This Is a Bust

by Ed Lin

  “Happy New Year!” I told her. She glared at me, but held her tongue. It was bad luck to say anything mean-spirited on New Year’s, since that day would set the tone for the rest of the year. In Dori’s case, I couldn’t see how it mattered. She was going to have a lousy year whether she talked badly about me or not. Still, we all followed traditions we didn’t believe in. Like being a diligent son.

  Lonnie gave me a searching look.

  “Happy New Year, Lonnie!”

  “You, too, officer!” she said, already looking away.

  The Brooklyn-bound platform of the N train was packed with tourists heading for home. There were some Chinese, but almost none of them would be riding out as far as me to just past Bay Ridge.

  I got on the train and leaned against the doors when they closed. I thought about how my mother wanted nothing to do with Chinatown anymore and lived in a neighborhood where she was the only one who knew how to fiddle around with a wok. When I got out of the train, I walked down to her block, which looked like a suburban Little Italy. I was sure I was carrying the only rice cake for miles.

  “Stupid, low-class Chinese culture,” she said. I had just seated myself down on her couch, which was swathed in a multi-colored crochet cover with three God’s eyes. Seeing me always reminded her of how she came to this country and ended up living and working with people she considered beneath her social status back in China. Understandably, she was always in a bad mood at first.

  “I saw the little girls parading on television today. They use such cheap material, and they didn’t dance in time with the drum. Then they had that fight. So disrespectful. Made me lose face,” she said, swiping her cheek with a finger.

  She leaned forward into me. “Hey Robert, what’s this?” she asked, tapping at the nick in my chin. I was glad my shirt was covering up the bruises from this afternoon.

  “Oh that? That’s from a bullet, Mom.”

  “Shut up! It’s from shaving!”

  “If you know it’s from shaving, then why did you ask me?”

  “I just want to talk to you. You don’t want your mother to talk to you? Maybe I need to get a ticket from you to say that you write to me.” A whistle went off in the kitchen and she left to get the tea.

  She owned this apartment, a one bedroom in an old brownstone on the ground floor. My mother did really well.

  A lot of women of her generation had to work as seamstresses. But my mother’s family had been one of the richer ones, and she already spoke enough English when she came over. She managed to get a job working for Americans in midtown, sorting and punching 80-column cards for the computers. Now she supervised the department.

  The women who worked in the sweatshops weren’t so lucky. When they got older, they slipped up more and got canned from the garment factory. They found themselves making dumplings for a penny each. Or giving foot massages on the sidewalk. Or worse.

  “This tea comes from the middle of China. Not the cheap Hong Kong garbage,” said my mother. She walked back into the living room with a lacquer tray. The teapot and two cups had a crack glaze finish that looked like lizard skin. A raised seal stuck out on each of the three pieces, the character for longevity, which looks like an old man bent over with cane. She also brought out a rice cake sliced into eighths on a small dish.

  “What’s wrong with Hong Kong, Mom?”

  “Nothing wrong with Hong Kong! Did I say something’s wrong with Hong Kong?”

  “You called it ‘garbage.’ This isn’t the way to start the new year, talking badly about Chinese people.”

  “When are you going to learn?” asked my mother, taking sips of her tea. She slipped a piece of rice cake into her mouth. “Don’t worry about ‘Chinese people.’ Just worry about yourself. You think people in Chinatown care about you? They all just want to make enough money to get out

  of there.”

  “How did you learn to hate Chinese people so much?”

  “You think I hate Chinese people? Chinese people hate me! You know how they treated me! After your father died, everybody turned their backs on me. I’m buying groceries in the street, the store owners don’t even look at me until I give them money.”

  “But you still have Chinese friends. What about Auntie Two Big Girls and Auntie One Girl and Boy? You hate them?” I never knew the names of my mother’s friends; as I was growing up, and even today, we just referred to them by their children.

  “They are my friends. I know them. But most Chinese people are simple and unsophisticated.”

  “Now you’re being racist against yourself, Mom.”

  “Robert, don’t you hate working in Chinatown? Chinese people don’t love you and you don’t love them right back.”

  “You know, you sound like Dad going off on the communists. How can you hate people who look like you?” I bit off a rubbery chunk of rice cake and it instantly glued my mouth shut. I took a sip of tea to help break it up.

  “Don’t talk about the communists,” she said, running out of steam. “You’ve never been to China, how can you talk about the communists?”

  “I read the newspaper, I know about the political situation. The communists defeated the KMT so easily, they obviously had the support of the Chinese people.”

  My mother sighed and sipped more tea.

  “The Americans are celebrating the 200th birthday of their country this year.”

  “It’s our country, too. We’re American citizens, Mom.”

  “You’re American. I’m only American on paper. You know my English isn’t that good. Anyway, China’s history is more than 20 times longer than 200 years. You have no idea how old our history is. You think the communists are going to last? Even if the KMT had won, they wouldn’t be doing better. Nothing lasts. Worry about yourself. That’s history’s lesson.”

