The woman who gave him the written tests said, “Mr. Tran, you have a PhD in philosophy and a law degree too. Are you sure you’re not overqualified?” Her expression was sincere and she asked it without the skepticism he sometimes heard.

“I be fortunate as state tax associate here, Miss.”

She smiled and said, “Good luck, sir,” and closed the door behind her. She left him with tax laws to manipulate, sales and use taxes, property taxes, state tax controversy resolutions, and credit taxes too. He understood long ago that numbers, like letters, were interpretable and malleable, dependent solely on perspective. His number two pencil swam through the test sheets.

Viet finished early. He pushed his chair back and stood to leave. But when he thought about how desperately Huong wanted him to get this job, he sat down again, remembering what she’d said the first time they met. “The man of perfect virtue is cautious and slow in speech.”

He was a first year professor and she was a student at the University. They were in line at a deli near campus and Viet was with his best friend, an economics professor. The best friend was talking too much trying to impress the co-ed while Viet remained quiet, not sure what to say. He was unnerved by Huong’s beauty, the haunting eyes, the see-through skin, the blue of the veins on her wrists. And then those eyes turned to him, her mouth opened, and she quoted the Confucian saying. Years later, Huong confessed that she’d known all along that he was a philosophy professor, “the one rumored to be obsessive about the ancient Chinese.”

Yet as he sat on the 29th floor of a downtown skyscraper looking down at the tiny dots below, Viet held on to the advice of the clever young flirt. He double-checked his answers. The remaining time he spent writing down his favorite Confucian anecdotes on the back of an old grocery receipt.

Back at the post office, his co-workers, “the crew,” they liked to call themselves, stood over their bins sorting mail by zip code.

“Where you been, little guy?” asked David.

Viet nodded a hello. He had told David before that in his country younger persons greeted elders with respect but the boy either chose to ignore it or had already forgotten. Viet thought how embarrassing it must be, to throw about careless words and not even realize it.

Melvin said “What’s up, little man?” and continued with his story. “Yep, like I was saying met me a sweet baby Saturday night.” Viet stepped in and took the only bin available between the part-time student and the playboy.

“How sweet?” asked David.

Melvin paused and licked his lips. “So sweet, she was like unwrapped candy. Sugar and molasses spilling outta her unbuttoned shirt.”

Viet felt sorry for the two women in the group. They were outnumbered and had to listen in on the talk of depraved men. One woman rolled her eyes and smacked her gum saying, “You’re so gross, Melvin.” But the other woman stepped forward. She blushed a guilty rouge color and wiped the steam from her glasses.