Читать книгу Dukkha Reverb - Loren W. Christensen - Страница 8

CHAPTER ONE

I’m sitting at a table with Samuel and Mai. We’re all slurping noodles from our bowls of phở. I somehow know we’re in a restaurant although everything beyond us is in complete darkness. Mai smiles at me with those heart-stopping, almond-shaped eyes, then giggles at my clumsiness with the chopsticks.

“You know, Son,” Samuel says, around a chunk of meat, “use that spoon with your chopsticks and you won’t drop so many noodles on the table.”

I start to snicker at his tease, but a burst of laughter from the next table over stops me. The next table? We were the only table a second ago…

Oh no. No!

“Surprise!” the acne-faced tweaker says. Blood is leaking from a bullet hole just below his nose. “Bet you didn’t expect to see us here and eating this shit, did you, detective?”

“Vieeeeet-nameeeese fooood,” the skinny naked man says in a syrupy voice. He stirs his fingers in his broth. He’s got a bleeding hole in his face. “Do Vieeet-nameeeese people call it Vieeeet-nameeeese food?” His laugh is wet, ugly.

Next to him, little Jimmy slams down his chopsticks in frustration. Blood oozes from a hole in his chest. “Can we go get a Happy Meal, pleeeease?”

Mai and Samuel continue to eat. Can’t they hear or see the graveyard customers?

No, they can’t. Only I can see them. Well, I’m not going to look at the dead ones again, no way. I try to look away, but they are always there, and they’re looking back at me.

Their eyes… my God, the eyes in each pale face are gone, and they stare at me from empty hollows.

Accusing me.

“Of ruining our daaaay,” says the naked man.

“What?”

“We’re accuuuuusing you of ruuuining our day, Deeeetective.”

“Happy meal!” the little boy blurts impatiently. “I—want—a—happy—meal.”

The tweaker laughs at the boy.

“Pain in the asssss,” the naked man hisses, nodding his head at the boy. “I was going to kill the little shit, youuuu know. But you beeeeat me to it.”

“It was an accident,” I shout. “You know that.” I look at Mai and Samuel for help, but they just keep shoveling long noodles into their mouths. Samuel looks up, smiles, and jabs his chopsticks at my spoon.

“You beeeeat”—the naked man’s awful voice forces me to look at him—“me to iiiit.”

“No!” I shout, looking from face to pale face.

“You beeeeat me to iiiit.”

“No!” I look at Samuel. “Father, help me.” He looks up, a long noodle dangling from his closed mouth. He bobs his eyebrows and sucks it up until it disappears.

“You beeeeat me to iiiit.” I jerk my head back to the naked man.

“Sir?” I look over at Mai. Her eyes look into mine, but not the way she did the last time I held her. “Sir?”

Why is she calling me that?

“Sir?”

“Sir?”

Hand on my arm. Shaking me. “Wha… What?” I open my eyes and look into a pair of incredibly blue ones. It’s the blond flight attendant who greeted me as I boarded the plane. She’s kneeling beside me.

“I’m sorry to wake you, sir, but you were having a bad dream. You were shouting something. About noodles, I think.” She smiles at that.

I blink into reality and scoot up in my seat. “Sorry. Pizza gives me nightmares.” I haven’t eaten pizza, and it doesn’t give me nightmares, but I have to tell her something. “Maybe I should have had noodles.” She smiles again. “Are we up yet?” I ask, still disoriented.

“Not yet.” She pats my arm and stands. “There will be a short wait so passengers from a late Orange County flight can join us. It shouldn’t be too long. You going to Vietnam or Seattle?”

“Vietnam.”

“Enjoy your trip. It’s a long one.” She smiles again and moves up the aisle.

A middle-aged Asian woman across the aisle is looking at me through thick glasses, the corners of her mouth turned down. Must not have liked my yelling about noodles. “Sorry,” I say with a shrug. She looks back at her magazine and, for just a heart-stopping moment, the way she turned her head… she looked like Jimmy’s mother.

I wish now I hadn’t been in such a rush to get on board. The moment the flight attendant announced rows twenty-five through fifteen, I ran like an escaping felon toward the door, my airplane ticket gripped tightly in my extended hand as if it were the key to my freedom, which in a way it is. After I settled into my seat and the last few stragglers had found theirs, there were still two empties next to me. The last thing I remember thinking was that if they remained empty for the entire flight, I could sprawl my six-foot, two hundred-pound self across the three seats and maybe get the sleep that has eluded me for so long. As the tension of the last few weeks began to ooze out of my body, I zonked off into dreamland—it turned into nightmare land—that same one.

I look at the seats again. If my not-so-good luck continues, the late-arriving Californians are going to sit right here, gypsies with a screaming baby, one trained to pick pockets.

Damn, it’s hot in here. Tarzan jungle hot. I vote we leave without the Californians. We need some air in the plane.

I slip out of my light jacket and stuff it under the seat in front of me. Why does a plane have to be flying for the air conditioner to work? I close my eyes and lean my head against the window. Tired. So anxious about this trip that I haven’t slept much in the last couple of weeks, and not at all in the last two nights. Hope it’s because I’m anxious about the journey and not because of what Doc Kari talked about in our last session. She said that my poor sleep is likely part of my PTSD: fear of the dark. Not the dark in the room; the dark behind my eyes.

