I didn’t remember my parents. Ba died when I was six, almost ten years ago. My mother just left one day, dropping me off at pre-school and never coming back. In photos, she was pale and thin, unsmiling, her billowing dresses reminding me of plastic bags bullied by the wind.
My uncle said I could come live with him in Rockland. He and Ba were separated by eight years. Uncle was hunched and soft-spoken, little rivers of white shot through his hair, memory sieving away. He never married but had a son a few years older than me, who the two of us never talked about. In doing so, I was keeping up my end of the bargain, in exchange for him letting me stay. The first time I asked about Yin, how he was doing, if I could add anything to his commissary, Uncle’s eyes filled with an old despair. I didn’t ask again.
Uncle owned a small drugstore on the border between Spring Valley and New City. He would tell me how Ba used to drive up on the weekends from Flushing to help with unpacking inventory.
After Ba died, Yin helped with the store, and now that Yin was gone too, Uncle was left with me. Every now and then, I caught him giving me a dispirited frown, like a gambler making do with a secondhand good-luck charm. The store, sandwiched between a massage parlor and a dentist’s office, was dingy and dim-lit, big enough for just one person behind the counter. Most afternoons, that person was me—Uncle had meetings in the city and didn’t come back until late.
The store was Uncle’s one measure of pride. He had finagled a system in which every inch of surface space was utilized. The only thing he lacked was a security system. He couldn’t afford a high-quality camera or an alarm, the kind that relayed directly to a dashboard manned at all hours. All he had was a baseball bat tucked under the counter and a tiny monitor giving a blurry, fish-eye view of the space around the cash register. There used to be a gun too, but Uncle got rid of it after what happened with Yin.
Uncle sighed. “It’s too bad I won’t have a chance to repair that bum bulb.”
Lately, he had been doing this a lot, speaking as though pitched far into the future, where he could observe, from a safe distance, his store belonging to someone else. He reached for my hand.
“Yin, don’t forget to latch the back door. I found it swinging loose when I came in.”
I bowed my head guiltily, letting the wrong name slide, as I always did. The thing was, at first I didn’t mind helping at the store. I even enjoyed the lulls where I could do homework or read comic books while Uncle cracked sunflower seeds and hummed under his breath. But recently, the store had become a drag, manifesting in careless errors—leaving the latch swinging loose in its socket, inputting the wrong price. Each time, Uncle said it was okay and forgave me.
“It won’t happen again, right?” His fingers felt waxy soft.
“Right,” I lied and pulled my hand away.
Uncle told me a story about my mother. That day, Ba wasn’t home and, when she opened the door, my mother had asked Uncle and Yin to come back later. It wasn’t a good time, she said, but Uncle explained they wouldn’t stay long, they just wanted to drop off some clothes Yin had outgrown. The apartment was quiet, except for a soft muffled thudding.
Uncle asked where I was.
“He’s at a friend’s house,” my mother said.
The thudding continued, though my mother didn’t seem to hear. They talked around the noise, Uncle agreeably raising his voice to be heard. He didn’t notice Yin getting up and walking away, until, after a few minutes passed and the thudding ceased, Yin tugged on his sleeve. “Why can’t Min leave the closet?”
At night, lying in bed, I tried to dredge my memory of this event, combing for the slightest wisp of detail. When I couldn’t, I resorted to imagination. My mother was wearing a yellow sweater, long hair scraped into a bun at the nape of her neck. I had done something to anger her, why else would I have been sentenced to the closet? There, in the dark confines, fingers brushing against the shelves and coats reeking of mothballs, I rocked my head against the wall. And then, after some stretch of time, the door falling open. Sunlight burned gold around Yin’s head, his face in shadow. I could see his hand.
Come on. Come with me.
