Western Dreams - Chapter 3


The man stands straight and unbending on the beach, bathed in the glow of an impossible orange sunset. The sand seems like gold, the waves the color of bluest diamonds. Behind the men stands scores of other men, all dressed in tunics, billowing slacks. Feet are not imprisoned in shoes, but rather breathe through cloth slippers. The men are arrayed in rows which stretch to the horizon.

With a corkscrew motion, the first man begins the stretching routine, cleaving air with arms, a strategic bend of the knee, the patterns passed down from his teacher and the teacher before him, as unceasing and unchanging as time. His body turns in place so that all four directions are given their due, each set repeated for north, south, east, west. The men behind him follow suit, their movements perfectly synchronized with his, as if the man himself has been cloned, mirrored, refracted in every direction. In silence, they match him.

But there is no confusing the man himself with his followers. The stoic yet compassionate aspect to his eye, the wisdom which pours out from the supple sway of his movements, the strength of will in the slight curl of his mouth. He is a doctor, he is a teacher, he is the last vestige of Manchu China. Wong Fei Hong, past and future hero.

***

First Friday of August at Wu's: a double bill of Once Upon a Time in China II and A Chinese Ghost Story. Ten minutes tardy for the first show, I made straight for the projection box. Wu was babysitting the projector, thinning hair plastered to his sweaty head, looking as if he had just witnessed a birth.

"Hey, hey, C.J." He threw me a jaunty little salute. "You're late."

"Yeah. It was my parents --" I waved off the rest.

"How you doing? Want to check out South America?"

"Nope. Still Hong Kong."

"Still, huh?" He sighed as he mounted the second reel, stringing the green leader through the pinch rollers with effortless grace. "Here comes the first fight. See?" He pointed screenwards. My eyes were glued to the course of his finger as one follows a gunsight. There was a space outside, distant yet immediate, and within that space a frame, the frame flooded with activity. Action.

***

"Wong Fei Hong," the man announces with an innocuous smile. He fans himself. The White Lotus fanatics gasp and recoil at the very sound of the words. They are in an open Canton marketplace, and the advantage is clearly in the hands of these lawless brigands, yet the name has the power of a talisman. Marshaling the remains of his crumpled bravado, the villainous leader sneers, and his fingers flash a secret signal behind his back. The half-dozen men charge. One svelte movement of the fan in Wong's hand, a knife clangs harmlessly to the ground. He springs airborne, leg as rapid as a whip -- an opponent's leg capsizes, the rest of the body following it down in a great cloud of dust. A well-placed blow and another human projectile detonates on a table of cooking wares, pans and onlookers scattered in every direction. Succulent portions of chicken bound comically, as if they have been shocked back to life.

***

"Sung will be here," Wu said. "We'll grab a meal between shows, okay?"

"Will there be food?"

"Food? Heh." He scowled amiably. "Of course. Dumplings. Catch you later."

I thanked him and lurched into the dark of the auditorium. Around me, a score of old and young faces were bathed in movie light. I detected the unmistakable stink of a McDonald's hamburger, and something like seasickness seized me. Sacrilege, I thought. Take-out at Wu's, utter sacrilege. Reaching out for support, I encountered the crusted metal edge of a seat. It wobbled and creaked in my grip. Someone motioned for me to sit down, but I was more preoccupied with the gurgles of my stomach. Gingerly, I lowered myself into the seat, like an animal in the wild, in sections. This is what happens, I thought, when you go without dinner.

***

Dinner, according to Mom, was Virginia fried chicken. I had no doubt her current American cooking experiments were the result of the purest spite. She knew she couldn't do it worth a damn, but no way would I savor the double luxury of living at home and eating great Chinese food. Every night, a new torture dish: spaghetti with undercooked half-onions plopped on top, or hamburger grilled so lightly the meat was still bubbly and red.

The Chens are back from their vacation in Portugal, Dad said. I noticed a chicken leg still languished whole on his plate.

Kim is looking very pretty these days, a lot thinner, Mom said. Maybe we should bring her over to see C.J.? But ... she interjected a half-whispered snort ... not now, not while he's out of college. Good thing the Chens don't know --

Excuse me, I said, and left the table. I stood by the tap in the kitchen and mechanically drank three glasses of water before I was calm again.

