The Pledge
by Darren Huang
The summer I turned fourteen, my older brother, Lenny, promised that we would circle Taiwan together. Every summer, thousands of college seniors celebrated their freedom from classes by driving south across the Tropic of Cancer to the beaches of Hualian. Government rules for catching Communists were relaxed in the south, where the police were driven to idleness by the hot equatorial sun. You could speak Taiwanese in public instead of the Mandarin required in the north or dive into the ocean after curfew hours.
A month before the trip, one afternoon in June, I was vacuuming my room when Lenny called up to me from our veranda, telling me to come with him.
“But Dad says to stay home and clean up for his rotary club tonight,” I shouted down to him from my window, perching my elbows on the sill. I was embarrassed by my high, whiny voice, fraying in the damp summer air. Our father spoke in a stern, practical voice when delivering his ideas for charities as president of his rotary club. Lenny’s voice belonged on the radio with the honey-voiced American anchors who played “Stand By Me” and other songs of soulful love from the seventies. I was always deepening my voice to match my brother’s.
“We’ll be back in time to sweep the dust under the cabinets,” he said, tipping his oversized sunglasses over his eyes against the glare, in a perfect imitation of our favorite cowboy John Wayne turning down the brim of his hat. “I have to get my baseball back so we can play on the trip.”
On the veranda, Lenny whipped his arm around a post in a lunge for a leaf skittering across the floor. At twenty-one, Lenny had played in dozens of neighborhood baseball games. I was small for fourteen, never chosen for a team. That morning, I’d been rooting for Lenny from the sidelines when he launched a ball over a fence for a home run. I’d cheered, my amazement working up a buzz in my chest. But the opposing pitcher whined that Lenny had hit the ball into the yard guarded by police. Lenny took it as a challenge. He fixed the pitcher with a mocking stare and said he would retrieve the ball.
As I examined the floor for dust, I was distracted by imagining myself make one of my brother’s artful lunges for a baseball.
“Come on, Birdy,” Lenny teased. “I don’t want to leave you behind.”
Sweat collected on my forehead like a second skin. I was afraid my brother would abandon me. My parents hadn’t allowed me on his trips until that year for Lenny’s college graduation. A few years ago, before he left me behind to drive off to a casino with his girlfriend, he’d danced to the radio in his bedroom while I improvised on my harmonica. He’d laughed, saying I played well like a bird. When Lenny called me Birdy, I was no longer embarrassed of my squeaky voice but made bold like a bird with his encouragement, ready to fly out of our house.
As I ran downstairs, I hesitated in the foyer, where I glanced nervously at Lenny through his glasses. He grinned, settling me down. I shouted that I was coming, trying out my brother’s fearlessness.
Lenny and I ran the few blocks to our neighbor’s house, dust clouds chasing our legs. It was a single-story structure with a flat tile roof and opaque paper doors, left over from the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. According to our mother, the neighbor was a Chinese spy who’d been placed under house arrest by the government for planning a coup. On our walks to school, we’d seen police cars circling the house like sharks, gliding towards any suspicious movement.
I dodged stones on the ground, trailing the shine of Lenny’s black hair. He’d slicked it back into a spiked cone outside of school, unlike his classmates, who kept their hair flattened into helmets according to school rules.
“What if someone sees us?” I whispered to Lenny, my skin tingling with nerves over sneaking out of the house for the first time. I recalled that our father had warned us that whoever spoke to the spy would be accused of being a Communist under antirebellion laws passed by President Chiang. They would be taken away by the police, interrogated for plotting against the government.
“We won’t get caught,” my brother said, winking at me. “I’ll get his attention while you keep watch.”
I nodded faintly, my brother’s confidence seeping into me like heat. We made an inseparable team back then, my brother devising ways for us to slip around the rules, like two cowboys straightening the crooked laws of Taichung. Lenny would lead us toward our imagined future in New York. My brother would join our uncle’s import company and expand it until it was world-renowned like Mercedes. He would be CEO, and I would be vice president.
Lenny made a fluttering signal with his hand. I huddled beside him against our neighbor’s fence, eyeing the corner for the white fin of a police car.
I could hear my heart ticking, as Lenny called out to our neighbor in a dignified voice, like a lieutenant. “Mister, Mister.”
After a few moments, the soldier emerged from his house, closing the back door without a sound. He wore a creased military outfit, like he’d returned from battle, composed of a canvas shirt with enameled badges and a wool belt designed for carrying weapons and other equipment of war.
“What are you kids doing here?” He spoke in an amused voice, which felt more like an invitation than a warning.
The rumors clouded my judgment like a mist so that everything he did seemed to hide a deceitful intent. I was too intimidated to reply, but Lenny relaxed into asking with a playful voice, “Have you seen a baseball in your yard?”
Our neighbor considered this with his hands hooked on his belt, then reached behind a pot of orchids, retrieving our baseball. He scanned the road behind us, checking that it was clear of police, and threw the ball over the fence to Lenny.
I found comfort in his act of kindness, having been used to adults refusing my requests. I formed allegiances quickly then. I hadn’t learned that it could be hard to alter the lines of an allegiance between adults. Lenny thanked him and continued in a gently mocking tone. “Is it true that you were a spy against our government?”
“You can’t believe everything the government says,” the solder sighed, tenderly watering his orchids, though none of their flowers had bloomed. “President Chiang and I were friends when I was fighting the Communists as General Sun. He gave me orchids to show his faith in me.”
The general dissolved the mist clouding him, forming a clearer picture. He spoke a proper Chinese, though slightly deviating from standard speech with the hard r’s of English, which lent worldly wisdom to whatever he said. It wasn’t until years later that I learned from an American textbook that General Sun had studied in a famous military school in Virginia, regarded as an outsider for his American education. He’d adopted its lessons to defeat the Japanese for the Allies and win major battles for President Chiang until he was arrested for rebelling against the government.
“Our Ma said that Chinese orchids don’t grow the same in Taiwan because the sun’s too hot,” Lenny said confidently. He tossed the baseball over the fence to the general, who threw it to me. I pitched the ball back, eagerly playing in a baseball game.
The general smiled and continued watering his orchids. “I used to pass a baseball around with the president between battles.”
His sadness passed into me like a cloud of cold air. My mind grew reflective with vague longing for the general’s reconciliation with the president. Lenny had often accused me of being too easily moved by misfortune, unable to remain calm and act maturely. “Why aren’t you friends anymore?” I asked, a whine creeping into my voice.
“We were like brothers, but he thought I betrayed him,” General Sun said. “He sent me into exile here after claiming one of my men was a spy. But I would’ve never risked the president.”
I was perplexed by his account, which contradicted everything I’d heard. “But our Ma said that you were a spy,” I said.
“Ma doesn’t know everything,” Lenny said impatiently. I was used to bearing the hurt from Lenny’s flashes of annoyance, telling myself that they were meant out of kindness. His acceptance of the general’s story encouraged me to do the same.
