Charlie Chan Is Dead 2

by Jessica Hagedorn

  They had planned to go on into Canada that afternoon, the first time they’d been out of the country since Korea, but instead they turned around, headed back the way they’d come. It was late afternoon, but Henry figured they could be home by midnight if he got a clear run and put his foot down.

  The colonel has a few more questions, and he asks if they’d mind talking to him separately. Henry feels himself stiffen, but Helen says, “Of course.” He can tell she wants to go first, so he gets up and says he’ll take a walk. He’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. He steps out into the hall and finds his topcoat and hat and calls for Denny, Helen’s dog. He walks out back first, and from the yard he can see Helen inside with the colonel. He wonders what she’s saying as the dog strains at the leash. Probably talking more about her dreams. She thinks maybe the little gray men took one of her eggs. She thinks she remembers being shown strange children. They had agreed that she wouldn’t talk about this, but Henry realizes suddenly he doesn’t trust her. It makes him shudder to think of her telling these things to a stranger.

  When he takes Denny around the front of the house, he is startled to find a black man in his drive, smoking. The young man drops the cigarette quickly when Denny starts yapping. He is in an air force uniform, and Henry realizes that this must be the colonel’s driver. He feels suddenly shy. He tells him, “You startled me,” and the young airman says, “Sorry, sir.” And after a moment, that seems all there is to say. That sir. Henry lets Denny pull him up the drive, whining. The poor dog hasn’t been out for hours and as soon as they’re at the end of the drive squats and poops in full view of the house. Henry holds the leash slack and looks the other way. When they walk back a few minutes later, the airman is in the colonel’s car. The windows are fogged. Henry knocks on the driver’s-side glass.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  The airman hesitates, but his breath, even in the car, is steaming.

  “I could bring it out,” Henry offers, and the young man says, “Thank you.” And it’s the lack of a sir that makes Henry happy. He takes Denny inside and comes back out in a few minutes with two cups of coffee and climbs into the car with the boy. He sets them on the dash, where they make twin crescents of condensation on the windshield. When Henry sips his coffee, he realizes he’s left his teeth inside with Helen, and he’s suddenly self-conscious. He thinks he must look like an old fool, and he wants to be silent, keep his mouth shut, but it’s too late. The airman asks him how he lost them.

  “A fight,” Henry says. And he tells a story he’s never told Helen, how he got waylaid by a couple of crackers when he was just a boy. They wanted to know his mama’s name, but for some reason he refused to say. “I just call her Mama,” he said. “Other folks call her Mrs. Hull.” But the boys wanted to know her first name, “her Chrustian name.” Henry just kept on saying he didn’t know it and then he tried to push past them and leave, but they shoved him back and lit into him. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he says now over his coffee, “but it was very important to me that those fellas not know my mama’s name. Mrs. Hull’s all I’d say. I knew it, of course, although I never called her by it or even rightly thought of her by it. But I’d be damned if I’d tell them, and they beat the tar out of me for keeping that secret.”

  “Yeah, but I bet those boys got their share,” the airman says, and Henry smiles and nods. He can’t be more than eighteen, this driver. They talk about the service. The boy is frustrated to be a driver in the air force. He wants to fly. Henry tells him how he was put in the signals corps: “They liked having me fetch and carry the messages.” The boy, Henry thinks, is a good soldier, and he feels a surge of pride in him. But then the coffee is finished and Helen is at the front door.

  “Henry!” She doesn’t see him in the car. “Henry!” He’s suddenly embarrassed and gets out of the car quickly. “There you are,” she says. “It’s your turn.”

  Henry ducks his head back into the car to take the empty mugs and sees the airman looking at him strangely. “Eunice,” he offers awkwardly. The young man’s face is blank. “My mother’s name. Eunice Euphonia Hull. In case you was wondering.” He closes the car door with his rear, moves toward the house. Inside, he hands Helen the two mugs, and she takes them to wash up.

