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Often, the three of them—burro, horse, rider—would simply stand in the middle of the plains. Aside from the occasional sigh or the halfhearted attempt at swatting away an insect, they all stood still, staring into the avoid. Brown flats, blue wall. From his animals, with their serenely sad, bulge-eyed gaze, Håkan seemed to have learned to gape into space. To this absent expression, he added a drooping jaw. They merely stood, completely absorbed by nothing. Time dissolved into the sky. There was little difference between landscape and spectators. Insensible things that existed in one another.

As Frankel muses on Progress in his Hillman Minx, Ed Markowitz wearily drives a rented Fiat to the Oriental Institute. He had not wanted to go on the day of his arrival, but this is the only time he can be sure to see Mujahid Rashaf, who is returning to Saudi Arabia within the week. Rashaf is an Oxford fellow and the son of a merchant prince. He will provide just the reasoned yet religious opinions that Markowitz seeks for his book, Terrorism: A Civilized Creed.

The photo showed a dog, standing on its hind legs, being helped from the door of a helicopter by a serious-looking man in a down vest. The dog seemed to stand about the same height as the man, and looked like a Malamute. The strange thing about it, besides its larger-than-average size, was the fact that it was wearing a dark-colored jacket which looked like part of an old-fashioned military uniform, and a pair of spectacles, and that it appeared to have hands instead of front paws. In one of those gloved hands it held a cane, which was pointed at an awkward angle, probably because of the way the man was holding on to that foreleg just above the elbow. The other hand gripped the side of the helicopter doorway. The expression on the animal’s face was one of terror. Its lips were slightly parted, its ears were pointing straight backward, and its eyes were wide.

I realize then that Wichu knows. Of course he knows. He was here, at this temple, outside of the pavilion with his mother, when Khamron got drafted years ago. He was here when the wealthier boys got taken out of the line. He was here when those same boys came back an hour later, took their places at the end of the lottery line, and—when their turns came—drew black card after black card after black card. Wichu had told me all about it the night of his brother’s draft. Although I had only half listened to him at the time, the memory of his voice comes back to me now in all its anger.

“Draft Day” from SIGHTSEEING © 2005 by Rattawaut Lapcharoensap; reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Grove Atlantic, Inc.

REGGIE
Now see you gonna laugh. Cause you thank everythang I do is funny. It ain’t funny. It’s meant tah teach ya. How I speak? That’s meant tah teach you too. You get older ‘n leave this place...one thing ya gonna remember is the music of ya daddy’s voice. The memory ‘a what made ya. How ya people survived. An’ these little games we play? These little hand games? That’s your history too… ‘cause ya grandmama sat ya mama down when she was smaller ‘n you ‘n they played these games ‘n had the best time that ever was. Then, ya mama taught me ya know that? Shoot, I ain’t wanna learn no little girl games. Imma man! (Laughs.) What I look like playin’ some little girl hand game! But, then we had you. And I taught you. That’s a road map. You ever get lost, you find ya way back home (points to his chest) from them. Understand? And one way or another... I’ll come get you.

Rat-baiting was the premier betting sport of the nineteenth century. Its prestige can be gauged in economic terms, circa 1875: admission to a then illegal prizefight between humans cost fifty cents, to dogfights and cockfights $2, while a fight pitting a dog against rats ran anywhere from $1.50 if the dog faced five rats or fewer, up to $5, in proportion to the number of rats. In the eighteenth century the biggest draw had been bearbaiting, but that sport gradually dissipated as the number of available bears decreased, although matches continued to be held up to the Civil War, notably in McLaughlin’s bear pit at First Avenue and Tenth Street. For a while, dog-vs.-raccoon contests were popular, but rats were so readily available that they came to dominate the scene; boys were paid to catch them, at a rate of five to twelve cents a head.