by May-lee Chai
“How many buildings does he own?” he asked me while Uncle rummaged in the closet.
I shrugged, because it seemed better than saying, “None.”
Paul paced back and forth from the door to the window, looking down upon the crabgrass lawn, the parking lot, the street. He could bound across the width of the apartment in three large steps. He paused at the window, squinting into the sun.
Uncle brought out clean sheets, blankets. “I’m sorry you’ll have to sleep on the floor until I can buy you a mattress.”
Paul smiled politely. “Thank you.”
Then they sat down at the kitchen table while I boiled water for tea. Uncle seemed dazed. I imagined that a deer that had been struck by a moving vehicle might stagger off a road with the same look that Uncle had on his face.
Over cups of black tea, Uncle asked about Paul’s life now. Paul said he’d been working in L.A., nothing special, just jobs to get by. He’d escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand when he was fourteen. As an unaccompanied minor, he’d been put with another family in the camp, and they had been sponsored to come to America as a group. All his papers filed with the Red Cross and the INS and his schools had this family’s name on it. After he got to America, he didn’t dare tell anyone that that wasn’t his name. The family said that if the government found out they’d lied, he’d be sent back to Cambodia or forced to fend for himself in the refugee camp. Then when he got older, the family said he owed them for taking care of him, and made him pay them back, made him work for them for free. He didn’t want to be their slave, so he ran away at seventeen. He’d been working ever since. This and that, any odd job he could find to get by, since he hadn’t been able to go on with school. He still remembered what he’d learned in Chinese school in Phnom Penh, so he was able to get work in Chinatown, first as a stock boy, then as a waiter. Sometimes he’d helped a bookie collect on debts. That was when he’d learned to dress tough. A lot of violence could be avoided just through intimidation. He’d done some landscaping, construction. He’d tried to put some money aside to start his own business someday.
Uncle nodded. “You can live with me. You can work with me.”
“How many donut shops do you have? How many apartments?”
He was disappointed to learn Uncle had only one of each.
I knew he was going to be even more disappointed to learn that Uncle was no longer rich and donated away his pastries to the church and to all his volunteer projects.
“I remember our house,” Paul said softly, shaking his head. “I remember our Mercedes. I remember you wore a suit, with a tie, and leather shoes to go to work.”
Uncle looked at the kitchen tabletop, pushed his teacup from one hand to the other.
“I used to think it was my fault,” Paul said. “Everything. When I was a kid, I thought I was to blame.”
He laughed in a rueful, ironic way. And I wondered if his memories of wealth had sustained him during the Pol Pot years, in the refugee camp, in America, this hope that someday he’d find his rich father and everything would be returned to him. I couldn’t tell just by looking at him what he thought now. The light from the setting sun fell thick and gold against his skin, coating him in a honey glow that softened the hard edges of his jaw, smoothed the rough angles of his broken nose. Looking at him, I tried to see something of Uncle’s face in his, but could not. I excused myself and went to the bathroom, just so that I could stare at my own face in the mirror, see if I recognized my brother’s features in my own, but my complexion was fair—washed-out to my eyes—and round-faced, the kind of blurry face that made me look younger and less mature in my professors’ eyes. I possessed none of the angles present on the faces of fashion models in magazines. My brother had those edges, had that chiseled look. I realized he was probably considered quite handsome.
Had Uncle looked like this when he was younger? I wondered. Paul didn’t look like Sitan, whose face was wide and sweet, Buddha-like, with his fleshy soft lips, wide nose, long earlobes. Sitan had the kind face of someone born in a gentler time. Paul, on the other hand, actually looked like someone who had survived a war, like someone who’d seen a lot of people die. He looked like someone who still knew how to fight. Like someone who might start a fight, too, and win it.
Staring at the mirror, I decided only my eyes looked like Paul’s. They held the same flashes of anger, had the same habit of looking out of the corners to see what was sneaking up on us, but I had no way to know if that was genetic, or simply the habit of someone with a suspicious nature.