  Back on the sofa, Henry sees that his dentures are lying beside the plate of sandwiches, but he feels uncomfortable about putting them in now.

  The colonel asks him to describe his experiences, and Henry repeats the whole story. They’d been making good time until the cop stopped them around ten-thirty, and even then Henry had still expected to make it home by one. He explains how they noticed the lights a little after that and about twenty minutes later how they began to sense that the object was following them, how he had sped up, how it had kept pace. Finally he describes it swooping low over the road in front of them and hovering a hundred yards to their right. He’d stopped, still thinking it could be a chopper, and got out with the binoculars, leaving Helen in the still running car. But after getting a closer look he’d become uneasy, run back, and they had left in a hurry. They couldn’t have been stopped more than ten minutes, but when they got home it was almost dawn, hours later than they expected.

  “Mrs. Hull,” the colonel says, “claims you were screaming when you came back to the car. About being captured.”

  Henry feels a moment of irritation at Helen.

  “I was yelling,” he says. “I was frightened. I felt that we were in danger, although I couldn’t tell you why. I just knew this wasn’t anything I understood.”

  He pauses, but the colonel seems to be waiting for him to go on.

  “I was in Korea. I mean, I’ve been under fire. I was never afraid like this.”

  “These dreams of your wife’s,” the colonel asks. “Can you explain them at all?”

  “She believes them,” Henry says quickly. “Says they’re more vivid than any dreams she remembers.”

  “Can you think of anything else that might explain them?”

  Henry pauses. He could end it all here, he thinks. He looks at his dentures on the coffee table, feels the flush of humiliation. He opens his mouth, closes it, slowly shakes his head.

  The colonel waits a moment, as if for something more. Then: “Any dreams yourself?”

  “No, sir,” Henry says quickly. “I don’t remember my dreams.”

  The colonel clicks his pen—closed, open, closed—calls Helen back in, thanks them both for their time. He declines another sandwich, puts his cap under his arm, says he must be going, and they follow him out to where his driver holds the door for him. The car backs out, and they watch its taillights follow the curve of the road for a minute. Henry wonders if the colonel and his driver will talk. If the colonel will make fun of their story. The thought of the young man laughing at him makes him tired. But then he thinks, no, the colonel and the airman won’t share a word. The boy will just drive, and in the back seat the colonel will watch him. Henry feels like he let the boy down, and is suddenly ashamed.

  They stand under the porch light until the car is out of sight. “Well,” Helen says, and he sees she’s glowing, almost incandescent with excitement. “I think we did the right thing, don’t you?” He feels his own mood like a shadow of hers. Bugs ping against the bulb and he flicks the switch off. In the darkness, they’re silent for a moment, and then he hears the squeal of the screen door as she goes inside.

  It’s not late, but Helen tells him she’s about done in. The interview went on for almost four hours. She goes up to bed, and Henry picks up in the living room, carries the cups and plates through to the kitchen, fills the sink to soak them. The untouched sandwiches he covers in Saran Wrap and slides into the refrigerator. He drops his dentures in a glass of water, watches them sink. Then he goes up and changes into his pajamas, lays himself down beside his already sleeping wife, listens to her steady breathing, dreams about the future.

  A few weeks later they’ll receive an official letter thanking them fo
r their cooperation but offering no explanation for what they’ve seen. Henry hopes Helen will let the matter drop there, but she won’t. She wants answers, and she feels it’s their duty to share these experiences. “What if other people have had them?” They’ll meet with psychiatrists. They’ll undergo therapy. Henry shows symptoms of nervous anxiety, the doctors will say, but they won’t know why. Eventually, almost a year later, under hypnosis, Henry will recall being inside the ship. He and Helen will listen to a tape of his flat voice describing his experiences. Tears will form in Helen’s eyes.

  “It’s as if I’m asleep,” he’ll say on the tape. “Or sleepwalking. Like I’m drugged or under some mind control.”

