Free Food for Millionaires

by Min Jin Lee

  George Ortiz was tying up stacks of magazines with twine in the basement. The regular weekday porter left the monthly recycling jobs for George, who did not mind organizing-type work. Tidy cinder blocks of glossy periodicals formed a low wall along the corridor connecting the laundry room to the back-door exit—the harvest of an evening’s labor. The elevator dinged its arrival. George’s handsome round face contorted with worry. He nodded hey to his friend.

  “The city marshal came by. Hernando changed the locks,” George told him, volunteering all that he knew. “You okay?”

  Unu nodded, more lost than angry.

  “I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know how to call you, man.”

  George’s pool buddy, the only resident of the ninety-four-unit building who had ever invited him to hang out, had aged this past year—thin lines fanned around his dark eyes, a patch of gray had formed smack dab in the heart of his right part. Usually these Oriental guys looked ten years younger than white guys, but Unu looked older than his age. George had worried about his friend, so much so that he’d mentioned it to his wife, Kathleen, and she’d said in her usual patient manner, “George, honey bear. You are not responsible for everyone. He’ll tell you when he’s ready.” But in all this time, Unu had not mentioned why he didn’t have a job, why that girl Casey left without taking most of her stuff or coming back for it, or why he hadn’t paid rent in three months so that the management company had to throw his ass out. The super had told him this before working on the locks.

  “I asked Hernando, and he didn’t know, either. . . how to reach you.”

  “No, of course not. That’s all right,” Unu said. No one was responsible for this but himself.

  George liked Unu’s reserved manner. The Korean was someone who’d be tagged as a quiet brother in George’s neighborhood in Spanish Harlem. It wasn’t as though Unu were shy, because the hermano talked, but it was obvious that he was preoccupied with some deep shit, and when you hung out with him, he’d ask you thoughtful questions about stuff you knew. He listened carefully to your opinions on landfills, salsa, and Catholicism. Unu believed in labor unions, while George called Unu naive about those organized thugs. You’d shoot a couple of games with him at Westside Billiards, drink a few bottles of beer, and it wouldn’t hit you until you were on your way home that you’d done all the talking while the two of you were together, and that no one so smart had ever listened to you so respectfully, and that time and attention were a kind of present that you couldn’t buy. Yeah, Unu was a brother who liked his privacy, but George did not mind that.

  “You have a lawyer or something?”

  Unu shook his head no. He brushed his right hand through his hair, long overdue for a cut.

  “You got a place to stay?”

  Again, Unu did not answer. Because he didn’t know.

  George felt terrible for him. But this guy had gone to college. Besides, weren’t Koreans rich compared with the people from Puerto Rico? They owned all those giant bodegas with neat-ass piles of oranges, and they hired Mexicans and Guatemalans to peel potatoes for their salad bars and break down the endless stream of boxes in the smelly basements. Their women owned nail salons and wore diamond rings the size of your eye. Frankly, he couldn’t remember who owned all those dry cleaners before the Koreans came and took over that job. And it had happened so fast. They had taken over—fast. The folks from P.R. were doing all right, but they weren’t like the Cubans, who were more successful like the Koreans. What was the matter with him? The brother was a real nice guy. But he didn’t have a single friend who could take him in for the night? I mean, really, c’mon now. If Kathleen threw his ass out, he could call up half a dozen buddies or ask his sister if he could sleep on her sofa. But no matter, the hermano was not talking. He looked as if someone had hit him, but there was no blood.

  “I mean. . .” George hesitated. “No le hagas a otros lo que no quieres que te hagan a ti.” His abuela Liliana had taught him that as a boy. He could see his grandmother standing by the counter, chopping onions for her asopao—her deep-set brown eyes watery behind a pair of bifocals strung on a rope chain, her brown cheeks drooping with age for as long as he had known her, the small mouth that expressed her every feeling. When she spoke to you about something serious, she’d finger the rosaries blessed by the pope kept in the pocket of her yellow apron, as if she were trying to keep God in her hands. If George had nowhere to go, he’d hope that Unu wouldn’t turn him out. “You can stay at my house. Kathleen would be cool with that.”

