In Search of Rohan Chang

By Lincoln Lee

In Search Of Rohan Chang-Novel by Lincoln Lee

★★★★★ "YA fiction worthy of adult reading!" - Reader review

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A mesmerizing, page-turning, and inspiring story, weaving together tenets of Ch

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Rising Press
• Release date: Aug 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781945316388

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Lesser cities would grow dark, disappearing into shadow when the sun set. But New York City roared, coming alive under heaven's stars. The metal and glass of the skyscrapers lit up, one after the other, transforming into a dazzling kaleidoscope of pink, yellow, and orange. Then, as the colors faded with the rapid coming of night, electric lights illuminated the city's pathways before him. Sensing it was the perfect night in the ideal place, he felt his energy rising anew.

His eyes sparkled, the skin wrinkled a little underneath, and he couldn’t contain the excitement touching his soul as he watched the flow of people streaming out of the buildings into the night, seeking thrills and lovely delights. For some, it was like a savory meal at the end of a long day; for others, it was knowing that someone who loved them, or at least wanted them physically, was waiting at the other end of their subway or taxi ride. As the people flooded the streets, he became more aware, and New York seemed more vibrant. The aroma of green apples and flowers filled his nostrils, making him smile.

He loved New York, as clichéd as it sounded: its attitude, its hustle and bustle, its shimmer. He always believed something good was about to happen there. He thought New York as beautiful and pure; hopeful even, and he always looked to the coming of a new night because it made his dull days that much brighter.

He would tell himself all day that it would be a good experience even if he didn’t catch a glimpse of her, since there were seven million people there, after all. But he had seen her twice in this neighborhood. She was just as much of an FAO Schwarz fan as he was, and maybe today would be the day he got up the nerve to say something to her instead of pulling his cap down further, looking the other way so she didn’t see his face and realize it was the cute guy who had complimented her on her smile.

He saw her right then. There. She was on her way out of FAO Schwarz. He didn't look at her, just at her light steps barely touching the sidewalk with each gentle sway. He saw her but didn't move, gingerly frozen against the lamp post, watching.

She didn't notice him as she exited the toy store, not even when passing him. Why would she? He was just one of seven million people flowing through the mighty city, and even with that many folk , if you lived here long enough, you were able to start not seeing people. It was sort of a must-have for anybody who called the Five Boroughs home. Because if you got right down to it, there definitely should not be this many human bodies crammed into such a small space. Unless you were home alone, or had the kind of job where you had a private office, there was always someone around—every all-night restaurant, every subway station, every nook and cranny in every lush park. You had to invent your own privacy or you might freaking go stir crazy!

She smiled as she walked down the jam-packed sidewalk with nothing short of joy in her steps. She was getting to the age where she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to, making her own decisions a lot of the time and enjoying being part of the vibe and flow of New York City. Other people might look around and see nothing but big box stores full of overpriced junk, and streets crammed with way too many people trying to avoid each other. However, she saw FAO Schwarz and all the hundreds of others as nothing short of magical. All full of baubles, trinkets, and hidden treasures, sparking her imagination and making her hopeful she could one day make enough money to buy them all. Out on the street, her mind was going in a million different directions, planning her future, enjoying the fading sun shining down on her warm dewy skin as she waved at every child and dog she saw, happy to feel their giggles and hear their woofs. She thought New York City was a beautiful place, day or night. Some of her friends told her she was living in Fantasy Land, and that New York was polluted and dangerous, but she couldn’t see it that way.

She was like Dorothy heading home from Oz. She couldn’t wait for her incredible family and the coziness of her own space, filled with books and sentimental trinkets, because being at home was even more joyous than all her fun being in the city. She had a package for her dad, and eagerly wanted to get it to him before he started his post-dinner routine of prayer and reflection. She picked up her pace, hoping she could get home quicker by hopping on the subway only five blocks away. And she would save even more time, she reasoned, and be at the station even earlier by cutting through that alleyway.

He hadn’t wanted to stop her on the street. It seemed like that would be too overwhelming, and New Yorkers got really rude when you stopped them mid-block. That was an excellent way to be told to fuck off, or get a nice friendly shove. But when he saw her make a sharp left into the narrow alley, he thought it was his lucky day. At the very least, he could tell her he took the same shortcut, warn her of some non-existent danger, and say pretty girls should never walk alone in an alley. He imagined the smile that would come over her face when he was complimenting her, and picked up his pace.

At the entrance to the alley, he paused, suddenly full of self-doubt that he could actually pull this off, and mused, What if she doesn’t really like me? What if she was just being polite the first time we met when she said I was a classic gentleman? What if she does n’t even remember any of that?

He started to get nervous and contemplated walking on, but that’s when the little voice inside his head spoke up, whispering, Remember her smile? Remember how it made you feel? You deserve to feel that way! You deserve to see her smiling only for you! Don’t back down now! Make it happen! She turned that way, and she’s all alone down there! Be the white knight she wants!

She turned her head when she heard a noise behind her. She figured it was a cat, maybe a rat or a pigeon, or someone taking out the garbage, and thought little of it. But then, she saw a man following her at the end of the alley, moving toward her more quickly than she liked. Like he was trying to catch up with her … or maybe just trying to catch her. And then she quickened her pace hurriedly! However, the alley was longer than she had initially thought, and she was only slightly more than halfway down it. She was probably being silly, but she suddenly felt like she needed to be back on the street with other people. She checked over her shoulder once more and now found him even closer, waving his arms to get her attention. Excuse me, Miss! he yelled. You dropped your wallet back there.

