The Quiet Parts Pt. 18
FOURTEENTH STORY
Later that day, a day they mostly spend in Jason’s room trying to fuck away their dread, they receive a text from Chen’s grandson, Alvin. They arrange to meet him tomorrow in Manhattan.
Afraid to be even a minute late, they arrive to the metropolis in the early morning. Sightseeing helps put Leigh at ease. Evening approaches and they cab to Tompkins Square Park. Hand in hand, strolling from one end to the other, they relax under the elms.
Alvin Wo arrives precisely on time to their rendezvous at the Temperance Fountain. He has an athletic build, handsome, in lime-green Jordans, black jogging pants, and navy blue Under Armor shirt. Long hair in a bun, large hands, an air of relentless cynicism.
“Sorry I’m dressed so casually,” says Alvin, attacking Jason with a handshake. “I had to fit in a workout.”
For a moment Leigh fears her boyfriend’s hand has been reduced to a broken lump. Jason stands there rotating his wrist to get the feeling back and Alvin, sitting on one of the benches that hem the pedestrian walkway, beckons they join him with a chilling smile.
Leigh appreciate having Jason between her and Alvin, perfectly happy to freeze her feminist principles while the men hash things out. Jason asks, “How is Chen?”
“Good,” answers Alvin, calmly watching passersby. “Thank you. He just celebrated his eightieth birthday. We had a huge party. You’re evicted.” Straight to it. “We’re giving you two weeks, which is generous. You couldn’t have found a worse way to violate the lease.”
“We understand,” says Leigh, who expected no less. “I just want you to know we’ll do anything to set this right. And we’re very sorry,” she makes sure to emphasize.
“Yes.” Alvin clears his throat. “Before we go on, you should know a bit about my family. In China they called us ‘cultivators.’ Men in touch with the divine.”
“You’re a wizard?” Jason interrupts, eyes wide.
“Mainly I’m a systems analyst at Facebook,” Alvin snappily replies. “A type of magic, I suppose. I’m no master wizard by any means, but with my grandfather’s age, I handle his affairs.
“The Wo Clan can trace our ancestry to the early Qing Dynasty. And we always had our own interpretation when it came to Confucian principles. Ambition. The beauty in shadow. What is the point in cultivating qi if you don’t use it?
“We specialized in astral projection, which over the years naturally evolved into teleportation. My great-great-grandfather Wo Zongtang was a sorcerer at the imperial court in Beijing. He was a great man: a poet, a scholar, a hero in a ridiculous number of wars. When the royal family was overthrown, my ancestor spirited Emperor Puyi to Manchukuo and continued to serve him for a time. When it became clear the Japs had bungled the war, all my ancestor had to do to escape the Communists was open a door and step through with his consorts, servants, and progeny, including my grandfather, who was a child at the time. He bought property the U.S. government seized from the Japs and here we are. Sorcery, real estate, now tech . . . the family businesses.”
Disgustedly he opines, “These early 2000s hallways are Walmart brand magic. Not worth the scrolls they write the spells on. But I promise you, if you look at the wood in our tunnels, you would see runes my grandfather carved by hand. He contacted the gods to make those tunnels, and the gods listened. Which leads me to—”
“Wait a minute,” Jason cuts in. “The gods are real?”
“Of course,” Alvin replies, one eyebrow arched at what seems to him an odd question. “Where did you think we get the power to—Oh.” He turns deadpan. “Your parents told you magic was invented by white people.”
They both stare at their feet.
“Yes, the gods are real,” Alvin goes on. “No, they don’t care about you. There is an afterlife but you do not want to know about it. Which is why we should enjoy the time we have, and move past this situation. I don’t want you in any trouble, but I also have to look out for my family. I had to leave Menlo Park during my work week to come here, where magic currents are strongest. Granted, to get to New York I just step through a door, but having to travel ten hells on a lotus trip? That was inconvenient. And the gods—”
“Dark gods,” says Jason with a shudder.