“Your parents are only looking out for you,” the general said. “The president arrests people who speak out against him. I pray that one day he’ll admit that I was loyal and set me free so I can fight for him again.” He turned his head to peer through the trees, like a cowboy aiming his shot. “Can you keep this our secret?”
“Birdy knows how to keep a secret. I’ve made sure of that,” my brother said.
I hesitated, having only kept small secrets. But I eventually nodded, recognizing that the general had chosen me for an important task. As we left, Lenny ducked my head beneath the bushes when a police car slid by. I imagined us as soldiers sent out by the general, guarding his secret from enemies.
We sprinted home to meet our curfew. The mountains in the south were hazy red, as if boiling where the sun was falling through broken clouds. It was almost six, when our father would be checking for us after work.
We snuck through the back door of our house. But on the stairs up to our bedrooms, we were surprised by our father calling to us from the kitchen, where he was brewing tea for his rotary club meeting. He asked where we’d been all evening.
“You know you shouldn’t be out so late,” he said in a wary voice, worn out from complaining about us. His eyes were wet with concern. He cared deeply about appearances as an important editor of the local newspaper. Our father grew up during the Japanese occupation, rooting in him a fear of retaliation against any public impropriety.
“We were picking up Lenny’s baseball for —” I tried to speak firmly, but a shiver slipped into my voice from the fear of a scolding.
My father’s eyes frosted over, hardening like a hawk’s.
Lenny’s mouth curved into a neat bow to tidy up my account, silencing me. “On the way to buying more tea for the meeting,” he cut in. I still didn’t have the nerve to invent an account like Lenny, afraid of being caught for lying. He’d warned me about speaking too straightforwardly to adults, explaining that our past behavior had to be altered to conform to the rigid rules of adults or be seen as childish.
Our father nodded, calmed but still suspicious. Lenny’s explanations were always accepted quickly because of his age and the threat of his disappearances, occurring when our parents refused to finance his trips. Our father scrutinized the floor behind us and pointed at our dirty footprints. “You better clean that up before the guests arrive. Doesn’t your Ma have enough to do?”
I heard the creaking of a desk from my mother’s study upstairs. She taught Taiwanese history at my high school, giving lessons on the formation of our current government. On most nights, she was absorbed in writing a lesson plan to comply with an official version. Lenny and I were terrified of upsetting our mother. She’d often become nervous waiting for Lenny’s return from trips, dreading that he’d stayed out late and gotten into trouble with the police. A few months ago, she’d refused Lenny’s request for a Jeep, concerned about its safety. He’d disappeared for days, draining her until she was bedridden. When he came home, she promised to buy him the Jeep, falling into fits of apology.
“Sure,” my brother replied, satisfying our father. Lenny wet towels from the kitchen and wiped the floors on our path from the back door. I joined him, scrubbing the floor clear of any traces from our visit to the general. We worked cheerfully as a team, with a sense of mischief over completing a cover-up rather than a chore.
In the following weeks, when I wasn’t memorizing Mandarin characters taught at summer school, Lenny and I snuck out to the general’s house. We were drawn to the house for a secret version of events. When I asked my mother if she’d heard of General Sun, she’d talked about one of her lessons, describing him as a general who collaborated with Communists to form a rebel army against President Chiang. I usually believed my mother’s lessons without doubts. But her account’s inconsistencies with the general’s story slowly corroded its accuracy.
My brother grew bored with our visits to General Sun, seeming to crave a new adventure away from home like John Wayne roaming the Wild West. He became occupied with planning our trip to Hualian. Lenny changed the tires to his Jeep with money from our father and spoke quietly over the phone to his girlfriend Ella about their plans, in case our parents overheard. Whenever I passed the general’s house, I proudly saluted him, knowing that I’d kept his secret. But I didn’t have the courage to approach the general without Lenny, still terrified of being taken away by the police.
On the day planned for our departure to Hualian, I paced back and forth in my room. I was unable to memorize Mandarin characters, which loosely floated in my brain, untethered to any meaning. I checked the street for my brother, afraid that I’d been left behind. Lenny finally rolled his renovated Jeep into our driveway and thunderously revved his engine. He’d raised the body of the Jeep with tall, sporty wheels. I sprinted past my mother in the kitchen, a hot jolt burning my back. She was humming a Taiwanese song from the forties whose words had been prohibited, as she packed honey melon for our trip. I ran to the Jeep, jumping onto the step of the passenger seat, which was much higher than before.
“I told you that Birdy was ready for his first trip,” Lenny boasted to Ella in the back seat. He preferred to keep me in the passenger seat while he drove, close enough to check that I was enjoying the ride.
“But can he stay up past curfew?” Ella asked with concern. She had a foxy face, with high cheekbones, giving her beauty a forbidding air. My mother had warned Lenny that her cheekbones were a sign of deceitfulness. But Lenny had assured her that Ella was honest with him, anchoring him back to reason when he acted too boldly.
I saw that she didn’t think I was equipped for the trip. A sense of irritation wound me up, straightening me like a wire. I thought spitefully that our mother was right about her cheekbones. But I’d learned from Lenny to play cool whenever you were challenged. I wanted to make a terse and witty comeback like John Wayne, shaping the words so they’d blow out of a corner of my mouth like cigarette smoke. I managed to keep a level tone. “Don’t worry, I can stay up.”
“All right,” she laughed, and turned back to Lenny. “Just keep an eye on him.” My reply wasn’t what I’d imagined, as quick-witted as Lenny, but at least I’d won her approval. I was pleased with myself.
As though our talk of mischief had called out to our mother, she darted through the front door, with a container of melon. Her nerves hid behind the walls of our house, detecting trouble like dampness in the air.
“How can you drive with those wheels?” my mother asked, looking at the Jeep in disbelief. “You won’t be able to turn.”
“I can see for miles,” Lenny said, settling back in his seat for a wider view. “It’s even safer than before.”
“Really?” my mother said, buckling my seatbelt. “Promise me that you’ll drive slowly.”
“No problem, Ma,” Lenny said earnestly.
I proudly caught on that this was an imitation of earnestness because our view of the street was now partially blocked by the dashboard. I’d always been too sympathetic towards our mother to deceive her. But I joined Lenny in appeasing her, the only way to escape her worrying over us. “I can see everything from up here.”
“Fine,” she sighed, watching Lenny slowly wheel the Jeep out of the driveway. “Call home every night.”
When we reached the highway, Lenny sped up past the speed limit, eager to reach Hualian. But he slowed down when Ella and I reminded him of promising our mother not to drive too fast. Our mother’s desires had seeped into the car, like a fragrance in the air. We wound through the south in the flickering light of lush green mountains. My mother’s worries became remote, like in the laws of a foreign country. Ella dozed off in the heat. But the sun fired up the boldness in Lenny’s blood. He flipped his sunglasses over his eyes and sped again until we reached our beach hotel, giving us our first taste of freedom for the weekend.
