Читать книгу Eat a Bowl of Tea - Louis Chu - Страница 9

One Saturday several months before the wedding, the day had broken humid and muggy. Heavy rain had splashed the sidewalks of New York intermittently during the night. The month of May had just ended. Chong Loo, the rent collector, hobbled down the flight of stairs to the Money Come club house in the basement at 87 Mott Street in New York’s Chinatown.

“No money!” Wang Wah Gay, the proprietor, greeted the agent as he came through the door. “Wow your mother. No money today. You come back.”

“All right, uncle, all right,” said Chong Loo. “I’ll be back on the fifteenth.” He started to leave. Then he stopped abruptly, with one hand on the door knob. When he turned his head, he gave the impression of having a stiff neck; his whole body swung with it. “Did you see the pugilist master at the Sun Young Theater last night?” he grinned, showing his new set of teeth. The last time he had come around he had not a single tooth.

“Wow your mother,” said Ah Song, a hanger-on at the club house. “Go sell your ass.”

“Did you hear about the fight last night between a Lao Lim and a Lao Ying in front of the Lotus Tea Shop? This Lao Lim accused Lao Ying of taking his wife out.”

“Wow your mother. Why don’t you go and die?” said Ah Song, looking up from his newspaper, the Chinese Compass, at the mah-jong table.

“Later on the police came and separated the two men,” Chong Loo continued. “Heh heh. Women nowadays are not to be trusted.”

If the rent collector weren’t so old, people might mistake him for a student, with his ever-present brief case. His head was big at the top and tapered off almost to a point at the chin. He had no hair on the dome, but sparsely-scattered long black hair mixed with grey on the circumference.

“Remember a year ago some Lao Tsuey ran down to South Carolina with Lao Ning’s wife? She’s the niece of the president of the Bank of Kwai Chow,” Chong Loo persisted. “Have you heard the latest about …?”

“Wow your mother,” said Ah Song, this time a little louder than before.

Across from Ah Song, sitting on the couch, the proprietor, Wang Wah Gay, smiled his agreement. “You many-mouthed bird, go sell your ass.”

“Heh heh. See you on the fifteenth, Mr. Wang.”

His stooped shoulders and large head and brief case disappeared out the door and he began mounting the steep steps that led to the sidewalk. Wah Gay, from his half-reclining position on the sofa, could follow his exit until the rent collector’s unpressed pants gradually ascended out of sight.

“Wow his mother,” exclaimed Wah Gay, stretching himself. “He never fails to show up on the first of the month. You don’t have to look at the calendar. When he arrives, you know it’s the first.” He crossed his legs and flicked the ash from his cigar on the tray.

“Chong Loo is all right,” said Ah Song. He turned another page of the Chinese Compass. The circle of light from the over-hanging lamp played on the newspaper. “Wow your mother. That’s his job. It’s his responsibility to show up on the first of every month to collect rent. Maybe he is a many-mouthed bird but he works for a living.”

Ah Song let the newspaper drop flat on the table. Usually he read with glasses, but today he had been looking at the big letters in the advertisements. “Wow your mother, Wah Gay, do you think he’s like you, never worked in your life?”

They both chuckled. “You dead boy,” said Wah Gay. “You’re still young yet. Why don’t you go to work?”

“Who, me? I’ve worked more than you ever hope to work, you sonavabitch.” Ah Song was a youthful-looking man in his mid-forties, with just a touch of grey at the temples. His neatly combed black hair had the effect of a crew-cut. A white handkerchief always adorned his breast pocket. Even on the hottest days he would never roll up his shirt sleeves or be caught without a necktie.

“When did you ever work?” replied Wah Gay. “I’ve known you for almost twenty years.” He pointed a finger at Ah Song. “You sonavabitch, if you ever worked at all, you must have worked when you were a mere boy. Ever since I’ve known you, you haven’t done a single day’s work.”

“Shut up your mouth. Do I have to tell you when I go to work?”

The basement club house was cool. Compared to the heat and humidity of the street, it was a refreshing paradise. The sudden intensity of the early summer heat had caught everyone unprepared. A few days before, it had been so damp and chilly and windy that Wah Gay had to turn on the gas heater.

