He presses his fiery lips against her forehead. He leaves her room and makes his way down the dim corridor of colorless light.
James is nowhere to be found. Corey Chen is now talking to Mary Wa and Fang. Leo is entertaining Ken Fan and the Chins. Leo is cheerful again, because even Winnie’s grave illness can’t long shake his unwavering self-dedication. Dagou can’t bear to confront his father again. Still, he can’t turn away. There’s a smile playing around Leo’s mouth. He’s saying, “No need to worry about her! She’ll find another job. If she needs help, she only has to come to me and ask!”
Who is he talking about? Is it O-Lan? Is it Lulu? Or is it the only other female employee, could it possibly be—surely, it cannot be—?
Leo turns to him, eyes bright with anticipation and a kind of hunger. “How’s your mother?” he asks. “Is she happy now? After dragging us out here in the middle of the night, just to get a little attention?”
Dagou struggles against the light-headedness of sudden fury. “Shut up,” he manages. “You have no right—”
Leo sniggers. “Look at you. Tears in your eyes!”
“You’re the one who put her here!” His voice shakes. “You couldn’t help tracking your shit into her temple! Even there, you had to torment her!’
“Mama’s boy!” Leo sneers, his face grotesque and knowing.
Something shatters in Dagou’s mind. He lunges at his father, fingers reaching for his windpipe. “You deserve to die! I hate you. I’m going to kill you!”
Leo is pushing back. He’s a strong old man, but Dagou has not been working out for nothing. Dagou brings his father closer, tightens his grip on Leo’s throat. A woman is shouting, giving orders, but Dagou can’t listen. He feels his father’s pulse: hot, human. Leo’s eyes bulge. Then Dagou is jerked away. Someone has him in a headlock. It is Corey. Panting, he tries to fight off the men and nuns who close in upon him, seizing his head, his arms and shoulders. He is forced to let go.
All He Needs Is Money
Here is Dagou Chao, ten minutes later, steering his father’s Ford down the vacant boulevard, away from the hospital, streetlights flashing by. For several blocks, the traffic lights holding green. Catching the edge of yellow, Dagou pulls through an empty intersection, past the Jiffy Lube, the Red Owl, the bright, empty Taco John’s. Only the McDonald’s is open. Dagou tightens his grip on the wheel. At the next light, full red, he screeches to a stop. He makes out, above the engine’s hum, his own ragged gasps of panic. He puts the car into park, lets go of the steering wheel, and hammers his fists upon it, feeling the car bounce softly.
He hears the echo of his own voice: I’m going to kill you! An almost visible miasma slips into the car, an unfurling ribbon of acrid smoke. Darkness presses into him, pushing him against his will toward the dream, that very darkest dream, the source of violence and hope and absolute peace. It’s always there these days, beckoning patiently. In his very worst moments, he has only to open the private chamber of consolation, comfort. He’s descending into the basement of the restaurant. He’s at the bottom of the stairs. His father is there, in the room. Dagou reaches inside.
He stabs blindly at the window switch, gulping in the frigid air that fills the car, clearing away the dream.
Who was Leo talking about, in the hospital? Was he talking about Brenda; is Brenda about to be in some kind of trouble?
At the next red light, Dagou pulls to a stop. The avenue is clear, but the cross street is badly plowed, blocked with pale-blue snow. He thinks with longing of this morning, plowing the parking lot. Nothing but fresh snow and work to be done.
Dagou turns around and drives, more slowly, away from the city. This time the McDonald’s is closed. Near the entrance to the highway is a gas station and convenience store. The parking lot is empty but Dagou can see, in the lit store, a single clerk, a boy. Dagou pulls into the lot.
He walks into the empty store, hushed and humming with refrigeration units. The clerk sees him, pales slightly against the wall of cigarettes, tobacco tins, and liquor.
“A bottle of Jack Daniel’s,” Dagou mutters. “And give me”—he thinks desperately—“twenty Powerball tickets.”
The clerk is older than he appeared from outside. He has a blackbird’s wing of dark hair, empty flesh around his chin, and tiny old craterous acne scars. He brings down the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and scans it.
“Have to ring them up separately,” he whines. “Jack Daniel’s is twenty-four dollars. Powerball tickets three dollars each.”
Dagou gets out his credit card.
“Have to pay for the Powerball in cash.”
The clerk rings up the Jack Daniel’s. Dagou opens his wallet, adding the bills that tumble out. There are two fives, eight ones. He begins digging change out of his pockets. There are three dollars and ninety cents’ worth of quarters and dimes. He recounts the quarters, hands shaking. His entire body is convulsing so violently that he bites his tongue and tastes the tang of blood.
“You don’t got it,” says the clerk, smirking.
Dagou doesn’t answer.
The clerk leans over the counter. “Do. You. Understand. What—”
“Shut up!” Dagou thunders, and slams his fist on the counter. Coins jump. He counts the nickels in his sweaty palm. There are only six. His hands are still shaking as he totals up the pennies. He cleans out both pockets and takes out his wallet to make sure something hasn’t dropped between the cards, folds. Miraculously, a quarter. Then the entire wad of papers shoots out of his hand and spills across the floor. The clerk is reaching under the counter to press a button. Dagou pushes the tickets back at him, grabs the edge of his jacket, scoops up bills, change, receipt into this makeshift pouch, and hurries off.
On his way out of the door, he runs smack into a stocky, older white woman. Change, bills, receipts fly in all directions. Recoiling, he tries to barrel past her, but she stands her ground. “Watch where you’re going!” she says.
“Screw you,” he mutters.
She hisses, “Have some manners, you big—”
“Fuck off!” he shouts, checking her with his left hip. There’s the wheeling sensation of a heavy person losing balance, but he doesn’t care. He takes off running. He reaches the Ford, slams the door, and guns away as fast as he can. As he turns onto the avenue, he catches a glimpse of the woman on the pavement, the clerk emerging from the door. He runs the red light at the intersection, turning left without a pause and then onto the highway, where he takes his place among the other cars, hoping to be invisible. They can’t give chase; they don’t have his license number. He remembers they have his credit card information. He remembers he left the Jack Daniel’s behind.