Sightseeing Read online

  Mama said Papa was terrified and I wondered if she might be right. I’d never thought of Papa as a terrified man. When he told me that he, Wichian, wasn’t going to be scared, I had believed him; those bruises on his face seemed to verify my conviction. But now—in that confounding pause, staring at my own image reflected strangely in the mirror—I began to have my doubts, for I never thought Papa would ever come home with nine dead chickens, never thought he’d lose eleven thousand. I never thought Little Jui and that Filipino boy would beat my father at his own game. And I knew that Papa did not anticipate this either. Things might’ve been better had he come home instead with a thousand more bruises.

  The house came back to life again. Papa slammed the door. He walked out to the Mazda. Mama turned on the radio in the kitchen. I went to get my bicycle. As I stood in the yard strapping my schoolbag to the bike’s gridiron backseat, Papa started the truck engine. He backed the Mazda out, gravel crunching noisily. I waved to my father: a morning ritual of ours. But Papa throttled the engine and sped off to the factory, tires squealing, the truck disappearing into a thin veil of dust.

  That almost broke me. I wanted to end the entire thing right then and there. I wanted to go into that chicken house and wring the neck of every goddamn cock sleeping in its coop. But instead I just got on my bike and pedaled off to school.

  IX

  Later that day, my friend Noon and I decided to stop for an iced coffee in town. I didn’t want to be with Noon, but I didn’t want to go home, either. I didn’t want to be there when Miss Mayuree came to collect the bras. I despised Miss Mayuree—her gold-capped teeth glinting in that beak of a maw, her painted face, her sour gardenia perfume. But above all I hated seeing Mama bow and stoop before her—hated that submissiveness, that feigned gratitude for a paycheck. It made me wonder about our dignity. So when Noon eased up beside me on her bike after school and said, “Hey, stranger, haven’t seen you in a while,” I just shrugged and said, “‘Hey, stranger’ yourself.”

  We’d known each other since we were girls. Noon was the lottery vendor’s daughter. Her older sister, Charunee, had notoriously gone to Bangkok and come home calling herself Charlie, like she hadn’t only changed into a man, she’d also become a farang. When we were younger, before her sister decided to become a man, I’d often take Noon home on hot days and we’d scream and prance around the yard while Papa let the chickens loose and Mama pelted us with long jets of water from the hose. We no longer had that kind of friendship, however. Shortly after her sister returned from Bangkok, we both began to go through our own metamorphoses—Noon becoming a lithe, beautiful creature while I grew plump and ordinary in comparison. She gave the boys instant hard-ons; I ignored them altogether. She began to seem vapid and whorish with her relentlessly dollish ways. It was as if, with her sister going to the other side, she’d decided she needed to be twice the woman the rest of us were. For my part, I must have seemed tragic to Noon, with my pale, moonlike face and crispy, uninteresting hair; my indifference to beauty; my thick ankles; my bookishness.

  We took our iced coffees to a park bench. That’s when we saw Little Jui and Ramon, the Filipino boy, sitting on the sidewalk in front of Old Man Sorachai’s teashop. A group of men stood around them in an attentive semicircle. Little Jui gestured dramatically with his hands, occasionally patting the Filipino boy on the back. From what I could tell, Little Jui was narrating his triumphs from the night before; the men responded intermittently with peals of laughter. The Filipino boy stared coolly ahead, tapping his feet arrhythmically against the sidewalk. He smiled every so often, his teeth straight and white and shining in the sun. It seemed impossible that this lanky foreign boy with perfect teeth could humiliate my father. But there he was—the new champion, the boy who’d made my father curse and my mother scream, the boy who’d slaughtered nine of Papa’s chickens, the boy who’d won Little Jui’s money back. I turned away quickly when he caught me staring at him, but not before—to my chagrin—he beamed a toothy smile in my direction.

  “Oh my God don’t look,” Noon whispered, bending her head toward me. I could detect the scent of jasmine perfume on the nape of her skinny neck. “That Filipino boy is staring at you.”

  “It’s not me he’s staring at,” I said, laughing. “It’s not me he’s checking out.”

  “He is!” Noon insisted, giggling, sipping her coffee. “He’s staring at you.”

