As you expect in stories like this, no good deed goes unpunished, especially when you're dealing with a bunch of people who have serious boundary and trust issues. And so, it's time for Clete to pay up, at least partially, for being an asshole, no matter how well-intentioned.
I was at a writer's conference yesterday and one expert presenter was speaking on editing and talked about the problem of implausibility in one's story and how that makes it a barrier to being read and accepted for publication. She gave an example of an opening scene of a mystery where a boat explodes on a large lake and a couple with a two-year-old daughter, vacationing in a foreign country, is left hanging onto a piece of flotsam, and the husband tells the wife swim for help since she's the better swimmer. She does bring the cops but they can't find her husband and child and let her leave the country without questioning. Yup. There sure were a lot of holes there...
I sat there sort of tallying the implausibilities in this story and lost count and felt subsequently depressed, but then I remembered I'm writing anachronistic fantasy-historical-romantic satire where everything is absurd and immediately felt much better, even though it's a genre that has no readership. I like to think my characters' actions are authentic, if a bit ramped up, even though their circumstances are ridiculous.
I'm so glad you're reading this even if nobody else in the world ever does. Thank you.
Love,
Pops
Personal journal entry:
Entry date Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Dragon, Month 7, Day 4, Xingqi 2
Project date: Week 9,
Day 2
Sally, I know you’re reading this,
so relax. I’ve been out of touch a few days because there’s been no research to
report. I had to take a forced break from the work schedule. My phone has been
out of reach as well. Sorry if I worried you. Thanks for all your help in
getting me Qin Qin’s glasses. There is one happy little lady here.
By the way, I’m giving you a 0.5%
share in Cardiff as your bonus. Tell Irv he needs to structure the transaction
so it’s as close to being worth nothing on paper since I don’t want to make you
take a bath on taxes. He has my initiating e-mail. I also suggested a no-interest
loan to finance a larger share if you’re interested in taking on some risk.
He’ll give you options, but enough of that biz right now.
I’ve learned a few things and I
need to get my thoughts into context, so I’m catching up my journal.
Activity Report:
U.S. Time: Thursday,
August 16, 2012
Island Time: Dragon, Month 6, Day 29, Xingqi 4
Island Time: Dragon, Month 6, Day 29, Xingqi 4
Project Time: Week 8,
Day 5
American parents like mine, who
have fluency in another language like Cantonese, and who, despite their best
efforts and intentions to impart that same language to their children, have
failed to motivate or inspire those children to converse in anything other than
English (like me and my brothers), nevertheless have a distinct advantage over monolingual
parents. They can talk about you, criticize you, and even decide your fate
right in front of you, and you have no idea that you are the subject of the
conversation.
I distinctly remember one
conversation where I was sitting on the floor of the living room watching
television while my father and his sister were chatting it up in their lively Guangdong-wah. After the show was done,
my dad announced to me that I would be spending the summer at my aunt and
uncle’s place in Modesto in the blazing hot Central Valley, painting their
mom-and-pop grocery store and being generally available for whatever labor for
long-term projects they needed.
It was definitely not what I wanted
to be doing with my summer and I would have vociferously protested had I known,
but the time for discussion was done. They knew it and I knew it, and that was
that. Conversations where I had put a fuss in the past went like this:
“I never agreed to do that!”
“We were discussing it right in front of you. You should have spoken
up.”
“But you were talking in Chinese!”
“Maybe you should have paid more attention in Chinese school, or tried
harder to talk to your grandmother.”
“Yeah, but…”
“How do you think I feel paying all that money for that schooling and
you come out with nothing?”
“But, that school is nothing but …”
“I don’t want to hear excuses for your failures. Do you think your
mother enjoys that horrible clerk job she has where people verbally abuse her
all the time. She does it to provide you boys extras. Extras that we think will
make you better men?”
“No sir…”
And it would go on. The shame was
unbearable. But not enough to make me learn how to correctly intone a formal
conversation with the hillbillies of Guangdong Province from which our people
had sprung. We sounded like we were all yelling at each other compared to the all
those posh, Putonghua-speaking
Beijingers who sounded like northern aristocratic snobs with all those muffled
“j” consonants and implied “r” sounds clotted in the middle of their mouths. I
figure it’s like the Alabama farm boy who finds himself among Bostonian city
slickers.