  Under hypnosis, Henry will remember pale figures stopping their car. He’ll recall the ship—a blinding wall of light—and being led to it, as if on an invisible rope, dragged and stumbling, his hands somehow tied behind him. He’ll remember being naked, surrounded, the aliens touching him, pinching his arms and legs, peeling his lips back to examine his gritted teeth, cupping and prodding his genitals. It’ll all come back to him: running through the woods, the breeze creaking in the branches, tripping and staring up at the moonlit trees. “Like great white sails,” he’ll hear himself say thickly as the spool runs out.

  Afterward, he’ll tell Helen in a rage he’s finished with shrinks, but in the months that follow she’ll call more doctors and scientists. She’ll say she wants to write a book. Something extraordinary has happened to them. They’ve been chosen for a purpose. She’ll talk to journalists. Henry will refuse to discuss it further. They’ll fight, go days without speaking.

  Tonight, in his dream, Henry wakes with a violent shudder, listens to his heart slow. He’s lying in bed with Helen, he tells himself. He can feel her warm breath on his back. She rolls over beside him, the familiar shifting and settling weight, but then he feels the strange sensation of the mattress stiffening, the springs releasing. He opens his eyes and sees his wife rising above the bed, inch by inexorable inch, in a thin blue light.

  DEAD ON ARRIVAL

  Linh Dinh

  I cannot wait to tuck an M-16 under my arm and pump a clip into the bodies of my enemies. I can see them falling backward, in slow motion, leaping up a little, from the force of my bullets. Die, Commies, die! Each day I stare at them in the newspaper, lined up in neat rows, some with their clothes blown off, their arms and legs bent at odd angles. I look at their exposed crotches, at their bare feet. (I cannot help myself: If I see a picture of a near-naked person, I look at the crotch first, then the face, if I look at the face.) Their captured weapons are also lined up in neat rows. Our soldiers can be seen standing in the background, neatly dressed, with their boots on. I cannot wait to get me a pair of black boots. Our national anthem begins like this:Citizens, it’s time to liberate the country! Let’s go and sacrifice our lives, with no regrets . . .

  I’m willing to sacrifice my life and limbs for freedom and democracy.

  My father is a police colonel. He answers only to Mr. Thieu, our president, and Mr. Ky, our vice president, and Mr. Khiem, our prime minister, and Mr. Loan, his boss. (Yes, that Mr. Loan, the general who shot a Vietcong on TV. The Vietcong was an assassin who had killed many people that day. He was wearing a plaid shirt, a “caro” shirt.) Mr. Loan is very famous, a celebrity in America and in Europe. It’s something to be proud of, having a father with a famous boss.

  LINH DINH was born in Saigon in 1963, came to the United States in 1975, and now lives in Certaldo, Italy. He is the author of a collection of stories, Fake House, and several collections of poems, including All Around What Empties Out. His work is included in several anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2000.

  The Vietcong killed two of my uncles: Uncle Bao and Uncle Hiep. They killed my grandfather. That’s all they do. Kill! Kill! Kill! They’re born to kill. Mr. Thieu said, “Do not listen to what they say, but look at what they do.”

  My father was born a peasant. He’s used to rustic ways. Although we have modern plumbing in our house, he routinely forgets to close the door when he sits on the toilet. If you walk into our house unannounced, you may catch him, just like that!, sitting on the toilet taking a dump with the door open.

  My father encourages me to draw. He said, “Draw, Son, you’re good!” He gave me a big brown envelope and said, “Remember to save all your drawings.”

  I would draw certain things over and over. A few months ago I drew tigers. I would draw a tiger over and over. Then I drew cowboys, a gun-slinger wearing a plaid shirt (a “caro” shirt) and leather vest. Then I drew tanks, one tank after another. Lately I’ve been drawing ships.

