Chapter Text
Ma kicked the vending machine with one booted foot. Nothing happened. Ma pushed his hat up and scratched the back of his head. Dang. He had lost his 6 dollars, again. The button was lit up but nothing happened when he picked his canned coffee drink. He smacked the button one more time for luck. Nothing happened.
He should know better by now than to try these stupid machines for a drink or a snack every day. He checked his pockets for more coins. He found a couple more dollars in one pocket and added it to the change in his hand.
He heard another driver snicker at him from the break room couch.
“Hey Ma, if you are going to the 7-11 can you get me something too? I don't want to lose my money here. I’ll lose it at mahjong pretty easily instead.”
“Shut up man. I’ll get you something. When are they gonna put up a sign saying these machines are broken, anyway?” He said irritatedly.
“Ma you’re the only one in the driving pool stupid enough to keep putting money in that machine. Get me a coffee and a noodle dish? Something with meat.”
The driver lazily held out a fat fist clutching some dollars. Ma walked over to the couch and took the money from the fat man.
“Ok Chee-Ming. No problem. I'll go right now. How long are you here?”
The fat man scratched his belly. “I’m on a split shift. I’m waiting here until 11. Nothing lined up at the moment. You?”
“I think I’m on shift at 2. I was going to come in to have a nap but you’re already on the couch.”
“That my friend is the wonders of seniority. When you have worked here for as long as I have, you can get the couch. Ma go get my noodles and come back. You look tired out. You should get a coffee while you’re out. You need to wake up.” The fat man waved his hand at Ma, shooing him out of the room.
“Yes sir.” Ma said and bowed exaggeratedly. He turned and left the driver’s break room, heading out to the street. He hadn’t exactly lied about his shift starting later, he just didn’t have anyone lined up for today. Working in the driver pool for the Metropolitan police was often incredibly boring.
He had wanted to lie down on the couch for a bit before work. The break room couch was a shapeless piece of junk. The cushions had lost almost all their stuffing and the springs creaked and groaned when any weight was put on it. At one time it must have been quite fancy but the drivers had worn it down.
Ma found the couch comfortable enough to fall asleep on. He had wanted to see if he had those same dreams when he slept anywhere that wasn’t his own bed. He wouldn’t get that chance today.
Ma liked to get out into and around the neighbourhood when he didn’t have any car shifts booked. He hoped he could make it out of headquarters without getting caught. He straightened his hat and headed purposefully out the front doors, nodding to one of the uniformed Sergeants on the front desk in the headquarters lobby.
Then he pushed open the heavy entrance doors, stepped outside and headed down the long concrete stairs to the street.
He walked off towards the nearest 7-11, clinking the coins in his jacket pocket and thinking idly about the Detective he drove yesterday. He wondered if he could get assigned to her on a regular basis. She seemed smart and the place she was going were interesting.
Ma was a driver in the car pool for the Metropolitan Police Department. He had passed all the screening, certification of no criminal conviction and the secondary licensing needed to be hired. He liked the driving. But the shifts were long and often involved waiting.
Waiting to pick up. Waiting to be assigned a car. Waiting for the client to be finished with their meeting or lunch. Waiting for the car to be cleaned. Waiting for the car to be washed.
He didn’t always like waiting in the driver break room between his assignments. Some of his colleagues were jerks. Stupid jerks. Although some of the clients they drove were women, there were no women drivers. Ma found that the tone in the break room a bit rough. Some of the drivers were bullies. And there was rarely any food.
The break room had a rice cooker, broken. It had a vending machine, broken. The boiling water tap mostly worked but helpfully there were no mugs, bowls or spoons. The worn couch was almost always occupied by some more senior driver having a nap.
The table often had someone brushing off their hat or playing cards. Sometimes mahjong. Some drivers would smoke, filling overflowing ashtrays sitting near the window. Others picked their teeth while they waited.
Ma mostly sat on folding chairs off to the side by the window with the other new guys. They also joked around and gossiped about their work and women. Ma just sat and listened. He napped or daydreamed. He found he could sleep sitting up. He would wake up with a start when his phone buzzed with his assignment. Every time.
If it was too hot, the drivers would sit in the break room in their undershirts so they didn’t sweat through their uniform. They would hang their shirts by the window in front of the worn fan turning back and forth . The light blue shirts fluttered on hangers from the top of the window frame or from the backs of chairs.
Lately Ma had been going out to get food and drinks for whoever was in the break room. He’d take the orders, collect the money and then head out to the OK or 7-11 and fetch the snacks. He didn’t mind being the errand boy. If he wasn’t in the break room then he couldn't be assigned a car. He had found a cheap bicycle and chained it up down the block on a side street.
