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  The early years of Peter Winthrop’s existence on this earth seemed pleasant enough. But when his father’s story reached the fifth grade, Jake regretted having asked for Winthrop History 101. By the time his father hit puberty, which coincided with his father’s third drink on the deck, Jake wanted to plug his ears.

  Peter Winthrop was the youngest of six children and the only son in the family born to a feisty French lady and a hard-working Southern Baptist. When Peter was five, his father, Peter Winthrop, Sr., did what every man on his side of the family had done since they emerged from a packed ship hull in the early 1800s—he skipped town. No note, no phone call. He didn’t claim he was going out for cigarettes. He didn’t run away with a secret lover. He just decided that, after half a dozen children, marriage and fatherhood wasn’t for him. He simply woke up one Saturday morning, had breakfast with his family for the last time, took a shower, got dressed, and walked out the front door without saying a word.

  As the only male in a family of six women, life was tough for young Peter Winthrop, Jr. The balance of the sexes his father had maintained in the house crumbled with his departure. First the rules changed, and then the game. Where it was once acceptable to leave the toilet seat up, forgetting to drop the seat now earned him unbearable payback. Dirty shoes in the house were confiscated, and Peter had vivid memories of being driven to tears by humiliation and the scorching heat of the street on his bare feet. Clothes left on the floor were thrown on the front porch. Peter’s mother had lost control of her life when her husband left. To overcompensate, she took complete control of her house. As the son of the man who had just sealed her fate as a single mother of six, Peter Winthrop, Jr. was going to be taught a lesson.

  Between the ages of five to fifteen, life was one nightmare after another. It was more than just growing up without a father—there were plenty of families in the neighborhood who had lost fathers in the war and still raised children who grew into healthy adults. What took place at 311 Edison Avenue was anything but normal. The house quickly turned into a part-time beauty salon, flower shop, and fashion show. Five older sisters, their girlfriends, and a mother who was light years ahead in the feminist movement was the recipe for a painful existence for a young boy growing up in the fifties in the South.

  At eight years old, he knew more about women, their bodily functions, and their views on men than most people three times his age. When his oldest sister learned to sew and took up dressmaking with the hopes of selling her wares, things took a turn for the worse. Peter Jr., too small to fight five sisters and their friends, was the unlucky fashion model of choice. He learned about skirts, dresses, hems and pleats. And that was just the beginning.

  When his two middle sisters decided to try their hand at beautician school, the fun really began. Blush, liner, mascara, lipstick. He had tried them all, forced through physical restraint when necessary.

  On Halloween, the sisters merged their talents in a transformation of one young Peter Winthrop into the youngest cross-dresser in the entire city of Columbia, if not the entire state of South Carolina. He loved his family for what they were—the only family he had. And hated every last one of them for what they did.

  Peter Winthrop, Sr. reappeared at the house on Edison Avenue ten years after his mysterious, silent departure. Peter Winthrop, Jr. was the only one home, and according to his mother’s strict rule of absolutely no guests if she was not there, when his father knocked on the door, Peter Jr. refused to let him in. It didn’t matter that the guest was his father, or that he had lived in the house for fifteen years. His mother was adamant. Unless Jesus Christ showed up and specifically needed to use the phone or the bathroom, there were to be no guests. Peter Winthrop, Sr. responded, through the door, that he understood. He stood nonchalantly on the rapidly dilapidating porch he had built himself, and waited for his son to get dressed and join him outside. Peter Winthrop, Sr. peaked through the window into the house and was aghast at the hanging stockings, dresses by the dozens wedged onto store-quality racks, and enough cosmetics to cover a busload of prostitutes.

  Peter Winthrop, Jr. and Peter Winthrop, Sr. had their last conversation as estranged father and son while strolling down the main drag of Columbia, South Carolina, a few blocks from what later became known as the entertainment district referred to as “Five Points.” Peter Winthrop, Sr. offered no apology and no explanation. The father looked at this son, recalled the brief glimpse he had gotten at the inside of the house, and left his son with a singular piece of what he considered useful advice.

