San Francisco Boy

by Lois Lenski

  Felix fell, hit his head on something hard and fainted. When he woke up, he was dazed and his knee pained him badly. He tried to get up. He could hardly stand on his feet because his legs hurt and he was dizzy. Roger helped him. “Lean on me,” said Roger, kicking the scooter to one side.

  The storekeeper, who had been sitting quietly reading his Chinese newspaper, jumped up and shouted, “Whose worthless son are you that you so disgrace your honorable father by wrecking a man’s livelihood?”

  Felix opened his eyes and saw that it was Mr. Chew, one of his best paper customers, the friendly storekeeper who often gave him lichee nuts and Chinese candies. He saw, too, that Policeman Mike was hurrying over. A crowd of people had gathered and everybody had something to say. The whole neighborhood seemed to know what had happened.

  Ronnie crept under a woman’s elbow to rescue his scooter. But the woman saw him and held him.

  “Here’s the guilty boy,” she said. “With his crazy soapbox scooter, he breaks up a man’s business! All his livelihood ruined!”

  “No, it was that other boy.” A man pointed to Felix. “He was riding it, I saw him come down the hill, endangering the life of everybody on the street. Right on the sidewalk, too.”

  “But he is badly hurt,” said another woman. “Look! Poor boy! He’s hurt—he can’t even stand up. Why doesn’t somebody do something?”

  Another woman spoke up. It was Mrs. Ping from Apartment No. 5 on the third floor of the Fongs’ apartment house. “Why, he is the son of my neighbor, Frank Fong. He is cook at that fine restaurant, the Lotus Garden, on Grant Avenue. His children are well-behaved, an example to all the neighbors.”

  A businessman said, “He is the paper boy, who carries the Call-Bulletin.”

  Mr. Chew spoke up quickly, “Is this boy Frank Fong’s son?”

  Policeman Mike did not smile and act friendly as usual. He asked the boys their names and wrote them down in a notebook. Then he turned briskly to Mr. Chew. “You want me to arrest him?” he asked. “The boy on the scooter who smashed up your shop? You want to bring charges?”

  “Perhaps his father …” began Mr. Chew.

  Ronnie squeezed into the crowd again to rescue his scooter.

  “There’s the boy!” said the woman. “It’s his scooter. Arrest him!”

  But Ronnie was too quick. He dodged back again and made off with his scooter. Sammy disappeared too.

  “You want me to arrest him?” asked the policeman impatiently, holding Felix by the arm. “You want to bring suit for damages?”

  Mr. Chew had had time to think, and now he spoke solemnly in Chinese, while all the bystanders listened. “I am a wise and thoughtful man,” he said. “I have but one wish and that is to live in peace with my neighbors. We Chinese do not like to take our Chinese boys to court. We believe it is the father’s duty to reprimand the son when he behaves badly. I will go to the boy’s father, who is a responsible man. He will pay for the damage the boy has unintentionally done. The boy is young and has not yet learned the ways of wisdom. I could not face the boy’s father if I had his son thrown into jail.”

  “Well, what’s he saying anyhow?” Policeman Mike looked at Mrs. Ping. “Does he want me to arrest the kid?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Ping. “He will settle it with the boy’s father.”

  Policeman Mike shrugged his shoulders. “O. K.,” he said.

  Suddenly Felix looked up and there he saw Younger Sister in the crowd. Mei Gwen was looking at him, shocked and surprised. Felix hung his head in shame. She had heard all this talk about being arrested and thrown into jail. The next minute she was gone. Would she tell Father everything? Had she gone to Chinese school or home to report? The policeman left, the crowd thinned out and Felix and Roger were left standing there.

  Mr. Chew lifted his hands in despair as he looked at his shop. Straw hats and baskets, tops and airplanes, postcards, fruit, cigarettes, boxes of tea, Chinese slippers and souvenirs were scattered helter-skelter.

  “Now I will sell nothing today,” he complained, feeling very sorry for himself. “Nobody will come to buy things that are broken and soiled. I might as well go out of business.”

  Felix and Roger began to pick things up. As Mr. Chew pointed with his finger to show them where things belonged, they put things back as well as they could.

