“What if he goes out of business?” Darla asked. “He gonna pay you those paychecks?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” said Kandy. She sat on the far side of the backseat, deeply ensconced in the hood of her jacket; it was hard for me to get a good look at her, but she seemed no older than me or Chris, and was maybe seven months pregnant.
“We talked about that,” said Anthony. “First of all, we ain’t goin’ out of business. It’s slow every winter, Mr. Liu just had some extra costs this winter. Second of all, he do go out of business? Mr. Liu told me he’s gonna sell the building and all the equipment an’ shit, and he’ll have plenty enough to pay me what he owe.”
The general plan, it seemed, was for Anthony to ask his boss for at least a portion of his paycheck so he could turn the money over to Darla, who might then have enough to support Vernon during his visit and buy him a ticket home to Little Rock. My own plan, less noble, perhaps, was to scarf down some shrimp lo mein and ask Chris for a ride back to Freighter’s. I wondered if bringing Lauren a carton of Chinese food would be a sweet gesture or just seem demented. I felt I’d lost all bearing on how to reel in her heart, and thinking about seeing Lauren again made my insides feel panicked and cramped—I was mad at her for forcing me to wrestle with so much doubt, and mad at myself for being so in love with her. I should’ve been shooting pool all night with the old bikers at her bar, with short breaks to make out with Lauren in the kitchen. Instead she’d cast me out into the night. At least my misery had a truckful of company.
Chris had been quiet since the phone call with his brother, but now he dropped the music a few notches, glanced back at Kandy, and said, “You having a girl or a boy?”
“A boy,” she peeped.
“What you gonna name it?”
“Floyd.”
“That was her granddaddy’s name,” Anthony offered.
Chris nodded. “I like that name. Question is, he gonna take after his mom or his dad?”
“Not his dad, I hope,” Anthony said cryptically.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” said Vernon. “I’m sick of these scratch tickets.” Over the seat, he handed back what remained of the roll. “You guys have at it. I’m too old for this shit.” His night, like mine, was not going the way he’d hoped. He reached for the radio, turned the volume back up, and sank into his seat, eyes out the window.
This was a song I knew: “What It’s Like” by Everlast. Chris slid us back onto the Kensington Expressway, and the swirling snow gusted this way and that, rocking the SUV like a baby plane in turbulence. I closed my eyes and let myself sway.
Then you really might know what it’s like.
Yeah, then you really might know what it’s like … to have to lose.
*
Mr. Liu’s Chinese restaurant anchored a shambling commercial strip between a Popeye’s fried-chicken joint and a defunct video store. It was called the Golden Panda, though just the right letters had burned out on the neon sign in its front window to leave The Golden an, which reminded me of an old favorite bit from Sesame Street. “Look!” I cried, rallying from the waist-deep darkness I’d slipped into, “it’s the Golden An!” Everyone stared at me flatly. “You know, from Sesame Street?”
“Wait a second,” said Chris. “I know this fucking place. My brother loves this place. He always gets takeout here. It’s so fucking nasty but he loves it.” He looked at Anthony in the rearview mirror. “I mean, no offense.”
Vernon and Kandy hung back in the Explorer while me, Chris, and Darla followed Anthony inside. The place had an odd, foul, but unidentifiable smell. It had just closed for the night, and a pretty Chinese girl in her late teens was blowing out red candles on each table that I supposed had been set out for Valentine’s Day, and loading an enormous tray with dirty dishes. “Hey, Anthony,” she said, tired but friendly. “If you came for dinner, you better let my mom know, she’s shutting down the kitchen right now.” She flipped a switch for the overhead fluorescents, and as they flickered on, the restaurant’s interior grew more drab and dingy.
Anthony asked the girl if her dad was still around, and the girl told him he was. “Hey, Mary, these are my friends,” he said, and told us he’d be back in a minute.
“Hi, Anthony’s friends,” she said. “You can have a seat if you want.”
“Oh,” said Anthony. “Did you hear back yet?”
“Not yet,” said the girl. “The admissions office, they were supposed to call or e-mail everybody last week, but they never called me. So that’s not a good sign. That reminds me, I need to check my e-mail.”
“Well, look, if it don’t work out, you just keep on trying.” Anthony pushed his way through a blue silk curtain at the back of the dining area and disappeared down a hallway.
