Part Five
When they got off the bus near their apartment, the bus
had emptied out, mostly. People went out of their way to stay away from the
inter-racial couple, especially the big tall wai-guo ren. Before they went up
the quiet street to their home, they could already hear Tuane's golden
retriever barking loudly and constantly a block away. Could it smell Tuane's
presence or hadn't it stopped barking since they left home four hours earlier?
Only the neighbors knew for sure. Tuane and Linda ducked into a mom and pop
grocery store on the corner so Tuane could buy his daily USA Today before
heading home. Linda bought one onion.
Stepping outside, they began to cross the street when
they heard a terrible screeching sound. Tuane looked up from his headlines to
see a taxi with an incised driver yelling at him. The cab shook a few inches
from Linda and Tuane's feet. The driver opened the door and stood up yelling at
Tuane who, apparently, had crossed the street in front of the taxi which almost
hit him. How dare the driver to yell at Tuane? The cab had almost hit them and
the cab driver was angry? Tuane should have been the one that was angry, and
sure enough, he was. This was another lesson in 'world familiarization.'
Tuane's fist came squarely down on the hood of the taxi,
like an ax splitting a tree stump, and promptly and deeply dented the damage.
The driver, not believing his eyes, reached into his open taxi door and came
out wielding a wooden bat. They were back at the ballpark playing by Tuane's
rules. The driver raised the bat with one hand and started shaking it at Tuane
as he came ever closer. When he was a few feet away, Tuane grabbed the waving
bat from the driver, both men, big and small, red with rage, Linda pleading,
bilingually, for them to stop, and begging anyone within earshot to call the
police. Everyone just stood where they were and watched the show in the
intersection. They had never seen a foreigner fight with a Taiwanese taxi
driver before. Tuane took out the souvenir ball he had stashed in his pocket.
"Okay, so you want a little horse play?" With
all his might, he wound up and threw the ball at the poor driver’s chest. The
man doubled over and grabbed himself. Tuane scampered to grab the ball which
was rolling toward a wet sewer, picked it up and threw it at the man again this
time missing him and striking a large plastic sign on the grocery store front
shattering it into shards. The taxi driver, scared for his life, ran around toward
the open taxi door, sat down, put the car into reverse, jerked the car forward,
and started edging towards Tuane. Tuane lifted the bat and smashed it down on
the windshield making a thud as the window disintegrated into a million glued
pieced. The driver, knowing he had met his match, screamed something in
Mandarin outside his open window and drove away, madly, down the street.
"Tuane, we better go away from here! He's getting
his friends to help him," Linda said desperately. She knew what a gang
of Taiwanese taxi drivers could do after they called each other on their CB
radios.
"The heck he is," replied Tuane belligerently,
hands folded across his heaving chest in defiance.
"Tuane, please, now! Let us go now! Please,
please," Linda cried out. She had had enough 'world familiarization' for one
day. She grabbed Tuane by his plaid collar shirt and pulled him up the block
towards the source of the barking dog, the barking dog on his apartment's
balcony.
The taxi driver did come back, with his colleagues, after
Tuane and Linda had gone. They were asking the locals where the tall blond
foreign man lived.
Around 3 am, Tuane and Linda were awakened by the sound
of a siren and the smell of smoke. They looked outside to see a fire engine
putting out a blaze coming from two motorcycles parked a few doors down. No one
knew how it happened. Tuane stood on the balcony with the dog, mug of coffee in
his hand, and watched as the last splash of water was applied, watching two
women talking with a fire officer. He felt a little badly for them but was sure
glad they weren't his motorcycles. He would have killed whoever did that to
him. He went back inside leaving the dog outside to bark and pee. He returned
to put the empty coffee mug in the sink and headed back to bed. Linda pretended
she was sleeping.
In the morning, Tuane woke up to another commotion. The
Mormon missionary who lived across the street from him was on the ground in
front of his home near his bicycle being pummeled by six men, two with bats,
two with bottles, and two with their fists and boots.
“Well would you look at that,” said Tuane, the lab
barking like crazy.
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