Lin An's Fearless Confidence

After O'Brien left, the cafe quieted down.

The guy with dreadlocks behind the bar changed the music to a soothing rendition of Georgia on My Mind by Ray Charles, the low piano notes flowing slowly through the afternoon light.

Darnell shuffled back carrying a plate; he had gnawed the tomahawk steak down to the bone. He set the plate on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"So..."

He lowered his voice.

"Are you really going to his place tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"Are you actually an international student from China at Columbia University?"

"Maybe, maybe not."

Lin An raised a hand to signal the waiter and pulled out a ten-dollar bill.

"One hot coffee, please. Add milk, one-tenth sugar. The rest is a tip, thank you."

The waiter walked over quickly, smiled at Lin An as he tucked the money into his order book, and then hurried away.

Once the waiter was out of earshot, Darnell looked left and right, his voice dropping even lower.

"Look, bro, tell me, what's your situation right now? What's your status?"

"I don't know."

Lin An spread his hands. He didn't have the memories of his predecessor, so he truly didn't know anything.

"The night I met you, I lost my memory, and I didn't have any identification on me... Keep this a secret for me."

"Of course!"

Darnell patted his chest in assurance.

"I'm the most tight-lipped guy in all of New York, I am—"

[This guy is rambling on and on, I feel like he's unreliable.]

[Look on the bright side, guys like him are always like this. We just need to keep an eye out for the streamer.]

[I feel like the streamer is way too unbothered.]

[It's not that he's unbothered, it's that he's a dead pig that doesn't fear boiling water.]

The chat was teasing him, but Lin An didn't care at all, not even a little bit angry... These were his bread and butter, so what if they said a few things about him?

Besides, they were hitting the nail on the head; there was no slander, he really was that kind of person... Anyway, he couldn't change it, so he'd just leave it at that.

"Sir, your hot coffee, milk and one-tenth sugar. Do you need anything else?"

Lin An picked up the coffee and took a sip. The bitterness of the coffee melted on the back of his tongue, carrying a hint of acidity.

"No, check please."

"Alright, sir."

[That cop just now was a bit clueless. The streamer helped him, saved him at least two thousand bucks, and he ran off without even paying the bill.]

[He probably didn't think of it. He's over fifty and still patrolling the streets; he's at the very bottom of the police department. Clearly, he lacks emotional intelligence and doesn't know how to suck up to his superiors. With a guy like that, even if he catches a hundred criminals, can he even get a promotion?]

[True.]

[People always say there's no such thing as "connections and favors" in America. In reality, if you have no value in terms of connections and favors, it just means you're a little nobody.]

"Bro, since you don't have an identity."

Darnell lowered his voice to a whisper.

"If you tell people you're a Chinese student at Columbia and the police find out, won't there be trouble?"

"There won't be any trouble."

When you're out in the world, you define your own identity. What's there to be afraid of?

Lin An was very patient. Although Darnell looked mature, he was actually just an eighteen-year-old Black kid with a bit of social experience, but all of that experience was strictly street-level.

He knew how to deal with other Black brothers on the street, knew which stores he could loot without getting caught by the police, knew which street surveillance cameras were broken, and knew that police patrols in certain neighborhoods were spaced fifteen minutes apart.

These were the survival manuals a kid growing up on the streets of New York had accumulated over several years.

However, Darnell wouldn't know what it meant for an NYPD officer to suddenly lose over two thousand dollars in assets.

He wouldn't know that the "20% penalty" figure in an IRS CP2000 notice wasn't just a sum of money to a family with an annual income of less than fifty thousand—it was a noose.

He wouldn't know the helplessness a high school-educated cop feels when facing terms like "cost basis" and "1099-K"—the feeling of "this is clearly English, yet I don't recognize a single word."

And he certainly wouldn't know that in this capitalist country, a person's value isn't determined by what's on their ID, but by how many problems they can solve that others cannot.

If you can solve other people's problems, then money and identity are no longer problems.