***

The Chinese commandant is a martial arts aficionado. No, more than that, he is a master, a rare thing in turn-of-the-century China. What with opium, religious rebels, foreign barbarians, peasants crawling and expiring in the streets, what law-abiding, law-enforcing man can spare a single moment to educate himself in the ancient arts? Perhaps there are darker motives behind his prodigious knowledge and skill. But for now, he dips a slender swath of cloth in a bucket. He chokes and tightens the cloth until water is wrung from it like tears. Then in a single explosion, he rises and snaps the new weapon. A wooden pillar disintegrates under the onslaught. Master Wong watches, visibly awed. One can understand his admiration: a man who can utilize the natural force of a thing such as water is not just a force, he is Nature itself.

***

Mom loved Sung's hair. Whenever he visited she would run her hand over the top of his head, say how lovely it was, and ask if he'd found himself a girlfriend.

On this evening, Mom was stowing away the sizeable remains of dinner, and Dad was still at the table, glasses down to the tip of his nose, all the better to read the newspaper . He noticed Sung first, struggled halfway up to offer an energetic grunt of welcome, then succumbed to gravity.

"Sung! How are you?" Mom cooed. Crumbs and grease clung to her fingers as she involuntarily reached for his head, but she reined herself in at the last instant. "You find a job at your office for my son?"

Dad grunted. "Ying ...."

"I mean, C.J. will go back to college soon ..." She spoke in my general direction. "... but he should stay busy, right?"

"Maybe he can work at Wu's," Dad grinned. "Be a waiter. Wash dishes. It builds character." To my parents, Wu was a strange bird who preferred movies to having a family.

"Stop it! You want C.J. to be like that man?" Mom slapped Dad's upper arm theatrically. "Slave in a restaurant the rest of his life?"

With his impeccable timing, Sung politely asked Mom for something to drink, and Dad ruffled his paper, humming to himself: "Memory." He would latch onto a tune, any tune -- Broadway, country, classical, cornball -- and hum it the rest of the day, or longer if he felt like it. "Memory" was already two weeks old, challenging the record for longest-running hum. The unspoken lyrics drilled holes in my stomach. Love me, it's so easy to leave me...

"Oh, right!" Mom shouted from the sink five feet away. "I just remembered. Kim's piano recital on Monday. The Chens have invited us."

Sung's eyes smiled at me over the rim of his glass. Kimberly Chen. Recently accepted to Harvard, a prestigious med school further down the time table. Top-flight pianist, courteous, filial. Next-door neighbor. Perfect.

"You should come see her, Sung," Dad was saying. "She's a fantastic pianist."

"A very hard worker, too," Mom added, and I turned my burning face away.

"Oh yeah?" Sung said mildly. "Hey, hombre, let's go out back for a second."

I nodded hard.

"Your hair," Mom murmured to Sung, and left it at that.

"Ah, it's nothing. Now with yours, Mrs. Wong, give the right hairdresser half an hour. You'll knock out all the gents in town." He brushed his chin with his knuckles, feigned a swoon as he staggered backwards to join me at the patio door.

"Oh, oh, oh..." Mom's face was redder than mine, a genuine accomplishment. Dad rustled his newspaper again.

Sung cleared the patio steps with a single vault and beckoned me to join him underneath the deck, among the supporting beams. He pulled out a seashell pipe the color of twilight. "Straight from the Haight," he explained.

"You were in SF?"

"Seeing some friends, scoping business ops. Nothing pertinent." He extracted weed from a zip-lock bag and packed it into the pipe, bit by bit, his hands fading in and out of shadow, dainty, precise movements. "Here. Don't stand on ceremony. Take it."

"No -- my parents might smell it."

"Ah, parents," he sighed vaguely. "How can you stand it, man?"

I stared at my backyard ridge, the one I loved to climb. I had an urge to scramble to the top, even if meant a few slips on the ascent, smudges of wet grass for wounds. The view at the summit would remind me that there was something beyond the regulated network of lights that spelled out suburbia below. Or even further than that: the sea beyond the horizon of mountains, holding the last bit of sun like the flicker in a chandelier the moment before the light is extinguished altogether.

"No, my parents ... they're right." All of a sudden I felt like crying, but instead I ground my knuckles into my eyes, replacing one pain with another. "I fucked it all up, somewhere...."