The three of us found a table that the girl had already cleared and sat down. Darla lowered her voice and said, “That’s a fine young man right there. You know, that baby, Floyd, that’s not even his baby. But he’s gonna raise it and take care of that baby like it is.” She shook her head. “I still call him my son. And that baby will be my grandson.” Then, in a near-whisper, “I hate putting the squeeze on him, but that ain’t right he ain’t getting paid.” She eyed Mary, the owner’s daughter, and said, under her breath, “This ain’t the plantation. This is Buffalo!”
“I’m sure the guy’ll give him some cash,” I said.
As if on cue, a sudden, jarring eruption of shouting rose from deep in back. It was Anthony’s voice, but the only word I could make out was “motherfucker.” Soon a second voice joined the fray—Mr. Liu, no doubt, shouting back. And then a woman’s voice jumped in, yelling in Chinese, shrill as a tea kettle, followed by the sound of pots and pans clattering to the floor. Mary set down her tray and rushed through the blue curtains, and Darla said, “Oh no,” and leapt up and dashed after her.
Chris gave me a dismal look and sank his head to the table. “Today’s retarded,” he said, sounding truly pained, his voice cracking a bit. “You know what sucks?”
“Yeah,” I said, as the shouting in back increased. “That old man out there, Vernon, he thinks I should marry Lauren Hill tomorrow, but I don’t think she wants anything to do with me, and you know, she’s probably fucking this dude at her work.”
“Yeah, that does suck,” said Chris. “And I’ll tell you what else sucks. I am really, really, incredibly fucking hungry. I was banking on getting dinner out of this.”
“Maybe it’ll all boil over back there and mellow out,” I suggested, and again, Anthony’s timing was splendid—he came ripping through the curtain just then, shouting and cursing, Darla at his heels, tugging at his sleeve and begging him to chill out.
“Get your fucking hands off me!” he said. “Fuck that motherfucker. I’ll kill that slant-eyed faggot.” He stopped in his tracks, turned, and screamed full force, “Fuck you, Mr. Liu! Suck my fucking dick, you little bitch!” From in back somewhere, Mr. Liu was shouting back in Chinese. Anthony kicked over a chair, and said, “Come get some of this! You want some? Come out here and get some!” Darla grabbed his shoulders and steered him toward the front door. “Fuck this place,” Anthony said, deeply aggrieved, shoving her arm away. He fought his way outside.
“Come on,” said Darla to me and Chris, holding the door open. “Time to go.”
*
Back in the Explorer, Anthony was still shouting. We sat in the lot, trying to calm him down. Kandy seemed inappropriately entertained, a strange smile on her face as she pleaded with him to explain what had happened.
“That fucker,” he said, jaw clenched, breathing hard through flared nostrils. “I told him he better pay me, not the whole month he owes me, just like two weeks, and he’s, like”—here Anthony mocked Mr. Liu’s Chinese accent—“‘I no have your money. Give me more time.’ And I said, ‘Fuck that. Pay me.’ So then he’s, like, ‘I can’t afford you no more. I hafta let you go.’” Anthony rubbed his face. With great anger, sadness, and shame, he said, “I didn’t come all
the way down here tonight to get my ass fired.” He had tears in his eyes.
I saw that Darla, beside him, had tears in her eyes, too. She put her arm around Anthony and soothed him. “Okay, it’ll be all right. It’ll all be all right.”
I caught Chris’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Even his eyes were wet. Strangely enough, I realized, mine were, too. I thought of the kids we’d seen building the snowman—how blissfully carefree they’d seemed—and felt a mournful gulf open up inside me. Whatever lumps those kids were taking as they sprouted in their bleak, tundra-like ghetto had nothing on the disappointments and humiliations of adulthood.
Kandy took Anthony’s hand and said, “Listen, baby. You need to take a few deep breaths. I got to show you something.”
“Five fucking years,” said Anthony. “You know how many times I coulda gone somewhere else? My cousin in Syracuse, he’s roofing now, twenty bucks an hour. That job coulda been mine.” He blasted the back of the front passenger seat with his fist and Vernon bolted upright. “Sorry, Vernon,” said Anthony. He looked at the empty front room of the Golden Panda. “Five years. Chinese people don’t know shit about loyalty.”