  “Son, don’t you dare grow up to be queer.”

  It was the only advice the son could remember receiving from his father, and he took it to heart. The possibility that growing up with a bunch of women could, in fact, make him queer was something he hadn’t considered. People weren’t coming out of the closet on a regular basis in the fifties, and to spot a real queer, in person, was quite a novelty.

  Peter Winthrop, Jr. wasn’t taking any chances. With his father’s warning fresh on his mind, Peter Winthrop, Jr. walked into the football coach’s office at Joyce Kilmer High School on Monday morning and told him he was ready to play.

  “Have you ever played before?” Coach Dietz, an overweight former high school star, asked with suspicion.

  “No, sir,” replied the future CEO of Winthrop Enterprises.

  “What position are you interested in playing?”

  “I don’t care. I just want to hit people,” Peter answered. It sounded like the manliest thing he could think of. And proving he was a man was the only reason he was there. He was sure there were no queers on the football team. And if there were, the straight players were sure to beat any less-than-manly tendencies right out of them.

  The coach looked over the fifteen-year-old and made some mental calculations. Six foot, maybe six=one, one hundred and eighty pounds, give or take a nickel.

  “Are you fast?”

  “Fast enough, I guess.”

  “Practice is at four this afternoon. Let’s suit you up and see what you can do. That’s four sharp. Don’t be late.”

  Peter, decked out in a Kilmer High School white practice uniform, took the field to the type of taunts reserved for new inmates at the state penitentiary in Charleston. The ridicule lasted exactly one play. Peter, much to his own surprise, could hit like a runaway freight train. When Tucker McGee, all-state tailback two years running, came around the corner on the first play of practice, Peter laid him out cold. Smelling salts eventually brought him around, but ol’ “lightning feet McGee” watched the rest of practice from the sidelines.

  While the players ran after-practice laps around the field, the coaches smiled and huddled on the sideline. When Peter finished his second lap, the coaches called him over and told him that he was their new starting outside linebacker. Peter didn’t know the names of all the positions or where he was supposed to line up on any given play, but Coach Dietz didn’t care.

  The coach’s advice was simple. “Cover a player when we tell you to. If we don’t specifically tell you to cover someone, you are free to knock the snot out of anyone wearing the opposing team’s jersey.”

  For the four-month football season, Peter Winthrop did exactly as he was told. With every hit, he made it clear that if you came near his side of the field you were going to go home bruised, battered, or broken. He led the team in tackles, sacks and interceptions. And more importantly, he ended the season believing that he had knocked any hiding refuge of queer right out of his body. To make sure, he fucked his way through half the cheerleading squad.

  Jake listened to his father and felt sorry for him. While he couldn’t condone his father’s behavior, the explanation of his own childhood certainly helped Jake understand where he was coming from. But times change, and Jake couldn’t help but get the feeling his father was still trying to prove something. He was still the football player who ruled through intimidation. He was still trying to fuck his way through the cheerleading squad. He was still fifte
en, and at that age, Jake had nearly ten years on him.

  Jake had one more question to ask, but wasn’t sure if he had the energy to hear either a lie or the truth. He also knew there would never be a better time. “Dad, can I ask a tough question?”

  “Sure, son,” Peter answered, his mind still reliving his youth.

  “I found a fax at work about a girl named Wei Ling. I was wondering if you know her.”

  “Aaaah, the fax. Yes, son, I know her. We dated in the past, and I guess she felt like she could turn to me for help. She got herself into a bit of trouble it seems.”

  “And the baby?”

  “I don’t know if she is even really pregnant, son. And at any rate, the child wasn’t mine. I don’t know, maybe she thought if she applied pressure, the baby would be her ticket to a better life. It’s hard to say. It’s hard to figure out how some people think.”

  “Where is she now?

  “She’s home in China. Don’t worry. I’ve done my best to make sure she is properly cared for.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s all I know.”

  Jake picked up a cookie off the plate that Camille had placed on the table and chewed slowly. He wasn’t hungry, but the cookie put an end to the conversation.

