end first.”
* * *
“You okay?” I ask. Rudy has pulled to the curb a few blocks from the women’s clinic and is patting his chest with his palm.
“I got to go on a diet, for sure. My old heart works overtime just to pack my ass around and when I got to do somethin’ harder than eatin’ chips, it feels like my ticker is goin’ to bust right out of my chest. The wife and my four daughters are ridin’ me all the time to lose some weight.”
“Sounds like they love you,” I say, watching his face for signs he might pass out.
He laughs, which sends his belly rolling and his shoulders shaking. “Guess you’re right. Yes, sir.”
“Where did you learn the eyelid technique?”
He laughs even harder, which shakes the cab like we’re in a magnitude four earthquake. “You like it? Works every time. Learned it in the army from a ranger. He taught me it was the best way to get a man’s attention. He was right too. I’ve used it many times on ornery drunk fares who didn’t want to pay me. What about you? Your friend is going to remember you every time he goes to use his hand or what’s left of it.”
“I teach martial arts.”
“Oh, right. I remember from the news. Some people burned down your school, or somethin’.”
I nod, flashing to that awful night watching my school burn. I flinch at the memory of the events leading up to it and of the crazy turn my life had taken. I learned there is a word for it: dukkha. Most cops never fire their weapon in their career, but in one eight-week period, I got into two shootings, one in which I accidentally shot and killed an innocent child. The “accidental” part doesn’t make it any easier.
Then I met my father. A man I thought had died in the Vietnam War suddenly became a part of my life. With him came a family life I had been sorely missing since my grandfather and my mother passed away. It’s been more than wonderful that in one of life’s great coincidences we found each other, but along with this joy came more violence. Seems like crazy dukkha runs in the family.
But then there is Mai, the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. I started having feelings for her the moment I saw her. It was devastating at first thinking she was my sister, but happily she isn’t. She is an unrelated stepsister and we have fallen, as she says in her rough English, “asshole over tea kettle in love.”
“They did burn it down. I’ll probably rebuild. Right now I’m holding classes in the basement of a church where one of my brown belts preaches.”
“Too cool. Hey, you think I’m too old and too fat to learn the art?” He makes chopping motions on his steering wheel with the edge of his palm.
“Mmm,” I say, giving him an up and down appraisal. “Yes.”
Rudy looks at me, sees my smirk, and does that whole-body laugh of his. “Okay, okay. First I get it from my wife and daughters and now from you. Okay.”
I lightly punch his massive shoulder. “Just messing with you, Rudy. You’re never too old. I had a male student in his seventies and an overweight grandmother in her sixties. It would get you in shape for sure.”
He’s still chopping his steering wheel. “I just might do it. Yes, sir. First there was Bruce Lee and now there’s goin’ to be Rudy Lee.”
I laugh at his antics. “And you can teach me the eyelid technique. I’ve heard of it but I never saw it in action.”
“I’ll do it, yes, sir. Right now, I should get you home. My dispatcher is probably wonderin’ what I’m doin’.”
Rudy pulls away from the curb and chuckles. “Rudy Lee. I like the sound of it. No, no, no. How ‘bout Rudy Van Damme?” He hangs a left on Hawthorne. “So how is the chubby grandmother and seventy-year-old man doin’?”
“Not too well. They both died.”
“Say what?”
I laugh. “They’re both doing fine.”
“Okay,” he says, pointing at me. “Got to watch you every second.”
Ten minutes later we’re parked in my driveway.
“What’s the damage?” I ask, helping Rudy pull my luggage from his trunk. I wave at Bill, my neighbor. He nods reluctantly. Probably mad because my lawn is overgrown and because of the hubbub here a few weeks ago.
“Let’s see,” Rudy says. “ I got to deduct the time I was in the coffee shop at the hospital, the fun we had at the demonstration, the laughs we had talkin’ after … I’d say I owe you about fifteen dollars.”
“We did have a good time, didn’t we? It kind of pushed the jet lag right out of me.”
“Gimme twenty dollars to satisfy the boss and maybe you can buy me a burger one of these noon hours.”
“Let’s make it thirty dollars and I’ll buy you a salad with vinegar and oil dressing.”
He laughs. “Okay, okay. It’s a deal. Here’s my card.”
I hand him mine. “I will call you, Rudy.”
* * *
I’m sipping a cup of green tea, a two-bagger, which should give me a little shot of energy to get through the rest of the evening. Got the front and back door open to air out the place and I’ve let all the faucets run for a minute to flush out the rust. No one broke in while I was gone, which I always worry about and, except for the lawn, the place is in good shape. Mai and I washed all my clothes before I left Saigon so I just got to put my things in drawers. It’s midmorning in Vietnam and there is where my mind and body are right now. It took me about three days to get over the time difference when I got to Saigon so I’m figuring about the same coming home.
It’s a little after eight p.m. and in the time I’ve been back in Portland, I visited my best friend in the hospital, did a little jujitsu in the front of a cab, and I made a new friend. Can I pack a lot into three hours or what?
Mai is probably in her office working on the jewelry stores’ books, or maybe tending to her sick mother. Kim’s TB is worsening and though no one has come out and said as much, I don’t think she has much longer to live.
I tap in about twenty-five numbers, listen to all the clanking, dead air, some creaks, and finally, ringing.
“This is the devil talking,” Mai says, “who do you want?”
I laugh. “That’s almost how it goes.”
“Sam,” she whispers, her voice heating up my face. “Are you in Portland?”
“I made it back sort of in one piece,” I say, imagining all five feet eleven inches of gorgeousness sitting by the koi pond in their ornate backyard, the color-splashed, wiggling fish nibbling at her dabbling fingertips—lucky fish.
“I miss you,” she says softly.
“I miss you more.”
“You