The door creaked open.

“Nice and cool here,” said the newcomer. He turned and made sure the door closed tight.

“Thought you went to the race track,” said Wah Gay.

“I overslept,” replied the man. “Might just as well. On a day like this.” He looked around the room. “Where is everybody? Still early, huh?” He walked over to an easy chair in the corner and sat down. He took out a cigar and lit it. “You know, on a day like this, I think this is the best place in the city. Nice and cool, with natural air conditioning.”

Lee Gong was slight of build, with silvery black hair. He continued puffing on the Admiration which had been given him at a banquet the night before. He and Wah Gay had come over to America from China on the President Madison together and had shared the confined quarters of Ellis Island as two teen-age immigrants many springs ago.

In his early days in the United States, Lee Gong worked in various laundries in New York. Later he, himself, owned one in the Bronx. In 1928, he went back to China. He remained there only long enough to marry. Then he returned to the Golden Mountain, leaving his wife in China. He received the news of the birth of his daughter, Mei Oi, several months after he had returned to the United States.

Some ten years later, he sold his laundry. With the proceeds from the sale of the laundry plus his small savings, he had planned to spend the late evening of his life in the rural quiet of Sunwei. The Sino-Japanese War had prevented him from realizing this long-cherished goal. The unsettled conditions of subsequent years in the Far East, which saw Mao Tse-tung grab control of the Central Government of China from Chiang Kai-shek, had weighed heavily in his decision not to return to Sunwei. While there were intermittent periods of peaceful travel in China for those who wanted it, Lee Gong could not bring himself to see anything permanently stable for a retired Gimshunhock in China. So reluctantly he remained in New York.

“Ah Song, my boy,” said Lee Gong from his easy chair. “You have good results lately?”

“What good results? I haven’t been to the tracks for a whole week. No luck and no money.”

“Ah Song is a smart boy,” said Wah Gay. “He wouldn’t go to the races unless he’s lucky, heh heh.”

“You go to hell.” Ah Song folded his paper, got up and stretched his arms. He yawned. Yawning was a habit with him, almost as natural as breathing. “It’s so hot you don’t want to move.”

“You just moved, you sonovabitch,” said Wah Gay.

Ah Song ignored the remark and started toward the door.

“Where are you going to die?” Wah Gay called after him. “Be smart. Go get someone down here and start a little game. Where can you go in this hot weather?”

“To the race tracks!” Ah Song slammed the door behind him.

Lee Gong went over to the mah-jong table and sat in the chair that Ah Song had just vacated. He picked up the paper. “That sonovabitch Ah Song eats good, dresses good, and he never works!”

“He’s got what you’d call Life of the Peach Blossoms,” chuckled Wah Gay. “The women like him. He’s a beautiful boy.”

“Maybe he was born under the right stars.”

“Three years ago he went to Canada and I’ve heard he married a rich widow from Vancouver and she bought him a car and gave him money.”

“What has happened to the widow now?” Lee Gong asked, surprised that Ah Song was ever married. As far as he knew, Ah Song was living the life of a bachelor in New York.

“Nobody knows,” the club house proprietor shook his head. “You know Ah Song’s type. He never tells you anything. I heard he had some trouble with the police out in Portland when they caught him without proper registration for his car two years ago.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” said Lee Gong. “But you don’t have to go back that far. Just a year ago he was mixed up with that Lao Woo’s wife. Someone saw him and Woo’s wife together around Times Square on a Saturday night. Soon the news got back to the husband, who took the matter up with the elders of the Woo Association. The chairman of the Woo Association sent a representative to see Ah Song …”

“What happened?”

“Ah Song was squeezed for $1,000.”

“Did he pay?”

“Of course.”

The afternoon was unusually quiet at the club house, and the two friends found this light talk helped pass the time away.

“This generation of girls is not what it used to be,” lamented Wah Gay. “In nine cases out of ten, if the girl were good and honest, no trouble would come to her.” Wah Gay got up and started pacing the floor. “You look at this generation of jook sing boys and jook sing girls. They have no respect for elder people. H’mn, they would call you by name. They would call you Lao Lee even though you are almost twice as old as their old man.”