And right now, Lin An was exactly the person who could solve the policeman's trouble.

"He's a cop, bro."

Darnell's voice carried a kind of near-earnest anxiety.

"Officer, do you understand? You did him such a huge favor today, and he's grateful to you, but what about tomorrow? What about the day after? When he eventually thinks to verify your identity, what will you do?"

Lin An set his coffee cup down, the base clicking softly against the saucer.

"Do you think he'll check up on me?"

"I don't know if he will, but whether he can and whether he will are two different things..."

"Darnell." Lin An interrupted him.

Darnell shut his mouth.

"Have you ever thought about it?"

Lin An said.

"Why did he come here today?"

"Because you helped him."

"Right, I helped him, but the issue isn't that I helped him; the issue is 'who else could have helped him besides me'."

Darnell blinked.

"Do you know how much it costs to find a lawyer in New York who can handle this kind of tax issue?"

Lin An said.

"Five hundred dollars an hour, minimum. And those lawyers wouldn't tell him he could get a tax refund; they'd tell him the case is very complex, that they need to study it first, and that he needs to pay a two-thousand-dollar retainer."

He paused.

"Can O'Brien afford that kind of money?"

Darnell was silent for a moment.

"He can't."

"So he only has two paths."

Lin An held up two fingers.

"The first is to tough it out alone, get fined by the IRS, have his wages garnished, end up on a credit blacklist, and maybe even lose his house. The second is to come to me—it's free, and I can solve his problem."

He pulled his fingers back.

"Which one do you think he'll choose?"

"He'd definitely choose you."

"So."

Lin An said.

"Why would he check up on me?"

Darnell opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"He needs me."

Lin An said, his voice very calm.

"More than I need him. In this relationship, I am the one providing the solution, and he... is a trapped man. A trapped man doesn't bite the hand that reaches out to pull him to safety."

A few comments drifted across the screen.

[That sounds cold, but it's the truth.]

[This is what they call "competence is identity." If you are useful, your identity is real.]

[That's the essence of American society. If you can solve problems, you're legitimate. As for that piece of paper... that's for people who can't solve problems.]

[You can't really say that, though. What if he runs into a particularly pedantic cop?]

[In New York? A pedantic cop? Hahahahaha.]

[Besides, O'Brien is NYPD, not ICE. He deals with street order, not immigration status.]

[Even if he knew Lin An was undocumented, so what? Lin An saved him at least two thousand dollars. What does two thousand dollars mean to a cop these days?]

[Do you think he'd report Lin An?]

[What good would reporting him do?]

[No benefit, only downsides.]

[Once this matter is resolved, even if Lin An said he was an illegal immigrant, this cop wouldn't just refuse to arrest him—he'd find a way to help Lin An solve his problems, or provide sanctuary if he couldn't.]

[I'm a landlord in the US making money. We aren't in the same world. I'm not afraid of you reporting me, so I'll tell you a secret.]

[In the US, the ones most likely to bite back and be ungrateful are other Chinese immigrants, especially those who crossed the border from South America. They are the most selfish; just being near them disgusts me. The ones most capable of gratitude, who would risk their lives for you because of a favor, are white people.]

[Brother, you talk like that, you must have experience.]

[I've already sent my men to gun down several white idiots who messed with my properties. Even if the FBI caught them, those gunmen knew they'd be executed, and they still wouldn't rat me out.]

[Why?]

[Because their families live in my houses. As long as I don't fall, their families can keep living there. If I'm finished, their whole families are finished too.]

[What about Black people?]

[Black people are loyal and will kill for the sake of loyalty, but they aren't very bright and are prone to accidents.]

Darnell clearly hadn't considered this layer of the situation. His expression remained anxious, but because Lin An was so calm, he chose to trust him and stopped dwelling on the matter.

However, Darnell made up his mind that if things took a turn for the worst, he would take his good bro and run.

No matter what, he wouldn't let his bro get caught by the police.