Sung snorted. He inhaled for a good six or seven seconds before tipping back his head. "Within what definition of fuck? Nothing is perfect in of itself. Except nirvana ...." Smoke spurted from his mouth as he laughed at his solemnity.

He handed the pipe to me and I inhaled. Inside, I felt as if I was burning up very slowly, like the edge of a paper catching fire. "Nirvana," I breathed. "Or Hong Kong."

"What?"

"Hong Kong. The only problem is money. Settle-down expenses."

"How much?"

"What?"

"How much? Realistically. Think it all out. Think it, then do it. How much?"

"I don't know ... to get started? Five thousand, maybe ..."

"Wu's. Ten o'clock. He's having a double feature tonight, meet me there after the first one."

"Why? What's up?"

The outdoor light snapped on, the patio door cracked open. "C.J.!" Mom called. I stood in instant obedience, and there we were: she in her apron, short of stature but imperial, me below her and exposed. We regarded each other for a moment like animals.

"Come in. Dessert. Where's Sung? He can have some."

Sung was backing away into the shadows with a wry no thanks shake of his head. "Meet me at Wu's," he stage-whispered. "Okay?" His eyes were beacons through the smoke. I looked up at Mom, still towering overhead, then back to Sung, but he was gone, the grace of a magician.

***

The bearded English proconsul watches from the flimsy sanctity of the embassy doorway as the Chinese militia officers untie the White Lotus spies at the front gate and shoo them into the night. "I saw that," he wheezes at the commandant. The dubbed voice is comically out of sync with the mouth. "I saw what you did. I saw you let those rebels go. This is a conspiracy --" His steps take him into the courtyard, the hell of bonfires and smoke.

The commandant clutches the Englishman's throat and efficiently throttles him. In his death throes, his arms jangle, and then he falls out of the frame and the movie's life forever.

"You are not in Britain. This is China!" the commandant growls. He speaks the line in English, every gruff syllable a parody, a sneer. From behind the embassy windows, Master Wong espies the entire scene. Great sorrow etches his face. How could it come to this? he seems to be thinking. How could a countryman descend to this? Is there no hope for China?

***

The baseball bat laid low in a stretch of wild grass, like a snake. It was there, trapped under the late afternoon sun, and if it stayed there the whole night it would be wet by morning, a wretched thing. So I took it. I was the picture of stealth as I scooped it up and ran on, determined to emulate those martial arts masters who run for miles without so much as a gasp for breath. The bat skimmed the pavement, leaving chalky white streaks in its wake but inspiring no other reaction.

An obstacle loomed: a gargantuan Buick along the curb. It reminded me of Dad's car and the conversations which took place within. My parents assumed that holding court in native Mandarin bestowed privacy, but I understood all.

MOM
What to do? If he goes back to Brown now, he'll only embarrass himself and us.

DAD
We should be supportive -- I'm sure he thinks he's let us down.

MOM
He has.


I had an aluminum bat as opposed to Sung's wooden Louisville slugger, which according to him made less noise. I didn't care. I circled the car as one circles the wounded beast, movements petite but eyes unwavering, not for an instant. Decision and action joined as one: batter's stance, swing the hips, cut.

The impact sounded like dulled thunder. The driver's side glass cracked and splintered in a mica pattern, but refused to break. Within the furrows and jagged curves I saw dozens of tiny smiles, laughing at me, my failure. I ran. Like a little boy, scampered all the way home.

DAD
He couldn't even break a window with a baseball bat?

MOM
He failed as a student. He failed as a teenage punk. What's left?


Wong understands: Belief in gravity means a belief in dullness. Release yourself from gravity, and all other earthly limitations crumble. He wields a fifteen-foot bamboo pole like a staff as he faces down the evil commandant, who is similarly armed. In a universe with no limitations, weapons like these are not only feasible but absolutely necessary. They hack at each other, the viciousness of their deflected blows ripping apart the warehouse interior. Sacks are punctured, clay pots burst into splinters, and rice seeds splash down on them from overhead like a hailstorm. Still the two opponents battle on, with utmost belief in their abilities. Pausing in mid-battle, Master Wong lets the tip of his staff drop to the floor. Is it a snub in the face of his enemy? A moment of contemplation before the next onslaught? His expressionless face suggests both, and more. I will win because I must win. I will fly because I can fly.