For a few weeks after… after it happened, I didn’t sleep at all; I just ran around on frayed nerves and Starbucks. Then I had a period where I’d sleep like I’d been knocked out, like the time I got cold cocked by that muay Thai fighter in LA. I’d wake up after a dozen hours and feel worse than before I went to sleep. Sweaty too. Sweaty and cold. That lasted a couple of weeks and then my sleep pattern was hit and miss, mostly miss.

I cross my arms and adjust my head a little against the window. Two orange-vested guys down on the tarmac are leaning against a white pickup and sipping from coffee mugs. They’re laughing about something, probably the fact that we’re all baking in here. Baking like biscuits. The plane’s vibration on the side of my head is soothing, like the sounds inside of a mother’s womb, a mom weighing about eight hundred thousand pounds, or how ever much it is.

I take a deep breath and slowly let it out. Contrary to what Doc Kari said, at the moment I’m enjoying the darkness behind my eyes, the sense of being alone, no one judging me, no one persecuting me, no one wishing me dead.

“Be in the moment,” Samuel said the two times we meditated together when he was in Portland. “Just follow your breath.”

I squirm a little deeper into the seat. Breathe in, hold it, breathe out, hold it… breathe in, hold it… breathe out… Getting sleepy in this… heat. I’m really liking the hum against my head. Better… than a sleeping pill. Just… got to… figure out how to get a… seven-forty-seven into my… bedroom. In… out… in…

“Hi.”

I jerk toward the voice. A boy, sitting next to me, Asian— Vietnamese, I think. Maybe fourteen or fifteen.

“Sorry,” he says, looking like he means it. “Your eyes were open. I thought you saw me sit down.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. No problem,” I say, shaking my head to awaken for the second time since I’ve been on board. Weird. I was following my breath and I must have dozed again. With my eyes open? Okay, could I get any more strange? At least this time I didn’t dream. That’s a plus.

I start to think about the dream. I’ve been having it, or variations there of, almost every night for the last two weeks. Even worse, sometimes I dream it when I’m awake. I quickly push it out of mind, most of it. I can still hear the naked man’s slimy voice. You beeeeat me to iiiit. You beeeeat me to iiiit. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment and think of a lake near Mt Hood, Trillium Lake. Fifty some miles out of Portland, Oregon. Gorgeous blue, reflecting the snow-capped mountain on a windless day.

There, that’s better. My mind’s good now, good to go.

“No problem,” I say turning to the boy. Did I already say that? “Oh, we’re finally taxiing. You must be the guy who kept us waiting. The California guy. Just one of you?”

“Yes. My plane was a little late,” he says seriously. “I’m embarrassed to have held up this flight.”

He’s not a gypsy. Ooorah! Nice looking kid. Polite. A little somber, though. “Well, there were passengers chanting ‘Kill the California guy.’”

“Reeeeally?” His eyes widen.

“No. Not really.” I give him a blank face.

He bunches his eyebrows and looks at me for a moment, then sputters a laugh. “Oh, okay, so that’s how it’s going to be.”

“Sorry,” I say, smiling.

We’re silent for a few minutes while the plane noisily takes off. The kid has a mop of raven black hair falling down his forehead, dressed in a red T-shirt with “Westminster, California” in black bubble letters across the front, and gray cargo shorts. On his lap, black ear plugs, the cord running into a big pocket on his thigh. After spending an intense week a while back with several Vietnamese who spoke broken English, it’s a tad strange to hear the boy speak without an accent. No doubt he’s second or third generation, so of course he wouldn’t have one. It’s still strange.

Once we’re airborne, the kid continues where we left off. “People say I’m too gullible. Guess I am.” He extends his hand. “Bobby Phan. You are?”

I resist smiling as we shake. Kid’s got the demeanor of a confident twenty-five-year-old, though he can’t be much over twelve, fourteen at the most. He’s Vietnamese for sure. I had a Vietnamese student named Phan, a lawyer. Made it to brown belt before he took a job with a higher paying firm in Seattle.

“Sam Reeves. Nice to meet you, Bobby. May I ask how old you are?”

“Yes,” he says.

When he doesn’t say anything I lift my eyebrows.

“You didn’t ask me.” His mouth struggles against a smile.

I laugh. “Oh, okay, so that’s the way it’s going to be.”

“Yup,” he giggles, pointing at me. “I’m almost seventeen. You thought older, right?” When I nod, he says, “I get that a lot. I’m only five feet three but I’m told I’m mature for my age. My aunt says I’m an old soul. Not sure what that means, but it sounds better than ‘butthead,’ you know? Hey, you got some serious guns, man.”

Guns? I’m not packing…

“Your arms,” he says, pointing. “Huge. I pump iron too.”

I’m wearing a short-sleeved blue polo shirt and blue jeans. “Oh. Yes. Thanks. I can tell that you lift.” Actually, I can’t tell, but what’s the harm in giving a kid a boost?

“Thanks.” He studies my face for a moment. “Wait a minute. Reeves? You said Sam Reeves, right?”

Oh, please. I know the shooting was on the newswire, but who would have thought a sixteen-year-old in California would read the newspaper.

“You’re into the martial arts, right?” The kid’s brain is going a hundred miles an hour while I’m still trying to wake up. “I thought I recognized you from somewhere when I first sat down, but I wasn’t sure because your eyes were half shut and you were twitching and stuff.” He continues to study my face and look me up and down. “Yeah, that was you all right. In Black Belt magazine last winter, like the November or December issue, right?”

