Richard and his family live in Shanghai, where he writes, supports his wife’s philanthropic efforts, and ensures their two teens and one toddler don’t sit on any of their nine hamsters. His work has appeared or will appear in Sonora Review, The Dillydoun Review, The Write Launch, Potato Soup Journal, Prometheus Dreaming, The Adelaide Literary Magazine, and other literary magazines. He can be reached via his author website at Richard-c-lin-author.com. He is a proud member of the highly selective ROOTS. WOUNDS. WORDS. Penning My Pieces family of emerging BIPOC authors. “Fight Fire with Fire” is from Richard’s debut memoir, ARIZONA AWAKENING, to be published in Fall 2023.
Fight Fire with Fire
Crackle, crackle, crackle. This is the sound of Dad eating cereal each morning. Crackle, crackle, crackle. There is no Snap, Crackle, Pop like in the commercials because there is no snap or pop in Dad other than his temper. Weekday mornings we two eat together with only this sound to keep us company. Dad squeezes his eyes tightly shut while crackling away. Is he trying to will away the stab of the morning light? Or rid himself the dread of sweating through the long, sticky drive to work because we own the only car in the entire state without a/c? Or is he purging the thought of spending another day amidst those of such foreign culture and values?
Then again, perhaps Dad just fell back to sleep.
I’ll never know what taunts Dad because we have father/son chats as often as we have father/son game night. Or father/son football toss in the cul-de-sac. Or father/son anything remotely pleasant or fun. And so I watch him eat in this way each morning with unequal measures of fear, dismay, and disdain. When I was younger, it was mostly fear, but increasingly I’ve been consumed by the latter two of late. How can this be my father?
During the weekends, our mornings unfold in near silence, as if we’re a family of mice foraging for food while the lion sleeps nearby. One snapped twig or small puddle splash and…splat! goes the lion’s paw. And Sundays? These are particularly muted occasions as Dad deals with Monday Morning Blues a whole day earlier than the rest of America.
The worst is a morning like this one, an actual Monday morning. Some people, like Mom and I, experience Monday Morning Baby Blues. Pleasant, powdery, pastel. As innocuous to the touch as a baby’s bottom. Others may experience the blues along the spectrum of cerulean to cobalt, on to royal blue and azure. Perhaps even navy blue if they’re prone to depression. Not Dad, he shoots well past midnight blue, the darkest of blues, entering the realm of night and trepidation.
The only thing worse than the sound of crackle, crackle, crackle from Dad in the morning? Him speaking to me.
“How you doing in school?” he asks. Dad typically acknowledges my existence with questions about school. And no, not to ascertain how my baseball tryouts went or how I fared in Model UN. It’s all about the grades.
“I, um, I’m doing ok. I guess.”
“Ok?… You guess?” Dad says, with his voice nearing a low growl. “I didn’t raise a son to guess he’s doing ok.”
I wish to counter with something forceful like You’re not raising your son at all. You’re simply beating him down all the time. However, it’s too early for one of our all-out fights, so I merely say, “Yeah, sure, Dad.”
That’s it. That’s the extent of our morning congeniality.
So I finish my breakfast as soon as possible, utter a quick bye to Dad, offer a more sustained farewell and kiss to Mom, and toss a few choice insults at Mei-mei, my little sister, as she stretches and yawns while passing me on the way out.
Her Monday Mornings start off as blue as a lemon, so despite my name-calling, it’s always, “Oh, good morning Gege!” from her. To which I always respond with the roll of my eyes. No wonder Dad resents me in the morning. I’m to him what Mei is to me. Everything’s relative, and no one enjoys seeing someone chirpier than they on a Monday morning.
I do what I’ve always done when the darkness of Dad weighs too heavily upon me. I escape. Once outside, I enjoy a reprieve during my walk to the bus stop. Although it’s only 8 am, in Arizona, it’s sweltering already. I start to sweat, in part from the heat but also from stress as well. Historically, the bus has been anything but a haven for me.
