Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
April 1981, Seadrift, Texas
One early evening, when the ocean was warm and inviting, Duc and Huey decided to head out past curfew and into the water with Tu?n, Duc’s cousin V?nh, and the village clown, Eddie Bùi, for their last boat ride together. Their last hurrah. Duc and Huey were preparing to leave Seadrift, along with a few other folks. The sixty-day countdown the Klansmen had enacted for the Vietnamese to leave Seadrift was ticking down, and though the start of the shrimping season loomed over them all, the ones who stayed, stayed, and the rest had packed their bags, unwilling to see what would happen.
The five of them went out under the guise of late-night fishing. They dreamt of simpler days of just drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and fishing for the hell of it. Though being out on the water was their source of income, boats were also a source of irony—it was how many of them were able to escape to America, and now they depended on them to make a living. And now, it was all being taken away from them.
“My wife is killing me,” Eddie grumbled, his beer gut spilling out over the elastic band of his pants, as he collapsed onto an upside-down crate. Eddie was a hefty man, who had the unfortunate luck of looking much, much older than his actual age. Though he was just shy of turning thirty, he looked near fifty. Life had added twenty years to his face, weathering and leathering him. But as he cracked open a beer, with the sun setting behind him, Eddie accidentally slipped a smile, revealing a missing tooth as well as his hidden youth. The lines on his face spread out wide, joy releasing, despite the complaints tumbling out of his mouth. “We just got married and she can’t stop talking about babies. Babies, babies, babies. We can barely afford rent, and she can’t stop thinking about having a baby soon. On top of all the stress around us, she still wants to bring a child into this fucked-up world?”
Duc, Huey, and V?nh couldn’t understand his troubles. The three of them roamed Seadrift as bachelors. They had no curfew or extra mouths to feed—even the idea of having to tell someone where they were going and when they would be home was foreign to them. All of them grunted, trying their best to commiserate with Eddie, but all they could do was feel sorry for him and his weighted responsibilities. A wife? A potential baby? A family ?
Only Tu?n’s reaction was delighted, leaning forward and slapping Eddie on his back. Eddie’s behemoth of a back merely absorbed the sound, and Tu?n laughed. “Just wait till the day you come home and your wife says she’s pregnant,” he said. “It’s the best feeling in the world. Nothing will ever compare to that moment again.”
All the men stared at Tu?n, whose teeth gleamed bright, and their hearts sank. His demeanor was different, lighter, as if he’d been given the keys to a kingdom.
“Evelyn’s pregnant?” Huey asked tentatively, the words swishing inside his mouth as if he was too afraid to say them out loud. His beer can crinkled in his hands as he squeezed it. He went through the last time he saw Evelyn at the crab factory, and noticed she was wearing baggier clothes, but that wasn’t unusual. She was one of those women who protected their beauty by doing everything she could to avert the male gaze. Huey had also caught Duc and V?nh staring at Evelyn that day. Running into Evelyn daily and harboring silly crushes were what kept the men going. Having a beautiful face to look forward to made the long fishing trips go by much easier, and whenever they returned back to shore, Evelyn was a fantasy, a distraction from the banalities of life.
“That’s right, boys, I’m going to be a father!” Tu?n exclaimed, sighing, relieved to finally announce the news into the void. “It’s a boy. I have a son. What luck! Finally, the tides are turning in my favor.” While Duc, Huey, and V?nh mourned the loss of Tu?n’s freedom, only Eddie pulled Tu?n into a rare embrace, held him tightly, and continuously slapped his back in the same rhythmic beat. Duc, Huey, and V?nh eventually mumbled half-hearted congratulations.
Huey meant none of it.
“Don’t tell my wife this news.” Eddie laughed. “Now she’ll really never let it go.”
Tu?n laughed, staring through the cracks of Eddie’s embrace at Duc’s, Huey’s, and V?nh’s forlorn faces. “You’re all acting as if I’m preparing for my funeral. I’ll still be around. When my son is of age, I’ll take him out on the boat with us. He’ll need his uncles to teach him how to navigate the waters, catch crab, and how to win over a woman’s heart. Promise me you’ll come back to Seadrift one day, and you’ll meet my son.”
