I strive to understand families. The connections through blood are mysterious to me, these accidents of birth and death binding dissimilar and often disastrous relations, and I've come to view this as a construct of convenience. My family, unified and complete for only a very short time after my birth, became a standard of comparison that to this day makes me see the tenuous and ethereal bonds parents have to one another, to their children, to their siblings. I watch others and learn.

Here is a true story: my father once tried to build a tiny pond in the back yard. He wanted to have a traditional Korean garden, reminding him of gardens he saw as a child, and bought smooth decorative rocks, pine saplings, lotus flowers, and moss. He told me a garden would relax him. The centerpiece, the pond, would have a mini island at the center, a chungdo, that represented, as I learned long after his death, a respite and refuge. Because we didn't have much room in the back yard for a garden, my father wanted to install a small fountain with running water to give the illusion of depth and breadth. He wanted to hear the sound of water. He bought all the materials and worked on the pond in his spare time. But he didn't mix the cement correctly, and the concrete lining eventually cracked, leaking out the water; he also didn't have time to landscape and cultivate the earth, so the flowers withered. The pine trees thrived, however. When my father died, my aunt sold the fountain, and I helped her fill in the gaping hole, shovelling dirt mixed with decorative rocks and crumbling pieces of concrete.

Paul and I are on a typical babysitting job, a nine-to-fiver protecting a Silicon Valley executive, a job that is supposed to be routine. We have been with our client, Sorenson, for about a week now, and it is going more or less as planned. Sorenson needs some hand-holding after receiving anonymous threats. He and his board of directors at Integrated Communications recently laid off twelve hundred employees, and the anonymous threats, along with a rash of chip plant robberies and even an attempted kidnapping that shook up the high-tech industry, prompted Int-Com to hire us at Executive Protection Services, a.k.a. ProServ. The industry is nervous.

On this job we're supposed to drive Sorenson to Int-Com, stay on the premises in conjunction with Int-Com's security detail, then drive him home. We do the usual things. We "rolodex" the client, checking and prepping Sorenson's daily appointments, making certain no one unexpected is allowed in without positive i.d. and approval; we handle the mail and packages; we accompany Sorenson wherever he goes, especially to and from meetings off the premises; and we've changed most of his and his wife's routines.

One week into the job Sorenson has a lunch appointment at a restaurant in Monte Vista, which Paul doesn't like because it's so public. Paul, the supervisor for this job, tries to convince Sorenson to change this location, have it at someone's office, but Sorenson grows annoyed, this kind of interference losing its novelty pretty fast, and tells us curtly that it's our job to protect him, that's all. He has a business to run. However, Paul manages to get Sorenson to leave early, giving us the chance to survey and prep the location. We take the Tank, a customized Chevy Suburban.

The Tank has level III and level IV ballistic armor, bullet-resistant windows, run-flat tires that continue to roll with bullets lodged in them, and other goodies that our boss, Polansky, had installed. I like the Global Positioning Satellite System with a Bay Area map display, since I do most of the driving, and have a lousy sense of direction. Although at first glance the Tank looks like any other sport utility vehicle, if you examine it closely, you'll see some differences. It has a smooth belly pan-an aluminum panel covering the underside-to deter tampering. The bumpers are reinforced with extra rubber and steel. The windows are tinted and bullet-proof.

Clients love the Tank. It's a big selling point for Polansky. I had to take a three-week defensive driving course to learn how to handle this thing, since the armor weighs it down so much. I also picked up all kinds of useful information about car bombs and bugs. At first it sounded like secret agent crap, but once I saw the replica bombs that people have used, with detonators wired to brake lights or the ignition, mercury switches or remote-controlled explosives hidden behind the gas tank-my skepticism dissolved. I learned about heat-sensing switches near the exhaust, and detonators wired to the odometer as delayed triggers. I swept for listening devices and saw how ingenious they have become. Some long-range bugs are as small and flat as a dime.

I don't have to search for these here unless Paul and I leave the Tank unattended for too long. I usually conduct a quick exterior inspection-checking the belly pan, the tires-before letting Sorenson aboard, which I do now, and we drive off.

Paul taps his fingers on his knees, and looks up and down the freeway. Though he is a decade older than me, he has the nervous energy of a kid, always moving, always antsy, his quick eyes jumping from one object to another, the slightest motion or glint in his field of vision attracting his full but fleeting attention. His splayed fingers drum at odd angles, as if he's trying to stretch them, and this constant movement bothered me at first. When we started working together almost a year ago-I had been promoted from group to paired field work-I thought his impatience was a rebuke. Then I realized he was always like that. I came to see it as an advantage, his restlessness keeping him alert and wary. Paul is always on. I am not. My energy waxes and wanes depending on how much I've eaten, how late it's getting, how much sleep I've had. I feel myself solidifying as it grows darker out, my thoughts slowing. By the evening I turn to stone.

My nickname in high school was "The Block," given to me because of my once stocky build, the way my head seemed attached to a rectangular block of a body. I've slimmed down and have actually grown a couple of inches since then, but I earned this name as a fullback on the soccer team, barrelling into opposing forwards. I still have my jersey somewhere, practically shredded with age, but it's my only proof of being part of a winning team. No, I don't think I'm a former high school athlete who relives his glory every evening with a beer and pot belly. My high school career was inglorious in most ways, but I have so little evidence of former lives. I exist as I am. I move in the present...

[from Over the Shoulder (Ecco Press/Harpercollins, 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Leonard Chang. Permission to reprint here given by the author.]