I say to Macario, “Joe and I go back, back to Bataan.”
Macario’s impressed.
“But,” says Joe, “I knew you before the war. Remember, I trained you.”
“He’s lying,” I say. “I teach him all his moves.”
“Moves?” asks Macario. He’s watching the fat woman sway her hips.
“Boxing,” says Joe and points at me. “He was a lightweight.”
“Don’t believe him,” I tell Macario. “See his nose?” I point to Joe’s crooked nose. “Who’s fault is that?”
Joe laughs. “One day, it’s pointing left. Another, pointing right.”
I say, “But I give you this. I got Joe to thank for getting me work on the docks.” That’s back in the day with Harry Bridges and the Longshoremen.
“Those days, boxing comes in handy.”
I nod. How many times we got to stand our ground, get some promises, and make all the sides keep them? “Joe, we get our noses busted in the day.”
“But not without busting some ourselves. Now you hanging out with the Mexican Gandhi. Got no satisfaction.” He punches the air.
“New tactics for new times.”
“You never gonna see me turn the other cheek.”
I guess not. Joe’s living his life on the front lines. I-Hotel’s gonna be his last battle. I look up and see the stripper’s got one breast exposed, hanging sideways.
Joe growls at Macario, then laughs. “Felix and I,” he says, “we seen some battles.”
“Sign up for the war same day.”
“U.S. Army Forces in the Far East. But we got split up. Felix, I never knew what happened to you. Then come back to find out you survived the war.”
Macario asks Joe, “You walked Bataan too?”
“No way,” he spits. “Nobody gonna tell me to surrender. I’m not in my own country? I head for the mountains, join the guerrillas. Fight with Juan Pajota.”
“Who?” asks Macario.
“Pajota. Captain of the Philippine Guerrillas. If you’re on the right side”—Joe looks at Macario significantly—“guerrilla’s not a dirty word.” Joe orders more beers. “Did you see that movie? The one with John Wayne?”
Macario thinks about it.
“O.K., so you see Anthony Quinn. That’s Pajota. True story.”
“Who’s John Wayne?”
“Hell if I know. He’s John Wayne. What’s a war movie without him?”
“They make another movie. Same title. Bataan. This time with Robert Taylor.”
“Oh yeah, I remember, and that Cuban guy married to I Love Lucy.”
“Desi Arnez? He plays a Pilipino?”
“No, this time they got real Pinoys.”
“Maybe you know the guy? Alex Havier?”
“He plays Pajota?”
“No. He strips down to his Moro origins, puts on war paint, and runs through enemy territory to find MacArthur.”
“Does he find MacArthur?”
“Are you kidding? By that time, the General has left.” Joe looks at Macario. “Didn’t they teach you that shit in school?” Joe stands up to attention and raises his glass. “The General’s parting words to the Pilipinos.”
I motion to Macario, and we all stand and toast in unison. “I SHALL RETURN!”
The stripper looks our way, tosses Macario her g-string.
Joe continues, “Did they teach you how we lost Bataan?”
Macario shakes his head.
“There was no food. No new rations. American forces are sick and starving while the Japs take Corrigedor and the General runs. And this guy”—Joe points to me—“he’s got to march to his death.”
“Macario,” I say, “it’s like this. You marching four guys in a row for four days. One of the four days, one guy in your row, he’s not gonna make it.”
“Worse,” says Joe. “If it’s Pinoys, three guys don’t make it.” He points at me. “Felix’s the only one. Other than the shit in his pants and the worms up his ass, he don’t get a bullet in his ear, a bayonet to his chest, or his head chopped off. Don’t drop dead from malaria or beriberi or dysentery or dehydration. Don’t get executed on the spot.”
Macario stares into his glass like blood is collecting there.
“So, tell him what happened,” Joe nudges me. “So he don’t think you’re just lucky.”
“I’m just lucky,” I say.
We order more beers. Another stripper appears.
“Tell him,” Joe says again.
“I roll over into a ditch.”
“Heat exhaustion.”
“They don’t see me.”