That night, I joined Lenny and Ella at the beach behind our hotel to watch the sunset. Ella arranged herself on a blanket with her arms folded beneath her like she was posing for a picture. A group of college girls were on a trip, jumping with abandon into the ocean, their arms spread like angel wings. I tossed a baseball back and forth with Lenny. I strained to reach him with my throws, but he lunged for them, saving me from embarrassment until we tired of playing.
I followed him to a food stand beside the road, where he bought cool cans of beer from a tan girl of about my age. She wore a beaded necklace of tarnished red and silver stones, patterned like a peacock feather. Her jewelry reminded me of a lesson from school about Taiwanese natives in the south. Our teacher had warned us that many of them collaborated with Communists, resisting President Chiang’s rules for managing their territory. Lenny pointed to a sign that read “Zhongzheng Road” in formal white letters, plastered onto the traffic pole.
“Look,” he said, amused. “It’s the same as the road near our house.”
“How come?” I asked, disoriented.
“Ma said President Chiang renamed main streets in towns to his nickname, Zhong Zheng.”
“He’s right,” the girl interrupted in a dejected voice, squinting at the sign, like it was overly bright. “My parents called it Lotus Road. All our names were changed because they weren’t Chinese enough.”
“That’s wrong,” Lenny said firmly. “You should be able to choose your own names.”
I nodded glumly, my optimism admitting a shadow of unease. I realized that there were also limits to freedom in the south.
“We’ll call it Lotus Road too,” Lenny said gently.
The permissiveness of the beach encouraged me to speak boldly, disregarding the reality asserted by the sign. “We’ll tell everyone at home that we visited Lotus Road so they know the real name.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling widely. “At least a few people will remember it.”
Lenny and I rejoined Ella on the blanket, basking in triumph at discovering the real name of the road. I lied back half-asleep, Lenny’s arm around my shoulder in a drowsy embrace. Lenny hummed a song from a John Wayne movie, the vibrations like a faint drum. I fell into a trance watching the college girls walk gracefully out of the ocean, their feet combing the wet sand. Lenny’s embrace would later linger in my memory, along with our visits to General Sun, as one of our few untroubled moments of happiness.
“We’re going to the disco tomorrow night,” Lenny said, nudging me. “We’ll find you a girl to dance with.”
“Really?” I asked, my skin jumping with desire. I didn’t think I was ready for a girlfriend, but I’d watched Lenny dance in his room enough times to know how to move with a girl. You threw your hands in the air and kicked your feet. I’d had an abstract desire for romance, but on the beach, it solidified into something close and tangible.
“For sure,” Ella said, with motherly tenderness. “We’ll make sure you have fun.”
I smiled shyly, imagining the electric spark that I took to be love.
After dinner the next night, I followed Lenny and Ella to our room to change for the disco. In the hotel parking lot, we wove through BMWs, Mercedes, and luxury cars visiting Hualian from other parts of the island. Lenny stroked the hood of a silver Mercedes convertible.
“My future car,” he said, winking at us. “It can go up to 200 kilometers an hour.”
“In your dreams,” Ella said, laughing. “You can’t drive that fast here.”
“Oh yeah?” Lenny said, his voice hardening in a challenge. He seized the Mercedes-Benz emblem with a mischievous look.
“What are you doing?” Ella asked, her voice tightening in panic.
“Just a souvenir of the car,” he said, twisting the emblem off the hood.
“We’ll go to jail if we get caught,” I whispered. I crept behind the hood and peered at the booth of the parking attendant.
“Don’t be such a wimp,” Lenny said, in one of his bursts of annoyance. “Just keep watch and cover for me if anyone comes.”
I looked painfully to Lenny to reverse his judgment, but he was absorbed in removing the emblem.
After Lenny slipped it into his pocket, we hurried back towards the hotel.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Ella said, glaring at him.
“They won’t even notice it’s gone,” Lenny said, shrugging.
As we passed the parking booth, the attendant demanded to know what we were doing in the parking lot.
“Nothing, sir,” Lenny replied in a smooth, innocent voice.
The attendant squinted at us in suspicion and asked me if what Lenny said was true. But I was still too furious to speak. I darted away into the lobby, trailed by shouts of my name. In the bathroom, I hid in a corner, where I could be free from being scolded.
A few minutes later, Lenny caught me and dragged me towards the elevator, escaping the attendant’s gaze. I tried to twist loose, but he hustled me away, grappling me. He judged everything I did as immature. I doubted the sincerity of his promise on the beach. In our room, Ella was still troubled by Lenny’s theft and stiffly told him that she wasn’t in the mood to go dancing. He ultimately obliged her, rubbing her back, and called our mother to say that we were going to bed.
“But you promised we would go dancing,” I said, my voice rising with desperation.
“Next time,” he said, with a note of apology.
On my bed, I simmered in my anger, wiping hot tears away. I dreamed up vengeance against him, a flat tire or a dent in his car.
“Come on, Birdy,” Lenny said, resting his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be angry with me. We were just having a good time.”
“I guess,” I said bitterly, pulling the blanket over my head.
Lenny herded Ella and me into the car at six in the morning, patting our rears like horses. He said he wanted to cheer me up with some fun on the way home. In the passenger seat, I couldn’t stay spiteful towards him, not wanting to disappoint his bright, smiling face. But I turned away from him, demonstrating that I was still wounded from the previous night. As we descended a slope, the mountain clouds were so crowded that I had to squint to read a sign: “Speed Limit: 50 km/hour.” Lenny negotiated the bumpy road within the speed limit. Ella fell asleep, tired from the early hour. I widened my eyes to stay awake, trying to prove that I was an adult.
After half an hour, Lenny flipped on his sunglasses.
“I want to make our first trip special,” he said, grinning at me. “I wouldn’t let my little brother down.”
I turned back towards him. I could never fully resist his charm.
Lenny checked that Ella was still asleep. He rolled down our windows and revved the engine. We entered a native village of low dilapidated houses with peeling walls, battered by the wind and rain. The dusty road was deserted. Lenny accelerated past the speed limit, dodging cracks in the road, crushing rocks with his powerful wheels. I told him not to drive too fast, but he promised that he would drive safely. We were rocked into a trance, my heart beating as fast as the flapping of my sleeve. We concentrated on the single aim of speed like in a horse race, excited to see how fast we could fly.
The next moment would always remain hazy in my memory, perhaps from hearing so many accounts of it afterwards. I would always be uncertain of how fast we drove, but I know we climbed in speed above the limit. Lenny eagerly turned towards me, taking his eyes off the road in my memory, though I could never be sure. He asked whether I was enjoying the ride. I always regretted not telling him it was the most fun I’d had on the trip, but I didn’t get to answer as I was frozen by the sight through the front window. A tan native girl of about eight or nine years old broke free of her mother’s arms and sprinted into the road for a loose baseball.
I shouted “watch out” at Lenny. He snapped his head back to the road and honked at the girl, but she continued running towards us. We slammed into her with a shudder. I was unfamiliar with the laws of flight, having only seen the looping grace of birds. But I learned that flight could also be straight and violent like a bullet with enough speed. The poor girl skidded to the shoulder, her arms twisted beneath her in a pool of blood. Her mother ran to her, screaming her name, Mei. I excluded her wailing in my accounts, attempting to lessen our guilt in the accident. She rocked the girl in a tight embrace, trying to squeeze the life back into her. A cold gust of wind passed through me, which I imagined as the soul that we’d taken.
