NEW YORK GIRLS

Okay, listen up, Rock. I'm only going to say any of this once. No fucking repeats, no raising your hand for questions. Leave this one to Teach. Good?

So you really wanna know about me? You wanna know how a little Chinese girl ends up becoming a hardass like me?

Don't make that face, Rock. New rule: no pity. I'm serious, man. If you give me one more 'oh-how-sad-poor-girl' look, I'm walking out that fuckin' door. Hear me? Good.

Chinatown wasn't always like this. I mean, shit, it's been full of Chinese for probably centuries, but it also used to be a real warzone. I'm not just talking about the 70s and 80s. I'm talking about some real kung-fu showdowns in the black-and-white days. You remember all those old guys smoking cigs and drinking tea in the mahjong parlor? They all used to be real fucking killers.

They all came over from China and made their own gangs in Chinatown, they called 'em Tongs back then. They're pretty much like Triads. They'd do normal mob shit, gambling, protection rackets, selling opium, all that. They kept the cops paid off and used to run Chinatown like they were warlords, each block split up and fighting.

But a few generations pass, and the whole crew in the Tong starts getting rich. Yeah, everyone in Chinatown is a poor-as-shit immigrant when they first get out here, but there were so many of them that the money really adds up. There were so many Chinese trying to gamble, get laid, get high, and all of that money went to the Tongs. Once there was enough of it in their pockets, they realized it wasn't worth it to go chopping each other up over street corners. Instead, there was a whole generation of gangsters who wanted to go straight. They bought property, made investments, whatever. They let the money pile up.

But you know how rich guys all are. They just wanna look good, feel like kings or princes or whatever. That's impossible when you and all your boys have been running a mob for years. And if you're getting old, maybe you can't keep up the kung-fu routine against all the kids trying to take your block. A lot of kids came in here from Hong Kong too old to learn good English, and they ended up dropping out of school. They knew they had no fucking chance of making it in America, so they formed their own teen gangs.

Okay, now you're wondering why I'm telling you all this. Rock, you asked for my fucking story. This is N.Y.C- where I come from is the biggest goddam part of my story.

So where was I? Fuck. Oh yeah, the Chinatown Tongs. They wanted to go straight but still keep skin in the game. So they decided they were gonna use the kids to be gangsters and do the dirty work. The Tongs could keep their wrinkled asses clean in the tea house while the kids were out on the street keeping the money rolling.

The kids would get a little pocket change and get to stay in free apartments. But they would also be carrying the guns and the drugs whenever shit started. The Tongs could keep the cops paid off, so they kept making money, and now they weren't risking so much.

Problem was, there was more than one gang. The earliest one the Tongs used was the White Eagles, just a bunch of immigrant kids. Then the Flying Dragons showed up. Then the Ghost Shadows. Real convenient for the Tongs. If one gang didn't play by the rules, they just started paying the other gang, and the kids would take care of the rest by fighting it out.

This is where I come in. Or my parents do, at least. I don't really know who my mom was. I mean I don't know her real name, the Chinese one. I only know her American one. But my dad had a name, he was real proud of it. He liked to say he was in a gang, that he had contacts in the Tongs. Piece of shit.

I mean, he wasn't really lying about being in a gang back in the day, but I bet you a million bucks no one in the Tongs would have recognized him. His gang was one of the ones that got run off pretty early, before the Ghost Shadows got big. I know cause he had a few pictures of the glory days, and he looked like a kid in all of them.

I remember this one black-and-white picture he had of my mom. Her hair's long and she's got a streak of blonde in it to show she had a man in a gang. She even had her own jacket sewed up to match his. He was in that picture too, crouched down trying to act cool for the camera. What a fucking loser.

You wanna know the year I was born? 1968 - Year of the Monkey. Pops thought he didn't have to use a rubber, he was such hot shit. Barely 17 or 18, the fucking idiot. I know I was an accident because he told me himself every time he got too much to drink. I guess he thought he could be a big man after years in his kiddie gang.

When my dad's gang went bust, my mom and him both had to get normal Chinatown jobs. You know, shit jobs. Waiting tables and making clothes. I don't know when my mom died, but it was the work that brought it on. That's actually what got her, she caught TB. Tuberculosis, in the year 1972. Can you fucking believe that? She got smuggled across the globe to the 'best country on Earth' and she fucking dies because she was sewing jeans in some basement sweatshop for 16 hours a day.

