The Fall of Alice K. (14 page)

“You shouldn't come along,” said Mai. “This is family. My grandfather and father are dead, and my uncles and cousins aren't around. I don't expect you to understand this. You stay here. It wouldn't be good for you to be there. You stay.”

“We've got to stop and think,” said Alice. She reached toward the hand that held the dagger. Mai jerked it back. “We've got to call the police.”

“No. I'm going. Now. Before they leave. You stay.”

Mai started toward the front door and Alice followed. She grabbed Mai's shoulders from behind. Mai was stronger than Alice could have guessed, but Alice was stronger than Mai could have guessed. Alice held Mai's shoulders in her grip. The shoulders were like small barbells, but she wasn't squirming to get away. “If you go I go,” said Alice, “but you've got to leave the dagger behind. No cutting. No killing. I'm with you, but no dagger. Please, Mai. Please!”

They stood speechless, locked in their rigidity for several seconds. “All right,” said Mai.

Alice let go, and Mai handed her the dagger. “You can put it back in my bag.”

The dagger was heavier than it looked, but the blade was duller than it looked. Stabbing somebody with this thing would have been like shoving a crowbar into them. Alice dropped the dagger into Mai's handbag, and threw it onto the porch swing. “Come on,” said Alice, “we'll take the 150.”

“One-fifty?”

“You'll see.”

The mood of the 150 had changed when Alice started it up. It didn't feel wild and eager, it felt deliberate and cautious. It had a rescue feature perking through the memory of its cylinders and moved deliberately down the streets as if it were looking for stranded cows. It eased stealthily onto the mini-mall parking lot and into a parking spot.

The 150's rational behavior made its way into Alice. She did not want
the next fifteen minutes to ruin the lives of Mai and herself forever. “There's one way we can win this one,” she said as they pounded the asphalt toward the Perfect Pizza.

“There's no way we can lose,” said Mai.

“Going to jail would be losing.”

“No it wouldn't.”

The image of the three thugs was like an ink stain on the restaurant window. They were obvious, total losers, with their ridiculous posturing and their caps on backwards. The little one probably threw the first punch. He was smaller than Nickson. He'd be the one with the cowboy boots.

The waitress set their pizza down in front of the three as Mai and Alice entered.

“Let's just expose them,” said Alice.

“We'll expose them all right” said Mai and charged in.

“Mai! Think!”

Mai didn't falter in her step. Alice stayed with her and saw a blur of faces—families with kids, young couples, a group of five boys who looked as if they were in some sport together. A fairly big, decent crowd—except for the object of Mai's—and now Alice's—intentions. When they reached their target table, Alice was ready for anything. She kept her hands open. If she was going to hit them, it would be with the heel of her hand. She would also bite. She could feel the urge in her jaw. She would bite until the blood ran down her chin.

Mai stopped two feet from the losers' table. She put her hands on her hips and yelled, “You beat up my brother!”

First came smirky, badass grins, followed quickly by that what-the-hell-is-this look of surprise, followed by desperate help-me-buddy glances at each other, followed by that oh-shit-this-is-bad look of the cowardly losers that they were.

The jury of customers came to a quick verdict. “Did those guys beat up that Hmong kid?” came a steady male voice from somewhere in the background.

The three looked around at the other tables and saw that those around them had already come to a conclusion. None of the onlookers moved to prevent what might happen next, but the cold verdict was
in the eyes of the adults, and the children looked more excited than afraid.

“You,” said Mai in a sharp voice. “Yeah you, shorty. I'm talking to you. You the one who kicked my brother when he was down?” A pissed-off chihuahua confronted a pit bull.

He looked down and started to smile. Big mistake.

Alice had a quick image of the Chinese World Champion Ping-Pong player when she saw Mai's arm come around in a greased-lightning swing. If she were taller, those fast hands would also have been devastating in volleyball. She hit him so fast that it would not have been possible to know how hard the slap was if his cap hadn't left his head as if a firecracker had exploded under it. This was no ordinary energy. This energy was coming from a place and delivering a force that ordinary physics would not be able to explain.

So this is what Coach Rittsema meant by “a demoralizing blow on the first play.”

Neither one of the other two thugs moved after the cap launching.

Now the reaction of the people in the restaurant came out in sighs, “whoas,” and “yeses” that reverberated around them and told the three that the judgment was complete and the verdict announced.

Alice stepped behind the biggest. “How about you? You the one who punched him in the eye?”

At that moment, it wasn't just the image of Nickson and Mai's ancestors that came to her mind—all those men in army uniforms hanging on the Vangs' living room wall—but also all the rational and strong-willed energy of her own ancestors, those silent Dwellers and agitated Seekers. Whatever the confluence of energies that made this a moment of truth, Alice felt no fear for the present or the future. Her hands were not shaking. She could feel the thunking of her pulse in her temples and a swimming determination in her brain.

Alice jammed her thumb down into the soft spot in his collarbone area. His butt slid forward on his chair and his face turned toward the ceiling, his eyes wide and expressionless, making him look as if he had just been hit by a 50,000-watt charge of electricity.

“Good grief,” came a woman's voice from one of the tables. “Somebody better call the police.”

“What's going on?” yelled the voice of management.

“I think everything's going to be all right,” said the kindly voice of a father type as his wife led their children from the restaurant. “I think we've got the situation under control.”

Mai had kept her warrior stance, feet planted firmly apart, her arms at her sides. She was staring at the one Alice had thumbed down. In his slouched position, he watched her right hand, but it was her left hand that flashed from her side. He didn't see it coming. Alice wouldn't have seen it either if his head hadn't jerked suddenly to the side. Mai had hit him high and hard. She was decrowning them.

