Khiam Pak

A few days ago I went down to my storage locker, and for some reason I wanted to see if my collection of the Sopranos was still intact. Unfortunately it was missing. It was getting late, and I didn't manage to find it, and I thought that somehow I left a box out in the alley or something and it was taken away.

Earlier tonight, I decided to go down to the locker to find it. Well, I found it. But on my way back through the transit center – which is one of the most seedy areas that I spend a lot of time in, I met a gang of a few teenagers. The girl came up to me and called me an Asian dog eater. Then, feeling a little grumpy, I traded insults with them, and at the same time, I walked towards a place that had more people. Eventually, they got frustrated with trying to make me apologise, and then they tried to make me angry or fearful. I refused to do that too and proceeded with the name calling. Then they started trying to spit at me. And when they still failed to get a reaction from me, one of them punched me in the face. And I still insulted them, and they ended up having to run away.

There was a crowd of onlookers gathering, and one of them called the police. She was a housewife in an SUV. God bless her, because she gave me a stack of paper towels when blood was pouring out of my nose and mouth. She asked me if I wanted to talk to the police. There were people who identified the teenagers. Maybe they could have been caught and sent to jail. But I wasn't really wishing that on them. I was, after all, intent on turning the screws on them in some way. I faced four hostile people, and I walked away, injured, but otherwise no loss of property or life. Unfortunately I wasn't in a mood to talk with the police. Who knows, they could have a charge or two slapped on me, and I'd have to fuck off from the US and never go back.

Then there was this black teenager girl who came up to me and said, “you did the right thing”, she was being inspirational and all that, but the way that she talked was a little disturbing – talked about being in Julliard and having danced since she was two and being in this or that company. Her parents were from the Carribean and she was here since she was 3. I was a little afraid for her, because being black and being an artist was no joke. I don't know if I came across as too rude.

Then I phoned my sister. I asked her for advice and she said just go see a doctor, emergency if possible. She said wash off all the blood. Well she couldn't help me much, and by the way she was at our cousin's place.

My housemate was there to help me. She gave me an icepack and aspirin, and she tried to be helpful, but sometimes I would rather not have her hover around when I try to eat a burrito through a broken mouth.

I actually tried to hunt down the place where they had discounted sushi on Monday nights, but I couldn't find it. So I walked to the burrito shop instead. When I was there, there was a couple kissing each other in front of the shop. I walked past them with blood pouring out of my mouth and nose. I don't know if they were talking about me, but I heard the words, “gangster” and “that guy simply doesn't care”. And in a way that's true, I don't care.

So I went back, and my housemate who was very helpful, was nevertheless making me uncomfortable – having a meal with your face smashed in is pretty uncomfortable already and having her watch me... I know that when there are times of crisis, sometimes people will just come out and show up because suddenly there's a new meaning to their lives. The lady in the SUV who gave me towels and called the police, the teenager who tried to counsel me (ah the arrogance of youth), my housemate who suddenly got called in to clean up blood and did so enthusiastically.

In a way I got off lightly. These may not have been professional thugs, they were just wayward teenagers, dressed up for a night out at the bar. It was probably the equivalent of a bar brawl, except not at a bar. I probably didn't consider how I was going to get out of that situation. Virtually all of the bystanders thought of me as the victim and them as the bad guys.

I don't know how much they were drinking, or if they were underaged drinkers. I found my Sopranos DVDs, and ironically it was because I found the DVDs that I happened to be in the transit center at that particular time, getting off that particular trolley, to be face to face with those gangsters.

Should I have called the police? I declined to speak to the police, because maybe I was thinking about my role in that affair. I'm certain that without the goading I would not have been punched in the face. But then again I wasn't going to take that shit lying down. Maybe this is the last time I will take such risks. I recognised that I lacked the appetite for a fight. I was growing old. And yet at the same time I know that if I raised a hand on them, I could have been beaten to a pulp, that it was a combination of that and the fact that I was in a crowd, that I wasn't. I don't know if they'd have been caught, and I don't know about migrants reporting to the police. Once you have criminal charges, it's easier to get you out of the country.

The next morning was probably less heroic. Maybe I woke up too late to go to my family doctor, and I didn't have an appointment, so I had to wait around for a free time slot. The receptionist was nice to me, and told me that there was a chance to see the doctor instead of going to urgent care and spending a few thousand dollars. He operated on me even past his closing hour at 5, and we left the surgical room at half past 7. This kind of doctor, who gives you half an hour every visit instead of 10 mins, seems like a find. But also he's a Chinese guy who speaks Mandarin and Hokkien, and in this place you get the impression that Asian Americans feel obliged to help each other out a little more.

Since a few people advised me to report it to the police, I reported it to the police a few days later. There was security camera footage and a few reports already filed on the incident.