I nod. “They did a little story on me, a retro piece about my competition years.”

“Yes! That was it. Oh man, how weird is it that I’m sitting here next to you on a plane?”

Yes, it is. In fact, maybe too coincidental. The plane is full except for a couple seats next to me. Then a guy sits down and “recognizes” me from a magazine. Says he’s seventeen, looks younger, but maybe he’s older than seventeen. Can’t always tell with Asians. Maybe he’s working with Lai Van Tan, the big man in Saigon who sent goons after Samuel, Mai, and me.

Geeze. Maybe I’m too suspicious for my own good. For sure, that horrific week in Portland took its toll on my paranoia. Of course nearly everyone really did want a piece of my hide, or at least it seemed like everyone.

“I practice martial arts, too,” the boy says. “Taekwondo. Got my black belt in February.”

“Very good,” I say. “That’s a wonderful accomplishment.”

“Thank you. I love it,” he gushes, lifting his fists to each side of his face as if guarding his head. He does a quick bob and weave. “I’m a good kicker but I need more training on my hands. My teacher is great but we mostly train our legs.”

Okay, he’s not a secret agent for the big boss. And I’m wrong about him being somber. If the kid gets any more excited, he’ll explode. I’d love to have had him in a class. Some students I have to continuously encourage to practice. Enthusiastic guys like Bobby, though, I have to rein in so that they don’t over train.

“That’s the thing about the United States,” I say. “We’re a melting pot of martial arts schools. Maybe you can talk to your teacher about helping you with your hands or you can look for another school that emphasizes hand techniques. There’s got to be a lot of them in Orange County.”

“There is. There’s a Japanese school that’s close, shotokan, I think. There’s a kung fu school too, and a muay Thai gym. There’s a Vietnamese school too. Vovinam.”

“All good, although I don’t know anything about Vovinam. Visit each one a few times and see which one fits your needs and personality. Talk to the students to see what they say about their teacher and the instruction.”

“Thank you. How long have you trained?”

“Almost twenty-nine years. Started when I was around six. My grandfather and mother would drive me to my classes.”

“Whoa, twenty-nine years!” he says too loudly. “Almost twice as long as I’ve been alive.”

The same flight attendant who woke me from my dream appears next to Bobby. “Good morning, gents. May I interest you in something to drink?” Her eyes flirt with mine. She smiles.

“Milk,” I tell her. “And could I also have some water?”

“You certainly may.” She does the eye contact thing for a long moment before turning to Bobby.

“Coke… no wait.” He looks at me, at my arms. “I’ll have milk too, and water, please.”

“Coming right up.”

“Dude, she was so hittin’ on you,” Bobby teases, after we get our drinks and the attendant moves on. “She was eating you like a sandwich.”

“Hey, some guys got it,” I say, shrugging with feigned nonchalance. “Sadly, some don’t.”

So it takes a smile from a pretty flight attendant and a little idol worship from a kid to pull me out of my nightmare funk. Usually I’m a whole lot depressed after I have one of my dreams, which I get about twice a week now, down from nearly every night. They increased after Samuel and Mai left six weeks ago and increased even more during the grand jury hearing. About three weeks ago, the dreams slowed to every other night; this week I’ve had only two: One on Thursday and the other a few moments ago, another daytime one. Doc Kari would probably say that it was brought on by the stress of this trip, especially the stress of the last few days. Ah, stress, food of champions.

Bobby takes a chug from his milk carton and sets it down on the tray. “There were lots of pictures of you in the article, one of you wearing a tank top. You’re ripped man. How much training would it take to get me into that kinda shape?”

“Thank you,” I chuckle. “Just keep at it and you will be there faster than you can imagine.”

He frowns. “Can I ask you a weird question?”

“I’m not sure.”

He chuckles. “What’s the difference between being a bully and just being strong enough not to be afraid of anyone.”

The kid continues to impress. He might be sixteen, but he’s sharp and savvy beyond his years. His aunt is right: He’s an old soul.

“It’s all about intention, about why you train. The whales are some of the biggest mammals on earth. There are few creatures that prey on them so they’re “allowed” a gentle nature. But if you threaten a mama whale’s baby, mama’s a formidable foe.”

“I get it. So is that why you train so hard?”

“There are a lot of reasons. Physical fitness is part of it. Self-defense. A fascination of the art and science of it.”

“How hard was it for you to go through the ranks?”

“I worked hard, but in many ways I was lucky.”

“How so?”

“Nature helped me, to begin with. The way the genes fell into place determined that I took to the martial arts somewhat naturally. When I began weight training, at about your age, I discovered that my muscles responded quickly, even when I was doing some of the exercises incorrectly. So because of the genes my mother and father gave me, the weights and martial arts were somewhat easier for me than for people who aren’t so blessed.”

“Never thought of it that way,” Bobby says thoughtfully. “I guess I was a fast learner too. I went through the belts quicker than everyone I started taekwondo with.”

“Let me ask you, how did you get to your classes and who paid for them?”

“My parents,” he says, then ponders that for a moment. “Okay, I hear what you’re saying.”

“That’s the second half. First, your parents gave you their genes and then they gave you their time and their support. My mother and grandfather drove me three and four times a week to my classes. I couldn’t have achieved any of my belt ranks and early competition wins without their help, their time, and without the support they gave to me.”