*****
“Houston to Asswipe 13, you copy?”
It’s Jeff, rousing me out of my stupor as I stare out the bus window. I’ve never touched a drop of alcohol in my young life, but I feel like I know firsthand its debilitating effect with the taste of bile from my morning interaction with Dad still moist on my lips.
“Yeah, sorry, I was thinking of my life.”
“What life?”
“Exactly.”
Jeff is my first best friend and, at times, rival. We are of similar build, height, and temperament. He’s more athletic while I’m more academic. That should equal things out between us. However, this being high school, sports comes out on top, followed closely by sex, drugs, and rock & roll in the hierarchy of high school passions. Academics barely makes the top ten, likely sandwiched between the chess club and yearbook. As best friends and rivals, he and I end up cutting each other down more often than we build each other up. You know, to prevent the other from getting too far ahead. However, at the moment, Jeff accelerates much more rapidly than I along the highway of cool.
Jeff says, “Listen, we need to get you laid. Take your mind off the rest of your sorry life.”
“Yeah? And you can arrange this for me while you involuntarily remain a virgin yourself?”
“Yeah,” he says with a laugh. “But it may be tougher to get you laid than me.”
I punch him in the arm. He hits me back. We chuckle. Boys. Inflicting pain on each other and then laughing it all off.
Deep down inside, I feel what Jeff says is true. For me, an American-born Chinese or ABC, assuming the role of a romantic leading man is a plot twist even John Hughes couldn’t dream up. And if he did somehow, he could never get the movie greenlighted. It’s just not something mainstream Americans want to see.
“Well, I think you’ll get laid soon. Or at least maybe kiss a girl before too long.”
It’s Mike, my fourth best friend. I’ve forgotten he sits beside me. Blond, somewhat pudgy with round glasses over round eyes on a round face, Mike tends to utter only sphinx-like pronouncements of great profundity or complete insignificance. Often it sounds like it could be either, so we have to parse his words carefully each time to determine whether it is the sage or fool in him speaking. I hope this time he has found the sage.
“Thanks, brother.”
As we get off the bus together and start walking towards class, I feel buoyed by Mike’s validation. However, this quiet moment of joy is punctured by a guttural voice from behind us, “Hey Chinaman, give me a drink of your water.”
In the autumnal days of Phoenix, with the heat still so oppressive that even the cacti seem to recoil a bit, we frequently carry large water canteens to and from school. Being called Chinaman is somewhat less offensive than other variants such as chink or flat-face. However, it’s not far from those. My cheeks redden as I turn to see who’s the latest racist for the day.
It’s Keith, who got held back last year. To me, he’s always looked like he’s come straight off the set of Deliverance and might be the product of a few generations of Appalachian inbreeding. Clearly, I’m not above my own bias either, but at the moment, I’m too pissed to consider the irony.
“Get your own water,” I say.
He makes a lunge for the canteen in my right hand, and I deck him in the arm with my left, which holds my math and social studies textbooks. As each is a fairly hefty tome, my blow staggers him towards the right and backward.
“Just like a chink. Have to resort to fighting with weapons.”
“Uh, these are books.”
“Whatever, flat-face.”
He’s hit the trifecta. Now I’m super pissed. Yet, I stay my hand and don’t call him Deliverance Boy in return. The fact that he’s a full head taller and fashioned from pure muscle helps mightily in keeping me on the high road in this exchange.
“I’m gonna kick your ass, Chinky,” he says as he reapproaches me, fists clenched. As an ABC, I’m no stranger to melee. Nevertheless, instead of settling into a fighting stance, I feel my body freezing. So this is what a deer experiences just before the Range Rover sends it sailing back into the woods.
However, just before he can drop my ass, the bell rings. Just like in every boxing and high school movie, I’m saved by the bell.
“This ain’t over, Chinky boy. We fight after school. I’m gonna personally drop your ass off today at your bus stop.”
