Sightseeing (21 page)

“Sorry,” I said quietly, and I really meant it, for I knew I had been unnecessarily cruel. But the look on Noon's face told me that all the apologies in the world wouldn't fix a thing now. “I didn't mean anything by it, Noon,” I continued nonetheless. “I'm just having a bad day. You should've been at my house this morning.”

“Sure,” Noon said. One of the boys on the basketball court called out her name. Noon waved back.

“See you around,” she said suddenly, getting up. “Hey,” I called after her. I didn't want to be left alone. I was afraid Little Jui would see me, confront me again, this time with that Filipino boy beside him. “I said I was sorry, Noon. And you're right. He is kind of cute.”

Noon kicked her bikestand, turned around to face me. “Maybe we can be friends again someday,” she said. “But you have to play nice, Ladda.”

“Noon, I said I was—”

“Whatever,” she said, getting on her bike. “Later.”

I wanted to leap from my seat and tear the ringlets from her scalp. But instead I just watched her bike toward the basketball court, her long hair waving behind her. In front of the teashop, Little Jui was still spinning his yarn for the men; he limped around now in what was an imitation either of Papa's cocks or of Papa himself. The men laughed, which only encouraged Little Jui; he seemed like a toddler pleased by adult approval. I noticed that Ramon had disappeared while Noon and I were talking. I panicked. Because Noon was right—the boy
did
smile at me—and I was afraid that Ramon was approaching me unseen, that he would startle me with a light touch on the shoulder, a whisper in the ear.

I decided to go home. I started biking through the park toward the main road. As I passed the basketball court, I spotted Ramon there, scurrying for a loose ball. The other boys converged upon him while Noon clapped from the sidelines
like an idiot. After a brief struggle, Ramon emerged with the ball. He stood there smiling under the sun, his chest glistening with sweat, the ball nestled in the crook of an arm.

He waved at me.

I looked away, put my head down, pedaled as fast as I could through the park. By the time I got to the main road, I couldn't tell if the heat in my chest was from the biking, from the hot sun, or from the way that foreigner had waved while Noon and the other boys looked in my direction.

X

When I got home, Miss Mayuree was still on the porch with Mama. Two of her men loaded the lingerie boxes into her sleek blue sedan. Mama smiled, nodded blankly. I went to the chicken house to find Papa. He was doing the weekly cleaning. I went inside and helped him change the water pans and sanitize the coops.

While we cleaned, Papa told me he had a new strategy. There was no way his cocks could outfight those Filipino purebreds, he said; that was his mistake. The purebreds were too large, too strong for that. In the Philippines, those chickens guard houses, attack thieves in the night. Dogs feared them. There wasn't a Thai chicken that could outfight a Filipino purebred; any self-respecting cockfighter knew that. The only way to beat one, Papa said, was to own one. But we didn't own
any Filipino purebreds, I reminded Papa. We owned nothing but mongrel hatchlings bought from local farmers, cocks born to crow at the sun and strut around the yard.

“Fear,” he said proudly. “That's the key, Ladda. That's the solution.”

I squinted at him.

Papa told me that cocks know no fear. If they felt their territory was at stake, they'd probably fight a truck. He needed to teach the chickens fear. He needed to teach them how to dodge. If he could get his cocks to bob and weave like nimble boxers from the murderous advances of the Filipino purebreds, they might have a chance. Papa skipped around the chicken house as if to demonstrate the idea. I thought he'd lost his mind.

“C'mon,” he said, whipping his head, fists swinging at his sides. “Hit me.”

“Papa,” I said.

“Hit me,” he said, smiling playfully. “Give it a try. I'll be one of the cocks. You be one of the Filipino purebreds.”

“Papa,” I said again, bending down to scoop a pile of droppings with a dustpan, watching them cascade into the garbage bag. But Papa kept hopping around like some crazy. I stared at him with the garbage bag in one hand. Papa started clucking like a chicken then, put fists to armpits and flapped his elbows, bounding wildly around me. I laughed.

“Hit me, hit me, hit me!” he yelled, laughing too. “Give it your best shot, Ladda. Bok-bok! Bok-bok!”

“You're crazy,” I said. “Wait till I tell Mama about this.”

“C'mon, you Filipino purebred! Give it your best shot!” He reached out with a hand and slapped me jokingly on the side of the head. “Bok-bok! Bok-bok!”

