And The Shaman Sings On

AND THE SHAMAN SINGS ON

"Stop pounding on the door, will ya? Damn, I'm up already!" Jerry
shouts from his bed.
An annoying little voice replies, "Mom says 'get up and go Ua Neeb at
Uncle James's house.' She says to tell you it's 11 in the afternoon and
any good Hmong man is up by now."

"I'm up, gawl, go away," Jerry growls back. Little sister leaves his
door giggling, satisfied that she has disturbed her brother. Jerry
stretches like a snake and groans, half sober and pissed at being waked
so early. He forces himself to sit up, elbows resting on his knees and
hands shielding his face from the bright sunlight shooting through the
window. He rubs his eyes gently and turns toward the mirror that leans
against the wall across from his bed. He sees the reflection staring
back at him with compassionate eyes. It seems to be asking, "Jerry, why
are you hiding from me?" Not seeing very clearly, Jerry rubs his eyes
again and focuses deeper into himself through his reflection.

He is the oldest of four children. He stands about 5' 7", tall for a
Hmong. He turned 27 last March; at least that's the day he celebrates
his birthday. His parents say some idiot Thai UN worker gave them the
same birth date with a different year for each kid when they registered
to come to the United States. He'll graduate from college in June with
a double major in computer science and chemical engineering. Scrawny
like a refugee, he barely eats, but he talks like a know-it-all. His
dorm room walls are covered with naked women, but he is shy as a snail
and has never slept with a woman. He tells everyone he is not a virgin,
and, somehow, he has convinced them. On the Internet, Hmong newsgroups
label him as a "whitewashed Hmong Brainy Smurf from the University of
Nebraska." He knows many think he is an arrogant jerk, but others like
him because sometime he provides them with programming tips-and LSD.
"That's what I've learned in chemical engineering," he once told a
friend.

The moment passes and Jerry all dressed up, stretches and walks to the
kitchen. His mother is cooking at the stove in her white apron with the
green pickle print. He whines, "Ma, I don't wanna go to the Ua Neeb, I
don't like all that jumping around, mumbling stuff."

Before his mother can say anything, there is a "Ha, ha. You think
you're so smart, but you don't even know Ua Neng." His little sister
looks up from the Pokemon video she is watching with a taunting smile.
She wants to let him know that she knows more about Hmong culture than
he does.

"Zip your hard-drive. No one ask you. And move away from the TV before
you poke the Pokemon," he yells back. "Mom, look at how close she is to
the TV!"

"Ma, Jerry called me a hard-drive-it means a stupid rock," she protests
to her mother, of course leaving out the part that she had been too
close to the TV.

"Jerry, would you act like your age? And, Mary, take your face out of
the TV before you wear glasses as thick as Jerry's." Then she
continues," Listen, son, your father called and wanted you to hurry up,
bring this rice here, and go pick up your cousin Tou, on your way to
Uncle James's house."

"Ma I don't believe in that crap. Why can't you people just go to
church? I am so sick of this stuff. That's why I hate coming home. Evil
spirits here, evil spirits there. Woo! You can't even whistle at night
because you're talking to spirits. That's in Laos. Here the only evil
spirits are the IRS, KKK and the Republicans."

His irritated mother begins hollering at him in Hmong, orchestrating
her sentences like a conductor with her Hmong knife. "Son, if you don't
want to come home, don't. But don't stand there and tell me what you
know of our culture. You can go to church, dye your hair blonde, speak
English and marry a white woman, but your yellow skin will always be
yellow."

She pauses to catch a breath and then continues, "Get all the education
you can, but white people will always look at you as a Hmong." She
pauses a second time, sweat forming at her hairline, her face in a
frown. Tears emerge in her voice, graveling her words like night rain
on tin rooftops in the refugee camp. With a thousand efforts, she
manages to continue softly, "So you might as well accept what you are.
Many of your uncles and cousins died fighting so you can be here. Don't
waste their lives trying to be someone you're not."