  I thought about the reports coming out of some parts of China. The Cultural Revolution had destroyed the country in ways the Japanese could only have wished to do. Employees had killed their bosses, students had beaten their teachers, and cats had chased dogs up trees. The movement now seemed to be losing steam, according to reports in the Hong Kong and Taiwan papers, but you never knew for sure.

  “What do you think happened to all the money that Dad sent back to China?” I asked. “It wasn’t too much but we really could have used that money a few years ago.”

  “All of it was confiscated by the communists,” sighed my mother. “Along with your dad’s brother. The entire family was labeled ‘class enemies’ because of all the money your father had been sending them. But that’s not the worst part.”

  “What could be worse than losing your money?”

  “Well,” said my mother, leaning back and speaking very slowly. “I never told you this before. Because your father was sending money back to China, he was under investigation for being a communist.”

  “Who was investigating him?”

  “The FBI, but really, the old guard Chinatown organizations, the ones who loved the KMT. They were compiling information on everyone who was sending money back to China. They wanted to get them all deported. They didn’t want anyone sending money to the communists.”

  I was stunned by this revelation.

  “He hated the communists! How could he be accused of being a communist?”

  “When your father fell off the roof, some people said that it wasn’t an accident,” said my mother. Her voice had all the emotions squeezed out of it. “They said that it was a guilty man committing suicide.”

  “Motherfuckers,” I said. “Who were they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What were their names?”

  “Nobody knows. They only sent us anonymous notes in the mail.”

  “You never told the police?”

  “What am I going to tell them? Huh? If I came into the police station, they would tell me to do their laundry.

  I didn’t dare go there. Huh!”

  “They wouldn’t do that!”

  “Tell me they
wouldn’t!”

  I put my hands on my knees.

  “We should really talk about good things, Mom.”

  She nodded.

  “How is your job going?” I asked.

  “Can’t complain.”

  After a minute or two, we had the TV on.

  —

  I called up Barbara not too long after I got home. It was a few minutes after 0100. I didn’t know if she’d be there.

  “Yeah?”

  “You answer the phone like a guy, Barbara.”

  “I can do everything a guy can do. Even more.”

  “Yeah, I know, I remember. Hey, what are you doing now?”

  “Recovering from the worst Chinese New Year ever at my aunt’s.”

  “I gotta bottle of Seagram’s. Wanna help me read the label upside-down?”

  “You have to come over here. My bra’s already off.”

  Chapter 7

  Somebody shook me and I opened my eyes.

  Barbara had her coat on and was sitting on the side of the fold-out bed.

  “Time is it?” I asked, turning on my side.

  “Around 5.”

  “You going into work now? Today’s my day off. I was thinking we could have some drinks and go back to bed.”

  “No can do. I have to finish some reading before a meeting today.”

  “When are you gonna get out tonight?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “Robert.” Her voice came out in a way that made me cross my legs and my arms. “Our time together has been really great. We really had a lot to get out of our systems. But I’m not ready to be in a thing now.”

  She’d obviously put a lot of thought into this. Her presentation was pretty good.

  “The good times never last, do they?” I said. I could feel my center of gravity shifting from my chest to the bottom of my stomach.

  “We can still get together once in a while.”

  “Once a week? Once a month?”

  “Let’s not put restrictions on it, Robert.”

  I leaned back on one elbow.

  “I see how it stands,” I said.

  “It’s not just me. It’s us. We both need to work on things.”

  “Things? What are ‘things,’ Barbara?”

  “Things like I don’t want to picture my husband when I’m holding you. Things like you don’t need to drink when you wake up in the morning.”

  “You’re not a lightweight on the bottle, yourself.”

  “Yes, but I’m not. . .” She shook her head and stood up. “I have to go now. You can let yourself out when you’re ready. I’ll see you later.”

  The front door closing made a sharp, ugly metal sound like a bullet ripping through a can of Crisco. I couldn’t process being sad yet because my headache wouldn’t let me feel anything else.

  I had dared to imagine that for once I wouldn’t be alone during the terrible period between Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day. Those are the two weeks when the streets are filled with happy couples and happy families looking for fun fun fucking fun.

  I poured myself some red wine in last night’s glass and threw it back. This apartment, which had seemed so endearing in its unfamiliarity only a week ago, now looked like a way station in someone else’s busy life. I was getting an unwelcome vibe.

  I had to get my clothes on, go out the door, and nearly run down the stairs to get away from it.

  —

  On my way home, I stopped at a small store and went to the back to get some beer. The glass in the cooler was cracked and held together with frayed pieces of duct tape. The tape made it hard to see what was inside. I tried to slide it open but the tape stopped that, too.

  “How you supposed to get anything out of this?” I called out to the front.

  “Go fuck yourself!” was the reply. I stomped over to the cashier, but I soon discovered that the comment wasn’t for me.

  The owner, about 50, medium frame, five six, was yelling at Yip.

  “You killed your wife! I don’t want a murderer in my store! You should be in jail, you dirty bastard!” shouted the owner.

  “Excuse me,” I told the owner. “A man is innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Innocent — bullshit!” He was obviously new in the community. He didn’t seem to know who I was.

  Yip’s face was sad and calm.

  “It’s best that I leave, Officer Chow,” he said.

