“Hi.” Taña waved. Click.
“You aren’t growing up to be a heartbreakin’ man, are you, honey boy?” said Aunt Lilah.
“Speak for your own self,” said back-talking Wittman. She was a glamour girl still raising hell at seventy-five. She gets you alone for a moment, she’ll confide her romance. “Honey, this entre news is on the Q.T., and must not go further than this very room. My beloved is a sai yun. He’s fifty-five years old, and so distinguished. All his clothes are Brooks Brothers. My sai yun lover is offering to divorce his wife for me, but I don’t want to be married. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are enough.” A “sai yun” is a “western man,” which isn’t correct; we’re westerners too.
“U.C., state-run public school, does not teach them to present themselves socially,” Auntie Jean was explaining. She was an authority on higher education, a son at Harvard, a daughter at Wellesley, where the Soong sister who married Sun Yat Sen went, another son at Princeton, the baby daughter at Sarah Lawrence. “As I said to Mayling Soong, I-vee Leak be A-number-one all-around. They learn how to make money, and they learn to go around in society. Very complete.” The cruel thing to say back to her is: “What eating club does Ranceford belong to?” But you don’t want to be mean to her. They will graduate, and never come back.
“At U.C., this one learned: grow hair long,” Mom agreed. “Grow rat beard. And go out with bok gwai noi.” As if dating las gringas wasn’t his idea, he had to be taught. “You ought to see them there in Berkeley. Doi doi jek. Yut doi, yow yut doi.” Pair after pair (of mixed couples). “Jek,” an article used with livestock. “Doi,” an article used with poultry. “You meet my Wit Man too late, See Nigh. You missed out on one good-looking boy.”
“You still got one matinée idol under the hair, Ruby,” said Aunt Marleese. “Cut it for your poor mother, Wit Man. I remember when you were yay high. I used to change his diapers. You were deh, Wit Man. He was so deh.” Click click. She gave them an example of deh, her head to one side, a finger to her dimple, coy lady pose. The aunties smiled at him like he was going to act deh any moment for his mother at least, do babytalk, act babyish, and bring out motherly love.
“Cut it off, Wit Man,” said his mother. “Cut it off. I’ll pay you.” Clack!
“Just—. Just—,” said Wittman. “Just—.” Just lay off me. Cut me some slack. Let me be. And let me live.
All this time at four tables, outspread fingers with red nails and rings of gold and jade pushed and turned the tiles in wheels of bones and plastic, clockwise and counterclockwise. The sound of fortune is clack clack clack. They built little Great Walls, and tore them down. Crash! “I’m the prevailing east wind.” Aunt Lily Rose is dealing. “You in luck today, Maydene.” “Not luck like you, Dolly.” “Poong!” “I’ve got a hot one,” said Mom, fanning a tile like she was putting out a match. “Dangerous. Dangerous.” She’s got a red dragon. “Aiya.” “The wind shifts to the west.” “Here comes the green dragon.” “The white dragon.” “A hot one.” “Four circles. Kong!” “Ciao!” shouted Wittman’s mother, pouncing on the tile that the See Nigh had discarded. “One, two / three bamboo!” “Mah jeuk birds all in a row.” (Is “mah-jongg” a white word, then, like “chop suey,” a white food?) “Your mama, one cutthroat,” said Auntie Sophie. “You working hard, Wit Man?”
“I’ve been fired.” Let ’em have it.
“Fired!” His mother screamed. “Fired! Fired!”
“It’s okay, Ma. I didn’t like the job anyway.”
“Four years college.” Mom put down her tiles. She shut her eyes, a mother defeated. She’s an actress. She’s acting. You can’t trust actors, feel one thing and act another. She put her hand on her brow. Chewed the scenery. “What are we to do?”
The chorus gals snowed her with more comfort. “He’ll get a job again, Ruby.” “Nowadays they try out jobs, then settle down.” “Wit Man be smart. He’ll be rich one of these days.”
“He read books when he was three years old. Now look at him. A bum-how.”
“Don’t you worry. He’s one good boy.” “He be nice and tall.” “He always has beautiful gallo friends.” “He’ll turn out for the better.”
He should shut them up with Rilke: It will be difficult to persuade me that the story of the Prodigal Son is not the legend of him who did not want to be loved. When he was a child, everybody in the house loved him. He grew up knowing nothing else and came to feel at home in their softness of heart, when he was a child.