At school, I couldn’t pay attention. It wasn’t because I found the classes boring—I did the reading, double-checked my homework answers, studied even when I was so tired the words on the page seemed to slip below the surface. Instead, I was thinking ahead or replaying the tape, never finding solid footing in the moment right then. In homeroom, I’d be immersed in how I would ask Uncle about an additional allowance (he paid me exactly ten dollars each month for working in the store, an amount that managed to feel paltry and undeserved at the same time). In math class, I’d float back to the day before, when, in the hallway, someone called me a chink. I gave myself over to ruminating. If it happened again, I would know exactly what to say.
From there, it would devolve. Forget the perfect combination of words that would cut the speaker to his knees. I already decided I would sock him in the jaw or maybe the eye, depending on the trajectory of my swing. But I had never been in a fight before. The milky pudding of the eye terrified me. Also, I had heard how a kid died after his opponent crushed his nose, driving the stem of the nasal bone up like a spear into his brain. Though the mechanics of such a blow seemed fuzzy at best, the story was all I could think about whenever I was called a name or was made fun of or my lunch money was stolen.
Once, I had gotten as far as grabbing the collar, rearing my fist back, and then stopped, too caught up in what would happen next.
Hoots and hollers. “Oh man,” someone whooped.
The boy yanked free. “Damn,” he said, shaking his head in dismay, as though embarrassed for me.
The last time I saw Yin was when I was twelve, at his sentencing. His lawyer had said it would be good if as many of his family members as possible could show up and sit in the back of the courtroom, to show that he was loved, but it was only me and Uncle that day. I saw only the back of Yin’s head. He never turned around. His hair was buzzed to the quick, the scalp a tender pink.
In the moments leading up to the sentencing, I felt, rather than saw or heard, stares and whispers directed at me and Uncle from the pews across from ours. They had packed themselves in the seats until there was no room, spilling into the back and aisles. Muscular wails rose and fell like a staggering song. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed people rocking back and forth, a lattice of arms pulled close around them. I focused all my attention on tearing a tissue in half again and again, until the pieces were too small and snowed over my shoes.
One weekend morning, Uncle was sick and couldn’t open the store, so I went instead. During lunch, I pulled the windows down, flipped the “We Are Open” sign around, and took the smallest key on the ring and fitted it into the lockbox Uncle kept below the counter, right next to the bat. Inside was the first twenty-dollar bill he ever made, now so fragile it resembled wrinkly skin; a woman’s gold ring; a half-empty pack of Marlboros; and a tape. Watching it whenever I was alone in the store had taken on the furtive, scurrying pull of doing drugs.
The surveillance video stuttered through a snowy lag and resolved into an overhead pan of the robbery. Uncle, both palms planted on the counter, leaning forward. The teenager in profile, gesturing wildly. If I squinted, I could make out the bottle cap peeking up through the band of his jeans. We still sold that brand of orange juice. Every time I stocked it, I’d hold up a bottle to the light, trying to divine the reasons for what happened from its fizzy contents. The teenager made a gesture, the thumb cocked straight up, pointer finger leveled straight and pressed against the center of Uncle’s forehead.
What were they saying to each other in that moment?
Put back the bottle or pay. Put it back now.
Make me.
I pressed myself as close as I could to the pixelated blobs on the screen. Uncle yanked his head back, but the fingers snapped up again, while the teenager reached over with his free hand into his jacket pocket.
And then, Yin edging into frame, his back to the camera, holding the gun. The video cut out right before it happened.
By the time I recognized the sounds coming towards me as footsteps, it was too late. I had forgotten to latch the back door again. We stared at each other, and I could say nothing to undo the curdling shame of that moment.
Later, I had looked up the teenager’s memorial website, a cached version that stripped out the song playing on a loop, as well as most of the images, except for one. It was taken at one of his birthdays, a sheet cake below a rippling wave of candles. The two people in the photo wore pink cone hats, the type where the string cut into the tender part right under the chin. The boy was concentrated intensely on the cake; the mother was peering into the camera, her mouth working into the shape of a smile.