“I’m sure you guys can work it out,” said Kandy. Her odd smile broadened. “Vernon, come on, will you just tell ’em?”
Vernon turned the radio off and looked around, gathering our attention, wide-eyed and mysterious. Then he melted into a smile, held up a scratched-out lottery ticket, and said, “We just won two thousand dollars.”
Darla immediately screamed and slapped her hands to her cheeks in astonishment. Chris’s eyes bugged out of his head. Anthony turned to his girlfriend, Kandy: “Say what?”
Kandy laughed. “It’s true! I scratched it off!”
Vernon handed the ticket to Chris. “Really, how it is, you won two thousand dollars. We were just the first ones to find out.”
Everyone grew suddenly quiet, watching Chris as he brought the ticket close to check it out. He nodded slowly, gave a low whistle, and flipped it over to read the fine print on back. “Looks like … redeem anywhere,” he said softly, to himself. “They just print you a check right there. Damn. Two grand.” He twisted around, looked back at all of us, and laughed. “Shit, this ain’t a funeral,” he said. “If I won, we all won. What the fuck, we’re splittin’ this fucker!”
Wild, joyous whoops of celebration filled the SUV, and all at the same time Vernon, Darla, Anthony, and Kandy hugged Chris and rubbed his shaved head. Everyone began shaking back and forth and the whole Explorer rocked side to side.
“Chris,” I said. “You are a great American.”
He was giggling, giddy at this sudden turn of events and all of the combined adulation. “Fuck you, dude. I’m Canadian!” Then he sobered up. “Okay, when I say we’re splitting it, what I mean is, I get half, and the rest of you split the other half.”
Everyone settled down a little, doing the math in their heads, and then murmured agreeably—this seemed like a more-than-fair arrangement, without asking Chris to be unreasonably generous.
Chris went on, peering back toward the restaurant, where Mr. Liu’s daughter, Mary, had emerged to gather the last of the dishes. “Look, Anthony,” he said, “I know the last thing you wanna do right now is go back in there. But, yo, I got an idea. And I need some fried wontons.”
*
A minute later, there were nine people clustered in the cramped, pungent kitchen of the Golden Panda—me, Chris, Old Man Vernon, Darla, Anthony, and Kandy, along with Mr. Liu, his wife, and their daughter Mary, who sat on a milk crate, pecking away at a laptop. Mr. Liu had small, round glasses and graying hair, and wore an apron over a dirty white T-shirt and baggy, brightly patterned swim trunks. He was bent over an industrial-sized sink, wiping it out with a blue sponge, still tense, it seemed, from his confrontation with Anthony, who stood behind Vernon, glowering at the floor.
I could guess that Chris was aiming to broker a truce between the two of them, but didn’t see the tack he planned on taking even as he dove right in. “Mr. Liu,” he said. “I have been a customer of your fine establishment here for a couple of years. My brother, Shawn, he’s been coming here for longer than that. I love the food you have here. It’s kind of nasty sometimes, but it’s good nasty. It’s filling. I especially like the pork fried rice. And I like how you give fortune cookies even on to-go orders.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Liu, with a heavy accent, standing straight. “I see you in here before. I think I know your brother.” His wife, tiny and anxious, wearing a Buffalo Bills hoodie and a hairnet, said a few rapid words in Chinese to Mary, and Mary gave a one-word response without looking up.
“I recently came into some money,” Chris went on. “And knowing me, I’ll spend it, it’ll be gone, and that’ll be that.” He took a breath. “I’ve got an idea, though. It’ll be a good thing for me, and maybe it’ll help you, too. Here’s what I’m thinking—I want to come here tomorrow and give you … let’s say … eight hundred bucks, cash money.”
Mr. Liu crossed his arms, not quite sure where Chris was going with this.
“I’m thinking I give you eight hundred up front,” said Chris, “and me and my brother eat here free for the rest of the year.” He explained that they wouldn’t take advantage of the arrangement—they’d only come by once or twice a week. Basically, Chris said, he was offering to pay in advance for a year’s worth of meals. But he had a few conditions. “I want you to hire Anthony back. He’s been loyal to you, you gotta be loyal to him. And you gotta pay him at least half of what you owe him right now in back wages.”
Mr. Liu and Anthony glanced up toward each other without actually letting their eyes meet. Mr. Liu said to Chris, “I want Anthony to work. But not enough customers.”