“Otherwise, he was killed dead.”
“Left for dead, anyway. Next to other stinking bodies. Nighttime, I crawl away.”
“He gets rescued by a beautiful Pinay.”
Macario raises his eyebrows.
I say, “It’s true.”
“Then what?”
“I get rescued. Then I put on my Pinoy disguise.”
“You join the guerrillas too?”
“No, I go to Manila and work as a cook.”
“Hey,” Joe says, “you never told me this. First time I’m hearing it.”
“Joe,” I say, “you remember Fely? She’s a dancer. My beautiful Pinay. Runs Club Tsubaki in Manila with Clara Fuentes.” I look around at the Wagon. Beats this joint by twenty times.
“I just heard about her. Why would I go there? Place was crawling with Japs. Whole officer club of them.”
“I’m working for Tsubaki in those days, replicating the taste of Nippon.”
“Fucking traitor.”
“You don’t know. Fely and Clare, doing Mata Hari’s work.”
“Spies?”
I nod, watch some sailor pushing a bill into the stripper’s cleavage. “Making pillow talk with the Japanese clientele.”
Macario looks skeptical. “Meanwhile, you’re slicing sashimi and frying tempura?”
“How did you know? Keeping the sake warm.” We all toast again before I continue my story. “Message comes through the kitchen. We’re cooking our network from there. How else you think Pajota gets the word? We know who’s coming through, when they ship out, where they go.”
Joe is nodding. “Now I remember. Madam Tsubaki, aka Clare, got caught smuggling goods into Cabanatuan.”
“What’s that?” Macario wants to know.
“POW camp,” says Joe. “I helped to liberate their American asses. End of the war, maybe only five hundred of them left alive. We put their emaciated bodies on carabao carts.”
“Joe’s a hero,” I say.
“I’m no hero. Threw a couple of grenades. Stopped some Japs in their tanks before they stopped me. Stupid bastards.”
By now we’re all pretty drunk. I get up and hand a dollar to the next stripper.
Joe says, “Pajota, now he was a hero. Held the bridge and killed everything in sight.” He nods sadly. “Heard he died a few weeks ago. Died trying to get his citizenship.”
“You fight for America. You get to be American. That’s your ticket. You get on the citizen ship.”
“Every race got to sacrifice some folks to get on the ship.”
“Toss them overboard.”
“Let them rot in the hold.”
“Got to be one thousand of us to one of them.”
“With odds like that, how can you lose?”
“You know in the movie what Pajota says?”
“It’s not really Pajota.”
“What difference does it make?”
“What’s he say?”
“He says, ‘It don’t matter where a guy dies, as long as he dies for freedom.’”
“You believe that?”
“Of course I believe that.” Joe looks hurt. “What else is there to believe?”
Macario and I get up to leave, and Joe waves us on.
Macario says, “Ben says Joe’s a liability.”
“What do you say?”
“I don’t know.”
&n
bsp; “You know that’s Joe’s girl.”
Macario looks confused.
“You don’t see any strippers tonight?”
He shakes his head. All he sees is Bataan, dying POWs, war, blood in his cloudy cup.
“Her.” I gesture back at the Paddy Wagon. “The last one.” I swivel my hips to remind him. “Yeah, he takes care of her. Has a room on the first floor. How old is she? Fifty? Sixty? Maybe oldest stripper on the block. She has been, but he has been, too.”
“Has been where?”
I pull Macario over. He’s stumbling up the stairs. “Has been. Over there. You don’t know? I got to explain?”
How many years Joe’s running the I-Hotel? Maybe not forever, and nobody knows how he starts. Gets the manager’s room with his private bath and all the keys, decides if there’s room for you at the inn, collects your money. For some, there’s always a room. For others, don’t bother. For Joe, it’s about loyalty and protection. You in his brotherhood, you stay there. Sometimes I think, who else could do this job but Joe? Think about the tramps and lowlifes coming through. Pimps and hustlers. Addicts and ex-cons. Joe might give you a slim chance, but he wants it respectable and quiet. He’s keeping the rooms for his brothers. Nobody breaks Joe’s rules. How many times I see Joe arriving at somebody’s door with his baseball bat. Guy might be naked. He’s got to run out the hotel or take his medicine. How many rules Joe’s got to break to keep this kind of peace?