Jerry grabs the aluminum tray full of rice from the counter and races
out the door, not saying a word and not looking at his distressed
mother. Shocked and confused by her outburst, he can't figure out the
meaning of her lecture. He seats himself in his car, and for a second
it seems that something isn't right about today. He remembers last
fall, when a want-to-be gypsy classmate on campus had warned him, "On a
spring day, you will participate in a ritual way with an animal and old
man dancing on wooden stool." He shakes away his bad thoughts, starts
the car and speeds towards Tou's.
***
Tou is waiting outside his family's wore-down,
cockroach-the-size-of-big-toe, public housing apartment in north
Minneapolis. He looks happy to see Jerry and happier to leave the
ghetto for a while. He knows there will be good food and beer at Uncle
James's house.

"Sup man, how've you been?" Tou greets Jerry as he closes the car door
behind himself.

"Nothing much. Just school and all. Should be done in a couple of
weeks."

"Oh yeah? You gonna be makin' a load of money with your doctor's
degree."

"It's computer science and chemical engineering," Jerry corrects slowly
with pride.

"Who cares, same thing. Hey, man, you heard Chao got killed,
right?"

"Who?" Jerry asks.

"Chao. You r'member da little guy that used ta live down the block on
Bryant Ave? When we were kids, he helped you beat up that black kid who
stole yo bike."
Collecting his memories, Jerry says slowly, "Yeah, the one who always
looked dirty and wore the same things everyday? That kid, I never
understood why he didn't wear any shoes. How'd he die?"

"There's a shit load of rumors. Some elders said when he robbed
Maylee's house; her father toasted him with a 12-gauge shotgun. But
people who roll with Maylee say Chao got killed while trying to defend
her from her crazy old man. I don't know, man, but I went to his
funeral. There weren't even 20 people there. It's awfully sad how some
people are born but never really get to live."

For a second Jerry feels his eyes tear, but his life can't relate to
this news so he quickly changes the subject. "Man, this Ua Neeb really
sucks. I don't see why we gotta be doing this shit, you know? Maybe
when the entire old Hmong generation dies, we won't have to worry about
it."

Tou disagrees and shakes his head. "I don't know about Uncle James. I
mean that dude has been sick as hell ever since he came back from Laos.
For a week now the doctor can't do shit. They don't even know what's
wrong with him. So your dad and the relatives decided to request for
him to be released from the hospital. They figured that maybe
performing an Ua Neeb might cure him. Remember before you went to
school last semester? Uncle James was fat and all? Now he's in bed so
small and tiny, just lying there motionless, like he's dead
already."

Hearing Tou's description of their dying uncle, Jerry becomes quiet and
begins to think about when he had last seen Uncle James. It has been
months. Truth be told, he's had some pretty mixed feelings about his
uncle. On the one hand, he respected Uncle James for his bravery during
the war in Laos. His uncle had led his platoon deep into the jungle
after receiving orders to rescue downed pilots. Other stories told how
his uncle protected bunkers and command posts from the Viet-Con without
air supports for days.

But Jerry knows that even though he has respect for his uncle, they've
never been close. Fact is, they'd had a few run-ins during his teenage
years. The last one was when he was fourteen, and he'd been caught
stealing a computer game. Uncle James had lectured him for hours. His
father had driven him all over town to each of his uncles' houses, and
all the rest of the uncles had encouraged Jerry to be a good Hmong boy.
Though he was embarrassed, the lectures were pretty painless-until
Uncle James.

There in his old two-bedroom apartment, Uncle James had lectured on and
on until he'd felt like he was his uncle's POW. He was interrogated
about everything from gang associations to whether dating a white girl
had made him a thief. One thing his uncle had said stuck out in his
mind even after all these years. Uncle James said in Hmong, "In Laos,
our children listen to us because we can discipline them. Here, if we
smack their hands for stealing, the children call the police on us. It
is this society, with no respect and discipline that creates people
like you. In Laos, if anyone steals from me, they will eat my
bullets!"

