some rest. Maybe show it to him tomorrow.”
“Mai thinks she is clever. She is trying to distract me because she knows that tomorrow I will forget.”
I laugh at Mai’s feigned innocence, and say, “I am tired but I’d like to see it.”
“Good good good,” he says, enthusiastic as a child. “Do you have some change in your pocket? Oh, very good. Put all of it on the table here.”
I set two nickels, a dime, and two quarters on the bamboo place mat.
“Pick up the dime,” he says. “We should stand.” We both get up and he moves directly in front of me. “Okay, place the dime in your palm, please. Then hold your open palm out toward me.”
I do as he says.
“Mai will count to three. When she says ‘three,’ I will try to grab the dime before you close your hand into a fist. This is a demonstration of speed from Temple of Ten Thousand Fists style.”
When he showed me the teacup trick in Portland, I didn’t see him move at all. I perceived something, a sense of air being displaced, I think, but I didn’t actually see him move his hands toward the cup.
“Okay, Sam. When Mai says three, close your hand as fast as you can so I don’t get the dime. Okay? Ready? I think I can beat you but I am not sure.”
“Yeah, right,” I say, looking at Mai who shoots me a you-won’t-believe-this look.
“Mai, begin the count.” I’ve seen people play the snatch the coin trick before, but they did it by hovering their hand over the coin. Samuel positions his right hand about eighteen inches away in front of mine, palm down, and his left palm on the table. “I used to do this demonstration with both of my hands on the table,” he says with a shrug. “But Father Time is a cruel beast.”
“One,” she says.
His hands are too fast so it would be useless to watch them. So I’ll watch his shoulders. No matter how a person moves, they give it away by moving their shoulders first.
“Two.”
My muscles are at a relaxed ready. I talked with Bob –Munden once, a guy who holds multiple world records in quick draw with a handgun. He said that he relaxes to about ninety percent before the buzzer sounds the signal for him to draw his gun and fire. He said that any less, like eighty percent, he would be too tense, and any more, like ninety-five percent, he would be too relaxed. He knows what he is talking about: He can draw, fire, and hit the target in less time than it takes to blink.
“Three!”
I snap my hand closed.
I don’t see Samuel move, but similar to what happened during the teacup trick, I detect something, a change in the air, a disturbance in the space between our two hands, I’m not sure. Samuel’s left hand is still resting on the table and his right is still floating palm down a foot and a half away. It remains open so it couldn’t hold a coin, unless he’s really good at pinching it somehow in his hand. Wait. Isn’t his… yes, I’m sure of it. His right hand is a tad to the right of where it was a moment ago and I think his right shoulder is a little higher. So he did move, it’s just that—
The coin. I can still feel the coin in my hand. He didn’t get it. I beat him.
I lift my fist in the air and bob my eyebrows at him.
“You are indeed fast, Son,” he says seriously, though I detect a twinkle in his eye. “Fast like lightning.”
“Oh, Father,” Mai says, shaking her head.
I frown. “Uh, okay?” I’m not understanding the demonstration.
“Look at your change on the table, Sam,” Mai says.
“A nickel and two quarters. I’m still not understanding…”
Samuel turns over his palm. Empty.
“I know,” I say. “I still have the—”
He lifts his left hand off the table, revealing a dime resting on the table. He bobs his eyebrows at me. I look back at the table. Wait. Didn’t I set down two nickels?
I slowly uncurl my fingers…
Jefferson’s profile mocks me. I’m holding a nickel.
“No—Damn—Way,” I breathe.
“Father switched the coins before you closed your fist, Sam.”
Wait, he would have had to have grabbed the dime with his right hand because it was closest. But how did he transfer it to his left that was resting on the table? And he would have had to pick up the nickel from the table with his left and transfer… How is it possible that someone can move that fast?
She laughs. “Your mouth is hanging open.”
I look back at Samuel.
“But I didn’t see you move.”
“Good,” he says sitting back down. “My vitamins are working.”
*
“Did you bring earplugs?” Mai asks, her lips tickling my ear.
“Yes,” I manage, nuzzling the silkiness of her hair. “I did as you told me.”
“That is good because the new noises might keep you from sleeping.” Her nose is making little circles on the side of my neck. “And it is also good that you obeyed me.”
“I must obey you, huh?” I ask, nibbling her earlobe.
“But of course.” Her body leans into me. “You have a problem with that?”
“Not even a little bit,” I squeak, just before our mouths meet and my head roars like one of the rocket attacks that slammed into Saigon forty years ago.
After we finished our tea, Samuel, Mai, and I sat at the table chatting about Vietnam’s weather, politics, crime, customs, and food. When I started to bring up what happened at Portland State University, Samuel lifted his palm, and said, “Let’s not talk about that your first day here.” And that was fine by me. I just brought it up because it seemed like an elephant in the room.
I was starting to slur my words, and was grateful when Samuel suggested that we carry my luggage to my room and say goodnight. He said it was an hour past his bedtime. He grinned when I asked him if he moves more slowly when he’s up late.
That “coin trick” was an amazing feat of speed. I refuse to think that his hands were invisible, but the more I think about it, it’s hard not to. I saw, or perceived, or felt, some kind of movement, plus there was evidence that he had moved. But the fact remains, he carried out a complex maneuver of picking up the nickel, snatching the dime out of my hand, replacing it with the nickel, handing off the dime to his other hand, and moving his grabbing hand back to where it started, hovering about eighteen inches from mine.
After we hauled my luggage to the triplex and Samuel
