Windup Stories (9 page)

Despite his intention to show bravado, Tranh’s words come out as a mousy whisper. “What do you care?”

Ma shrugs, pours whiskey for himself.
 
“I wouldn’t have noticed you in the line, without that suit.” He nods at Tranh’s sweat-damp clothing. “Good idea to dress up. Too far back in line, though.”

Tranh wants to walk away, to ignore the arrogant whelp, but Ma’s leavings of steamed bass and
laap
and U-Tex rice noodles lie tantalizingly close. He thinks he smells pork and can’t help salivating. His gums ache for the idea that he could chew meat again and he wonders if his teeth would accept the awful luxury…
 

Abruptly, Tranh realizes that he has been staring. That he has stood for some time, ogling the scraps of Ma’s meal. And Ma is watching him. Tranh flushes and starts to turn away.

Ma says,
 
“I didn’t buy your watch to spite you, you know.”

Tranh stops short. “Why then?”

Ma’s fingers stray to the gold and diamond bauble, then seem to catch themselves. He reaches for his whiskey glass instead. “I wanted a reminder.” He takes a swallow of liquor and sets the glass back amongst his piled plates with the deliberate care of a drunk. He grins sheepishly. His fingers are again stroking the watch, a guilty furtive movement. “I wanted a reminder. Against ego.”

Tranh spits.
“Fang pi.”

Ma shakes his head vigorously. “No! It’s true.” He pauses. “Anyone can fall. If the Three Prosperities can fall, then I can. I wanted to remember that.”
 
He takes another pull on his whiskey. “You were right to fire me.”

Tranh snorts. “You didn’t think so then.”

“I was angry.
 
I didn’t know that you’d saved my life, then.” He shrugs. “I would never have left Malaya if you hadn’t fired me. I would never have seen the Incident coming. I would have had too much invested in staying.” Abruptly, he pulls himself upright and motions for Tranh to join him. “Come. Have a drink. Have some food. I owe you that much. You saved my life. I’ve repaid you poorly. Sit.”

Tranh turns away. “I don’t despise myself so much.”

“Do you love face so much that you can’t take a man’s food?
 
Don’t be stuck in your bones. I don’t care if you hate me. Just take my food. Curse me later, when your belly is full.”

Tranh tries to control his hunger, to force himself to walk away, but he can’t. He knows men who might have enough face to starve before accepting Ma’s scraps, but he isn’t one of them. A lifetime ago, he might have been. But the humiliations of his new life have taught him much about who he really is. He has no sweet illusions, now. He sits. Ma beams and pushes his half-eaten dishes across the table.

Tranh thinks he must have done something grave in a former life to merit this humiliation, but still he has to fight the urge to bury his hands in the oily food and eat with bare fingers. Finally, the owner of the sidewalk stall brings a pair of chopsticks for the noodles, and fork and spoon for the rest. Noodles and ground pork slide down his throat. He tries to chew but as soon as the food touches his tongue he gulps it down. More food follows. He lifts a plate to his lips, shoveling down the last of Ma’s leavings. Fish and lank coriander and hot thick oil slip down like blessings.

“Good. Good.” Ma waves at the night stall man and a whiskey glass is quickly rinsed and handed to him.

The sharp scent of liquor floats around Ma like an aura as he pours. Tranh’s chest tightens at the scent. Oil coats his chin where he has made a mess in his haste. He wipes his mouth against his arm, watching the amber liquid splash into the glass.
 

Tranh once drank cognac: XO. Imported by his own clippers. Fabulously expensive stuff with its shipping costs.
 
A flavor of the foreign devils from before the Contraction. A ghost from utopian history, reinvigorated by the new Expansion and his own realization that the world was once again growing smaller. With new hull designs and polymer advances, his clipper ships navigated the globe and returned with the stuff of legends. And his Malay buyers were happy to purchase it, whatever their religion. What a profit that had been. He forces down the thought as Ma shoves the glass across to Tranh and then raises his own in toast. It is in the past. It is all in the past.

They drink. The whiskey burns warm in Tranh’s belly, joining the chilies and fish and pork and the hot oil of the fried noodles.