“Papa!”

But Papa just kept on jumping around, reaching out to cuff me again and again. I became exasperated. I suddenly started thinking about the way he'd driven off earlier that day, ignoring my wave, and how he seemed so different now, the same old Papa, like nothing had happened. So I reached out and swung the bag of chicken shit at his face. I trusted Papa to dodge. But the blow hit him squarely on the ear, bursting the bag, chicken shit hailing down all around us.

Papa looked at me stunned. For a second, I was afraid I'd really hurt him. “Nice shot,” he said, grinning sheepishly.

“Let's hope the cocks are faster, Papa,” I said, relieved by his good humor. “I'm no Filipino purebred, you know. I'm no murderous chicken.”

Papa told Mama about the new strategy over dinner. Mama nodded quietly. Miss Mayuree's visits always put Mama in a sour, insular mood. This time, Miss Mayuree had upped the monthly quota to a thousand, though without an increase in pay. Work was scarce; Mama had agreed to the new quota.

“I've had enough,” Mama said, ignoring Papa. “I've had enough of that miserly, harlot widow and her goddamn lingerie.”

“Did you hear what I just said?” Papa asked. “About the chickens?”

“Sure,” Mama replied. “You're teaching your chickens fear.”

“It's genius,” Papa declared.

“Sure,” Mama said again. “You're a genius. But I really don't care if you teach your chickens how to flush a toilet. Because you know what would truly be genius, Wichian? What would truly be genius is if you get us back the eleven thousand on Sunday. This ship is sinking fast.”

XI

I saw Little Jui again the next afternoon. The Range Rover was parked outside the high school. Before I could get to my bike, Dam and Dang stopped me by the barbed-wire fence. “Miss,” Dam said, tapping my shoulder, while his partner stared down at me, gut heaving like some gigantic melon pulsing beneath his shirt. “Come with us.”

“I don't think so,” I said. I tried to walk past them, but Dang nudged me back with a quick hand. “Get your hands off me!” I cried. Some of the students looked in our direction but—seeing Dam and Dang—decided to ignore the scene, resume their after-school chattering.

“No need to make a fuss, miss,” Dam said, raising his pudgy hands as if taking an oath of innocence, and I remembered
then that these two were responsible for the bruises on Papa's face, bruises which were only beginning to heal. “The boss just wants to talk to you,” Dang said. I saw the Range Rover across the street, Little Jui smiling out the back window. Ramon, the Filipino boy, was sitting next to him, staring at me over Little Jui's shoulder.

“Just come with us, miss,” Dam said again. “We don't mean any harm.”

“You assholes,” I said, gritting my teeth. Then, to my own surprise, I spat at them both—one, then the other—thin strings of spittle landing on their shirtfronts. “That's for what you did to my father.”

“Now, there's no need for that,” Dam whispered, grabbing me briskly by the forearm, and my heart leapt, more from the gesture's brutishness than from the pain it inflicted. I tried to pull away. I heard Noon then, recognized her bright, chirpy laughter. I tried to make eye contact, but Noon seemed oblivious, deep in some mating dance: smiling, hands fluttering, body leaning into a boy's smile.

“If you want to be treated like a lady,” Dam hissed, tightening his grip, “start acting like one.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sure.” So I bent down and bit his thick, hairy fingers, his skin taut and salty between my teeth, his thick bones creaking like a plum pit in my jaw. Dam winced and yapped, tried to yank his fingers away. I wished Papa could see me. I wanted to break the skin, feel the warm gush of blood
on my tongue, but Dam managed to pull himself free by yanking at my hair with his other hand. His partner Dang grabbed me by the waist, hoisted me up, and carried me toward the Range Rover. I kicked and screamed, his ropy arms like a noose tightening around my abdomen, Little Jui's smiling face moving closer and closer with every step.

“Hey! Put her down!” a voice called out from behind us.

To my surprise, Dang set me down in the street. Little Jui laughed from the backseat of the Range Rover. Ramon eyed me silently, his mouth a straight thin line. When I turned around, I saw Noon lunging at Dang, pelting his chest with a flurry of impotent slaps. He tried to grab her flailing arms, told her to cut the nonsense. All the other students stopped and looked in our direction now.

