The Southern Boyz said Tuấn was a good recruit. He did what he was told.He knew where to be and when. Tuấn was a good man, and they trustedhim. And Quang, smoking a cigarette, said his new nickname should be“Handy” because he was useful.“Hey, Handy!” said Sáng, testing out the name in his thick accent, whichmade it sound like “Hon-dee.” He twirled his Heineken bottle to see howmuch beer he had left. “Hon-dee, come over here. Hon-dee, go run this overto Quang.” Everybody giggled.Tuấn lifted his bottle to his lips. Already, he could feel his cheeks heat upand redden. He rubbed at the scruff on his face—an attempt to look older—to hide his blushing, though he was sure the beer made him glow.They were in Quang’s laundry shed behind his house. The three of themgathered around a roughed-up coffee table with ring marks from sweatybottles and cans and cups while Thảo was out getting more beers. They wereall under twenty-one, but Thảo could sweet-talk the toughest of them; Thảoalways got what she wanted. The washing machine was going, banging itselfagainst the concrete floor, so Tuấn got up and kicked it a couple of times,which did the trick.When he sat back down, Quang, the King of the Southern Boyz, placedhis empty bottle on the table and leaned back into his chair.“But, Tuấn,” he said, his voice becoming serious, “you still have to proveyourself. Do something for the team.” The way he said “something” made theword sound heavy and foreign. Quang took a drag of his cigarette. He held itlike a Vietnamese man, or so he claimed, with three fingers instead of two the way they did back in the Motherland, though none of them had seen Vietnamin a very long time. “Then,” he went on, “you can be part of the gia đình.”That word. Tuấn noticed it every time. Quang never called them a gang,though they were that and a notorious one, too. (They even made it to thefront page of the Times-Picayune—twice. Once for arson and another for ahome robbery down in Uptown, both before Tuấn’s time with them.) Quangnever called them a gang; it was always family. And soon, Tuấn saw it wastrue. They took care of one another. They were there for one another. Ifsomeone messed with you, you just tell the Boyz and they’d nod and they’dgrin and you know you could consider it taken care of. Sure, they fought andargued sometimes, but what family didn’t? He felt at home in Quang’slaundry shed more than in his own apartment, where his mother was alwaystired, annoyed, or dissatisfied (something was always wrong: his behavior; theobnoxious tourists in the Quarter, who she felt invaded an otherwise decentcity; the other people who lived in Versailles—including those who movedaway, abandoning their apartments and letting vines grow on the walls andbricks turn green, making a place where hooligans from all of New OrleansEast trespassed to get high), and his brother lazed around, reading bookswhile sprawled out on the bed with a blank, bored look on his face—a type ofdissatisfaction of life in itself. And then there was Vinh, his mom’s boyfriend.Tuấn didn’t know what to do with Vinh. He was supposed to stay with themfor a week but then ended up just staying. He felt like an extra organ on abody, like a third arm or an additional leg. The man—his habits, his ideas, hisbeing—didn’t mesh with the rest of their family. To add to that, Vinh stayedhome day and night, becoming a persistent presence that made home feel lesslike home.Tuấn was through with all of that. The Southern Boyz offered the oppositeof that—meaning camaraderie, family.“Do something,” Quang repeated and picked up a bottle cap from thetable. He began flipping it in the air. Three throws and he let it fall to thefloor, where it bounced off the concrete and went rolling in a circle beforesettling.“What?” Tuấn sat up in his chair. His pulse raced. To be part of thisfamily, to get that tattoo—the crescent moon–shaped outline of Vietnam with written vertically—Tuấn knew he would do anything. “Anything. Nói đi,”he said.“Wei Huang Market,” said Quang, “on Bourbon.” Just then the dooropened.“Trời ổi,” said Thảo. “Hôi quá. Smoke outside, y’all. How many timeshave I told you?”“It’s my place,” Quang said. “I do what I want.”Thảo coughed. With a case of Heineken in her arms, she walked over toQuang and grabbed his cigarette. She took a quick drag before throwing it onthe floor and crushing it beneath her cowboy boots. The leather was as thickas Tuấn imagined it would have been if it was freshly cut from a cow; its deepbrown color reminded him of dry blood. “Help me with this, will you?” shesaid, tapping the box with her fingers.“Good haul,” said Sáng, reaching for the case.“I got a discount,” she replied.—The story from Quang is, the Southern Boyz, as it is now, started in 1975,when the first Vietnamese refugees were just settling in the States, to protectthem from being taken advantage of in their new home. But if you wanted toreally understand the Southern Boyz, Quang said, you had to know its fullstory, and it starts during the American War. “Which is what we call the warover there,” said Quang, who liked to tell this story around a bonfire when thewhole family was over on summer nights.