Where are you, Vincent Chin?
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It’s Detroit 1982. Your boys are throwing you a bachelor party, and you’re ending the night at the Fancy Pants strip club.
Even though you got money in your hand, Starlene, the dancer, for some reason, she’s just not feeling your vibe. Maybe you should’ve taken the hint then. Maybe you should’ve left and found some other dive … shit, did they have karaoke bars in 1982?
So she dances over to Ronald Ebens and his stepson Michael Nitz. And Ebens shouts, “You don’t know a good one when you see one, do you boy?”
There you are, holding your money in your hand, and the only person in the strip club who wants to talk to you is this piece of white trash across the bar. What do you say back to him? “I’m not a boy.” Should’ve kept your mouth shut.
‘Cause then Ebens screams, “It’s because of you motherfuckers that we’re out of work!” But he’s a reasonable man, Ebens. He knows that he can’t be sure of anything without thorough observation, ’cause then he mutters, “I’m just not sure whether you’re a little fucker or a big fucker.”
And then you get up and shove him? What the fuck were you thinking, Vincent? Ebens was drinking; of course he was crazy enough to pick up a chair and swing! Then his boy Nitz jumps in, but hey you got your own chair, and somehow they both end up on the ground, and you’re the last man standing.
Lucky you.
Too bad they went cruising for you, though. Too bad they spent twenty minutes driving around town with a Louisville Slugger looking for you. What were you doing hanging out in a parking lot next to a McDonald’s anyway? It was the middle of the night in Detroit! What did you think would happen when you said, “I’ll fight with you guys more if you want but put the baseball bat down?” This wasn’t the fucking U.N., Vincent. Guess the Chinese in you just wanted to haggle for that better deal.
Nitz rushes you, gets you into a bearhug, and you manage to slip away, so Ebens knocks you to the ground with the slugger. A few firm taps to the back of the head. Then Nitz pins you there on the concrete, and Ebens, well, Ebens winds up and swings the bat “as if a baseball player was swinging for a home run,” said an off-duty eyewitness cop. “Full contact. Full swing.” How many times did he hit you, Vincent? At least four? How does it feel to have your skull bashed in with a baseball bat?
And the last thing you say as your friend cradles your head in his arms, you whisper, “It’s not fair.”
Well that’s tough shit, slit-eye. You should’ve known better than to stand up to a white man. You should’ve known better than to show your face in the motorcity when Chrysler and Ford and GM are getting their asses kicked by Toyota.
Vincent, you dumb shit, now you’ve gone and left a mom who can’t speak English and a fiancee who’s gotta start all over with another boy.
What did Ebens and Nitz get, you ask? Three years probation and a $3,000 fine. They didn’t even go to jail, sucka! With nothing left here, your mom went back to Guangzhou province.
And you’ll never stand up to anyone again.
Where are you now, man? Do they send Chinks to Heaven? Or have you been burning for these twenty-two years? I wish I believed in ghosts, ’cause then I could explain why I feel like you’re sitting beside me right now, looking over my shoulder as I write these words.
Nah, you’re not in heaven with some vain, capricious bright white god, I know that. You’re beyond all that shit. You’re a perfect expression of that which is inexpressable.
You live through us. And we will make everything all right.
So stand the fuck up. You’re a 44.
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