1974

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  Inside, how can you not notice? Upholstery all renovated. Front seats are black leather. Backseat’s not leather and a different color, red, but near new too. Plus fancy red steering wheel, new rearview mirror, new carpets, new radio system. “You been busy,” I say.

  “Don’t go spreading rumors,” says Macario. “In fact, don’t say anything at all. Not a word, you understand?”

  I keep looking around me. “Hey, look at this. Even got new ashtrays.” Funny, nothing inside is matching exactly. “How come they each a different color?”

  Macario is looking out his new mirrors, trying to catch the ramps to the Golden Gate. “Felix, promise you’ll keep quiet?”

  “Depends.”

  “Baby Wah Ching,” he says.

  “I notice. Lately they’re hanging around. You got your personal baby bodyguards. Now you’re big time.”

  Macario groans. “I just did them some favors.”

  “I remember. You go down to juvie and get a couple of them out.”

  “Should have left them.”

  “So now they repay you the favor.”

  “I never asked them for anything in return.” Macario’s fuming. “Now, look at my car.”

  I look over, and he could maybe cry. Now it explains everything. One day you wake up and every car down Kearny bashed in. Parts probably missing here and there. What about the guy who steps out, sees his car sitting on axles? All four tires, gone. I nod, “Looks like a gangster car. What they call him? Bugs Malone.”

  “He never had a Chevy station wagon.”

  “Probably shiny black undertaker job. Whatchu you call it?” I’m thinking. “Dead Giveaway.”

  “Yeah, well, shoot me now, Felix.”

  I think maybe he’s right. Macario’s wagon’s got about a hundred new pieces liberated from the system. Baby Wah Ching don’t have an idea about brand names. I say, “I don’t know much about automobiles, but can you put Ford parts into Chevys? Goes to show, you can weld anything to anything.”

  “Goddamn. I’ve got to get rid of this thing now.”

  “Maybe we park it here on the Golden Gate and walk away.”

  “They’ll be looking over the bridge for the suicide.”

  “You kidding? I said walk away.”

  Macario looks at me, and I slap my knees and just about die laughing.

  “Shut up, Felix. Look who’s following us.”

  I shoot a look into one of the mirrors. Now I see one side is square style; other side is round. This is some kind of Chinatown art project. I see the cops framed in the square mirror. “We just look normal.”

  “Like hell we do.”

  Cop car speeds around us, and Macario relaxes. After that, we drive around streets I never seen, then park the car. “Where are we?” I ask.

  “Daly City.”

  “Now what?”

  “We take a bus to the hotel.”

  “This is farther than Marin.”

  Macario and I take public transportation back to the hotel. I think out loud to Macario. “Bus is like the hotel. For the people.”

  Macario nods. “Sorry about the car, Felix.”

  I shrug. “Forget it.” I continue my thinking. “You know this eminent domain? Got sides to it.”

  “Yeah,” Macario agrees.

  “City can use the power to take away anything for the public good, but who can say what is the public good? More like political good.”

  “Public good in our case would be to house the poor and elderly after working all their lives.”

  “Makes sense to me.”

  “The city has to be made responsible for public housing.” Macario’s pounding on his knee, practicing his speech. “They can use eminent domain to obtain our property, but they’ve got to use it for low-cost housing for the people. That’s what we’re trying to argue.”

  “That Songkhram character’s never gonna sell,” I say. “His Chinatown lawyers acting like they know what’s best for the public good of Chinatown. Maybe he’s turning Kearny Street into a tourist attraction.” I shake my head.

  Maybe we shoulda seen it coming. The rich got a problem, they can always sell it to another rich guy who needs that problem to solve another problem. Years down the line, you gonna look at the hindsight and think yeah, now you see the whole picture. But the whole picture is always there. Somebody shoulda seen it when Simon Solomon dumped the I-Hotel on Songkhram. I send Macario out to study the situation. He comes back and says, “Student protest in Bangkok. Staged a revolution. Something like two hundred thousand came out. Military killed and wounded hundreds of them. So now Songkhram is looking to escape. Save his ass by sinking his assets here.” What else did he buy besides San Francisco real estate? He buys a winery in Napa County. Whiskey magnet, my ass.

