A Superior Man Read online

  A sharp crack cut the air. Another. And another.

  “Stop!” yelled a rail hand. “Ow!”

  Wong Jun the stable keeper snapped his whip at the man, who cupped his cock and hopped about, dodging the snake.

  Smack the road and die, I thought.

  “Ten kicking one. Is that fair?” Wong demanded.

  “That cockhead Boss Long owes us,” someone said. “His bookman deducted return passage on each payday. Now they say no such money was ever taken.”

  “This one, he sleeps under Boss Long’s bed.” Wong pointed to me. “He knows nothing.”

  He cracked the whip. The men backed away but vowed to return. “Boss Long can’t hide. The tide drops and rocks emerge.”

  Wong crossed his arms and watched me get up. “Your vile boss ran off, and still you defend him.”

  “If they were just six turds, I would have squashed them flat.”

  He boarded his wagon and snapped the reins. “Your boss cheats them, you beat them, and your boatmen drown them.”

  Wong Jun truly pitied the railway hands, so it was my good fortune that he scorned unfair matches. Last month, unending rains churned the tent site into mud. You could hardly blame the residents for stealing wood from a nearby lumberyard to use as floors. Next morning, the enraged owner sought payment but refused the return of soggy planks. His workers led drunks and rabble rousers into the tent city to stake out battle lines. We had more men but our teeth had fallen out. We knew that if just one redbeard got even slightly bruised, then lines of guns from the naval base would blast out and chop us down. The hooligans needed only a small excuse to set Chinatown on fire. Wong had jumped on a crate and called for peace, offering payment to the lumberman at wholesale prices.

  A cat slinked by, twitching its whiskers. Behind rain-streaked windows, store clerks watched me.

  Screw your mothers, I thought, holding my head high and refusing to limp.

  On the plate glass, gold-leaf words glinted from the light.

  Bow Yuen, Import and Export. Its bank accounts were empty.

  Kwong On Tai, General Merchants, fired all its porters two weeks ago.

  Tai Wo Chong Kee, Dry Goods and Cereals, “donated” its last shipment of rice to the vermin.

  Fook Lee Lung, Provisions and Supplies. Its head clerk went to the mainland to pursue accounts. Waste of time, as well as the steamer fare each way.

  My business had failed too. I hired Native fellows, expert boatmen, to smuggle China men into America, onto empty islands and lonely bays in Washington. My oarsmen became rich overnight. Ticket sales were brisk until swine, redbeard and China men alike, started rival ventures. Two weeks ago, six bodies washed up on a beach near Port Townsend. Four of them had pigtails. It was my bad luck to have sold them passage. The other two were boatmen. Chinatown’s wide-mouth know-alls warned of angry spirits rising to haunt me. But my passengers and I had done an honest trade, so I figured that burning incense and spirit money wasn’t needed.

  Then a week of fierce rain battered the town. Water gushed through the swollen ravine behind Chinatown and blocked our way to the downtown. In the rarely unruly harbour, stiff winds rose up and swept high tides over the piers. It was easy to imagine swollen hands reaching for me from the murky depths. I swallowed my losses and took to the pier some red apples, a simmered hen with head and legs intact, and six bowls of rice plus chopsticks and wine cups. Temple Keeper said four settings were enough, but I ignored him. Why not honour the boatmen too? This wasn’t China; I could do rites any way I wanted. The persistent rain flattened the smoke from the sputtering candles, incense, and spirit money. Then the food offerings were cast into the water. Later that day, the clouds parted and the winds calmed. I slept well, but my business collapsed.

  Wet Water Dog stepped from the teahouse, a cigar at his mouth. I pulled him aside. “When’s the next ship?”

  “Fleeing bad luck, Hok? Aren’t you the one who has no fears?”

  “Shall I go buy elsewhere?”

  “Day after, and then one on Friday.”

  “Which is cheaper?”

  “Friday. But the first boat is bigger. The ride is not so rough.”

  “I’ll see you after I eat.”

  “Why didn’t you get here earlier? I would have treated you to tea.” When he waved his cigar in farewell, I grabbed it and inhaled my first bit of warmth this morning.

