by Ed Lin
“I can’t believe Lonnie lent him all that money.”
“It wasn’t much, it was only $40.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Lonnie wouldn’t give him the money, so I did.”
“Hey, I’m going to make that stupid kid pay you right back!”
“Don’t worry about it! It’s not much money to me. He’ll pay me back.”
“How’s he going to pay you back? He doesn’t have a job.”
“I wanted to give him a break, just like you’re giving him a break by letting him live with you. You know, nobody ever helped me, not that that stopped me from becoming who I am. I carved my own first chessboard pieces from dirty, dried-out sponges the cleaning lady threw away. I got sick a lot because there were germs and bacteria on all those pieces. My mother used to say that that was why my body didn’t grow up right.”
“That’s not true. It’s genetics.”
“Yeah,” said the midget. “Anyway, I wanted to loan the money to Paul to get him started.”
“How is he going to make a career out of toys?”
“I’ve never made a bad investment in anything or anybody,” said the midget.
Paul wasn’t around when I came home, but he had placed all his robots in a small plastic washing tub in the corner
of the living room. When I went to sleep that night, I had a nightmare that Paul’s robots were lined up and shooting at me.
—
The next morning, I went to Martha’s to find Lonnie.
“Paul didn’t come home last night. Do you know where he is?”
“He wasn’t at my parents’ house. Did you hit him?”
“No, I didn’t hit him! I didn’t even yell at him. He’s been hanging out late at night, but this is the first time he never came back.”
“I’m sure he’s okay. Robert, are you okay? Your eyes are all red.”
“That happens when I get worried.”
“Maybe you should ask the midget.”
I went to the park. When I found the midget, I went up and said, “Paul didn’t come home last night.”
The midget looked at me.
“I’m sure Paul can take care of himself,” he said.
“This is the first time he’s been out all night. Maybe something happened to him.”
The midget folded up his arms and crossed his legs.
“Paul said you were pushing him hard to get a job, so he got one serving drinks in a gambling hall. He works late.”
“Where’s this gambling hall?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would he work in a gambling hall?”
“Hey, it beats waiting tables,” said the midget.
—
I waited until about 0200 before going over to an unremarkable storefront on Chrystie Street. I went into an adjacent alley and found crude, uneven concrete steps leading down to a lower level.
I could hear upbeat Cantonese pop music and men’s voices talking loudly and quickly. I held onto an unpainted metal handrail as I made my way down to the noise in the dim light.
I stood in front of a dull gray metal door and heard a peephole cover swing open and shut.
“I’m not real good at secret knocks or passwords,” I said to the door, at about where someone’s head would be on the other side. “But I’ve got on steel-toed shoes that can bust this door off the hinges.”
“Officer!” said a muffled voice from the other side of the door, “This is a private club. Members only.”
“I’m not here as a cop,” I said. “I’m here to see someone who works here.”
“Who are you looking for?”
“I’ll show you when I see him.”
Someone cranked a bolt back and the door opened. A light cloud of smoke poured over my face as I walked into the Tang San Cai gambling parlor. Taiwanese KMT money had set up the place, hence the Mandarin name. It was a pretty classy joint. Tang San Cai referred to the tri-colored glazed pottery of the Tang Dynasty, large replicas of which bookended the gambling tables. Cameras sat atop the urns, barely hidden by plastic shrubbery.
Blackjack, poker, dominoes, and pai gow tables spread out in the four directions. Smoke from cheap Chinese cigarettes swirled around the ceiling lights. Looking at the gamblers, mostly men in their 40s and 50s, I thought about my father. I thought about how he and his waiter buddies would hang out in these gambling joints to take the edges off of their 12-hour workdays. Every time these old men opened their mouths, they added to the overall reek of alcohol, which was strong enough to make my eyes go googly.
The two busiest tables featured attractive young female dealers with collared shirts that were open down to the third button. I might have liked them if they had showed some emotion, good or bad. The girls looked practically catatonic as they pulled in chips and tossed cards with the same unblinking efficiency as their male counterparts.
Nearly every block in Chinatown had a gambling den but they were all going to be shut down soon, and not by the vice squad. A referendum was going around in New Jersey to open legal casinos in Atlantic City later this year. The Chinese gambling joints were trying to hold on to their clients with Chinese culture and history.
“Uncle, you don’t want to give money to those foreign devils, do you?” the coat-check girl would say.
The Brow would be on my ass in two seconds if he knew I was infringing on an area that was strictly for the vice squad. I was risking my shield to find that little hood. I caught the attention of one of the girl dealers and she gave me the evil eye. I recognized her as someone I’d once written up for moving violations.
I suddenly found the patterns in the carpet very interesting and sauntered away. I saw Paul at one of the dominoes tables. He was serving a drink with a cherry in it to a tubby old man.
I stepped in and said, “Paul, let’s go home.”
He held his empty serving tray over his crotch and said, “How did you find me?”