  There is a huge stranded ship in Vung Tau, with its prow stuck in the sand and its tail sticking out into the ocean. Inside this ship there must be thousands of fish that have swum in through the rusty gashes but are now stuck inside this huge stranded ship and cannot get out again.

  Whenever I looked into the ocean, I would think, There, just beyond my sight, is America. If the earth wasn’t so round, I would be able to see it.

  The earth is divided into twenty-four time zones.

  If you go east, you lose time. If you go west, you gain time.

  If you go far enough east, you lose a whole day. If you go far enough west, you gain a whole day.

  If you go far enough west you will end up where you started and it will be yesterday.

  We have several words for America. We call it “Flag with Flowers.” We call it “Beautiful Country.” We call it “Country with Many Races.”

  So-called white Americans are really red (they look red). Black Americans are blue. Red Americans are yellow.

  On Nguyen Hue Street is the tallest building in Saigon. I’ve seen it many times. I’d count: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve! That’s it: twelve! The tallest building in Vietnam has twelve stories.

  I speak five languages. Aside from Vietnamese, I also speak French:

  “Foo? Shoo tit shoo? Le! La! Le! La!” Chinese: “Xi xoong! Xoong xi!” and English: “Well well?”

  The hardest word to pronounce in the English language is the.

  When people say “I’m buying a house,” what do they mean by that? I mean, what store is big enough to hold a bunch of houses? Or even just one house? And how are you going to take a house home with you after you’ve bought it?

  Although a dragon only has four legs, sometimes, when I drew him, I’d give him two extra legs.

  The three nos of Communism: No God! No Country! No Family!

  As me and my father were entering a restaurant—a fancy Chinese place where we go to eat lacquered suckling pig and swallow’s nest soup—we saw my mother leaving with her new husband. I mean, as my father opened the glass door, we saw her standing right there, with her new husband.

  There is a middle-aged Englishman in our neighborhood. He’s always walking around, stooping a little—when you are so tall, you should stoop a little—wearing a pale-blue cotton shirt (with four pockets) and a pair of gray slacks, and carrying an old leather briefcase. He has deep-set hazel eyes and a nose like a shark’s fin. He’s married to a Chinese woman and cannot speak Vietnamese. Every time I saw him, I’d say, “Well well?”

  If it weren’t for the Vietcong, we’d probably be shooting at the Chinese. There are many Chinese in my neighborhood. They have their own schools and like to play basketball. There is a song:A Chinese asshole, it’s all one and the same.

  The one who doesn’t clean his asshole,

  We’ll kick back to China.

  Chinese movies are the best. I like The Blind Swordsman. He’s blind and fights with a sword that’s more like a meat cleaver. It’s only half a sword really. It doesn’t matter: If you know what you’re doing, you can kill many people with only half a sword, even if you’re blind.

  In one movie, Bruce Lee, “The Little Dragon,” fought a huge black man named Cream Java. I thought, This is not very realistic, is it? I mean, my man, Bruce Lee, can’
t even reach this guy’s face to punch him in the face.

  When I draw, I usually aim for absolute realism.

  My favorite American movie is Planet of the Apes.

  The best American band is called the Bee Gees. The second best American band is called the Beatles.

  The “Country Homies,” the hicks, don’t listen to American music. They’re embarrassed by it. It frightens them. As soon as you push “play,” they become disoriented. These hicks, these “Country Homies,” only know how to listen to folk opera.

  This is how you get a cricket to fight better. You pick him up by one of his whiskers, then you spin him around a bunch of times. This will make him “drunk.” You can also hold him inside your palms and blow into his face.

  Some trees are so old that their branches sag and sag and sag until they reach the ground and become new trees. These new trees, in turn, also become so old that their branches sag and sag and sag until they reach the ground and become new trees. What you have, then, is an entire forest connected at the top, an upside-down forest, with the first tree in the middle.

  Catholics are the best. All the important people are Catholic. The pope is Catholic. The president is Catholic. My father is Catholic. All the saints are Catholic.