There I sat, dressed in the set of clothes I had won from the bartender in a game of Bull, when Mr. Nakamura, the owner, staggered in and sat down opposite me at the empty bar.

"Pina Colada?" he asked, adjusting his glasses.

"Fresh out," I told him dejectedly. I would have mixed the drink but the bartender had kept the counter keys.

Mr. Nakamura sighed and stared intently at the glass I was polishing. "Tonight we ran out of General Tso special, Sheng. It was unfortunate." I nodded and handed him a bottle of tequila from my pocket.

I addressed him: "That's only fitting...Ah, but you are not Chinese, Mr. Nakamura. You haven't heard the story of General Tso."

Mr. Nakamura grinned. "The Japanese have different traditions in naming their food." He motioned me to sit in Sheng's stool.

I had a seat. "Well, Mr. Nakamura, traditions can be overbearing sometimes...Take Tso, for instance. His father, one of the great Warring Period Kings, had named him after the Chinese word for 'gauntlet,' and, yes, it fit him like a glove. By his adolescent years he had already inherited a good deal of China, so that by his coronary year, Tso was left to defend – but conquer nothing all. His dejected days were now spent meditating in his opulent private aviary, standing among the fluttering game birds, gazing by moonlight at the immense periphery of his empire and the traces of the still-unconquered Kansu corridor, while the birds dubiously eyed the strange statue who just recently shooed them away.

"But for the past few months something new has caught Tso's eye: the eccentric Kansu princess Miao, who's just recently had a spat with her father and's now fled to the corridor cliffs. Love-struck, Tso can't wait for some unforeseen sitzkrieg to finally meet her, so his current victory is to communicate to her through his messenger pigeons. Like some lazy scheme of Hermes, soon gifts ascend from Tso's messages, and then one day, in a glorious train of eighty-four pigeons, Tso ascends himself.

"'Oh, dear, won't you come to dinner with me to-nite?' the dangerously high Tso sings across the cliffs to the laughing Miao, who's awfully close, clever pigeons. She only kisses his forehead while gently pushing a sewn owl mask fully over the rest of his head, finishing off the rite with a tremendous scream of 'HOOO?' The pigeons must now pause to wonder if hungry owls really do get that big, and then burst into frightened aerobatic claw and beak maneuvers as the now severed Tso screams himself.

"Left to ponder Miao's rejection on the painful walk home, Tso begins to feel a little like a flightless version of the bird whose face he now wears. 'But no... Is it that I am not quite unable to fly, that I am perched in still preparation for the glorious heavens? Oh, and just how far can I turn my neck?'

"A slightly delirious and cramped Tso staggers into camp to meet at once with his best military engineers and strategists, to whom he lays out his vision: 'Right, this Kansu is to be sieged, men, with tactics, weapons, etc.'; but Tso's now flapping his arms – nearly drunkenly, Mr. Nakamura – with a perceptive grin beneath his mask: 'Men, we also need a gigantic bowl (don't ask!); right – and for you to secretly poison the waters surrounding Kansu, with something really flammable; and to train all of my pigeons to so-and-so instructions; and, above all else, to assure that our victory will not be rained-out by monsoon...'

"So, yes, the engineers must all agree now that their general really is a wise owl! Preparations begin: 'We'll get a huge fucking bowl from that Egyptian outpost; the pigeons only really need to be cleaned, the filthy birds; and the troops have been ready awhile for this...'

"A week of preparations sees Tso's delirium fade, but again he dons his lucky costume for the beginnings of the siege. The brilliant moon is a little terrifying tonight, stirring the troops to coyote-like restlessness, but from his post Tso keeps a composed eye on the dawn of the sun, which should be coming up any minute...but what's this? Are those storm clouds in the hemispheres? His ashamed meteorologists concur, the infantry behind him grumble to attack...but the General's order comes: 'Stay your positions...and release the birds anyway!'

"And so the trainers do. Tso's heart fills with wonder at the beautiful synchronized flight of his pigeons: to each bird tied its own glorious stick of dynamite, all flying marvelously to a precise location over Kansu, whereby – oh, you know! – the rays of the rising sun will reflect from the bowl astern, so that, at the right moment, the focused radiance can heat the birds' cargo...because no general has ever attempted napalm from above...and no rooster, no bird, has ever greeted the dawn much like this...

"Not the sun but a lightning bolt is the first particle to crash into the very center of the immense bowl. The infantry must now yell out, 'It's broken? The sun's not even up yet!' and 'We've awoken the counterattack!' and 'Can't we attack? Are we soldiers, or pigeons?' But Tso, with his brilliant Wave I: Pigeons thwarted, refuses to even consider dull Wave II: Asshole Soldiers. So now, from one of those asinine infantryman, who here can be suppressed no longer – a soldier, in fact, just now realizing he's standing astride the broken half of an unrealized prototype for the Hollywood Bowl – comes a spiteful and resounding 'GENERAL TSO'S CHICKEN!'

"Today in the town of Kansu, the adults are awoken by the haughty bellow of a foreign soldier, while the children are already up watching complicated patterns of lightning form in the sky, until the emerging medium somehow strikes EXACTLY a strangely feathery medium of white that hovers closer overhead...so for a brief moment Dad must explain to the kids why Mayor Zheng's fireworks are NEVER that good...but almost immediately the downpour begins, and the ignorant villagers are saved; and boy it's raining (thud, thud) A LOT today! The riverbanks, already a strange new burgundy color, overflow with and baste a grand supply of roasted pigeons and later an extraordinarily large owl. But it was in fact GENERAL TSO'S CHICKEN that had awoken the townspeople, and it is now General Tso's chicken that they will eat. Yes, it's a special occasion, Mr. Nakamura, for all."