INT. CHINATOWN SRO—STAIRWELL—NIGHT
As you climb the stairs to your room, you pass by every floor, each one its own ecosystem, its own set of rules and territories.
The second floor is where your folks live. You should stop in. It would make her happy. Not that she would show it. Not that she would smile. More likely a scowl. You should be a better son. For a moment. But it won’t be a moment. It’ll be more. It will be guilt and that heavy feeling, it will be a deep sigh, it will be heavy and unspoken and you don’t know if you can do that right now.
The Cheuks live on three. Have lived in the SRO as long as your parents have. A daughter, who was smart, but ended up working downstairs, and a son, Tony Cheuk, who was luckier, was born a boy and had a chance to move to the city so he did, a good son who sent money and packages of food; when you were a kid, a Generic Asian Boy, you’d wander by their door, hoping to catch him on the right day and you might get lucky. Tony might give you an almond cookie from Phoenix Bakery or slip you a buck or two just to show off.
There’s no fourth floor. Four is very bad. Four sounds like death.
Five is where the Hostess lives (20s, pretty, exotic)—she plays prostitutes so often the women here have shunned her, and the men and older boys hold doors open for her and say how can she be blamed for her beauty, while trying hard not to look too close, her skintight cheongsam hugging every curve. Also on five is the Casino, which is really just a room shared by three Asian Gangsters (late teens to mid-20s, tattoos, their stringy muscles and bony frames not quite filling out their crisp white undershirts; always smoking, even in their sleep).
Sixth floor is where the Monk lives—he hasn’t spoken a word in forty years. Older Brother’s room was down the hall from the Monk’s. He was the only person the Monk would allow, their rooms on opposite ends of the floor.
On seven lives the Emperor. No kid is brave enough to knock on the Emperor’s door. Legend has it that, many years ago, the Emperor played, well, an emperor. Ming Dynasty, imperial guards and everything (although by middle school most kids hear the full story, which is that the Emperor was the emperor as in Emperor’s Delight, a brand of frozen Oriental Cuisine TV dinners—siu mai and har gow in just two minutes. Steamed buns in three. Just poke holes in the top with your fork, place in the microwave, and in no time you’ll be ready to feast like the Emperor himself.
The Emperor’s job was to present these plastic trays of steaming delicacies to a family of blond people somewhere in the middle of America, and then bow to them, while off-screen, in the shadows, a gong sounded (and further off-screen, in the mists of history, you could hear the collective weeping of a civilization going back five thousand years). Afterward, the Emperor would get his check and spend it on beer and rice liquor, tipping glass after glass until he was drunk enough to laugh about it, until he was drunk enough that he didn’t feel shame or anything else, including his fingers and toes. Not that he had any need to be ashamed around the SRO. He had only admirers, and even today the Emperor has an imperial aura about him from that role, not to mention diminishing but nonnegligible residuals supporting his claim to the throne. A few extra bucks a month goes a long way in this building.
On the eighth floor, you find your mother, standing near your door.
“Have you eaten?”
“What? How did you?”
“Elevator,” she says.
“Ma. You know that thing is a death trap. No good thing has ever happened in that elevator.”
“You were almost born in there.”
“I’m not sure which way that goes.”
“You didn’t stop by,” she says, and instantly your face turns hot.
You hug her and are reminded of how much she has shrunk in recent years, the top of her head maybe reaching your collarbone, if she stands up straight.
“Got some food for you,” you say, handing her a plastic bag full of bah-chang.
“This is for me?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t drop it off,” she says.
“I figured you’d come and get it eventually.”
“Real nice, Willis,” she says, but she takes it anyway. You see the scars on her sinewy wrist and forearm—twin belts of raised, darkened skin.
“There are a few different kinds in there. For Dad, too.”
She looks in the bag.
“Yeah. The ones I like. With the mushrooms?” She smiles. “Go see your dad later,” she says, more a request than a demand.
“How’s he doing?”
“Not great. Could use your help.”
“He won’t talk to me. Not like he used to.”
“Not that kind of help. He wants to move the bed over to the wall.”
“He doesn’t need me for that. The bed’s not even—” But then you see the way she is looking at you and you realize: she wouldn’t be asking if he could do it.
“Okay,” you say. “I’ll come down later.”
FLASHBACK: YOUR MOTHER
The earliest memories you have of her, she is Young Beautiful Oriental Woman.
She packs lunches for you, in her off-hours costume: floral print blouse, polyester bellbottoms. She crouches by the narrow strip that passes for counter space, assembling a small pian-tong, a kid’s lunch divided into neat compartments: in the main section, three boiled dumplings filled with ground pork and bits of ginger and chopped-up scallions. In the two smaller sections, a dollop of soft rice with yam, and a handful of slightly bruised grapes. She presses the lid down tight, wraps a large rubber band around it for good measure (you’re five, you’ll drop the box at least three times before you eat), and hands it to you.
You remember a hundred quiet dinners the two of you had, your father still at work. For dessert, more grapes or cubed cantaloupe if you’re lucky. If not, a Dixie cup of diluted fruit-punch-flavored Hi-C. Room temperature but you don’t care. You sip carefully, savoring each taste, and then when it’s almost gone, turn the cup all the way over until that last stubborn drop makes its way down the waxy inner surface onto your tongue. You take the last bite of your dinner and announce that you’re done. I’m full, you say, but in truth you want a little more and your mother knows it. She feeds you from her bowl. This close, you can smell her breath, sharp and almost sweet, vegetables and garlic. Telling you stories about how she first came to this country. Her dreams of what life would be here.