***

After dinner, I dragged myself into the shower. My neck was still sore from an active dream the night before -- I had forgotten the plot, but the knot lingered, like a brand. Focus, zen calm, I preached to myself. Hong Kong. I was drifting into town on an antiquated junk, rooted to the bow like a figurehead while the colony's crisp skyscrapers bobbed with the waves. C.J., conquering hero, his entrance inscribed in lore. The thought was so pleasing that it forced a yelp of delight from me even as the shower water went inexplicably ultra-hot. Like a boxer running through his moves, I jogged and juked in place as spray glanced off my skin. Afterwards, I dared my image in the mirror to maintain eye contact. Mouth thin with determination, right eyebrow naturally raised a fraction. Relaxed, yet ready to lay down a challenge or cocky remark at a moment's notice. Pooh to stereotypes of stone-faced or babbling Asian males. I reminded myself of words someone once said in a movie: Fake courage is as good as real courage.

***

The final credits ran and the Once Upon a Time in China theme -- "A Man Must Be Strong" -- surged, choral voices and martial beat. I remained in my seat as the audience left, stayed until I was the only one left, and all the while I thought of Master Wong's inexorable grace, his uncompromising fairness -- an anachronism even back in those days. I had the urge to fly. Infused with gumption, I jumped to my feet and found myself nose to nose with Wu.

"Whoa!" he laughed, throwing up his arms in a mock-defensive gesture. "Fire in your eyes, huh? Jet Li, incredible guy, huh?"

"Uh, yeah ... kind of." I locked my fingers behind my head, doing a lousy job of hiding my chagrin. "He was born to play that role."

"Let's go. Food is almost ready. One hour until the next movie."

The cheap placard on the café door had been turned to CLOSED, and all the fold-out tables had been bundled away except one in the exact center of the room. Fried aroma and steam beckoned me toward the counter, but Wu shooed me back. "Almost done," he said. "So, what's new?"

"Nothing much."

"Hmm. And if you went to Hong Kong? Maybe nothing much there, huh?"

"A change of scene would be enough." My stomach was making obscene noises and I rubbed it.

"What do you know about Hong Kong?"

"Enough. Didn't you say that the movies are the truth?"

"C.J., you know ... it can be a tough place --"

"You think I can't handle it? No one thinks I can function by myself. I'm not a kid." As soon as I snapped those words I was embarrassed, and concentrated on a fugitive dab of flour on the counter.

Wu looked at me for a bit. "Sorry, C.J.," he said. "I don't mean that. But see?" He lifted his shirt to display a thin, chalky scar to the left of his stomach. "I've had troubles. But maybe you won't do the same things, eh?"

I leaned in, inquiry already forming on my lips, but he had that polite don't ask look again. "I'd like to get myself entrenched," I said. "I've got three years before the Chinese take it back."

"You want to learn the history of our people? All that stuff?"

"Sure. Maybe. But it just seems -- different there, you know? Moving and shaking, all the time, the energy out there, it just makes you feel ... alive." I paused, hyperaware of my flushed face.

"C.J...." He looked straight at me again. "It's good that you're excited about Hong Kong, but sometimes --"

"Hello, gentlemen." Sung stood with insouciant hand on hip as the door dragged itself closed behind him. He was casual tonight: Elvis pompadour, T-shirt, unbuttoned purple vest, heavy black shoes. An assured matinee idol.

"Sung! Hey. Where've you been?"

"Making calls, talking. You know. Dinner ready?"

"Just in time. Here it comes."

A gigantic cloth concealed the table's humble origins, and the heavy-duty china had been broken out. On the plates' surfaces red and blue-scaled dragons chased each other in endless circles. The food was worthy of old-style Mom: fried dumplings, kung pao chicken, broccoli in garlic sauce. It had been so long since I had seen kung pao anything that I lingered over the details: the chicken chopped into thumb-sized bits and partnered with squarish turnip slices and peanuts, coated with the brown, spicy sauce. The dumplings' flour shells were tender, their flat undersides a perfect crisp.

"American-style Chinese food," Wu sighed, indicating the chicken. "Not the same as home, but I know you guys like it."

I immediately speared a dumpling with my chopsticks, and oil bled from the wound. "This is great," was all I had time to say before it entered my mouth. The filling was still burning and I had to hot-potato it from side to side with my tongue. Pork and cabbage, a touch of ginger, the meat fresh and firm. My saliva cooled it down enough to chew. Heaven.