The security guard ran toward us from his box outside the high school gate, a hand on his baton. “Is there a problem here?” he asked, looking at Dang, who now had both of Noon's wrists in his hands. The guard said those words sheepishly, like he'd heard them somewhere else, on television perhaps. He was a young, sickly boy known more for his way with the high school girls than his ability to fend off whatever dangers necessitated his presence. He was just another one of the town's many pretenses, especially where the law was concerned.

“Yes, there is,” Noon said impatiently, struggling against Dang's grip. He let her go. Dam stalked up behind me, nursing his hand. I heard him call me a cunt.

“No problem, guy,” Little Jui said from the backseat of the Range Rover. “No problem at all.” Little Jui reached out and waved a red hundred-baht note in the security guard's face. “We were just having some fun, guy. Just horsing around.”

The security guard kept looking back and forth helplessly between the note fanning before him, Little Jui's smile, and me. “Just a bit of fun, guy,” Little Jui said again. He tossed the note at the security guard, the bill flopping in the air before landing at his feet. And all that time I felt Ramon staring at me over Little Jui's shoulder.

“You can go back to your little box now,” Little Jui said. The security guard looked at me. He bent down and picked up the note from the ground. “Take it elsewhere,” he said to Little Jui, tucking the money into his breast pocket. “Go have fun somewhere else.”

“Hey,” I said as the security guard walked away. The students started chattering again. “These people are trying to kidnap me!”

“C'mon, Ladda,” Noon said, reaching for my arm. “Let's get out of here.”

When I looked back, Dang had already started the Range Rover while Dam settled himself into the passenger seat, his face still red with pain. Little Jui leaned out the window and pinched my cheek.

“I'm gonna get you next time,” he said, sucking obscenely at his lips, fingering my chin. “I'm gonna get you good.” Ramon looked at me, brow furrowed in consternation.
“You have no idea about the people you're working for
,
do you,”
I wanted to say to him. I reached out and tried to grab Little Jui's fingers, thinking I might bite again; but Dang had already pulled the car away, Little Jui's laughter fading down the road.

“You okay?” Noon asked as the car disappeared. “Fine,” I said, rubbing my forearm, blood like lava in my veins. “Thanks.”

We picked up our bicycles and walked away from the high school. The bike chains ticked between us as the sun elongated our shadows. I wanted to hug Noon then; I wanted to apologize for being cruel the day before. She had surprised me with her bravery. I wanted to tell Noon how afraid I'd been when that goon picked me up and carried me across the street. How suffocated. How helpless. How—for the first time in my life—truly endangered.

Before we parted ways, I asked Noon if she'd ever heard about Papa's sister.

“Yeah,” she said nonchalantly. “The Slobbering Slut. That's what the men in the teashops used to call her.”

“My God,” I said. “How come you never told me about it?”

“I guess it's one of those things,” Noon said, shrugging.

“I need to get out of this town,” I said.

Noon nodded. “Call me when you figure out how, okay? I'm bored to death with these country boys. Speaking of which, what does Little Jui want from you anyway?”

“I don't know,” I said. “But I swear I'm gonna move his asshole to where his face is.” Noon laughed. “Make sure I'm there when you do that,” she said. She got on her bike, tucked the back of her dress beneath her. “See you around,” she said. “Say hi to your papa for me. Tell him I'll be praying for his chickens this Sunday.”

XII

Teaching chickens fear takes time, and Papa didn't have enough of it that week. So he went that Sunday with only one cock—a weak, colicky creature quarantined out back because it had been plucking its own feathers. The chicken was diseased. Papa knew he would lose, but he needed to send Little Jui a message. Regularity was the message, he said. He wasn't affected by last week's losses was the message. But Mama said, “Here's a better message, Wichian. Don't show up. Find a new hobby. Collect stamps. Raise carp. Exercise. Help me with the lingerie. Do something civilized for once.” But Papa just laughed it off.

He came back that Sunday afternoon carrying the diseased chicken in a bloody plastic bag. Mama looked into the bag and said that if Papa wanted the thing slaughtered, he should've asked her to do it—at least then she'd be able to distinguish breasts from thighs from wings from feet from intestines. At least we'd have a useful chicken, Mama said. Now
all we have is a mess. And when Papa told her over dinner that he'd lost another thousand, Mama said, “Enough is enough, Wichian. Let them win. Little Jui's not out to kill you anymore. He's decided to take all your money.”