All these years later, Jerry can still feels in his stomach how his
uncle had ground his dignity into the dirt. He had looked to his father
for compassion, but he received none. He had started to cry
uncontrollably as his uncle stood there with crossed arms. Uncle James
actually appeared happy that he'd broken Jerry down with his
interrogation. Even today, words from his uncle's lecture follow him.
You might say they've been a mixed blessing. He had worked very hard to
prove his uncle's words wrong, and he was a better man for it. At the
same time, those harsh words have caused him to reject who he is and
where he's come from.

One funny thing about Uncle James was that he still believed in the old
legends. There was one about the "Hidden Gold of Mount Horn" that he
talked about a lot. In the legend, there was a mountain that would cast
a bullhorn-like shadow on one of the neighboring mountains once every
twenty-five years. Wherever that horn was projected, that was where
gold could be found. Uncle James was one of the few men who'd crossed
the region a quarter of a century before. He and his platoon firmly
believed they'd seen the projected horn for just an instant. Although
some of the others had gone back to retrieve the gold, none had been
heard from since. They had all failed to discover the secret to
recovering the hidden treasure-a fortune hidden away by Chinese monks
thousands of years ago. For years, Uncle James had bragged to his wife
and family that he was going to go back to Laos and recover his
gold.

The two cousins pull up in front of Uncle James' house. And Jerry
shakes himself free of his thoughts. Always the know-it-all, he starts
sorting out all the knowledge he's ever collected about health care
from Dateline NBC to the CDC website. He says, "Well, what do the
doctors say? I mean, maybe the guy picked up malaria or even some kind
of STD while he was in Laos."
***
Tou and Jerry get out of the car and walk up the front stairs and into
the house. As Jerry looks around, he sees that Uncle James's house,
which is decorated with pictures of Hmong General Vang Yang, is filled
with both young and old people. He can hear them talking bits and
pieces about what has happened to his uncle. His father comes over,
takes the tray of rice and hands it to a girl in her 20s. Jerry walks
upstairs, following the chanting of the shaman. Everyone is busy doing
chores, and he is disappointed when no one seems to notice that the
big, important college man has arrived.

Jerry sees the old, round shaman with a rag over his face, each hand
holding an iron ring wrapped with a thick red string. The shaman is
bouncing up and down chanting, singing Hmong songs and yelling out
"brrrr toy!" every now and then. In front of the shaman is a little
table with a bowl of rice with an egg stuck into it, two candles,
smelly incenses and a bowl of water. Directly behind the shaman is a
prepared raw hog placed neatly on a plastic sheet with a string around
its neck. There are two chairs, one on either side of the shaman,
almost as if he is trying to prevent someone from going between him and
his little table of tools. At the shaman's feet is a cymbal with a
cheap drumstick and a pair of split cow horns.

Jerry thinks to himself, "If he is going to bounce up and down like
that for two hours, he's the one who is going to be seeing
demons."
Jerry walks to his Uncle's room, opens the door and enters it. He
notices how cold the room feels, colder then it should be. No one else
is in the room, and Jerry feels out of touch with the people who fill
the rest of the house.

Uncle James is lying absolutely still. He has fallen prey to an unknown
illness, and he alone is carrying the secret of why he is dying. Jerry
looks into his uncle's eyes to see through the window to his soul, but
his uncle's eyes are dull, starring blankly at the ceiling. Jerry
stands beside him, hearing only the loud beep of the heart
monitor.

Jerry reaches to touch his uncle, but a cool breeze rushes through him.
The hair on his arm rises like jungle ants dancing to storm clouds. His
instincts tell him something isn't right about being in his uncle's
death room. Suddenly, the door opens behind him and Jerry's heart jumps
to the ceiling and back, the beat bouncing around like formless
particles. He just stops himself from screaming like a frightened
little boy.

"Dang, man, your dad's been looking for you, dude," says Tou.