“The Americans were leaving our Motherland behind. And theCommunists, they were coming, you see? So these men, they set up a militiaof their own to protect the women and the children, because it is always thewomen and the children. These men, they called themselves Lực Lượng MiểnNam. The Southern Force. They watched over Saigon and all the otherSouthern towns. But the thing was, they pretended they were like otherpeople. No special uniforms or anything. That way, the Communists didn’tknow who they were, and when they least expected it, they attacked.“But, of course, they had to leave like the rest of us. Still, they promisedno one would ever hurt their people again. This I heard from a man on theboat, Chú Long. He came to New Orleans with us, too, where he continuedthe Southern Force, but with a new name.“Remember a couple of years ago,” Quang continued, “when Ông Nguyễnthe fisherman and his men were vandalized: ?Remember what happened to those three white fishermen?”Everyone nodded. Everyone knew. One night, after a successful haul fromthe Gulf, the fishermen went to a bar in Bayou St. John. They were so drunkby the time two o’clock in the morning came, they were stumbling out ontoSt. Philip Street. It was when they turned the corner, down a street withoutlight, that they were attacked. The fishermen were found lying out on NorthLopez Street the next morning, bruised and bloodied; one was missing a fronttooth.“It was a sign to these men,” said Quang. “Don’t fuck with us!” Here, youcan imagine Quang squeezing the rest of the lighter fluid into the fire and theflames jumping wildly and the bottle itself dropping into the heat, where thewhite plastic melted. He lit up a cigarette. “Can you imagine how life wouldbe if we weren’t here? If men like Chú Long never came to New Orleans withus? What kind of world would this be? That kind of world is the kind ofworld I don’t want to live in.”Tuấn nodded. Yes, it was something to believe in. Yes.When Vinh told him the Southern Boyz were bad news, Tuấn told himthis history with pride as if it were his own. Vinh laughed in his face andcalled him gullible. “Those boys don’t know anything,” Vinh said. “Just abunch of kids playing. You want to know the real story about Vietnam.”“I know the story,” Tuấn said.“But you don’t,” Vinh said.—Wei Huang Market was one of the last Asian grocery stores left on the 500-block of Bourbon Street. It was where Tuấn’s mother went because it carriedthe rare Asian foods she couldn’t find anywhere else: fish sauce, lemongrass,sticky rice. In its small space, it seemed to have everything.Madame Wei, a seventy-something-year-old woman who wore her grayhair in a bun, ran Wei Huang by herself even after all the Chinese shops onBourbon Street left. The business was her father’s. Her brother had inheritedit, but he left. So did everyone else. Everyone except Madame Wei. If it hadnot been for the Vietnamese coming, Tuấn had heard her say, years ago whenthey started shopping there, Wei Huang would be out of business.But Wei Huang was bad for the Vietnamese of New Orleans, said Quang.Though it was in the Quarter and they were out east, people are creatures ofhabit and would continue to buy from her despite the Vietnamese-rungroceries right in their backyard. This was why Tuấn was sent. To give her amessage so violent that she would pack up and go away. Sayonara, ChinaLady—or whatever it was they said.“Người Trung Quốc don’t like us anyway,” Quang added. “Know ourhistory,” he said. “Know your history.” The Chinese, Tuấn learned, occupiedVietnam for a thousand years. Then came the French.The next week, in the afternoon, Tuấn walked down Bourbon. Wei Huangsat between a liquor store and a shop selling souvenirs. As he came up on it,Tuấn slowed his pace. With his head down, he moved his eyes toward thewindow. The shop was empty, except for Madame Wei, who stood readingbehind the counter at the front. The loud teenagers in the souvenir store nextdoor made Wei Huang look and feel emptier. He walked into the souvenirstore—the Fleur de Lis Gift Shoppe, one of maybe four in the Quarter—andpretended he was interested in the spinning rack of bike license plates. All ofthem had names not like his: Ted, Tom, Tommy, Tony. The teenagers giggledsome more.Quang told him to first scan out the place during the daytime. Then, later,at night, when she was about to close, come in with a weapon. Threaten theold hag. Knock stuff to the ground. Smash her window. Tell her to give youmoney. And when you’re done, tell her who you are and where you’re fromand what you’re about. Tell her all of this so she knows, that old woman, thatthis isn’t her territory. Not any longer. Tuấn pictured himself yelling atMadame Wei, who was shorter than he was and who wore wire-frameglasses.“Not anymore,” he would say. “This is not your place anymore. Out!” he’dscreech. “Out!”It would be easy, wouldn’t it? He’d fought younger, stronger guys before.Big Black boys with bulging muscles. Sweaty Mexicans who thought theywere big shots and sprayed over the SBZ signs across town. An old lady? Hewould only have to scream and she’d run.A white man with a neat haircut came up to him then.