What? she asked. She frantically felt inside her Louis Vuitton bag to find her wallet was indeed missing. It was a new Hermes wallet her dad had recently gifted her for her 16th birthday. Everything was in that wallet. And she’d worked so diligently last semester, brought home all As, and had made her dad so proud that he’d surprised her with the Hermes treasure on her birthday.

He was waving it now, and she relaxed both visibly and mentally. He was the kind of New Yorker she told all her friends was out there. The Good Samaritan. The rare guy who was looking out for you. The kind of person she aspired to be in her day-to-day life. The reason she took volunteer jobs, while her friends were at the mall. The reason she babysat for free in her apartment building while others were price- gouging for childcare. Good people do exist everywhere, she thought.

She turned and smiled up at him. He was a lot taller than her, but pretty much everyone was. The stranger smiled back, and she recognized him. A good guy, indeed—or so she thought.

As he gently handed back her wallet, she profusely thanked him. He nodded at first but sensed a slight tingling discomfort surging from her. He was more annoyed than saddened as she wasn’t giving him the adoration he so craved when returning such a personal treasure. Damn her, he thought, I will make her beg for me now. His annoyance became frustration, now growing into a rage that in the past had only been quelled when his thirst was quenched entirely.

As he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her towards him, she tried to pull away, her happiness disquieting to trembling fear, and she knew she had made a grave error. Her troubles had only just started in the New York alleyway on this warm night when she had only been minding her own business, and wanted to get home, sweet home.

He saw her, and smiled.

CHAPTER 1

Sometimes change is for the better, and sometimes change is for the worse, but the more things change, the more they stay the same, especially in my little town. A place right up in Queens, right off 188th Street, a place we locals call Fresh Ghetto. Believe me, when I tell you, nothing good ever happens here. At least, not usually. I know that because I’ve lived there my whole life. The signs on the borders claim I really live in Fresh Meadows, but that’s the kind of joke we locals don’t find funny. The name is so not true that it isn’t right. Nothin’ fresh down here, other than maybe new drugs, new gangs, and new garbage. And Meadows? This is the very definition of the concrete jungle, man. If you see a tree anywhere, it’s probably in the lobby of an office building and made totally out of plastic. The only grass you’re going to find around here is the kind you buy on the corner if you want to get ripped off or around the back of my high school if you got the hookup with the right guy.

That’s what I have in common with my town because nothing good usually happens to me. They say I’m all over the place, and at my last Parent-Teacher conference, my history teacher Ms. Brown told my parents I was a ticking time bomb. Not exactly the lavish praise mom and dad were looking for. But at least my story is good, if not complicated, and I guarantee you won’t hear anything like this again in your lifetime. You think you know how it will end, but I assure you you don’t.

I was born in New York City, the Big Apple, the melting-pot capital of the world. Home of The Empire State Building, Central Park, The World Trade Center, my beloved New York Yankees, those clowns over at Shea Stadium, the Knicks, the Giants, the Islanders and Rangers, Times Square, and The Statue of Liberty.

This is where everyone, and I mean every single person of all shades and stripes, meshes together—the rich, the poor, the young, the old, the bad, and the good. I am guessing there are good people out there. I know a couple. My friend Amayah is the best, and not just because she’s mad beautiful and sweet to me. I mean, that certainly helps. And my friend Drew, better known as Lore by some on the streets. He was so vibrant, creative, and free-spirited. Lore showed me things, like an artistic side to me I didn’t know existed.

This place might be home to me, but I can’t say the same about my parents. They came here from Taiwan before I was born, sold on that age-old story of the American dream. To hear them talk about all the opportunities we have here, you’d think the streets were paved in solid gold and we ate steaks and caviar every night. They work their asses off twelve hours a day, and they’re still looking for more work! And I don’t really connect with either of them anymore.

High school has really changed my view of the world. I never see my parents happy or smiling, or laughing. If they do, they must do it when I’m asleep or at school. I usually find them nodding off on the couch together watching a show from back home. Is that the sweet life they planned to have for me? Working so many hours I pass out on the couch at 7:45 p.m. on a Tuesday? Yeah, no thanks.

At school, people smile and laugh all day long—talking about their weekend plans, parties, dates, and get-togethers that seem like the most fun you could have simply by showing up! And that’s my goal this year: to attend the most incredible and baddest ass parties ever, not any lame get-togethers.

But my parents are convinced that if they keep on killing themselves day after day, they will be able to get a slice of that American pie that every immigrant sells themself on—the big house, the cars, the social acceptance, the whole nine yards. Of course, they’ve already determined my role in this entire fairy tale. The model minority. The straight-A student. The guy who makes 1550 on his SAT without even breaking a sweat. Helpful. Honest. Earnest. Has a job when he’s thirteen and says all the right things to white people when they stop by the family business.

One fly in the ointment, though. I’m none of those things and have no desire to be. In fact, I’m about as completely different as possible from that image. I’m not sure I could be that person even if I tried.

When I was a young kid, I was the by-the-book, hard-working Asian stereotype that my parents expected from me and my brother. Sometime around fourth grade I started noticing that being that person wasn’t working out for me the way I wanted it to. I was ten or eleven when I started to really notice the difference between me and the kids at school, who I’d thought of as the cool ones.

