Sightseeing (19 page)

He looked at me. Then he went back to sharpening a spur, the blade glinting as he wiped it back and forth across
the whetstone plane. We sat silently for a while. I watched our shadows dance on the mud walls. Outside, the strays started in on their howling.

“Well,” Papa said, sliding the spurs into their vellum sheaths. “You might be right, Ladda. It might not be worth it.” He put out the cigarette on the soles of his slippers, stowed the spurs into the case Mama had sewed for him years ago. “But,” he continued, “living in fear wouldn't be worth it either.”

“Papa—”

“It's a scary world, Ladda,” Papa said, smiling at me, clicking the case shut. “This isn't a matter of honor, Ladda. It isn't even about standing up to Little Jui and his kind. It's about choosing whether you're going to let the world run you ragged and scared or whether you're going to say to the world: ‘Hey, World. Hey, asshole. Yeah, you. That's right, I'm talking to you. I know you're scary but you know what, World? I refuse to run. I refuse to let you push me around. I, Wichian, am staying right where I am.'”

I couldn't help but laugh then, imagining Papa confronting a giant cartoon globe with stubby little legs. My father joined in. We sat there laughing in that chicken house for a bit. I got up, brushed the straw from the seat of my pants. “Hey,” he said. “When did you start wearing a bra?”

“What's with you people?” I said exasperatedly, walking toward the door. “Leave me alone.”

VI

So Papa went back to the pit. That Sunday afternoon, while he was away, Mama and I sat on the porch sewing the last of the month's quota, packing the bras into cardboard shipping boxes. Miss Mayuree, the company's representative, was coming to pick up the bras the next day. We worked silently, furiously, the sun arcing slowly across the sky. Mama didn't say much. She was worried about Papa. She jolted a little every time a car engine could be heard rumbling down the road. I tried to make small talk. I told her stories about high school: the drunken math teacher, the schoolyard courtships, the latest rumors and intrigues. I even ventured a few jokes about the leather-tasseled novelty models we'd made, but Mama smiled at me as if to say,
Thanks for the effort, little daughter, but let's just finish these bras. Let's hope your father makes it home tonight.

The sun began to set. Mama was worried now. She furrowed her brow. She shook her legs involuntarily. She went into the house and came out with Papa's flask of Mekong. Mama drank when she was nervous. She poured a generous dram into the tumbler. She took a few sips and settled onto the porch floor beside me, stuffing bras into plastic bags while I sorted the models and put them in their appropriate boxes. She offered me the tumbler and I, too, took a few sips even though I hated the way the fiery liquid burned.

“I can't stand this,” Mama said, swirling the whiskey in its tumbler, looking down the road again.

“Soon, Mama,” I said, the whiskey hot and heavy in my stomach. “Don't worry. He's probably having a good day. He's probably winning.”

“I don't care about that,” Mama said. I didn't know what to say, so I just kept on stacking the bras into their boxes.

“I'll tell you a story,” Mama said suddenly, filling the tumbler once more. “Listen up,” she said. “Your father had a sister once.”

I stopped working, looked at my mother.

“You didn't know that, did you?” She raised her eyebrows conspiratorially. “Well, I suppose there'd be no reason for you to know. Nobody likes to talk about it anymore, not even the ninnies in town.

“This sister,” Mama continued. “She was a little slow, if you know what I mean. She was older than your father, too—about thirty, by the time I met her. Your father would come home from the high school and take her into town every afternoon. He'd buy her a bag of iced tea and they'd sit together on one of the park benches playing imaginary games. They'd laugh and guffaw like children. When I first met your father, I thought it was cute how he took care of his sister, even though the other boys made fun of him, kept calling her a tard to his face. But your father paid them no mind. She was his sister. There was nobody else to care for her, with your grandparents being the lunatics they were.

“Your father was different in those days,” Mama said, staring blankly into the tumbler. “He wanted to be a pilot—did
you know that? He wanted to fly planes. I'd sit with him in the schoolyard during lunch and he wouldn't shut up about jets and flight controls and horsepower. Your father was going to be the Thai Charles Lindbergh. That's what he liked to say. We were going to move to Bangkok. He was going to fly me across the Pacific.” Mama chuckled at the idea, swallowed another sip of whiskey. “So when your father went to officer school in Bangkok, there was nobody to take care of his sister.”