  The evening concluded uneventfully. Jake was wired from three cups of the strongest coffee he had consumed in recent memory, compliments of the Latin American kitchen miracle worker. His father was still going strong, well into double digits on the drink scale. Not a slur, not a stumble. The father said goodbye to his son on the front steps of the house, and for a moment, Jake thought he was about to hear a long overdue apology. But instead of an ‘I’m-sorry-for-being-a-shitty-father’ response, Peter offered him what he could. “Let me know if you want to take the Porsche for a spin sometime.”

  Jake looked him in the eyes and said “Goodnight”. For the first time since he was old enough to rationalize, Jake realized he was a better man for not having had his father in his life. His mother had made the right decision by evicting him. He wasn’t really fit to be a father or a role model. Some people are and some people aren’t. And sometimes life is just that simple.

  As Jake made his way back to his car his father had the last word. “Think about what I said about someday taking over my company. I think it would be great.”

  Jake rolled the old Subaru station wagon down the driveway in neutral and dropped the clutch as he hit the street. The car bucked once and let out another backfire that woke every sleeping neighbor on the street.

  Chapter 13

  China Air Flight 43 touched down at JFK International Airport with a screech, the jumbo jet’s tires leaving a streak of rubber on the heavily scarred blacktop of Runway 13. Chow Ying followed the herd to immigration and customs, a process measured at JFK in lunar movement, not minutes or hours. He endured the scrutinizing stare of the immigration officer and answered precisely one question—that he was here on business—before America’s first line of defense against undesirable foreign elements turned him loose on the Big Apple.

  The taxi turned left onto Grand Street from Broadway, past a stretch of pavement marked by narrow sidewalks made even narrower by hawkers selling their fake Gucci bags and Tag Heuer watches. From Grand Street the taxi turned right down Mott, cutting through the Northern end of Little Italy and the ever-expanding Chinatown. New York’s Chinatown, home to the largest Chinese population outside of the mainland, was a microcosm of east meets west, in the biggest melting pot on the face of the earth. Chow Ying stepped from the taxi and looked down the block in both directions. The sounds and smells wafting through the air were as familiar as the worn shoes on his feet.

  Under the evening light of the city, couples walked to dinner as shopkeepers shuttered their vegetable stands and meat counters for the night. A young man on a moped darted off on the beginning of a delivery run. Chow Ying stood under the neon light of a nearby barbershop sign and pulled the number from his shirt pocket. He tapped the arm of an Asian passerby, a man of equal age but considerably less stature. “Do you know where this address is?” he asked in Mandarin Chinese, the official language of China.

  The man responded in Cantonese, a dialect Chow Ying did not speak, and the dialogue ended as abruptly as it had begun.

  An elderly woman with a bagful of winter cabbage, broccoli, and carrots, gave Chow Ying precise directions in Mandarin with a heavy Beijing accent. Chow Ying said thank you in their shared local dialect, and the old woman with numerous wrinkles and far fewer teeth, smiled and patted Chow Ying on his back.

  A dark red door and a single light marked the inconspicuous entrance of 234 Centre Street. The old brick building took up a quarter of the block. The windows were dark, the façade unwelcoming, and the crumbling mortar that held the structure together was straining to keep it all in one piece.

  Chow Ying pushed the small black button and waited. An audible buzz accompanied the automatic lock release, and Chow Ying stepped into the foyer of the dark building. Despite his sketchy past and criminal inclinations, Chow Ying had never been behind bars. Until now. The cage that kept unwanted guests from entering, and prevented unsanctioned exits to those inside, was a three-sided cell that formed a u-shape against the brick wall and the front door. A security camera attached to the ceiling in the corner watched his every move. Chow Ying was unfazed. Someone knew he was there. He pulled out a cigarette and lighter, and polluted himself while he waited.

  He heard the voice from the shadows before he saw his host.

  “Who’s there?” the voice asked in a calm, almost peaceful tone.

  “Chow Ying. C.F. Chang sent me. He gave me this address and told me someone would meet me here.”