  “When did you get this way?” I said. “Don’t you think about anything besides penis?”

  “Don’t be such a killjoy,” Noon replied curtly. She looked at the boys flailing around on the new basketball courts Big Jui had recently built for the town. For every superficial civic deed Big Jui did—a basketball court, new bulbs for the town’s streetlights, sidewalks repaved, mailboxes on every third scorner—the townspeople agreed to endure his less philanthropic activities. Mama said it was like being massaged with one hand while getting punched with the other.

  “He was, you know,” Noon continued, smiling idiotically again. “That boy was staring at you. Swear on my grandmama’s grave.”

  “Okay. Shut up about it. And leave your grandmama out of this.”

  “He’s kind of handsome, actually. He’s cute, Ladda.” Noon licked her lips, smiled in Ramon’s direction. “Nice muscles. Good teeth. Sexy lips.”

  “He’s yours then,” I said, slurping the last of my coffee noisily, tossing it into the garbage can beside us. “Doesn’t surprise me that you haven’t heard, Noon. You’re so oblivious. You’re so fucking stupid. That boy caused my family a lot of misery.”

  “What did I ever do to you?” Noon asked, shaking her head. “When did you start hating me? We used to be friends, remember? Of course I heard about your papa; everybody’s talking about it. I’m not an idiot, you know. I just thought we were having a bit of fun.”

  “Sorry,” I said quietly, and I really meant it, for I knew I had been unnecessarily cruel. But the look on Noon’s face told me that all the apologies in the world wouldn’t fix a thing now. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Noon,” I continued nonetheless. “I’m just having a bad day. You should’ve been at my house this morning.”

  “Sure,” Noon said. One of the boys on the basketball court called out her name. Noon waved back.

  “See you around,” she said suddenly, getting up. “Hey,” I called after her. I didn’t want to be left alone. I was afraid Little Jui would see me, confront me again, this time with that Filipino boy beside him. “I said I was sorry, Noon. And you’re right. He is kind of cute.”

  Noon kicked her bikestand, turned around to face me. “Maybe we can be friends again someday,” she said. “But you have to play nice, Ladda.”

  “Noon, I said I was—”

  “Whatever,” she said, getting on her bike. “Later.”

  I wanted to leap from my seat and tear the ringlets from her scalp. But instead I just watched her bike toward the basketball court, her long hair waving behind her. In front of the teashop, Little Jui was still spinning his yarn for the men; he limped around now in what was an imitation either of Papa’s cocks or of Papa himself. The men laughed, which only encouraged Little Jui; he seemed like a toddler pleased by adult approval. I noticed that Ramon had disappeared while Noon and I were talking. I panicked. Because Noon was right—the boy did smile at me—and I was afraid that Ramon was approaching me unseen, that he would startle me with a light touch on the shoulder, a whisper in the ear.

  I decided to go home. I started biking through the park toward the main road. As I passed the basketball court, I spotted Ramon there, scurrying for a loose ball. The other boys converged upon him while Noon clapped from the sidelines like an idiot. After a brief struggle, Ramon emerged with the ball. He stood there smiling under the sun, his chest glistening with sweat, the ball nestled in the crook of an arm.

  He waved at me.

  I looked away, put my head down, pedaled as fast as I could through the park. By the time I got to the main road, I couldn’t tell
if the heat in my chest was from the biking, from the hot sun, or from the way that foreigner had waved while Noon and the other boys looked in my direction.

  X

  When I got home, Miss Mayuree was still on the porch with Mama. Two of her men loaded the lingerie boxes into her sleek blue sedan. Mama smiled, nodded blankly. I went to the chicken house to find Papa. He was doing the weekly cleaning. I went inside and helped him change the water pans and sanitize the coops.

  While we cleaned, Papa told me he had a new strategy. There was no way his cocks could outfight those Filipino purebreds, he said; that was his mistake. The purebreds were too large, too strong for that. In the Philippines, those chickens guard houses, attack thieves in the night. Dogs feared them. There wasn’t a Thai chicken that could outfight a Filipino purebred; any self-respecting cockfighter knew that. The only way to beat one, Papa said, was to own one. But we didn’t own any Filipino purebreds, I reminded Papa. We owned nothing but mongrel hatchlings bought from local farmers, cocks born to crow at the sun and strut around the yard.