Here was the boy who, a few years later, died only inches away from where I was standing. And the mother—the same question I asked myself every night before I fell asleep. Where was she now?
I went with Uncle three times to visit Yin. The penitentiary was half a day’s drive away. The first few hours in the car always felt the same. Uncle would twiddle the knobs of his Camry’s busted heater; I’d rummage through his collection of cassette tapes and select a compilation of Na Ying songs. He knew them all by heart. Flecks of light glanced off the windshield. I found myself chattering freely, more open than I ever was, telling Uncle about school and teachers and a girl I liked. After a while, as the six-lane highway became a one-way road feeding into the mountains of Georgia, we fell quiet. The trees along the road were so uniform in size and color, enormous fingers accusing the sky, I thought they had to be fake.
The barbed fence came into view first, then the sprawling, dun-colored building. Inside, it smelled like citrus cleaner and sweat and cafeteria meatloaf. Uncle and I followed the line of visitors through security, where we handed over our belts and watches and shoelaces.
A guard barked, “Hey. You got a pen on you?” He was pointing at a blink of silver from Uncle’s pocket.
Uncle pulled out the ballpoint. He always kept one on him, to scrawl down a phone number or supply order. The guard snatched it and dangled it with the tips of his fingers, like a soiled piece of clothing.
“You see this? See it?”
Uncle nodded.
“This here,” the guard popped off the top, turned it upside down, and fished out the tiny screw. “This here is a dangerous weapon.” He said the last words with mocking slowness.
Maybe that was why Yin never materialized. Or there was some bureaucratic mix-up, for which we waited eight hours in the cramped, stifling waiting room, an overhead fan turning in half-hearted sputters, as, one by one, other visitors were called. Through the grimy glass partition, we saw embraces, tears, and laughter, one little boy swept high into the air, his giggles ringing in stark contrast with the rest of that place. I asked the guard slouched at the desk when Yin Xie was coming out. “In a moment. I’ll call you,” he yawned, fixed on his phone. I pictured Yin hunkered in some metal-framed bunkbed, wondering where we were.
The second time, we had waited for only a few minutes before an alarm began to sound. The ringing seemed to split the room into pieces. Clapping our hands over our ears, we were led outside and shuffled around, shivering, in the cold, until someone finally informed us visitation hours were canceled for that day.
The third time, we were proud experts at the process, shedding our jackets, turning out our pockets, before we were even asked to. “Today,” Uncle whispered to me, smiling. “Today you can finally—”
Before he could finish, a guard called out Yin’s name. When we approached, the guard said, with something just short of pity, “Sorry. But you can’t see him today.”
“Why?”
“He was admitted into the infirmary last night. Someone should have called you yesterday before you made the drive down.”
“Why?” I said again, the words refusing to absorb.
The guard shrugged and picked at something in his teeth. “There’s a bad bug going around.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. He’s just been isolated to keep from getting the others sick. He’ll probably call you tonight or tomorrow, okay?”
These phone calls never panned out. As soon as the coolly disinterested recitation by the collect call operator ended, a froth of static swept over the wire. I said the bare minimum to Yin, feeling like I was depriving Uncle of priceless seconds. The times I did talk to him, Yin sounded scratchy and remote, and I had no idea what to say, my cheeks smarting at the wasteful silences cropping up between us. “Hey,” I’d finally mutter to Uncle. “He wants to talk to you again.”
That night, when we got home, a winking red light on our answering machine indicated one new message. “Ba,” came the garbled, crackling voice. “Ba, I’m okay, please don’t—” Then it cut off.
I forgot to ask him what I was supposed to finally be able to do with Yin.
One afternoon after school, coming around to the back door, I saw the latch hanging loosely. I had forgotten again. Still, Uncle wasn’t back yet and if I didn’t tell him, chances were he wouldn’t notice. His memory was getting foggier. He would double order something, or forget he had never put in an order, or stick an invoice slip in the freezer. To help remember, he would write things down on sticky notes, random words or numbers, until he forgot where he put those as well.