“I found a Polaroid of you walking out of here in one of those Asian youth books and I looked at the address on the back. Now let’s go.”
“This is my job. You’re not my boss.” Heads were turning in our direction. Pretty soon, some heavies were going to start making their way over.
“Paul,” I growled, “do I have to stick my gun into your back to get you to leave with me?”
He sighed, set his tray by an urn, and followed me out, his head slightly bowed.
When we got down the block, he started whining.
“You know how much money I was making there? I was getting about $10 an hour with the tips! I can pay the midget back already.”
“Where the hell were you last night? You never even called.”
“I called at midnight on the dot.”
“I don’t answer the phone on the hour, you know that.”
“I can’t keep track of your stupid little habits.”
“So where the hell were you?”
“One of the big bosses came in and took us out for a late dinner. Then after, he let us sleep over at his penthouse.”
“Who are these guys, Paul?”
“The Hakka Charitable Association. They’re businessmen.”
“You’re not stupid, Paul. You know they’re a front for a gang.”
“All I do is serve drinks, Robert. I’m not a gunman or something.”
“Paul, you stay there long enough, they’re going to ask you to drive cars out to abandoned lots in East New York and abandon them. You know what are in those trunks? The bodies of people who displeased the management. Yeah, think about that. Then before you know it, they’ll have you beating up people who haven’t paid back their loans. Maybe you’ll have to cut up some girl for not sleeping with your boss. Then you’ll be the one popping people, piling bodies into trunks, and telling younger boys to go abandon those cars.”
“Really?”
“I see it all the time,” I said. It was an improbable, worst-case scenario I was building, but what th
e hell. I had to scare this kid straight and for good.
“They told me it was a pretty clean business. They never said anything about killing people.”
“No business is clean, Paul.”
“I know the cops aren’t clean. You know the clubs pay out bribes to stay open? I saw it.”
“Those cops are going to get caught, and that gambling den is going to be closed.”
When we got into our building, we went up the stairs.
I continued up, past the floor of our apartment.
“Where are we going?” asked Paul.
“To the roof,” I said.
“Why?”
“I want to show you something.”
The roof-access door had a sign over it, saying “NO ENTRY” in both English and Spanish, so you know it had to be taken seriously. I picked the padlock with the sharp end of my key ring coil.
“Isn’t this illegal?”
“I have the grandfather clause. I lived here before the sign was posted.” Which was true. I got the lock open and the door swung back. We could see stars in the sky.
“Over here, by the water tower,” I said. We went over.
“What do you see, Paul?”
“Chinatown.”
“Look at those windows,” I said pointing.
“They’re bright.”
“You know why they’re bright? Those are fluorescent lights in there. That’s where they’ve got women and children sewing clothes around the clock. See those restaurants down there?” I pointed to the 24-hour joints on Bowery. “That’s where men are working 12-hour shifts. They’re working for way below minimum wage. Those are the people your gambling den’s taking money away from.
“My father worked as a waiter all his life. He didn’t come over to serve uptown Chinese and tourists, but that’s what he ended up doing because he didn’t know any English and wasn’t too smart. He wasn’t an angel, either, but he did what he could for his family. Every buck he made was honest, and he lost a lot of that honest money gambling. Those motherfuckers who run the gambling prey on their own kind, and they take advantage of this entire community.”
Paul looked out over Chinatown.
“Is that true about your dad?” he asked.
“What?”
“He jumped off the roof.”
“He was drunk. He fell off.”
“You know, you have to stop drinking, Robert.”
“I’ll stop drinking,” I said, “if you just get an honest job.”
“Okay,” he said quickly. “You’re on!”
“Hey, don’t I get to have one for the road, at least?”
Paul shook his head.
“Son of a bitch, you fast-talked me into it!”
We went downstairs and poured out my last beers into the sink. I was pissed at myself for crying.
—
I woke up with a dull feeling in my head, as if a sack of marbles was pressing out from inside my skull against my forehead. I swung around, put my feet on the floor and my head in my hands.
All the alcohol in the apartment was gone, but I knew that if I went downstairs to a bodega and got a beer, the feeling would go away. I could forget all about trying to quit drinking. The thought made me drool a little bit.
My door opened and the midget strolled in. I looked up at him.
“Your bedroom smells funny,” he said. “When was the last time you washed your sheets?”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“About 8:30 or so. I’ve been here for a while. Paul let me up. I didn’t want to bother you until you were awake. You know, my brother quit drinking so I know what needs to be done.”
“I don’t need help.”
He sniffed the air again and wrinkled his nose.
“That smell’s definitely not good,” he said.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked him.
“Well, because you get unlimited sick days, you’re going to start calling in.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“How long could it take?”
“Are you taking bets or something? Just call in sick, already.”
I reached for the phone on my desk and picked up the receiver. Standing up made me feel like Elmer Fudd after he shot himself in the head with his rifle. I talked on the phone and didn’t have to fake anything with regards to sounding woozy. It was irritating having a voice directly in my ear. I hung up at what I thought was an appropriate point and rolled back into bed.