Over the years, Joe’s rubbing shoulders with the guys who rise to the top. In case you forget, city’s a port. Tough guys rise from the dock to do the work of the people. Longshoremen with connections up and down the coast, up to organizing us Alaskeros. An injury to one is an injury to all. And just in case, he coaches boxing to every new generation. So when the I-Hotel gets threatened, he gets the ear of the mayor himself, old family friend. Probably taught this kid his jabs and hooks. Don’t let the mayor forget where he comes from.
“O.K.,” I tell Macario, “Joe’s got his abilities.”
I remind Abra. “Joe stands up for you. Gathers the men and tells them how to treat you young women. Noli me tangere.”
“Right,” says Abra. “He was standing there with his baseball bat and yelling.”
“He says to us, what if these young ladies are your daughters? How do you feel?”
“He said, if he found out that anybody touched us, he was going to bash his head in.”
“Manner of speaking.”
“He hates the students.”
“He lets them rent their storefronts.”
“That’s not his decision anymore. The hotel is run by the tenants. You’re an association. He’s not the boss.”
“Who’s gonna tell him?”
One day, Abra tells him. She’s the treasurer, doing the books. She says to Joe, “You can’t take money out of this fund without consulting with the tenants. It’s their money. They made the decision to put it aside. Don’t you remember? It’s in the minutes.”
“Minutes? What I got to run a hotel on minutes? I got hours and days and weeks. Every day we get closer to getting evicted.”
“What did you do with this money?”
“Repairs. Broken window. Rat control. Don’t you know?”
“Where are the receipts?”
“Are you telling me how to run my hotel?”
“It’s not your hotel, Joe. You get a salary, and that’s it. You can’t mix up the money.”
“What do you mean, it’s not my hotel?”
“O.K., it’s yours, but the money’s separate.”
“Who are you to say?
“I’m the treasurer.”
“Oh yeah?” He grabs the books from Abra and rips them up. “Get out of my office.” By now Joe’s reaching for his baseball bat.
By the time I get there, Joe’s got his batter’s stance.
Abra stands him off. “Joe, you come and get me. Come and get me.”
I see Abra’s hand ready to pull abracadabra.
“Hit me, Joe,” she snarls. “I’m gonna put you through that wall.”
Shit, I think, it could happen. “Joe!” I yell from behind him and grab his neck, pull him back.
He struggles forward, but I yank to choke him good. By now, I got some assistance. How many old guys piling on Joe to hold him down? If you multiply our years, it takes maybe four hundred years of us to contain the bastard, save Abra, our damsel in distress. Decrepit bunch of old fogeys piled up like cannon fodder. What’s more humiliating?
“Get the fuck off me!” Joe’s yelling.
Now we’re on top and down—who can move?
“Wait, I’m stuck.”
Moaning and groaning. Huffing and puffing. How much exertion can an old heart take?
Abra’s standing there, looking disgusted. I’m underneath, my ear pressed to the linoleum. I can hear her stomp away.
After that, I know Joe has got to go. We let Joe slip out to run some errand, then same old crew lines up at the door, waiting.
“It’s like this,” I say to Macario. “When you have the experience of starving, really starving, your gut knotted into a hard fist, you feed yourself first. If you got it, you hide your food. You steal from anyone who has it. Guy dies, you strip him clean. You eat anything that moves. Grubs, bugs, lizards, rats. Guys like me and Joe, survive the thirties, then Bataan, how you gonna trust us?”
“That’s not an excuse for Joe stealing the hotel money.”
“Macario, how much we need to buy back the hotel? One million? How we gonna save that much? What did Joe steal? It’s peanuts.”
“That was your money, too.”
“You ever eat rat?”
“We catch a lot of them in this hotel.”
“So maybe you did.”