For the first time since my arrival, Uncle had not gone to work overnight supervising the bakers. Instead he listened all night as Paul told crazy story after crazy story about life before Pol Pot, all his wonderful memories of the movies he’d seen, the meals he’d eaten in fancy restaurants, the pranks he’d played with his friends. Uncle nodded and smiled, as though the past were a book they could share, pass back and forth, reciting their favorite passages.
Paul didn’t get up for breakfast, just grumbled from his blankets on the floor when I said it was time to leave for work. Uncle said we shouldn’t disturb him. Even though I hadn’t slept at all, between listening to Paul’s stories and then his snores, I didn’t say anything. I went with Uncle to the donut shop as usual, and I was pleased that we still had a rush of new customers show up, enticed by the article, willing to drive out of their way to try a taste of Little Phnom Penh, as the reporter had dubbed it.
Sitan came in early, excited by the gossip about Uncle’s long-lost son turning up.
“It’s a dream come true,” Anita told Sitan. “That poor man. What he and his wife went through all those years.”
“Karma,” Sitan said emphatically. “For doing all those good things he does.”
“I thought you had to wait for your next life for karma to kick in,” I said.
They ignored my cynicism.
Paul showed up mid-afternoon, sauntering in the front door, mirrored sunglasses on his nose. He didn’t offer to help, but stood back and watched us work. Finally when there was a lull, he stepped up the counter and tapped the register.
“How much this place bring in per week?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But we just launched the public relations campaign to increase business two weeks ago.”
He laughed in my face. “Come on, how much business you think a place like this can do? In the city, I know people who pull ten thousand a week cash with a coffee stand. This place wouldn’t make that in a month, maybe three. You can’t run a business in the sticks.”
I wanted to tell him to go back to the people he knew in the city and work for them again if he liked it so much. I wanted to ask why, if he had all these rich friends, he was living out of his car. But I kept my mouth closed, tightly. It was too soon to pick a fight, what with everyone so excited to see the long-lost son return.
Anita tacked diplomatic. “Well, sugar, if you’ve got a business plan, I’m sure your father would be interested in talking it over with you.”
“We should liquidate this place and move. Location is everything. This town is dead.”
I stood up straight behind the counter. “Uncle has a small-business loan to retrain Khmer refugees—”
“Yeah, he told me about those two old women who come in. He’s thinking too small.”
“You don’t know them. You didn’t even get up till afternoon. They work way harder than you. And they are very talented.”
“Listen, college girl, I know how the real world works.” He switched to Khmer, speaking rapidly, his face flushing. “My father can do better than this. He is an educated man. He was an important member of the transitional government. He does not have to live like a beggar in this country.”
“Who’s living like a beggar?” I demanded. “You’re the one who came looking for a handout!”
“And what about you? Why are you here?”
“Well, sounds like you two are having quite the discussion.” Anita swept
between us, smiling brightly, carrying two glasses of iced tea. “How about a little tea to cool off?”
Anita sat with Paul in the booth, sipping tea and pretending to be interested in Paul’s “business plan,” as she called it. “You could be a real boon to your father,” I heard her say.
I turned to Sitan as I furiously wiped the counter. “I can’t believe she’s humoring him. It’s like he’s got some kind of Tourette’s syndrome. He’s so rude! Comes here and disses the donut shop just as we’re taking off.”
Sitan laughed. “He’s just like you. You did the same thing.”
“We’re nothing alike!”
“First thing you did after you got here was try to change the business. You said it was failing. You made all those coupons. You wrote that reporter. Maybe Paul will come up with a good idea, too.” Sitan winked at me. “Yo, maybe it runs in the family.”
I didn’t answer. Instead I decided it was time to take the trash out. No point wasting my energy listening to such nonsense.