“Would you like to call the police?” Her voice was a sarcastic snarl. “Shall we call your mommy and tell her about everything that happened tonight?”

The only response he gave was a red-faced look of embarrassment.

There was now only one boy at the table wearing a cap. Mai stood in front of him. He knew what was coming and started raising both hands to protect his face and cap. His eyes were so wide and pathetic he might have been facing a firing squad. Alice stood behind him and hauled back and whacked him so hard that his cap landed on the next table.

“Whoah!” yelled somebody from the assembled.

“This has to stop! Now!” the voice of management yelled.

The capless, red-eared boys were surrounded by what could have turned into a lynch mob, and the three creeps knew it. Alice couldn't resist: she hauled back once more and slapped the face of the biggest one who did not yet look very penitent.

“Say you're sorry,” said Alice. “Say it.”

“Yeah, we're sorry,” he said.

“Not ‘we,' ‘I,'” said Alice. “Say it to her. Tell her you're sorry you beat up her brother.”

“Sorry we beat up your brother.”

“Are you deaf?” said Alice. She raised her right hand from her side. “Not ‘we,' ‘I.'”

“Sorry I beat up your brother.”

“Now the rest of you,” said Alice. “Say ‘I,' not ‘we.'”

“I'm sorry,” said one.

“Sure,” said the other. “I'm sorry. All right?”

“I'll tell my brother you're sorry,” said Mai. “Now get out of here.”

The three staggered to their feet. One reached for his cap.

“Leave the caps,” said Alice.

The three obeyed and walked toward the door with their heads lunging ahead of them as if they were afraid of being hit from behind.

Alice picked up the three caps and stacked them one on top of the other. “Evidence if we ever need it,” she said.

Someone started clapping, and then, like a repeated bad memory, came the grating sound of boys chanting, “Alice K.! Alice K.! Alice K.!”

Everyone in the restaurant was standing.

Outside, the defeated thugs wavered down the street, leaving a trail of black shadows behind them.

“If you're not Dutch, you're not much,” said Mai and gave Alice a high five as they walked out.

“This probably isn't over,” said Alice as she felt a wave of terror making its way through her.

“It never is,” said Mai.

15

It started with her fingers tightening on the steering wheel as she drove back toward the Vangs' house. Claws on a snake. Her shoulders stiffened. A mouth full of ash. She licked her dry lips.

That wasn't me, that wasn't me, that wasn't me, repeated itself in Alice's mind.

The 150 tightened up. In the passenger seat a smiling Mai rubbed her hands together. The 150 stuttered at a stop sign.

A demon was with them. Not fear of the capless boys. Not fear of people talking about them. Scarier than that.

Question: What is your only comfort in life and death?

Alice saw the face of Rev. Prunesma and heard his voice. She knew the answer as well as she knew Psalm 23. Would that Psalm 23 had played through her head instead of the answer: That I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil.

There was more to the answer, but that was enough.

She never thought about what the questions or answers meant when she was fifteen and preparing to make Confession of Faith. Delivered from the power of the devil? She and Mai had been possessed by the power of the devil.

That wasn't me, that wasn't me.

“How are you feeling?”

“Great,” said Mai.

“You don't feel weird?”

“For what?”

“You're right.”

Alice glanced at Mai again. There was nothing on her guilt plate.

“What was Lydia's boyfriend's name again?”

“I forget. Elmer, I think.”

“No, that wasn't it.” Mai tugged at her seat belt and gave a shrug of her shoulders. “He sure is cute. I wonder where he goes to school.”

“Lawn-mower repair school.”

The caps sat between them on the front seat. Limp, pathetic, dead. When the 150 took a corner too sharply, the caps squirmed in their death throes.

Question: How many things are necessary for you to know, that you in this comfort may live and die happily?

Answer: Three; the first, how great my sins and misery are; the second, how I am delivered from all my sins and misery; the third, how I am to be thankful to God for such deliverance.

No thankfulness. No deliverance.

That wasn't me, that wasn't me.

Mai stared at Alice as if she could hear what her head was reciting. “You all right? Those caps freak me out.”

“At least the freaks aren't inside them.”

A heart as black, hard, and cold as the anvil in the toolshed bolted to the two-by-ten bench.

“Maybe not, but their spirits are.”

“I'm going to keep the caps. Trophies. I could stuff them with straw and put them in the garden next spring as scarecrows.”

Words like ice chips.

“I remember. His name was Randy. Where did you get
Elmer?
”

“Just came to me. Out of the dead-letter box, I guess.”

“Is that a local expression?”

“It is now.”

“Something's wrong. I shouldn't have let you come along.”

“I can't understand how you can think about guys right now.”

“I'm trying to think about good ones after those three. Randy looks like a good one, don't you think?”

“He's a real Ken.”

“I'm sure it was Randy.”

Alice passed gas. Mushroom onion hamburger hotdish.

“Okay, keep the caps—if you're all right with that. I don't want to see them again. This chapter is over. Case closed. Turn the page.”

A stench in the cab. Mai stared at the caps.

“They stink.”

The 150 pulled to the curb and shone its lights at the bumper sticker. They sat silently for a moment.

“If you take them home, you might be inviting their bad spirits into your house.”

“They'd have plenty of company.”

“I liked the way you made them say ‘I' instead of ‘we.' You made them
own
it.
Own
it. That was good.”

“As good as it gets,” said Alice.

Mai studied her. “I feel terrible you had to get involved in this.”

“Wouldn't have missed it for anything.”

“Good,” said Mai. “Please come back in the house.”

“I should call my folks. I ran out without telling them where I was going.”