An engine echoed down the road. Mama stood up to see if it might be Papa. But it was just a farmer puttering by in his tractor. She sat back down on the porch and we watched the tractor's dim shadow moving by the house like some enormous barge inching down a dark river.

“So what happened, Mama?”

“Awful things,” Mama said, shaking her head. “Unspeakable things. She started hanging around the teashops. The men thought it was funny at first. They'd make her sing and dance in her unfortunate ways for small change. And she'd be happy about it, too. She didn't know better. I tried to talk to the men. I told them to leave her alone. But it was already too late. The girl was convinced she'd made some new friends.

“Little Jui's father was one of those men. We call him Big Jui now, but back then he was Little Jui as well. He was just a teenager. He started the whole despicable business. One thing led to another. Soon, she wasn't just singing and dancing anymore. I once walked by the teashop and saw your father's sister down on all fours. All the men laughed while
Big Jui sat there patting her head. It made me want to scream.”

“My God.”

“I didn't have the heart to write to your father about it; I didn't want him to worry over something he couldn't change. So I tried to talk to your grandparents. I came to this very house,” Mama said, gesturing with a half-nod around us. “I stood on this porch and told them what the men were doing to their daughter. But your grandmother just called me a slut and told me to mind my own business. You should count your blessings you never got to meet your grandparents, Ladda. Those people were savages.”

It was dark now. As my mother talked, I'd managed to pack the rest of the bras without even realizing it. Mama hung her legs over the porch, poured herself another dram. I joined her there and we both looked down the road, waiting for Papa's Mazda.

“Done,” I said softly. “The bras are ready to go.”

“Good.”

“Papa should be home soon,” I said. Mama took another sip of her whiskey, stared out into the rubber trees, and it was as if there, in that grove of tall, spindly trunks, was the picture of the past she'd just been conjuring.

“So what happened to Papa's sister?”

“One of the men in the teashop was a doctor,” Mama said. “He told Big Jui that—given the way she was—your father's sister was probably sterile.”

“No.”

“If there's one thing you should know by now, Ladda, it's that men are monsters,” Mama said. “They have no decency. The best a woman can do is learn to tolerate one barbaric thing to the next.”

Mama looked at me, paused to pour another dram. She held out the tumbler and I took a few more sips before passing it back to her. “Anyhow,” she continued, “your father came home for the summer. A week later, he saw his sister and Big Jui in one of the town alleys. He tried to attack Big Jui, but his witless sister just kept on wailing and grunting, telling your father that Big Jui was her man now. They were in love, she said. They were going to get married. Your father tried to drag his sister away, but she refused to leave Big Jui's side. She slapped him. Big Jui started laughing then. Your father told me later it was like hearing the devil's laughter.

“Your father went home, got his father's gun, and started walking back into town, hell-bent on killing Big Jui. His mother tried to talk him out of it, but your father wouldn't listen. She called to tell me and I went biking around town looking for him. I found your father on the main road, halfway to town. He was crying, cradling his father's shotgun like it was a baby. And that,” Mama said, turning to look at me severely, “was the only time I've ever seen your father cry.

“He never went back to officer school. He shut himself up in this house. He refused to go into town. That's when he started cockfighting. I rarely saw him those first few months,
but I'd see his sister walking around town. She no longer went home. She slept in the park. She was long gone by then. She followed Big Jui wherever he went, cooing and sidling up to him. He started avoiding her and soon she moved on to the other men, tried to fondle them on the street in broad daylight, though people said you could still hear her wailing outside Big Jui's window every night. Later that year, she was found dead of malnutrition on one of the park benches.”

Mama got up, teetering a bit, and started walking back to the house to put the whiskey away. As she stood in the doorway, holding the tumbler and the flask, she turned to me and said:

“I suppose she was your aunt, Ladda. I guess that's why I'm telling you all this. I don't know what difference it makes, though. I hadn't thought about that girl for so long, but I've thought about her a lot lately. Can't help but wonder if this cockfighting thing has something to do with her. Even if your father refuses to admit it. Even if nobody likes to remember her now.”