At sunset when Uncle returned to close up, Paul surprised me with a request. “How about I take Sitan and Nea with me for a night out?”
I thought Uncle would be disappointed, expect Paul to want to spend more time with him, but Paul continued obliviously, “I have some friends who work at a club outside San Bernardino. I’ll drive everyone.”
Uncle nodded. “It will be good for you all to get to know each other.” He seemed disappointed and hopeful at the same time, and I realized he wanted us to get along.
“You’ll like this place,” Paul told Sitan. “Got the best beats.”
“I don’t want to go to some skanky strip club,” I said.
“Not that kind of club. I have good taste.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You bring any nice clothes with you?” He appraised my jeans and sweatshirt. “Don’t worry. I know the bouncer. I’ll put in a word for you.”
So I found myself crammed in the back seat of Paul’s Mazda, my knees pressed against the back of Sitan’s seat while Paul and Sitan laughed, the music on the stereo so loud I felt it in my bones.
Paul drove fast, weaving in and out of traffic. He liked to come up right behind a car and hover on its bumper before darting around it. Then he raced to tailgate the next car. I knew this said something profound about insecurity and his ego, but for the time being it made me worry about the front of the car smashing into metal and the car folding like pleats against my flesh and bones.
“Take it easy,” I piped up from the back seat. “I don’t want to get in an accident.” My voice sounded thin to my own ears.
“Of course,” Paul said, then laughed and sped up.
This continued for a half hour.
The club he eventually took us to wasn’t as divey as I’d feared, not like the places I’d seen in movies, where you expect a large, uncontrolled fire to break out and burn everyone alive, but it wasn’t fancy either, with an actual velvet rope and a line of eager patrons begging to be let in while movie star wannabes and models sashayed through the door. It was situated in a nondescript part of some town I’d never heard of, the paint fading, a neon sign flashing in the window, and a group of giggly girls and their dates showing IDs to get inside. The bouncer looked more bored than intimidating, just a large brown man seated on a stool, waiting for the time to pass.
I expected Paul to be in his element, but he seemed nervous as we walked up to the door. He hung back as he waited for a group of loud friends to laugh their way inside, then he slunk up to the bouncer.
“Yo, bro, whazzup.”
The bouncer looked mildly surprised. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“I brought family.” Paul smiled and nodded at Sitan and me.
“That so?”
“Seriously, can you let us in?”
The bouncer looked left and right. “Donny’s not working tonight, but if you see Bill, I’m not responsible.”
“It’s okay. I got a new job.”
“Your funeral.” He let us pass, then at the last second, the bouncer grabbed my wrist. “Wait a sec, you got any ID?”
I pulled out my student ID, and he stamped each of my hands with a large X.
“Be good,” he said.
I couldn’t think of any super-smart retort, so I just nodded like a dork. Then I realized Paul and Sitan had gone on without me. I hurried after them. At college I’d gone to dances near campus and one held in the gymnasium. I wasn’t sure what to expect in a real California club. I’d seen movies and crime shows on TV. Maybe I expected movie stars and dead bodies. As I stepped inside, my first impression was that it was too dark and kind of dingy. Large cutouts of exotic aquarium fish adorned the walls, and dusty-looking nets swooped down from the ceiling. The bar had weird spotlights on it, which reflected off the mirrors along the wall and created blinding hot spots. The music wasn’t bad, but it was a little dated; a remix of George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex” boomed from the speakers. The beat was danceable, but the floor was mostly deserted. A couple of girls wearing an entire drugstore’s worth of Revlon were flipping their long, curly hair over alternate shoulders. I couldn’t see the faces of the men who were inspiring the hair-flipping, but they were dressed in ill-fitting suits, as though they’d stopped in to drink after a long day of selling insurance or used cars. I was disappointed. My first time in a California club and it wasn’t as good as the clubs that catered to the drunken frat boys and sodden sorority girls at school, the kind of places that used black lights so everyone’s teeth glowed in the dark.