  I uncork my ng ka py right there in the bus and offer Macario a taste.

  “Not that stuff.” Macario waves it away.

  “My own brew,” I say. “Medicinal tea.”

  He smells the bottle and shakes his head. “Is this the stuff you’re thinking could poison Songkhram?”

  “Why not?” I turn the bottle and just moisten my lips. “But we don’t know who he is. How come you don’t challenge him to a fight? Come out in the open and fight man to man. You send the message.” I push Macario with my bottle. “Felix Allos versus Samut Songkhram in the ring for ten rounds. I beat his ass.”

  I know Macario goes to hide his stolen-parts car in Daly City. Must be some kind of a joke. Respectable Pinoys all living in Daly City these days. Manilatown’s thing of the past. Nothing but old codgers like me living off social security. What do Daly City Pinoys care about us? They’re like the baby Wah Ching, just arrived from the old country and thinking their rules apply. Baby Wah Ching working for the old tongs; Daly City Pinoys taking sides with the dictator Marcos.

  This time, Macario and Abra in the kitchen. Got the pot of rice steaming on low. Then chopping the onions, peeling the garlic, measuring the soy sauce and the vinegar, dumping in the chicken parts. Final touches, bay leaf and paprika. I sniff the air above the pot and nod. “O.K.”

  “I found my dish,” Macario says.

  Maybe Macario’s looking worried, but Abra’s just looking hungry. “He said you said this works every time.”

  “Could be.” I point to my head and nod, then ask, “Whatchu working out?”

  “Politics.”

  “Nothing new.”

  By now, Macario’s dishing out the rice. “Support groups’re accusing us of being sellouts.”

  I’m imbibing the sweet aroma of rice, but I say, “What support group?” I think must be three hundred support groups out there. Friends of the I-Hotel. Workers Committee to Support the I-Hotel. Committee to Struggle with the I-Hotel. I-Hotel Ping Yuen Tenants Committee. Chinese Affirmative Action I-Hotel Committee. U.S. Postal Workers I-Hotel Support Committee. People’s Church I-Hotel Support Committee. Low-cost Housing Tenants Association. I-Hotel Business Tenants Support Committee. Garment Workers I-Hotel Support Committee. Poets for the I-Hotel.

  “You know which ones,” says Abra. “The Maoist ones.”

  “You aren’t Maoist?”

  “Yeah, well.”

  I ask, “How come sellouts?”

  Abra takes my plate and gives me a good ladle of adobo. “For working with the system and trying to get the city to use eminent domain to buy us out.”

  “Who else got the money?”

  “They come to meetings and say that we got to liberate the hotel from the system.”

  “Easy to say.” I shrug and dig in.

  “What’s screwing us up is this buy-back plan.”

  “We can never buy back the hotel from the city after it takes it away from Enchanted Seas. Not even for half of what they pay them off. It’s never going to be realistic.”

  “Whose idea this buy-back?”

  “Maybe Joe’s. His private deal with the mayor.”

  “Joe’s not here anymore.”

  I close my e
yes, savor the flavors. “I think Joe had an idea. He knows there’s no money, but there’s money somewhere. Somewhere, there’s always money. That’s what he’s thinking. Hey,” I say, “this not bad.”

  “Thanks, Felix.”

  Everybody gets quiet eating. Nothing but the sound of eating. Forks pushing around the food, rearranging the chicken and sauce on the rice, scooping it up into satisfied mouths.

  Finally I say, “Joe might be thinking like this. Eminent domain, buy-back, realistically, it can never happen. Something gets proposed, goes to court, court agrees, knocks it down, you get an appeal, goes back to the city, win, lose, buying time—not buy back, just buying time.”

  “You mean, we’re just using stalling tactics.”

  “You never know. We could win.”

  “What kind of line is stalling tactics?”

  “Line?”

  “It’s like this, Felix, a line is . . .” Macario is looking for words.

  I cut in, “You think I don’t know what you’re doing? I don’t know what your line is? How’s your party line gonna help me? You get a party, but what do I get?”

  Abra and Macario poking around the bones on their plates.