But as a boy he sought to lay aside such habits. He could not have put it into words, but when he wandered about outside all day and did not even want to have the dogs along, it was because they too loved him; because in their glances there was observation and sympathy, expectancy and solicitude; because even in their presence one could do nothing without gladdening or giving pain.… But then comes the worst. They take him by the hands, they draw him toward the table, and all of them, as many as are present, stretch inquisitively into the lamplight. They have the best of it; they keep in the shadow, while on him alone falls, with the light, all the shame of having a face.
… No, he will go away. For example, while they are all busy setting out on his birthday table those badly conceived gifts meant, once again, to compensate for everything. Go away for ever.
O King of Monkeys, help me in this Land of Women.
“And so-o-o much talent, too-o much talent.” “He got upbringing, Ruby; you gave him upbringing he cannot lose.” “He got foundation.” “You one good mother.” “He’s clean too. Most beardies are dirty.” Clackety clack clack. “And such good grades. Remember his report cards?” “He was so cute. Do you still have dock-yee knees, honey boy? You have got to tapdance for your Aunt Lilah again.”
Mom’s best friends were cheering her up, letting her brag out her happy, proud memories. “I remember, three years old, he made five dollars reading. His father bet a bok gwai lawyer that our biby could read anything. They took the biggest book down from the shelf. He read perfect. ‘He’s been coached on that book,’ said the lawyer, and sent his secretary out to buy a brand-new Wall Street Journal. Our Wit Man read the editorial. He won five dollars. We let him keep it. Does he eat regular?” she asked Taña. “Sure. He eats.” Clack!
Does a mother, even an artiste mother who led a free youth, and chose her own husband, does such a mother want her son to have a free artistic life? No. Rimbaud wanted his kids to be engineers.
“You need a job?” asked Auntie Mabel. “I got one gig for you, dear. You come to Florida with me, and do my revue.”
“You still doing your revue, Auntie May-bo?”
“Yeah, I do revue. You come, eh, Wit Man. We need a fella in the act.”
“In Florida, you dance? You sing?”
“No-o-o. I stand-up comedy. My gals dance and sing. I train them. Miss Chinatown 1959, 1962, and 1963—all in my act.” She liked breasts and balls jokes. The punchline: “One hung low. Ha ha.” Miss Mabel Foo Yee, the Kookie Fortune Cookie. You had to hand it to her, though. Women aren’t funny, and she’s still cooking. Cook dinnah, Auntie May-bo. She herself had won beauty contests umpteen years ago. And went on to fan-dance, almost top billing with Miss Toyette Mar, the Chinese Sophie Tucker, and Mr. Stanley Toy, the Fred Astaire of Chinatown, Miss Toby Wing as Ginger, and Prince Gum Low, and Mr. Kwan Tak Hong, the Chinese Will Rogers, who also danced flamenco. Wittman had seen Auntie May-bo topless at Andy Wong’s Skyroom. The first tits he’d ever seen, scared the daylights out of him. A blare of brass and a red spotlight—Aunt Mabel had slinked about the Skyroom, snaking her arms and legs like Greta Garbo and Anna May Wong, legs tangoing out of her slit dress. The light shrank to head-size, and the spot held her face. Chopsticks in her hair. False eyelashes blinked hard, and the light went out. She ran about with incense sticks, writing red script in the dark. Red lights flashed on. The front of her dress broke away. Gong. Gong. Lights out. Gong. Lights on. Auntie Mabel stood with arms and naked tits raised at the ceiling. You looked
hard for two seconds, the lights went out. Gong. Lights on—she was kneeling with wrists together, tits at ease, eyelashes downcast. Lights out, climactic band music, The End.
She was saying, “My gals, queen of the prom. Court princess, at least. I teach them. Mothers of junior-high gals say to me, ‘Start her on her make-up, May-bo.’ I teach them hair and dress. They do not go out in blue jeans or with no gloves.” Wittman had met some of these trained gals. They looked like young Aunt Mabels. They wore their hair in beehives with a sausage curl or two that hung down over the shoulder. Today Aunt Mabel had on one of her specially ordered Hong Kong dresses. The mandarin collar was frogged tight, but there was a diamond-shaped opening that showed her lace underwear and her old cleavage. Her old thigh flirted through a side slit. There was a lot of perfume in the room, My Sin, Chanel No. 5, Arpège, most of it coming from her. To their credit, no girl of Wittman’s college generation would be caught dead in Chinese drag.