I didn’t hear the rustling inside until it was too late. It was a boy (that much I glimpsed, young, full of pimples, barely up to my shoulder) tugging at the register, half-open bags of chips everywhere. Spying me, he shouted something and half-vaulted over the counter, but I was already reaching over, one hand skittering for the bat, which slipped away and rolled onto the floor. He was trying to wrestle free; later, I would have no idea why I didn’t just let him go. My other hand was scrunched in the folds of his hoodie, which had twisted up, snake-like, around his shoulders, revealing a swath of belly. The bat, the bat, my mind lodged senselessly on that one concept. The boy had almost managed to work himself free just as I finally grabbed the bat and swung it high. The head smashed the counter, leaving a dent that would never be buffed smooth. Someone was screaming, high, whistling shrieks. I hefted the bat again. Arms trapped in the hoodie, the boy shied away, his mouth a wet, incredulous O.
I froze. Every sound leeched away.
The boy raised his head and, seizing the pause, launched the brunt of his body against my side. The bat clattered to the floor. We both dove after it. I tried to inch my way up, but he was quicker, elbowing the side of my head with short, vicious jabs, using his feet to shrug me off. He wouldn’t hesitate like I did, he wouldn’t miss.
A meaty thwack, followed by a breathless moan, until I realized it wasn’t me making those sounds. The pressure on my head released. The boy was curled on one side. Above him stood Uncle, dropping the bat to the ground.
“Get the fuck out.”
I didn’t see the boy wobble to standing, rubbing his arm, and leave. Uncle faced me, his chest heaving. “The latch…”
Before I could say anything, he punched me, square in the face. “How could you? How could you?” He shrieked. “How many times have I told you to check? How many times, Yin—” Uncle stopped short, his expression contorting.
I took a step back, casting around for anything else to look at, the shelves crooked and in disarray, crinkled bags underfoot, a rack pulled off its hinges, anything else besides this bawling old man in front of me. Something leaked down my face. I said the cruelest thing I could think of.
“It was you. You just don’t remember.”
That night, I scrutinized my reflection. Streaks of purplish red from the blazing sun that was my nose. The bleeding had stopped.
A soft tap on the locked door. Then another.
I stood in front of the mirror, trying to remain still, taking the shallowest breaths I could muster. On the other side of the door, Uncle continued to knock.
Several months before he died, Uncle authorized the bank to arrange for the title and deed to the drugstore to be transferred to my name. By then, he slept most of the time and his appetite had whittled down to allow for only broth and saltines, which I crumbled into pieces for him to chew more easily. One morning, he woke up and gestured for me to sit by him. “Yin,” he said. “There you are. I was wondering where you’d gone.”
What good would it do now to correct him?
“Yin,” he began again. “Remember that afternoon we went to visit your little cousin? How did you know? I always wanted to ask. How did you know to go looking for him?”
Yellow-bellied clouds hung in the sky the morning I went to pick up Yin. Five years after Uncle died, he had been granted an early release. A letter in a sealed envelope from Uncle on the passenger seat—I had left the house without it and only realized once I had gotten on the highway and had to go back. He would be wondering if I had gotten the date or time wrong, if he would have to end up taking the bus.
Things were better in my head, that safe, contained space, before they had to happen. Picturing the event, blocking out the shapes and details, as a means of preparation, a prayer. Here were the steps I would take. I’d know exactly what to say to Yin. He’d ask about the store, how it was doing. I’d give him the letter explaining everything.
There was no one else on the one-lane road that day. I steered Uncle’s Camry through a quiet canyon of green traffic lights, beckoning me onwards. Come on, I’d say to Yin. Come on, come with me.
Joy Guo is a regulatory attorney in New York. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, Idaho Review, and Passages North.