If he missed out on going on assignments maybe he could try and get the couch for a nap. He wasn’t sleeping so great at home. His apartment was tiny and airless. The neighbourhood was noisy with construction and the hot air was thick with dust. He wasn’t sure why he was having sleeping problems, as it wasn’t insomnia. It was after he did sleep he woke up exhausted.
If he just got enough exercise maybe he would sleep better. He had been having very vivid dreams when he slept but he couldn’t quite remember them exactly. Sometimes when he pedaled to the convenience store on his snack run, he would try to recall what he had been dreaming about. He had a vague sense that the dreams were related or maybe it was just all the same dream. Whatever he was dreaming about, he always woke up tired. Weary in his bones.
He had locked up the bike and went into the blissful air conditioning of the 7-11. he paused briefly in front of the magazine display, his eye caught by a magazine of western-style interior decoration. The large pale empty rooms on the cover looked so restful and luxurious to him.
His own apartment was basically one room with a tiny bathroom and a counter for a kitchen. He had one large but barred window in the room that he had to keep open for any hope of getting air in the heat. Mostly he just lay flat on his bed, sticky and hot, unable to sleep well. He couldn’t leave the barred screen door open to the apartment hall open for a cross draft. Even if the barred door was locked, leaving the inside door open wasn’t a good idea. Ma didn't really know his neighbors in the old shitty building. And there hadn't ever been a breeze in the years he had lived there.
Ma didn’t live in a great area but it wasn’t too bad. He had no family here so it was less worry. He had found himself a girlfriend he was avoiding at the moment. She worked in headquarters in communications and business development. The cops had business development how very optimistic he thought.
Ma's girlfriend was nice but pushy. And she talked. The other drivers had tried to tease him when he had first started to date Shi but Ma simply wouldn't respond to their jibes. Then the teasing stopped after a while.
Shi was too low in the hierarchy for them to drive her thank the gods. But everyone knew his business immediately. As soon as he had asked her out for coffee all the drivers had known. No secrets in the break room.
She had a wonderful apartment that had room for two bedrooms, a living room and a tv, but she lived with an older auntie who hated him. Her apartment wasn’t an option at the moment for sleeping experiments. He wondered if he could sleep in the client car while he was waiting for something to happen.
He wanted to remember the dreams but instead found that his body ached when he woke up. His arms and legs felt stiff. As if he had been working hard, in a field or maybe running. Sitting in a car shouldn’t make you feel that way. Ma didn’t know if he needed a new job or if he needed a psychiatrist.
He found the aisle in the store with the canned coffee and then made his way to the counter to order the noodles for Chee-Ming. He got a cheap meat bun for himself. He could eat it while he biked back to Headquarters.
His phone rang while he was waiting for the noodles. As always his phone startled him when it rang in his jacket. It was his supervisor, wondering if he would take a car out. He could be back in 15 minutes. That would do. Ma forgot to ask who he was being assigned to.
Ma adjusted his hat, got Chee-Ming’s noodles and stepped back outside into the humid air. He stood in front of the 7-11 garbage bin. He looked up. He had tipped his head back to get the last bit of his coffee, his hat was slipping off and the plastic bag of Chee-ming’s food was awkwardly hanging next to him as he had left the bag around the wrist of the hand holding the can.
He saw the sliver of sky, and a flock of birds wheeling around in a large arc as they flew behind the office towers and apartment blocks. He wondered what had set them off. He normally never saw birds in the sky, only some sad dirty pigeons huddled on a window ledge. But never flying.
Ma walked back over to his bike, looping the chain around his neck as he unlocked. He rode back to the police building, plastic bags hanging from the handlebars bumping against his legs as he pedaled the bike slowly, no hands, chewing the last bits of his gristly pork bun.
+++
Ma dropped the plastic 7-11 bag on the table, nodding to Chee-ming. The portly man got up from the couch happily, rubbing his hands together.
“You got assigned to Pao. Have fun.” He slid the bag towards where he was sitting looking in the bag at what Ma had brought back and grabbing the chopsticks and sauce packets.
The room was now more crowded with drivers, coming off assignments and waiting for new ones. A new guy had commandeered the couch.
“Does the horse have anything to say today?” A harsh voice called out at him. One of the other older drivers turned and smiled at him thinly.
“No.” Ma responded, looking for the adjutant with the clipboard. The laughter continued around him as he made his way back out to the hall. He could hear Chee-ming saying something, making some joke about him. He had his noodles. He should be happy with the errand boy.
Ma adjusted his hat and tugged lightly on the hem of his jacket. He needed to check in to get his assignment. He was interested in Pao. She went to meetings, not just crime scenes. Also press conferences. He might run in to Shi there and he could figure out if auntie was going on any overnight visits in the next little while.