“Let’s just hope he doesn’t have to crab for a living.” Duc laughed. “We’ll be back, when things are calmer.”
“Who knows when that’ll ever be?” Eddie said.
“Let’s just enjoy this moment now, let’s worry later,” V?nh placated. “Now? Now the waters are calm, and it’s just us.”
Huey remained quiet; he just looked out into the darkening waters and released the idea of ever being with Evelyn. He’d always dreamt of what it would be like to go home to someone like her, and now he would never know. Perhaps it was all for the best that they were leaving. He worried for Evelyn’s future, and wondered why she and Tu?n weren’t leaving town as well.
Tu?n pulled off fresh beers from the plastic ring, and handed one to each of the four men. “A toast,” he said. “To my son, to us, and to this crazy town. May we find solid footing in these waters one day, and may that day come soon.”
The five men clanged their cans together, and they all chugged, and kept chugging until they were down to just the last drops. Duc was the first to break the silence. He leaned casually against the railing of the old boat and lit up a cigarette. “Believe it or not, despite everything that’s happened here, I feel at peace here, more so than anywhere else I’ve been so far in America.”
“How can you say that?” Huey responded, irritated. By news about Evelyn’s pregnancy or by his friend’s silly words, he wasn’t sure. “We’ve been pushed out of our livelihoods. We’ve been threatened to leave or else. What’s peaceful here? Nothing.”
None of the men spoke up. There was nothing to say.
“Then might I suggest you all settle down when you leave this place,” Tu?n said soothingly, a poor attempt at breaking the tension. “It’s time for us to move on. Create a new lineage in this country. Start creating babies.”
The men groaned and began to throw their empty beer cans at Tu?n, tensions immediately dissipating. “Married with one baby on the way,” Duc teased. “Suddenly, he thinks he’s Confucius. The man thinks he’s better and wiser than all of us.”
“It’s true! Making more babies will solve everything!” Tu?n laughed, dodging empty beer cans left and right. “I may not have a lot but I’m a rich man.”
“Ah, fuck,” Eddie said as he teetered back on the edge of his crate, using his feet to steady himself. “Now you’re making me want a baby. Seriously, don’t tell my wife.”
“You’re making me continue to not want a baby,” Duc said, chugging beer.
“Same,” V?nh said, laughing. “No one can convince me otherwise.”
Huey didn’t say anything; he just stared at Tu?n, who was drowning in so much euphoria. He wondered if he could drown next to him in the same feeling. What must it be like, to be so incredibly fulfilled to the brink of happiness? Is that why they’re staying in Seadrift? Despite the odds against them? Tu?n had a family to protect, a reason to stay. But wouldn’t that be a bigger reason to leave?
The other men laughed, roasted one another, and continued to make fun of how soft Tu?n had become. They turned the boat back on and decided to head to deeper waters. As the night wore on and more stars came out, the men stopped caring about how many fish they were catching, and instead turned to how many beers they could drink.
“One more,” V?nh told Duc, who was already swaying side to side, his hands gripping the side of the boat. “Anh, one more, come on.”
Duc managed to nod in agreement, despite how hooded his eyes appeared. V?nh threw him another Heineken. Duc swigged violently, managing to finish it in just a few gulps. He turned to Huey, burped loudly into his face, laughed into the dark night, and motioned for Huey to drink next. Huey rose to the challenge, grabbed another beer from the cooler, threw melted ice off it, and chugged as well. Round and round, V?nh, Duc, Eddie, and Huey challenged each other, one-upping each other, raucous, slurred spit flying back and forth among the men. Only Tu?n remained neutral and temperate. He often looked wistfully back at shore, which appeared nothing more than a dot on the horizon.
“Anh,” Duc called out to Tu?n. “Don’t be dumb. Drink with us.”