  “Fear,” he said proudly. “That’s the key, Ladda. That’s the solution.”

  I squinted at him.

  Papa told me that cocks know no fear. If they felt their territory was at stake, they’d probably fight a truck. He needed to teach the chickens fear. He needed to teach them how to dodge. If he could get his cocks to bob and weave like nimble boxers from the murderous advances of the Filipino purebreds, they might have a chance. Papa skipped around the chicken house as if to demonstrate the idea. I thought he’d lost his mind.

  “C’mon,” he said, whipping his head, fists swinging at his sides. “Hit me.”

  “Papa,” I said.

  “Hit me,” he said, smiling playfully. “Give it a try. I’ll be one of the cocks. You be one of the Filipino purebreds.”

  “Papa,” I said again, bending down to scoop a pile of droppings with a dustpan, watching them cascade into the garbage bag. But Papa kept hopping around like some crazy. I stared at him with the garbage bag in one hand. Papa started clucking like a chicken then, put fists to armpits and flapped his elbows, bounding wildly around me. I laughed.

  “Hit me, hit me, hit me!” he yelled, laughing too. “Give it your best shot, Ladda. Bok-bok! Bok-bok!”

  “You’re crazy,” I said. “Wait till I tell Mama about this.”

  “C’mon, you Filipino purebred! Give it your best shot!” He reached out with a hand and slapped me jokingly on the side of the head. “Bok-bok! Bok-bok!”

  “Papa!”

  But Papa just kept on jumping around, reaching out to cuff me again and again. I became exasperated. I suddenly started thinking about the way he’d driven off earlier that day, ignoring my wave, and how he seemed so different now, the same old Papa, like nothing had happened. So I reached out and swung the bag of chicken shit at his face. I trusted Papa to dodge. But the blow hit him squarely on the ear, bursting the bag, chicken shit hailing down all around us.

  Papa looked at me stunned. For a second, I was afraid I’d really hurt him. “Nice shot,” he said, grinning sheepishly.

  “Let’s hope the cocks are faster, Papa,” I said, relieved by his good humor. “I’m no Filipino purebred, you know. I’m no murderous chicken.”

  Papa told Mama about the new strategy over dinner. Mama nodded quietly. Miss Mayuree’s visits always put Mama in a sour, insular mood. This time, Miss Mayuree had upped the monthly quota to a thousand, though without an increase in pay. Work was scarce; Mama had agreed to the new quota.

  “I’ve had enough,” Mama said, ignoring Papa. “I’ve had enough of that miserly, harlot widow and her goddamn lingerie.”

  “Did you hear what I just said?” Papa asked. “About the chickens?”

  “Sure,” Mama replied. “You’re teaching your chickens fear.”

  “It’s genius,” Papa declared.

  “Sure,” Mama said again. “You’re a genius. But I really don’t care if you teach your chickens how to flush a toilet. Because you know what would truly be genius, Wichian? What would truly be genius is if you get us back the eleven thousand on Sunday. This ship is sinking fast.”

  XI

  I saw Little Jui again the next afternoon. The Range Rover was parked outside the high school. Before I could get to my bike, Dam and Dang stopped me by the barbed-wire fence. “Miss,” Dam said, tapping my shoulder, while his partner stared down at me, gut heaving like some gigantic melon pulsing beneath his shirt. “Come with us.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I tried to walk past them, but Dang nudged me back with a quick hand. “Get your hands off me!” I cried. Some of the students looked in our direction but—seeing Dam and Dang—decided to ignore the scene, resume their after-school chattering.

  “No need to make a fuss, miss,” Dam said, raising his pudgy hands as if taking an oath of innocence, and I remembered then that these two were responsible for the bruises on Papa’s face, bruises which were only beginning to heal. “The boss just wants to talk to you,” Dang said. I saw the Range Rover across the street, Little Jui smiling out the back window. Ramon, the Filipino boy, was sitting next to him, staring at me over Little Jui’s shoulder.

  “Just come with us, miss,” Dam said again. “We don’t mean any harm.”

