fiction
by R. J. Goodrich
Badminton
Every morning (weather permitting), Mr. Zhang and Mr. Wu played badminton beneath the banyan trees of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial gardens. From 6:30 to 7:30, they volleyed a white plastic birdie over an imaginary net, their rubber-soled sandals scuffing the brick path that served as their court. The cinder block wall of a public bathroom created an eastern boundary for their matches; flower beds marked a line to the West. Their path terminated at an intersection with the high-arched, tiled portico that encompassed the park. Morning walkers often paused between the portico’s great white columns and watched the seasoned adversaries swat the birdie.
Their matches were a model of vicious cooperation. The players tried to keep the birdie in the air as long as possible, but neither could resist a hard smash or the opening offered by a poorly placed racket. What was more delightful than seeing the birdie sizzle past an inept defense and bounce off the head or body of the man guarding the opposite end of the path?
Zip, boink, zip, boink. The plastic birdie buzzed like a hummingbird on a string, crackling back and forth between the rackets. A volley could stretch for fifty or sixty strokes before one of the men succumbed to error. These lengthy exchanges galvanized the pulse. Breath came harder as strained lungs struggled to pull in the thick, humid air. Sweat bloomed on Zhang’s bald head. Mr. Wu’s calm face flushed beneath the admirable cap of thick, white hair that shaded his head against Taiwan’s relentless sun.
“Out,” screamed Mr. Zhang as a shot sailed past the tip of his racket. Their epic volleys usually ended (73% of the time, he had once calculated) with an errant shot from Mr. Wu. The birdie, which had been flying with beautiful precision, faltered, drifted wide, and dropped—orange rubber nose down—into the copse of scarlet-veined palm lilies planted beside their makeshift court.
“Your mind lacks focus, Wu.” Zhang reached for the grounded birdie and examined its plastic feathers for damage. “Why do you make me point this out every time we play? I have lost hope that you will ever become a serious man.”
Zhang offered this assessment with the helpful dispassion of a supervisor at an employee review. The role suited him. For forty years, right up to the time of his departure from the Ministry of Finance, Zhang had measured the shortcomings of his subordinates. He missed that duty. Mandatory retirement had compelled him to relinquish the annual ritual of staff assessment and correction. It had been a healthy outlet, a sorely missed perquisite of his life. Criticism came easily to his tongue. He had an innate gift for distinguishing a colleague’s flaws. Praiseworthy points? Not so much, but years of government service had strengthened his conviction that true excellence was a scarce commodity.
Wu offered his easy-going, good-natured grin. “Your patience honors me, Zhang Xiansheng. I shall try harder.”
Zip. Zhang smashed the birdie at his opponent’s head. Zip. Back it came. One volley, two, three. A gust of wind pushed the birdie off path and again lifted it over the tip of Zhang’s racket.
“Concentrate, Wu, concentrate.” Zhang shook his head, vexed at the accumulation of errors. A 73% man required concessions, but this morning’s performance was substandard by any accepted metric.
Attention to detail—Fails to meet expectations, thought Zhang. Attention was the missing element. The man’s mind wandered in bounds and spurts, careening hither and yon like an escaped pig. Their volleys would last longer if his partner ever settled down and took the sport seriously.
Yet what more could be expected from a man who floated through life in the private sector? Zhang and Wu had met at university and spent two years as roommates. Their trajectories diverged after graduation. Zhang became a party man—always Kuomintang—and served his nation in posts of increasing importance until age evicted him from his lofty perch.
Wu chose the commercial path: electronics and later the burgeoning semiconductor industry. As a senior engineer, he profited from his company’s success. Modesty forestalled bragging; Wu had never revealed the extent of his financial rewards, but Zhang imagined a bank balance that contained numerous zeros. Stock options and bonuses, sensibly reinvested in a growing company’s future, could lift even the most lackadaisical man into the ranks of Taiwan’s wealthiest class.
