Sriracha

Megan Cheong

Daniel was the first one to get there. He’d paused at the gate wondering whether it was better to get there late, to avoid appearing overeager, or to arrive exactly on time so they didn’t wait around thinking he’d chickened out, and then, in a panic, he’d grabbed the lead lying in the grass of the front lawn and now he and Lucky were the first ones here. Lucky looked up at him expectantly with his round, wet eyes, eyes the same dark, brown-green as the creek in the shade of the bridge. 

Daniel shuffled up to the water’s edge and crouched in the grass, peering down at his heaving reflection. He hated how he looked with a shaved head. The black stubble quickly grew out into tufts that stuck straight up and without hair, his round face looked even rounder. Lucky moved to stand beside him, the clip of his lead tinkling as he dropped his head to the water and began to drink. 

‘How cute, Danny brought his doggy.’ 

Daniel jerked upwards, spinning just in time to face Yi, who had come sliding down the steep slope that walled in the water. He stood so close Daniel could feel the dry heat of the day coming off his clothes. 

‘I had to, my Mum—’ 

Yi cut him off with his high, yapping laugh. ‘I had to—’ 

Daniel dug his fingernails into his palms and willed the heat in his cheeks away. ‘Where’s Chris?’ 

Yi turned and looked up the dirt track just as Chris came around the corner. Daniel felt a surge of hatred sear through him at the sight of the long, black fringe and the sloping shoulders in the same giant t-shirt he wore every day. 

There was a tug. Lucky was straining to continue the walk without him. Daniel was suddenly embarrassed by Lucky’s round head and curly, white fur. 

‘Nǐ dàile ma,’ Yi called out, the round vowels bouncing around the underside of the bridge. 

Daniel sucked on his bottom lip. Whenever they spoke Mandarin to each other he felt like a baby. 

‘Yeah,’ Chris called back, pulling a huge, red squeeze bottle out of one of the pockets of his cargo pants. 

He stopped a little way off, staying in the sun, and Daniel saw that his black t-shirt was so faded it was almost grey. 

‘Hey Daniel.’ 

Daniel grunted and nodded in Chris’s direction. 

Yi grinned, went over to Chris and grabbed the bottle of sriracha out of his hand. ‘Ready? Or you gunna wuss out.’ 

Daniel turned to look defiantly at the bottle of sriracha but found himself unable to speak. Instead, he walked towards Yi, dragging Lucky through the dirt, and snatched the bottle out of his hand. 

His hands shook as he slipped the lead onto his wrist and unscrewed the bright green top. Yi took off his hat, his short hair springing up in a mess of tufts. Chris put his hands in the pockets of his pants and slouched down a little further. 

That morning, as soon as Daniel had woken up, he’d started thinking about how he would do it. Dad couldn’t understand how any son of his couldn’t take chilli, always repeated this when they were out with family or friends and the waiter put down a curry or a fish sprinkled with bright red chunks of it. His Mum would carefully separate a piece of flesh from the fan of bones, douse it in water, then put it in his bowl.  

His brother had made a joke about it when Yi was over and Yi had come up with the idea of ‘training’ him. Chris hadn’t had much to say about it. 

He’d decided that the only thing to do was to scull it. He’d practised sculling water in the morning and was proud of the way he could relax his throat and let the liquid pour into him. They would be impressed. 

The bottle was slippery and he had to hold it with both hands as he tipped back his head and raised it to his lips. He let his throat relax and began to squeeze the sauce into his mouth. 

At first, it was just a bit sour—like salt and vinegar chips—then the burn started, the slightest tickle, that spread quickly, an urgent, jabbing pain all over his tongue and throat. Tears started to stream from his eyes, running down the sides of his head into his ears, but worse than that, the sauce was thicker than the water he’d practised with and the seeds and little bits of chilli skin caught in his throat and very quickly, he realised he couldn’t breathe. The blood rushing in his ears filled the world with a deep rumbling. His eyes rolled around frantically from the damp, rotting beams of the bridge, to the brick posts, to, vaguely, Yi and Chris’s faces that looked like they were melting through his tears.  

He tottered, stumbled backwards, and then felt himself falling. 

The water of the creek was cold and silky. Jolted awake, Daniel twisted and turned and dragged himself to standing, his clothes heavy with water. He coughed and gagged. The thick sauce came out in large red chunks that hit the water wetly, then sank quickly down to the sandy bottom. Lucky paddled frantically in next to him, his wet fur laid flat against his skull. Yi was pissing himself, but Chris watched him, unsmiling, from beneath his fringe. Chris came up to the water’s edge and stretched his hand out to Daniel. 

Daniel grabbed Chris’s hand, dragged himself clumsily out of the water and dumped himself on the pathway, lying flat on his back. He could feel all the little pebbles on the track through the wet material of his t-shirt. 

‘You okay?’ Chris asked from above. 

‘Yeah,’ huffed Daniel, ‘I’m okay’.