I finally find the play button for my mouth again and utter softly, “How kind of you.”
“Shit, man,” says Jeff as everyone disperses for class. “Shit.”
With one powerful word, Jeff eloquently sums up the situation…along with the rest of my crappy life.
*****
“Heard you’re gonna fight after school,” Don says with fire in his eyes as he plops down his backpack and sack lunch at our table.
Just a year ago, my number two best friend was a gangly, hobbit-loving fellow Dungeons & Dragons geek who spouted Rush lyrics off-key. Fast forward twelve months, and he’s evolved into a Greek demigod, all because he’s the first to have facial and body hair emerge in all the appropriate places. Picking up weight training didn’t hurt either, as Don has developed biceps the size of our quads.
“Yeah, I get more invitations to fight than Rocky. Everyone wants to test their kung-fu on me.” And they do. I get challenged to fight before school, after school, at recess, during lunch, in the locker room, in between classes, after detention, pretty much whenever and wherever there’s no adult supervision to be found.
“You want me there for you?” asks Don. He’s always at the ready for a good fight. Like it’s part of his workout regimen.
“Nah, thanks, I’m good. I got this one,” I say, trying to pump myself up. “I’ve been watching lots of Jackie Chan movies each Saturday afternoon. And I started taking jiu-jitsu.”
“Hope you’re a fast learner. I think he kicked some junior’s ass last month,” says Jeff. “He’s a year older and has about six inches, maybe twenty pounds on you,”
“And that’s twenty pounds of pure muscle,” Don says. He looks somewhat concerned. “Appalachian Guy is nothing to joke about.”
“I call him Deliverance Boy. And I can take him.” I really don’t want Don jumping in as he did with the Walden twins. At least that time, it was two of them, both on the varsity wrestling team as freshmen. This time, if I can’t take on one, I might as well drop out of high school.
“Who do you call Deliverance Boy?” asks Dave, who just joined us from another table. Dave is my third best friend, whereas I probably barely crack his top 100. It’s not that he doesn’t like me. It’s just that he’s that popular. Every day at lunch, he goes from table to table, working his way around his different groups of friends at Deer Valley. Dave’s like a prophet tending to the twelve tribes of Israel but without the constant risk of death by stoning.
“Appalachian Guy,” says Don.
“Oh, that dude. I’m glad none of us here are that bigoted,” Dave says with a chuckle and roll of his eyes.
“Well, he called me Chinaman first,” I counter.
“And chink and flat-face,” adds Mike helpfully.
“And so you call him Deliverance Boy. Nice job of taking the high road, Rich.”
Don gets back to the vital point of the conversation. “High road or not, you’d better not call him Deliverance Boy to his face, Rich. He’s a badass. There’s a reason why he’s repeating a year.”
The bell rings, and my buddies scatter to the winds. I’m left to wonder what this badass did to get held back a year.
Maim a teacher?
*****
“Hey, what’s up, fellas?” Deliverance Boy walks towards the back of the bus, high-fiving, fist-bumping, and back-slapping a bunch of sophomores and juniors that don’t usually take our bus. Guess he’s invited his own home crowd.
Meanwhile, I’ve got no partisans. Jeff’s mom picked him up from school for a dental appointment while Mike has mock trial. I’m regretting big time that I hadn’t taken up Don’s offer to show up with me. Indeed, Deliverance Boy looks like he’s composed entirely of unadulterated muscle. As I try to slink down in my seat near the middle of the bus, Deliverance Boy catches sight of me. “Hey, Chinky Boy. We gonna have some fun today!”
I prepare to snap off a witty refrain and then realize I don’t have one. Fortunately, he’s moved on to more high fives and fist bumps with his fans at the back of the bus. And it seems there’s some money changing hands. Such a festive atmosphere. It’s as if we’re all headed to a tailgate party before a Sun Devils football game. And I’m the football.