I don't remember any of the time she was alive. All I know is Pops kept me when he shoulda just gave my ass up for adoption. He was a shit parent.

Some old lady from our floor would watch me in the early years. Probably got paid a few bucks too, maybe. All of that was over by first-grade. I guess he wanted to keep that money for himself. A real greedy asshole. He got worse as time went on, too. At least for the first few years there was bread and baloney, right? I wasn't going to starve, but sometimes there wasn't anything worth eating.

He started hitting the bottle more and more. When he was sober, he acted like he couldn't give a shit about me. But as soon as he got to drinking, he'd be all "Becky this" and "Becky that". Always asking for shit and messing with me. Never giving me anything but grief. But that taught me to take care of myself.

Maybe it coulda worked out like that till I got old enough to clear out, but he started getting angrier as I grew up. Like every time he looked at me, it got him pissed.

And look, I'm not saying I was a perfect goody-two-shoes or nothing. And maybe the first few times it was just him getting out of control. Just bruises, you know, accidents. But then he starts bringing out the belt every night. Fuck!

Hey, you got a cig? Thanks. Well, I guess the next part of the story is that I start staying out late to keep away from him. Start missing class, can't focus, whatever. I stopped showing up to school at all before they could kick me out. Quit cold turkey. Didn't get my last report card, but it probably was all just Fs.

So there I was, 14 years old with no one watching my back and without a single dollar in my pocket. The gangs were always looking for kids, though. So I figured 'why not' and signed up for one. Hahaha, shit. Why'd I say "sign up"? There wasn't any paperwork. Nah, what I did to get into the gang was go to the park and pick a fight with a kid my age where the older guys could see me. Had to show them I was willing to fuck people up.

Kid was named Ricky Lo. I took a few good hits from him first, but I was used to that, so I stayed standing. After he got tired, it was my turn to beat the shit out of him. Just kept hitting him in the face 'till blood was coming out his nose. The kids from the gang noticed. They thought I was a boy at first. I kept my hair cut short back then. I would do the job myself with scissors so I could pass on the street and not get creeps after me.

All of a sudden, I'm getting guys on my block asking about a boy that looked like me. I played it cool, acted like I didn't want to join. But eventually, they got me in. These guys worked for the Tongs, and they always needed younger kids on the streets to keep an eye out for any trouble. Cops, other gangs, whatever. They didn't give me a piece yet though. I was just a lookout.

That lasted maybe half a year. They had apartments rent-free from the Tongs, but I knew trying to sleep in there while the rest of the gang was around would be worse than staying over at my pops place. I knew how Mom ended up. Maybe I was wrong, but c'mon. By that point, they all knew I was a girl, but I wasn't going to put out for any of them. That's fucking dangerous around those kinds of guys. I go to sleep in one of those places, I'd probably wake up being everyone's girl.

Pops really wasn't that bad for a few years there. He was probably boozing so hard he forgot about me for a while. Yeah, I spent a couple of years like that at least. Being a lookout for the Tongs, doing some pickpocketing, shoplifting, all that. Then one day, a while after I'm 16, it changes. The old guys in the gang, they had to be at least in their twenties by now, they take me and another kid my age and say it's time we start carrying guns. No more being lookouts- it was us that'd be doing the big business with them now, the other kids would stick with the baby work.

I still remember that first shot. They said to go ahead and blast some fucking pigeons that were just flapping around by the trash. I was up first, and I don't know, something was wrong with me. I thought I was ready to be a gunman but when I pointed the revolver, my arms turned shaky as shit.

They all just started laughing, so I tried to stop that shit and pull the trigger, but it was hard. My finger felt too light, like I couldn't squeeze hard enough, the aim jumping around the whole time cause of how hard I was shaking. Once the shot finally went off, I didn't hit shit. They called me a pussy and said I missed the birds on purpose.

I was gonna prove 'em wrong. You get it, right? I was just a teenager with a little .38, but when I got that iron in my hand, I wanted to use it. Goddamn, I wanted to be a badass. The older kids had all the respect, the ones who had done a few stick-ups or seen some action. No one could try shit on them cause of that, so that's who I wanted to be.

Fuck being 'Becky' and just sitting, waiting to get old and then turn into some waitress or massage whore. I wanted people to be scared of me. I wanted them to watch out when they saw me coming.