A bitter taste flooded Zhang’s mouth. “I need a drink,” he told his partner. His water bottle was tucked on the side of his oversized racket bag. With individual slots for six rackets and a large birdie compartment, the bag reflected Zhang’s commitment to the game. He extracted the stainless-steel container from its designated pouch.
Wu’s scant equipment fit in a worn blue tote-bag. A single racket—currently clenched in the man’s hand—and two birdies, unsecured, unprotected, left to flop around however they chose at the bottom of the shapeless fabric sack. Zhang took a derisive pull from his bottle. “Why don’t you invest in some better equipment?”
Wu raised an eyebrow. “Whatever for?”
“You might play better if you had a selection of rackets. They would give you more options.”
Wu studied the five rackets poking out of the top of Zhang’s bag, each neatly segregated between padded vinyl dividers. “How do you decide which one to use?”
“It depends on numerous factors,” said Zhang. “Temperature, humidity, wind speed. Each racket is tailored to perform in specific conditions. I have a racket master who tunes their string tension to a precise range.”
“Sounds complicated.” Wu bounced the head of his solitary racket off the palm of his hand. “I don’t think I would enjoy so many decisions this early in the morning.”
“You could at least buy a can of birdies. What would you do if you lost a birdie or broke its feathers?”
“How many do you carry?” countered Wu.
“Four.” Zhang unzipped the pouch at the base of the rackets, revealing a row of aluminum cans.
“And how many birdies in each can?”
“Twelve.” Zhang extracted a can and handed it to Wu.
Wu popped off the plastic lid and stared down the aluminum tube at the nested birdies. “A total of forty-eight. It looks like you have an adequate number to meet all contingencies.” Wu offered his infuriating, easy-going grin. “It’s hard to see why we would need any more than that.”
Irritation lit its torch in Zhang’s mind. The man didn’t get it; he never got it. “That’s really not the point, is it?”
“What is the point?” inquired Wu.
Zhang longed to swat that placid face with the springy, tuned face of his racket. He exhaled his frustration. “The point is that some morning you might be playing with a different partner, knock your birdie up on the roof or into a tree, and be left without a spare. What would you do then?”
“That seems unlikely,” replied Wu. “I only play with you and”—he waved a negligent hand at Zhang’s four cans—“you are obviously prepared to weather years of lost birdies.”
“You should also be prepared. You can’t rely on me,” insisted Zhang. “What if I were away with my family, on vacation in Kaohsiung? What if you were playing someone as negligent as yourself and you lost your birdie? What then?”
Again the patient smile. “I suppose my hypothetical partner and I would stop for the morning. Game over. Later in the day, I would visit a sporting goods store and refresh my supply.”
Anticipates problems—Does not meet expectations. Zhang shook his head. There it was, the fundamental difference between government service and the commercial sector. A government ministry didn’t have the luxury of running unprepared. People’s lives, the country’s future, hinged on advanced planning—with backup plans in neat file drawers to meet unexpected contingencies. When disasters erupted you couldn’t just wave your hand, grin, and say “we’ll sort it out tomorrow.” You might be able to get away with that in the private sector, but serious duties, like administering a nation, demanded serious people.
Wu continued to bounce his racket against his open palm. It produced an irritating sound.
Zhang shoved his water bottle back into his bag. “I’m ready. Let’s play.”
The birdie’s flight grew more stable, shuttling back and forth like a yo-yo crawling a string. Thirty-four. Thirty-five. Zhang tracked the rally under his breath.
The plastic got away from them at thirty-nine. Not bad. When Wu put his mind to it, when he gave the game his attention, they could produce commendable runs.
Teamwork—Above expectations, Zhang generously decided. The extended streak made him feel charitable.
“Do you ever play without counting volleys?” asked Wu, speaking as Zhang drew back his racket.
The positive moment flickered out. It was bad form to talk during a player’s serve. Zhang stared at the other man, compressing his displeasure into a stern glare. “Why would I want to do that?”
Wu shrugged. “You grow tighter as the volley extends. It’s as if the numbers are weights, slowing you down as they pile up. The higher we go, the more tentative you become.”