 
“It really is too bad you didn’t get that job.”

Tranh grimaces. “Don’t gloat. Fate has a way of balancing itself. I’ve learned that.”

Ma waves a hand. “I don’t gloat. There are too many of us, that’s the truth. You were ten-thousand-times qualified for that job. For any job.” He takes a sip of his whiskey, peers over its rim at Tranh. “Do you remember when you called me a lazy cockroach?”

Tranh shrugs, he can’t take his eyes off the whiskey bottle. “I called you worse than that.” He waits to see if Ma will refill his cup again. Wondering how rich he is, and how far this largesse will go. Hating that he plays beggar to a boy he once refused to keep as a clerk, and who now lords over him… and who now, in a show of face, pours Tranh’s whiskey to the top, letting it spill over in an amber cascade under the flickering light of the candles.

Ma finishes pouring, stares at the puddle he has created. “Truly the world is turned upside down.
 
The young lord over the old. The Malays pinch out the Chinese. And the foreign devils return to our shores like bloated fish after a
ku-shui
epidemic.” Ma smiles. “You need to keep your ears up, and be aware of opportunities.
 
Not like all those old men out on the sidewalk, waiting for hard labor. Find a new niche. That’s what I did. That’s why I’ve got my job.”

Tranh grimaces. “You came at a more fortuitous time.” He rallies, emboldened by a full belly and the liquor warming his face and limbs. “Anyway, you shouldn’t be too proud. You still stink of mother’s milk as far as I’m concerned, living in the Dung Lord’s tower. You’re only the Lord of Yellow Cards. And what is that, really? You haven’t climbed as high as my ankles, yet, Mr. Big Name.”

Ma’s eyes widen. He laughs. “No. Of course not. Someday, maybe. But I am trying to learn from you.” He smiles slightly and nods at Tranh’s decrepit state. “Everything except this postscript.”

“Is it true there are crank fans on the top floors? That it’s cool up there?”

Ma glances up at the looming highrise. “Yes. Of course. And men with the calories to wind them as well. And they haul water up for us, and men act as ballast on the elevator
—
up and down all day
—
doing favors for the Dung Lord.” He laughs and pours more whiskey, motions Tranh to drink. “You’re right though. It’s nothing, really. A poor palace, truly.

“But it doesn’t matter now. My family moves tomorrow. We have our residence permits. Tomorrow when I get paid again, we’re moving out. No more yellow card for us. No more payoffs to the Dung Lord’s lackeys. No more problems with the white shirts. It’s all set with the Environment Ministry. We turn in our yellow cards and become Thai. We’re going to be immigrants. Not just some invasive species, anymore.” He raises his glass. “It’s why I’m celebrating.”

Tranh scowls. “You must be pleased.” He finishes his drink, sets the tumbler down with a thud. “Just don’t forget that the nail that stands up also gets pounded down.”

Ma shakes his head and grins, his eyes whiskey bright. “Bangkok isn’t Malacca.”

“And Malacca wasn’t Bali. And then they came with their machetes and their spring guns and they stacked our heads in the gutters and sent our bodies and blood down the river to Singapore.”

Ma shrugs. “It’s in the past.” He waves to the man at the wok, calling for more food. “We have to make a home here, now.”
 

“You think you can? You think some white shirt won’t nail your hide to his door? You can’t make them like us. Our luck’s against us, here.”

“Luck? When did Mr. Three Prosperities get so superstitious?”

Ma’s dish arrives, tiny crabs crisp-fried, salted and hot with oil for Ma and Tranh to pick at with chopsticks and crunch between their teeth, each one no bigger than the tip of Tranh’s pinkie. Ma plucks one out and crunches it down. “When did Mr. Three Prosperities get so weak? When you fired me, you said I made my own luck. And now you tell me you don’t have any?” He spits on sidewalk. “I’ve seen windups with more will to survive than you.”

“Fang pi.”

“No! It’s true! There’s a Japanese windup girl in the bars where my boss goes.” Ma leans forward. “She looks like a real woman. And she does disgusting things.” He grins. “Makes your cock hard. But you don’t hear her complaining about luck. Every white shirt in the city would pay to dump her in the methane composters and she’s still up in her highrise, dancing every night, in front of everyone. Her whole soulless body on display.”