“I get it,” Bobby says softly, looking at the seat back in front of him. I must have hit a nerve because his face sucked into that solemn look again.

“In my mind,” I continue, “it’s hard to think that I’m all that when I’m responsible for only part of what I’ve achieved. Maybe the smallest part.” When he doesn’t comment, I continue. “Think about this. In Tibet when someone thinks he’s better than other people, it’s said that he’s like someone sitting on a mountaintop: it’s cold, it’s hard, and nothing will grow. But if a person is humble and puts himself in a lower place, then he is like a fertile field at the base of the mountain.”

“Where things grow,” Bobby says. “Where he learns, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cool.”

We sit in silence. I don’t know what Bobby is thinking, but I try to think about nothing and thumb through a flight magazine. I reach the last page without a clue of its contents, replace it into the chair-back pocket, and press my forehead against the cool Plexiglas. Nice view. It’s as if I’m floating among the clouds in the lower stratosphere.

Two months ago, Vietnam was a war movie: Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. A place where my father died. I never thought of it as someplace I would want to visit. Then I meet my “dead” father and his stepdaughter Mai and, well, here I am, on a plane.

According to Google, Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, as many people still call it, is a growing economy in which the United States has an ever-increasing number of business interests. People vacation there and hike around the country. Who knew? I wonder how many non-Vietnamese people like me go there to visit their supposedly dead father and to spend time with his gorgeous stepdaughter, who, thankfully, isn’t related to them?

“I read more about you online,” Bobby says, cutting into my thoughts. “In a blog or something. Said you’re really fast.”

“Speed is relative,” I say, thinking of Samuel and what he calls his teacup trick, how his hands were virtually invisible when he switched our cups. Just when I thought that that was the fastest thing I’d ever seen, a few days later he showed me what he called The Third Level. He was so fast that it was frightening. It was as if I had witnessed something paranormal. Mai said there was a Fourth Level, one so extraordinary that it was beyond comprehension, even for Samuel. He said that he had achieved it only a few times, but because he was afraid he couldn’t control it, he wouldn’t do it again without more guidance from his teacher.

That was the day he reduced me to a beginner, one who knew so little that I didn’t know what questions to ask.

“How did you get so fast?” Bobby asks, pulling me back. I’m guessing that he doesn’t know what ‘speed is relative’ means. “I’m pretty quick,” he says, snapping out a backfist that looks good and makes the elderly woman across the aisle look over at us. She frowns at me and looks away. Probably thinks I’m a bad influence on teenagers. “But I want to be faster.”

His dark cloud has left and the sun is out again. Reminds me of me at that age. I could train every day, twice a day sometimes, sleep like a log at night, and then do it all over again when I woke up. I really miss the high-octane zeal and innocence of those years.

“You got a girlfriend, Bobby?”

His face flushes. “A couple, why?”

I shake my head as if he’s a lost cause. “Because if you want to be fast, I mean really fast, you can’t hang around girls.”

“Oh,” he says, his face disappointed. He shakes his head. “Shoot.” He looks past me and out the window for a long, thoughtful moment. Then, with a sigh from having just made a profound decision, he says, “I guess I’m fast enough.”

I nod, chewing the inside of my cheek. “You are indeed fast, young grasshopper.”

“Thanks,” he says, studying my face for a couple of seconds before a flash of enlightenment crosses his. “Okay. Okay! You were bullshittin’ me, right?”

“Indeed, my son.” I punch his shoulder. “I certainly was.” He leans away and laughs.

Damn.

Jimmy!

Damn-it!

When he leaned away… he looked like… Jimmy… when he slumped over… on the bed.

Bobby snorts, oblivious to what’s going on in my head. Feels like I’ve got a two-by-four caught in my throat. I turn toward the window and take a slow, deep breath. That’s what Kari said to do whenever I have one of these… intrusive thoughts; I think that’s what she called them. Sometimes when I see someone make a gesture or say something, my mind sort of superimposes on the person an image from that terrible day. It startles the living hell out of me every time it happens.

I exhale a long breath to try to get all the crud out before I turn back to Bobby, who is too preoccupied with his tangled earplugs cord to have noticed my departure from reality. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to tease. You seem like a good kid.”

“And you seem like a good old man.”

“Touché. Your parents onboard?”

“No,” he says, too quickly considering the simple question. “They’re in Vietnam, in Saigon. I’m going to meet up with them. My grandfather is sick. My father says he is dying.”

Hmm, that sounded too smooth, too rehearsed. What’s going on? Could he be working with Lai Van Tan? No, no way. He’s a kid and he couldn’t be that good of an actor.

“Sorry,” I say, watching his eyes. “That’s rough. I lost mine a few years ago. You close to him?”

“Never met him. I’ve been to Saigon two other times but he was always away. He had a business; can’t remember what it was.”

That didn’t sound as practiced. Still, why wouldn’t the grandfather have made himself available those other times? That’s a spendy trip and a long ways for the family to have flown and… Maybe I’m making too much of it. I ask, “What do you think about going to see him?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment as he fiddles with his cord. “My family is into ancestor worship,” he says, not answering my question.

“Really? I’d like to hear about that?”

He looks at me. “You think it’s crazy, right? Worshipping dead people?”

“Right now I don’t have any feeling one way or the other because I don’t know anything about it.”

“Lots of people think it’s crazy,” he says, still fiddling with the cord. “I’m not sure what I think. Maybe if I was born in Vietnam and grew up there I might be cool with it, but I’m a kid from Westminster, California. Ancestor worship seems pretty out there, know what I mean?”

