'No hesitation there,' Allison narrated.
He swallowed and stepped forward to the chair.
'Do you have anything to say to us?' Allison inquired. 'Any chit or chat?'
'No,' he said quietly.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. Allison stepped toward him, adjusted his head forward and sideways, then turned to the group. 'What you're seeing here is art, gentleman. Mr. Ha's art. The poison in the Shao-tzou is so deadly that even a sliver more of the flesh or an accidentally large wipe through the organ- in this case the liver- would kill. But Mr. Ha is a master.'
Ha nodded ever so subtly, then inspected one of his knives. Meanwhile the heavyset man in the chair slumped to one side, face slack, his mouth almost closed, a thin line of saliva dripping down one side of his chin. His lips trembled softly, as if privately repeating a liturgy of devotion. This time the group watched with less trepidation. Several men, I saw, timed the process themselves, looking up at the man in the chair and then at their watches. He continued his private prayer, which deteriorated into speechless puffs, a panting of gratification that became winded breathing even as his eyebrows arched upward in appreciation. We were transfixed. No one doubted his transport to realms of unknown sweetness.
And then, just as it crested, that sweetness fell back, fell away, and his legs stilled and his eyebrows dropped. He began to come out of it. He began to remember that he was alive, and opened his eyes in full consciousness, respiration almost normal, his color good.
'Well?' inquired Allison, on behalf of the rest of us.
'Oh God, the light just came up like a giant moon…' He turned toward Ha and shot out his arm. 'You are a rock star, man!' He rose to his feet, pumped the air once or twice, then fell back heavily. 'All the time I'm seeing the surface of death, man, the rolling surface of bones or the moon or something, just beaming this white death light that feels so good and I can't move, man.'
He started to stand again, fell back into his seat, then stood successfully. He staggered toward Ha. 'Hey man, just make me a little one of those, just take some of that stuff you threw away in the bucket, look, look! You got plenty of that brown stuff to wipe on there-'
'Excuse me, excuse me!' cried Ha. He brandished the knife. 'No, no! You cannot have this fish!'
The young man held up his hands, backed away. 'Okay! Right. Sorry. I just, let me just congratulate you, you are the artist, the-'
'Bids please, gentlemen,' Allison called over him. 'We have just one portion left, the Stars. The winning bid last time was thirty-three hundred and something dollars. One more portion left, everyone, just one, and it may be weeks again, months even, before we can find another Shao-tzou.'
Allison reminded the men that it was open bidding, multiple bids accepted, highest bid wins. 'Just like Sotheby's,' she added. The bids began at $3,400 and three rounds later reached $6,050, two men bidding against each other from either side of the room. The counterbid increments dropped from five hundred dollars to one hundred to fifty until one of the men shook his head in disgust at a bid of $6,750 and gave up. The successful bidder dropped heavily into the chair, loosened his necktie, swigged a glass of water, checked his watch, which appeared to have cost only a little less than his piece of Chinese sushi, and tossed back the morsel.
'Here we go,' he said, looking pleased with himself for displaying that he could spend almost seven thousand dollars for a bite of poisonous fish. I didn't like him, I confess, irritated that he was about to have a singular, expensive pleasure and I was not.
Almost a minute went by and the Stars winner looked at Allison in exasperation. 'Nothing's happening here.'
'Just wait,' she said.
'I am. I did wait. I feel fine.'
'Just a minute or so,' Allison said.
We waited.
'It's a dud,' the winner said. 'I want my money back.'
'Sometimes if you've had a heavy dinner, then-'
But she didn't need to finish. The Stars winner collapsed backward as if he'd caught a pillow filled with sand. His arms retained a sort of sleep-walker's rigidity. The effect of his portion seemed harsher, arriving not only late and not gradually but with a punitive force. Of the three men, this last one appeared to be the closest to pain. His feet paddled a bit, as if he was suffering in silence.
A minute went by; the man displayed none of the behaviors the first two men had showed, and I wondered if he was truly enjoying the experience. Then it seemed too much time had gone by. Allison checked her watch, the smile on her lips a little frozen, a little worried, I thought, and I caught her glancing quickly at Ha, who received her anxiety with a slow, reassuring blink. At that same moment the man's body lengthened rigidly in the chair, legs straight, arms at his side, his nervous system conducting a lightning bolt of ecstasy, and he lifted his face upward at some unseen spectacle and completely opened his mouth, issuing a kind of silent scream- most unnerving. And then the scream came — a lung-loud hollering that filled the room, a man yelling across a canyon, summoning all of nature's attention, calling the gods down from the sky.
'Holy fuck,' another man whispered, weirded out.
At that, the man in the chair dropped silent and seized up into the fetal position, having birthed his experience out of himself, and began to wake groggily, apparently exhausted. Allison's posture softened and I saw her exhale.
'It wasn't stars,' the man said, opening his eyes.
'No?' Allison came over to be sure he stayed in his seat.
'It was fireworks! Touching my face! I could feel them burning against my face. Three of them went right through me.' He lifted his hands and examined his fingers, as if they might have been singed as well. 'Swear to God. Burning. Right through me. Little cinders, sparks. One big one went right in my mouth and down through me, right out of my asshole.' He addressed the other men. 'I'm lying there, my body is dead and I can see these sparks, red little comets coming at me and going right through me. I'll never forget that. I mean, I've done acid and I've done lots of stuff, you know, but nothing like that.'
'Was it pleasurable?'
He squinted one eye. 'Completely. Total pleasure, yeah.'
'And with that admission as to the absolute artistry of Mr. Ha,' announced Allison triumphantly, sweeping her arms, 'we are done, gentlemen! Those of you who did not have any fish are invited back, and those of you who did we wish well in the future. Remember, please, not to discuss what you saw tonight outside this room. As ever, I will be seeing many of you in the main dining room in the days and weeks to come. Thank you to Mr. Ha, and thank you to our lovely Shantelle. Good night!'
The room broke into polite but ambivalent applause and stayed hushed. The old waiter reappeared, followed by the bartender, and with the prospect of further drinking the room became louder, more relaxed. Several men lit their complimentary cigars. Like some of the others, I wasn't sure I believed what I'd seen, and I studied the faces of the first two men who'd eaten the fish as they described their experiences to the men close to them. I remembered the old literary man's claim that the demonstration was fraudulent, complete with ringers. Could he be right? Short of eating the fish myself, how could I be sure that the whole thing wasn't a charade?
Now the last eater of the fish stood, took a step, steadied himself, then walked to his seat. Shantelle took this opportunity to push the comfortable armchair to its dark corner and I did not mind seeing the back of her, her soft hips going left-right-left. I also did not mind that Allison caught me doing this. She came over and let her fingers fall on my shoulder with a certain proprietary design.
'Was it a good show?'
'Excellent.'
'But I hear a tone in your voice.'
'You do, yes.'
Allison glanced around the room. She still had things to do. 'So you may need further proof?'
I was about to answer but she left to talk with Ha as he cleaned up. He worked a bit more on the fish, it seemed, cut something out of it, dipped it in water, wrapped it in a piece of cabbage. I wanted to understand what he was doing and why Allison wanted to watch him, but I was distracted by the arrival of Shantelle next to me, whose golden tray, I saw at last, held a thoughtful selection of minute jars of caviar, premium tickets to Knicks