"Of course it's great. Only the best for my friends." Wu performed little bows as he added pu-erh tea to our cups. "Are you staying for the next movie? Chinese Ghost Story. Oldie but goodie."

"Uh-huh." Sung drew out a cigarette, his chopsticks still perfectly aligned and untouched on the table. "So what's this deal?"

Wu grinned. "This man has a business head, C.J. Easy to see. No bullshit. Sung, you still know the Lees?"

"Andy and Shawn? I see them sometimes. Why?"

Wu clapped his hands together once, loudly. "Great. You guys can help me."

"With what?"

"With," Wu said with grand hesitation, "this."

His chopsticks pinched a dumpling and raised it for our inspection. Golden skin, the soy sauce-vinegar mixture dribbling down the sides.

"Mmmg?" I mumbled, my third dumpling bloating my mouth. "Is it -- special sauce or something?"

"How much do you think this weighs?" Wu asked.

"An ounce?"

"Almost. But -- you can put stuff inside." He whittled out a cavity with the tip of his chopstick. "If you do it right, you get it past everyone. Customs, everyone. You see? Computer chips. Prototypes." He pronounced prototypes like two words. "Two hundred megahertz. My friends say twelve hundred dollars retail, but on the black market, in the right places, maybe fifteen hundred ...?"

The feel of the warm cup in my hands failed to calm me, so in a single gulp I drained it. Result, roof of my mouth scalded. As I fought to breathe, a knowing grin worked its way up Sung's face and peaked with a dimple on each cheek.

"I see," he said slowly. "You have a particular place in mind?"

"Paragon Electronics. I have a map. Only two employees during lunch hour, between one and two. Their back delivery door is always open. I have everything you need. You go in, get the chips - should be about five hundred of them. Bring them here at 5:30 when I open up. I pack them in the dumplings, the dumplings go in a food parcel. I deliver them to a friend in San Francisco, the friend ships it to Hong Kong. In one month, profits."

"You think four people are enough?"

"Sure. One to drive, three for everything else. You, C.J. and the Lee brothers. The park is near the warehouse, you hide the car there. No problem."

"When?"

"Monday."

Sung snuffed his cigarette. "What do you say, C.J.?"

I looked at Sung: all earnestness. I looked at Wu, who gnawed at the dumpling. For the first time, I noticed his crooked bottom teeth.

"Mr. -- Mr. Wu, are you serious about this?" I finally stuttered.

"Of course." His eyebrows bunched in puzzlement. "I wouldn't joke, C.J."

"Ten thousand, hombre."

I hmmphed nervously. "Ten thousand what -- Hong Kong dollars?"

"US. Ten thousand US. At the very least ... I say you be headin' East. Yeow." Sung punctuated the rhyme with a low, funky cry and pumped fist.

"Sung -"

"You can drive. You wouldn't even have to go in."

"Sung, I'm not ...."

"I know. You're not Goody Two-Shoes, but this ... I understand. Completely. You know me -- I've run with a few people. This is just another running thing. And you wouldn't be alone. We have a team here. You know? I know you need this. I'm talking friend to friend, peng you to peng you."

"Mr. Wu - I haven't done anything like this before ..."

Wu put down his chopsticks. His voice went soft, kindly even. "C.J. ... you said you wanted to travel ... Right? Well, this is a good chance for you to --" His head jerked up. Beyond the distorted window, people were filing into the lobby, shambling into line like the undead.

"Whoops! Movie starts soon." Wu was up, clicking off the stove. "Have to get ready. No, stay. Enjoy the dinner. On the house. Stick around, I'll talk to you guys after the show." He threw covers over the pots and bustled out.

Sung hmmed, barely audible, then settled back to drink his tea, his breath bubbling inside the cup. I speared another dumpling, determined to confine my thoughts to one activity at a time: eat first, eat and get healthy. But the dumplings were already lukewarm in my mouth and my tongue flattened them too easily.


Wu sometimes would sit with us and watch between changing reels. This night he steered us toward the back, the second-to-last platform. "We get the best view from here," he insisted.

"Yeah, but you have to stretch to see the subtitles," Sung moaned confidentially.

