Waylaid by Ed Lin

to take people away, and they were pretty good.
    We stood there in the office for about 10 minutes without saying anything to each other. I pretended I was going over the schedule, running my index finger down the list of rooms. The man stood and stared at the Marlboro clock, never taking off his hat, not even stretching.
    A car pulled off the highway and drifted down to just in front of the office.
    â€œThat’s your cab,” I told the man. He turned his head and I saw a thin scar on the side of his neck. He made no motion to leave.
    â€œGet in the taxi, please,” I told him. “The next hotel is about four miles south on the highway,” I added.
    He didn’t even say thank you. He slowly made his way to the door and then to the cab. He got in and the headlights swept back out to the highway. The brake lights were two sore slitty eyes in the night.
    I wondered what the cab driver was going to do when he found out the man couldn’t pay.
    At about 10 p.m., my parents came home.
    â€œWhere did you go?”
    â€œSome business take care,” said my father. He was wearing a suit.
    â€œYou don’t worry about it,” said my mother. She gave me a bag from Burger King filled with loose onion rings.
    At the bottom was a cold burger. I was already full from the eggs, but I could always go for a burger. I ate it all with a warm glass of iced tea I made from a powder mix. Now that they were back, I could go out and clean rooms.
    I picked up two buckets filled with cleaning supplies and headed out.
    All of our relatives lived in Taiwan, except for a distant cousin of my father who’d moved to Los Angeles. The Taiwan relatives shipped boxes of clothes for me that were about three sizes too small and stank from being packed with jars of Chinese medicine and creams. The one pair of socks that did fit smelled of Tiger Balm even after several washings. The L.A. cousin sent us seedless oranges.
    We got word one day that the L.A. cousin wanted to visit. My father brought him and his wife back from Newark airport in the Pinto. They looked shocked and horrified as they stepped into our living quarters. Uncle and Aunty, as I was told to address them, were wearing nice shoes that looked as out of place on our shabby carpeting as a shaky fish fin on dry land for the first time. They probably expected bellhops running around, mint chocolates on the pillows, and a spacious lobby swirling in Muzak. The only thing we had that made us a legitimate hotel was the BING! BING! BING!
    â€œYou stay in Room 2,” my mother told me. “Uncle and Aunty going stay in your room.” I nodded. They were all going out to some Chinese restaurant the next town over. I had to stay to watch the office, so I fried two eggs and baked some biscuits for dinner.
    I didn’t get a good look at Aunty until they came back from the restaurant and she took her coat off. Were her tits small. They weren’t even big enough to cast a shadow.
    The adults went into the kitchen and my father took out a white ceramic bottle from the top shelf of the cabinet.
    â€œGo into Room 2,” he said. “We watch the office now.” In the air there was a sense of politeness under pressure. It smelled like Tiger Balm.
    I went into the hotel room, sat on the bed, and turned on the television. “Barney Miller” was on 11, the only channel that came in well. I heard some shouting. At first, I thought it was coming from one of the other rooms, but it continued, and I picked up some Chinese. The women were louder than the men. Then it stopped for a while.
    A few minutes later, a Seaside Taxi pulled up to the office and honked twice. I went to the window. Uncle carried all the luggage out the door, staggering and grunting. After heaving the suitcases into the trunk, he shook a fist back at the office and shouted, then high kicked into the air like he was going for an extra point.