When we arrive at our stop, I try to get off the bus as quickly yet casually as possible. I don’t want to have to deal with Deliverance Boy’s trash-talking before the bout.
“Hey Rich,” says our bus driver in a low voice as I approach him.
“Yeah, Mr. Wilson?”
“I put a fiver on you. Kick his ass. But be careful while you’re at it.” He looks as concerned as Don did at lunch.
Deliverance Boy and his entourage proceed off the bus, which takes a while with all the extra kids. Mr. Wilson sighs as he watches everyone disembark. It seems even he feels tempted
to park the bus and join the fiesta. I wish he would; it’d be nice to have at least one guy in my corner today. We all walk about twenty yards to a spot without too many tumbleweeds blowing about and wide enough to afford everyone a good view of the bout, then put down our books and canteens. The Arizona sun shines so blindingly hot, it feels as if we’re on the set of Unforgiven.
I think for a second about stretching and cracking my back one vertebra at a time like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris do before their epic battle at the Colosseum. Then I decide I’d better get down to business as I have quite a bit of homework. The other kids quickly form an impromptu amphitheater around us. All we need are some guys hawking giant pretzels or cotton candy and Michael Buffer bellowing, “Let’s get ready to rumble” to complete the scene.
This is definitely not my crowd. Apparently, none of them wants to see Bruce Lee yank out Chuck Norris’ chest hairs just before maiming and killing him in Way of the Dragon. No, most of them want to see Deliverance Boy kick the shit out of Long Duk Dong, the sex-crazed Asian geek of Sixteen Candles. So as we start to circle each other, with the dust of the desert swirling around us, the air soon fills with a mélange of “Kick Bruce’s ass!” and “Fuck up Kwai Chang Caine!”
The fight begins well enough with me landing the first few blows as I move in close to eliminate his reach advantage. I guess all those afternoons of watching Jackie on TV start to kick in literally. At some point, I knock him to the ground and stomp on him several times as he rolls away. I feel his rib cage give a bit each time through my sneakers, and it feels pretty satisfying with each kick. I like this fighting shit.
However, this feeling doesn’t last. While Deliverance Boy scrambles back to his feet, I notice a group of adults chatting, eating peanuts, and otherwise watching us as if they are at a Cactus League spring training game. They appear slightly detached like they’re here more for the sun than the actual event itself.
“Hey, hey, hey. Stop, stop, there’s grownups over there!” I whisper urgently. “We’re going to get busted.”
He looks over his shoulder at the adults, “Nah, it’s ok. Don’t worry about it. Those just my parents. And their friends.” He stops just short of introducing each one by name.
So quintessential for me. Your son’s going to fight a Chinaman? Terrific, grab some snacks, invite your neighbors, and join the spectacle. His home crowd has grown much more intimidating, and my confidence wavers for but a split second. That’s all he requires. Like a rattlesnake sniffing fear through the flick of its tongue, he shifts into attack mode. A jab straight to my eye, a roundhouse glancing off my cheek, and an uppercut to my chin—suddenly, I’m reeling. I’m not thinking I like this fighting shit no more. I’m thinking how do I survive this rather sudden turn of fortune.
I try to close in to extract myself from this kill zone he’s created, but I’m met with a knee, and this time it’s my ribs that crunch under his strike. Instantly, I’m having trouble catching my breath and seeing out of my right eye. I manage to land two quick jabs to his throat and chin, which affords me some space to breathe but only serves to enrage Deliverance Boy as he comes at me with a flurry of fists and feet. I slump to the earth under this barrage, and it takes three of his friends to pull him off me.
Before he leaves, Deliverance Boy spits at me, nailing my shoes. “Next time, you do what I tell ya, Chinaman.”
As the crowd dissipates, with me still on the ground feeling the heat of the desert sand on my ass, all I can think is, what am I gonna tell Dad?
I elect to tell Mom first.
“Richard, how you can get in fight?” Mom asks as she pulls out some ice cubes, wraps them in a hand towel, and hands to me the cold compress.
