Changes (12 page)

And then there was marriage.

And the issue of children.

Christ.

In the end, it was something too big to deal with.  We ended up watching The Maltese Falcon on channel nine and eating our pizza in relative silence.  She fell asleep in my arms.

For now, this was enough.

31

Morning came and with it, breakfast – hot coffee and cold pizza.  Tracy, being environmentally conscious, decided to conserve water by inviting me in to shower with her; I put aside my typical modesty and acquiesced. 

This was the fate of the planet we were talking about, after all.

The heaviness of the previous evening was forgotten, or so it seemed.  For the moment, we were content merely to fill each moment with each other.

If there is a deeper purpose to life, I have yet to find it.

When at last we dressed, t-shirts and sweatpants were the order of the day for both of us.  Mine was the standard plain black.  Tracy wore a brilliant yellow Descendents concert shirt with a stick figure drawing on it and the words, "I don’t want to grow up." It fit her, in more ways than one.

"Do you have appointments today, or are you playing hooky and doing the amateur sleuth stuff?" she said, slipping on her t-shirt.  Watching the cloth descend over her abdomen, I felt the same sadness that I always felt every time she got dressed.

"Neither," I said.  "I’m spending the day with you, if you’ll have me."

"Whatever shall we do?" she said with a grin.

"Anything you like."

"Can we go to the art museum and stare at all the neo- post- modernistic- alt- impressionist- destructo- metal pieces?" she said, falling back onto the bed.
"If we must," I said.

"Can we get sushi for lunch?" she said, rolling over onto her stomach and leaning her head on her hands.  She looked like a punk Gidget.

"Sure."

"Will you kiss me even with unagi and wasabi breath?"

"Definitely."

"Can we go to Six Flags?  Will you win me a big, gigantic, useless, probably made-in-Taiwan stuffed animal?"

"Even if it takes me all day," I said.

"Yay!  You, sir, are the best boyfriend ever!" she said, sliding up onto her knees and grinning as she bounced on the mattress.

I was slightly dumbstruck at the idea of being someone’s ‘boyfriend.’

32

At some point in conversation, I’d made the mistake of mentioning to her that I’d been slacking in the practice department, so she insisted that I do the form.  She wanted to see it, she said.

It was a picture perfect October day outside, so we walked a few blocks to Millar Park.  There, amidst the fallen leaves and skeletal trees, I assumed the beginning posture.

"You sure about this?  The whole thing takes a long time…you’ll be bored out of your mind."

"I’ll deal.  Do it," she said.

I sighed and became still.  As I began the form, I let myself focus only upon the movements.  It wasn’t easy, even with the years of practice.  I felt like a nervous kid around Tracy, and I was terrified of screwing up.  It was stupid, I know.  I managed to make it through without accidentally tripping myself in slow motion, and was surprised to see that not only Tracy was watching.  A small group of young Chinese men and women stood back, seemingly assessing my skill.

When I finished, Tracy applauded.

One of the group, a scrawny kid who looked to be in his early twenties, approached me and said, "Your Yang style is very good."

"Thank you," I said.

"Who is your teacher?"

"Sifu Wu Cai."

He nodded and said, "Would you like to push hands with us?"

I started to apologize and say that we had to leave, but Tracy said that she’d like to see the practice.  The kid stepped forward into a bow stance and raised his right arm.  I mirrored his stance and placed the palm of my hand against his forearm.  This was
Tui
Shou
, ‘Pushing Hands,’ a two person practice that was allowed each practitioner to gauge the others balance, as well as their ability to diffuse and deflect - as well as issue - attacks.

I pushed into his center, he effortlessly rolled back, guiding my energy aside and counter-attacking with his own push.  I redirected his energy and pushed again, lower.  The kid was good.  There was nothing stiff or wooden to his movements, and I was really pushing him.  He didn’t anticipate my movements; he waited, listening and interpreting each strike anew.  After a few seconds, we shifted into the two-handed practice.  Before long, we were free fighting, moving from technique to technique, alternately attacking and diffusing each other’s attacks.  His classmates showed no emotion, they only watched with detached interest.