  Unu tried to smile.

  “I’ll call her. Right now. You know, get the boss’s permission.” George chuckled.

  “No, George, that’s okay. I’m fine. I’ll. . . I’ll call someone. I have a place to stay.” Unu tried to smile with assurance, as though he had people waiting for his call.

  But there was no one. Especially at this hour. He couldn’t even imagine dialing up his bookie or any of his frat brothers, who’d surely have put him up. How could he explain this? If he called his parents, it would kill his father, and worse, his mother would fly in from Texas on the next flight and bail him out. Probably make him return to Dallas. He was divorced, unemployed, in hock, and evicted.

  The doubt streaking across his face was hardly lost on George.

  “It’s late, man, you know? To call people. Kathleen would understand. I don’t have to call her. She’ll be asleep anyway. You can even go in the morning if you feel more comfortable.” He knew Unu was fronting like he had places to go and money in his pocket. Like I was fucking born yesterday, he thought.

  The truth was that the offer was tempting for Unu. But for some reason, he didn’t want George’s wife—a second-grade teacher from Far Rockaway, a woman George worshiped—to think poorly of him, even though he had never met Kathleen Leary Ortiz. When George talked about his smart wife, Unu felt wishful for a Kathleen of his own who might rescue him from his troubles, too.

  George pulled up a metal folding chair splattered with dried paint. He pointed at it with his chin. Unu sat down.

  “Thank you.” Unu covered his mouth with his hands and opened his eyes to wake himself up.

  The scent of detergent and fabric softener drifted toward the two men from the building’s laundry room, somewhat masking the odor of the garbage bags. George continued to tie up the magazines, keeping an eye on his friend, who remained sitting.

  The bright basement, lit by rows of naked white lightbulbs, felt cool and light. There had been many different climates in one day: the hot August morning, the air-conditioned train and bus ride, the seasonless casino with its make-believe daylight and filtered cold air, the muggy city evening, and now, a silent cool basement. Unu shivered a little in his black polo shirt and chinos.

  Everything he owned was behind a strange lock: the closetful of suits he’d bought from all over—custom-made suits from Itaewon tailors from the time he was married, several from Century 21 that Casey had selected, a couple from Brooks Brothers that his mother had gotten for him after his first job in the city. His suit size hadn’t changed in a dozen years. He tried to catalog his possessions, but he could hardly recall what he owned. All of his furniture had been rented. He’d never wear those suits again. It was difficult to imagine returning to a finance job, putting on a tie—all to convince a money manager that his stock call was right—for a six-figure bonus that had never meant very much to him.

  And there was that pile of laundry. He’d washed a large load of whites two nights before. After drying them, he’d dumped the snowy pile onto his rented sofa. He’d meant to fold the wash since then, but for some reason, the sight of it had comforted him—the cleanness of it; or perhaps because he’d done something that needed doing, some evidence of labor for the day—so he’d left it alone. When he’d gotten dressed the previous mornings, he’d plucked out his white boxers and Hanes T-shirt from the pile, its size hardly diminishing. He would never see that load of wash again. Oddly, Unu felt its loss. Why was he able
to remember that his boxers were Fruit of the Loom bought from Kmart or that there had been four white bath sheets, six washcloths, a set of queen sheets from Macy’s? He yearned to put his nose into a warm towel fresh from the dryer smelling of Tide. When he gave up his Rolex or his car, he had not minded very much, far less than he’d have thought he would. Unu had never wanted a fancy watch for his college graduation. It had been his father’s idea—a thing a Dartmouth graduate who worked on Wall Street would wear. His father was a kind man who had only wanted his son to have an emblem of arrival and belonging—some talisman of protection. But the watch had not been that.

  “¿Oye, tienes hambre?” George had finished with the magazines and had moved aside the glass bottles. “Man, I’m starving. You know.”

  Unu got up and helped George transfer the bundles of magazines to the other side of the wall. George didn’t stop him from helping. Kathleen always let her shy dinner guests work in the kitchen. She’d tell them to wash the lettuce or slice the tomatoes, no different from instructing her second graders; it was good to keep busy, important to feel useful—she’d say. They finished moving the bundles in a few minutes.

