Reckoner
after kafka.
//because we separate like ripples on a blank shore//
It was a force of habit, he had to admit. He had that automatic protective instinct in him that made him lash out occasionally without reason or regret. Did you just touch my sister? I'll kill you. You look at her? I'll kill you. I swear, I'll kill all of you. Yeah, that's right, you can't even look. Not only will I beat your sorry face in, but she'll be helping me. So quit looking. I'll. Kill. You. It was illogical, really, considering Sue could more than easily handle herself if the occasion arose, but still, it comforted him that he knew kung fu, since in a pure brute fistfight, he could win with just his right hand and the back of his left knee.
Although, this didn't do much in the way of handling things in the family, those awkward relationships that sprung up between them. That was the thing about being adopted: there's no real blood relation, which makes it perfectly legal and incredibly weird for everyone involved. It was weird Tobey liked Sue, and everyone knew it. Tobey was, in essence, their brother. And not. And that didn't even take into account that Kong Li was allegedly his father, but that was kind of a minor fact since nobody else in Chinatown really knew. Well, there's that, definitely, but it was mostly that Tobey could probably have been related to Sue and Sid in another life – were related, for all they cared because that was the way they had grown, they knew each other. It was also weird Sue liked Barney. For one thing, Barney was an idiot. A class-A idiot. And that didn't take into account that Barney was basically their – he didn't quite know the word for it: their victim? their village idiot? their court jester? Something to the effect of a cymbal-clapping wind-up monkey. Sid disapproved. But his disapproval didn't do anything to change it, either, since after all they were all old enough to make choices, to understand where the lines between waver and change – time has brought them together and torn them apart in some ways, turned friends into siblings and siblings into lovers, and has kept them from telling the truth about love and what was right and wrong, and made the differences indistinguishable.
Somewhere in there, something had broken, broken. And that was why, Sid realized, his deepest fear was the loss of strength. Pure brute force has held them together, kept them family and nothing more. But it was those forbidden hurts in them, the fickle heart that so mercilessly beats and reminds Tobey of his father's sins, keeps Sue's childhood just beyond grasp, that keeps them doubtful in the darkness that hides among the memory of orphanages, of the things that were collapsing – Sid knew his bare fists would not save them, that someday his strength would fail him and forgiveness and kung fu would not keep Sue safe, would not keep Tobey from falling in love, would not save Chinatown. Sid knew that someday their fears, their real fears, would find them, crush them, and he would not be strong enough to save them – all the instincts, habits, logical conclusions, they would be all for naught. And when that day came, Sid knew he would not be strong enough to forgive himself.