That first spark of independence was making its way into my subconscious, and I was starting to piece together that not everything my parents told me was the absolute truth of the matter. My earliest memory of this phenomenon was in fifth grade. I had been one of the top students in my class all through elementary school, which meant routine high praise from my teachers. In the earlier grades, there weren’t a lot of cliques inside the classroom. Everyone seemed to get along—whites, Blacks, Asians, Latinos—we were all interested in kid stuff like recess, cartoons, candy, the holidays, and anything else that disrupts the learning flow.

Between fourth and fifth grade, something definitely changed. Maybe it was some of the kids going through early puberty. Maybe that’s the age where you start pushing back against the hand of authority and forming your own belief system. I don’t know. But I remember walking up to my math teacher Mrs. Murtaugh’s desk, retrieving my geometry test—a 100, obviously—and turning back around to retake my seat. I sat between David Holtz and Shawn Nelson, two white kids I had known for four years and played with hundreds of times. As I neared my seat, David saw my paper, scoffed aloud, turned to Shawn and said, What a nerd. Typical chink!

Shawn laughed out loud and used his fingers to make imitation slant eyes. He replied in a fake Asian stereotype accent, Me so good at math! Wee-wee small but brain very big! The two died laughing, as had several of my other classmates who overheard the joke.

I couldn’t believe what I had heard, or that so many people thought it was funny. I wondered why it was okay to make fun of Asians but not someone from another race. Somehow, Asians were deracialized. And isn’t racist humor against any race equally ugly and not okay? Were we honorary whites? Yet, America had prevented Asians from immigrating here over a century ago, with citizenship reserved for European whites. Were we also not real people of color, a real minority? Many in our country did not view us as a minority, and have long been blind to racism toward us, Asian Americans.

I was, however, proud of my test grade because it proved I was working hard and committed to being the best I could be. How could so many kids think otherwise? In a five-second outburst, they were mocking me, my intelligence, and my race. It was as if I had missed a secret kids-only meeting on the first day of school where we had all agreed to stop being friends and giving a shit about grades, and say and do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted.

The new behaviors around me weren’t limited to that day of the math test. I started seeing them on the playground and cafeteria, who hung out in what location before and after school, and who got picked to be on what team during P.E. It wasn’t just the white kids either. Divisions were forming everywhere based on the clothes you rocked, if you bought or brought lunch to school, what sports teams you rooted for, what extracurriculars you were involved in, and what music you liked. It even boiled down to whether you were at school to be a good little learner or were showing up to hang out with your friends, have some fun, and see what you could get away with.

I seemed to be on the opposite side of ‘cool’ in every category. And I hated it.

I hated it so much that I risked the wrath of my parents, namely my father, by rebelling against the life of the honest, hard-working Asian American I was raised to be. I stopped wearing my brother’s hand-me-down clothes and saved up the small bits of money I earned from doing extra work to buy clothes that resembled the latest trends at school. The only problem was that the stuff was so expensive it had usually been out of style for months by the time I could buy it from the second-hand store.

I stopped fixing my lunch at home in the morning and started using the school’s cafeteria, even though the food was god-awful, and the line was so long I rarely had time to sit down and eat the whole thing before the bell rang. The cool guys like Shawn and David, who had humiliated me over my math test, were into music like MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, the Chicago Bulls, and wearing colorful hats turned at a ridiculous angle. They had several of these hats confiscated by teachers, since you couldn’t wear them at school, but they kept showing up with more.

I wouldn’t say I liked their cheesy-ass pop rap, but I listened to the stations that played the same fifteen to twenty pop songs over and over again so I could quote the lyrics when I tried to get into a conversation. I never liked the Bulls because Michael Jordan kept knocking my Knicks out of the playoffs, but I pretended to worship him like the other boys when we played basketball at recess or before school started.

In short, I went to as many lengths as I could to stop being the stereotypical Asian. I even purposely started missing questions on tests, so my grades wouldn’t always be at the top of the class. That was the hardest part of it all because every inch of my being told me to strive to make a 100 on everything, but I never wanted that scenario with Shawn and David to repeat itself, so I slacked on the tests. I would go through and miss a few on purpose to turn those 100s into 88s. My dad about hit the roof the first time I brought home a report card with two As and three Bs on it. Most of the kids in my class would have felt like they had won the lottery and a year-long pass to Disney World if they pulled those grades, but for me it was an embarrassment to the family that kicked me off video games and watching TV for two weeks. Oh well, I stopped caring.

On rare occasions when one of the cool kids would ask me my opinion about a new song, or if I had seen the Bulls’ highlights the night before on ESPN, progress was accomplished. It was worth risking the anger and disappointment of my parents to make those very slight advancements towards being popular.

However, it didn’t work out because I was too different from being a popular kid in the long term. By the time high school started, I stopped trying to copy the kids who were the social leaders at school. I just couldn’t compete, and it was exhausting to try. I didn’t have the money for their brand of clothing. So I settled for blue jeans and black T-shirts to let everyone know I wasn’t concerned with clothing and had bigger ideas than that. I couldn’t fake that I wanted to listen to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and depress the hell out of myself. I liked my hip hop and gangsta rap, and would put my headphones on to escape the rest of the world whenever possible.

I routinely made good enough grades to keep my parents off my case, but I wasn’t obsessive about studying the way my brother had been at the same age. Going to the best college possible didn’t have a lot of appeal to me anymore, because earning my parents’ praise wasn’t my end-all be-all. Way too often I found myself in a melancholic mood without really knowing why. I had a working theory, though, one that I hadn’t really shared with anyone because I was scared of what they might think of me.