  “Felix is right,” Abra says. “Every group is using the hotel to test their line.”

  I know the problem. How many old tenants we got left? Used to be fifty. Now, maybe thirty. Every support group attached to one or two tenants, hauling him around from rally to rally like the real thing. I don’t say nothing because what’s an old guy got besides this kind of family, this kind of attention? What does he know about party lines? But he is not stupid. Didn’t survive all these years without learning something.

  “Besides,” Macario says, “what about our own party? Abra, it’s just you and me at the hotel. Central committee has pretty much said, ‘You’re on your own.’”

  Abra mutters, “Abandoned.”

  Kids look tired. When do they sleep? Every day running around trying to hold off the eviction. Meetings every night. Strategy sessions. Going to court. Protesting every place. City Hall. Redevelopment. KMT headquarters. Harassing Songkhram’s lawyers. Signing petitions. Posting flyers. Making speeches. Speech at Glide Memorial. Speech at college rally. Speech at garment workers’ union. Meeting with supervisors. Meeting with the mayor. Meeting with Human Rights. Meeting with HUD. Arguing with every support group. Setting up the phone tree. Sending spies out to keep tabs on the police. Doing surveillance, make sure no one tries to burn down the building again. Then, maybe taking Frankie to emergency; got an asthma attack. Getting Wahat some heart medicine. Getting Benny his social security papers. Going over to the police station to pick up Lee, who gets drunk and sleeps in the street again.

  I think I know the situation. “In the context of the larger struggle,” they call it. Bigger battles to fight. Save those nurses from jail. Address the oppression of the Pilipino professional class. Oppose the Marcos dictatorship. Rally the exiled for democracy. What’s the I-Hotel? Just thirty old men.

  Abra looks at my empty plate. “Want seconds?”

  I hand her my plate. “This reminds me of adobo I eat in the war.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “The best. My beautiful Pinay saves my life with this same adobo. Just the sauce and a little rice.” I demonstrate. “Spoon at a time.”

  “Did you tell Abra that story?” asks Macario. “About how you survived Bataan?”

  “I escape to the mountains, join Luis Taruc and the Hukbalahap.”

  Macario looks confused. “That’s not the story you told Joe and me. What happened to Fely, the Mata Hari dancer?”

  Abra looks shocked. “You fought with Taruc and the Huks?”

  “What’s so surprising?”

  “You never told me you fought with the Communists. What’ve you been hiding from me?”

  “Guerrilla force just like Mao fighting the Japanese.” I shrug at Abra and Macario. “That’s the lesson.”

  “What?”

  “United front. Philippine Scouts, Philippine Guerrillas, Huks, Chinese, Americans, USAFFE. Could be Nationalists. Could be Socialists. Could be Communists. Could be Imperialists. We drive out the Fascists together.”

  Macario’s looking like the adobo’s doing the trick. He’s clearing the table, washing the dishes. Later, I’m hearing him at a meeting. He’s calling for a united front. The support groups ratify a united front agreement. Agreed: I-Hotel struggle represents the needs of a working-class minority over private property. Agreed: Public officials must be held liable for human needs over capitalist needs. Agreed: Actions against eviction must be nonviolent to protect elderly tenants.

  Abra’s splitting a bottle of beer with me. “Why didn’t you tell me you fought with the Huks?”

  “Not much to tell. I get rescued by them. Run away into the mountains. Hey.” I look at Abra. “You got me to remember guerrero woman just like you.

  “Did Joe know about this?” asks Macario.

  “Why does he need to know? By the end of the war, Huks and Philippine Guerrillas fighting each other. Maybe if I don’t leave, I kill Joe. Win the war. Lose the country.”

  “What about the beautiful Pinay?”

  “I’m too late.” That’s all I can say. What is there to say? I’m holding her in my arms. Her blood doesn’t stop. Her heart stops.

  It’s a Wednesday night. August 3, 1977. Abra and I are looking out my window. “How many down there you figure?”

  “Back in January for that protest, the newspapers said five thousand.”

  “Looks like the same.” Every second I see more people coming to the street, both sides. “Who’s not down there?” I say. “Even gay rights. You bringing gay rights?”