While I was stupidly distracted watching the others, the kid pressed his fingertip into the soft tissue of my wrist, at an acupuncture point called
jingqiu,
and issued
fa-jin,
the explosive, intrinsic energy used only during combat, when you‘re really out to hurt somebody.

The power of the strike numbed my arm and made breathing difficult.  He was already moving in with a follow up hit, though, so I couldn’t just stand there.

I coiled my arm around his and shifted backward, pulling him forward into a palm strike to the face.  He moved to counter, but, with my weight sunk into my rear leg, I kicked him in his right hip with my left heel.  He was spun like a top into my waiting arms, which snaked around his throat and head; I applied the choke, and within seconds the boy was out.

I dropped him and looked to the others.  Nobody else seemed anxious to get frisky, so I shook out my arm and tried to rub feeling back into it.

Tracy stared at me like I’d grown a second head.  What had probably looked perfectly civilized to her had turned ugly in less than an instant, and chances were that she hadn’t even seen the kid attack me.

Before I could explain myself, an ancient looking Chinese man knelt at the boy’s side and jabbed him in the chest until he regained consciousness.  While the boy staggered to his feet, the old man faced me and scowled.

He wore a tan windbreaker and a pair of blue jeans that had been pulled up almost to sternum height.  A green stocking cap sat in a lumpy cone upon his head, and tufts of his grey eyebrows peeked out from beneath it like a couple of chilly caterpillars.

"You deserved that," he said.  "Sloppy.  Very sloppy."

"And him?" I said, gesturing to the boy.

"He’s a freaking idiot."

"His Tai Chi Chuan is very good," I said.

The old man waved his hand before his nose, as if he smelled something foul, and said, "His Tai Chi is donkey balls.  His Tai Chi does not deserve to smell my shit!"

I didn’t know what to say to that.  Tracy looked at the hunched old man with an expression of curious disgust. 

"Would you do me this great honor, sir?" I said, raising my arm to push hands with him.

He slapped my arm down and shouted, "You Americans all move like goddamned Frankenstein’s monster…imagine the arrogance of some bignose such as you aspiring to the supreme ultimate… Bah.  You aren’t worth my time, shithead."

With that, he turned and walked away to his apartment on the far side of the street.  His students followed.  Tracy watched them go before saying, "Who the hell was that guy?"

"Master Cheng Xing."

"The guy you wanted to check out?  Well, he didn’t have to be a dick."

"When you’re as good as him, you can be however you want to be."

"What are you talking about?  He’s a total feeb.  He can’t even stand up straight… I bet you could totally kick his ass."

"If Master Cheng had wanted a fight, I wouldn’t be standing here now.  Appearances, especially in Tai Chi, can be deceiving.  Don’t forget that."

She seemed unconvinced.

I rubbed my wrist again and suggested that we go.  I wasn’t going to wait around in case Master Cheng changed his mind.

33

During lunch at a beautiful sushi place on Delmar, Tracy asked about the latest developments in the case.  I told her about Tony Lau.  She knew the name.

"He’s an awesome painter," she said.  "He’s going to be huge."

"Really?"  I said.

She nodded enthusiastically.

"They got a few of his pieces in the contemporary galleries at the Art Museum.  Really cool stuff.  God, that’s so sad that she was his fiancée."

I agreed that it was and had a glass of sake.

"You really think his dad did it?" she said.

"Well, I think his dad arranged it."

"Why would he do that?"

"Maybe she stole the money from him… maybe she was blackmailing him… I don’t know."  I looked over at the sushi chef, watching him work.  He deftly sliced a thin piece of raw tuna.

"If you don’t know, then how can you be sure it’s him?"  Tracy said. 

"Well…he sent those guys after me in San Francisco."
"Yeah, but you said those guys were nancy-boys."

"So?"

"So you said the guy that killed Mei Ling was like a kung fu master or something.  If the Eight Tigers did it, and they knew that you knew, wouldn’t they send that dude to do you in?"

"Unless that ‘dude’ is from St Louis," I said.

"You mean like that old Cheng guy."

"Somebody like that, yeah."

