The Chronicles of Tulip Touzie Chapitre Deux

TWO



Tulip had no idea how the thousand bucks had appeared in her bank account but she thanked Benjimus, the god of money, and decided she would use it for her retirement.

Further north, a thirty-three-year-old Canadian named King Tsao Young had gotten himself into a buttload of trouble. King grew up in Toronto, Canada. He was the youngest candidate to ever run for mayor, and the only Asian. He used the entirety of his trust fund to run his flawless campaign while simultaneously completing his senior year of high school. He lost the race very marginally, after a precinct in the south of Toronto turned in twenty-seven absentee ballots not in his favor.

Each time young King Tsao Young would leave his penthouse, the voices of passerby’s rang through his ears, “Isn’t that the guy who lost the election? I heard he spent a three million-dollar trust fund. What a shame.”

He saw the loss as the defeat of a lifetime. It sent him spiraling into a life of seclusion and shame. Shame. That was all poor King Tsao Young could feel anymore. He spent the majority of his time avoiding the public by frequenting 24-hour facilities for fitness and shopping. King Tsao was infinitely grateful for the plethora of 24-hours in the great city of Toronto. What pleased him most was the anonymity. When he did cross paths with someone he knew, he could be sure that they were thoroughly blitzed. Why else would one stop for take out at three am?

He was most pleased on the night when he ran into his receptionist, Sharon, at two-thirty in the morning at a pizzeria. After telling him she was a pineapple, she peed her pants and blacked out whilst waiting to collect her mushroom pizza. Dr Tsao Young never told Sharon exactly how much he knew, only that he had seen her at a pizza place the night before and was wondering if she got home okay. From that day on, Sharon was shaken by the fact that she blacked out in front of her boss. She had a tendency to try to have sex with strangers, friends, or anyone basically when she was wasted and always cringed at the thought that she may have offered herself to him that night. Also, she wondered if he knew she peed her pants.

King Tsao Young’s parents were proud Chinese Canadian surgeons and never acknowledged the fact that their son had run for mayor, believing it was defiant and foolish from the get go. As far as they were concerned, King’s life was all ready mapped out. Just as they planned, King apprenticed under his father upon completion of University of Toronto Medical School and took over the family practice for Colorectal Surgery. Most people would hate to correct people’s asshole and intestinal problems for a living; King believed it was a lucky twist of fate. He suffered a great deal of anxiety which lead to a chronic inferiority complex, but when King had his latex gloves on and his hand in someone else’s business, he felt empowered. The tables were turned in Dr Tsao Young’s office. There, he was on top.

Dr. Tsao Young was not the world’s greatest surgeon. This was because his hands were, quite simply, too big. In fact, he had cited “large hands for an Asian” as the reason for six faulty rectal surgeries. After much debate, and a hefty “contribution” to the Toronto medical council’s research facility, the medical council decided that “large hands for an Asian” could be a legally defined disability. Asian hands were supposed to be tiny, and as such, he could not be charged if his hands were at fault. It wasn’t fair to discriminate against people with disabilities.

With his ticket in hand, King Tsao Young was set to fly to London today for an important seminar on advanced rectal-intestinal surgery technique. The modern innovations involved laser technology, and would likely save him from further malpractice issues. It was also convenient that his disability had permitted him a tax exemption as the laser equipment was seen as entirely necessary. King Tsao was a frugal man and would not have traveled internationally if he did not receive said tax exemption. As King Tsao turned the corner for gate 53, the most frighteningly horrible most ghastly and disturbing thing that could ever happen in the whole King Tsao Young universe happened. Martin Lebrowsky, elected mayor of Toronto circa 1992 handed his boarding pass to the flight attendant at gate 53, and prepared to board the plane.

King froze. He stared at the bastard that beat him for mayor by twenty-seven fucking absentee ballots. The same man who had ruined his entire life one month before his nineteenth birthday. The man who he had vigilantly avoided for fourteen years. King Tsao Young had thought, many times, of how different his life might have been if Martin Le-asshole hadn’t beaten him for mayor. He would have gone into a political career fresh out of high school, and then perhaps he would have liked to work in Public Relations or Foreign Relations even. He would have lived a red carpet life, a life in the spotlight. He would be a Chinese Canadian hero, and as such would probably have a model girlfriend who dressed in fitted suits and threw charity galas at their multi-level Toronto home. He would certainly be written into history books. Ultimately, he likely would have won a Nobel peace prize. King Tsao could not believe the effect the '92 election had on his circumstances. All thanks to that loss, he was an asshole surgeon, a hermit, and an anxious insomniac.

He would have won a Nobel Peace Prize.

When King Tsao Young came to, he was mid-flight to Santiago del Sorio, Spain.