  “You assholes,” I said, gritting my teeth. Then, to my own surprise, I spat at them both—one, then the other—thin strings of spittle landing on their shirtfronts. “That’s for what you did to my father.”

  “Now, there’s no need for that,” Dam whispered, grabbing me briskly by the forearm, and my heart leapt, more from the gesture’s brutishness than from the pain it inflicted. I tried to pull away. I heard Noon then, recognized her bright, chirpy laughter. I tried to make eye contact, but Noon seemed oblivious, deep in some mating dance: smiling, hands fluttering, body leaning into a boy’s smile.

  “If you want to be treated like a lady,” Dam hissed, tightening his grip, “start acting like one.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Sure.” So I bent down and bit his thick, hairy fingers, his skin taut and salty between my teeth, his thick bones creaking like a plum pit in my jaw. Dam winced and yapped, tried to yank his fingers away. I wished Papa could see me. I wanted to break the skin, feel the warm gush of blood on my tongue, but Dam managed to pull himself free by yanking at my hair with his other hand. His partner Dang grabbed me by the waist, hoisted me up, and carried me toward the Range Rover. I kicked and screamed, his ropy arms like a noose tightening around my abdomen, Little Jui’s smiling face moving closer and closer with every step.

  “Hey! Put her down!” a voice called out from behind us.

  To my surprise, Dang set me down in the street. Little Jui laughed from the backseat of the Range Rover. Ramon eyed me silently, his mouth a straight thin line. When I turned around, I saw Noon lunging at Dang, pelting his chest with a flurry of impotent slaps. He tried to grab her flailing arms, told her to cut the nonsense. All the other students stopped and looked in our direction now.

  The security guard ran toward us from his box outside the high school gate, a hand on his baton. “Is there a problem here?” he asked, looking at Dang, who now had both of Noon’s wrists in his hands. The guard said those words sheepishly, like he’d heard them somewhere else, on television perhaps. He was a young, sickly boy known more for his way with the high school girls than his ability to fend off whatever dangers necessitated his presence. He was just another one of the town’s many pretenses, especially where the law was concerned.

  “Yes, there is,” Noon said impatiently, struggling against Dang’s grip. He let her go. Dam stalked up behind me, nursing his hand. I heard him call me a cunt.

  “No problem, guy,” Little Jui said from the backseat of the Range Rover. “No problem at all.” Little Jui reached out and waved a red hundred-baht note in the security guard’s face. “We were just having some fun, guy. Just horsing around.”

  The security guard kept looking back and forth helplessly betwe
en the note fanning before him, Little Jui’s smile, and me. “Just a bit of fun, guy,” Little Jui said again. He tossed the note at the security guard, the bill flopping in the air before landing at his feet. And all that time I felt Ramon staring at me over Little Jui’s shoulder.

  “You can go back to your little box now,” Little Jui said. The security guard looked at me. He bent down and picked up the note from the ground. “Take it elsewhere,” he said to Little Jui, tucking the money into his breast pocket. “Go have fun somewhere else.”

  “Hey,” I said as the security guard walked away. The students started chattering again. “These people are trying to kidnap me!”

  “C’mon, Ladda,” Noon said, reaching for my arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

  When I looked back, Dang had already started the Range Rover while Dam settled himself into the passenger seat, his face still red with pain. Little Jui leaned out the window and pinched my cheek.

  “I’m gonna get you next time,” he said, sucking obscenely at his lips, fingering my chin. “I’m gonna get you good.” Ramon looked at me, brow furrowed in consternation. “You have no idea about the people you’re working for, do you,” I wanted to say to him. I reached out and tried to grab Little Jui’s fingers, thinking I might bite again; but Dang had already pulled the car away, Little Jui’s laughter fading down the road.

  “You okay?” Noon asked as the car disappeared. “Fine,” I said, rubbing my forearm, blood like lava in my veins. “Thanks.”

  We picked up our bicycles and walked away from the high school. The bike chains ticked between us as the sun elongated our shadows. I wanted to hug Noon then; I wanted to apologize for being cruel the day before. She had surprised me with her bravery. I wanted to tell Noon how afraid I’d been when that goon picked me up and carried me across the street. How suffocated. How helpless. How—for the first time in my life—truly endangered.