We screeched to a halt on the shoulder. Lenny steadied his breathing while making sure that Ella and I were safe. She was dazed, just having woken from the impact. I followed my brother to check on the girl, too terrified to speak. When he confirmed that the girl’s chest stopped rising, I felt my knees buckle in heartbreak. He called the police from a convenience store, informing them of an accident.
“I can go to jail if the police find out I was speeding,” he said after the call, pleading me with his eyes. “Promise me you won’t mention it when they interview you.”
I nodded slowly, uncertain over lying. But I was more confident than before, having kept General Sun’s secret. I arranged the account in my head for my brother’s sake.
When the ambulance and police arrived, Lenny and I were the only ones to be interrogated, with Ella asleep during the drive and the girl’s mother too emotional to speak. When the officer asked what’d happened, my voice trembled out of fear of being arrested for lying, but I corrected myself with a deep, earnest tone. I stated that Lenny had driven safely within the speed limit and done everything to avoid striking the girl. I was relieved when he seemed to accept my account, transcribing it onto his notepad. In the ambulance, I heard the mother wailing and whispering into the girl’s ear that everything would be all right. I shivered with guilt over my lie, manipulating our role in her death. But I told myself that the literal account didn’t represent what I believed, that Lenny had been involved in an accident rather than a crime.
My account saved Lenny from any formal charges, but we couldn’t escape the fallout from the accident in the following months. After the police delivered us home, explaining to our parents what happened, rumors circulated across town. They exaggerated Lenny’s guilt and recklessness, claiming that he wasn’t watching the road, that he was speeding wildly with a car altered for maximum speed. My father published the news article based on my account, stating that the car was driven lawfully. He tightened his restrictions, forbidding Lenny from driving and his trips. He traveled to Hualian to apologize to the native family, covering damages and preventing them from pressing charges. Our mother was suspicious of my account, asking Lenny what’d happened, but he remained silent. She maintained my account at school. Ella broke up with Lenny, believing he was speeding. The alternative accounts weakened my conviction in Lenny’s innocence. In the version that solidified in my mind, his carelessness became more credible than what I remembered. I realized that my beliefs could be chipped away, revising my version of the truth. My brother grew fitful with the disapproval of my parents and the town. He flouted the rules with wild invention like a bandit hunted by John Wayne, riding a friend’s motorcycle and disappearing for longer periods of time. Eventually, he announced that he was moving to Edinburgh to learn English.
A few months after the accident, I was speaking with Lenny over the phone in my room for the first time in weeks.
“Do you want your sunglasses?” I asked. He’d left them behind, but I still wore them with longing for our summer.
“I don’t need them anymore, George,” Lenny said decisively in English.
“Why?” I asked, disoriented by the changes in my brother. He called me by my original name, George, and renamed himself “Bright” for a reversal of bad luck that he considered the cause of the accident. He’d sent home a photo, with his hair combed over to the side like a British gentleman.
“It’s always cloudy here,” he said impatiently.
“When do you think you’ll come back?” I said glumly, reminded that we lived under different skies.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I need to go. Take care.”
I was surprised by the uncertainty in his voice, perhaps a mark of the guilt that he hid away. I felt abandoned again. He’d fashioned himself into a new person, escaping responsibility for the accident. In Lenny’s later visits to Taiwan, he would behave like a Scot on vacation, detailing his life in Edinburgh and acting as if the accident had never occurred.
I wandered the neighborhood for a way out of grief when I saw General Sun’s house, recalling that he’d also lost a brother. I hadn’t seen him since before the trip, having been restricted from leaving the house by my father. But now I was too desperate to care.
“Birdy,” General Sun called out, watering his orchids. “Where’s your brother? I haven’t seen him in months.”
I was relieved to hear my nickname, imagining that Lenny had returned. I saw that I was also like brothers with the general, calling each other nicknames and telling secrets.
“He left me for Scotland,” I said, dejected.
“I’m sorry,” the general said, shaking his head. “Why did he leave?”
“He ran away from the town, even though I did everything he asked.”
“But you both understand the meaning of loyalty. He’ll come back.”
I nodded, clinging to this new spark of hope. In my head, I rehearsed my account of the accident.
“I’ve waited so long for the president, but I still believe in him,” he said, placing his hand over his heart.
I repeated his gesture, taking the same pledge. I would later learn in the news that he continued waiting for reconciliation years after President Chiang’s death, writing hundreds of letters to the president’s successor, his son, to investigate his case and free him from imprisonment.
Half a year passed, though the waiting doubled the minutes and hours. I was still George, except on my secret visits to the general when my grief became unbearable. One afternoon, I was in my room listening to the radio play the song from the John Wayne film that Lenny had hummed on the beach. I heard the pounding of our front door from downstairs. My father asked who was there in the unsteady voice he’d used since the accident, nervously hoping for Lenny’s return. I hid in the front hallway to investigate and saw my father in the living room. He stood across from a broad-shouldered man, whose face was the same color as the girl from the accident.
“My family will press charges against your son unless you take responsibility and compensate us,” the man said firmly.
I ducked from fear of his squeezing details out of me to support his charges against Lenny. I imagined my brother returning to Taiwan, only to be taken away by the police.
“I’m sorry for what happened, but I’ve already settled with you,” my father said impatiently, strained by the request.
“It’s not enough money,” the man said, straightening into an intimidating height, a head taller than my father. “My wife saw your son speeding. I promised her that I would bring our daughter justice.”
“My son wasn’t speeding. It was an accident, but it wasn’t his fault,” my father said, his voice wavering with doubt. He glanced into the hall, where I was caught peeking in the doorway. He called me over. “My other son can confirm it.”
As I joined my father, I saw in the man’s rigid posture that he was resolved in uncovering the truth. He was like General Sun and me, the few people in the world who understood the meaning of loyalty. We seemed to find each other, acting out of unconditional love, testing our loyalty like rival soldiers. I regretted that I couldn’t deliver justice to his daughter, but I had my own pledge to keep.
“Lenny was driving within the speed limit when your daughter jumped in front of our car,” I said, placing my hand over my heart.
“I don’t owe you anything,” my father said to the man, strengthening in conviction.
“He’s covering for his brother,” the man insisted.
“He said the truth,” my father said, waving away his account. “Now leave before I call the police on you for trespassing.”
The man hesitated but started to leave, perhaps concerned over being charged for a crime and paying a fine. “I’ll come again,” he said, in a voice so cold that a chill lingered in the room.
I’d fulfilled my promise to Lenny, knowing that adults always arranged accounts to protect others. But the guilt I’d shouldered for him seemed heavier, doubled by the account that I’d erased. I felt old with its weight, as old as my father, older than I ever wanted to be. I recalled the girl’s mother, who would recur to me as a ghost on the side of the road in dreams over the years. She would cradle her daughter’s baseball, a souvenir of her lost child. I would hear her wailing Mei, asking me to console her with a truth I couldn’t provide, reminding me of the burden of my promise.