  Mr. Chew kept on talking to himself. “When my friend, Joe Ming, comes by,” he said, “I will ask him to keep shop for me. Then I will go to see Mr. Fong at that restaurant.” He sat down on the stool in his little booth, took up a Chinese newspaper, and ignoring the boys, started to read.

  Felix turned to Roger. “I don’t want to go to Chinese school,” he said, “and I don’t want to go home.”

  “Come home with me then,” said Roger. “My mother has a dress factory right up this hill. Come and let my mother help you. Maybe you have broken some bones.”

  Limping, Felix went to the factory with Roger. All the women at their sewing machines stopped their laughing and chattering and stared at him. Roger told his mother what had happened and she took Felix in the kitchen at the back. She made the boy lie down on a cot while she examined him. He had no broken bones but he hurt and ached all over. She told him to lie still and rest while she prepared dinner. Then he sat up and ate with Roger’s family. They ate early so Roger could go to Chinese school.

  Roger’s father said to Felix, “Now you must go home and tell your father.”

  Felix was grateful to Roger and his family for their kindness. He thanked them and went out into the street. He stared walking, but not in the direction of home. How could he go there? Mei Gwen would already have told Mother what had happened. Mr. Chew of the wall-shop would have visited Father at the Lotus Garden Restaurant and demanded damages. Father could be very severe when one of his sons got into serious trouble.

  No, Felix could not go home—at least, not right now. He put his hand in his pocket. Luckily he had money. Roger’s route manager had paid the boys off before they started on their route. If he could not go home, where could he go? There was only one place he wanted to go, the place that had filled his thoughts and dreams ever since he left there many months before. He walked down to the end of Commercial Street and kept on walking until he came to the Bay Bridge Terminal at First and Mission Streets. He boarded a bus that said Alameda on the front. It was crowded and he had a hard time finding a seat. He did not see the other passengers, nor did he look out of the windows. His mind was filled with the thought of Alameda. He hated San Francisco and never wanted to see it again.

  The bus seemed slow to Felix and he thought it would never get there. After crossing the bridge to Oakland, it turned south and began making frequent stops. When it came to the big park in Alameda, Felix got off. He was now about two miles from his former home.

  He remembered how he used to take his younger brothers to the park, and how he brought a compass along, so they would not get lost. He brought chalk and string too, to mark the trees along the streets. He chuckled to himself over his childish idea of “safety first.” The houses along the way looked pretty much the same and he knew what direction to go. His legs grew more and more tired, so he found it hard to keep going. But he felt happier now that he knew he would soon be there.

  He thought about the plum tree as he walked along. Once when he was halfway up the tree, his foot got stuck in a crotch. He tried to get it loose. He pulled so hard that he pulled his foot out of the shoe, fell to the ground and landed on his back. His shoe was still stuck up in the tree and he had given himself a bad jolt. He thought of Grandma Reed and the magic bird and how he had wounded it.

  Felix grew more and more tired the farther he walked. But at last he reached the heart of Alameda. When he passed the public library and the police station with the big Christmas tree in front, he forgot his fatigue and quickened his steps. Now he was almost there. Down at the corner by the Times building, he turned into the narrow little side street. The first thing he saw was a flock of pigeons i
n the sky. They swooped down and landed in the street beyond. Were they Uncle Marvin’s?

  Felix had decided to go to Cousin Hom’s. He would feel at home there in the same house, the same rooms, the same yard, and on the same street where he had lived before. He would visit Cousin Hom and his wife and see all his old friends again—Johnny Lew and Timmy Reed and Jack Bailey and the others. He would be happy again as he had never been since the family had moved to San Francisco.

  Felix rubbed his eyes. Was he in the wrong street? What had happened? Where were the houses? Where was Johnny Lew’s house and Jack Bailey’s? What he saw now was a big open space across from Cousin Hom’s. On it he saw a large sign on posts, which read: PARKING LOT—25¢ per hour. The houses were gone. They had been moved away or torn down. The boy’s heart skipped a beat.

  Even here, in his dream-place, in Alameda, could changes come? Only a short time ago, when he came in Uncle Ed’s truck, he had been so sure—Alameda was just the same, it had not changed at all. How could this well-loved neighborhood change like this? Was Alameda turning into a big city, too? Would it never be “country” any more?