We learned all about the scientific method for creating a hypothesis in science throughout middle school. Well, this is my hypothesis for how things work when you’re an American kid from an Asian family.

When it comes to the big-picture stuff, nobody thinks you’re a minority. You get lumped in with the white kids at school because you typically make good grades, aren’t a discipline problem, graduate on time, go to college, and get a nice job after school. Therefore, no teacher is going to feel sorry for you or cut you some slack when you forget your homework or bomb a test because you couldn’t sleep the night before. You’re just supposed to be naturally smart and successful.

But when it comes to all the small things, the ones adults shake their heads at that kids obsess over, now you’re just back to being a fresh-off-the-boat minority. Asian kids don’t get picked first in gym class. Girls don’t giggle and whisper to each other when you walk down the hall. Nobody expects you to set the fashion trends in the hallways, and nobody asks if you want to hang out on Friday night. If you’re Asian, the kids see you as a brain, a laborer, someone who eats different food than them, living in a tiny apartment speaking another language outside of school, going on family vacations to the Far East while everyone else is on the Jersey Shore or down in Florida or the Hamptons for the summer.

If we weren’t showing off our brains, we were pretty much invisible. Every racial group was fabulous and celebrated in America. And the Asians were ... what? The racists thought we were a monolith, the ones you turned to when you needed cheap takeout or your suit cleaned by Monday morning. But I knew we were much more, each with different lives, with diverse lines of work. I mean, my cousin was a doctor, my distant uncle a lawyer, and I saw others on TV like Daniel Inouye, who was a U.S. senator. But over the years, I had accepted the harsh anti-Asian truth being flung in my face daily.

Being Asian American sucked due to racism, but not fitting in at school sucked even more. I tried hard enough not to get yelled at at dinner when it came to my grades, but that was it. The rest of the time, I practiced being invisible. My clothes helped me blend into the crowd. My headphones drowned out the surrounding noise when I didn’t want to hear it. Life was just one day congealing into the next. That became my mindset over time: lower your expectations, and you'll be much less disappointed.

Maybe the worst part of it was that even though I thought I was different from most of the kids in my school, and even though I kept telling myself I wasn’t like them, I found my thoughts and my actions continuously being permeated by what I saw around me. I envied the kids who had cool clothes and wore a different outfit to school at least once a week. It meant that their parents were rich and could buy them whatever they wanted. Even though I didn’t play sports, I was jealous of the athletes. They had that swagger about them when they roamed the halls. Everyone knew their names, their jersey numbers, and when they were playing next. Guys sought high-fives from them, and girls wanted to wear their varsity jackets, even when it was ninety-five degrees outside. Even the guys I felt were definitely not any better-looking than me got female attention just from sitting on the bench for the basketball team. It made no sense whatsoever. Why did those green and gold jackets give them power over girls? It wasn’t just the stuff about the popular kids that started getting to me though.

I started sharing beliefs about other races and classes of people based on my circle of peers rather than what I knew to be true. I even harbored a few prejudices toward the people of New York City. In junior high, there was a guy in my gym class from El Salvador who spoke virtually no English. The coach made me help him out the first week after he transferred, and I spoke loudly and abruptly with him since all he knew was Spanish. What kind of person moves to New York City and can’t pick up a little English? I even started saying things in my head about other Asians that I’d heard others say aloud. Did I agree with them? I didn’t even know. That was the worst part. But if I thought like they thought, and acted as they acted, maybe I’d get to go to the baddest-ass parties. It was such a pathetic viewpoint. I went back and forth between desperately wishing I could talk to the hot girls, play on a team, and hang out at the cool kids’ house on Friday night when their parents weren’t home, to keeping entirely to myself and isolating myself from them all. But screw them! They weren’t better than me.

That was the way I went about things. That's until I met Drew. We shared our adolescence as brothers would. He was alert, mischievous, active, and wild, and combined, we immersed ourselves in street art. His love for graffiti gave way to his alter ego—Lore—an urban artist extraordinaire. We laughed as hard as we fought to create art and repeated the cycle a hundred times over. He was just scratching the surface of his beautiful creations to become something great. Instead, his untimely and unexpected death abruptly splintered my life in the most jarring way.

That’s when the voices started. I started to wonder if I was going insane, and for a while there, the only thing keeping me from running away or checking myself in the psych ward was my friend Amayah. Well, she called us friends, but I wanted to be so much more; I was just too chicken to do anything about it.

You've got to have faith in the world, Amayah usually says to me when she sees that I'm in a bitter phase when we occasionally walk to and from the subway. Maybe she’s right, but she doesn’t know about the voices I’ve been hearing inside my head. Ms. Brown doesn’t know about the voices either, but she knows I’m distracted and angry and anxious, so she tossed that hand grenade at my parents during the conference. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the voices yet. Perhaps it’s too soon to talk about them.

Careful, Rohan, there’s trouble coming onto the train. Right on cue, one of the voices that I had been hearing inside my own skull spoke up. It was usually low and raspy, but this Monday morning was different …

And the first time I heard it, I was convinced it was my cranium splitting in two from some sort of stroke or brain aneurysm. I was walking home from school when the words suddenly filled my ears, shouting out a warning as I crossed a side street without looking. I staggered and crashed into the streetlight, shocked by the sound filling my head.