A month before the trip, one afternoon in June, I was vacuuming my room when Lenny called up to me from our veranda, telling me to come with him.
“But Dad says to stay home and clean up for his rotary club tonight,” I shouted down to him from my window, perching my elbows on the sill. I was embarrassed by my high, whiny voice, fraying in the damp summer air. Our father spoke in a stern, practical voice when delivering his ideas for charities as president of his rotary club. Lenny’s voice belonged on the radio with the honey-voiced American anchors who played “Stand By Me” and other songs of soulful love from the seventies. I was always deepening my voice to match my brother’s.
“We’ll be back in time to sweep the dust under the cabinets,” he said, tipping his oversized sunglasses over his eyes against the glare, in a perfect imitation of our favorite cowboy John Wayne turning down the brim of his hat. “I have to get my baseball back so we can play on the trip.”
On the veranda, Lenny whipped his arm around a post in a lunge for a leaf skittering across the floor. At twenty-one, Lenny had played in dozens of neighborhood baseball games. I was small for fourteen, never chosen for a team. That morning, I’d been rooting for Lenny from the sidelines when he launched a ball over a fence for a home run. I’d cheered, my amazement working up a buzz in my chest. But the opposing pitcher whined that Lenny had hit the ball into the yard guarded by police. Lenny took it as a challenge. He fixed the pitcher with a mocking stare and said he would retrieve the ball.
As I examined the floor for dust, I was distracted by imagining myself make one of my brother’s artful lunges for a baseball.
“Come on, Birdy,” Lenny teased. “I don’t want to leave you behind.”
Sweat collected on my forehead like a second skin. I was afraid my brother would abandon me. My parents hadn’t allowed me on his trips until that year for Lenny’s college graduation. A few years ago, before he left me behind to drive off to a casino with his girlfriend, he’d danced to the radio in his bedroom while I improvised on my harmonica. He’d laughed, saying I played well like a bird. When Lenny called me Birdy, I was no longer embarrassed of my squeaky voice but made bold like a bird with his encouragement, ready to fly out of our house.
As I ran downstairs, I hesitated in the foyer, where I glanced nervously at Lenny through his glasses. He grinned, settling me down. I shouted that I was coming, trying out my brother’s fearlessness.
Lenny and I ran the few blocks to our neighbor’s house, dust clouds chasing our legs. It was a single-story structure with a flat tile roof and opaque paper doors, left over from the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. According to our mother, the neighbor was a Chinese spy who’d been placed under house arrest by the government for planning a coup. On our walks to school, we’d seen police cars circling the house like sharks, gliding towards any suspicious movement.
I dodged stones on the ground, trailing the shine of Lenny’s black hair. He’d slicked it back into a spiked cone outside of school, unlike his classmates, who kept their hair flattened into helmets according to school rules.
“What if someone sees us?” I whispered to Lenny, my skin tingling with nerves over sneaking out of the house for the first time. I recalled that our father had warned us that whoever spoke to the spy would be accused of being a Communist under antirebellion laws passed by President Chiang. They would be taken away by the police, interrogated for plotting against the government.
“We won’t get caught,” my brother said, winking at me. “I’ll get his attention while you keep watch.”
I nodded faintly, my brother’s confidence seeping into me like heat. We made an inseparable team back then, my brother devising ways for us to slip around the rules, like two cowboys straightening the crooked laws of Taichung. Lenny would lead us toward our imagined future in New York. My brother would join our uncle’s import company and expand it until it was world-renowned like Mercedes. He would be CEO, and I would be vice president.
Lenny made a fluttering signal with his hand. I huddled beside him against our neighbor’s fence, eyeing the corner for the white fin of a police car.
I could hear my heart ticking, as Lenny called out to our neighbor in a dignified voice, like a lieutenant. “Mister, Mister.”
After a few moments, the soldier emerged from his house, closing the back door without a sound. He wore a creased military outfit, like he’d returned from battle, composed of a canvas shirt with enameled badges and a wool belt designed for carrying weapons and other equipment of war.
“What are you kids doing here?” He spoke in an amused voice, which felt more like an invitation than a warning.
The rumors clouded my judgment like a mist so that everything he did seemed to hide a deceitful intent. I was too intimidated to reply, but Lenny relaxed into asking with a playful voice, “Have you seen a baseball in your yard?”
Our neighbor considered this with his hands hooked on his belt, then reached behind a pot of orchids, retrieving our baseball. He scanned the road behind us, checking that it was clear of police, and threw the ball over the fence to Lenny.
I found comfort in his act of kindness, having been used to adults refusing my requests. I formed allegiances quickly then. I hadn’t learned that it could be hard to alter the lines of an allegiance between adults. Lenny thanked him and continued in a gently mocking tone. “Is it true that you were a spy against our government?”
“You can’t believe everything the government says,” the solder sighed, tenderly watering his orchids, though none of their flowers had bloomed. “President Chiang and I were friends when I was fighting the Communists as General Sun. He gave me orchids to show his faith in me.”
The general dissolved the mist clouding him, forming a clearer picture. He spoke a proper Chinese, though slightly deviating from standard speech with the hard r’s of English, which lent worldly wisdom to whatever he said. It wasn’t until years later that I learned from an American textbook that General Sun had studied in a famous military school in Virginia, regarded as an outsider for his American education. He’d adopted its lessons to defeat the Japanese for the Allies and win major battles for President Chiang until he was arrested for rebelling against the government.
“Our Ma said that Chinese orchids don’t grow the same in Taiwan because the sun’s too hot,” Lenny said confidently. He tossed the baseball over the fence to the general, who threw it to me. I pitched the ball back, eagerly playing in a baseball game.
The general smiled and continued watering his orchids. “I used to pass a baseball around with the president between battles.”
His sadness passed into me like a cloud of cold air. My mind grew reflective with vague longing for the general’s reconciliation with the president. Lenny had often accused me of being too easily moved by misfortune, unable to remain calm and act maturely. “Why aren’t you friends anymore?” I asked, a whine creeping into my voice.
“We were like brothers, but he thought I betrayed him,” General Sun said. “He sent me into exile here after claiming one of my men was a spy. But I would’ve never risked the president.”
I was perplexed by his account, which contradicted everything I’d heard. “But our Ma said that you were a spy,” I said.
“Ma doesn’t know everything,” Lenny said impatiently. I was used to bearing the hurt from Lenny’s flashes of annoyance, telling myself that they were meant out of kindness. His acceptance of the general’s story encouraged me to do the same.
“Your parents are only looking out for you,” the general said. “The president arrests people who speak out against him. I pray that one day he’ll admit that I was loyal and set me free so I can fight for him again.” He turned his head to peer through the trees, like a cowboy aiming his shot. “Can you keep this our secret?”
“Birdy knows how to keep a secret. I’ve made sure of that,” my brother said.
