by Ed Lin
“With the money Rose brings in, you should look into getting WHT.”
“I’m not going to order pay television. That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of. Paying for something you already get free.”
On the coffee table was a program for the funeral of Paul Robeson, who had died back in January.
“You went to Robeson’s funeral?”
“Yeah, we did.”
“How did you feel about it?”
“Felt sad, then mad, then glad.”
“You think he was a communist?”
“No way! C’mon now, he was an emperor. Emperor Jones!”
“Whoa, that’s a good one!”
I pointed to an acoustic guitar that was slumped behind his La-Z-Boy. “That’s the guitar your mother forced you to play?”
“That’s the one.”
“Play something for me, man.”
“Oh, I don’t feel like it. I picked it up from the house after my mother passed, but I haven’t had the heart to play it.”
“Just for me, Vandyne, can’t you? You said you were good.”
“I’m sure I could still play pretty, but you know, all sorts of memories are tied to that thing. We lived in a tough area of Philly. We could have cracked the Liberty Bell if it weren’t already. Understand?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, my mother got me that guitar when I was five. Imagine me, this little kid, holding that big thing?”
“You were telling me she forced you to play Fats Domino and Elvis.”
“She’d go to work and give me a 45, and if I didn’t have one of those songs done perfect by the end of each week, I’d catch hell. My childhood helped define the term ‘child abuse.’ But she did it because she loved me. If I wasn’t trying to pick out chords sitting on the floor in front of that phonograph, I might have been out on the streets on dope.”
“But the experience scarred you. You can’t have fun playing guitar when you had to learn like that. You can’t even play a song for your best friend in the world.”
“Yeah,” said Vandyne in a neutral voice. “Music should be uplifting. Motivating. Something to give you a reason to keep going on.”
“Are you ever going to play again?”
“It would have to be some special occasion. Something really happy.”
“You’d have to pick it up to practice, though, right?”
“I am what I play. I don’t have to practice how to be me.”
“You know, my mother used to force me to read the Chinese newspapers. If she hadn’t, I wouldn’t know how to read Chinese. I would have been just another American-born Chinese who doesn’t know how to read characters.”
“Is it hard to learn to read Chinese? Harder than learning to speak it?”
“It’s easy to lean, but just as easy to forget. If I don’t read the newspaper every day, I start to slip.”
“Maybe you just have a bad memory.”
“Oh, I got more than one bad memory!”
We were laughing, but were interrupted by Rose calling from the kitchen.
“Can I have a hand in here, John?”
“Coming!” said Vandyne. I got up but he said, “Keep your seat, you’re the guest.”
“Let me help out. There’s nothing on TV anyway.”
—
Rose scraped another heap of sweet potatoes onto my plate.
“If I put that in my mouth, they’re gonna have to take me away in a hearse. And I don’t have clean underwear on,” I said.
Rose wasn’t fazed.
“Show me how much you love my cooking,” she said.
“I’m surprised you don’t weigh a million pounds,” I said to Vandyne as I stuck my fork into the side of the potatoes and left it there. “Or a million kilograms, or whatever that comes out to.”
“John hates the metric system,” said Rose. Vandyne nodded his head and chewed.
“Who likes it? Some bureaucrat just wants us to act French,” said Vandyne.
“Well, ‘bureaucrat’ is a French word,” I said.
“John thinks Congress is pushing it to dupe consumers. Gas will be priced by the liter, not gallon. The deli will weigh meat in grams, not pounds. Since the public will be confused by the conversion, they won’t realize that their dollars are buying less.”
“That actually sounds pretty believable. Your man gets to the bottom of everything.”
“I want you to get to the bottom of your plate! What am I going to do with the rest of this food?” said Rose.
“Rose knows I’ll eat until I bust, so she controls my intake accordingly,” said Vandyne. “You have to make up the difference, partner.”
I shoved a forkful of potatoes into my mouth. I couldn’t taste it, and chewing on it made my head and throat ache. I swallowed and put my fork down.
“No more. Thanks so much, Rose,” I said.
“Now if you gents wouldn’t mind doing the dishes, I’m going to leave you two alone,” said Rose, unwrapping her apron and hanging it on the oven handle. “I’ve got to do two cost-analysis reports tonight. Or maybe I’m going to meet some Illuminati.”
“They’re around,” muttered Vandyne.
“You can’t argue with a General Electric executive,” I said.
“I’m just an accountant there, silly Robert. Honey, make some coffee,” she said as she left the kitchen.
Vandyne shuffled over to the freezer door and opened it.
“We got Blue Mountain View, vanilla bean, and some instant General Foods International,” he said. “Watcha want?”
“What’s the most expensive?”
“Blue Mountain View.”
“I’ll have that.”
“Just as well. Keep in mind that it’s not 100% Jamaican Blue Mountain — it’s a blend. But we’re still scared to drink it because we paid so much for it.” Vandyne held the bag of coffee beans like a punching bag and took a few shots at it before pouring it into the coffee machine.
“Don’t you need to grind them first?” I asked.