I was wearing headphones and jamming to one of my favorite mix CDs, but it sounded for all the world like someone had burned that raspy voice screaming, WATCH OUT! right into the mix, causing me to dash into the pole, which saved my life. A late-model blue sedan came racing out of the alley right when I would have been in the middle of the intersection, pulling a hard right and speeding off, weaving in and out of traffic and honking its horn over and over. Unfortunately, as the vehicle carelessly twisted left and right, it hit as many people as fast as it could, and sped off.

In the aftermath, I saw people lying on the ground. Three cops on foot appeared at the corner a few seconds later, one on his radio calling out the car’s make and model. The slowest of the three stopped and helped me up, asking if I was okay. I took his hand and got up, and said I was fine, but I was not feeling fine. I had to stop at a tea shop to get my favorite drink, oolong tea, splendidly fragrant and calming in my opinion. Then, I slowly and deliberately replayed the same track as before on which I’d heard the voice scream. The song played wire to wire without anything other than the lyrics and the beat. So, it wasn’t a prank or a joke at my expense. The voice was loud and clear when it warned me, but it was no longer on that track, so where did it originate? And why didn’t anyone else hear the screaming voice?

By the time I went to bed, I saw on TV that the car that nearly killed me contained three bank robbers. Two were caught, and a third was wounded and thought to be hiding in a neighborhood near Fresh Meadows. However, three people had died, and three others were injured when their getaway car tried to escape, striking passersby. I hadn’t said a word about seeing the robbers or hearing the voice. If Field of Dreams and a million other movies have taught us anything, it’s that you don’t tell anyone when you hear a voice in your head, even if it’s helping you out. And this voice had saved me from fifty broken bones. I tried to reach out to the voice, greet it, thank it, but I was getting nothing in return, and it felt really foolish to keep trying.

Strangely enough, when I went to pick up some glazed donuts the next day, I saw someone resembling the lone bank robber who’d escaped, hunched outside a Dunkin’ Donuts in Fresh Meadows, hiding between parked cars. They were blasting his mugshot on the local news, so his face was etched in my mind's eye, and I swore the man I saw in the parking lot looked awfully like the mugshot. As I kept staring, he snapped at me.

You got a staring problem, kid?

I’m sorry, but I thought you were someone I knew, I countered.

Don't put your nose into my affairs. You got that, kid? You might find something you don't like, he hollered back while hocking a brownish green loogie near my feet.

Sorry, I mumbled. And I left it at that, unsure if I’d mistaken him for the bank robber, and felt it better to mind my own business.

But then a few days later, the voice whispered in my ear again. I was in the middle of an English test and struggled to remember the name of a supporting character in one of the thousands of short stories we’d read that semester. I was racking my brain when a whisper sailed through my thoughts.The blackboard, it said, and I looked up, and there on the blackboard off the side of my teacher’s desk was a list of characters she forgot to erase from yesterday’s review. That was twice that I’d been helped out by the mysterious raspy voice in my subconscious.

Over the next few weeks, the voice came across in small bursts, usually to get me from making a bad choice. I trusted it implicitly, and each time it allowed me to avoid pain, embarrassment, a bad score, or a run-in with my dad when he was pissed about whatever.

That didn’t mean I felt all that comfortable with it, so one day during free time I hit up the psychology section of the school library and researched a few cross-references to inner voices. There was a lot to be said about the little voice inside your head and how it was usually your moral compass, guiding you away from making bad choices. Some called it your inner monologue, the voice that tells the story of your life while it is happening. There were also some more vague references to people developing a sixth sense or a danger sense that keeps them out of trouble. I didn’t know if this was the same thing. It did feel like an alien inside my head, but the more I heard the voice, the more I got comfortable with it. I saw it as making me unique. I felt special, like whatever this was, it chose me.

A couple of times, I’d visualized a really powerful force behind the voice; something that had sought me out and was maybe seeing if I was worthy of the power that kept appearing to me in flashes. I slowly had a few exchanges with it. Responding with thanks and expressions of gratitude made it linger around a bit longer each time. It felt like trying to coax a wild animal into letting you pet it or feed it by hand. Like it wasn’t sure whether or not I could be trusted.

And now, on the train, it was back, and I could feel something was about to happen. That’s usually how it worked. The voice would appear and tip me off about something to avoid or something to try to steer clear of. Trouble on the train could be anything, unfortunately.

I really have no defense against the damn Bitter Four train, especially now in the summer, voice or no voice. If the train didn’t break down, it usually brought us to Bedford Park Boulevard station near our supposedly spectacular Bronx High School of Science. Overrated would be my best description of our school. Was it as unique as everyone makes it out to be? Does it churn out geniuses? Hmm, I definitely for sure was not one. I’m sure they all thought I was, being Asian and all, but the exterior wasn’t matching the interior on this one. The only thing that was going for me was making me a target on the Bitter Four. Bullies were attracted to science nerds like hungry sharks to chum in the water on the train, especially ones voluntarily taking summer classes, and more so on Monday mornings. Taking summer classes, not because we failed or were mandatory, but out of learning by choice advanced courses years earlier than usual.

You see, there was no time to relax on the train; you were always looking over your shoulder for oncoming trouble, and even if you had your guard up, it would still find you more often than not. But I have my ways of escaping. My handy Sony Walkman has saved me more than once from a dreary, boring commute. So, I slid on the headphones, and the monotony of the stops faded into the sick beats of Mobb Deep’s Shook Ones Part II. My head started to bounce slightly to the moment, feeling Prodigy’s verses about being more mature than his actual teenage years, and when the shit hit his fan, his warm heart bled cold.