  But on his own side, on Cousin Hom’s side, the houses were still there, Grandpa Reed’s, Cousin Hom’s and Old Man Tracy’s. It was nearly dark now, and there were lights shining in the Reeds’ house and the Tracys’. But Cousin Hom’s house was dark. Cousin Hom and his wife must be in the kitchen, preparing supper. Felix ran lightly up the steps and knocked at the front door.

  But no answer came. He knocked again—They must be there. But he heard no sound. They must be home, they’ve got to be at home, after I’ve come all this long way, thought Felix. He ran down the steps, opened the side gate and ran along the board walk to the back yard, but the yard was empty, too. Weeds and grass grew high. The fishpool had no water and no fish in it—it was only an empty cement shell. Where were they? Where had they gone? Felix looked more closely now. Running up the back steps, he peered in at the kitchen window. There was no furniture inside. They had moved away.

  He sat on the back step and hid his face in his hands. He sat there for a long time, letting the hard facts sink in. Alameda the beautiful, Alameda his old home was not the same. It would never be the same again. All the things about it that he had known and loved so much, that he had longed for and dreamed about, were changed and gone. Change, change, was life nothing but change? Was growing up nothing but change? As he sat there, Felix changed from a boy to a man. He knew now that he had to give up the thought of Alameda. Cured of his homesickness, he would somehow have to begin life over again. How, he did not know. For now, all that he could feel was the pain and the sorrow of the experience.

  He sat there for a long time, and he knew that he was very tired. He looked up and saw that darkness had come. Across the high board fence, he saw a light in the Reeds’ kitchen. Inside, he saw Grandma Reed moving about, washing dishes. He thought of all her kindness in the past. Never had she given him a cross word. He knew she would take him in and give him food to eat and a place to sleep. She would ask no questions, but she would think it very strange that he should be here so late at night, strange that he did not know Cousin Hom had moved away. These questions would be in her eyes even if she did not say them, and they would be hard to explain.

  Suddenly he was fearful for the Reeds. Would their house be torn down too, and would they have to move away? That would be hard for them after living here for thirty years. Where would they go, now that they were so old?

  Wearily, Felix made his way around to the front of the house. Should he go to Uncle Marvin’s on Central Avenue, a block away? The new parking lot extended over to the back of Uncle Marvin’s yard. The pigeon houses inside the fence were exposed to view. It was only a short walk across to his back door. At least Uncle Marvin still had his laundry and home, still had his pigeons. But how long could he keep them?

  What would Uncle Marvin say if Felix came to his door and knocked? How could Felix explain what he was doing here in Alameda, alone, at night? Uncle Marvin was Father’s elder brother, more severe even than Father. How could he say that he had run away from home and that Father did not know where he was? Uncle Marvin would take him back to San Francisco, to Father without delay. No—there would be no food, no bed and no rest at Uncle Marvin’s house tonight.

  Felix walked along the narrow little street. Old Man Tracy’s house was dark—he had gone to bed. A cold breeze was blowing in from the bay. The boy shivered with the dampness. Beyond Tracys’ yard, there were more changes. The old wooden store buildings were torn down and being replaced. A large new cement block garage had been built at the corner. On the street side it was a gas station, brightly lighted, with a number of gasoline pumps and several busy attendants in uniform. Inside a wide door opening on the little side street, mechanics were working. It was warm there, so Felix slipped inside the door. No one noticed him. A noisy machine was throwing off a wave of heat. Felix held out his hands. He stayed there and the heat warmed him through and through.

  He tried not to think what would happen next.

  CHAPTER X

  A Day of Understanding

  That afternoon, when Mei Gwen reached the jeans factory, Mother stood waiting at the door.

  “We have had an accident,” said Mother. “Please be kind to Jessie Chong. Her mother ran a needle into her finger and had to be taken to the Chinese hospital. She may not be able to sew for a while.”

  Mei Gwen said, “O. K.” She disliked Jessie, but had no time to think of her now. All that mattered was Elder Brother. The words “arrested” and “in jail” kept ringing in the girl’s ears. It was so dreadful, she could not tell Mother. Hers was a heavy secret to keep.