Tu?n smiled and shook his head. “I promised Evelyn I wouldn’t drink as much.” The men groaned and threw empty cans at Tu?n again, but he managed to dodge all of them in quick succession.
“Come on,” V?nh said slyly. “She’s not here, we have hours left. It’ll wear off by the time you get back.”
“You gotta teach your son how to drink properly, right?” Duc said. “What kind of father would you be if you didn’t know how to hold your liquor? Don’t be such a prude, your woman isn’t here. Look around, do you see a woman for miles?”
Tu?n looked at the men, and there was the tiniest hesitation to him that made all the men jump at the soft chance. Duc quickly opened two cans at once and handed both to Tu?n. “Last one to drink both at the same time has to clean crabs for the other all week.”
Leaping up from his crate, Tu?n grabbed the two cans and without saying a word began to guzzle the lager down. V?nh jumped at the opening behind the steering wheel and roared the old boat to life, cigarette in his mouth. He moved the boat even deeper out into the ocean. The men laughed, opening another box of cigarettes, and someone took out a deck of playing cards. Cards were quickly shuffled, hands were soon dealt, and more beer tabs were pulled back, breaking the stillness of the water. After a few rounds, as more bad hands were dealt, money lost between everyone, Tu?n had caught up with all the men and more. He was on his fifteenth beer, crushed cans lying at his feet, evidence of his broken promise to Evelyn, and he stood up to go to the edge of the boat to take a piss. Tu?n unzipped his pants and the sound of his piss hitting the water could soon be heard, his body rocking every which way, unable to stand upright.
“Let’s turn back soon,” Tu?n called behind him, his voice garbled. “I need to go back home.”
“What?” Duc yelled back.
“I said let’s—”
Out of the darkness, a burst of fire. A noise so loud everyone covered their ears.
Gunfire went off in bursts in the distance, followed by a roar of hollow laughs and howling into the night. The serene waters were no more, and the night sky erupted into vibrant oranges and yellows. The smell of gunpowder filled their nostrils, dripping metallic in their mouths. One. Two. Three. Four. Four shots in quick succession. The laughter afterward sent more chills down the men’s backs than the gunshots did.
Duc, Huey, V?nh, and Eddie lay flat on the deck immediately, beers flying from their hands, sending the cans rolling into the Gulf. Back in the old country, war had trained them not to make a sound, to use silence as a shield, to walk softly in the jungle without breathing and to tiptoe around minefields. Their training immediately kicked in. Vietnam, Seadrift, it didn’t matter, they’d been trained their whole lives to survive.
V?nh put a finger to his lips and slowly lifted his head. He began to look every which way, attempting to discern where the gunshots had come from. Despite how dark and thin the night was, he saw the hats immediately in the far east, near the shoreline. The silhouettes were unmistakable, even in the darkest of places, the white cones on top of the heads, bobbing up and down, pointing high up toward the sky, ironically trying to pierce the heavens. The matching white robes lit up the sky. Ghosts, living nightmares, floating in the Gulf. V?nh’s body went cold. He counted the shadows. One. Two. Three. Four. Four gunshots were fired, and there were four of them. He lowered himself back down and mouthed the three letters to confirm what everyone else already knew. He whispered it urgently, his lips wrapped around each letter, as if he were trying to suck the venomous poison out of it. He mouthed at them, spelling it out phonetically the Vietnamese way. Cay-Cay-Cay . KKK. The KKK were here.
Duc and Huey locked eyes, as they often did. Finding each other in times of chaos had always centered them. They were brothers. But while they had found each other, they were both going opposite directions in their minds. Huey decided that no matter what happened to him after this night, he would never stay here. Huey would never take on a wife, bear children, or have anything that would hold him back like this.
For the first time in their lives, the two men began to pray to Buddha. They closed their eyes and silently called out to Buddha to help them survive the long night. Just as they felt confident they could quietly escape, that was when more gunshots rang out, and the roar of more surrounding boats began to come alive. There were more than just four now; they were outmatched. What little hope they had had been extinguished, the last match against darkness. They stopped calling out for Buddha.