And looking out the windows, I studied the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it artwork gracing the darkened train tunnels. If only Lore were here, he’d appreciate it just as much. This was Crook One’s turf, and his wild styles were so legendary in the Bronx that I almost wished the train would stop here so I could drink it in deeper: all the details, all the gracefulness, all the attitudes.

Every year of my life, every school has thought they were doing us a massive favor by dragging our little asses in a school bus down to Manhattan to wander around the MET for five hours, staring at all these random paintings by the so-called great masters. However, none of them compared to Crook One. His shit was visionary. It called to me the first time I saw it before I knew what this random art on the side of a building was even about. Being in the presence of greatness, even rushing by in partial darkness at fifteen miles an hour, inspired me, and I slid my black book out of my backpack with the reverence a holy man might take out his Bible.

I usually do a quick once-over of the people surrounding me. Nobody can have a drink or some hand food if they’re going to sit next to me while I’m working on my art. It’s a standard rule, and I’ll hop all over the train to find a suitable perch if I need to, but it was not necessary today. I didn’t waste too much time after waking up, so the car was less than half full. The morning rush hour was still forty-five minutes away.

Reaching into my pocket, I felt the outlying shape of my two golden fat caps, which on canned spray paint helped you finish a piece faster and gives your art more flare by widening the spray area. The two golden fat caps were pretty special to me, given to me a few years back by Lore.

Try to keep your days phat and your pieces phatter, Lore would often tell me. His life ended tragically after being struck by a train in Brooklyn while trying to create one such phat piece. It took me all of 1995, that year, to start feeling better. I didn’t have many friends, so Lore was everything to me. He wasn’t ready to go, that’s for sure. For months, I would lay awake at night revisiting old memories, asking myself ‘what if’ over and over.

So, as I flipped to my most recent page, remembering what Lore told me, I imagined a phat piece for my black book. I’d started my own wild style, and I was pretty damn impressed with how it was going. The great maestro Lore One has inspired Talon One.

I am the Talon in the night. Digging the double meaning the name implied was another tribute to Lore—who you can theorize named themselves that because being an artist means learning the craft well enough to become a master and whose legend is passed along by word of mouth.

Creating the persona of Talon One allows people to interpret me as the name suggests. The Talon brings to mind the claw of a bird of prey, swooping down to leave its mark. But the talon has other meanings. The cards that were yet to be dealt were talons. I liked that vibe, like when people didn’t know what was coming next, but were hooked on watching to see what you threw down. That’s the style I was driving at. Talons were also like the grooves on a key to undo a lock. I was unlocking my inner self each time I lit up a surface with my designs.

I sketched the new ones in my black book; you couldn’t waste paint and wall space just testing things out. When you went after a plot, it had to be quick and decisive; you had to want it, see it, breathe it, and then throw it up as quick as you could. That first noise you heard might be a rat sifting through the dumpster for some dinner, or a trigger-happy security guard rounding the corner. You couldn’t create if there was fear eating you up. It wouldn’t flow, and nobody would take you seriously. So, I traced each curve and angle with both the pleasure and the angst of producing another new masterpiece. Thoughts bounced off the walls of my brain: where to add the red, the blue, and the white to my magnificent Talon One piece. For I am the Talon in the night.

Time dissolved when I was creating. It was dizzying. The first time I got lost in a piece, forty-five minutes went by, and I realized I had ridden the train all the way to Lower Manhattan. By the time I noticed, I was surrounded by lawyers, stockbrokers, and bankers in their three-piece suits and suspenders. It didn’t take a genius to decode the thoughts behind the looks they were giving me.

This time, I was under for a much shorter escape, and after tracing the exclamation point of the capital T of Talon One, I looked up, and boom, there she was, seeming to materialize out of nowhere. My Amayah, cute with her long dark chestnut hair pulled neatly and ever so elegantly in a bun. Time didn’t slow down when I saw her, I didn’t hear angels singing or playing harps in my head or anything like that, but things were always different when she stepped into view. My heart pounded a little harder, my breaths got a little shorter, and I noticed details about her that I completely ignored in the average, everyday person. She was wearing a chic sweater that hugged her body. But for all her sweetness, it was her footwear, howling into the summer air with street flair. Air Jordans. Because even in the heart of Knicks’ territory, you couldn’t help but worship the man and his brand. I pulled back from her footwear to her face, which startled me since she glanced in my direction. Those electric forest green eyes were moving across my face, looking at me, and I’d be damned if she wasn’t smiling right at me.

I wanted to talk to her casually and let her see that I was interested in being more than friends, and decided that today, that want would become a need. So I gripped the metal pole, pulling myself up, not worrying for a minute if someone would swipe my seat before I returned. But I had a bad feeling bubbling within as I started to head her way. And you know, I had a big goofy grin on my face, the kind that would telegraph my intent to anyone else around us. Anyone with half a brain would know what was on my mind. But I didn’t care. She was right there, smiling at me.

Walking through the half-empty car and trying to get to her seemed like an eternity. Taking my eyes off the path for just a moment was all it took. I tripped and missed a step, staggering along and hoping no one was the wiser.

Suddenly a loud clunk shattered the train’s tranquility as the end door slid open. Here was the trouble that the voice warned of. I almost forgot it when Amayah stepped into sight, but now I was silently cursing myself for not heeding the voice’s warning more in earnest.