“Ma, the guy called me a Chinaman, a chink…a flat-face.”
“Your face not flat. Actually quite swollen now.”
“It’s an expression, Mom. White people been calling me this since the fifth grade.”
“Those just words. Why you have to fight?”
“Because they’re fighting words, Ma.”
As a petite and pretty Asian woman, Mom lives in an America populated by the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family. Nice white people who treat her warmly. Not ones that inhabit the world in which I reside, ones who call us chink, nip, or other terms she doesn’t quite understand.
For her, when Americans ask her where she came from, it’s easy for her to reply, “from Taiwan.” But for me, I have to go through this whole song and dance:
“I’m from Utah. I was born there.”
“Ah, got it…But, you know, where are you really from?”
“Uh, well, my parents are from Taiwan.”
“Oh, cool. I love Thai food.”
And that’s with nice white people.
When Dad arrives home that evening, I share with him what has transpired. I don’t want to, but my facial bruises reveal too much of the tale.
“How could you let other boy beat on you?” Dad says as he sits down at the head of our dining room table.
“Well, for one thing, his parents and their friends were there.”
“His parents and their friends were there? Like what happened Vincent Chin?”
“No, not like him. They didn’t have a baseball bat. And his father only watched.” Vincent Chin was a fellow ABC. Last year, he got his head bashed in with a baseball bat by two white autoworkers who felt they had lost their jobs because of the Japanese. He died at age twenty-seven during his bachelor party, just days before his wedding. Judge assigned the father and son duo two years probation and fined them, setting the price of a Chinaman’s life in America at $3000. I guess about what you’d pay for a decent second-hand American-built automobile.
“So fair fight?”
“Yeah, fair fight if you don’t factor in his friends cheering him on and doing the wave while we fought.”
“Then you shouldn’t fight,” Dad yells. “Only fight when can fair fight. Otherwise, you get beat on.”
“Well, you beat on me all the time, Dad, so what’s the difference?”
“Difference? Simple. You’re my son. I didn’t raise you be beaten by others.”
“No, you just raised me to be your punching bag, Dad.”
Boom! Punch to the shoulder to shut me up and simultaneously affirm his point and mine.
Dad pounds on me whenever I speak or act out of line. Typical infringements may involve talking too much, talking too excitedly, talking without the proper level of respect. Or just talking. Most often, this occurs around the dining room table during dinner time. As I sit to my dad’s right, my left arm takes the brunt of the blows, so it has become slightly larger than my right. The swelling, like other traumas of youth, never seems to subside completely.
Recently Mom has moved me to the opposite end of the table. However, this affords me little respite as Dad simply resorts to throwing his chopsticks at me to express his displeasure and rage. If he misses with his chopsticks, he’ll grab Mom’s or Mei’s, raining them down on me like Patriot missiles upon Lebanon. Getting hit by a chopstick isn’t much of a big deal physically. However, getting nailed on the face with one or two courtesy of Dad knocks the emotional wind out of me each time.
“Let’s go bike riding,” Dad says out of nowhere after dinner. “Get some exercise.”
“What?” I ask, a bit stunned by his invitation. Father/son cycling is certainly not the norm in our family. Father/son algebra and one-way boxing matches, yes. Father/son cycling, exercise, or any other recreational activities, no.
After ten minutes of riding around the neighborhood, Dad asks me to show him where the boy lives. I comply with a measure of apprehension. When we turn into Deliverance Boy’s cul-de-sac, I see him there with his father working under the hood of their car. Not sure what Dad might do, I pedal nervously behind him. As he glides past them, he doesn’t say a word. Instead, he simply expels an impressive amount of phlegm right at the feet of both. When they look up with surprise and repulsion, he stops his bike and glares at them with the Eyes of Genghis Kahn and centuries of derision and disgust. They don’t say a word. Off we ride, and I feel a slight warmth in my stomach. Guess that’s sufficient to get the message across: no one beats on Philip’s son other than Philip himself.