“I do.”

“All my parents’ friends and my aunts and uncles are into it. They believe they must worship family members who have died, especially on the anniversary of their birthdays. They believe the spirit lives after they die, and stuff. They worship them and ask for help in their business, or help with a sick kid or something. So I respect that and go along with it.” Bobby is quiet for a moment, then shrugs. “I might get more into it when I’m older. I don’t know.”

“I think that’s a very mature and intelligent way to handle it.”

“Thank you. Where you going? You getting off in Seattle or Tokyo, or are you going all the way?”

“All the way to Vietnam.”

“Business, huh? What kind of business?”

“Not business. Personal.”

“Personal,” Bobby says, reading me for a second. “Okay, no prob.”

What sounds like the blond flight attendant’s voice on the PA announces that we have begun our descent into Seattle, and that we need to put our seat backs up and store our things. That was a fast forty-five minutes.

“Hey, I got row 12B in the new plane,” Bobby says, looking at his ticket. “What do you got?”

I retrieve mine from my pocket. “Let’s see… 12C.”

“Sweet. We could talk some more.”

What’s the chance of us sitting together twice? Could someone have arranged it that way?

“That okay?”

“What?”

“That we talk some more on the next flight.”

“Oh. Sure. But I’ll need to sleep. I’m really trashed. Been through some rough times recently.”

“Not a problem. You old people need your beauty rest.”

“On second thought, maybe it’s not too late to get a seat change.”

*

The plane change was non-eventful. We had enough time to grab a Whopper, walk off our meals, and buy some treats and magazines at a concession. We boarded the new plane, found our seats, and now we’re ascending to the heavens. Next stop: Tokyo in just over thirteen hours. Oh, my cramping back and knees.

We chat for a couple hours, mostly on ways he can build speed in his kicks and punches. He has a quick mind, quick wit, and asks questions that are ten years more mature than his age. A good listener too, a stark contrast from many young teens I’ve had in class over the years. If he keeps training, and I’m guessing he will, he’s going to be a fine martial artist and a good teacher. I do wonder about the weight he’s carrying on his shoulders.

We ride silently for a while, Bobby listening to his music, and me reading a Newsweek and doing the groggy head-nodding thing.

I touch his arm to get his attention. “I have got to get some sleep. I’m going to conk for a while.”

“I’m cool with that,” he says. “Got my cell. You can borrow it later if you’d like. Got like twelve hundred tunes on it. There might be a couple things from the olden days.” He shoots me a smirk.

“I got your old days right here, homey. Now let me catch some Zs.” I fold my arms, lean my head against the window again, and close my eyes.

It’s twenty minutes later now and I can tell that I’m not going to sleep. The earlier nap took the edge off, but the thought of another day-nightmare adds a dash of trepidation about sleeping, at least during the day.

For a couple weeks after the incident, I had lots of middle-of- the-night nightmares, terrible ones where I woke up shouting and sweating like a pig. Those fun times are sporadic now, at least the nighttime dreams. Recently, I started having them during the day when I take the occasional nap and sometimes even when I’m awake.

I hear the flight attendant ask Bobby if he wants anything to drink. He orders a water for himself and one for me too. Thoughtful kid, polite, has a zest for life, a passion for the martial arts, and he’s funny. I like to think I had some of those things when I was sixteen. Actually, I think I still do, though I did have a brief struggle with the zest for life thing recently. Meeting my father and Mai helped get it back.

My passion for the martial arts has always been there through the ol’ thick and thin. It was there when my mom got killed in a traffic accident, and when I got divorced. The divorce I didn’t take hard because the marriage shouldn’t have happened anyway. It lasted only a few months. I was young and stupid and so was she.

Mom’s death was hard. The police chaplain and my dear friend Mark, who is also my lieutenant, came to my house and broke the news to me. When they left, I went out into my garage and began hitting the heavy bag, harder and harder until I was pummeling it like a man insane, which I was right then. After I don’t know how long, I went into the house and slept all afternoon.

When I got up, I went out onto my patio and began throwing combinations, doubles, triples, sometimes throwing ten shots in one all-out burst. I punched the regret that I felt for not telling my mother that I loved her the last time we spoke. I punched the lonely life she must have had without a partner. I punched my father for abandoning her. And I punched God for giving her such a violent, painful death. My rage was irrational, most of it, but it made sense to my insane mind at the time.

All I did for two days was sleep, train, and eat a little. After forty-eight hours, give or take, I had lost seven pounds, sprained my wrist, and my neck and back were so tight that I walked around like Robo Cop for three days. Inside, though, I felt better. The anger was gone, the blaming was gone, and the guilt was mostly gone. Thanks to the martial arts, I was able to begin mourning and dealing with the funeral.

My martial arts were there after my shootings. Training like a madman helped to burn away my crazy thoughts, to cool the adrenaline that boiled for days, to ease my fear, to push back the questions, such as what if I was forced to kill again? What if my hesitation caused the death of another innocent? Was my soul forever blackened? My near heart-stopping workouts did as much for me as my visits to Doc Kari, the department-mandated police psychologist.

