SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“Friendly competitor, more like it,” Tom replied. “So you gonna get some food or what?”

“No offense, but this market doesn’t look like the cleanest place to eat,” Jake said. “What if I get the runs?”

Tom made a little explosion with his hands. “Then you shit in the water, like the fish.”

“Fair point.” Jake smiled and got up. “Singapore noodles?”

“With squid. Tell her I sent you over. She’ll be sure to wash her hands then.”

“I’ll be back.”

Jake walked out of the stall and headed left. Tom followed him to the entrance and leaned against a pylon, watching the boy go down the shore. The warm air brought many of the other stall-holders to their makeshift doorways, under ragged awnings that gently luffed in the breeze. When Jake reached Alice, Tom could see him trying to explain something complicated to her. She got annoyed. Confused, he pointed back at Tom’s stall. Alice nodded excitedly and waved at Tom. He waved back. She then grabbed Jake’s hand, lifted the awning to let him through, and they both disappeared from view in the darkness beneath the concrete roofing.

He’d always had a soft spot for Alice. She’d been an institution at the night market long before the navvies worked the boardwalk. He wondered if the story was true, that her family had died, burned when the canals in Queens flooded, and that now she could only sleep during the day. It was a good story. And a good story could keep you safe.

He checked his watch. It was half-past seven. Slack tide would soon be over and the ebb tide would begin. Time was running out. The patrols would be looking for him at ten. He needed to close this deal and get in the water or the next time he went swimming, they’d stun him and not bother fishing him out. So either the kid was a little sacrifice to the gods of the day, or he was.

It was not a kind thing to do, but everyone came up against it. And his luck had run out after five years. He knew the others had done it. Drunken early-morning confessions, after they’d swum back, pounds lighter, slurring their shame through the stink of sea and synthfat, made all the more absurd by their salt-hardened hair, sticking out like a clown’s wig.

Jake came back, following three young men who were eyeing each stall, uncertain of where to go. He carried an old plastic yogurt container filled with steaming noodles. An errant green onion clung to the side.

“Eat up,” Tom said, “and let’s talk business.”

“How long you been doing this?” Jake asked.

Tom looked up at the sky and cocked his head thoughtfully. “November, five years ago. I went out to work. It was awful, just after a late-season hurricane. No guides, then, just desperate men, desperate for money.”

The legislation had passed through Congress swiftly: all products or services for sale in the U.S.A. cannot be made, or rendered, on foreign soil. It was political posturing and everyone knew it. The Chinese had built factory ships for years to skirt their own trade wars with the WTO, but now, with high fuel and labor costs at home, they saw a perfect opportunity to export our own jobs back to us. The law, which on paper was meant to protect workers, ended up doing the opposite. Near-shoring, they called it.

No one was surprised.

But to create the illusion that they didn’t want to do exactly what they planned to do, they created the Labor Police to patrol the coast up to the international water boundary, which, conveniently, the U.N. had rezoned to six miles from the high-water mark. No exclusive economic zone. No contiguous zone. Just six miles from the sun chairs and umbrellas and you’d find an internationalist free-for-all.

Nobody knew if they were supposed to work or starve, except the companies who realized it was just a matter of dragging those factory ships from the edge of Chinese waters to the edge of ours, then let the free market supply the workers. After all, it had already supplied the law.

“Damn. You’re old school, man.” Jake was impressed. “That’s pretty brave, going out on your own.”

“I used to surf and fish around here, so I knew the water pretty well.”

“Weren’t they rounding people up like crazy back then? You ever get picked up?”

Tom answered, straight into Jake’s eyes. “A couple times. Back then the Labor cops were aggressive, but stupid, so you could bullshit your way out of it. Or bribe them.”

Jake looked a little concerned. “They’re not a big deal anymore?”

“Not as much. They’ve had bad in-fighting since their union sold them out. Their managers got a golden parachute and the rest of ’em got a fist in the ass.”

“So that’s a no?” Jake pushed.

“Now it’s mostly privatized. Those guys work on commission: independent contractors like everybody else, so they’re pretty aggressive. Though rumor is if you put up a big enough fight, they’ll recruit you.”

Tom was now vigorously rubbing the synthfat into his face and bald head, the fire in the bucket reflected through tiny flames on his scalp.

“There’s another recession-proof job for life,” he continued, “keeping other people down.”

“So what do I need you for?”

“You don’t. There’s the ocean,” Tom said, gesturing toward the water with his palm up. “Start swimming.”

“Hey,” Jake said, mistaking Tom’s comment for hurt, “I didn’t mean anything by that.”

“I know,” Tom replied. “They’re definitely still around, the cops and the private cops. Now they try trickier things: some hero fucker wants to make a career for himself. Comes to the market, finds a guide, makes some arrests. If they get really cocky, they bring the hammer down and close the whole boardwalk. You can smell those guys a mile away.”

“Why is that?”

“They act like men who have jobs,” he said. “But the law isn’t the problem anymore. The real trouble comes from the patriots. Vigilante assholes bankrolled by rich leftists who think taking jobs from the Chinese is destroying the country. They don’t arrest. They blow things up.”

Jake slurped up some noodles.

“So how do you know I’m not an undercover cop or one of these terrorists?”

“Can’t know for sure, of course,” Tom said as he started to rub the fat on his upper thighs and groin. The hairs on his body swayed left and right, like seaweed caught in competing tides. “But, like a lot of those fuckers have learned, asking a strange man to take you on a six-hour swim at night in cold water can be a good way to drown. It’s a lesson you only need once.”

“For the record,” Jake said, “I’m not.”

“The thought, my friend, never crossed my mind,” Tom replied. “Right. Enough morbid shit. Back to practicalities. You said you did IT?”

“Yeah,” Jake replied. “I was a coder.”

“I can’t guarantee you’ll find a ship where your particular talents would be useful. Some factory ships are call-centers, some do computer stuff, others need programmers and developers. But most are just factories…making baubles for the natives.”

“So I’ll be an assembly-line worker?” Jake looked upset.

“What were you before? C-E-effing-O? An innovator?”

“Maybe I should go ask one of the other guides.” Jake said, a defensive edge in his voice. “Shop around.”

Tom continued to stare out at the sea. “Go right ahead. Three stalls down is Ahmed. He’s good. Ask away. Or, like I said, the water is right there. Enjoy the swim.”

Jake sat silently. The sound of the surf broke through the susurrus of stall chatter.

Talk like that , Tom thought, will not close this deal.

“Look, I’m not saying it’s impossible,” Tom said, his tone softer now. “Maybe one of the full-time workers got sick or transferred. You might get lucky and steal their job. It’s better for me, right? I work on commission. But this is New York. There’s a lot of competition.”