Sightseeing (16 page)

“Ha ha,” I say. “Very funny. Now give me my damn hand back.”

There's bright lights and loud music and people all over the temple grounds. The boy's beside himself with excitement. He races ahead with his sister, runs back to report on what he's seen. Jack and his wife nod absentmindedly and the kid sprints to join his sister at the gates once more.

“Somebody give that kid a tranquilizer,” I say. “He's gonna poop his pants if he doesn't calm down.”

It's the usual carny fare. A Ferris wheel, a carousel, giant teacups, a Tilt-A-Whirl, a mini-roller coaster speeding through some poorly conceived jungle scene. All sorts of games and stuffed animals. The temple's monks sit in booths collecting tickets, ruffling their saffron robes every so often like orange
birds preening themselves. Thai music blares from the temple's staticky speakers. There's some clown walking around on stilts. He's poking people with a giant foam noodle, laughing and guffawing loudly, his stilts clopping on the pavement like hooves. He's walking toward us now and I'm thinking that if he so much as grazes me with that noodle I'm gonna kick the goddamn stilts from under him. The children are excited. They approach the clown, peer stupidly up at his face. He whacks my grandson on the head a few times. The boy's practically epileptic with delight. When the clown approaches me I give him my best snarl. He seems to get the point. I can almost see the man's smile disappearing beneath that coat of ridiculous clown paint. He quickly diverts his attention to a group of teenage girls nearby.

For a while, we just let the kids lead us through the fair. We stand by the rails and watch them take a few rides. At the Ferris wheel, I can hear my mongrel grandchildren yelling down at us from the sky. The boy waves every time their car dips to its lowest point. One time, the boy screams “ass” over and over again as he's coming down. I laugh. Jack gives me a look. “Nice, Father,” he says.

“I didn't teach him that,” I say. “Why would I teach him that?”

The girl sees a group of her girlfriends from school. I can tell that she wants to wander the fair with them. She asks Jack and he looks over at his wife. Tida shrugs like she can't see
any harm in it. The little boy wants to go with his sister. Jack and Tida are talking to them both now. They have stern, parental looks on their faces. They're telling the girl to take care of her brother. Jack takes off his watch and gives it to my granddaughter. We're to meet back at the Ferris wheel in an hour. Before we can even say good-bye they've joined the crowd snaking their way through the temple grounds.

The three of us wander over to a tent outside the temple gates. Most of the adults have congregated there. There's an empty dance floor with a mirror ball. They're serving beer. I ask Jack to get me one. “I don't know if a man in your condition should be drinking,” Jack says, and I say, “Don't be stupid, Jack. My condition's the
reason
a man like me should be drinking.” I tell Jack I want a Budweiser and he looks at me like I have horns.

He comes back with a beer for each of us. I'm concentrating hard, trying not to spill it on myself, the liquid dancing against the lip of the plastic cup. Jack asks me if I need help, but I tell him I still know how to drink a beer, thank you very much. Then I spill a little on my lap.

“Dammit,” I say.

The wife laughs. Jack smiles and takes the cup from my shaking left hand. “I'll get you a straw,” he says. “Dammit,” I say again. “Don't get me a straw, Jack. Nobody drinks beer with a straw.”

“You need a straw,” he says.

A little later Jack tells me his wife wants to dance.

“Go,” I say. “Dance. You're a grown man, Jack. You don't need my permission. I'll just sit here and play with my sippee cup.”

Jack leads Tida to the dance floor. They're the only people out there. It seems the whole place is watching them. Everybody looks up to watch my son—this tall, foreign man—dancing with his Thai wife. It's a slow Thai song and another couple, both Thai, join them on the floor, the lights from the mirror ball sweeping back and forth. Jack's holding his wife close. They're smiling at each other like there's so much love between them they don't know what to do with it. I'm a little embarrassed; I don't really want to look, though I also can't take my eyes off them. I'm sucking on my beer, thinking how you never get used to seeing your child's romantic side, when I look around and see some of the men under the tent snickering in Jack's direction. I notice, too, that the women are talking to one another sternly, peering at Jack and his wife. I can tell by the way they look at her that they think Tida's some kind of prostitute and suddenly I'm proud of them both for being out there dancing, proud of my boy Jack for holding his wife so close, because their love suddenly seems for the first time like something courageous and worthwhile, and I'm thinking:
There he is, Alice. There's your boy. There's our little man.