Catching his breath and reorganizing himself without letting Tou see
that he'd just gotten the wit scared out of him, Jerry replies, "What
does he want? I was just trying to analyze why Uncle James is such a
sick man."

"Aight well, I think your old man just wants you to go watch the 'neeb'
because the shaman is really rowdy and almost came unbalanced a couple
of times."
As they leave the room, Tou adds, "Dude, I've never seen a shaman so
trance. I think something is really fucked-up so be careful, aight
man?"
***
Jerry sits on the left side of the shaman, watching him and trying
without success to understand his spirit language. Tou is sitting on
the other side of the room, where he is focusing more on a Chinese
movie playing on the VCR than on the shaman. Jerry notices the shaman
is pouncing faster and faster. The faster he moves, the more his table
of tools rattle and shake, vibrating like a lawn mover nearly out of
fuel. He looks so cold that his fingers are white at the knuckles, but
he is sweating at the same time. Jerry didn't care to inform anyone. He
doesn't want to be here. He feels out of place and almost invisible. He
sees the shaman's candle moving closer and closer to the edge of table.
He knows in a minute it will fall unto the carpet. Always looking to be
the center of attention, Jerry figures he'll grab the candle and be a
hero for saving the carpet.

As Jerry predicts, the candle tips and, flame first, falls towards the
thick carpet directly in front of the shaman. Jerry jumps from his
chair, his right hand reaching for the candle. Before he can reach it,
a tremendous force hits him. The shaman and Jerry explode in different
directions. Jerry flies backwards and lands on a chair, which breaks
apart into pieces. The shaman ricochets over the pig and hits the wall
beside it head first. The last thing Jerry hears before everything goes
black is the shaman's wife yelling in the Hmong tongue, "Our mother,
why are you so stupid, son?"

At first, the people in the room seem more concerned about the broken
chair than about Jerry. Some complain about how stupid he was to jump
in the shaman's path. All good Hmong know that you never cross the path
of a shaman because if you do, you can kill his soul.

The shaman's wife, little but with a commanding voice, orders Jerry's
dad to take a mouthful of water from a bowl sitting on the table of
tools and spit it onto the shaman from the four corners of the
ceremony. She tells Tou to bang on the cymbal "louder, and faster" and
helps her husband off the floor and back onto the wooden stool. His
chanting was out of rhythm and his nose gushing blood from beneath the
cloth over his fat cheeks. His wife, Tou, and Jerry's dad doing the
best they can to revive him. After a short time of chaos and confusions
in the house, the shaman regains his harmony with the spirit's world,
and the blood stops running from his nose.

Out cold from the impact, the relatives drag Jerry to the couch. The
shaman's wife slaps his cheeks and shakes his body, but nothing wakes
him up. His eyelids tighten and his body shots into the air. Then,
everyone begins to get scared.

The shaman's wife slowly informs them, "The young man is inside the
spirit world and his body is reacting to the images of the other world.
Because he is not a shaman, he may never again return to this
world."
***
When Jerry crossed the shaman's path, he entered the shaman's world, a
place ordinary Hmong people don't visit. This is a land of spirits,
demons and magic. Where only a shaman chosen from birth should enter to
find cures or solutions for real world problems. In the ceremonies, as
the shaman dance and sing, they communicate with the spirits. Some
shamans have their own personal guardian spirits from long before this
time. Sometimes, the shaman's spirit becomes one with a spirit;
sometimes, he or she is simply an observer. Sometimes, the shaman can
solve human concerns; other times, regardless of the shaman's efforts,
there is no cure.

Now Jerry's soul is wandering the secret world of the shaman, the world
of the dead searching for their peace. He sees a black- and white-hued
landscape with a dirt road so real he can feel the dust between his
toes. In front of him is a marketplace, villagers frozen in time. He
stares into the people's faces, his eyes flicking back and forth, here
and there, afraid and alone. He looks down and sees his naked body
covered with empty space. He recites the Lord's Prayer as well as he
can, wishing he had paid more attention in religion class.

