?”

  “Mm.”

  “Probably French.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “You don’t like French food?”

  “Expensive,” he said. “You should come here—cheap.”

  Uncle’s chopsticks moved one over the other, the wood clicking softly, and I found the motion, the sound, strangely comforting.

  THE HULL CASE

  Peter Ho Davies

  Of modern North American cases, one of the earliest and most widely reported abductions occurred in the early sixties to a mixed-race couple in New Hampshire.

  —Taken: Twelve Contemporary UFO Abduction Narratives, K. Clifford Stanton

  Helen is telling the colonel about the ship now, and Henry, sitting stiffly on the sectional sofa beside his wife, can’t look up. He stares at the colonel’s cap, the gold braid on the rim, where it rests on the coffee table next to the latest Saturday Evening Post and the plate of tu nafish sandwiches Helen has laid out.

  “What color were the lights, Mrs. Hull?” the colonel wants to know, and Helen says, “Blue.”

  The colonel makes a check mark.

  “Baby blue,” Helen adds. She looks at Henry, and he nods quickly. He thought the lights were a cop at first.

  “Baby blue,” the colonel repeats slowly, his pen scratching along. He’s resting his clipboard against his khaki knee. His pants leg is crisply ironed, and his shoes glint. Henry wishes he could see what the colonel is writing.

  “Is that usual?” he asks. “Blue lights? In these cases, I mean.”

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t say,” the colonel says.

  “ ’Cept I believe aircraft lights are usually red and white.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  PETER HO DAVIES was born in England in 1966 to Welsh and Chinese parents. He is the author of the story collections The Ugliest House in the World and Equal Love. Davies currently directs the M.F.A. program at the University of Michigan.

  “Then this wouldn’t be an aircraft?”

  “That’s what we’re aiming to determine,” the colonel says. “Sir.” His smile reminds Henry of Richard Widmark.

  There’s a pause, and then Helen asks, “Won’t you have a sandwich, colonel?” and the colonel says, “Thank you, ma’am. Don’t mind if I do.” He takes one and lays it on his plate, but doesn’t take a bite.

  Henry thought the lights were a cop at first. They’d already been stopped once on the drive back from Niagara. He could have sworn he’d been doing less than sixty. The cop had shone his flashlight in Henry’s face—black—and then Helen’s—white.

  “Any trouble here, ma’am?”

  “Not at all, officer,” she told him, while Henry gripped the wheel with both hands.

  It was meant to be a second honeymoon. Not that they’d had a first, really. They’d been married for seven years. Henry had been serving in Korea, a corporal in the signals, when he’d been caught in the open by a grenade. Helen was his nurse in Tokyo. He’d heard that some of the white nurses refused to touch the black GIs, but she didn’t mind. The first day she gave him a sponge bath, he tried to thank her—not sure if he was more embarrassed for her or himself (he felt an erection pushing at the slit of his pajama pants)—but she told him not to be silly. He always remembered that. “Don’t be silly.” Like it was nothing.

  “I’m just saying I appreciate it,” he said, a little stung. “Th
e nature of the race matter and all.”

  “The race matter doesn’t matter to me,” she told him briskly. “And it shouldn’t matter to you.” Later she came back and he asked her to scratch his back, below the shoulder blade where it itched him fiercely, and she did.

  Perhaps it was the thought of losing his arm. He was so relieved when she told him they’d saved it. She’d been changing the dressing on his hand, unwinding the bandages from each fat finger. He whooped with joy. He asked her to have a drink with him. She said she didn’t think so and his face fell, but then she laughed, her teeth as bright as her uniform. “Oh,” she said, turning his hand over to wash it. “You mean after your release? Why, of course. I’d like that. I thought you meant now. You shouldn’t be drinking now, not with your medication.” And then she wound his hand up again in fresh white bandages.

  Her tour had finished three weeks later, but she’d stayed on in Tokyo, and by the time his discharge came through, they were lovers. They ate sushi together and she wore beautiful multicolored kimonos and it all seemed perfectly natural. He’d been in the army for nine years, so he hung on to her now as the next thing in his life, and one night after a fifth of whiskey—“Why, Henry Hull, you’re stinko”—he asked her to marry him. “Of course,” she said, and he laughed out loud. “Of course!” They’d gone back to New Hampshire, where she had a job in a hospital in Manchester. He’d found work at the local post office, and they’d been married within the month.

  They’d made a good life together. Helen’s parents had been kind to him, after some reservations. “They know better than to try and stop me when I want something,” Helen told him. Her brother called Henry a hero and a credit to his race at the small reception after their wedding at the town hall. Henry appreciated it, but it only reminded him that he was the one black man in the room. His own parents were long since dead, and his sister, Bernice, back in Summer Hill, had refused to come when she heard Henry was marrying a white woman. “What for?” she wanted to know, and when Henry said, “For the same reasons anybody gets married,” she told him no, she didn’t believe it.