Then Mama went inside the house. I heard her fumbling in the kitchen, the water hissing in the sink, the tumbler clanking against the porcelain basin. I watched the fireflies for a little while. I listened to the strays. Fruit bats circled above the yard. I thought about what my mother had just told me, tried to picture this aunt of mine and her witless love for Big Jui. I got up, put the boxes in order, stacked them neatly against the wall. Just then, far down the road, I saw the Mazda's head-lights
veer around the bend. For a few seconds, those golden shafts of light cutting through the dark filled me with relief and astonishment, even as I began to feel sick with anguish. And so I yelled out to my mother to say Papa was finally home.

VII

We stood on the porch and watched the Mazda ease into the driveway. Papa's shadow emerged from the car. “See?” he said. “Nothing to be afraid of, Saiya. I'm safe. I'm home.” He walked back to the flatbed to gather up the coops. All was fine, far as we could tell. I went to help him. But as I got closer, I noticed Papa staring pensively into the flatbed. Something was wrong. “Hey,” Papa said, turning to smile at me. “Did you guys finish the bras?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” he replied absentmindedly, staring back into the flatbed.

When I got to the truck, Papa put an arm around my shoulder. I smelled it before I saw anything: chicken blood, sweet and sick and unmistakable. I peered over the edge of the truck and there, in the pit of the flatbed, I saw a mound of dead cocks—a messy heap of feathers and innards and mangled wings piled high against the cab. They seemed like the singular body of some monstrous creature devastated beyond repair. Dull rivulets of blood carved their way along the flatbed. Some of the chickens, I noticed, were still alive; something in the
mound twitched sporadically. I felt then as if that pile of carcasses was winking at me. I wanted to run away. I wanted to go back to my mother on the porch. But I just stood there bewitched by that convulsing half-dead pile. Papa tightened his grip around my shoulder. I wanted to return the embrace even as I longed to strike him with all my might, for I felt like Papa was forcing me now with his firm, insistent hold to look at the carnage.

“I'm sorry, Papa” was all I managed to say. “Sometimes you win,” he said, letting go of my shoulder, bending down to pick up the surviving chickens. “And sometimes you lose.”

“Wichian,” Mama said grimly, walking toward us. “What happened?” But Papa just picked up the coops and walked toward the chicken house, the surviving cocks shuffling clumsily in their wicker coops. “Hey, cockfighter,” Mama called after him, “what the hell do we do with the dead ones?” But Papa had already disappeared into the chicken house and we wouldn't see him again until morning.

Mama saved one for the next day's breakfast, the plumpest she could find, a creature I recognized by its plumage as Saksri Bualoi. She picked up Saksri's body, deposited it on the porch steps, the cock's head swinging by a thin tether of flesh. Saksri was named after the welterweight champion of the world at the time, a boy who grew up in a nearby town—the only Thai world champion of anything, according to Mama. We'd been watching the real Saksri Bualoi pummel a fat Russian challenger on television years ago when Papa said that if chickens
had a left hook, the new hatchling he'd just bought was just like Saksri Bualoi, and that's how the cock got its name. But Saksri Bualoi would not be fighting anymore. He would be going into our breakfast now.

We carried the rest of the carcasses to the ditch marking our property. As I carried one, I felt its bloody, slithery neck wriggling in my hand, heard the thing purr like a frightened kitten. I quickly dropped it to the ground and—panicking—kicked it. The cock's body skipped across the yard like a football. Then, to my horror, the chicken got on its feet and ran a few short paces before collapsing dead once and for all.

“It's still got a little juice!” Mama said, laughing. “Don't be scared, Ladda. It can't hurt you now.”

But I didn't want to touch it anymore. All I could do was nudge the carcass with my foot, flipping it across the yard, making slow and cautious progress toward the ditch, expecting the thing to get up and run around again. In the distance, I saw Mama toss a couple of carcasses like they were small, feathery sacks of garbage, their bodies thudding in the ditch.