From the corner of his eye, he see a little figure scurrying from one
cluster of villagers to the next, coming closer and closer, zigzagging
toward Jerry. He holds his breath, trying to make out what kind of
being it is. But as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared with an
accidental blink of his eyes. Afraid and imagining the worst possible
re-incarnation from all the books he's read and horror flicks he's
seen, he searches the space for the creature.

He turns around and there she stands, just feet in front of him, a
little girl, skinny nearly to the bone, bruised, naked and only partly
covered with an old rice sack, her hair bundled with strings. Her
cheekbones push outward, disfigured, and her inner thighs and legs are
coated with blood. She flows toward him without ever touching a speck
of the dirt on the road.

Jerry closes his eyes and screams, asking God for help, proclaiming his
belief in the Lord and asking for forgiveness. He opens his eyes and
she is still moving towards him. He forms a crucifix with his index
fingers, but the sign of the cross doesn't deter her. Jerry screams in
fear, sure he will die. He stands there in a defense position, arms and
hands out, blocking her, but she cuts right through him like a
knife.

As she flows through him, he experiences her suffering. He feels her
isolation and pain and her longing since birth for tranquility. He sees
her story. Her young mother, who was afraid to disgrace her family
after a one-night stand by the edge of her village with her American
lover, who had abandoned her long ago. She was left to die . . . to be
devoured by beasts of the night. But it wasn't her time. An old couple
had found her and cared for her until their death took them away, the
little girl watching them for days, weeks, until their bodies had
wither back into dust. Nothing left, she lived on beets and roots along
the creeks and willows, searching beneath rocks and stones for a dinner
no one else would eat.

As he stands quietly, feeling her story, he knows not to be fearful.
Now, all he wants is to help the little girl find her peace because he
remembers he has a sister in his world.

Suddenly, every creature in the village becomes alive and the villagers
are speaking in a different tongue. The marketplace is bustling. There
are booths with Pho soups and grilled chickens. Wood and jewelry are
for sale. People are moving here and there, some selling, others
buying. Jerry feels like he has become a part of another world, but no
one seems to notice his presence, and he realizes that he is invisible
to them.

He sees the little girl again. Skinny, yellow-brown and dirty, she
walks from booth to booth, scavenging for scraps of food dropped into
the dirt. If the booth-keepers see her, they smack her with a long
bamboo stick. Then, they yell at her and giving her dirty looks to make
her disappear.

Jerry feels sorry for her, wants to care for her, wonders why anyone
would do such a thing to another person. Not in America where he
dwells.

He sees two men walking out of the mist into the marketplace. One man,
round and short, wears a blazer with matching pants, out of place in
the hot, musty, morning light. His companion wears more traditional
clothing with sandals like the local villagers. The two men are talking
together and grinning. They gesture with their fingers, drawing maps in
the air in front of them, as if they are looking for a missing piece to
a puzzle. Over the crowd, the local man points at the little girl who
is three booths away from them, standing motionless like a dog, staring
at a customer's mouth, hoping for something to accidentally drop.

As the men get closer, Jerry recognizes the round man. It is Uncle
James, carrying a side bag and wearing the Salvation Army suit he'd
bought for the Minnesota New Year. Uncle James seems hot, sweat rolling
down his thick forehead, but his eyes sparkle and he and the local man
smile at each other after they see the little girl.

Relieved to see a face he recognizes, Jerry calls to his uncle for
help. But Uncle James doesn't see him either. The two men, nodding
their heads in agreement, walk towards the little girl.

The local man orders some Pho for them, standing close to the little
girl as if she wasn't there. The booth owner notices that Uncle James
is a tourist and yells at the little girl to leave the booth. Uncle
James smiles at the little girl and says something in Lao tongue to the
booth owner. They smile, both showing bad dentures. The booth owner's
wife brings two bowls of Pho to the men. Then, seconds later, returns
with a bowl for the little girl. At first, the girl refuses to take it.
Never having been given anything free before, she shakes her head like
a dummy. Uncle James takes the Pho and says to her in Hmong tongue,
"Don't worry. It's for you. I've already paid for."