So I started practicing, Rock. I would wait until 2 in the morning and find one of those blocks that was just abandoned and falling apart. I would set some cans up under a streetlight and go like a dozen steps back. Only carried enough ammo to shoot a few each time, but I got better with each visit.

But I didn't tell anyone I was doing this. If you want to be cool, you can't look like you're trying. That's your problem Rock, no offense. Sometimes it's easy to tell you're trying. Well, at least you're not as bad as that one fucking guy, you know, the one with Chinglish and Sawyer.

Fuck, I got off track. None of my training mattered anyway. All we'd use the guns for back then was robbing stores and mugging guys. No one cares if you can aim or not then, you just gotta sound threatening and put the iron up in their face. I got a big rep from that. What other Chinese girl was running around robbing guys back then?

But the day always comes when you gotta back your rep. Ain't that some shit. One night, we were watching the Bayard Street gambling house. There were some big players in there, I'm talking more than 100 grand on the table.

Of course, that's the exact night our rivals roll up. Yeah, remember all those older kids I thought were the real fucking deal? They ran as soon as they saw the car. I didn't.

I had the little six-shooter in my jacket pocket- we thought it was cool to wear those old army jackets from 'Nam back then- so I reached in the pocket and as soon as the first fucker stepped out his car, I lit him up. He had a fuckin' tommy gun on him, but I didn't see that, just fired two shots at him, dead center of his body. Only one hit him, but he fucking dropped right away. All his buddies just drove off when I got him. The gambling house was saved. The Tongs got to keep playing pretend.

Well, it made me hero of the night, anyway. It was only something like 8 P.M, so plenty of people saw me. The guy I shot didn't die or anything, but the whole gang, fuck it, the whole neighborhood knew what went down that night. I was trying to lay low on Doyers when the head of the gang shows up in his nice car, gives me a couple hundred, tells me I'm the real deal, but then gets all serious and says I had to lay low. He had some relatives in Florida who would keep me for a while. And yeah, with all the praise I was getting, I was feeling like I earned the vacation.

So I go back home to my shithead pops' apartment. I had a few things there I'd want to pack before leaving. I wasn't saying goodbye or whatever to him, I just needed my clothes and shit. Of course he's there, probably fucking black-out drunk and it isn't even 10 p.m. I hear him say some shit to me, like always.

Fuck. I don't know, I don't know what the fuck I was thinking. But when I hear him trying to talk shit, I square up to him and try to stare him down. I felt like such a hardcore bitch, even though my gun was already stashed somewhere else. Goddammit.

So I look him in the eyes and I tell him "Fuck you." It was the first time I think I ever said shit back to him. And he gets this look on his face I never saw before- angrier than ever- like I had actually made him mad then for the first time in my life, and all those other times he hit me were just cause he felt like it.

I'm staring him down, feeling like a hardass and maybe still a little high from shooting that guy. So I don't see Pops swinging the bottle at me.

The glass broke when it hit me. I didn't get cut, you can see I don't have the scars on my face. But it really fucked me up. My nose got busted and my brain got rocked. So I guess that's when a great night turned into the shittiest one of my life.

I don't know what it was that got me so bad, all the other times I've been hit, I never cried. No tears, even when I had black eyes and a nosebleed. But that night, fuck! That night, I wanted to bawl my eyes out. Wasn't on the rag or nothing. Just couldn't handle it. Thought he couldn't try shit like that anymore once I shot my first man. But that's the second time that piece of shit taught me a life lesson.

Wanna know what the lesson was? Remember this one: Don't trust anything to keep you safe unless its right there in your hand. You feel me, Rock? If it's not in your hands, it's not yours. I didn't have my gun on me, and I was acting like I did. That was the problem.

Whatever, the story ain't done. The night gets a whole lot fucking worse after that. Imagine it: I've got a nosebleed, my head's aching like its broken in half, it's fucking cold outside. It must have been December, but a fucking freezing one.

I was sitting on a curb just fucking shook up, and that's when I hear a NYPD squad car roll by. The light comes on and they check my face, then drive off. I thought that was normal. Plenty of Chinatown cops wouldn't give a shit about some beat up girl.

But this is where it gets real fucked up, Rock. The cops only go around the block one more time and pull up again. I start getting worried. The NYPD don't have a humanitarian image, right? It turns out they're looking for someone like me, goddamn it. Chinese girl, about my height, wearing my jacket. She shot some other guy that night.