I was already at my limit when out of nowhere my, as it turns out, not-so-dead father appears in my life. Coincidence of coincidences, or maybe not, he’s a martial artist. Actually, comparing Samuel’s martial arts skill to mine is like comparing Luciano Pavarotti’s pristine voice to mine when I do an Oh solo mio in the shower. Samuel’s ability is… what? Beyond comprehension? For sure. Mind bending? Oh yeah, definitely. On top of that, he says that compared to his teacher, Shen Lang Rui, he’s just a beginner. While I can’t begin to imagine how that’s even possible, I guess I’ll find out when Samuel introduces me to his venerable master.

Samuel. Dad? No, calling him dad is just too awkward. He is my father, I’m convinced of that, but calling him pops, dad, or whatever is, well, my mouth stops working when I try. It’s just too hard for me to go from thinking my father was killed before I was born to suddenly saying, “Hey, Dad, wanna toss the pigskin around?”

What an entry he made. I got sucker punched to the sidewalk in front of a coffee joint and like a white knight wearing red sneakers, Samuel kicked the guy’s ass. And, somehow, he hauled my unconscious self across the street to a park bench, waited patiently for me to wake up, and bought me a coffee.

Then there’s Mai, incredible, outrageously gorgeous, and without peer, Mai. For a couple of awkward days, I thought she was my half sister. After all, Samuel referred to her as his daughter, and since he said I was his son… Well, it caused me all kinds of confusion, since I was overwhelmingly attracted to her. Gratefully discovering that we were not related by blood, I got the breath knocked out of me when I found out that she was experiencing the same attraction to me. And then the world went really crazy and “kapow,” I’m part of some high-octane kung-fu movie fighting off attackers from every direction.

The plane bumps hard a couple of times.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re passing through some turbulence. The captain has turned on the seatbelt signs. Please return to your seats and remain there with your seatbelt fastened until the captain turns off the seatbelt sign. Thank you.”

I’m still belted in so I can keep faking sleep. I’m not a white-knuckle flier, but the thought of problems twenty miles above a shark-infested ocean, or however far it is, doesn’t do much for my already shredded nervous system.

My body and mind had been running on fight or flight fuel for six weeks, and my dukkha was not finished with me yet. Four nights ago, I was preparing for bed when the sound of the doorbell ignited my fight or flight. Any other time, I would have answered the door with gun in hand, but my service weapon was lying in the bottom drawer of an old dresser, and I wasn’t about to get it—ever. Since my survival skills were still mostly intact, I peeked through a side window before opening the door.

It was Mark, standing on my porch with his overcoat collar up against the steady rain, his face glaring at me. My friend and boss has an incredible pair of thick eyebrows that crowd together just above his nose when he is angry, which isn’t often. That’s where they were that night, though his face looked more disappointed and hurt. This was not good.

I thought about not opening the door and pretending that I wasn’t home. The old hide-under-the-blanket-from-the-monster sounded like an excellent plan.

“Mark, come on in,” I said, opening the door. He brushed by me without speaking, without looking at me. I shivered, but not from the cold air rushing in. He knows, I thought. God help me, he knows. But he didn’t know all of it.

I closed the door, but not before I had a fleeting thought of charging out into the night and running as fast as I could down the dark street, and off the edge of the earth.

When I turned, Mark was standing with his back to me, his head moving from one side of the room to the other, as if it were his first time in my home, not the two hundredth, or so.

“Mark?” I whispered, not wanting him to respond, not wanting him to turn around to show me his disappointed face.

His shoulders seemed to sag in his long, gray overcoat as if carrying them hunched too long. He slipped out of it and draped it over his arm. He still hadn’t turned to face me when I heard him inhale deeply and exhale a long, pained breath.

“Damn you, Sam.”

I stared at the back of his graying head and thought again about bolting out the door.

He turned around. The lines in his fifty-six-year-old face seemed deeper than when I saw him four days ago, his eyes glistening. “Damn you, Sam,” he said, just louder than a whisper. My heart was beating so hard it hurt. “I figured it out.” He honed in on me, his eyes accusing, tearing. “I got eighteen months to retirement and you do this.”

His next whispered words stabbed into my chest. “I know, Sam… I know you were involved in those deaths.”

I stepped back reflexively, as if to avoid his punch, though his arms were hanging limply along his sides as if too weak to rise. His eyes were at once, sad, disappointed, and angry. I lowered myself onto my sofa and looked up at him.

“It took me a while to see it, to figure it out,” he said. “I don’t have any proof right now but…” He waved the air with his hand as if trying to wipe away his disgust. He plopped down on the other end of the sofa, his overcoat in his lap, and looked at the far wall. He turned and looked at me, shaking his head. “What’s going on with you, Sam? What’s—” He slammed his fist on the sofa arm, which made me jump. “Goddamn-it!”

I was half expecting for the last several weeks for someone from the PD to confront me, but I wasn’t expecting it to be my best friend and boss. I raised my hands to indicate I didn’t know what to say.

“Tell me,” he said softly.

I remember shaking my head and taking a deep breath before I spoke. “Mark… I’m asking you as a friend to trust me on this. I… I didn’t have a choice in what I did and what I didn’t do. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you. Okay, maybe I was a little. Mostly I wanted to protect you and protect my family. I wouldn’t do anything to harm you, your career, and especially our friendship. You’re my best friend, my boss. Sometimes you’ve been like a father to me. I know asking you to trust me on this is huge, but that’s what I’m doing. I’m going to Vietnam in three days and try to sort out my life. I just need some time. A couple weeks.”