Uncle James's mouthful of noodles makes the little girl lick her skinny
lips. She takes the bowl from his hand with animal-like quickness. She
doesn't bother with any toppings or sauce; even for it to cool. She
drinks the soup and licks the bowl clean before the two men have eaten
half their bowl. Uncle James and the booth owner make eye contact and
Uncle James points to a Pepsi behind the counter, directing his finger
to the little girl. The booth owner rushes to her with a warm, aged
Pepsi and exchanges it for her clean-licked bowl. She and Uncle James
smile at each other. Suddenly, she runs with the bottle into the crowd.
Her little figure blends into the mass of people and she
disappears.

Uncle James and the local man look upset as they pay their bills. They
look around the market place, even walking to the edge of town, looking
for the little girl. Backtracking, they notice her playing with the
empty Pepsi bottle under a coconut tree. She sees them too but doesn't
respond as they approach her. Gently smiling and playful, the men sit
down next to her, one on each side. Relief on their faces, Uncle James
asks the little girl in Hmong tongue, "Do you want to go to America?"
She ignores him as she spins her bottle round and round.

Uncle James reaches into his bag and grabs some postcards from the
Bangkok Airport. He points to the picture lying in front of her saying,
"America. You want to go? I'll take you."

She grabs the postcards and looks at them upside down, back and front,
smiles at Uncle James and nods her head in approval. The men both laugh
heartily as they look at each other over the top of her head.

Just minutes later, the three get into an old, sky blue Toyota truck
with an aged camper nailed on and head out of town. On their way, they
pick up the local man's girlfriend. They head up the mountain in the
late morning heat. The local man drives and Uncle James directs,
studying a map every now and then. The girlfriend and the little girl
ride in the back. The girlfriend is silent most of the way, making
little eye contact with the child; maybe she's jealous, maybe she
senses something isn't right. As they drive, Uncle James tells great
stories of America: the food, cartoons, the wealth-and that the little
girl will live with him. She doesn't say much, just smiles from time to
time, her dark eyes gleaming as she watches him and listens to his
stories.

She falls asleep. Late into the afternoon, she awakes and they are
still driving up the mountain. Looking around her, she becomes
frightened and asks to go back home. Uncle James hushes her and tells
her his airplane, pointing to the postcard, is on the other side of the
mountain because the Communists won't allow Hmong airplanes near the
village. He reaches into his bag and gives her some taffy candy with a
crackly cellophane wrapper. She seems satisfied and everyone
smiles.

The men begin to argue. Maybe they've lost their way. The sun is behind
them and Uncle James says to the scared child, "It is dark and we can't
go further until tomorrow so we'll camp here." Alone with these
strangers, she now realizes that coming along was a mistake. Jerry
feels her fear, but he is unable to do anything. All he can do is
watch, like viewing a movie.

She stays in the back of the truck as the two men build a fire and
began drinking moonshine. Once the flames settle, the lady cooks some
jerky over the fire. They do not invite the little girl to eat with
them. The men sit by the fire, talking with each other, singing and
drinking. The girlfriend prepares thick bags by the entrance of the
cave and then crawls into her sack by the fire. After the men drain a
bottle of their "firewater," they get up and stretch. Pretending not to
notice her eyes watching their every move from the truck camper, they
crawl into their blankets. Jerry knows that she now knows that
something is very wrong.

Uncle James and the other man start talking about women and sex. Jerry
doesn't like what they're saying, but they stop. Maybe they've fallen
asleep. But after a few minutes of silence, they jump up, shouting at
each other. Uncle James grabs one of his blankets and walks toward the
truck, smiling seductively at the child. The local man snatches the
blanket back, shaking his head in disapproval. The two men struggle for
the blanket, rolling on the ground as the girlfriend and the little
girl watch. Finally, the local gives in and lets go of the blanket. He
walks off into the night.