“Well, for one thing,” Chris said, “you guys need to have delivery. A Chinese place without delivery, that’s like a dog with no dick. That’s why my brother always sends me down here to pick up. In snowstorms and shit. I hate that shit. You have delivery, you’ll double your sales. Anthony can wash dishes and go on runs, both. You need a delivery car, I can even help you find one, for a good price.”
Mr. Liu spoke to his wife in Chinese, translating Chris’s appeal. She responded at great length, gesturing at Anthony, Mary, and Chris. I couldn’t help but marvel at Chris’s command of the situation. My image of him as a failed comic and petty criminal could barely accommodate the ease and confidence he now seemed to possess. At last Mrs. Liu fell silent, and Mr. Liu turned and said to Anthony, “Okay. You want to work here?”
Without unclenching his jaw, still staring down, burning holes in the tile, Anthony nodded.
“Good,” said Chris. “Now hug it out, you two. Seriously. Go on. It’s part of the deal.”
Shyly, like two bludgeoned boxers embracing at the end of twelve rounds, Anthony and Mr. Liu edged near each other and slumped close in a kind of half-hug, patting each other quickly on the back, but not without an evident bit of emotion.
Darla started clapping, and I found myself joining in, unexpectedly stirred; soon Kandy, Vernon, and even Mrs. Liu were clapping, too. Chris was beaming. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s perfect.” I had goose bumps. My only sorrow was that Lauren wasn’t there to witness the moment.
Chris laughed, growing comfortable in his role as peacemaker. “Now, before we hit the bar to celebrate—and drinks are on me tonight—there’s just one more part of the deal.”
Mr. Liu eyed him nervously.
“If it’s not too inconvenient,” Chris said, “I was hoping we could all dig in to some grub. Golden Panda leftovers, I don’t care. I could eat a horse, this guy’s been on a bus the last twenty-four hours”—he pointed at Vernon—“and this girl’s eating for two,” with a sideways nod toward Kandy. “What do you say?”
“No problem,” said Mr. Liu.
All of a sudden, his daughter Mary shrieked and leapt to her feet like she’d been stung on the butt by a bee. She let out some rapid birdsong to her parents in Chin
ese and Mr. Liu took the laptop from her hands and inspected the screen while Mrs. Liu threw her arms around Mary and began to sob into her shoulder. Mary looked at Anthony, tearing up herself, and cried, “I got in! I got in! Medaille College e-mailed me! Anthony, I got in!”
*
A half hour later, well fed, all nine of us were crammed into Chris’s Explorer, speeding toward Freighter’s. I sat up front in the passenger seat; behind me sat old Vernon Wallace, his great-granddaughter Darla, and Anthony and Kandy. Squashed way in back, and squealing like kindergarteners with every pothole we bounced over, were Mr. Liu and his wife and daughter. Chris was driving, phone clamped between his ear and his shoulder, talking to his older brother. “Shawn, just meet us there. It’s good news, I’m saying, though. I’ll tell you over a beer and a couple shots.”
I could hear Chris’s brother chewing him out on the other end, calling him a moron, a loser, and a punk. All of the merriment and gladness quickly drained from Chris’s face. “Yes, Shawn. Okay. Okay, Shawn. Yes, I understand.” He closed his phone and tossed it up on the dash, shaking his head and biting at a thumbnail. In the back, full of jolly banter, no one else had caught the exchange.
“Fuck that dude,” I said to Chris. “Shake it off.”
“It’s not that easy,” he said, hurt and sinking. He mashed on the gas pedal and we veered right, back tires sliding out a little, and bolted through a light that had just turned red. A few blocks down, the five-way intersection with Lauren’s bar came into sight. I felt supremely nervous, but fortified by the size of my brand-new posse.
Chris clouded over with a look of fierce intensity. He reached for his phone again, dialed his brother, and propped the phone to his ear, battle-ready. Then, without warning, a siren whooped in the night, and a blinding strobe of red and blue lights filled the SUV. “Yo, man,” said Anthony, “you just blew right past that stop sign.” I twisted around and saw, through the back window, a cop car right on our tail, flashers twirling giddily, high beams punching the air, one-two, one-two.
My Heart Is an Idiot: Essays Page 4