Anyway, servitude and obedience was
the ongoing price I paid to my parents for my disinterest in the Chinese
language. Judging from the arguments that my second-generation buddies had with
their parents, I’m not sure things would have better had I actually LEARNED our
“Hicksville” sub-dialect of Cantonese. In retrospect, it was a shame I did not
learn Cantonese as it would have been useful in my later professional life. But
then, my summer job pay would be $100 and uncle would teach me how to drive his
stick-shift truck. Driving truck turned out to be a useful skill in later life.
I also learned to rebuild a carburetor that summer.
That feeling of stupid helplessness
is exactly what overcame me as I had been called into the Island Assembly Room
to sit while deliberations were carried on in what I assumed was Court High
Manchurian to determine what was to be done with me. At the worst I figured, I
would get fined and maybe have my work suspended for a time. I had actually
given them a benefit after all. Only eight of the Cousins were present, Feng
being absent. They eventually went around and took a voice vote. It was
impossible for me to even tell who was voting which way as it all sounded the
same to me.
The Cousins all rose and left by
way of the door so that none of them had to look me in the face. Lee did not even
give me a backward glance with her “I hope you drop dead” glare. It made me
feel a bit cheated and even abandoned. The one who remained in the room with
was the Princess Qi, the Chilin Guardian of the West. I realized I had not ever
spoken to her alone before. She had a smug almost gleeful look on her face. She
is the most beautiful of all the Cousins, but she has some very strange quirks
which I will get into later. She was nearly as symmetrically perfect as her
teenage daughter Fei, but I would come to hate that gorgeous face. She also had
a cutesy, baby-doll like voice which made her various moves against me seem all
the move incongruous and off-putting.
“Professor Wong. I will be acting as your chief justice officer and Dog
Island contact right now. Please come with me.”
“Where are we going? What happened there?”
“I will let you know when the time is right. It’s best if we not talk
just yet. But we are going to take a short boat ride. We are going to launch
from the south beach. I will need your expert assistance in getting our long
boat past the breaking waves, and of course your hands at the oars.”
“Am I required to do some fishing then?”
“Shhh. All in good time.”
Thankfully the winds were calm and
it was a vigorous but not treacherous row out onto the deep waters. Just being
there out on the sea was making my stomach turn flip-flops of anxiety. But what
made me more anxious was there was no fishing gear of any sort in the boat. The
Chilin Princess broke the silence.
“Dr. Wong, please hold up your right hand toward the Island at arms
length, palm facing you.”
“Got it.”
“Align the crease of your first digit with the shoreline of the Island.”
“Got it.”
“Is the height of the first digit of your right pinky about the same
height as the mountain peak in The Outside?”
“Just about, maybe even a little smaller.”
“That will do then. You will want to empty your pockets and leave
anything you do not want submerged in seawater here in the boat with me.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you to step out of the boat.”
“Into what? It’s just water around here.”
“You will be going into the water.”
“Like hell I will! I don’t like deep water!”
“You will get used to it I’m sure.”
“Is this my punishment? You’re going to leave me out here to drown?”
“You’re only half right. Whether you drown or not is up to you.”
“So was that my fuckin’ trial back there? I wasn’t even given a
goddamned fuckin’ chance to talk.”
“Clete, you need to calm down. You are going to need to conserve your
strength. And you don’t want your nervous energy and the smell of your fear to attract
the wrong kind of attention out here.”
I looked over the edge. I thought I
saw some very large shadows moving about down there. I was starting to feel
very ill. I almost didn’t hear her as she continued.
“That was not your trial. By our law and custom, this is the ordeal you
must go through first to determine if you are fit to stand trial. All you have
to do is get back to shore.”
“Swim back to shore? HOW FAR OUT ARE WE?”
“I’m not good a measuring distance.”
“What kind of fucked up law is this?”
