Wu Zheng heard the cell door click open. He leapt off the top bunk, directly onto the Mexican who spoke no English who shared the space. The prison was built for three hundred and had about three times that packed sometimes six to a cell. Flooding into the concrete box was a dozen prisoners associated with Baseball Caretti. Since Alfonso Lolordo was now in the infirmary fighting for his life from the shiving in the yard it was now open season.
Zheng lashed out hitting one square in the nose, spreading it across his face. Another two strikes and a kick took the opening wave down but the cramped quarters and sheer numbers had Zheng on the back foot. For every hit he got in, they got him twice. He remembered what his seifu use to say to him, “Knowing kung-fu only lessens the amount of times you’ll get hit.”
It seemed like an eternity inside the whirlwind of fists and feet before a shrill whistle was sounded and the attack was called off mainly due to the small space and the other prisoners of Zheng’s cell joining the fray to fight off the intruders.
“You’re dead, you yellow prick!” scolded a prisoner who dragged his broken nosed friend to safety. Zheng spat blood onto the floor and beckoned him closer, but his invite was declined. More footsteps and whistles as the guards stormed the area. Zheng was clubbed across the shins and tackled, then on the bottom of a dog pile as the guards subdued him.
—
“What am I going to do with you?” Warden Ambrose Pershing asked Zheng who snapped back to consciousness. He was in a holding area, naked and shackled as if he were a slab of beef. “Constant fighting. Deliberate disobedience. Attacking my guards. Is any of this getting through?”
Zheng just hung there silently. Beside the warden was Captain Brian Healey, the stern no-nonsense second in command.
“Oh he speaks English, Warden,” Healey stepped toward Zheng and raised his chin up on the end of his custom made baton. “He just chooses not too. Don’t you, China Man?”
Zheng stares deep into the cruel man’s eyes but remained silent. Healey whumped him in the guts and walked back to the warden.
“Ninety days in the hole,” Pershing declared. “Maybe that will loosen your tongue.”
—
Wu Zheng slowly walked out the massive doors of Cook County Jail. He was now a free man after serving nine years instead of six, three extra had been added for his constant fighting. Nobody was there to collect Zheng, which wasn’t really a surprise seeing as his parents were dead and his other relatives were in China. Slowly he made the long walk into the city.
Several cars whizzed by him. They were no longer the weird carriage contraptions when he went inside, these were sleek well built machines with white rimmed tyres. A lot had changed. Chinatown had been rebuilt since the fire. The city had expanded almost to beyond recognition. Zheng found his way back to where he once lived to see it was now a noodle house called Fung’s but it didn’t seem to sell noodles. Zheng noticed the man quietly slumped beside the doorway, it was an opium den. Zheng cautiously stepped inside. The entry was a small wooden room with a red curtain to the back. A woman, who once upon a time was a great beauty, sat smoking a long cigarette as she brushed a very plump cat.
“What you want?” She yelled at him in mandarin. “Well?”
Zheng stared at her and pulled the only money he had in the world out, three dollars. The woman made a disappointing noise from her throat as she snatched the money. “Go!”
Zheng stepped through the curtain to see his parents former workplace and home was now a place for people to smoke opium and pass out. Scorch marks on the walls, the sweet smell drifted through the air, bodies in various states of unconsciousness. Zheng put himself down at the only table in the room. A pile of rags opposite turned out to be an unconscious man. Zheng was at a loose end, not sure of where to or what to do next.
Suddenly the curtain was thrown back and the mean old woman was shoved into the room followed by three burly Italian men. Zheng put his head down on the table to blend in.
“You got told what’d happen if you were late again,” the ugliest of the trio stated grabbing her by the back of the neck. “So get the money!”
Zheng could feel the opium sinking into his skin from the air vapours and from the resin left on the table. His eyes jittered. Then he heard a mighty roar! A large purple dragon burst through the wall making the men scatter! Claws tore one open as a tail flick sent another flying. The third gangster drew a gun only to be coated in flames. Zheng could hardly believe what he was seeing. Nobody else’s saw anything as they were too busy in their opioid comas. He looked down at his hands and saw bloody talons along with a broken oil lantern. It took him a while to piece together what was going on.
“I am the dragon!” He whispered as he quickly vanished from the scene.
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