  “Come,” I yelled at his broad back. “Your fat stomach has plenty of room.”

  Not only was his trade booming, but he also spent his profits freely. One of the few men in Chinatown whose wife and children lived here, he didn’t need our whores. Wet Water Dog had brought over his Second Lady, a woman of his choice and not his parents’. She was never seen on the streets, but rumour said she was elegant enough for Wet Water Dog to make good money by offering her to the brothel, if he wanted. That was good fortune: to have real choices.

  The loud talk and dish clatter in the teahouse stopped for a moment. I blew cigar smoke into the meaty steam of the kitchen. Then, halfway across the hall, I exhaled at the men crammed at the window. They had dashed outside to watch with eager eyes as soon as those cockhead rail hands started banging at my door. The last public fight involving money and blood featured two whores cursing and clawing over a wealthy gold miner who enjoyed taking two women at once. Everyone in Chinatown had seen that.

  A waiter slammed down a cup and filled it, holding the kettle high above my head, letting the distance cool the hot tea as it traveled down.

  “Don’t see you much these days,” he said.

  The lout had never been friendly, but now he wanted to know all my troubles and explain me to the rabble. I let the marble table-top dull the pain in my hand and fingers. There was dried blood on my nose but no cracks in my skull, only soft craters. Another waiter shuffled by with a tray of leaf-wrapped sticky rice. I raised my hand through an aching shoulder. I could have called out, but that was for low-class men.

  At long last, I was homeward bound. Time to perform a reverse salute: turn my back on Gold Mountain, bend forward, and release a caustic fart. I was no railway worm, trapped here without means to leave. I could go at any time. I wasn’t a child, but men like me deserved coddling and comfort. I pictured Grandmother brewing old-fire soups to renew my strength, weaving sandals that fit me snugly, and scraping wax from my ears. She would thank the ancestors for my safe return and make sweet and salty puddings and dumplings for the altar. Villagers with clumsy excuses to visit would be greeted by my grandparents, fretting and ill-at-ease due to the rareness of guests. People would finally show my family some respect.

  My thoughts were interrupted when a Native woman in a long skirt came to my table to beg, a child in tow. I shook my head and cursed the slipshod cashier who let them in.

  “Yang Hok.” A familiar voice spoke the right tones. Then, in Chinook: “I am Mary.”

  I was on my feet.

  My lips were moving but no words came out.

  Yes, I recalled her. But why was she here?

  She needed no invitation to sit and call for tea. The waiter grinned and gave me a knowing look. I nodded, trying to assert myself.

  No doubt the fox wanted money. She would get none.

  If only I had twisted away, declared “no” to my name, and shouted “no” to her. Then I would be soaring and cawing like a cocky crow. I should have shoved them aside and let the cashier evict them with his broom. Diners were watching, ears perked, awaiting my next round of shame.

  Screw their mothers. They’d get no pleasure from me.

  Bones jutted from Mary’s taut, thin skin. Her face had lost much flesh. I hardened my heart. Her tattered shawl reeked of animal grease and wood smoke as she moved closer. I fought the urge to back off. Sipping hot tea with a toothy smile, she mentioned a brother-in-law bringing her from the mainland, a hardworking husband at home, and a third child on the way. She turned sideways to show me the bulge under her skirt. When I stayed quiet, she spoke of rais
ing cattle during a dry summer.

  I slid my food over. The rough under-edge of the plate grated against the marble.

  She sniffed it and fed the boy, who grinned and swung his bare feet.

  “Your son?” These were my first words, which I regretted.

  “Your son.” She pointed at me. “Peter.”

  She urged him to say the Chinese words for father, but he refused.

  I shook my head.

  No.

  Was it possible?

  How could I be sure?

  She had said nothing to me three years ago. Now I wouldn’t trust her even if she was the god that I prayed to. Of course the boy looked Chinese. Our two races shared black hair, small noses, and colour of skin and eyes. But she could have spread her legs for any number of China men, dogs in heat chasing Native women. I was just a handy basket for dumping the brat. The fox had likely heard about my steady job. But there would be no distracting me, no matter who the father had been. I was going home to get married. My children would be Chinese, not mix-blood.