“That’s ridiculous. I aim for consistency, from first serve to the last shot.”
“Every athlete will tell you that it’s one thing to aim for consistency, quite another to achieve it.”
Zhang was stunned. “What are you saying? You, a man with only one racket and a pair of birdies? Are you criticizing my game?”
“Criticize you, Zhang Xiansheng? Of course not. You are irreproachable.”
Wu’s rapid retreat failed to mollify the former minister. “Then I don’t understand,” said Zhang stiffly. “What are you saying?”
Extends proper deference towards superiors—Fails to meet expectations.
“My idea is simple,” replied Wu, “philosophical even. I simply wondered if you might enjoy the volleying more—if we might climb to greater heights—if you stopped worrying so much about the math and record-keeping.”
“That’s ridiculous. How would you know you were playing better? Assessment requires data. We learn nothing if I don’t count the strokes.”
“I think we might feel it, perceive a sense that energy was flowing and the game was going well.”
Zhang shook his head. “You would make the whole exercise pointless.”
“You might enjoy it more without the pressure.”
“I can’t imagine that ever being the case. I will serve now.”
Wu nodded equably. “It was just a suggestion, old friend, something to ponder.”
“I’ve pondered it; the notion merits no further consideration.”
Quality of ideas—Below expectations.
The birdie resumed its flight, flashing back and forth between the two men.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Zhang counted silently, feeling guilty for trying to conceal his activity. The birdie fell off his racket at an awkward angle, spinning into the bushes.
“Out,” called Wu.
Zhang flushed. What was the point of that call? Of course it was out. Anyone could see it was out. He fished the birdie out of the shrubbery, fired it at Wu.
The serve went wild; the birdie sailed over his opponent’s head and bounced off the portico’s white-washed wall.
“Out.” Another insolent ruling from Wu.
This was intolerable. Was his younger adversary mocking him? Playing him for the fool? 2,500 years of Confucian tradition—the imperative to honor one’s betters—militated against it. Yet how else to interpret the brazen calls and the mouth that curved suspiciously close to a taunt?
“Try it without counting.” Wu recovered the birdie and prepared to serve.
Zhang set his lips in a grim line, made no response.
Wu shrugged, lofted the birdie into play. Two. Three. Four. The numbers ticked over in Zhang’s mind, as inevitable as the beats of a metronome.
Six. Seven. Wu’s return sailed toward his forehand. Zhang snapped his wrist, swung his right arm, and watched—astonished—as the birdie floated beneath his swinging racket.
“Shit!” He pivoted, took a step forward, and smashed his racket against the tough cinder block corner of the bathroom.
The racket shattered, the precisely adjusted string tension collapsing the head. The blow left three ugly pieces dangling by their strings, tied by webs to the decapitated handle.
Shame colored Zhang’s face. He gaped at the wreckage in his hand. Such a display, such a loss of dignity.
Then Wu stood beside him. His hand touched Zhang’s shoulder, steering gently, guiding him to a seat on the bench beside his grotesquely over-sized badminton bag.
“I don’t understand,” Zhang muttered. “How can such a thing happen?”
“Everything is fine. Sit for a minute. Take it easy.” Wu lifted the water bottle from its assigned pouch in Zhang’s bag and passed it to the older man. “Drink. You’ll feel better.”
Zhang obeyed. The tepid water ran over his tongue, flowed down the back of his throat, and extinguished the flaming words that rustled like an angry mob at the base of his diaphragm.
A sparrow trilled and fell silent. Old women, their gaunt arms swaying in time with a tape-recorded voice, practiced Tai Chi at the distant end of the portico.
Zhang’s heart steadied and grew calmer.
“Good thing you brought extra rackets,” said the maddening Mr. Wu. “I’d hate to end the game on this note.”
R. J. Goodrich is an American author currently living in Taiwan. Although primarily known for his historical books (L.A. Birdmen and Comet Madness), he has recently begun creeping like a banyan tree into fiction. Learn more about the author at his website: https://rjgoodrich.com.