Sense Of Freedom

When he finally stopped, Jing Ke was flat on the ground, and it was hard to get a good whack at him in that position. Shifu stood over him, breathing hard, waiting for him to get up so he could hit him again. He was out of breath, but he felt so good.

A silver wisp seemed to flow out of Jing Ke and into him under the moonlight sky but he was too distracted to notice. He was too exhilarated, indulging in the feeling of control and power he felt. He'd shown Jing Ke. The whole gang would know not to mess with him anymore. He'd shown them.

He climbed the stairs back up to his apartment and hung the pole back in the closet, then got into bed. He lay awake for a while, reliving the excitement of his triumph, then fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning Shifu's mother yelled from the bedroom door, telling him to get out of bed or he was going to be late for school. He'd been sound asleep and he didn't want to move, but the sound of men's voices coming from outside drew him to the window. Police cars were parked in the asphalt courtyard. At least a dozen men were clustered around the spot by the incinerator wall where he'd left Jing Ke the night before. There were a lot of people from the projects down there, too, the usual busybodies trying to find out what was going on. Some of the kids from Jing Ke's gang were talking to the cops, one kid sticking out his bottom lip and frowning, shaking his head no.

"Shifu, you're gonna be late!" his mother yelled from the kitchen.

"What's going on outside?" he yelled back.

"What?"

"Outside. Down by the incinerator."

"You know that Jing Ke boy from downstairs? Somebody killed him last night. Now hurry up and get dressed, or you can forget about breakfast."

Shifu's fingers were numb as he stared down at the courtyard. Jing Ke was dead? He hadn't meant to do that. He'd just wanted to teach Jing Ke a lesson. That's all. He hadn't meant to kill him.

"Shifu! Are you dressed yet?"

His stomach started to ache as he stepped back from the window, afraid that the cops would look up and see him. He went out into the hallway and opened the closet door. He inspected the pole, turning it around and around on its brackets. There was no blood that he could see. Maybe he hadn't killed Jing Ke. Maybe someone else did it after he left. Maybe someone else found Jing Ke unconscious down on the ground and took the opportunity to get rid of him. It was possible. He did bully other kids, too. But somehow Shifu didn't really believe it. He knew he was the one.

The cramps in his stomach got so bad he doubled over in pain. His mother kept yelling for him to get dressed and get to school. It was an ordeal getting his clothes on. Thank God, she had already left for work by the time he finished. She'd put some cereal and milk out on the table for his breakfast, but the sight of it nauseated him, and he threw up in the kitchen sink. He leaned on the edge, waiting for more to come up, and through the closed kitchen window he could still hear the police down in the courtyard. He decided to skip school and stay home.

He was afraid to go out, afraid to go to the windows, afraid they'd find him and take him away. He lay in bed, imagining the worst. The other kids in Jing Ke's gang would tell the police that he was the one who probably had done it, that he hated Jing Ke because Jing Ke picked on him. Maybe Mr. Huang hadn't been that drunk last night. Maybe he'd seen Shifu holding the pole and told the police about it. They'd come up to the apartment, beat the door down, and drag him away. He wondered what they did to kids who killed other kids. Did they throw kids in jail. He'd heard about reform schools, but he didn't really know what they were. He'd killed Jing Ke. Maybe they'd kill him. Strap him to the electric chair and pull the switch, same as they did to adult killers.

Shifu bounced off his bed and ran to the closet. He threw the few clothes that were hanging onto the floor and pulled the pole down again. In the bathtub he ran hot water and scrubbed the pole with a washcloth, just in case, then dried it with a towel and put it back.

It wasn't enough, though. He paced the apartment long into the afternoon, wondering what the police knew, what kind of evidence they could have, when they'd come for him. He shivered and his teeth chattered as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering when they'd finally come. The pillow was soaked with sweat when he finally passed out as if in a fever.

When his mother returned that night after picking up his 4-year-old brother and 3-year-old sister from the neighbor who watched them, Shifu pretended that he'd gone to school, that everything was normal. His mother didn't mention Jing Ke. As usual, she was too exhausted to talk about anything. For a while that afternoon he'd thought maybe he could tell her and get it off his chest. But now he knew he couldn't do that. He couldn't tell anyone.

That night he couldn't sleep. He kept hearing Jing Ke's voice out in the courtyard. That, and the whom of the pole as it kept hitting Jing Ke's head.

The next morning Shifu lingered in bed and deliberately made himself late, intending to stay home again. He was never going to go back to school. He was never going to leave the house. He was going to die here. He was going to starve to death because he couldn't eat and he couldn't stop throwing up.

All he did was lie in bed, thinking about Jing Ke, thinking about that moment when the cops would break down the door.

But that moment didn't come.

He stayed home for the rest of the week, worrying, pacing, sweating.

But nothing happened.

Then the nuns notified his mother that he hadn't been to school all week and asked why she hadn't sent a note if he was sick. She got so mad she beat him with the broomstick and told him that he was going to school on Monday and that he'd better not try to pull a stunt like that again. She also made him go to church on Sunday, and the sweat poured off him as he sat through Mass, glancing at the people all around him, looking for the one boy in the gang who would point at him and yell out that Liu Shifu was the one who had killed Jing Ke.

But that didn't happen.

On Monday morning he told his mother he was sick for real, but she didn't buy it, and she made him leave the apartment with her. Walking to school, he tried not to be obvious, but he couldn't help looking back whenever he heard a car coming up from behind. He kept expecting a police car to come and take him away. But that never happened.

In school he couldn't pay attention, and the nun who taught his class scolded him several times for daydreaming. If anyone would finger him, she would, he thought. Nuns can spot sinners a mile away. He kept waiting for her screeching accusation, followed by the cops coming into the classroom to haul him away.

But that never happened.

Nothing happened.

It had been almost two weeks since that night in the courtyard, and nobody had bothered with him. No cops, none of the kids in the gang, no one in Jing Ke's family, not even Mr. Huang. No one at all.

But this was a trap, he thought. They were all pretending. The police were just waiting for the right moment when they could pounce. This was a trap.

It occurred to him that maybe Jing Ke wasn't even dead, that one of these days he'd be walking down the street and Jing Ke would pop out of nowhere, back from the hospital where the police had been hiding him. He'd point his finger at Shifu and tell the police, "That's him. Bones is the guy who tried to kill me."

Shifu couldn't eat; he couldn't sleep. He dreaded going out.

But nothing ever happened. Nothing.

Gradually he started to calm down. Maybe no one knew. Maybe he was safe. Then one day he caught himself smiling, and he realized that he hadn't thought about Jing Ke for a whole day. He started going out on the street more, and eventually he stopped worrying about police cars. He still thought about Jing Ke, but he wasn't worried about him anymore. He still felt bad about it, but in another way he also felt good about it. The bully was gone, and no one was bothering him. He'd solved his problem. When you hurt people, they leave you alone.

As the months passed, he'd see detectives down in the lobby of his building every once in a while, talking to the neighbours about Jing Ke, checking to see if there was any new information they could pick up. Shifu would walk right by them and head for the stairs, biting his grin until he rounded the corner and no one could see him. He knew who killed Jing Ke, but no one else did. It was his little secret, his alone. It was something no one else in the whole world had except him, and it made him valuable. It made him special. It made him someone.