He worked his way through the crowded hall in front of the break room. He could see the adjutant down the hallway, tall and gangly, clutching his clipboard.
“Ma.” The adjutant didn’t have to raise his voice for Ma to hear him.
“Yes sir, I am here.”
The uniformed man looked down at the listing. “I have you down for a pickup in front. 12:35. You’ve had her before. Detective Pao.” He paused. “Don’t screw it up Ma. She could use you on a regular basis and then you’d get more assignments. You’re picking her up from the front driveway. Then going to Commercial and Technology. You know where you are going?”
Ma nodded. He signed off the clipboard where his name was listed and handed it back. “Yes sir.” He bowed and turned on his heel. Ma looked down at his hands. He headed off to the drivers’ washroom. He had gotten dirt under his nails somehow.
Later as he was driving carefully out of the clammy underground driver pool parking area up the tight spiral ramp, he noticed that the knuckle of his thumb had a thin line of brown dust in the creases. He wiped the back of his hand on his pants.
He wondered where Pao was going today. The break room had been relatively quiet with work related gossip. More idle chatter about sex and food than work.
He pulled up to headquarter’s front driveway with a few minutes to spare.
+++++
Ma was waiting washed, brushed and ready in the driveway at the front of the building. Holding his hat in his hand, he looked down at his boot. Dust. Strange. He stood awkwardly on one leg and brushed the toe of his boot on the back of his pant leg.
“Ma? You are Ma?” A woman’s voice asked him from the concrete stairs.
“Yes ma’am.” He straightened up. “I’ve driven you before once.”
“Ah. All you driver look the same from behind. The only thing different is the size of your necks.”
Pao was a slight woman dressed in pants and a jacket. Not in uniform. She had a purse and a briefcase . She walked towards the car and opened the door. She got in and closed the door.
Ma stood there a bit stunned. Normally he opened the door and took the briefcases, then handed them back in the car and closed the door.
“Driver? Are you okay? Let’s go.”
Paos voice came from the back seat.
Ma said startled, “Sure ma’am. No problem ma’am.” And opened the car door for himself.
“Air conditioning would be good.” Pao was closing her window.
“Certainly ma’am.” He leaned forward and turned on the air conditioning.
“You know where you are going?”
“Yes ma’am.” Ma concentrated on the road. He didn’t want to get caught looking at her in the rearview mirror.
He heard her shuffling papers from the briefcase. She was working on her phone he thought. Texting. He drove.
He thought he heard her stop working in the back seat.
“Hey driver?”
“Yes ma’am?”
“What’s your name? I forgot to ask.”
“I am Ma.” He didn’t look in the rear view mirror. Was she going to ask him? Probably, it was such a worn joke.
“That’s a good name for you.”
“What do you mean ma’am?”
“You’re a driver. Like in the old days. With carts.”
Ma exhaled. She hadn’t said it. No jokes about his name. He thought he did want to be assigned to her again.
They had arrived. He slid the car into the visitor’s spot underneath the concrete fortress. He parked the car and started to get out to open Pao’s door.
But by the time he had gotten himself out of the car, Pao had already started walking away from the car towards the elevator to the offices.
He stood there, unsure of what to do next. Pao turned back to him. “Oh sorry Ma, I forgot to ask. Do you want to come back in two hours or did you want to wait in the lobby?”
Ma ducked his head and tucked his hands behind his back. “I’ll wait down here ma’am.”
“Okay. Your choice.” She turned again and walk away without a second glance.
He stayed waiting, standing by the car, until she had walked into the building. He sighed with relief and turned back to the car. He noticed a small whirl of brown dust blowing off the pale roof.
He sat down in the driver’s seat and leaned his head back. He had become overcome with tiredness. He closed his eyes. He left the door open, he had parked in an end spot, he needed the air in the underground garage.
He hear a bird call. He opened his eyes but he didn’t immediately see the dashboard. Or rather he saw reddish clay and a dusty track. Overlaid somehow on what he was seeing in front of him. It felt like he couldn’t entirely focus his vision. Like he was dreaming. He closed his eyes again willing it away.
He came back to himself when his phone rang. It startled him, buzzing in his jacket pocket. He bumped his head as he lost his balance and fell out of the car.
He stood up and checked his phone. Shi. He answered. He had hopes.
“Wei.”
“Ma? Is that you? Are you working?”
“I’m working. Are you well?”
Shi laughed, “So formal Ma. Call me later. Auntie is going to Macau this weekend. I want you to come over.”
“Sure, sure.”
Ma could see Pao walking out of the elevator. He couldn’t have overslept. He barely closed his eyes and he was still tired.
“Shi. I have to go. I’m working.”
“Call me. I love…”
Ma had hung up.