Tick Tock

the radio. It was functioning perfectly again. Roy Orbison was rocking out “Pretty Woman.”
    Tommy sang along. Lustily.
    He remembered the ominous roar of static and the strange phlegmy voice that had seemed to be calling his name from the radio, but now he found it difficult to believe that the peculiar incident had been as uncanny as it had seemed at the time. He had been upset by his conversation with his mother, feeling simultaneously put-upon and guilty, angry with her but also with himself, and his perceptions hadn't been entirely trustworthy. The waterfall-roar of static had been real enough, but in his pall of guilt, he had no doubt imagined hearing his name in a meaningless gurgle and squeal of electronic garbage.
    All the way home, he listened to old-time rock-'n'-roll, and he knew the words to every song.
    He lived in a modest but comfortable two-story tract house in the exhaustively planned city of Irvine. The tract, as was the case with most of those in Orange County, featured none but Mediterranean architecture; indeed, Mediterranean style prevailed to such an extent that it sometimes seemed restfully consistent but at other times was boring, suffocating, as if the chief executive officer of Taco Bell had somehow become an all-powerful dictator and had decreed that everyone must live not in houses but in Mexican restaurants. Tommy's place had an orange barrel-tile roof, pale-yellow stucco walls, and concrete walkways with brick borders.
    Because he'd supplemented his salary from the newspaper with income from a series of paperback mystery novels that he'd written during evenings and weekends, he'd been able to buy the house three years ago, when he'd been only twenty-seven. Now his books were coming out in hardcover first, and his writing income had gotten large enough to allow him to risk leaving the Register.
    By any fair assessment, he was more of a success than either of his brothers or his sister. But the three of them had remained deeply involved in the Vietnamese community, so their parents were proud of them. They could never be equally proud of Tuong, who had changed his name as soon as he was legally of an age to do so, and who had eagerly embraced everything American since arriving on these shores at the age of eight.
    He supposed that even if he became a billionaire, moved into a thousand-room house on the highest cliff overlooking the Pacific Coast, with solid-gold toilets and chandeliers hung not with mere crystals but with huge diamonds, his mother and father would still think of him as the “failed” son who had forgotten his roots and turned his back on his heritage.
    As Tommy swung into his driveway, the bordering beds of white and coral-red impatiens glowed in the headlights as if iridescent. Swift shadows crawled up through the raggedly peeling bark of several melaleucas, swarming into higher branches, where moonlight-silvered leaves shuddered in the night breeze.
    In the garage, once the big door closed behind him, he remained in the silent car for a few minutes, savouring the smell of leather upholstery, basking in the pride of ownership. If he could have slept sitting upright in the driver's seat, he would have done so.
    He disliked leaving the 'vette in the dark. Because it was so beautiful, the car should remain under flattering spotlights, as though it were an art object in a museum.
    In the kitchen, as he hung the car keys on the pegboard by the refrigerator, he heard the doorbell at the front of the house. Though recognizable, the ringing was different from the usual sound, like a hollow and ominous summons in a dream. The curse of home ownership: something always needed to be repaired.
    He wasn't expecting anyone this evening. In fact, he intended to spend an hour or two in his study, revising a few pages of the current manuscript. His fictional private detective, Chip Nguyen, had been getting wordy in his first-person narration of the story, and the tough but sometimes garrulous gumshoe needed to be edited.
    When Tommy opened the front door, ice-cold wind assaulted him, frigid enough to take his breath away. A whirl of dead melaleuca leaves like hundreds of tiny flensing knives spun over him, whispering-buzzing against one another, and he stumbled backward two steps, shielding his eyes with one hand, gasping in surprise.
    A dry, papery leaf blew into his mouth. The hard little point pricked his tongue.
    Startled, he bit down on the leaf, which had a bitter taste. Then he