I hesitated, having only kept small secrets. But I eventually nodded, recognizing that the general had chosen me for an important task. As we left, Lenny ducked my head beneath the bushes when a police car slid by. I imagined us as soldiers sent out by the general, guarding his secret from enemies.
We sprinted home to meet our curfew. The mountains in the south were hazy red, as if boiling where the sun was falling through broken clouds. It was almost six, when our father would be checking for us after work.
We snuck through the back door of our house. But on the stairs up to our bedrooms, we were surprised by our father calling to us from the kitchen, where he was brewing tea for his rotary club meeting. He asked where we’d been all evening.
“You know you shouldn’t be out so late,” he said in a wary voice, worn out from complaining about us. His eyes were wet with concern. He cared deeply about appearances as an important editor of the local newspaper. Our father grew up during the Japanese occupation, rooting in him a fear of retaliation against any public impropriety.
“We were picking up Lenny’s baseball for —” I tried to speak firmly, but a shiver slipped into my voice from the fear of a scolding.
My father’s eyes frosted over, hardening like a hawk’s.
Lenny’s mouth curved into a neat bow to tidy up my account, silencing me. “On the way to buying more tea for the meeting,” he cut in. I still didn’t have the nerve to invent an account like Lenny, afraid of being caught for lying. He’d warned me about speaking too straightforwardly to adults, explaining that our past behavior had to be altered to conform to the rigid rules of adults or be seen as childish.
Our father nodded, calmed but still suspicious. Lenny’s explanations were always accepted quickly because of his age and the threat of his disappearances, occurring when our parents refused to finance his trips. Our father scrutinized the floor behind us and pointed at our dirty footprints. “You better clean that up before the guests arrive. Doesn’t your Ma have enough to do?”
I heard the creaking of a desk from my mother’s study upstairs. She taught Taiwanese history at my high school, giving lessons on the formation of our current government. On most nights, she was absorbed in writing a lesson plan to comply with an official version. Lenny and I were terrified of upsetting our mother. She’d often become nervous waiting for Lenny’s return from trips, dreading that he’d stayed out late and gotten into trouble with the police. A few months ago, she’d refused Lenny’s request for a Jeep, concerned about its safety. He’d disappeared for days, draining her until she was bedridden. When he came home, she promised to buy him the Jeep, falling into fits of apology.
“Sure,” my brother replied, satisfying our father. Lenny wet towels from the kitchen and wiped the floors on our path from the back door. I joined him, scrubbing the floor clear of any traces from our visit to the general. We worked cheerfully as a team, with a sense of mischief over completing a cover-up rather than a chore.
In the following weeks, when I wasn’t memorizing Mandarin characters taught at summer school, Lenny and I snuck out to the general’s house. We were drawn to the house for a secret version of events. When I asked my mother if she’d heard of General Sun, she’d talked about one of her lessons, describing him as a general who collaborated with Communists to form a rebel army against President Chiang. I usually believed my mother’s lessons without doubts. But her account’s inconsistencies with the general’s story slowly corroded its accuracy.
My brother grew bored with our visits to General Sun, seeming to crave a new adventure away from home like John Wayne roaming the Wild West. He became occupied with planning our trip to Hualian. Lenny changed the tires to his Jeep with money from our father and spoke quietly over the phone to his girlfriend Ella about their plans, in case our parents overheard. Whenever I passed the general’s house, I proudly saluted him, knowing that I’d kept his secret. But I didn’t have the courage to approach the general without Lenny, still terrified of being taken away by the police.
On the day planned for our departure to Hualian, I paced back and forth in my room. I was unable to memorize Mandarin characters, which loosely floated in my brain, untethered to any meaning. I checked the street for my brother, afraid that I’d been left behind. Lenny finally rolled his renovated Jeep into our driveway and thunderously revved his engine. He’d raised the body of the Jeep with tall, sporty wheels. I sprinted past my mother in the kitchen, a hot jolt burning my back. She was humming a Taiwanese song from the forties whose words had been prohibited, as she packed honey melon for our trip. I ran to the Jeep, jumping onto the step of the passenger seat, which was much higher than before.
“I told you that Birdy was ready for his first trip,” Lenny boasted to Ella in the back seat. He preferred to keep me in the passenger seat while he drove, close enough to check that I was enjoying the ride.
“But can he stay up past curfew?” Ella asked with concern. She had a foxy face, with high cheekbones, giving her beauty a forbidding air. My mother had warned Lenny that her cheekbones were a sign of deceitfulness. But Lenny had assured her that Ella was honest with him, anchoring him back to reason when he acted too boldly.
I saw that she didn’t think I was equipped for the trip. A sense of irritation wound me up, straightening me like a wire. I thought spitefully that our mother was right about her cheekbones. But I’d learned from Lenny to play cool whenever you were challenged. I wanted to make a terse and witty comeback like John Wayne, shaping the words so they’d blow out of a corner of my mouth like cigarette smoke. I managed to keep a level tone. “Don’t worry, I can stay up.”
“All right,” she laughed, and turned back to Lenny. “Just keep an eye on him.” My reply wasn’t what I’d imagined, as quick-witted as Lenny, but at least I’d won her approval. I was pleased with myself.
As though our talk of mischief had called out to our mother, she darted through the front door, with a container of melon. Her nerves hid behind the walls of our house, detecting trouble like dampness in the air.
“How can you drive with those wheels?” my mother asked, looking at the Jeep in disbelief. “You won’t be able to turn.”
“I can see for miles,” Lenny said, settling back in his seat for a wider view. “It’s even safer than before.”
“Really?” my mother said, buckling my seatbelt. “Promise me that you’ll drive slowly.”
“No problem, Ma,” Lenny said earnestly.
I proudly caught on that this was an imitation of earnestness because our view of the street was now partially blocked by the dashboard. I’d always been too sympathetic towards our mother to deceive her. But I joined Lenny in appeasing her, the only way to escape her worrying over us. “I can see everything from up here.”
“Fine,” she sighed, watching Lenny slowly wheel the Jeep out of the driveway. “Call home every night.”
When we reached the highway, Lenny sped up past the speed limit, eager to reach Hualian. But he slowed down when Ella and I reminded him of promising our mother not to drive too fast. Our mother’s desires had seeped into the car, like a fragrance in the air. We wound through the south in the flickering light of lush green mountains. My mother’s worries became remote, like in the laws of a foreign country. Ella dozed off in the heat. But the sun fired up the boldness in Lenny’s blood. He flipped his sunglasses over his eyes and sped again until we reached our beach hotel, giving us our first taste of freedom for the weekend.
That night, I joined Lenny and Ella at the beach behind our hotel to watch the sunset. Ella arranged herself on a blanket with her arms folded beneath her like she was posing for a picture. A group of college girls were on a trip, jumping with abandon into the ocean, their arms spread like angel wings. I tossed a baseball back and forth with Lenny. I strained to reach him with my throws, but he lunged for them, saving me from embarrassment until we tired of playing.