  Mei Gwen hoped Mother would stop work and go home early today. She could hardly wait to get home. Maybe Felix would be there waiting. Maybe he would say it was not true at all. There had been no policeman, no angry shopkeeper, no baskets and souvenirs thrown on the sidewalk. It was all just a bad dream.

  She followed her mother into the dark factory interior. Frankie ran ahead saying, “Shall I open the light?” He turned on the shaded light over Mother’s sewing machine and she started to work.

  Mei Gwen sat down on a bench at the back, near a huge pile of blue denim. All the men and women were sewing busily. The room was noisy with the roaring and vibration of the machines. Frankie and Freddie were playing cowboy with Jessie’s brother Jimmy, on the men’s side. Freddie leaped on the red hobbyhorse and jumped off. Jimmy came behind. He leaped on, jumped up and down a few times, then chased the other boys in and around the sewing machines. The game ended in a fight, with Jimmy and Freddie on top of Frankie, pounding him hard. Uncle Leon sent them all outside.

  The younger children crowded around Mei Gwen. Jessie had been trying to take her place, but they were used to Mei Gwen and her ways.

  “Tell us a story,” cried Cousin Dorinda. “Tell us about the princess.”

  “Not today,” said Mei Gwen. “I don’t feel like it. Some other time.”

  “Take us around the block,” cried the children. “Let’s play Shake, shake, shake.”

  “Not today,” said Mei Gwen again.

  Then Jessie Chong came in. She did not look sad and she had not been crying. Maybe she did not care if her mother ran a needle through her finger. Of course, thought Mei Gwen, women who did not know how to sew ought to stay away from a jeans factory—and keep their children away, too.

  Jessie came boldly up to Mei Gwen.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Why aren’t you at Chinese school?”

  “I’ll go when I get ready,” said Mei Gwen.

  “You’re playing hookey, I see,” said Jessie. “That’s bad to play hookey from Chinese school, because your mother has to pay money for you to go there. Your mother works hard and you just waste her money, don’t you?”

  Mei Gwen’s mother called over to the girls. “Who’s going to get our coffee today?”

  Jessie and Mei Gwen looked a
t each other.

  Mei Gwen did not jump up quickly. Her face fell and she called back, “Oh, let Jessie go!”

  “You don’t want to?” asked Jessie. “If you hurry, you can get back in plenty of time for Chinese school.”

  Mei Gwen got up and turned her back. “Go ahead,” she said.

  Mother Fong gave Jessie the coffeepot and the money and returned to her sewing machine. Jessie went out, with the little children following.

  After they left, Mei Gwen went to the small room at the back of the factory. Susie was taking her nap in the playpen as usual. Aunty Rose, who had been doing accounts at her desk, got up and went over to the women’s side. No one spoke to Mei Gwen or noticed her. Down in a dark corner, behind some bundles of jeans, she took out a box from a carton.

  It was a beautiful box of inlaid wood. Once long ago, Grandmother Yee had given it to the girl for a birthday gift. It was Mei Gwen’s treasure box. She opened it and spread out her treasures. There were gold and silver stars and Christmas trees that Edith had given her; some shiny colored papers from Mr. Pete, a pretty paper doily, a Chinese puzzle and an imitation gold motto bracelet. In the bottom part was her red rubber ball and a handful of jacks. Mei Gwen put the bracelet on her arm and looked at the locket on it, with a heart in the center. Around the locket were the words:

  May we love as long as we live,

  May we live as long as we love.

  Mei Gwen read the motto over and over. Uncle Fred had given her the bracelet last year for Christmas. She liked to pretend it was real gold. She wore it only on special occasions.

  “Mei Gwen! Mei Gwen!” She heard Aunty Rose calling her.

  Quickly she put the ball and jacks in her pocket, replaced her treasures and closed the sliding cover of the box. She put it deep down in the carton and covered it up with her old coat. She did not want the little children to find it or Jessie Chong to know she had it.

  “Mei Gwen!” called Aunty Rose at the door. “Look at the clock. You are already fifteen minutes late for Chinese school.”