Stomping onto the dusty dirt-stricken floor, grunting, disheveled, and of course, tossing cuss words around like they were the only things that mattered on Earth, were a trio of loud-mouthed young hooligans whose very auras were pulsing with hate. They moved swiftly through the car, with three more following behind. I knew immediately this wasn’t going to be good.

I’ll fuck up any science nerd here, especially any fucking chink! the one in front growled. He was about the same age as me, probably sixteen, dressed all in black, from cap tilted sideways to his black rundown Nikes. There were probably fifty more guys just like him hanging out on every corner of his own neighborhood, and I’m sure he thrived on that feeling of likeness and belonging. His mouth curved into an angry, mean-spirited scowl, with saliva dangling from his teeth, reminding me of a growling alpha wolf. You know that old saying he’s got a face only a mother could love? It’s amazing his mother didn’t put a bag over his head to kiss him goodnight! But good looks didn’t matter much when you were a predator on the hunt in your own territory.

This must be the leader of the pack. He was a loudmouth, kept his motor running nonstop, and of course, kept spitting on the floor of the subway car, because that let you know what he thought of infrastructure and authority. His boys were carefully lined up in unison, following their dear leader, forming a chevron with him as the point, each bigger and uglier than the one before. My suave move over to Amayah seemed a million miles away now. I tensed up instantly, wondering if they had spotted me, and how fast I could duck out of the car and race up the stairs before they gave chase.

Trying to play it cool, I felt like I jumped six inches in the air when the voice spoke to me.

You can take them, it whispered. "You’ve got the power within you, Rohan. Show them who’s in charge! Be the hero!" I thought maybe the voice was the one having the aneurysm at this point, because I definitely had no way to physically take these guys. There were too many of them, and I guessed they carried weapons in those baggy clothes. Unless they were going to confront me or threaten Amayah, I was going to give them a wide berth. I didn’t dare speak aloud, so I challenged the voice internally. Who said that?

You know me, it responded, and I couldn’t help but be exasperated by the irony that, of all this time, it had finally decided to have a conversation in such a tense situation.

I’ve been keeping you safe these past few weeks, haven’t I? The bank robbers? The test? Your father’s wrath? I know a thing or two about that!

Was the voice saying it had a father somewhere? This was getting more and more confusing. So, what are you saying, voice? I felt really dumb calling it voice, but it wasn’t like we were best friends. I should kick these guys’ asses because I can hear a voice in my head?

There was something that sounded like a low chuckle in my head. "Just a voice, am I? I’m so much more than that, Rohan. I am here to teach you, to guide you, to imbibe you with powers the likes of which the world has never seen. All you have to do is accept me as your teacher, and we can begin!"

An actual conversation. Holy shit, was my brain finally cracking like an egg? I had heard whispers at random hours, but nothing like this. And it was happening in broad daylight on a train with people. As freaked out as I was about what was going on inside my head, the situation on the train was about to get more dire.

Between Amayah and the thugs on board, I decided I didn't have time for what seemed like a certain mental breakdown waiting for me. I pretended I couldn’t hear it, and just as quickly as the voice came, it dissolved into the unpleasant staleness of the car.

The thugs came closer in the car now, hovering over a kid two years my junior with all the classic trappings of a nerd begging for trouble. The glasses, the pocket protector, the violin case clutched across his chest. It was like watching a stereotype come to life. I thought about extending a warning, but before I had taken another step, the leader’s palm was splatting the kid’s face. His whole head spun left to right like he’d been sideswiped by a taxi cornering at fifty miles an hour. The junior nerd went down in a heap, his face conking against the train seat with a loud thud as the thugs gave out whoops of satisfaction. The leader was high-fiving his mates, and I felt my blood pumping faster again.

TKO! the leader bellowed, and his followers roared into laughter. A second thug, Dominican by the look of him, grabbed the victim and dragged him to his feet. I recognized him now, Roger, a couple of years younger than me, and a true genius if the school ever had one. He was captain of the Number Sense team, not that these clowns cared, and there was buzz that he might play violin with the New York Philharmonic during its annual holiday concert series. The big Dominican lifted him off the ground by the collar and knocked his glasses to the floor while a slippery looking Hispanic kid rifled through his pockets. When they had picked his belongings clean, the two threw him over a row of seats stained by three decades of dirt, grime, piss, and god knows what else. Roger now lay in a heap, not moving.

FINISH HIM! the leader yelled in a passingly good impersonation of Shao Kahn’s voice from Mortal Kombat. His followers echoed in delight, and one or two took the bait and chimed in with taunts of FATALITY!

I was relieved they had found a target before they noticed me, then felt complete shame that I was relieved they were pulverizing an innocent kid. These fucking bastards. I wished that I could do something about it.

Be the hero for once, the voice chimed in again.

Looking down at my feet, all I could see was the same gum stuck to the same pockmarked floors of the Bitter Four that I had ridden every day for years. Wash, rinse, repeat. That was the story of my life. Wasn’t it time I did something different? Wasn’t it time I lived? As if on cue, sunlight beamed through the dust-filled windows as the train came closer above ground.

Clenching my fist, I yelled, Fuck you, guys! Don't you guys have better things to do?

The gasps of those around me and the shocked look on a few of thugs’ faces would live with me for a long time. They recovered quickly when they saw that a skinny, gangly Asian teenager was the source of the challenge.

The leader smiled. Look at this motherfucker!

Why don't you just leave us alone?