*****
Five years ago, in Saint Anthony Village, a quiet, quaintly named suburb of Minneapolis, the Thompsons lived across the street. The family had five brothers, the oldest twelve and the youngest around my age, eight. On weekdays, they kindly escorted me off the bus after school.
They welcomed me each evening, forming a charming barbershop quintet of sorts with their chorus of: “Chinese Japanese, dirty knees, look at these!” You know, that hit classic. And they kept me company. We didn’t make snow angels together in the winter. Instead, they tossed me to and fro, creating so many this-is-how-the-victim’s-body-was-splayed-upon-the-ground-chalk-outlines upon the snow.
One day Dad came home early. Having so much fun, none of us noticed him driving by, then backing up the Dodge Dart to park beside us at the edge of our front yard. He got out of the vehicle, sized up the situation, and pounced, managing to grab the eleven- and twelve-year-old brothers. Out flared the Eyes of Genghis. He roughly walked both of them across the street, all the while slamming their heads together every few steps.
“Quit bang heads, or you hurt yourself. Or you dizzy from running around? This game very fun. But you must be tired. Let me escort you back home. You know, take you back to where you come from. Like you say to Richard each day.”
Dad walked them across the street and tossed them into their front yard. I smiled. Finally, Dad terrifying some other kids for once.
The next day their parents arranged a pow-wow with Dad and Mom. It took place in the middle of the street, which had become a sort of DMZ.
“My sons said you manhandled them yesterday. Just because they walked on the sidewalk in front of your house. We don’t appreciate that.”
“I thought they Richard’s friends. They wrestle him five-on-one in the snow. So I join the game. Make the teams even.”
“Our sons would never pick on your son. We are Christian.”
“Yes, same, same. I would never manhandle your sons. I am Buddhist.”
Dad was about as Buddhist as Moses, Mohammed, and Jesus combined. I guess he made his point. The Thompson boys never escorted me anywhere again after that day.
*****
So Dad protects the family from outsiders. Meanwhile, Mom protects us from Dad.
Filled with the incandescence of a thousand suns with just the slightest hint of sadness at times, Mom makes Mei-mei and me her life, providing us with a welcome refuge from the thunder and lightning of Dad’s fury.
She can be a fierce Tiger Mom, but for the most part, Mom saves her most extreme ferocity for Dad, erupting in the occasional uprising against his domineering ways and protecting us when she feels he goes too far. Their arguments are pitched battles. They dredge up personal slights and sins from years ago and hurl them at each other like sharpened sticks tipped with venom or serrated stone covered in vitriol.
Mom often threatens to leave Dad, but then thoughts from the significant (how to divide the family finances) to the trivial (how to split the family photo albums) keep her tethered to him. This evening she again broaches the subject with me at the dining room table while Dad showers.
“Why won’t you come with Mei-mei and me? We can start a new life without your dad.”
“No, Ma, you and Mei-mei go. I’ll stay with Dad,” I say, despite a part of me wishing to run off with them.
“But he yells, hits you all the time.”
“Well, Mom, you do too sometimes.”
“But not all the time, not like your dad.”
“Yeah, Mom, you make up for the quantity with quality,” I say softly with a wan smile. “Besides, he doesn’t strike me when you’re not around.”
“So, you won’t come with us if we go?”
“No, Ma, sorry. Dad will be all alone if we all leave.”
Mom sighs, resigned and tired. I feel she cannot find the strength to leave without me, and I can’t muster sufficient bitterness or apathy to leave my dad.
They say that battered people don’t leave because they are afraid or ashamed. Or they somehow feel responsible or want to help their abuser. I’m not sure which is the case with Dad and me. I’m no longer deathly afraid of him. I’ve never been ashamed or blamed myself for his internal fires. But I’m not sure I want to help him either, even though he may be more battered internally than I am externally. And even if I had wanted to, how can I help him when I can barely fight for myself?