*   *   *

When we meet the kids back at the Ferris wheel, the temple's starting to empty. Some of the monks are sweeping the grounds. My grandkids are talking a mile a minute to Jack and Tida, telling them about all the things they've done. The boy shows me a ratty stuffed giraffe he's won at some game. “How do you do?” he says. He holds the thing proudly above his head. “Geeraahf!” he says, and I say, “Yeah, kid. Giraffe.”

“Grandfather okay?” the girl asks. There's a purple rose painted on each of her cheeks. “Grandfather have fun at temple?”

“Sure,” I tell her. “Grandfather had fun. Grandfather drank some beer. Grandfather got a little drunk.” The girl looks at me perplexed. Jack and his wife laugh. My son translates for the girl and she grins mischievously at me. “I see,” she says, nodding earnestly. “Drunk.”

We're halfway out of the temple when I see four teenage boys in bumper cars ramming into each other, giggling like hyenas. My grandson runs up to the rails and watches the boys in there for a while, hugging the giraffe close to his chest.

“Look at that, Jack,” I say. “He's just like you. Remember how you used to love bumper cars?”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “Sure.”

The boy wants to ride the bumper cars. He wants to get in there with the older boys. Jack and his wife both shake their heads no. “C'mon,” I say. “Don't be such a curmudgeon.”

Jack peers down at me like I amuse him. He says something to the wife, who shrugs, and then he calls his son over.
The boy skips excitedly back to his father. The girl's excited now too. She wants to get in there as well.

The bumper cars come to a sudden stop; time's up for the teenage boys. They all get out, walk over to the monk manning the lever, hand him more money, and return to their cars again, broad smiles on their faces. The monk looks over at Jack and the kids. Jack fishes out his wallet, gives the boy and girl some money.

“We should all go,” I say suddenly.

Jack looks at me like I just farted.

“Very funny,” he says, watching the kids run over to the monk.

“C'mon, Jack,” I say. “It'll be a blast.”

“You can't get in there, Father.”

“Sure I can.”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“Let me get in there with them,” I say. “Let me have a little fun with my grandkids.”

Before Jack can respond, I'm already waving my good left arm for the monk to hold on, wheeling myself toward the bumper cars. Jack's saying “Father,” but I've got the chair on Fastest, the wheels skipping quickly over the dirt. He and his wife are both walking briskly beside me now, trying to keep up. “Mister Perry,” Tida says.

When I get to him, the monk looks down at me, looks up at Jack, looks back at me once more, a wry smile on his
face. He pulls his orange robes tighter around him. I wonder for a moment if he's wearing anything under there.

“Give me some money,” I say to Jack, holding out my good left hand.

“No,” Jack says. “You can't go in there, Father.”

“Who says?”

“He says.” Jack nods in the monk's direction. I peer up at the guy.

“You really say that?” I ask the monk, but the guy just looks at Jack and Tida for help. He says something in Thai and Tida responds, laughing awkwardly. The monk's smiling some more at me now. I look over and see my grandson pretending to drive the bumper car even though it can't go anywhere yet.

“Let me get in there,” I say to the monk, nodding in the direction of the cars. “I'll be all right, Mister Monk.”

“Father—”

“Jack,” I say, turning to my son.
“Please.”
But Jack just frowns at me, blinking. “You really want me to be happy here?” I say. “Well, Jack, this is it. This'll make me happy. I swear. You let me in there and I'll be as happy as you want me to be.”

Jack licks his lips. I can tell he's thinking about it. I can tell I've almost got him. All the kids stare at us impatiently from their bumper cars. Jack sighs and says something to the monk. The monk just shrugs his shoulders, retrieves a pack of cigarettes from his robes.

“This isn't happening,” Jack says, reaching for his wallet.

When Jack gets me out of the wheelchair and carries me across the tarmac, all the kids fall silent. He helps me into an old red car, slides me into the passenger seat. He moves to get in beside me. I tell him to get his own car.