For a long moment Mark didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t even look at me. Finally, he stood and picked up his overcoat. “You’re lucky you planned the trip,” he said. “And you’re lucky that I’m the only one who figured it out.” He slipped on his overcoat and said, “I need time to think too. We’ll talk when you get back. We clear?”

*

The airplane bumps hard, bringing forth a chorus of grunts and gasps from passengers in front and behind me, and forcing me to twist toward the boy.

“Whoa!” Bobby says. “Good one.”

“You do know this isn’t a rollercoaster, right? You do know that there is nothing but five miles of sky between us and a school of man-crushing squid.”

“Oh, right,” he says, his eyes widening. “Forgot.” He looks around the cabin. “You think we’re okay?”

I shrug.

He scrunches his face. “You’re supposed to comfort me. I’m just a kid.”

“Oh. Okay, we’re fine then.”

“You really believe that?”

I shrug.

The plane lurches again. I hear the crash of what sounds like dishes from the galley and gasps throughout the cabin. A few feet down the aisle, an overhead storage door pops open, sending a blue backpack to the floor, drawing another gasp from passengers.

Bobby white knuckles the arms of his seat, looking at me.

“Air turbulence, Son,” I say, seeing that the bumps are truly frightening him. “That’s all. Lots of goofy air currents and such over the sea.”

“Nothing like this the last two times I flew over,” he says, his eyes impossibly large.

I wave my hand to affect nonchalance. “Air patterns change all the time, every day.”

“Okay,” he says, gulping audibly.

My convincing tone seems to calm the lad. Thing is, I haven’t a clue about air currents. One trip to Hawaii was my only time over the ocean.

A sudden cant of the plane to the left sends the empty cups sliding off our trays and down onto the floor. The aircraft levels for a moment before jerking hard to the right. A female voice from somewhere behind us shouts something in what sounds like Vietnamese.

Okay, now I’m getting spooked. Fortunately, Bobby has his eyes squeezed closed so he doesn’t see the color leave my face.

I slowly inhale to a count of four, hold it for four, and release it for a count of four. A tad calmer now, I ask, “What did that woman cry out, do you know?” I’m still assuming that Bobby is Vietnamese.

He opens his eyes, nods. “She said, “‘Jesus Christ.’ Then ‘Buddha, please save us.’”

“Covering all the bases, huh.”

“What do you mean, Sam?”

“Nothing. How you feeling?”

“I’m okay, I guess.” His entire body is shaking likes he’s got palsy. “You think there will be any more of those things?”

“Maybe,” I answer, like it’s no big deal. “Just air currents. They’re unpredictable and invisible.” A tear is about to erupt from the boy’s right eye. “Tell me more about your training, Bobby. You like forms?”

He looks away from me and wipes his eyes. When he looks back, I pretend not to notice that they’re wet. “I love them,” he says, the quiver in his voice less apparent. “I know two extreme forms. I’ve entered them in tournaments.”

“Great. Were you nervous? Any kind of competition is a good way to face your fear and to learn something about yourself.”

“Ooooh yeah. Seriously nervous.”

“And you survived.” I pause, hoping he sees the connection to what is happening now. “How’d you do?”

“Aced it,” he says, with a grin that is both shy and proud. His “palsy” appears to be gone. “I got a third place the first time I competed as a black belt and then got two firsts after that. I’ve only entered three tournies since I got promoted.”

“Excellent! You like it, I take it?”

He nods vigorously. “Yes! I like everything I’ve done so far in my five years of training. Most of the people are nice. I don’t like haters, people who criticize everything. You see that a lot on blogs and on YouTube and stuff.”

“Sadly, the martial arts have haters and bullies, too, but I like to think not as many as in football and basketball.” My mind flashes on Tiger Woman, her hands braced on the skywalk railing behind her, her right leg straight up, the sole of her black boot flush with the sky in preparation of delivering an axe kick. Her face, reflecting insane hate, unaware that she has only seconds to live.

My entire body flushes hot for a moment.

Bobby is looking at me like a question mark. Before he can ask, I close the ugliness in my brain, and hit him with some questions. “What are your goals? What do you want to do with your life and with your martial arts?” The aircraft rocks from side to side a little, though not as intensely as before. Bobby doesn’t seem to notice.

He shrugs. “I’m almost seventeen so no big plans yet. I would like to teach martial arts no matter what I do for my career. I teach a little now, the kids’ class mostly. I really like seeing younger kids get it. Know what I mean?”

Bobby is himself again. The ol’ distraction technique never fails to work.

“I do. Teaching is wonderfully rewarding but it also can be frustrating. Mostly it’s rewarding.”

“Who is your teacher, Sam?”

How to answer that? It would open up a can of worms if I tell him that my most recent teacher is my father who showed me a couple of things about the martial arts that I didn’t know were even humanly possible, things that defy science.

“I haven’t had one for a while,” I say.

“You probably don’t need one, right?”

“Wrong. You, me, all of us will always need teachers, mentors.”

“But you don’t have one.”

I thought teenagers didn’t listen. He looks at me, waiting. “Well, I don’t have a teacher in the way you’re probably thinking, but I have mentors, mostly friends in the martial arts who I learn from. We chat via email and send each other video clips of things we’re working on.”

“Everything okay, gents?” The flight attendant, a young man, asks.

“Yes, thank you,” Bobby says. “Are we safe? With the plane going crazy, I mean?”