“Got a grinder built in. Saves time. It helps when you’re groggy in the morning, too.”
“I wish I could live it up like you rich people. You got it all figured out.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Vandyne said as he put the coffee beans away. “You know about the ‘20 and out’ thing. After we do our 20 years and start collecting pensions, we should already have our own businesses going.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I got a cousin in Hawaii. Been there since the service dropped him off. Anyway, he came up with the idea of selling Hawaiian coffee in little shops here in the city. They grow it in volcanic soil. It’s incredibly rich.”
I shook my head.
“You know,” I said, “I think Chock Full O’ Nuts has you beat on that front.”
“But it would be better stuff. Gourmet coffee. We could charge 75 cents a cup!”
“Nobody’s gonna pay that!”
“Well, maybe you’re right. But I’m still working on a plan to have some kinda business.”
“You and all of Chinatown.”
“Yeah,” said Vandyne, drumming his fingers with his eyes to the floor. The last time I’d seen him like that was when we were in the sector car, talking about how our fathers had died.
“There’s something I gotta tell you, Chow,” Vandyne said. He came over and sat back down at the table.
“What have you got?”
“They’re giving me a gold shield. I’m going to be third-grade.” My stomach hurt but I smiled. Vandyne was now officially a detective — the lowest grade, but still a detective.
“That’s great! That’s wonderful!” I said, slapping his shoulder. “When does this happen?”
“On Monday. I just wanted to tell you first, so that you heard it from me and not from an announcement.”
“I’m happy for you, Vandyne. You deserve it. I mean, it’s what you want, right? You wanted to be a detective, right?”
; “Yeah, that’s right. And I know you do, too. But they don’t give you the investigative jobs and there’s no other way to get the gold shield.”
I wasn’t understanding what Vandyne was saying. The coffee machine gurgled.
“Did they say something about me?” I asked.
“Hold on a sec.” Vandyne got up and poured two cups. “Cream?” he asked.
“You know how I like it.”
“Bittersweet.” He came back to the table with the coffees.
“They say anything about me, partner?”
“Well, they haven’t said anything about you in terms of making it to the detective track.”
“What did they say about me?”
“They said you were interviewing people for that poison case.”
“I never actively looked up those people. They came to me and spilled everything they had. I was in a coffee shop the other day. . .”
“Having coffee with the husband, Yip.”
“Yeah.”
“Pardon me, but why the hell were you having coffee with him? A potential suspect?”
“He asked me to go.” I didn’t want to mention that Yip had been following me around like a pull toy.
“You gave him your phone number?”
I sighed and took a sip of coffee.
Vandyne started again. “Your problem is that you’re getting too close to the case, not to mention that it isn’t your case to begin with.”
“My problem is that when Chinese people have problems they want to see another Chinese person, not someone who’s going to need a translator. Believe me, it’s not like I love these people or anything,” I said.
Vandyne frowned.
“So who else is on the case?” I asked.
“Just me.”
“Just you?”
“Yeah, contrary to popular belief. I went to talk to Yip and he clammed up, saying he’d told everything to you. I also saw Lily, who was Wah’s immediate supervisor, and she pulled the same thing,” said Vandyne, playing his spoon against the lip of his cup.
I shrugged.
“I told them to go to the station and make statements,” I said. “It’s not my fault if they don’t come. I can’t tie a rope around their necks and drag them in.”
“No, but we can tie a fence around the case and tell you to stay the hell out,” said Vandyne, his eyes flashing. He took a sip of coffee and cleared his throat. “There are people higher up than me who are ready to bust you down to janitor if you don’t watch your step.”
“Your longtime association with me doesn’t help you out, either, does it?” I asked.
Vandyne drank some coffee and didn’t say anything.
“This coffee’s too sweet,” I said.
—
I took the F train out of Queens back to Chinatown. It was an express train, but the ride was long, and the only seats available were next to other people, so I stood and held on to a pole. A little Korean boy came up to me.
“Are you a policeman?” he asked.
“How’d you know?”
“I can tell by your feet.” I looked down and saw my feet spread and squared with my shoulders.
“Smart kid,” I said.
“I’m in the fourth grade,” he said. “I’m going to have my own company.”
“That’s nice,” I said. I looked around for his parents, and found a woman in the corner, slumped over her propped-up arm.
“Have you been to the Statue of Liberty? I want to go there,” the boy babbled.
“Yeah, I’ve been there.” The train slowed to a stop. I groaned when I saw the station sign. We weren’t even close to Manhattan yet and this kid was driving me nuts already.
“My daddy has a shoe store. He sells shoes to policemen.”
“Why do policemen buy shoes from your daddy?”
“Because he gives them a special price.”
“You know he’s not supposed to do that. Those policemen are supposed to pay the full price. It’s against the law.”
“Are you going to arrest my daddy?” he asked, suddenly scared.
“I’m going to arrest your daddy if you don’t sit next to your mommy right now and stay quiet. I might have to arrest your mommy, too.” He scrambled to the seat next to the sleeping woman, his eyes and mouth wide open.