  “Want money?” I asked.

  She nodded. “No food at home.”

  “Give you tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Lytton.” And in her language, “Kumsheen.”

  “At the two rivers?”

  I only knew about the Chinese temple in that railway town and the two great rivers flowing into each other, one blue and clear, the other milky and muddy. A know-all once proclaimed, “When you see those two rivers, you will know the soul of this land.”

  I waved to the waiter. While my guests stuffed their mouths, I could leap up and run. The eager diners could rush off to blab inflated versions of my panic. I didn’t care: this bowl of water had been spilled already. In the end, all these men would stand side by side to champion me, even though they would never defend me aloud. The right thing to do was to take home all earnings. Nothing was more important than one’s family. No Native woman should scoff at a China man. That demeaned our homeland.

  “Trouble?” asked Mary. “Those men, they beat you.”

  The boy slurped oily juice from the saucers. When Mary told him to take rice, he gripped the spoon in a baby fist. No proof of me showed on the boy’s face, so Mary couldn’t plead her case by pointing to my forehead. Lucky me, I had no striking features, just faint eyebrows, even eyes, and a flat nose. The boy’s teeth were white and solid; mine were piss yellow. People at home said Younger Brother was better-looking, so the two of us never got along. They said to him, “You’re so handsome, you don’t need a mirror.”

  Trying to learn how the fox had tracked me down would only waste my time. Native traders always passed through Victoria’s Chinatown, where many people spoke Chinook. Finding me would have been easy. I cursed Heaven for choosing to help her. A few more days and I would have flown the coop. She must have noticed the great retreat of rail hands in the canyon and thought the boy too could go to China. Three years ago, she had vanished without a word. I went to call on her, but the engineer’s missus had slammed the door in my face.

  The boy was squeezing his crotch with both hands.

  Mary pointed to the side door. “Hole?”

  A chance to run. Not to Boss Long’s; no doubt Mary had shrewdly tailed me for a while. In our days together, as soon as I mentioned the head, she smiled and knew the tail. She had also been learning to read English. Uncle See could hide me; she would search Chinatown in vain.

  A teahouse customer stopped the mother and boy. “Someone squats there.”

  The boy moaned and hopped from foot to foot. Mary frowned.

  “I buy clothes for you,” I said.

  She nodded and danced the boy to the outhouse. I ran to the cashier, paid, and bolted.

  All my money was marked for China. It was clear as rainwater in a barrel: I needed to buy gifts, after bragging too much to Grandfather about my success in hawking boat tickets. My years away had let ugly rumours fester in the village. Only lavish gifts and loud talk could restore the family honour. Cascades of shiny copper coins, scattered like fistfuls of chicken feed, would brighten Grandmother’s lifelong gloom.

  Heading to Uncle See’s store, I cursed Mary. How dare she suddenly appear like this? I needed to dig up my caches of money and go demand payment of debts. Some borrowers would show a short memory while mine proved very long. Yes, I would prop my feet on the table and gloat over friends snared in Gold Mountain shit. I debated seeing Rainbow one last time, as well as the strutting need to buy her a farewell gift. If only I had fled the teahouse as soon as Mary had appeared. She wasn’t the first woman to come chasing after the father of her child. At those times, even I had joined the lively taunting.

  “Go wed a long-sighted girl. She won’t see the boy’s face.”

  “Let the mix-blood one grow a pigtail and learn Chinese. But will he eat stinky tofu?”

  “Falling leaves land on the roots.”

  After the railway, I had gone to a town where redbeard and Native women sold their bodies to men. Not Mary. She kept house for a railway engineer and his family in a neat little cottage. Her hands got callused from chopping wood and washing clothes. Her employer, an oddly thoughtful fellow, told her to take the household linens to the laundry. The first time she lit up the dowdy wash-house, my boss had caught me eyeing her and warned me not to meddle.