“Felix.” Macario’s looking worried.
“I got this recipe from a cook at Cabanatuan.”
“Hey.” Pete runs in from the street. “Joe’s on his way back.”
Joe steps up and gets his surprise. Same old fogeys—O.K.: retired warriors. Two rows of us standing there at the door, looking like we mean business. Someone’s got Joe’s baseball bat. Another’s got his suitcase ready. Hands it to Joe. “Sorry, Joe, we can’t let you back in. You got to go.”
“Joe, you come in, you got to deal with me.”
“Joe, I bust your face.”
“Joe, time’s up.”
He points his crooked nose in my direction. “Fucking traitors.”
I watch Joe walk away with his suitcase, head down Kearny, pass the Paddy Wagon, and cross Jackson. I know what’s in the suitcase besides some clothing: boxing gloves, boxing medals, WWII bronze star, old photograph of young, buff, boxing Joe, another of his infantry, copy of the Rescission Act of 1946, pinup of Miss July 1952, bottle of Johnny Walker Red, canned corned beef, can of Spam, can of beans, can of tuna, can of sardines, can opener.
6: Ng Ka Py
I am reading the book America Is in the Heart, by Carlos Bulosan. My friend Wen gives it to me to read. “You haven’t read this book?” He can’t believe it. If anybody knows books, gotta be Wen. Li Po–poet type teaching at SF State. Says Bulosan double features with Grapes of Wrath. For triple feature, try Native Son. Well, I say, Carlos is my friend, but maybe you never get around to reading your friend’s book. What are friends for? Give you the digested version to make life easy. But you read Carlos’s life, and you think: your life is bad? Comes nothing close. Every page, Carlos is suffering; starving; broken by work; beat up; pounded; stabbed; near dying, escaping; getting TB; cheated; losing his country, his friends, his family, his innocence; nearly naked; losing his dream. O.K., nothing we Pinoys don’t know, but maybe our hell all rolled into one heart.
Wen asks, “So what do you think?” Maybe you remember, Wen collaborates with me on a cookbook. Everything authentic. His poems and brushwork illustrations. My recipes.
“It’s an inspiration,” I say. “Now, we gonna call our book: America Is in the Stomach.”
&
nbsp; Jack’s my official ghostwriter. He says, “Like hell we are.”
“Try this,” I say. “Ng ka py. Recommended for poets. Helps you write.” It’s a black liquor I got corked in an old Manischewitz bottle. I pour him a shot. “Also medicinal.”
“Shiiiiiiiit!” Jack coughs. “What’s that?”
“My own recipe. Twenty secret herbs.”
“Mostly absinthe,” says Wen.
“Fuck. Is that legal?” asks Jack.
I say, “When I’m working in Salinas, I’m making it for John Steinbeck all the time.”
“More bullshit. I don’t believe it.”
“Look how much John writes. And figure how many centuries of Chinese poetry.” I pour some for Wen.
“That’s right,” says Wen, lifting his cup. “Yuan Hung-tao is said to have drunk this with some local fish, writing thereafter a poem about it.”
“How about it?” I ask. “I’m divulging the twenty secret herbs, plus the local fish.”
Macario drives over the Golden Gate to Wen’s big house on the Marin side to pick me up. “O.K. Felix, ready to head back to our side of the world?”
I take one look at Macario’s car and say, “Hey where’d you get this limousine?”
“What are you talking about?”
“This car. You pick it up special to make an impression for me?”
“You don’t recognize my car?”
I’m looking closer. “No shit!” It’s the same Chevy wagon, newly painted black, all the dings and dents pushed out and sanded over, no more rust spots. The whole thing is all buffed up and polished. I walk around to get the big picture. Busted headlights all replaced. New side mirrors. Cracked windshield replaced. Broken passenger-side handle fixed. Bumpers seem new too. Nice chrome finish. And matching hubcaps. Heck, new set of tires. I whistle. “What’s happening here?” I puzzle. “You been dipping into the hotel treasury too?”
Macario opens the door and says, “Just get in, Felix.”
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