“It’s not possible.”

Ma shrugs. “Say so if you like. But I’ve seen her. And she isn’t starving. She takes whatever spit and money come her way, and she survives. It doesn’t matter about the white shirts or the Kingdom edicts
 
or the Japan-haters or the religious fanatics; she’s been dancing for months.”

“How can she survive?”

“Bribes? Maybe some ugly
farang
who wallows in her filth? Who knows? No real girl would do what she does. It makes your heart stop. You forget she’s a windup, when she does those things.” He laughs, then glances at Tranh. “Don’t talk to me about luck. There’s not enough luck in the entire Kingdom to keep her alive this long. And we know it’s not karma that keeps her alive. She has none.”

Tranh shrugs noncommittally and shovels more crabs into his mouth.

Ma grins. “You know I’m right.” He drains his whiskey glass and slams it down on the table. “We make our own luck! Our own fate. There’s a windup in a public bar and I have a job with a rich
farang
who can’t find his ass without my help! Of course I’m right!”
 
He pours more whiskey. “Get over your self-pity, and climb out of your hole. The foreign devils don’t worry about luck or fate, and look how they return to us, like a newly engineered virus! Even the Contraction didn’t stop them. They’re like another invasion of devil cats. But they make their own luck. I’m not even sure if karma exists for them. And if fools like these
farang
can succeed, than we Chinese can’t be kept down for long. Men make their own luck, that’s what you told me when you fired me. You said I’d made my own bad luck and only had myself to blame.”

 
Tranh looks up at Ma. “Maybe I could work at your company.” He grins, trying not to look desperate. “I could make money for your lazy boss.”

Ma’s eyes become hooded. “Ah. That’s difficult. Difficult to say.”

Tranh knows that he should take the polite rejection, that he should shut up. But even as a part of him cringes, his mouth opens again, pressing, pleading. “Maybe you need an assistant? To keep the books? I speak their devil language. I taught it to myself when I traded with them. I could be useful.”

“There is little enough work for me.”

“But if he is as stupid as you say
—
,”

“Stupid, yes. But not such a stupid melon that he wouldn’t notice another body in his office. Our desks are just so far apart.” He makes a motion with his hands. “You think he would not notice some stick coolie man squatting beside his computer treadle?”

“In his factory, then?”

But Ma is already shaking his head. “I would help you if I could. But the megodont unions control the power, and the line inspector unions are closed to
farang,
no offense, and no one will accept that you are a materials scientist.” He shakes his head. “No. There is no way.”

“Any job. As a dung shoveler, even.”
 

But Ma is shaking his head more vigorously now, and Tranh finally manages to control his tongue, to plug this diarrhea of begging. “Never mind. Never mind.” He forces a grin. “I’m sure some work will turn up. I’m not worried.”
 
He takes the bottle of Mekong whiskey and refills Ma’s glass, upending the bottle and finishing the whiskey despite Ma’s
 
protests.

 
Tranh raises his half-empty glass and toasts the young man who has bested him in all ways, before throwing back the last of the alcohol in one swift swallow. Under the table, nearly invisible devil cats brush against his bony legs, waiting for him to leave, hoping that he will be foolish enough to leave scraps.
 

Morning dawns. Tranh wanders the streets, hunting for a breakfast he cannot afford. He threads through market alleys redolent with fish and lank green coriander and bright flares of lemongrass. Durians lie in reeking piles, their spiky skins covered with red blister rust boils. He wonders if he can steal one. Their yellow surfaces are blotched and stained, but their guts are nutritious. He wonders how much blister rust a man can consume before falling into a coma.

“You want? Special deal. Five for five baht. Good, yes?”
  

The woman who screeches at him has no teeth, she smiles with her gums and repeats herself. “Five for five baht.” She speaks Mandarin to him, recognizing him for their common heritage though she had the luck to be born in the Kingdom and he had the misfortune to be set down in Malaya. Chiu Chow Chinese, blessedly protected by her clan and King. Tranh suppresses envy.