The midget disappeared for a second and came back with a glass of water and what looked like two tiny dried flower blossoms.
“Drink this and take these,” he said.
“No way, man. I don’t go for Chinese medicine. Probably turn me into a diabetic.”
“These are Flintstones vitamins! You probably won’t be able to eat, so these should keep you alive.”
I sat up in bed and put my back to the wall. I chucked back Dino and Fred and washed them down with half a glass of water.
“Are you hungry?” the midget asked.
“No.”
“Then maybe you should sleep.”
“I just woke up.”
“Want to read the paper?”
“No way.”
“Want to get up and watch TV?”
“I don’t want to get up.”
“Want to play a game of chess?”
“Not in the mood.”
“Want to hear some music?”
“No.”
“Do you just want to talk a bit?” he asked.
“About what?”
“Whatever pops into your head.”
“Am I going to die?”
“Someday, yes.”
“Hey! Seriously, is this cold turkey thing going to kill me?”
“No. Your body is going to feel like shit, but it’s because you’re struggling to live.”
“What can I do to make it easier right now?”
“You can drink water or some lemon-barley tea that I brought over, eat Flintstones, and sleep.”
“What about when I have to piss?”
“You can go to the bathroom, or I can get you a bottle to piss in.”
“I don’t piss in plastic bottles.”
“You want a glass bottle?”
I closed my eyes and slid down off the wall until I was fully flat on the bed.
“This is funny,” I said. “All this thinking and talking has made me sleepy. But you knew this would happen, didn’t you?”
“Get some sleep.”
I didn’t hear the floor creak so I eased my left eye open. There was nobody there. I guess the midget wanted the door open so he could hear if I started swallowing my tongue. I wasn’t so sure it couldn’t happen.
I let myself slip under into a world that was dark, dull, and throbbing.
—
A slight draft coming in under the sheets made me shiver. I opened my eyes and saw that I was lying in bed with no cover or clothes on. I was sweating.
Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t actually left Vietnam. I’d been left alone in a GP while everyone else was on patrol. Because I’d overslept, they’d decorated it as a joke to look like my apartment.
“How the fuck did they know,” I laughed, amazed at how good a job they’d done.
I could hear people walking around outside the tent, so I hoisted my M-16 onto my shoulder and covered my body with the sheet up to my neck. I was glad I had cleaned the barrel the night before.
I closed my eyes and my fingers made sure the clip was loaded properly. I set the rifle to rock and roll. I opened my eyes only halfway and stayed heavy-lidded. I didn’t want Charlie to see the full light reflecting off of my eyes.
Someone was coming into the tent through a flap cleverly disguised as my door.
I closed my mouth tight and breathed slowly through my nose. I looked at the door and pointed the M-16 at it from under the sheet.
A tiny black head of hair slip
ped into the GP.
“Chieu Hoi!” I shouted.
The boy stepped in slowly, but in an authoritative way.
“Chieu Hoi!” I shouted again.
He got closer and I could see the holes in his shirt where I had shot him. He sat at the foot of the bed.
“What are you doing, Robert?” he asked.
“I could shoot you again,” I said. “I’ll fix you this time.”
“Why would you do that?” He smelled of cigarette smoke.
“I have a rifle under here. It’s pointed right at you.”
“Is it loaded?”
“Yes, I checked.”
“Well, if you’re going to shoot me, you should at least let me see your weapon. It’ll be easier for me to take.”
“This is some VC trick.”
“Just keep your eyes on me.”
I pulled back the sheet and put my rifle in my lap.
“See this? I’m not fucking around,” I said.
“So I see.”
“Don’t come any closer. I swear to fucking God, I’ll shoot you, again.”
The boy faced me with his shoulders square to me.
“You have to shoot me. Pull the trigger.”
“I’ll do it!”
“Then do it.”
“Don’t think that because you’re just a kid, I won’t!”
“I have a gun, too, Robert.”
I saw that he wasn’t fooling. There was something gleaming in his closed hand. He had quick little hands.
“Shoot me,” the boy said.
“Shut up!”
“Shoot me, or I’m going to shoot you.”
I pulled the trigger. I involuntarily jumped with the kick of the rifle. But there wasn’t any rifle. I looked down. What I thought was the strap of the M-16 was my belt. My hands were empty.
“Illusions are funny, aren’t they?” the midget asked. He eased a cigarette into his mouth and flipped the lighter in his hand. “Actually, I’m going to smoke in the living room. You need fresh air in here.”
—
I was jerked awake by a sharp pain in my stomach. I turned on my side and pushed my hand into it. My arms and legs were cramping. I was hungry like I hadn’t been since I was a kid. I rolled onto the floor and pulled myself upright on the dresser. One drawer wasn’t closed all the way and my weight pushed it closed on the fingers of my right hand.
I howled out loud.
“Robert, are you OK?” shouted Paul from the living room.