Fuck, man, I didn't get a chance to change my clothes after the shooting. Too busy getting glassed by my own dad. I fit the description, so they put the cuffs on me and started driving down to the station.

Look, normally I would have been playing it smart, staying quiet, saying I hadn't been there, all of that. But that night I wasn't thinking right. So I start cussing the cops out, calling them limpdicks, fucking' pigs, whatever. I called them anything I could think of. But they weren't getting mad. The cop driving was just silent. But his partner was laughing, I shoulda seen it coming. Big fucking creep with a mustache. Motherfucker was Greek or something. He's just laughing the whole time.

So they bring me into booking. I say I wanna see my lawyer, but they don't care. They stick me in a holding cell. No one comes for hours, I start getting thirsty, and my arms are going to sleep cause I'm still cuffed behind my back.

And that's when the mustache cop comes back. He ignores whatever I have to say and tells me he'll be straight-up.

He says the Tongs pay the precinct plenty of money to look the other way for most of the shit kids like me got up to. And the guy I shot is going to make a recovery within days. He makes it seem like I'm not going to be getting the rap for it. I start getting relieved. Shit. Shit shit shit.

But then the cop starts laughing a little. He thinks it's funny, this next part. He says I gotta pay somehow. The law got broken and I got caught, so the rules are, I gotta pay. Fuck. I tell him to take the $200 in my jacket, but no, this fucker says, that's evidence and he can't just take evidence. There's gotta be some other kind of punishment.

Aw Godammit, fuck. Fuck! Jesus, Rock, I still see his fucking face, man, I can still remember being there and knowing what he wanted right away. Do you understand? He knew there was no evidence, he knew he was paid to look the other way, and he still cuffed me. The bastard passed me on the street and decided he wanted me after all. Just so he could sit there in the cell with me, just staring at me cause he knew I was helpless and he could do whatever he wanted.

I knew what was coming so I cussed him out. He didn't respond, just got up, his face just blank like a robot. Then the fucker just cocked his hand back and punched me in the stomach. I fall on the ground and he's kicking the shit out of me. Then when I can't fucking move, he- he- goddammit, man, God damn it, I couldn't do shit. I couldn't- I, fuck- I couldn't. Jesus, man, Jesus!

Fifteen fucking years it's been. No, Rock, I'm good now, thanks. We got anything harder than water around here? I need a drink. Nah, don't go out. The story isn't over. Just gimme another smoke.

The fucking bastard leaves me laying there on the floor like a rag, but I get my shit together by the afternoon. They let me go, but say they're keeping the money as evidence. Cops are like that, man, they're all like that, corrupt as shit, lazy, just waiting for the easy score.

My first stop out of holding was my stash. I grabbed my gun and every single bullet I could scrounge up. I was moving like I was automatic. I didn't have anything left in my head by then. Just walking around like some zombie. Everything felt kind of faded out.

I didn't even know what I was doing. I can barely remember any of it, anyways. I was in a daze, head just spinning. When I get back to Pops, he's just waking up from blacking out. He hears me come in.

"Becky..." he says, like he forgot he broke a bottle on my face last night. "Becky, get me another beer."

I don't get that beer. I just spaced out for a few seconds. He's cussing me out the whole time, says I'm too slow, a fucking whore. That's when I get a pillow from my bedroom. I think I was done listening by that fucking point. So pillow in one hand, gun in the other one, I step into in his room and it stinks, just filled all the smells of an alkie.

I drop that pillow right on him, push the revolver down into it, and I pull the trigger. Muffled the shot a little, and the bullet still blew his fucking head open.

That's something that I'm never gonna feel sorry for, Rock. I don't care if it was actual murder. Fuck justification, self-defense, any of that. Bastard had it coming. After everything he did to me... fuck.

I spent half a year down in Florida after that. Bosses' family were nice enough to some girl they weren't even related to. They ran smack outta New York down the East Coast. Had enough money from that that they could do pretty much anything they wanted. First time I went diving, they taught me how.

But I came back to N.Y.C eventually. Don't know why. This is just some place I grew up in. No ma, no pops, why should I come back? I couldn't even trust the gang I was in. But they paid good enough, and they gave me guns and people to shoot and a rep on the street. So I stuck with them.