“Good you get fired from demeaning employment. You get back into show biz, honey. For you, Aunt Carmen has special ten percent,” said Aunt Carmen, a theatrical agent. She sometimes charged twenty percent, twice as much as the regular (white) agents. Her clients, Chinese and Japanese types, who’d gotten SAG cards from Flower Drum Song and SEG cards from Duel in the Sun, and hopeful ever since, were hard to place. The go-between (white) agent had to make his ten percent too. The actors didn’t ask how come these double agents weren’t getting 5%-5%. She was up from L.A. to touch base with the talent in the Bay Area and Seattle, and the home folks in the Valley. She had a corner on the West Coast talent. (Auntie Goldie Joy of Manhattan handled the East Coast. The two of them had helped book S. I. Hsiung and his all-Caucasian Chinese opera, starring Harpo Marx and Alexander Woollcott, into theaters in San Francisco and London and New York.)
“You a good type, Wit Man,” said Auntie Carmen. “Your gal a good type too. You an actress, darling? Lose ten pounds, you be one actress.”
“No, I’m not,” said Taña. “I’m an assistant claims adjuster.” Why won’t she tell them she’s a painter?
“We need a man in the act, Wit Man,” said Auntie Mabel. “You be interested, huh.” Because local boys don’t wear tights, Wittman had been the boy brought in from out of town to play the prince. “You were a natural, such good ideas. Tan-ah, you should have seen him, wearing his underpants outside his regular pants, like comic-book superheroes, he said. You got personality, Wit Man.” There was a song that went, “Walk personality, talk personality.” “Come on. Sometime we play Reno. North Shore Lake Tahoe.”
“Auntie Mabel, I like do Shakespeare.”
“You snob, Wit Man. You will be hurt and jobless. We have one elegant act. High-class educated gals.” Yeah, like Patty (Schoolteacher) White, the stripper in—and out of—cap and gown and eyeglasses. She was showing that you make more money working North Beach than the School District, and you get more appreciation too.
“You join Auntie May-bo’s revue,” said Mom, “you meet prettier gals.” Clack! Putting the girlfriend in her place.
“I know a girl who would like your boy,” said the See Nigh, who didn’t speak English. “She came from Hong Kong only a month ago, and already has a job. Her sponsor pulls influence, and her papers are legal. She’s a very good old-fashioned, traditional girl. Not in this country long enough to be spoiled. She’ll make a good wife.”
“Listen to See Nigh, Wit Man,” said Mother. “A Chinese girl like that doesn’t like beards. You be one Beatnik, you scare her away. You be clean-cut All-American Ivy-Leak boy, okay?”
“I’ve got a daughter I hope she won’t marry somebody second-rate,” said Auntie Marleese. “Gail is so smart, professors gave her a personal invitation to attend Stanford University, and pay her to go there. You know S.A.T.? Best S.A.T. in California. Ten thousand points. Pre-med. Her teachers tell me that they never taught a more intelligent girl.”
“You still not get Gail married yet?” said Auntie Doll. Clack! The showgirls had been young when it was smart to be catty.
“My Betty,” said Auntie Lily Rose, “made valedictorian again. And she is popular. And she is the first Chinese girl president of her parachute club. She never told me she jumps out of airplanes till after her one hundredth jump. She had to tell me, she landed on her face. Still pretty but. Only chipped her tooth. She said, ‘I saved the altimeter.’ Any of you know of a good boy, help settle her down?”
Wittman ought to say, “Bring me your daughters. I’ll talk to them with my hom sup mouth and touch them with my hom sup hands. Hom sup sup.” A hom sup lo is a salty drippy pervert.
“Come on, honey boy,” called Auntie Bessie. “Tapdance for us. You the cutest most dock-yee fatcheeks. Tan-ah, did he tell you he’s one great soft shoe? Come on, Wit Man, do some soft shoe, huh?” They remember, he had taken classes in Good Manners and Tap Dance at Charlie Low’s school. Eddie Pond of the Kubla Khan had also sponsored schools, and given to the community his expertise in engineering, insurance, real estate, and law. The showmen competed to be most socially responsible.
“No, thanks, Auntie Bessie.”
Auntie Bessie sang, “ ‘I won’t dance. Don’t ask me. I won’t dance. Don’t ask me. I won’t dance, monsieur, with yo-o-ou.’ Not even for your favorite aunt, honey boy?”