Leigh elbows him in the ribs. “Stop interrupting.”
“Listen to her,” Alvin quips, checking his Rolex. “By the way, they don’t like to be called ‘dark gods.’ They think of themselves more like ‘traditional gods.’ Just a tip in case you ever meet one. The traditional gods showed me the past. They showed me what to do and you will follow to the letter.”
“We will,” Leigh promises.
“Oh, I know,” he says seriously. “You violated the Suburban Relocation Act of ‘99. You betrayed my grandfather’s trust. If he wanted those people on his property, he would rent to them.
“There came a time when the racist U.S. government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. The thing was, the San Francisco tongs still needed sweatshop workers. So my ancestor called them up and said, ‘I’m Wo Zongtang. Imperial court. I’ma hook you up.’ He had a doorway in a tailor shop he used to transfer workers between Beijing and San Fran,” he adds with a smirk at his forefather’s cunning. “No sailing ships, no fees, no red tape at Angel Island. Bring them in for a twenty-hour day and bring them right back. And my ancestor made a killing on commission—but you could always make more. So, to allow for longer work hours, he made the peasants live in the hall.
“Then one day, what happened to you happened to him. He steps in the door to wake them, and finds himself in some communist utopia.” Alvin cringes. “My great-great-grandfather barely made it out alive. You see, something happens when you store organic matter in the hall. Because magic—real magic—never turns off. What spells enable the hall to cut chunks out of time and space are constantly regenerating themselves. They get distracted when you introduce all those cells, atoms, and brainwaves. They start interacting with the organic matter and refashion themselves according to that thing. Which is why what you did was stupid—”
“I don’t see how we’re culpable!” Jason blurts. “I just can’t believe we’d be punished when the lease didn’t state—”
“Enough!” Alvin’s anger blows over them like a dark cloud. Leigh presses her face into Jason’s shoulder and cries out, her brain besieged by images of screaming, blood-drenched faces. After the visions pass, the air against her skin remains heavy and charged. “All tenants must be approved by landlord Chen Wo,” Alvin recites. “That was the lease you signed. That was all you needed to know. If you for a second think you have any legal recourse—”
“We don’t think,” Leigh urgently assures him. At the first tears in her eye, she summons more, a waterfall of female innocence to thaw the hardest heart. “We just wanted to help people. We’re just kids who got mixed up in this terrible thing and they killed my friend and I never thought it would go this far and I’m so so so scared . . .”
He reaches across Jason to squeeze her hand. Kindly he says, “You made a mistake. We’re going to work it out. Okay? You’ll get to go on with your life.”
“Uh-huh,” she sniffles.
“Back to my ancestor. Wo Zongtang had a problem, especially if word got to his boss, the Empress Dowager, who was not forgiving of her wizards having side hustles. So he lit a fire and put it under the door. As the spells enhanced the hopes and dreams of the peasants, they enhanced the fire. Imagine”—a cruel gleam leaps to his eyes—“a conflagration that consumes the world. Their fear and pain must have been exquisite. When my great-great-grandfather opened the door, all he had left to do was sweep the ashes.”
Leigh is pondering the prospect when Jason interrupts, again. “I just want to be clear: what happens if we don’t burn them? Did the gods say anything about that?”
Alvin levels him a hard stare. “Their world grows so large that it merges with ours and ends all existence. I’m just kidding,” he amends, laughing snarlingly at their terror. “I asked the gods that, too. When a new world is born, after a time it will branch into a parallel universe. We’ll be left with a hallway again.”
Jason claps his hands. “Problem solved! We keep the doors locked and wait them out.”
Even as he speaks, Alvin scratches the back of his neck, like a man in fear of contagion. “These bums didn’t pay my grandfather so they could go off and start their own little Wakanda. We can talk about this federal crime you committed, or we can do Ghost Ship. Your choice.”
Leigh understands. She’s been ready.
“Ghost Ship,” she agrees.