The attendant smiles reassuringly. “The captain thinks we’re out of the worst of it. This patch can be rough at times. I think we’re in for smooth sailing now. We’ll offer some more drinks in a bit.”

“We got a dude this time,” Bobby teases when the attendant moves up the aisle. “Too bad. That blond attendant in the last plane was ripe for the picking.”

I laugh, surprised that he knows that expression. “Well, I think this dude is into you.”

That cracks up the kid.

“I’d be interested to hear about your parents,” I ask. “What do they do?”

His smile disappears, just like that. “What do you mean?” He reacts as if I just told him that I think the air currents are going to get worse. My question wasn’t complicated and didn’t warrant his abrupt change of demeanor. Unless there’s something else going on.

“What does your father do?” I ask, turning up my detective sensors. “For work?”

Bobby looks down the aisle for a moment, reminding me of every perp who has ever contemplated fleeing. I should apologize for getting too personal, but I think I’ll wait to see where he takes this.

He looks down at his cell and fiddles with his music selection for a moment. “My father owns… a store,” he says, straining to squeeze each word out.

“I see. Does your mother work there?”

“Not really.” He pulls the plug out of the cell and puts it right back in again. “Do you want to borrow this,” he asks, without looking at me.

“I’m good, thanks.” I study him for a moment. Why would a simple question about his parents bring on this one-eighty? Maybe he’s just worried about his grandfather and about how his visit will play out. Maybe there is something to my earlier suspicion.

“I think about my grandfather all the time,” I say. “He taught me a lot about being a young man, about keeping my head straight when I started winning tournaments, and about respect, especially respecting my mother. She raised me by herself. My grandfather helped a lot, but the day-to-day stuff was all her.”

Bobby looks at me for a long moment until his eyes start to glisten. He looks away as he did earlier and wipes away the tears.

“Bobby? What’s—?”

“What happened to your father?” he asks turning back to me. “Did they get… divorced?”

So that’s it. Trouble on the home front.

“Did they?”

For a second I think about lying and telling him yes and that everything turned out fine. I’m not good at lying, though; I’d just screw up my story. “No. Until a few weeks ago, I thought he was dead. Killed in a North Vietnamese prison during the war, before I was born. Then out of the blue he shows up.”

“Wow! That had to like mind freak you or something.”

I smile. “It did exactly that.”

“Bet your mother was shocked, huh?”

I shake my head. “She died two years ago. Car accident.”

“Whoa. Sorry, Sam,” he says, with real compassion.

“Thank you.”

“Sometimes life sucks,” Bobby says softly.

“Life is like a bowl of cherries,” I say sagely.

“What do you mean?”

“How the hell do I know? I’m not a philosopher.”

Bobby looks at me for a moment, then laughs.

Good. My work here is done. I unfasten my seatbelt. “Gotta wiz, my fellow warrior. Then I got to catch more Zs. I’m about a month behind on sleep so I’m trying to catch up.”

“Gotcha,” Bobby says, stepping out into the aisle to let me out.

There are a few non-Asian folks sprinkled here and there but everyone else is Vietnamese or Japanese. A woman points at my arms as I pass and says something to the man sitting next to her. He looks at me, smiles, and shoots me a thumbs up while nodding several times.

When I worked uniform patrol, I was used to being a minority and looked at, but this is different. Now it’s about race. Feels strange not being in the majority skin-wise. According to some of the online tourist blogs I read, foreigners are stared at a lot in Vietnam. Mai said that I’d get extra looks since I’m so much larger than the average person there.

A seventy-something, white-haired Asian man opening the restroom door sees me approach, smiles and gestures for me to enter. Having worked the park restrooms a few times when assigned to Vice, my first thought is that he wants me to join him in the can. I force that sick thought out of my head and gesture for him to go on in. He gives me a short bow and hurries inside.

Grateful that there is no one else in the back, I step behind the partition and circle my arms a little to loosen my shoulders, and do a few forward bends to pop my back and stretch my legs. Feels good, but what I wouldn’t give to do my regular stretching routine.

The man steps out of the restroom. Vietnamese, I think. His face is deeply lined, no doubt reflecting a hard life that I couldn’t begin to imagine. His smile softens it.

“Thank you, sir,” he says, his English accented. “Are you enjoying your flight?” He’s wearing a wooden bead bracelet, Buddha beads, I think.

“Yes. It’s a long one, isn’t it?”

He sighs. “Ah, yes. But I do not like to complain. I make the trip many times to see my brother in Hanoi. You go Vietnam or Japan?”

“I’m going to see my family in Saigon.” Wow, that came out before I could censor it. It’s true but it still sounds strange.

He frowns. Guess he thinks so too.

A heavyset Caucasian woman wearing all black excuses herself as she sidesteps behind my new friend and me. She struggles with the folding door for a moment before squeezing herself in, pulling it shut behind her.

“Oh, so sorry,” the man says, covering his hand with his palm. “Did you have to piss very, very bad?”

I chuckle. “I can wait, thanks.”

“Okay, good. Maybe she won’t sit too long.”

I shrug without saying anything since the woman can probably hear through the door.

The man half nods, half bows. “Maybe I see you in Vietnam.”

“Yes, I hope so. Enjoy the long flight.”

He shoots me a salute and heads up the aisle.

A moment later, the woman pushes open the door, glares at me, and slides her ample frame through the opening. I give her a big smile, happy that she didn’t sit there too long.