The diner door opens and shuts. James squints through the sunlight at the newcomer, who approaches his corner, wearing a jacket and a Mao cap. Skaer’s Diner is where no reporters, friends, or even family would go to find James. But beneath the red star and khaki brim, familiar curious dark eyes shine through dirty wire-rimmed glasses. It’s Fang.
Fang removes his cap, comes directly to the booth, and stands there, observing him. James shuts his computer. “I thought I might find you here,” Fang says. “You ready to go to the Spiritual House?”
“No.” James smooths his hair with his fingers. Under his hoodie he’s wearing a white dress shirt. In an hour the community will gather for a memorial to mark the final day of the seventh week after Winnie’s death.
“Let’s walk there together,” Fang says. “I have something to discuss with you.”
Leaving the restaurant, they turn down the adjacent alley in order to keep their journey private. Since the story in USA Today, they’ve had to make an effort to avoid strangers—“literally yellow journalists,” Fang says—camping out in the Holiday Inn, lurking near the restaurant, or attaching themselves to any Asian passerby to ask if they know the Chao family or anything about them. For a few minutes, they don’t speak. In the freedom of the alley, James relaxes in silent companionship, letting his mind wander. During these last months, with the tumult of shock and change, time has shifted. He half expects to see his father, alive once more, striding toward them in the alley, a little rumpled, squinting in the morning sun.
Fang pulls out his cap and puts it back on. “Why’d you go to that awful diner?”
“Privacy, I guess.”
“I’m surprised you’re not driven out by the bad vibes,” Fang says. “But listen, I need to talk to you.”
They reach an intersection with a medium-sized street and James crosses quickly, head down, ducking back into the alley. Fang trots after him.
“Listen, James. Do you remember what Gu Ling Zhu Chi told your dad?”
“You know I don’t understand anything she says. But Dagou told me. I remember.”
“Gu Ling Zhu Chi told him he was in danger of a bad death. What does that mean? A bad death doesn’t stop with the death. It means something in his death is going to be a part of your life. It’s going to play out and become your story.”
Fang’s gaze is dark. Although he and Alice appear hobbled by eccentricity, they’re also emboldened by it. Their mother is an ordinary person, but somewhere within her, or, most likely, within their lost father, there must have been a great capacity for strangeness. Fang doesn’t care what people think. He doesn’t lose track of anything he sees, and he won’t fail to speak up. Ming says Fang is un-American. He has no ability to adapt, forget; and isn’t that what you do in America? Adapt? Forget?
Now Fang says, “Do you remember that racist children’s book, the book about the Chinese brothers?”
The words echo in James’s mind, but only faintly.
“‘Once upon a time,’” Fang intones, singsonging, “‘there were five Chinese brothers and they all looked exactly alike.’”
Now James recalls the image on the cover. Five pigtailed, slit-eyed figures lined up in a row. He’d rather forget it. But he says, “Each of the brothers had a superpower.”
“Each of the brothers was a freak. The first could ‘swallow the sea.’ The second one had an iron neck. The third could stretch his legs like rubber bands. The fourth brother could survive fire. And the fifth could hold his breath for an immeasurable amount of time. Not superpowers, exactly, but distortions. A Western catalogue of dehumanizations. The brothers are interchangeable, yet freaks. And do you remember to what end the freakish powers were deployed? Do you remember, James?”
“No.” James wants, needs, to be left alone, but the only way to end a conversation with Fang is to hear him out. “Tell me.”
From under his cap, Fang holds forth. He describes First Brother, who used his freakish sea-sucking ability to find valuable, exotic fish. Every day, he plundered the ocean, bringing in a living for the family. Then one day a child asked to go with him, begged to be allowed to search the waterless seabed. The First Brother agreed to let him come if he made one crucial promise: that he return to the shore when it was time. The child promised.
When they reached the shore, the First Brother deployed his powers: he swallowed the ocean. “He literally drank the sea,” Fang says. “His head grew, and grew, swelling tightly like an enormous balloon on which his slanted eyes were distorted to tiny slits. With greed and with delight, the child rushed out to search and play upon the rocky bed. While the child ignored his signals to return, the First Brother stood on the shore, suffering, his face turning red, his cheeks bulging with the world of coursing salt water. His head a thousand times its normal size.
“He was a strong guy,” Fang says, “but even he could not hold out. ‘It is very hard to hold in the sea.’ Eventually, he had to give in. The sea gushed back out of his mouth. And the little boy drowned under the waves. Dead.”
“Can’t we talk about this later, Fang?”
“The rest of the book is about the consequences of this unfortunate death,” Fang persists. “And who tries to do the cover-up? The other brothers. Their gifts, talents, their freakish abilities, have existed throughout time for the sole purpose, in this narrative, of avoiding the consequences of the murder.”
James and Fang face each other.
“I know what you’re thinking!” James’s voice rings through the alleyway. “You think Dagou was holding it in. He’s First Brother, and he couldn’t take it anymore. He let his suffering and anger spew forth, and he killed our father. But I don’t believe it! I think the whole thing was an accident and Dagou’s innocent.”
His shouts startle the pigeons roosting above, who flutter up and vanish from view. Fang doesn’t answer. The pigeons circle back.
“What is it?” James asks, more quietly. “What do you want?”
“I’ve got to ask you this,” Fang says. “I know you testified to the police. I’ve read the newspapers and news sites, I read about what you told them. But I’ve been considering every detail. Considering with, let’s say, a view from outside the family, an objective view. I want to understand what happened, independent of what Officer Bucek says is true. Or what the jury decides is true.”
“Maybe the difference between us is that I believe in the process,” James says, folding his arms. “The police and the jury will figure out what happened.”
“My question is this,” Fang says, ignoring him. “When you went downstairs the second time, close to the end of the party, to get more ice. Did you really see the key on the shelf at that time?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You’re going to testify in court.”
“I don’t think I can get out of it.”