I followed him to a food stand beside the road, where he bought cool cans of beer from a tan girl of about my age. She wore a beaded necklace of tarnished red and silver stones, patterned like a peacock feather. Her jewelry reminded me of a lesson from school about Taiwanese natives in the south. Our teacher had warned us that many of them collaborated with Communists, resisting President Chiang’s rules for managing their territory. Lenny pointed to a sign that read “Zhongzheng Road” in formal white letters, plastered onto the traffic pole.
“Look,” he said, amused. “It’s the same as the road near our house.”
“How come?” I asked, disoriented.
“Ma said President Chiang renamed main streets in towns to his nickname, Zhong Zheng.”
“He’s right,” the girl interrupted in a dejected voice, squinting at the sign, like it was overly bright. “My parents called it Lotus Road. All our names were changed because they weren’t Chinese enough.”
“That’s wrong,” Lenny said firmly. “You should be able to choose your own names.”
I nodded glumly, my optimism admitting a shadow of unease. I realized that there were also limits to freedom in the south.
“We’ll call it Lotus Road too,” Lenny said gently.
The permissiveness of the beach encouraged me to speak boldly, disregarding the reality asserted by the sign. “We’ll tell everyone at home that we visited Lotus Road so they know the real name.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling widely. “At least a few people will remember it.”
Lenny and I rejoined Ella on the blanket, basking in triumph at discovering the real name of the road. I lied back half-asleep, Lenny’s arm around my shoulder in a drowsy embrace. Lenny hummed a song from a John Wayne movie, the vibrations like a faint drum. I fell into a trance watching the college girls walk gracefully out of the ocean, their feet combing the wet sand. Lenny’s embrace would later linger in my memory, along with our visits to General Sun, as one of our few untroubled moments of happiness.
“We’re going to the disco tomorrow night,” Lenny said, nudging me. “We’ll find you a girl to dance with.”
“Really?” I asked, my skin jumping with desire. I didn’t think I was ready for a girlfriend, but I’d watched Lenny dance in his room enough times to know how to move with a girl. You threw your hands in the air and kicked your feet. I’d had an abstract desire for romance, but on the beach, it solidified into something close and tangible.
“For sure,” Ella said, with motherly tenderness. “We’ll make sure you have fun.”
I smiled shyly, imagining the electric spark that I took to be love.
After dinner the next night, I followed Lenny and Ella to our room to change for the disco. In the hotel parking lot, we wove through BMWs, Mercedes, and luxury cars visiting Hualian from other parts of the island. Lenny stroked the hood of a silver Mercedes convertible.
“My future car,” he said, winking at us. “It can go up to 200 kilometers an hour.”
“In your dreams,” Ella said, laughing. “You can’t drive that fast here.”
“Oh yeah?” Lenny said, his voice hardening in a challenge. He seized the Mercedes-Benz emblem with a mischievous look.
“What are you doing?” Ella asked, her voice tightening in panic.
“Just a souvenir of the car,” he said, twisting the emblem off the hood.
“We’ll go to jail if we get caught,” I whispered. I crept behind the hood and peered at the booth of the parking attendant.
“Don’t be such a wimp,” Lenny said, in one of his bursts of annoyance. “Just keep watch and cover for me if anyone comes.”
I looked painfully to Lenny to reverse his judgment, but he was absorbed in removing the emblem.
After Lenny slipped it into his pocket, we hurried back towards the hotel.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Ella said, glaring at him.
“They won’t even notice it’s gone,” Lenny said, shrugging.
As we passed the parking booth, the attendant demanded to know what we were doing in the parking lot.
“Nothing, sir,” Lenny replied in a smooth, innocent voice.
The attendant squinted at us in suspicion and asked me if what Lenny said was true. But I was still too furious to speak. I darted away into the lobby, trailed by shouts of my name. In the bathroom, I hid in a corner, where I could be free from being scolded.
A few minutes later, Lenny caught me and dragged me towards the elevator, escaping the attendant’s gaze. I tried to twist loose, but he hustled me away, grappling me. He judged everything I did as immature. I doubted the sincerity of his promise on the beach. In our room, Ella was still troubled by Lenny’s theft and stiffly told him that she wasn’t in the mood to go dancing. He ultimately obliged her, rubbing her back, and called our mother to say that we were going to bed.
“But you promised we would go dancing,” I said, my voice rising with desperation.
“Next time,” he said, with a note of apology.
On my bed, I simmered in my anger, wiping hot tears away. I dreamed up vengeance against him, a flat tire or a dent in his car.
“Come on, Birdy,” Lenny said, resting his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be angry with me. We were just having a good time.”
“I guess,” I said bitterly, pulling the blanket over my head.
Lenny herded Ella and me into the car at six in the morning, patting our rears like horses. He said he wanted to cheer me up with some fun on the way home. In the passenger seat, I couldn’t stay spiteful towards him, not wanting to disappoint his bright, smiling face. But I turned away from him, demonstrating that I was still wounded from the previous night. As we descended a slope, the mountain clouds were so crowded that I had to squint to read a sign: “Speed Limit: 50 km/hour.” Lenny negotiated the bumpy road within the speed limit. Ella fell asleep, tired from the early hour. I widened my eyes to stay awake, trying to prove that I was an adult.
After half an hour, Lenny flipped on his sunglasses.
“I want to make our first trip special,” he said, grinning at me. “I wouldn’t let my little brother down.”
I turned back towards him. I could never fully resist his charm.
Lenny checked that Ella was still asleep. He rolled down our windows and revved the engine. We entered a native village of low dilapidated houses with peeling walls, battered by the wind and rain. The dusty road was deserted. Lenny accelerated past the speed limit, dodging cracks in the road, crushing rocks with his powerful wheels. I told him not to drive too fast, but he promised that he would drive safely. We were rocked into a trance, my heart beating as fast as the flapping of my sleeve. We concentrated on the single aim of speed like in a horse race, excited to see how fast we could fly.
The next moment would always remain hazy in my memory, perhaps from hearing so many accounts of it afterwards. I would always be uncertain of how fast we drove, but I know we climbed in speed above the limit. Lenny eagerly turned towards me, taking his eyes off the road in my memory, though I could never be sure. He asked whether I was enjoying the ride. I always regretted not telling him it was the most fun I’d had on the trip, but I didn’t get to answer as I was frozen by the sight through the front window. A tan native girl of about eight or nine years old broke free of her mother’s arms and sprinted into the road for a loose baseball.
I shouted “watch out” at Lenny. He snapped his head back to the road and honked at the girl, but she continued running towards us. We slammed into her with a shudder. I was unfamiliar with the laws of flight, having only seen the looping grace of birds. But I learned that flight could also be straight and violent like a bullet with enough speed. The poor girl skidded to the shoulder, her arms twisted beneath her in a pool of blood. Her mother ran to her, screaming her name, Mei. I excluded her wailing in my accounts, attempting to lessen our guilt in the accident. She rocked the girl in a tight embrace, trying to squeeze the life back into her. A cold gust of wind passed through me, which I imagined as the soul that we’d taken.