“Hey, Auntie Bessie, do you still say Yow!?” She had played Laurie in the Chinese Optimist Club production of Oklahoma. And sang and danced in all the best Big City clubs—Eddie Pond’s Kubla Khan, Charlie Low’s Forbidden City, Fong Wan the Herbalist’s, Andy Wong’s Chinese Skyroom. Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington had swung in those clubs too. “ ‘Okla—, Okla—, Okla—,’ ” sang Wittman to start her off.
“ ‘And when we sa-a-ay Yow!’ ” Auntie Bessie was on her feet. “ ‘Yow! A yip I yo I yay! we’re only sayin’ you’re doin’ fine, Oklahoma. Oklahoma, okay.’ ” She had worn a white lace Laurie dress with a half-dozen petticoats, and wigged out her hair with black ringlets. She held her hands over her heart, and sang some more,
“Don’t sigh and gaze at me.
Your sighs are so like mine.
Your eyes musn’t glow like mine.
People will say we’re in love.
Don’t throw bo-kays at me.
Don’t please my folks too much.
Don’t laugh at my jokes too much.”
“ ‘Who laughs at yer jokes?’ ” said Wittman as Curly.
“ ‘People will say we’re in love.’ ” He had fallen in love with her himself. She’d kept her stage make-up on for the cast party. He had stood beside her at the community sing around the piano, and saw her powdery wrinkles. Off stage, she sang and smoked at once. “Don’t daa de dada daah? Line? Line?”
Taña sang her the line in the sweetest voice, “ ‘Don’t dance all night with me.’ ”
“Oh, Tan-ah can sing,” said the aunties. “Good, help out.”
Taña and Bessie sang together.
“Till the stars fade from above.
They’ll see it’s all right with me.”
And all the showgirls chimed in, “ ‘People will say we’re in love.’ ”
“Good, Bessie!” “Ho, la!” “Bessie just as good as ever.” “Good, Tan-ah!” “Wit Man, you never said she’s show business.”
“She’s not. She’s an assistant claims adjuster.”
“Thank you, Tan-ah,” said Auntie Bessie.
“Thank you, Auntie Bessie,” said Taña. “You have a beautiful voice.”
“Tan-ah, I tell you,” said Aunt Dolly, “that voice of Bessie’s bought an airplane for World War II.”
“And the rest of us too,” said Aunt Sophie, “we were stars. We put on so many shows, and so many people paid to watch us dance and sing, we raised enough money to buy an airplane.”
“We toured nationwide,” said Aunt Lily Rose. “We had the most active chapter of the Association of Vaudeville Artistes.”
“Remember? Remember we were dancers in the Dance of the Nations,” said
Auntie Mabel. “We each did a solo to honor our brave allies. I was Miss France.”
“I was Miss Great Britain,” said Ruby Long Legs.
“I was Miss Belgium,” said Aunt Sondra.
“I was Miss Russia,” said Aunt Lilah.
“I was Miss China,” said Aunt Bessie.
“I was Miss Finlandia,” said Aunt Maydene.
“I was Miss U.S.A.,” said Aunt Sadie, who had been with another Jadine, Jadine Wong and her Wongettes, those dancing Chinese cuties.
“Money was not all that we raised,” said Aunt Lilah, winking at Wittman. She had danced with petite Noel Toy and the Toyettes.
“We had a painting party,” said Aunt Carmen, “and painted our airplane—a Chinese flag and an American flag—red, white, and blue.”
“We painted across our airplane in Chinese and English: California Society to Rescue China,” said Auntie Marleese, swooping her hand like a rainbow. “And we did, too—rescued China and won World War II.”
“Auntie Bessie’s brother flew it to China and became a Flying Tiger,” said Auntie Jean. “And is now a pilot for China Airlines.”
“Hungry, Ma,” said Wittman. “What’s there to eat?”
“Go eat,” said Mother. “So help yourself. Sow mahng mahng.” “Mahng mahng” is the sound of being skinny. “Fai dut dut” and “fai doot doot” are the sounds of being fat. “Eat. Eat. Don’t wait for us.”
Wittman grabbed Taña’s hand, and beat it to the kitchen.
There were cartons and covered dishes on every surface, more warming in the oven, and more cooling in the refrigerator. The cartons came from the restaurants which some aunties owned and some hostessed, queens of nightlife. When you’re out on the town, your rep for setting it on fire depends on them treating you and your gal right. Also, when an actor loses his will to audition, they give him a meal on the house. The food in cartons was courtesy of the chefs, letting themselves go, back-home cooking that they don’t do for the customers.
Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (Vintage International) Page 25