Paul didn’t seem interested in dancing. He stood at the bar, holding a beer without drinking, as he talked to the bartender, asking him about business, meaningless small talk, as far as I could hear. Sitan nursed a Dos Equis as he surveyed the dance floor, bobbing his head.
A group of the most beautiful girls I’d ever seen danced in a circle, but most of the men just stood around the edge of the dance floor, carrying their drinks, watching.
“This place is lame!” I said. “A total meat market.”
Sitan shrugged. “I wouldn’t have gone to a place like this back in the day, I was really prejudiced. But I’m better now. I’m learning to be more tolerant.”
“You wouldn’t have wanted a gig here? Too small?” I asked.
He laughed. “Good one, Nea!” He patted me on the shoulder.
While I nursed a Diet Coke, Paul got into an earnest-looking discussion with a stocky Asian girl with dyed red hair and enough makeup to make Ronald McDonald blush. The conversation didn’t seem to go over very well. Paul grew more and more agitated, waving his arms through the air, then folding them over his chest, then holding his hands out like a supplicant. He smiled, showing all his teeth, like a monkey trying to curry favor with a king. The woman seemed singularly unimpressed, and when she turned to go, Paul jumped off the barstool and stood before her, before she pushed past and disappeared into a circle of friends on the fringes of the dance floor.
Sitan disappeared briefly, then popped up on the floor, dancing to Madonna’s “Vogue.”
Finally Paul reappeared at my elbow, his mouth a straight line, his brow furrowed.
“What’s the matter?”
He shook his head. “We should get out. Nothing going on.”
We waded into the drinkers till we found Sitan trading moves with a bulky-looking girl with bleached-blond hair and tattoos of tears dripping down her left cheek.
Paul pulled him loose and we headed outside.
“You got some moves on you,” I told Sitan, who smiled shyly as we walked out into the parking lot. The air was cold and I pulled my jacket around my body. The sky was black and far away, the stars little pinpricks of ice.
“I wouldn’t have thought it, but those drag queens can really dance.”
“Drag queens!” I glanced back over my shoulder.
“What, you couldn’t tell?” Sitan laughed at me. “You really are from Nebraska.”
I felt my cheeks burni
ng hot. “I knew,” I lied. “But not all the girls were in drag, right?”
Sitan shook his head. “Fresh off the farm,” he snickered.
Suddenly, there was a flash of two headlights headed straight our way. A man’s voice boomed, “What the hell you doing back here?”
“Shit, my old boss.” Paul shook his head. “We’re leaving!” he called over his shoulder as he ushered us toward his car.
But the man jumped out and ran up to Paul, grabbing him by the collar of his leather jacket. “I thought I told you I never wanted to see you around here again!” He shoved Paul hard.
“Hey, that’s assault. You can’t do that,” I said.
“Who says I can’t?”
“ACLU. This is a public space. We were peaceably assembled. Now we’re going back to our car. You can’t just physically strike someone. That’s assault.”
The man stepped into a yellow puddle of light from one of the lights in the parking lot. He was bald and barrel-chested, wearing a suit jacket and a silky shirt open at the neck. I couldn’t tell if he was white or a very pale brown man. “What’s all this AC-DC IOU shit?”
“It’s okay, man, we’re leaving, we’re leaving. Just my little cousin. She’s in college is all. You know how crazy those college girls talk,” Sitan stepped between me and the sweaty bald guy.
“You better clear your ass out,” he said to Paul. Then he glared at me and actually raised a fist and shook it. “As for you, smart-mouth—”
“You touch me and I’ll press charges! I’ll call my lawyer! See how you like that! You can’t go around hitting people! That’s against the law!”
“This is my business, smarty-pants. I can do what I want.” The man punched his fist into his palm.
“You touch me, I’ll sue you!”
Sitan was dragging me across the parking lot. “Hurry up,” he said.