“Regardless what anybody might say,” put in Lee Gong. The words seemed to flow out of his mouth effortlessly. “Girls born in China are better. They are courteous and modest. Not like these jook sings born in New York. They can tell good from bad.” He paused. The newspaper remained unread on the table. “Summer is coming. You’ll see them running out on the streets almost naked. You could almost see their underpants.”

They both chuckled.

The afternoon moved slowly. Even the sidewalk outside was deserted on this hot, sticky day. The perennial voices of children playing, the roar of their roller-skates against the pavement, were missing. An occasional rumble of passing trucks could be heard in the quiet retreat of the Money Come club house.

“A very deteriorating influence,” continued Lee Gong dryly. “This Western civilization.” He picked up the Chinese Compass again and tried to read it. The only illumination in the room was the circle of light that now played directly on the newspaper. “Nowadays girls go out and get a big belly before they get married.”

“Heh, heh,” laughed Wah Gay. “What more do you want? One gets a grandchild with a brand new daughter-in-law at the same time.”

The door swung open.

Chong Loo, the rent collector, had returned. This time he was without his brief case. Wah Gay had started walking back to the anteroom when he saw Chong Loo enter, and now he came out with an aluminum pot in one hand and a dollar bill in the other.

“Here,” he said to Chong Loo, “go and get a few cents’ worth of coffee.”

Chong Loo, beaming, left with the pot and the dollar. In the meantime, Ah Song returned with two companions.

“You have lucky footsteps today,” greeted Wah Gay. “I thought you said you were going to the race tracks?”

“I did,” replied Ah Song. “I came back already.”

“You big gun.”

From the back room, the club house owner brought out six cups and placed them on the square mah-jong table, which was now covered with old Chinese newspapers serving as a table cloth. He rubbed his palms and bent his head forward a little. “You are lucky. You just walked in and we’re going to serve you coffee!”

The two men who had just come in with Ah Song were Tuck King, a second cook on his day off, and his roommate, who, because of his generous proportions, was nicknamed Fat Man; but was politely referred to as the Kitchen Master in his presence.

“We were still sleeping when this sonovabitch Ah Song pounded on the door and woke us up,” the Kitchen Master said. He removed his Panama hat and put it on a hook on the wall. His right hand automatically went up and smoothed his snow-white hair.

“That’s why we came down … for coffee,” Tuck King laughed. “Share the wealth.”

The basement had a refreshing coolness. Not damp. Not muggy. None of the moldy smell of the unused cellar. After coffee, Ah Song spoke out, “Fifty dollars.”

Lee Gong poured the mah-jongs on the table, some of them face up, others face down.

“Fifty dollars,” echoed Tuck King, sitting down.

“Okay. Fifty.”

Leaving the coffee cups unwashed in the sink, Wah Gay joined the others at the mah-jong table. When he walked, he took big steps and his whole body seemed to swing with them. From the sink to the mah-jong table it took him but three steps. In his place on the table were strips of ivory chips which had been divided equally by the others. The mah-jongs now all faced down. Wah Gay added his outstretched hands to the pairs that were already busily shuffling the tiny ivory tiles around. The old army blanket muffled the noise of the blocks clucking against one another. Quickly, deftly, hands moved, setting up the mah-jongs.

Lee Gong picked a pair of pea-sized dice from among the chips and rattled them in his palm. The dice bounced off the mah-jongs and onto the table, where the adhesive characteristics of the blanket acted as a dragging agent and the dice rolled reluctantly to a stop.

“Six.”

Ah Song picked up the dice and threw them against the mah-jongs. “Ten.”

Next came Fat Man. He watched the dice roll lazily to a two and a one. “Wow your mother!”

The dice rattled once more, this time in the fat palm of Wah Gay. The cubes danced, smacked against each other, and bounced off the stacked-up tiles.

“Eight.”

“Ten has it.”

Ah Song hit the dice again. “Twelve.”

His right hand reached for the mah-jongs in front of him, counting to himself … two … four … six … eight … ten … twelve …

The mah-jongs thudded quietly against the blanketed table, all face up, in multi-colors of red, green, and blue. Someone let out a thirty thousand.

“Poeng powng!”

“So soon?”

“Wow your mother!”