“Let me remind you that when you signed your research contract, there
was a clause that said you made yourself subject to laws of our Island.”
“Earth Dragon said nothing about this kind of thing!”
“You need to read what you sign. They probably didn’t expect you to land
hostile aircraft and breach our sovereignty. We take our boundaries extremely
seriously Dr. Wong. I would have thought you’d figured that out about us. This
is an ordeal that was instituted by our pirate forebears. They found it was
quite effective in determining who was worthy of a hearing.”
“Look can’t we come to some kind of agreement? Work out a deal?”
“There is nothing you have that I want. The only thing I am interested
in is the outcome of whether the Island will take you back or not. Get back to
shore and you shall have your trial. I cannot interfere with what the sea may
bring forth. My only advice is try to keep pace with my rowing. Your proximity
to me may work in your favor.”
“Aren’t you worried that if I
die out here, the U.S. Government may retaliate?”
“Not in the least. We’ve chased them off before. They will lose planes
and boats and many men besides you if they act against us. But they know about
us already.”
“That vote you took. What was that about?”
“The question before us was should we immediately deport you or should
we subject you to trial process?”
“Who voted which way?”
“For deportation, Ting Ting, Lian, Mei, and Lee. For trial, me, Mu, Lum, and Na. An even split. A tie goes to my discretion and I voted for trial.”
“For deportation, Ting Ting, Lian, Mei, and Lee. For trial, me, Mu, Lum, and Na. An even split. A tie goes to my discretion and I voted for trial.”
“Na voted to do this to me? What the fuck? Damn. It’s probably because I
landed the drone on her sacred beach. Isn’t it? Uhhn. What happened to Feng?”
“Normally she would be your judge. She recused herself. She said she
cannot be objective in any issue where you are involved.”
“Recusal? So she’s biased against me?”
“YOU IDIOT! NO. She actually likes you.”
“So she’s an ally? STOP then. I want to hire her as my advocate.”
“There are no attorneys for this part of the process. Or any process. It’s
too late for that. Now stop stalling for time.”
“Do I at least get a flotation vest?”
“No assistive devices.”
“You and Lee need to harmonize your Island regulations, this is major
inconsistency. She always insists on a life vest.”
“I … DO … NOT … CARE. Now get out!”
Her hand flashed and swiped in
front of me. I looked down and my shirt was sliced open. She was gripping a
razor sharp karambit in her right hand. It looked like a tiger’s claw. It’s a
knife that street thugs in Indochina use on each other. Qi was a serious
bad-ass.
“Goddamn you! This is one of my best bush cargo shirts. They’re
expensive!”
“It is a further crime to resist process. Get back to shore and I’ll
have Lum repair it. I intentionally did not cut your undershirt just to prove
that I’m good with this. You should worry more about your body than your shirt.
You don’t want to go into these waters with an open wound. There are a lot of
sharks here. Do not thrash. It attracts them.”
“Yeah, yeah. I watch the National
Geographic channel too. And I’ll
have you know some of my best friends are oceanographers and marine biologists.
When I want your advice I’ll ask for it.”
I dumped everything out of my
pockets and took off my glasses, tying them all up in my overshirt. Off came my
pants, socks, and boots. Every ounce was going to count.
“I’d take everything off if I were you. Less drag.”
“I’m modest. And you can go to fucking hell, lady. You’ve convinced me
that I’d rather take my chances with the sharks than stay another minute in
this boat with a psychotic bitch like you.”
And with that, I tumbled over the
side into the water. It seemed quite cold to me and it was a bit of a shock. I
treaded water for a minute just to get used to the feeling of being in this
particular amount of wave turbulence. If I could only relax enough to float,
maybe, just maybe I could do it, taking it just one stroke at a time. But I was
having a hard time not panicking. I felt a large presence coming up under me
because I could feel water mass being quickly displaced. I thought I felt teeth
around my right leg, and then I was dragged under and passed out.
© Copyright 2012 by Vincent Way, all rights reserved.
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Be truthful and frank, but be polite. If you use excessive profanity, I'll assume you have some kind of character flaw like Dr. Wong. Tks!