Rattawant Lapcharoensap - Sightseeing - Stories

“Sure I can.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Let me get in there with them,” I say. “Let me have a little fun with my grandkids.”

Before Jack can respond, I’m already waving my good left arm for the monk to hold on, wheeling myself toward the bumper cars. Jack’s saying “Father,” but I’ve got the chair on Fastest, the wheels skipping quickly over the dirt. He and his wife are both walking briskly beside me now, trying to keep up. “Mister Perry,” Tida says.

When I get to him, the monk looks down at me, looks up at Jack, looks back at me once more, a wry smile on his face. He pulls his orange robes tighter around him. I wonder for a moment if he’s wearing anything under there.

“Give me some money,” I say to Jack, holding out my good left hand.

“No,” Jack says. “You can’t go in there, Father.”

“Who says?”

“He says.” Jack nods in the monk’s direction. I peer up at the guy.

“You really say that?” I ask the monk, but the guy just looks at Jack and Tida for help. He says something in Thai and Tida responds, laughing awkwardly. The monk’s smiling some more at me now. I look over and see my grandson pretending to drive the bumper car even though it can’t go anywhere yet.

“Let me get in there,” I say to the monk, nodding in the direction of the cars. “I’ll be all right, Mister Monk.”

“Father—”

“Jack,” I say, turning to my son. “Please.” But Jack just frowns at me, blinking. “You really want me to be happy here?” I say. “Well, Jack, this is it. This’ll make me happy. I swear. You let me in there and I’ll be as happy as you want me to be.”

Jack licks his lips. I can tell he’s thinking about it. I can tell I’ve almost got him. All the kids stare at us impatiently from their bumper cars. Jack sighs and says something to the monk. The monk just shrugs his shoulders, retrieves a pack of cigarettes from his robes.

“This isn’t happening,” Jack says, reaching for his wallet.

When Jack gets me out of the wheelchair and carries me across the tarmac, all the kids fall silent. He helps me into an old red car, slides me into the passenger seat. He moves to get in beside me. I tell him to get his own car.

“I’m driving,” I say, pulling myself over to the driver seat, dragging my dead right arm along. “That’s the damned point, Jack.”

“Jesus,” Jack says, rolling his eyes, but I just give him this steely look so he walks over to his son’s car a few feet away and sits down beside him. I hear a few of the teenagers sniggering. Tida’s seated snugly with her daughter across the pit. She’s talking about me; the girl nods silently and looks my way every so often.

I’ve positioned myself comfortably now, the safety belt across my lap, my left foot firm on the acceleration pedal, my good hand a tight fist around the top of the metal steering wheel. The hand feels good. It’s remarkably still. I stare at it astonished, like I’m discovering my hand for the very first time.

“C’mon, Mister Monk,” I start saying, and as if on cue the mirror ball above us comes to life, music starts blaring through the speakers, sparks start raining down from the electric ceiling, and the car’s suddenly like some rocket yanking me through the stratosphere, screeching like a banshee, whipping my whole body around. The kids squeal. I’m laughing hysterically, like somebody’s tickling me. I’m laughing and I can’t stop. For the first few seconds, I’m not even steering, I’m just laughing and loving the speed of the thing.

My car runs right into the edge of the tarmac. My head whips forward, jerks back quickly, and now I’m laughing even more from the impact. I’m drooling, spittle’s flying everywhere, but I don’t care about that anymore. I use the heel of my good left hand to steer away from the edge. I look around. I notice that all the kids have steered clear of me. So I start moving toward the pack in the center of the pit.

I see Jack and his son nudging one of the teenagers from behind, the cars bouncing off each other like pool balls. I’m bearing down on them now. I’m gathering speed. I’m a stone flying out of a goddamn slingshot. And then I get them good. I hit Jack and the kid so hard from behind both their heads start bobbing like one of those stupid dolls Mac loved to put on his dashboard. The little boy starts giggling and I’m screaming through the laughter, saying, “Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha!”

Jack looks at me like I’ve gone mad, his eyes wide and incredulous, but I just whip the car back around, still using the heel of my palm to steer, and I’m trying to find the wife and her daughter now. I see that they’ve been cornered by two of the teenagers, so I move over to the side of the pit and wait for an opening. When I see one, I charge through like some running back barreling across a goal line. Just as I’m about to hit them, I swing around to sideswipe, bumping into them even harder than I’d bumped into Jack and the boy. I’m about to ask the girl who’s kicking whose ass now but somebody smacks me from the back and when I turn around I see that it’s Jack and the boy. I get out of the way and they barrel into Tida and the girl. I see them all laughing now, facing one another in their cars, and I’m circling them, planning my next line of attack. I’m going for the knockout punch, I’m aiming my car directly at both their bumpers, and when we all hit the impact nearly lifts me out of my seat, stretching the seat belt around my waist.

A few more maneuvers and the mirror ball’s off, the pit’s dark again, there’s no more music except our laughing in our bumper cars. I’m soaked in my own sweat. I’m out of breath. I’m gasping for air. There’s an awful cramp in my neck. My ass is sore as hell and my hand is purple from gripping the wheel so hard. I’m shaking with adrenaline. I can feel the blood sloshing back and forth through my head. My lips are numb when I wipe at the drool. I watch the teenage boys race out of the pit. I try to get out by myself. I unbuckle the seat belt and start hoisting myself with my good left hand. I nearly slip. But suddenly Jack’s right there to help me. He’s gripping my quivering body. He’s sliding me out of the car and into his arms. “Father?” he asks in a serious voice while I lie there limp in his arms not saying a thing, staring unblinkingly up into his face, and I say, “Shut your trap, boy. Just be quiet. I’m still alive.”

I

Papa kept losing with his cocks. He’d bring them home every Sunday evening quivering inside their traveling coops in the Mazda flatbed, beady little eyes wild with chicken-terror, bold brilliant feathers wet with their own blood. Mama and I would pluck the dead ones. We’d blanch them. We’d bleed them for sausages, feed entrails to the strays. And then we’d roast them because, after all, as Papa would often tell me, a chicken was still a chicken no matter if it’s raised to lay eggs or crow at the sun or fight like a gladiator.

I knew it broke Papa’s heart to kill those chickens, though. The way he ate his dinner — picking each bone clean, licking his lips and fingers — you’d think he was trying to teach me something about indifference. I, too, tried to make a show of eating, put on my bravest face, for in those days we were nothing if not a family of brave, ridiculous faces. But I wasn’t a fool. I knew Papa loved those chickens. At night, I would often hear ululations coming from the ramshackle chicken house, Papa’s lantern casting erratic patterns across my bedroom wall. He’d be out there cooing to his chickens for hours. I didn’t know if he was praying or cursing or singing the chickens a lullaby, but for some reason I could never sleep until my father was inside the house, until that light moved from my window and there seemed nothing to the night but the strays howling among the rubber trees at the edge of our property.