"What does he have to do with anything?"  Tracy said, picking up a piece of spider roll.  She picked out a bit of the soft shell crab and popped it into her mouth.

"Mei Ling was killed here.  Maybe her murderer was a local, too?  And if he’s a local, I thought Cheng would probably know any decent martial artists in town."

Tracy frowned.  "Doesn’t that kinda blow your other theory, though?  I mean, unless Lau went through the trouble of finding and paying the guy  all the way from San Fran or something… I dunno, I just don’t see how all of this fits together."

"Join the club, dear," I said.  I had hoped that talking through things with Tracy would help sort them out in my own mind.  It hadn’t worked.

After lunch, we hit the Art Museum.  The closest I’d ever been to the place was my picnic with Tracy, when we’d first met.  On the way, in my car, we found some small musical common ground – David Bowie.  We both agreed that he was…ahem… ‘The Bomb.’

The museum was alive in a way that most artsy places I’d been to were not.  There was nothing somber or even especially quiet about it.  Everyone seemed respectful, but there was a genuine feeling of fun to the place. 

Even amongst the neo-post-modernistic-alt-impressionist-destructo-metal pieces.

I stared up at the formless scrap metal and broken glass and attempted to meaningfully ponder it, but I just didn’t get it.

I felt Tracy looking at me.  When I turned, she was grinning conspiratorially. 

"Before you even ask, it doesn’t have to
mean
anything, y’know.  None of this does.  That’s the problem with people… they think too much.  Just let it all go.  Think back to when you were a kid.  You can remember that far back, can’t you?"

"Hey, now," I said.

She wrapped her arm around my waist and slid in close.

"When you were little, really little, remember how things looked?  How the textures were?  The way you just wanted to reach out and touch everything?  Go back to that… and look at this again.  Look at everything that way.  Don’t try to fit it into your preconceived notions, don’t try to give it a meaning or figure it out… just
look
at it, feel its texture in your mind."
For all the simplicity of the idea, it worked.  The useless piece of shit I’d been staring at became something I wanted to climb.  A marvel of angles and lights and shadows. 

The transformation was shocking.  I remembered my teacher’s words, "Stop thinking you know so much and see the world like a baby sees it.  When you know it all, there’s nothing more to learn, nothing more to see.  For a child, the world is open, miraculous."

I leaned down and kissed Tracy on the forehead.

"Thank you," I said.

Even a dinosaur can learn new tricks.

We spent a good part of the afternoon and early evening wandering the galleries.  We spent a long time in the Asian collection, and I explained some of the religious symbolism to Tracy.  She seemed genuinely interested, and it kept me from feeling like too much of an idiot.

The contemporary gallery, as promised, featured a few of Tony Lau’s paintings.  I couldn’t tell you what it looked like.  I was too fixated on an information placard on the wall.

I excused myself from Tracy long enough to head outside and make the call. 

Knox answered on the first ring.

"You find out anything else about Lau Enterprises?" I said.

"A bit.  They’ve been scooping up bargain basement real estate around the bad parts of town, renovating it and selling for extravagant prices.  Some stuff they’re keeping.  Seems they’re intent on creating a real Chinatown again… why?"

"You think the Eight Tigers are moving more business into the city?"

"It’s possible.  You find anything out?"

"Lau Enterprises is sponsoring an exhibit at the art museum."

"No shit?  Of junior’s stuff, I presume."

"Yeah," I said.

"Interesting."

Yeah.  Real interesting.

34

We went to Tracy’s apartment after the museum.

She offered to cook.  I offered to eat. It was a match made in heaven.  Except, of course, for the mutant cat-thing that glared at me the whole time, but I was even getting used to that.

"Hello again, Tito…" I said, reaching out to pet him.  He got up and walked away, staring disdainfully at me over his shriveled, wrinkly shoulder.  She turned on MTV and got to work.  It just so happened that we were lucky enough to catch the fifteen minutes of actual music videos on MTV.

She made vegetable and herb samosas with raita and matar paneer.  With the spicy Indian food, we drank a dark amber beer.  It was, as Tracy said, "The Yum."

"I was almost going to be a chef," she told me over dinner.  "Spent a year in cooking school and everything."