We screeched to a halt on the shoulder. Lenny steadied his breathing while making sure that Ella and I were safe. She was dazed, just having woken from the impact. I followed my brother to check on the girl, too terrified to speak. When he confirmed that the girl’s chest stopped rising, I felt my knees buckle in heartbreak. He called the police from a convenience store, informing them of an accident.
“I can go to jail if the police find out I was speeding,” he said after the call, pleading me with his eyes. “Promise me you won’t mention it when they interview you.”
I nodded slowly, uncertain over lying. But I was more confident than before, having kept General Sun’s secret. I arranged the account in my head for my brother’s sake.
When the ambulance and police arrived, Lenny and I were the only ones to be interrogated, with Ella asleep during the drive and the girl’s mother too emotional to speak. When the officer asked what’d happened, my voice trembled out of fear of being arrested for lying, but I corrected myself with a deep, earnest tone. I stated that Lenny had driven safely within the speed limit and done everything to avoid striking the girl. I was relieved when he seemed to accept my account, transcribing it onto his notepad. In the ambulance, I heard the mother wailing and whispering into the girl’s ear that everything would be all right. I shivered with guilt over my lie, manipulating our role in her death. But I told myself that the literal account didn’t represent what I believed, that Lenny had been involved in an accident rather than a crime.
My account saved Lenny from any formal charges, but we couldn’t escape the fallout from the accident in the following months. After the police delivered us home, explaining to our parents what happened, rumors circulated across town. They exaggerated Lenny’s guilt and recklessness, claiming that he wasn’t watching the road, that he was speeding wildly with a car altered for maximum speed. My father published the news article based on my account, stating that the car was driven lawfully. He tightened his restrictions, forbidding Lenny from driving and his trips. He traveled to Hualian to apologize to the native family, covering damages and preventing them from pressing charges. Our mother was suspicious of my account, asking Lenny what’d happened, but he remained silent. She maintained my account at school. Ella broke up with Lenny, believing he was speeding. The alternative accounts weakened my conviction in Lenny’s innocence. In the version that solidified in my mind, his carelessness became more credible than what I remembered. I realized that my beliefs could be chipped away, revising my version of the truth. My brother grew fitful with the disapproval of my parents and the town. He flouted the rules with wild invention like a bandit hunted by John Wayne, riding a friend’s motorcycle and disappearing for longer periods of time. Eventually, he announced that he was moving to Edinburgh to learn English.
A few months after the accident, I was speaking with Lenny over the phone in my room for the first time in weeks.
“Do you want your sunglasses?” I asked. He’d left them behind, but I still wore them with longing for our summer.
“I don’t need them anymore, George,” Lenny said decisively in English.
“Why?” I asked, disoriented by the changes in my brother. He called me by my original name, George, and renamed himself “Bright” for a reversal of bad luck that he considered the cause of the accident. He’d sent home a photo, with his hair combed over to the side like a British gentleman.
“It’s always cloudy here,” he said impatiently.
“When do you think you’ll come back?” I said glumly, reminded that we lived under different skies.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I need to go. Take care.”
I was surprised by the uncertainty in his voice, perhaps a mark of the guilt that he hid away. I felt abandoned again. He’d fashioned himself into a new person, escaping responsibility for the accident. In Lenny’s later visits to Taiwan, he would behave like a Scot on vacation, detailing his life in Edinburgh and acting as if the accident had never occurred.
I wandered the neighborhood for a way out of grief when I saw General Sun’s house, recalling that he’d also lost a brother. I hadn’t seen him since before the trip, having been restricted from leaving the house by my father. But now I was too desperate to care.
“Birdy,” General Sun called out, watering his orchids. “Where’s your brother? I haven’t seen him in months.”
I was relieved to hear my nickname, imagining that Lenny had returned. I saw that I was also like brothers with the general, calling each other nicknames and telling secrets.
“He left me for Scotland,” I said, dejected.
“I’m sorry,” the general said, shaking his head. “Why did he leave?”
“He ran away from the town, even though I did everything he asked.”
“But you both understand the meaning of loyalty. He’ll come back.”
I nodded, clinging to this new spark of hope. In my head, I rehearsed my account of the accident.
“I’ve waited so long for the president, but I still believe in him,” he said, placing his hand over his heart.
I repeated his gesture, taking the same pledge. I would later learn in the news that he continued waiting for reconciliation years after President Chiang’s death, writing hundreds of letters to the president’s successor, his son, to investigate his case and free him from imprisonment.
Half a year passed, though the waiting doubled the minutes and hours. I was still George, except on my secret visits to the general when my grief became unbearable. One afternoon, I was in my room listening to the radio play the song from the John Wayne film that Lenny had hummed on the beach. I heard the pounding of our front door from downstairs. My father asked who was there in the unsteady voice he’d used since the accident, nervously hoping for Lenny’s return. I hid in the front hallway to investigate and saw my father in the living room. He stood across from a broad-shouldered man, whose face was the same color as the girl from the accident.
“My family will press charges against your son unless you take responsibility and compensate us,” the man said firmly.
I ducked from fear of his squeezing details out of me to support his charges against Lenny. I imagined my brother returning to Taiwan, only to be taken away by the police.
“I’m sorry for what happened, but I’ve already settled with you,” my father said impatiently, strained by the request.
“It’s not enough money,” the man said, straightening into an intimidating height, a head taller than my father. “My wife saw your son speeding. I promised her that I would bring our daughter justice.”
“My son wasn’t speeding. It was an accident, but it wasn’t his fault,” my father said, his voice wavering with doubt. He glanced into the hall, where I was caught peeking in the doorway. He called me over. “My other son can confirm it.”
As I joined my father, I saw in the man’s rigid posture that he was resolved in uncovering the truth. He was like General Sun and me, the few people in the world who understood the meaning of loyalty. We seemed to find each other, acting out of unconditional love, testing our loyalty like rival soldiers. I regretted that I couldn’t deliver justice to his daughter, but I had my own pledge to keep.
“Lenny was driving within the speed limit when your daughter jumped in front of our car,” I said, placing my hand over my heart.
“I don’t owe you anything,” my father said to the man, strengthening in conviction.
“He’s covering for his brother,” the man insisted.
“He said the truth,” my father said, waving away his account. “Now leave before I call the police on you for trespassing.”
The man hesitated but started to leave, perhaps concerned over being charged for a crime and paying a fine. “I’ll come again,” he said, in a voice so cold that a chill lingered in the room.
I’d fulfilled my promise to Lenny, knowing that adults always arranged accounts to protect others. But the guilt I’d shouldered for him seemed heavier, doubled by the account that I’d erased. I felt old with its weight, as old as my father, older than I ever wanted to be. I recalled the girl’s mother, who would recur to me as a ghost on the side of the road in dreams over the years. She would cradle her daughter’s baseball, a souvenir of her lost child. I would hear her wailing Mei, asking me to console her with a truth I couldn’t provide, reminding me of the burden of my promise.