“Having trouble finding your name?” he asked. The man wore a name tag.Tuấn didn’t see his name, but he saw - . “What’s the name?” theman said. “We can see if we have it.” The man bent over to inspect thelicense plates. “Is it Tommy? You might be a Tommy. You know, we haveother names in the back, too. I can check. You can’t leave New Orleanswithout a souvenir!” The man smiled.“No,” Tuấn said. He shook his head. “Never mind.”He walked out of the store and past Wei Huang again. The neon sign onher window didn’t light up anymore and there were oily handprints on theglass. Inside, Madame Wei was now eating lunch next to the cash register.Then, out of the corner, a familiar figure came toward the counter with a twoliter bottle of Coco Rico soda, the kind his mother used for cooking. Vinh.He stopped at a case and grabbed a bag of bean sprouts. He said somethingand Madame Wei laughed. As she began ringing him up, Vinh took out a penand a small pad and wrote something down or crossed something out. Hiseyes scanned the store and stopped at the window.Tuấn began running as Vinh came to the door.“Tuấn,” Vinh called.Tuấn looked back and saw Vinh standing on the sidewalk. When he turnedback straight ahead, he bumped into a tourist and they both fell.“Sorry,” Tuấn said. “Sorry, sorry.” He helped the woman up. He wasabout to start running again, but a hand gripped his shoulder. He tried toshake it off, but it was too strong.“Tuấn,” Vinh said. “What you doing here? Don’t you have school?”“Let go!” He tried to pull away.“What you doing here?” Vinh repeated.“I could ask you the same. What you doing here?”“I’m a free man,” Vinh said, and laughed.“I’m eighteen. That makes me an adult. Let go!” It made him feel like achild again, begging to be let go. He pulled harder. Vinh tightened his grip.“Let go. I’m an adult! You can’t do this to me.”“Eighteen, but you’re still a boy. Still a kid.”“You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my father!” Tuấn said. Did hescream it? Was everyone looking now? Where was the tourist he ran into? Asense of embarrassment came over him. His face was red, he knew. Heclosed his eyes. “You’re no one, Vinh. God, you’re nothing.”Vinh let go, and, suddenly released, Tuấn fell down heavily.“Kid” was all Vinh said in a shaky voice, as if a nerve had been hit, and walked away.Two nights later, everything was planned.Quang gave Tuấn a steel bat. Wei Huang closed at ten. At 9:55, Tuấnwould arrive at the store. Madame Wei would be standing behind her counter.She might be reading her book or she might be closing up, counting hermoney. Tuấn would push the door, and as it opened there would be the soundof the bell tied to the door. Ting-ding! Madame would look up from whatevershe was doing. “Oh, allo!” she would say. “We about to close. Can I help?”And Tuấn would say, “No. I’m just getting back from baseball practice andwas hungry. Can I look around?” To this, Madame would answer, “Yes,”because she never says no and she is not one to be rude. And anyway, extramoney—like a dollar for a snack—is a dollar she wouldn’t otherwise have,and because the Chinese are greedy, greedy people, she would wait. If shewas counting money, maybe she tries to hide it. Meanwhile, Tuấn would walkaround. It is a small shop. Just four walls and a long shelf in the middle. Afterone loop around, he would come back to the counter, empty-handed exceptthe bat, which by now he is swinging threateningly. “Are you looking forsomething?” she would ask, pushing up her glasses, which would be greasy,too, because the Chinese are not a clean people. “Oh, me?” Tuấn would say.Then he would raise the bat and bring it down on the glass counter. Crash!Next, he would bring it down on her display case, shattering the glass in oneswift movement. Slam! Finally, he would smash down that annoying wavingcat on the counter. She would be screaming now and asking you what is it youwant. Is it money? And it is now that you explain. You explain everything toher: you tell her who you are and where you’re from and what you’re about.And she would understand. She would run out of the store, arms waving inthe air. Wei Huang would be closed the next day. It would disappear in thenext week. It would be replaced by another souvenir shop with tacky trinketsin a month. Tuấn would be part of this strange, violent family with a strange,violent history. He would create a new New Orleans.—When Tuấn came home, his mother, brother, and Vinh were already there.She walked between the stove and the kitchen table. In recent months, she’dtaken on bookkeeping for the nail salon. She’d look at the numbers in theledger open on the table and return to the frying pan on the stove.Tuấn headed for his room but stopped when his mother called him.“Are you staying for dinner?” she asked him.“I’m not grounded.” He looked over at his brother, who was reading aweathered paperback book.“That wasn’t the question,” she said. “Are you staying for dinner? Youshould stay for dinner. I work all day so you have food on the table. And youdon’t even eat at home most days.”“I’m busy, mẹ.”“Are you still hanging with that girl, Thảo?”“He is,” Bình chimed in.“No one asked you, retard.”“No need for name calling,” said Vinh. “In this house, we respect oneanother.”Bình rolled his eyes.“No, mẹ,” Tuấn told his mother.“Don’t nói láo.”“I’m not lying, mẹ.”“That girl bad trouble,” she said in English.