Eat a Bowl of Tea. Louis Chu

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СКАЧАТЬ 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!”

      III

      One evening a few days later, the door to the Money Come club house opened and Ben Loy stepped in. No one at the mah-jong table bothered to look up to see who it was. They continued playing as if no one had come in at all. The young man paused at the door, trying to adjust his sight to the basement’s dinginess. His steps quickened until he stopped next to Wah Gay.

      “Got a letter for you,” Ben Loy told his father. From his inside coat pocket he extracted a bluish air mail letter and placed it on the table by the proprietor’s elbow.

      “Off today?” Wah Gay pocketed the letter, keeping his eyes on the mah-jongs.

      “Yes,” the young man replied, and left.

      The mah-jongs thudded and clucked against one another.

      “Poeng powng!”

      “Wow your СКАЧАТЬ