There were maybe only fifteen people there, but I still felt penned in. Sweat worked down the crease in my back. My jeans stuck to my thighs. Respecting my space, Sung leaned away so his right hip avoided the edge of my seat, but after starting up the first reel, Wu plopped into the seat next to mine as if repossessing his easy chair at home, his hand and forearm fully occupying my armrest.

Within the film's first five minutes, gobs of dark blood and the severed heads of thieves flew. "You dare steal from me?" the rigidly virtuous swordsman blared. "Dame you!" Sung and I tittered at the misspelling of "Damn" in the subtitles, but Wu's face was stone. He was always like that -- never any words, gasps, laughs, anything, it didn't matter what we were watching. Disconcerting even on a good day. The swordsman hacked at the remaining miscreant. Leslie Cheung, the naive young tax collector, a mere observer drenched with rain, was splattered with the thief's blood. His mouth gaped in shock.

Sung laughed a lot, especially at the bit in which the fierce Taoist swordsman and Leslie faced down the matronly tree demon. You think I scare? the swordsman brayed, egging on his opponent with a jut of the tongue. The demon hunched, her long-nailed fingers ready to pounce, and then her mouth stretched open, her tongue spinning out like a slimy ribbon. It grew in size until it was a mammoth rug of saliva and sores, hurtling directly at our heroes. Hers is bigger! was all Leslie had time to shout before the tongue bowled through them, sending them sprawling in opposite directions.

"Killer." Sung was still chuckling.

"Sung," I whispered, "let's do it."

Sung didn't say anything -- he was still watching as the Taoist skewered the tongue with his blessed sword and pinned it to the ground, white milk-blood spurting from the wound and caking his face as he grunted with effort and held the blade in place. But he reached over and shook my hand, firmly, gravely.

***

They are once again on the beach, or perhaps it is a different beach, but it does not matter, as all beaches are similarly magical at sunset. The man is younger, little more than a boy, and his hair is disheveled, in stark contrast to the Manchu pigtails and severe shaved foreheads. The men who follow his lead wear identical silk tunics which burst with sunlight, socks that reach to the knees, earthy cloth slippers. The man initiates the tai chi exercise: White Crane Spreads Wings. Pay homage to the south, then to the north, the east, and the west. Arms soar heavenward like the gulls which pass overhead. His left palm faces up, right palm down, cradling an imaginary globe, as if the entire world has been condensed and entrusted to his care. Perhaps he is only a distant relative of the legendary Master Wong - they do share the same family name - but they bask in the same sun, dig their toes into the same sand. His name is C.J. and he follows what has come before, and in tracing the past through these movements and steps, he will reach a concordance between what he is and what he will be.


* * *

Wu wasn't paying attention to the screen -- he was looking in that direction but he was thinking of other places. He remembered when he was a child in Taichung. At the best times, he would be lying alone on his bed in half-light and half-dark just like this. The bed was a board with the thinnest of mattresses on top, but it didn't matter. It would be late afternoon, not dark enough for the mosquitos, but just when the sun was losing its edge. All the lamps in the house would still be off, and he would lie by himself in his room, facing his lone window, lethargic in the humidity. The sunlight would throb through the window, just the faintest orange blush. He would enjoy it for as long as possible, until his hands became darker and heavier as the sun fell away. Finally, he would rush out into the streets -- different streets then, only bicycles and the occasional noisy truck or bus. Everything had the color of healthy dust. He would walk to the park and appreciate the evening haze as it soaked up the last glow of sunlight. Back then, the only sounds were birds' murmured songs. He would chase the tunes, pouncing on the trunk of every tree where the birds perched, never quite coming close enough to see them sing. He would be alone at these moments, too -- all his happiest memories were of being alone. He would never go back, and it was impossible to feel comfort with being alone now. He wasn't sad or bitter; it was just impossible, that was the fact.

He knew when the change had taken place. His father had taken him to the harbor shortly after his mother died. They stood and watched the sun go down there, too. His father didn't say anything; he only stood there. He walked a small distance away, just far enough so his father wouldn't have to shout for him to come back. He wasn't interested in the ships, most of which trailed oil into the water like spilled paint. He looked to the west, to the horizon, where the sea seemed to suspend itself below the sky. There, speckled patterns of sunlight played with the distant birds. He realized he didn't want to be alone forever, like the waves.