Robert Tanenbaum - Act of Revenge

“Um, no, me neither,” said Janice haltingly.

“Damn it, I was wasted! How much did you drink?”

“Oh, a lot. Four cans.”

“Four! I had six, and Mary Ma had the same. We must have finished half a case. I completely lost track of time.”

From an early age Lucy Karp had been able to make up stories, precociously sophisticated ones about little girls who slipped between the cracks in reality, and expansions of traditional fairy tales, in which Cinderella, Tarzan, and the Wolfman would visit Mars to rescue Barbie. So she had no difficulty making up a yarn in which the three of them, Mary Ma, Janice Chen, and herself, had slipped away to the West Street docks, where the bad boys and the hustlers hung out (although not in the early afternoon, as a rule) and gotten drunk on beer, and become sick, and staggered back to the Asia Mall to find there (Surprise! Horror!) the uproar of the shootings. Once Janice saw where the theme was headed, she had no difficulty embellishing the plot with many an amusing detail. The gangsters were glowering and mumbling to each other, an ideal audience for this lie. Janice was growing more nervous by the second, however, and Lucy was not confident that her friend would keep up the fiction without letting out something harmful. Janice was not a liar in Lucy’s league. What was needed now was a graceful, or at least a plausible, exit.

Lucy found it after five tense minutes of stiff, false chatter. She pointed past the steamy window to the street. “Look,” she cried, “there’s Warren Wang. Oh, God, how do I look? Pay the bill! No, give me a mirror.”

“Warren Wang ?” said Janice in an astonished voice, and received a sharp kick under the table.

“My boyfriend, you idiot,” said Lucy in English under her breath, and then louder in Cantonese, “Come on, Jen-dai, let’s catch up with him.” Lucy stood and, using the mirror Janice handed her (for she did not carry one herself) pretended to primp, after which she attempted to mime the appearance of young love, in the style of Gidget reruns. The disgusting little squeals that issued from her throat rang absurdly false to her own ears, but she hoped they would convince a pair of Chinese nogoodniks just off the boat.

Warren Wang, an eighth grader with plump cheeks, thick spectacles and a bad haircut, a Spiderman devotee and the vice president of the math club, was a well-known dweeb, and to be considered a dweeb in a Chinese-American environment is to have achieved dweebness in its most refined form. That Janice Chen, the most beautiful girl in eighth grade, and Lucy Karp, the weirdest, might suddenly accost him on Mott Street in the light of day, gripping his arms and cooing, was not something he had ever expected outside the world of teenage boy dreams. He knew Mary Ma, another math club stalwart, and he knew that these two hung around with her, but heretofore he had only gazed at her two friends from a distance. Yet here was Lucy’s bony little hip pressing in on one side and Janice’s softer one on the other, their arms linked in his, the both of them chattering gaily, how you doing, Warren, want to go somewhere, Warren, listen to records, a movie? Warren had heard about dog dates, of course, and was well informed about the boundless and inventive cruelty of in-crowd girls. He stiffened, like a hen in the jaws of a fox, waiting for the punch line.

Lucy was in contrast feeling loose and on top of things. It was a Kim moment, combining as it did the yanking of wool over the eyes of vaguely defined malign forces and impressing her peers with her brilliance and mystery. And she was enjoying talking to this boy, something she hardly ever did, would never be caught dead doing as the grotesque beanpole Lucy Karp, but now, in the urgency of the situation, she was mobilizing Claudine as well as Kim, so the charm just gushed out, delightful dirty nonsense: “Warren, I know you’re interested in sexual perversions. Have you been to the new place on Broome that caters to Asian sadomasochists?”

Blushing giggles. “You’re the only perverted one here, Lucy,” said Janice.

“More than you know, my dear,” said Lucy, “although Warren could probably both teach us something, eh, Warren? Anyway there is one.”

“There is not. Don’t listen to her, Warren.”

“Yes, it’s called Thais That Bind,” said Lucy casually, at which Warren, who took an inordinate delight in puns (in English-any fool could pun in Chinese), cracked up and fell in love, in that order. Warren’s laughter infected the two girls, and soon they were all three staggering against walls, clinging to each other, convulsed by the hysteria-so irritating to the adult world-that is peculiar to the adolescent psyche.

Lucy was not entirely lost in herself, however, and had been keeping an eye on the two ma jai. They were standing a half block away, conversing and glaring at the three kids through their dark glasses. They did not like that there was laughter going on, since there was at least a possibility that some of it was directed against them. As Lucy watched, they seemed to make a decision and started to move rapidly toward the group, pushing through the Mott Street crowds, who were quick to yield the way.

Lucy sobered instantly, grabbed the two other kids by their arms, and tugged them north on Mott Street. The two gangsters now pulled close enough to nearly tread on their heels and started to talk nasty.

“Look at the three girls,” said the thin one. “Which one do you want?”

Pockface said, “Only one girl has an ass worth fucking. One is too big and the other has none at all.”

And much worse as they moved up Mott and across Canal. Warren kept mumbling out of the side of his mouth, asking for an explanation: Why are these guys following you? Why don’t you call a cop? What’s going on? Where are we going? To all of which Lucy replied with soothing words and urged them all along west on the north side of Canal Street, nearly running, Warren pale and tripping over his feet, the thugs dancing around them, poking them, calling out the colorful obscenities with which Chinese is so plentifully supplied. They collected disapproving glances from the shoppers and merchants along the way, but no one interfered.

Lucy judged her distances and nudged Warren in the ribs.

“Warren, the Pearl River Market is coming up. When we get there, cut and run in. They won’t follow you.”

“No, I’ll stay with you,” said Warren, surprising both of them as the words came out. His glasses were misted with strenuous perspiration. Lucy frowned. She had never been gazed at with devotion before, and it made her cross.

“Warren, just go! It’s a plan. We’ll be all right. Now. . run!” She shoved him away, and he vanished into the large Chinese food store. In the same motion she spun and shouted at the gangsters, “ Gou pi! Cao ni ma bi!”

It took a second for the gangsters to understand that a skinny white girl had yelled at them, in public, “Dog fart! Fuck your mother’s pussy!” In that instant Lucy (and a split second later, Janice) were off like deer, the gangsters pursuing. So intent were they on the chase that they failed to notice when they crossed Baxter Street, which marks the border, in gangland, between China and Vietnam.

Halfway to the next street, Lucy slowed; Janice looked in panic over her shoulder to see what was wrong and discovered that the two ma jai had disappeared.

Gasping for breath, hands on her knees, Janice demanded, “What happened? Where are they?”

“Someplace they’d probably rather not be,” Lucy replied, gasping. “It’s okay, we’re cool now.”

At this Janice Chen, who had been holding herself in with great effort since Doyers Street, exploded.

“Cool? What the hell do you mean, cool ? What are you doing to me? What’s happening? Who were those guys and what did they want? Where did they go? I swear, Lucy, I’ll strangle you if you ever pull anything like this again.” And more in the same vein, with the waterworks thrown in. Janice finally collapsed into a heap on the pavement, leaning against a wall. Lucy squatted next to her.