My second challenge didn’t seem nearly as bold and commanding as the first, and I felt myself rapidly losing confidence in my plan. The leader moved swiftly to close the gap between us, his lieutenants hot on his heels. He pushed his head closer to me so that he was right up in my face, trying to display his dominance. It might have been one against seven, and he might be about to kick the shit out of me in front of twenty people, but his authority as the big man had been questioned, however briefly, and that made him scared, angry, and dangerous. He had to re-establish it, quickly and decisively, or his street cred would vanish in an instant. As he got in my face, filling my nostrils with the smell of cheap booze and cheaper weed, he started kicking the seat next to mine. The echo rattled through the train, calling everyone’s attention to our confrontation as he bellowed, You’re going to get it now, bitch!

I held my hands out in front of me like a good man of peace would, and spoke as calmly and confidently as I could. I don't want any trouble.

The leader grinned, and that grin told me everything I needed to know about him. He had been hoping and praying someone would interfere with the beating his boys were giving Roger.

Now the leader took out a knife. A big fucking knife. And seemingly everyone got up and scrambled away.

No Trouble? Too late for that, he yelled with a sneer. I was so distracted by the knife in his left hand that I never saw his fist as he raised it, hitting my face and sending me flying into the side of the wall like a handball smashing against the concrete. I fell clumsily onto the seats, barely keeping my balance.

My head was pulsing, and I swear I saw blue stars. Staggering to my feet, I could see faces frozen, eyes wide, bewildered from the commotion. The conductor made some incoherent announcements over the speakers. Then someone grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the car as the train came to a stop. As the train doors quickly closed, I looked up, reading Bedford Park Blvd Station on the signs.

I was still dizzy on my feet, but as my vision cleared, I looked down, with no thugs in sight, and Amayah’s beautiful face peered up at me with obvious worry in her sea-green eyes. Her tan skin felt warm and soft as I grasped her hands and held them tight. I probably didn’t need her help anymore to stay upright, but it was too good of a feeling to throw it away. She had somehow slipped between the thugs’ leader and me and gotten me moving in the right direction just as the train had slowed down at our spot. I stared again into those dark emerald eyes and didn’t want to look elsewhere. I didn't want to let go of her hands but did so for fear of making her uncomfortable.

You okay? she asked, smiling.

What do you mean?

I saw that guy punch you in the head pretty good.

I frowned with embarrassment. I was going to kick his ass.

Uh-huh, Amayah replied.

You know, I said, I know how to handle myself. I shook my head. That mofo was gonna get a good beating.

You weren’t off to such a great start there, Van Damme, she offered in a teasing voice.

I start slow, but finish strong, I chimed as Amayah started to chuckle.

I was terrified to do anything with her but make small talk most days. At least, the part of me that was hopelessly in love with her.

Talking to her now, I couldn’t help but think about where we worked together at the Eckerd pharmacy on Kissena Boulevard in Flushing. You see, her auntie, Matilda, an assistant manager there, had gotten her the job. And my older brother Henry also worked there as a pharmacist. One big happy family, I guess. Most of the time, Amayah served as a store clerk, stocking shelves, but on rare occasions, as a beauty consultant in Cosmetics. I usually tried to take a breather from the pharmacy department when I saw her with the lotions and medicated wipes down the aisle.

Sometimes I’d muster up enough courage to talk to her, but normally I’d just smile, because I couldn’t think of anything clever to say. She’d smile politely and nod back. That was the extent of it. In my mind, I always had a joke or something cool to say, and the conversation would flow. When it was actually go time, I couldn’t think of anything, so I’d just smile like a dork.

She tapped my shoulder to pull me out of my reverie. Hey, dork! If you’re done kicking ass, I’ve got a math test to study for, and I’m a little worried.

You're going to do fine.

She looked surprised, probably startled I was actually talking back instead of smiling and nodding. I hope so.

You will, I continued, my confidence increasing just a tad. Just practice what Mrs. Doddson taught you. I finally had alone time with her out of school, out of work, and I was … talking about math?

We were walking now, side by side, and I wondered how it would feel to be her man. Probably like a scene from a movie, one where everything that happens around you seems to augment the feelings you have for that special someone.

As we neared Lehman College, I stared up at the college's large gray exterior. The sign advertised a popular summer costume dance in a few weeks. This would be a clutch time to ask her about it, but instead I blurted out, You got the quadratic equation down?

She sighed. Not sure. I was practicing a few calculations last night. I thought that if I didn’t ask her now, I may as well finish that thug’s work and punch myself in the face. I was seriously blowing this opportunity.

Just ask her, you fool!

I was desperate for an icebreaker. I opened my mouth to find the words I needed to make the transition from friends to date for the dance.

Ahem.

Amayah giggled. Ahem, what, Rohan?

Ahm, I think a good way to solve a quadratic equation is by factoring the left side of the equation.

Factoring? she questioned.

Maybe I can show you sometime before the test; we should go over it for sure. It was flimsy at best as my words came out, but it was at least perpetuating the conversation. I could still ask her to the dance if I could just get my head out of my ass for five seconds.

For sure, she said, her tone still light and playful.

Fearing my window was rapidly closing, I just went for it. That dance coming up, you know, seems kind of fun. I was thinking of going as Spiderman.

She stayed silent for a moment. The silence was intolerable. If she was going to let me down easy, I preferred she just came out and said it. She probably didn’t like me. I had likely entered the Friend Zone a long time ago, and, as any guy who had the bad habit of being nice to girls he liked could tell you, it was pretty much impossible to escape the Friend Zone.

"Spiderman? That’s not really your look, I