  “I got meat loaf sandwiches in my cooler. I don’t know why she complains about this”—George patted the curve of his belly rising above his brown workman belt—“when she’ll go on and pack me like three sandwiches to eat in the middle of the night. Makes no sense, right? Women.” He checked to see if Unu was smiling. He wasn’t. The hermano was very low, but it wasn’t like he had no reason. “C’mon, man, you should have dinner with me. Keep me company. What, Mr. College too good to hang out with the porter?” He winked at Unu.

  “The porter is too good to hang out with a bum like me.”

  “Man, you are feeling like shit.” George looked at Unu tenderly, put out his fist, and hit him lightly on the shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay. You’ll work it out. You will work it out.”

  Unu nodded to be polite.

  “So you want a sandwich or what?”

  “No, George. But thank you, though. I really. . . really appreciate it.” Unu swallowed. “That’s very kind of you.”

  George reached into his back pocket. He had at least two hundred in twenties and fifties and a thick packet of singles in his front pocket from the tips he’d made from the residents of 178 East Seventy-second St. “You got money?”

  “I’m flush.” A hundred bucks wouldn’t cover a cheap motel in Manhattan.

  “You sure?” George looked Unu square in the eye.

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened, man? I mean, I don’t mean to be nosy. You know, I respect your privacy, man, but—”

  “It’s complicated, George,” he said, but it wasn’t really, was it? He’d gambled and lost a lot of money. And losses led to more.

  “Was it that girl?” George believed that Unu had been doing well until he’d met that girl. In the beginning, she was okay, and he’d seemed happy, but then George saw her in that taxi with that Anglo. A woman cheating could fuck a man up. A few years back, a quiet guy from the neighborhood set himself on fire when his girlfriend slept with his best friend. “That stuck-up tall girl. Casey what’s-her-name.”

  “Nothing to tell, George. Nothing to tell.” Unu closed the folding chair and returned it to the spot where George had taken it from. He turned back to his friend and raised his hand. The men slapped their open palms first, then shook hands heartily. George reached out his left hand and tapped Unu’s right arm.

  “You going?”

  Unu nodded. “You’re a good man, George. I got some calls to make.”

  Unu walked away without turning back. Mercifully, the elevator car was still waiting so he wouldn’t have to stay in the basement a moment longer. His friend’s mentioning of Casey had cut him unexpectedly. It was near midnight.

  David Greene answered the door. His feet were bare, but he was dressed in a white button-down shirt and jeans.

  “Hey, it’s good to see you,” David said.

  “I’m really sorry to bother you,” Unu said. There was no sign of his cousin in the living room. “But Ella said that it would be okay if I dropped by—”

  “She’s coming right out. She was putting something in the oven right after you called.”

  Unu’s large hands swung uncomfortably from side to side. The fingers on his right hand would occasionally tap against his right thigh like a keyboard. David had seen this before. In fact, from his prison writing students. He almost wished he had a cigarette to offer a man who did not know what to do with his hands. “Come on in. Please. I was just about to leave, but—”

  “I ruined your night.”

  “No. We just had some dinner, and we were both wide awake. Talking about the wedding.. . .”

  Unu nodded. “Right. Right. I’m really happy for you.”

  “Thanks,” David said. The man looked as though his heart were shattered.

  Ella came out of the kitchen carrying a wooden tray bearing a teapot, blue striped mugs, and a plate of corn muffins she’d recovered from the freezer and heated through. She set the tray on the coffee table, then sat close to her cousin.

  “Unu.” Ella embraced him immediately. She looked directly at his face, her eyes full of worry. “I’m so glad to see you. So glad. You know, we don’t see enough of each other. Why is that? It’s been, what, a month? I should have called you. Hey, hey—”

  Unu’s lips trembled. Even as a little girl, she’d had this goodness. As children, they’d play during family vacations and she’d fix him snacks or get him cold compresses if he got hurt. Despite their five-year difference, she had always seemed like the older one. He had never wanted to look bad before her, but Ella would accept you. She’d never cast you out.