  On reaching Uncle See’s, I slumped into a dark corner of the loft and fumbled under the cot for his opium pipes. The lamp was easy to light, but my hand shook while mounting the sticky black drug. Finally I stretched out, raised myself on one arm, and set the pipe over the lamp. Sweet fumes floated me into dreams and scenes where each moment was pleasing. The pain and shame from the vermin’s beating and kicking eased as my mind and face loosened.

  I’m with Mary, on a Sunday morning while her boss’s family attends church. She puts away a huge breakfast to be re-served as the midday meal. I nibble at smoked fish and fried meats, kidneys, and pork chops. Eyeing the cutlery on the white cloth, I ponder which piece to steal.

  We enter her tiny room and close the door. She giggles at the speed at which I strip off my clothes, the thrust of my eagerness. My lips press her ears and neck. She flings a ruffled underskirt at me and flees. I chase her, my cock a flagpole. Laughing, she dashes to the dining room and keeps me at bay across the table. She dodges each time I dart to one side. We knock over a chair. In the big bedroom, we land on the bed’s satiny covers. We stand and stare at the mirror. We’re brother and sister with our tan skin and dark hair. We’re man and wife, mulling over our bridal bed and the number of children yet to spill forth.

  We hear the front door slam and then the voices of the engineer and his wife. They’re bickering. We rush to Mary’s room. I duck under the bed, and she leaps into the blankets. The lady of the house comes to summon her. I poke out my head to watch Mary dress. After a while, I leave by the back door when the family is busy eating. On my next visit, Mary pulls me under her bed onto a blanket. Our bodies twist on the hard floor.

  Dusk was falling when I went down to Uncle See’s storefront. The cat scampered away from me, mewling. The boarders loitered on the sidewalk, bent over water pipes and pails of bubbling water. Boxes of vegetables were laid out for men returning from farms and brickyards. A stray dog crept close to the entrance.

  “Yang Hok!” someone called. “Where did you run to? Your landlord nailed planks over every door and window at your place.”

  “I return to China.” I basked in the murmurs of envy.

  “Taking your son?” The waiter from the teahouse lurked in the shadows. He thrust the boy forward.

  “What’s he doing here?” I demanded.

  “The woman pushed him at me. She said one word, ‘China,’ then she ran. She must have told the boy that more food was coming because he didn’t follow her.”

  “You didn’t stop her?”

  “She was weeping in a loud voice.”

  I gra
bbed his collar. “You idiot, I’ll make you weep.”

  The next day, late in the afternoon, I went to the fancy headquarters of the Chinese Council, ruled by the slick talk of our merchant princes. Last year, they finally addressed the frightful mess of our streets. Hatchet-men chased runaway whores and threatened decent folk who sheltered them. Pickpockets plagued the game halls. Storekeepers fended off burglars. Every ship from China landed bumpkins with feet dancing in the clouds. They fell for oily words promising jobs and leads. Soon they were begging on street corners. Ancient grudges got settled with knives and guns in dark alleys. Worried travellers bypassed Victoria or cut short their stays. That dropping trade panicked the merchant princes.

  They formed the Council to deal with shady China men and foreign bullies. The Council paid rewards for catching killers and quashed petty feuds. It bailed out the wrongly jailed and hired lawyers. Council preened itself like an actor singing the virgin’s role as the redbeard police visited Chinatown less often. But this good work devoured stacks of cash. Council then levied a fee of two dollars on every China man, payable upon his boarding a homebound ship, the moment when he was most likely to have cash on hand. Taking money from hardened sojourners was trickier than extracting their diseased teeth, so the Council sent burly guards to the docks. Every man had to show a receipt for two dollars before being allowed to board. No receipt, no departure.

  The Council managed its affairs from Tai Yuen, a general store with branches on the mainland. The grand old firm didn’t bother with street trade, so its storefront was a stately parlour with brushwork scrolls on the walls. Rosewood chairs and tables, carved and gleaming, replaced bins and barrels. All was for show, because the tycoons met at teahouses and sealed deals there.

  I joined the straggling lineup at Tai Yuen to pay my two dollars.

  “My money is my blood,” one man said. “Who needs Council?”

  “I asked the police about this extortion. They call this a Chinatown matter.”