  A small hand pulled on the chain dangling from the underside of the lamp, and a dull light stretched meekly across the room. A lone desk sat in the middle of the otherwise barren first floor. Mr. Wu yanked opened the top desk drawer, pulled out a key, and made his way across the room to release Chow Ying from his temporary confinement.

  “My name is Wu. Follow me.”

  Chow Ying trailed the small man across the room and down a flight of stairs so narrow that he had to turn sideways to traverse. At the bottom of the stairs were two identical black doors, and Mr. Wu knocked lightly on the one to the left. The door opened, and the buzz of people and machines in motion washed away the silence of the old brick building.

  Like the dialect of the old woman who gave him directions on the street, the familiar hum of sewing machines was a sweet reminder of home. Eighty seamstresses, voluntary illegal slaves, packed the basement of 234 Centre Street. Imitation designer bags were their specialty, sold on the street by equally illegal vendors. Imported cheap labor and iron-fisting an army of street vendors had made Mr. Wu a Chinatown legend.

  Chow Ying continued behind Mr. Wu across the floor, past a line of girls bent over their machines, backs hunched, eyes squinting. One seamstress paused to look up at the source of the shadow on her workstation as Chow Ying passed and was immediately reprimanded. Chow Ying smiled. Employee relations at its best.

  Chow Ying entered Mr. Wu’s small cluttered office and took a seat without waiting for an offer. Chow Ying wasn’t here to play games. Mr. Wu was no one to him, a co-worker at best, both ultimately employed by C.F. Chang. This was business, but there was no need for formalities. Mr. Wu didn’t offer any niceties and Chow Ying didn’t expect any. Certainly not after the cage at the front entrance.

  “Here is everything you need,” Mr. Wu said, handing Chow a small nylon bag with a thick waist strap.

  Chow Ying opened the bag and examined the essentials for a life on the move. An untraceable revolver, bought from the black market on the mean streets of the Bronx. Ten grand in cash peaked from under the gun, mostly hundreds, but with a smattering of smaller bills. The last item Chow Ying pulled out was a sleek silver Nokia cell phone with a charge cord.

  “Where am I going?” Chow Ying asked.

  “Washington. You
have a reservation on the Amtrak Metroliner to D.C. tomorrow morning. Here is your ticket. Just in case, the ticket is under the name Zao Gun. Amtrak security is non-existent, they don’t ask for identification for ticket holders unless you are buying the ticket at the window. There is no security check. Once you reach D.C, you are on your own. Here is a name and address. C.F. Chang implied you wouldn’t need any further explanation.”

  Chow Ying looked at the piece of paper, said nothing, and put it in the bag with the money and the phone. He took the gun and shoved it in the waist of his pants, pulling his shirt over the small bulge.

  “One more thing,” Mr. Wu asked.

  “What?”

  “Laoban asked me to keep your passport until you get back.”

  Chow Ying smiled. “Sorry old man, but you should have asked for it before you gave me the gun. The passport stays with me.”

  Mr. Wu looked at Chow Ying, considered the statement and its source, and nodded. “Very well.”

  Chapter 14

  Jake’s Subaru stalled at the intersection of Constitution Avenue and Fourteenth Street, and nearly conked out again at a red light in the 1800 block. He made the prudent mental note to take the car to the mechanic as soon as his next paycheck arrived. He pulled a u-turn across the double yellow lines in the middle of the road, a perfectly legal driving maneuver in the nation’s capital, and putted his way into an empty space left by a vacating van. It was four blocks to the intersection of Twenty-Second Street, an easy hoof.

  Jake took his time strolling down the wide sidewalk under the old elm trees that gave more than ample shade but did little to alleviate the city’s brutal humidity. It was going to be another scorcher and the humidity was already stifling, clinging like an electric blanket on a summer night. The nation’s capital was built on a swamp, millions of tons of earth poured into wetlands to create half of the city. And despite the paved roads and grandiose architecture, the water remained in the ground like a hidden ghost, invisible piping insuring a never-ending supply of moisture to the local climate.