Slightly Far East

Hudson Review, The, Winter 2005 by Moyer, Kermit

Although Gregory has an older brother named Cole-even smarter than he is, Gregory modestly confesses-whose influence helps to account for Gregory's love of chess as well as for his astonishing literary precocity (among his favorite authors are Nietzsche, Kafka, Faulkner, and Camus, whose name he also knows how to pronounce), his brother is in college back in the States, so it's just Gregory and his parents out here in what he calls the boondocks of the Far East. Nevertheless, they have a gardener, a cook, and no less than three maids. Tammi is the sexy head maid. Probably in her late twenties, she has an insinuating way of looking at you from under her eyebrows with a little smirk, as though she knows your most shameful secrets and doesn't necessarily disapprove. She's in charge of two girls who look to be in their teens and who are known to me only by the nicknames Gregory has given them: Soy Sauce (or Soyo) and Sukiyaki. They're like buck privates to Tammi's master sergeant.

The first time I go over to Gregory's house, we're sitting in the kitchen drinking Cokes with a lot of ice and inspecting the snakebite kits we've just bought at the PX when Tammi walks in. She's wearing a sleeveless white blouse that accentuates her breasts and a tight blue skirt, presumably her maid's uniform, but the skirt is so tight it makes her stomach bulge. Either she has a little potbelly or she's slightly pregnant, and as usual when I see a pregnant woman, I can't help thinking about what she had to do to get that way.

"What that mess is?" she says, pointing at where our snakebite kits are spread out on the table. Each kit consists of a rubber cylinder that pulls apart at the middle. The bottom half of the cylinder contains a folded page of instructions, a rolled-up piece of cloth that can be used as a tourniquet, a vial of some kind of antiseptic, and a narrow razor for cutting an X over each of the two puncture marks left by the snake's fangs. The top half of the cylinder is a rubber cup that can be used to suck the venom from the place where you've slashed the Xs, and we've been trying the cups out on our arms, making a vacuum by squeezing out the air as we press the cup against our skin. When you pull the cup away, it leaves a circular red mark, with the result that our arms look like we've developed some kind of ringworm.

"It's in case of snakebite," Gregory says, standing up from the table, the rubber cup in his hand. "Come on, I'll show you how it works-"

"No-o-o," Tammi squeals. "Stay away!" And she holds her open palms out in front of her as she backs up.

"What if you got bit by a snake? We ought to practice what we'd have to do-it could save your life-"

Soy Sauce and Sukiyaki come in with their hands over their mouths, already giggling. They might be anywhere from fifteen to twenty; it's hard to tell. Their black hair is cut short, and they're wearing the same white-blouse-blue-skirt combination that Tammi has on.

"Let's say you got bit on the derrière," Gregory is saying as he fakes first one way and then the other. "This is how we'd suck out the venom-"