Uncle James walks triumphantly to the truck, handing the blanket to the
girl. She refuses his gesture, shaking her head. Uncle James's smile
quickly fades and an angry frown appears as he clenches his fists and
bangs on the truck in rage. She jumps back in fear only to be encircled
by the local man's arms. While Uncle James has been distracting her,
the local has crept up behind her, grabbing her around the waist. She
kicks and yells, trying to shake loose, but her weak body gives way to
his forceful arms. He drags her out into the open where Uncle James
joins him and grabs hold of her kicking legs. With little effort now,
they carry her over to the blankets and rip off her clothes. The
girlfriend turns her back like nothing is happening.

Jerry yells for her to help. "You fucking bitch, help her. Please,
please help her. God, please make them stop." Jerry begins to cry. He
picks up a long wooden stick and beats at the men's backs, but his
stick goes through them like water. As Jerry, traumatized and weeping,
tries to wake from this horrible dream, the two men-one his uncle-rape
the girl over and over until she passes out.

Jerry passes out too. The next thing he sees is the first crack of
daylight. The local man is taking a chicken out of the camper. He
mumbles some words and burns some incense over the chicken. Then, he
kills it. He walks over to where the little child is lying. She is
naked and motionless in a pile of leaves. Her body is bruised and her
face swollen. Her lips are cut in several places and her legs and
thighs bloody.

The woman prepares the child's grave. After they bury her, the three
disappear into the cave. After an hour, they return with bags of gold
and other treasures. Bag after bag, they load the spoils into the
little truck and head back down the mountain. They congratulate each
other when they drop off Uncle James. He hides his gold beneath a
waterfall and then makes his way to his relative's in the nearby
village.

As if he is experiencing life through an entirely different reality,
Jerry knows that the two men-one his Uncle-have sacrificed this orphan
child to open the ghostly entrance to the cave. He knows they believed
there was a curse on the gold and only a life could be exchanged for
its ownership. He understands that the little one had died long ago,
even before she met these three demons, when her mother left her in the
night. And, sadly, he also now knows that his uncle is a
murderer.

Jerry starts to sob. He feels compassion for the little girl, but he
also feels his own pain. He realizes how much he misses his family. All
the years he had been away from his community made him a different
person. How he overlooked the importance of his family structure. Then
became prejudice of his people for being ignorant and uncivilized by
his standard. Fighting for power among the clans for the last thousand
of years because of greed. Upset, why the Hmong couldn't be more
American. Suddenly, he is filled with regret. How badly he has treated
his family and misjudged his people. How much he misses his life in
America.
***
Jerry wakes up to water spraying in his face. He jumps up and screams
in terror, "Ah shit! Shit! Goddamn! What the hell happened to
me?"

The shaman turns his back to Jerry and walks back to his stool,
collecting his things and putting them into his bag all done with his
ceremony for today. Jerry, not yet thinking clearly, blurts out to the
family, "Uncle James killed her. He killed her and now she wants his
soul!"

The shaman replies, "I know what he did. I was there too. Your uncle
has no chance. Either we died in their world or we could bring her back
to your uncle's and he could die. We brought the little girl back with
us."

The two men stare at each other as the family stands by looking
stunned. After recognizing that the local man and the shaman possess
the same face, Jerry throws up rice and last night's whisky onto the
carpet. The shaman gives him a long look and says in Hmong tongue, "If
you ever cross another shaman, trust me, if they're not as good as me,
you will be a dead, young man! "

The heart meters beep in rage, announcing Uncle James's impending death
to his family. As if she knows that her husband's end is near, his wife
begins sobbing and calling out to the ancestors. They rush to his side.
Although he is still alive, his face looks like a dead man's. Not able
to say a word, his eyes show the intense pain he is feeling. His body
twitches and his legs and arms roll inside out, snapping like dry
twigs.