  Ella moved closer to him to rub his back. She smoothed his hair, permitting him to sit in his anguish privately but not be alone. David remained seated in the armchair, not knowing if he should stay or go. It would be wrong to rush out, to draw attention to himself right now. His fiancée was so lovely, caring for her cousin in this way. Her heart was so big. David couldn’t look away, to not observe this moment. Unu was sobbing violently, almost unable to breathe. His hands, however, had stopped their fidgeting. David leaned his body forward; he’d say nothing, wait for Ella to indicate what he should do.

  “Honey, whatever it is, it will look different tomorrow. It’s always worse at night. You need to rest.” Ella knew this was true. The awful could be different the next day. A social worker at the hospital had told her after she had taken too many of the codeine pills that every day the pain would alter a little and somehow you’d manage just a bit better. “I promise, Unu. There isn’t anything you can’t face.”

  “I was evicted today. I lost everything.”

  Ella tried to contain her surprise. David nodded solemnly.

  “Then you’ll stay here. You’ll tell me everything in the morning. I’ll go make your room right now.” She pulled away from him so she could see his face better. She kept her arm around his shoulders. He looked so exhausted. “Do you want to sleep?”

  Unu shook his head no. He wouldn’t be able to sleep like this. Without having explained. So he told them about the gambling. He spoke rapidly, hardly slowing down to give sufficient details, as if he’d lose his nerve if he took too many breaths. In his telling, he could hear the pattern himself: The gambling had started in Korea after his wife left—the occasional game of blackjack at Walker Hill; then, when he returned to the States, he’d placed a few bets on NCAA games through his frat brother, and then he found himself driving to Foxwoods on the weekends to stifle the boredom of his job. Things had gotten better when he was with Casey but got worse after he was fired. When she left, it had gone to hell.

  Ella’s mouth was slightly open. A long time ago, Casey had mentioned something about Unu going to Foxwoods now and then. She had never mentioned that it was a problem. But it wasn’t like Casey to criticize others. When people were wrong or unkind, Casey tended not to tal
k about it. In all the time Ella was married to Ted, Casey had not said anything bad about him, though Ted had often been awful to her. How had she lived with Unu’s gambling? Especially if Casey had always worried about money. This didn’t justify her sleeping with her former colleague, but Ella couldn’t think any more that her cousin had been entirely innocent. Their breakup must have been more complicated than that. Ella should have thought about that, too. Her own divorce was baffling at best. She barely understood what had happened to her and Ted even now. Where had she gone wrong? Where had he?

  Unu stopped crying. His face was calm, his eyes drained of the terror that had been there when he had first walked into the house.

  “Did Casey—” Ella stopped herself. All she knew about their breakup was that Casey had slept with Hugh Underhill. Unu had said he had ended it because of that. Naturally, Ella had thought that was right. And Casey had not called her after moving out, and Ella had spoken to her only once—about her mom—and that call had gone poorly. “I mean, how did she. . .”

  Unu paused before speaking. What did Ella want to know?

  “I threw her out because she fucked Hugh. Maybe she fucked him because she was angry at me. Maybe she fucked Hugh because she thought I was a bum. Maybe she fucked him because she felt like fucking him. Maybe she fucked him because I wouldn’t marry her. Who the fuck knows?” Unu laughed. Suddenly he felt ridiculous. All this time, he had done everything he could to stop thinking about her. She had cheated on him even though she had known what his ex-wife had already done. He’d thought it was love—what they had, or at least on his side, anyway. Could he have read her wrong? The market calls he’d made—buy the growth and hold on long—Unu had been a true believer, not some damn hedger. The Street seemed to function on the slash and burn—live for this crop cycle and forget next year. Then whatever, he’d thought, he’d gamble it all, because what was the point of accumulating everything anyway or building something up? But inside, he’d been fighting to cling to some old notions of love. He had loved her. He had wanted it to work out. All along, he’d hoped that she was a true believer, too. Had she loved Hugh Underhill? No, it couldn’t have been that, he told himself. But they had never spoken about what had happened. Not really. He had made her leave because it had hurt too much to see her.