“I'm driving,” I say, pulling myself over to the driver seat, dragging my dead right arm along. “That's the damned point, Jack.”

“Jesus,” Jack says, rolling his eyes, but I just give him this steely look so he walks over to his son's car a few feet away and sits down beside him. I hear a few of the teenagers sniggering. Tida's seated snugly with her daughter across the pit. She's talking about me; the girl nods silently and looks my way every so often.

I've positioned myself comfortably now, the safety belt across my lap, my left foot firm on the acceleration pedal, my good hand a tight fist around the top of the metal steering wheel. The hand feels good. It's remarkably still. I stare at it astonished, like I'm discovering my hand for the very first time.

“C'mon, Mister Monk,” I start saying, and as if on cue the mirror ball above us comes to life, music starts blaring through the speakers, sparks start raining down from the electric ceiling, and the car's suddenly like some rocket yanking me through the stratosphere, screeching like a banshee, whipping
my whole body around. The kids squeal. I'm laughing hysterically, like somebody's tickling me. I'm laughing and I can't stop. For the first few seconds, I'm not even steering, I'm just laughing and loving the speed of the thing.

My car runs right into the edge of the tarmac. My head whips forward, jerks back quickly, and now I'm laughing even more from the impact. I'm drooling, spittle's flying everywhere, but I don't care about that anymore. I use the heel of my good left hand to steer away from the edge. I look around. I notice that all the kids have steered clear of me. So I start moving toward the pack in the center of the pit.

I see Jack and his son nudging one of the teenagers from behind, the cars bouncing off each other like pool balls. I'm bearing down on them now. I'm gathering speed. I'm a stone flying out of a goddamn slingshot. And then I get them good. I hit Jack and the kid so hard from behind both their heads start bobbing like one of those stupid dolls Mac loved to put on his dashboard. The little boy starts giggling and I'm screaming through the laughter, saying, “Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha!”

Jack looks at me like I've gone mad, his eyes wide and incredulous, but I just whip the car back around, still using the heel of my palm to steer, and I'm trying to find the wife and her daughter now. I see that they've been cornered by two of the teenagers, so I move over to the side of the pit and wait for an opening. When I see one, I charge through like some running back barreling across a goal line. Just as I'm about to
hit them, I swing around to sideswipe, bumping into them even harder than I'd bumped into Jack and the boy. I'm about to ask the girl who's kicking whose ass now but somebody smacks me from the back and when I turn around I see that it's Jack and the boy. I get out of the way and they barrel into Tida and the girl. I see them all laughing now, facing one another in their cars, and I'm circling them, planning my next line of attack. I'm going for the knockout punch, I'm aiming my car directly at both their bumpers, and when we all hit the impact nearly lifts me out of my seat, stretching the seat belt around my waist.

A few more maneuvers and the mirror ball's off, the pit's dark again, there's no more music except our laughing in our bumper cars. I'm soaked in my own sweat. I'm out of breath. I'm gasping for air. There's an awful cramp in my neck. My ass is sore as hell and my hand is purple from gripping the wheel so hard. I'm shaking with adrenaline. I can feel the blood sloshing back and forth through my head. My lips are numb when I wipe at the drool. I watch the teenage boys race out of the pit. I try to get out by myself. I unbuckle the seat belt and start hoisting myself with my good left hand. I nearly slip. But suddenly Jack's right there to help me. He's gripping my quivering body. He's sliding me out of the car and into his arms. “Father?” he asks in a serious voice while I lie there limp in his arms not saying a thing, staring unblinkingly up into his face, and I say, “Shut your trap, boy. Just be quiet. I'm still alive.”

I

Papa kept losing with his cocks. He'd bring them home every Sunday evening quivering inside their traveling coops in the Mazda flatbed, beady little eyes wild with chicken-terror, bold brilliant feathers wet with their own blood. Mama and I would pluck the dead ones. We'd blanch them. We'd bleed them for sausages, feed entrails to the strays. And then we'd roast them because, after all, as Papa would often tell me, a chicken was still a chicken no matter if it's raised to lay eggs or crow at the sun or fight like a gladiator.