I think I'm eighteen or nineteen when I ruin it for good. I see the fucking cop that got me that one night. The fucking big Greek with the mustache. I see him going into one of those bakeries we got in Chinatown. His partner stays with the car, on the other side of the street.

I remember it being all kinda slow-motion when I step inside. I know I was angry. The girl behind the counter recognizes me coming through the door with my gun out and freezes. All the locals in the store felt what was coming. Even the cop did.

He turns around, still holding his meat buns, and my gun is already in his face. He remembers me, and I fucking remember him. I let him get scared first before I shoot him right in his fucking eye. The bullet blows out the back of his head. He falls like the useless pile of meat he was.

I plugged him a couple more times below the belt and then ran out the back of the store into the alley. My Chinatown days were done, but it was fucking worth it, just to kill that motherfucker.

I moved onto Little Italy for a bit, did some hits for the Cosa Nostra guys. They loved the surprise factor- most of them didn't know they were giving girls guns in Chinatown, so I could get real close before they had a clue.

When I got bored of that I started moving up the Bowery. Plenty of places to hole up and I could rob any cash I needed. After a while, I got a rep and people wanted me in their crew for serious stuff. No banks, but I stole from all sorts of places in the city.

You're probably wondering how I fucked that up. I got unlucky one night. Got shot. The rest of the crew left me to bleed out, and the cops ID'ed me right away. Even across the river, they knew me. I was that chink bitch that popped one of them a few years back. As soon as I was out of surgery, they had charges ready for me for their cop buddy that got iced.

The case was a real fuckin' homerun for them. Eyewitnesses, the murder weapon, everything. I got convicted real quick. My lawyer was trying to make a sob story outta my life- no one on the jury bought it. The prosecutor called me the worst of the worst. Maybe he wasn't wrong.

I admit, I went a little crazy in those years after Chinatown. It was nothing but me and my gun and whatever I could steal. I didn't give a fuck who got killed, what got broke, who got hurt. Maybe I should have been sent to the big house after everything I did back then. But no way in hell was I gonna let them put me away for life just for killing a piece of shit like that cop.

So I see my chance while they're transporting me for sentencing and I break out, make it down to Newark and stow away on a cargo ship. I'm lucky the crew is short a few guys and needs deckhands. And I had a gun. They were going into some real pirate-infested waters out in Asia. I said I would protect them, and they let me ride for free.

I ditched them in Bangkok. Heard it was a good place for people like me. That's where I met Dutch. Something like five years after that, I met you. And now you know all you need to know about me and where I came from. Real fucking sob story, huh?

You know where I come from now, Rock. You know why I'm like this. It would have been real nice if it had gone another way. But that's just another what-if. It's fucking useless.

What matters is I got exactly what I dreamed of as a kid. No one fucks with me now, I got the respect of everyone, plenty of money, no one tells me what to do without paying for it.

But my hearing's busted for life, I've been shot and stabbed and just torn the fuck up so much that I can't tell where all the pain comes from. And no matter how much tequila I drink, no matter how many bullets I shoot, there's nothing that actually makes living each day worth it. Yeah, a gunfight is exciting, but when the smoke clears and my ears stop ringing and the room starts filling with the smell of bodies, it just... shit- it doesn't feel good. Nothing ever made me feel good, Rock. Outside of what I need to survive, it's all just been distractions.

Even when I met you... I don't know. Was it a mistake when I got you on the crew? I wanted you like I wanted a new gun, or a new bottle, or a new T.V. It's like when people pick flowers. I saw something I liked in you, and I wanted to rip it out just so I could put it in a glass and watch it die.

Sounds kinda fucked, huh. But you wouldn't be my flower. You're my pain in the ass. I never wanted to come back here, Rock. But fucking Christ, if I'm not looking down at a street I know like the back of my hand.

I thought I had it made in Roanapur before you showed up, like I would be the same old me forever and ever with the same old problems until I died. But I'm changing, maybe just a little bit. I don't know what that means. Shit. I've already said enough. I'm just going to shut the fuck up now.

What are you pointing at the clock for? Yeah, I know its past midnight, what, is it your bedtime?

Oh. Jesus, Rock, really? Yeah, it's my birthday. Big whoop. I'm 30 now. Happy birthday to me. C'mon, you got something for me? A present, maybe? Come here...