About 15 minutes later, the mother woke up. When you commute regularly, your body remembers how many stops the train makes to get to your station, even if you fall asleep. She finished stretching out and stood up just a few seconds before the door opened at their stop. She said something to her boy, who was still staring at me, and they got out.
I took their old seat and rubbed my eyes. Damn, Vandyne had made detective. I pushed my hands into my pockets and waited for the doors to shut and the train to get moving again.
—
My favorite story about the origin of the dragon in Chinese mythology claimed that during one of China’s many periods of disunity, each rival kingdom took a different animal for its symbol. These included snakes, deer, horses, tigers, and everything else. The snake people carried banners of snakes when they went to war, and everyone else rallied behind their respective animals as well.
When the snake and deer kingdoms merged, their new emblem incorporated parts of both animals. A snake with deer antlers. As more states combined, more animal elements were added.
When the entire country was united, the final banner displayed an animal with a snake body, deer antlers, horse mane, tiger claws, rabbit eyes, fish scales, and lizard dorsal fins. A period of stability followed, and the war-weary people became enchanted with the power of the new symbol. They began to see it in lightning strikes in the sky and reflected in lakes. Dragons became gods that controlled the rain and fishing harvests.
Something had gone wrong when Chinese people had come to America, though. They had split back into their snake, deer, horse, tiger, rabbit, fish, and lizard groups. Every block in Chinatown was crowded with association headquarters. Formerly known as tongs, these associations had been formed by people who had the same family name, came from the same town, or had the same trade.
Some associations owned four-story buildings that provided daycare services. Some were below street level, their signs spelled out in pieces of bitten-off duct tape. Some associations had been founded to destroy others.
One of the most powerful was the Golden Peace Association. It occupied a five-story building in the heart of Chinatown, where Mott and Bayard intersect. “Gold,” “Peace,” and “Association” gleamed in metal characters near the top of the Mott-facing facade.
The third floor on the outside was a replica terrace from Chinese antiquity, complete with a row of eight huge eight-sided hanging lanterns. A lot of tourists liked to get their picture taken with the terrace in the background. They didn’t know that the Golden Peace members were Cantonese merchants who ran some of the biggest businesses in Chinatown, including Jade Palace. My old pal Willie Gee just so happened to be the president of Golden Peace.
—
I was going by the Golden Peace building when I noticed Willie’s bodyguard ape hanging out with some kids across the street. He kept his hands in his pockets, but looked in their eyes dead serious as he talked, like a football coach on the team’s last timeout of the season.
Only most of the team was smoking. King Kong smiled, hoisted one hand out of his pocket, and waved delicately to me. The kids laughed, cigarettes clamped in the corners of their mouths. The setting sun bathed them in a soft orange glow.
The temperature was in the high 60s even though it was February 29th. The kids were wearing tank tops that displayed their bony shoulders.
“Hey, Officer Chow, ya find any bank robbers, yet?” the big ape called out. He spoke in a clipped Cantonese accent that comes from years of hard street living. The kids smirked and looked away.
I stood my ground and stared back, not saying a word. I didn’t give him anything to push against.
“Let’s go eat,”
King Kong said. He and his barrel of monkeys slunk off to Jade Palace. I continued on my footpost.
—
When I got to Mott and Grand, I noticed water streaming out of an apartment building entrance. As is usually the case, the front door lock was busted, and I pushed my way inside no problem. I got to the stairwell, where water was cascading down. It looked like the source was on the third floor. Water was pouring in under apartment doors and people were shouting about it.
When I got up to the third floor, I saw a Chinese man with a crew cut in his mid-40s, 160, wearing a grey winter coat over a vest and a thin t-shirt. He was leaning on the handle of a rusted sledgehammer next to a woman in her late 60s, 90 pounds, crooked black wig, wearing a blue sweater that was torn at the elbows. She had socks and slippers on. The two were yelling at each other and a little boy of about three was hiding behind the old woman. A sheet of water ran out from an open apartment door.
“What’s the problem? Is there a busted pipe?” I asked.
“Officer, arrest this man!” pleaded the woman as she fidgeted with her wig. “He came into our apartment and broke the toilet!”
“Officer Chow, I’m the landlord! I own this apartment. These people haven’t paid the rent in two months! You know me! I met you at the landlord association dinner.” The man took one hand off his sledgehammer. I watched him slip it into his pants pocket and ball it into a fist. “I told them, ‘If you don’t pay, I’m going to come over there and break the toilet!’ And look, now I did! They forced me to!”
“There are other ways to handle this,” I said. “You should have gone through the proper procedures, because now I have to arrest you for destruction of property and maybe assault.”
“It’s my toilet, officer! I can break it if I want to!”
“Not when other people are living there. Not when you’re creating a potential hazard with the water.”
“She owes me money! I’m the damaged party, not her!”
“Let go of that sledgehammer,” I said.
He took off for the next floor. You stupid asshole, I thought. I ran up after him, but lost traction on the fourth step. I slipped and fell, almost falling on my face. I heard the old woman scream. I rolled over into a sitting position and shook my head.