  When he heard “officer,” the owner suddenly pointed at Yip and looked at me.

  “You’re a policeman? Arrest that guy before he kills someone else.”

  “We’re leaving,” I said.

  We went onto the wet streets.

  “I can’t go anywhere anymore,” said Yip, rubbing his eyes. “Something like this always happens. There’s no sympathy. Only blame.”

  “People at your work like you, right?”

  “They let me go,” he said. “They said I was hurting business.”

  “If you know you’re right, that’s all you need,” I said.

  “You know this is true, Officer Chow. You ought to know that Chinatown hates the police as much as the criminals. We have to stick together, you know?”

  “You want to play the cop, tomorrow, Yip? I’ll give you a dollar to switch.”

  “Ha ha! No, I couldn’t be you.”

  I saw another small grocery ahead.

  “I’ll see you later, Yip. I have to go get some steak sauce.”

  —

  I woke up tangled in the sheets, ready to resume my string of lonely days and weeks. I was more tired than usual so I got two iced coffees from Lonnie.

  “Two today?” she asked. “You have another date or something?”

  “Both for me,” I said. “I’m greedy.”

  “Not greedy — selfish,” Dori muttered from the other end of the counter. “Don’t worry, Lonnie, I’ll bet that girl he was with is long gone.”

  “I’m just feeling sleepy,” I told Lonnie. “Trying to stay awake.”

  “You’re the hardest-working man I know,” said Lonnie.

  Dori creased the top of a paper bag with a vicious scrape of her thumbnail.

  I was about to leave when Lonnie stopped me.

  “Hey, don’t you want some hot-dog pastries?”

  “Not today, Lonnie.” I hadn’t been finishing them, anyway. My appetite was slipping.

  It was February 4. The opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics were going to be on later that night. China was boycotting the games because Taiwan was competing as the “Republic of China.” I didn’t know if I was going to be able to stay up to watch Taiwan in the opening parade, the only event in which they wouldn’t come in last.

  —

  I was on the first lap of my footpost when I remembered my dream.

  I was walking through waist-high elephant grass. Just ahead of me was an old woman. Sometimes she would turn around and gesture for me to follow her. No matter how fast I walked, I couldn’t catch up to the woman, despite her leisurely pace.

  We walked through an empty village. It was getting darker. There were clouds coming in. The woman broke into a run. I chased after her. Then rain started to fall. I stopped and looked at my arms. They were covered in white paint.

  I struggled to remember more, but nothing else came. The first iced coffee was bottoming out, so I took the straw and stabbed it into the second cup.

  “Officer!” said a loud, shrill voice. I looked across the street.

  “Lily!” I said, recognizing Wah’s supervisor.

  She looked the wrong way for oncoming traffic on the one-way street and crossed over to my side. She had on a red coat that was made for someone shorter. When she got close, I could see that her eyes were twinkling.

  “Officer, Yip told me you don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “That’s by choice,” I said. “I could have one if I wanted to. Truth is, a lot of women love a man in a uniform.”

  �
��Don’t talk to me like I’m a fool. I know a very pretty girl who wants to find a nice Chinese man.”

  “Where do you know this girl from?”

  “From my business contacts. This girl’s family had a five-story mansion in Shanghai and dozens of servants before the communists took over. They tore down the mansion and used the bricks to build houses for the servants.”

  “She must be very pretty and eligible.”

  “The family escaped to Hong Kong. They bribed some British sailors to take them over. The British took the gold but let them keep all the jade, which was far more expensive. Stupid white people!”

  “They just didn’t know.”

  “Of course they didn’t know! That family bought a textiles factory. Now they have six. This girl was born in Hong Kong, went to school in Switzerland. She speaks four languages. Mandarin, Cantonese, French, and English.”

  “Why would she want a cop for a boyfriend?”

  “She doesn’t want just a boyfriend. She’s very marriage-minded. She’d be proud to have a policeman for a husband.”

  “Oh, I get it. She wants an American citizenship.”

  “Of course she wants it. But she also wants a good man. The family would be very happy to make a large wedding gift. Do you want to visit her? The family would love to fly you to Hong Kong to meet her.”

  I imagined myself back in Asia. Walking through elephant grass and villages, shooting people.

  “You know I’m a Vietnam vet, don’t you?”

  “Girls love soldiers, they’re so brave!”

  “Did you make a statement at the precinct about Wah?” Lily acted like I had stepped on her big toe.

  “Oh, Officer Chow! When you bring that name up, I feel physical pain!”

  “Why don’t you go in and make a report?”

  “Me make a report? You’re the policeman! It’s your job to do that!”

  “Don’t tell me what my job is, Lily! Get in there and do it!”

  I barked.

  She gathered her coat at the collar and the fingers of her leather gloves squeaked.

  “Officer, I don’t know anything,” Lily said, walking away like we were on Park Avenue and I was begging for change.

  —

  The next day on my footpost, I made it around the corner and saw that spiky-haired punk kid who would hang out sometimes in Martha’s with his buddies. He was trying hard to be a five-foot Fonz with his imitation-leather jacket.