  “Actually,” says Abra, “that was Wahat. He went to the Exotic Erotic Ball in his Igorot loincloth.”

  “I guess he makes a big impression.”

  “He also brought in the Indians.”

  “Looks like the whole city coming to save the hotel.”

  “I hope so.”

  The chanting never stops. It’s coming out of loudspeakers everywhere. The whole place is wired for sound.

  THE PEOPLE UNITED CAN NEVER BE DEFEATED.

  THE PEOPLE UNITED CAN NEVER BE DEFEATED.

  STOP THE EVICTION! WE WON’T MOVE!

  STOP THE EVICTION! WE WON’T MOVE!

  WE WON’T MOVE!

  WE WON’T MOVE!

  WE WON’T MOVE!

  I’m feeling the excitement. They’re telephoning and radioing the whole city. People pouring in to Manilatown. Put their bodies up against the I-Hotel.

  Still, we got to anticipate the whole night and maybe how many days? I get prepared with supplies for three days. It’s August, so I got a deal in Chinatown: boxes of summer cantaloupe shipped out of the Imperial Valley. Abra and me sitting in my room, slicing the melon with the sweet orange meat.

  “You sure they’re coming?”

  “We got word they’re organizing their posse. Riot gear and billy club units. Calvary too.”

  “Coming with horses?”

  “Yeah.”

  Finally, we hear the sirens. Sirens coming from every side of the city, getting louder every minute. The fire is going to be here.

  On the street, thirteen rows of human bodies linked around the hotel.

  WE WON’T MOVE!

  WE WON’T MOVE!

  WE WON’T MOVE!

  WE WON’T MO

  WE WON’T

  WE WO

  WE

  W

  From above, we can see police on horseback swinging clubs like machetes. Dark horse bodies press into the people. Press and lunge. We hear the crowd groan and resist. Every cry travels up to us. Abra shuts her eyes.

  KEEP CALM!

  KEEP CALM!

  Then screaming. Yelling.

  What are you doing? We’re not armed!

  Help this woman! Help her up!

  Stay calm!

  Don’t resist the police. We
are nonviolent. Remember, we are nonviolent!

  Hold your places!

  Stand firm!

  We need a doctor here! Get this person some help! He’s bleeding!

  Outside my door, I know the corridor is filled with the second contingent. Wet towel’s tucked under the door to stop the teargas. My mattress is outside, blocking the landing. Folks packed in like sitting sardines, arms locked and waiting. Police’s got to drag them out one by one. Then finally, there’s us. The last thirty tenants, each one sitting in our rooms, waiting. That’s the plan.

  What am I thinking? That they never get this far. That this time, like the other times, they give up and go away. Drive their cars with lights and guns and clubs away. Trot their horses back to Golden Gate Park. Go home to their families and children. Go home to TV and dinner. Let me stay here and live the few more years I got to live.

  How can so many people fail?

  Now I hear how the sirens have stopped right in front of the I-Hotel. Right in front of my room. It’s the same fire truck saved our pig under the Embarcadero. It’s the same goddamn firemen ate that same pig. I think, no fire here today.

  I say to Abra, “They gonna shoot us with water.”

  Next moment, we see the fire ladder extend, lands at the second floor corridor window. That’s their plan. Toughest guys, Samoans included, resisting at the front door look up. They’re bypassed by a ladder. Firemen and police scale it like it’s a siege. Coming up to our floor in heavy boots, protective gear, goggles, with clubs and axes. Looking like monsters.

  We hear the commotion outside. Smashing glass, hatchets going through doors, breaking locks.

  All right. Everyone out! Get up, get going! Time’s up.

  Bodies dragged away, bounced downstairs.

  Abra’s sitting on my bed, and for first time I see her crying.

  “I’m sorry, Felix. I failed you.”

  “Whatchu talking?” I touch her hands folded tight in her lap. “You cannot fail. You can only live your life. You gonna see when you’re my age.”

  They’re at my door. Knocking even.

  I take a last swig of ng ka py, wipe my mouth, and say like I’m stupid, “Who is it?”

  “Sheriff’s department. It’s time to leave.”

  “Leave?”