This Old Man (20 page)

Ms. Ching thought this was hilarious. “You sound like a regular social worker, Hackey darling. You're just too good to us!”

“Shut up, Paula.” His arm went around me again. He smelled of that familiar hair spray, the kind he always used to keep his hair combed across the bald part of his head. “So, what've you been up to, girl?”

It was like the fifth grade again. Did he really want to know? Would he listen, or would he take out a key to clean his nails as soon as I started talking? “I'm doing okay in school. Biology's my best subject.”

“Biology, did you hear that, Paula? My kid's a scientist. Maybe she's going to be a doctor.”

“Wow,” said Ms. Ching, without any enthusiasm.

“What else you been doing?” Hackey asked.

There wasn't much more I could tell him, without revealing where I was living, where I went to school, or where I'd be working.

“You got a good place to live?”

“Fine.”

“You living with your mother?”

A trap. How should I answer?
Yes
gets me in trouble;
no
raises more questions. “Not exactly.”

“Who with?”

“I can't tell you.”

He shoved me out to arm's length again. “What do you mean, can't tell me? Aren't I like a father to you, all these years, eh?”

“No,” I said hoarsely.

“Jesus Christ, you're just like your old lady. No gratitude.”

Ms. Ching swung her legs over her bed. I caught her wincing as her feet groped for her slippers. She stood between us then, like a referee at a wrestling match. “Lay off this girl, Hackey. What do you want with her? She's not going to do you any good. You'll never see a penny out of her. In fact, I'll bet she'll end up costing you. Who's going to send her to medical school?”

“I'd like to know since when you're my financial advisor, tell me that.”

Ms. Ching hung her arms around Hackey's neck. Her hair stood taller than he did. “You, my darling, are definitely not father-type material, so what's this brat going to do for you, huh? Look at her. She's a plain girl, no style, no hair, no clothes. She stands like a basketball player, not a woman. Biology is her thing, right? Did you ever know anyone to turn a profit from biology?”

I wasn't sure what she was up to with her cold insults, and for a minute I had an overwhelming urge to sock her where her stitches were hidden, somewhere under that red gown.

To my disgust, she was nibbling at Hackey's neck, turning him by small degrees until his back was to me. I was out of his mind for a moment, as she worked him over. She kissed him with the kind of passion I'd seen only in R-rated movies. Her tongue swept his lips and darted into his mouth. He was in a frenzy, rubbing his hands up and down the back of her.

Suddenly her eyes shot open and pinned me. Her head jerked ever so subtly. With a start I realized she was signaling me to get out.

I got out, clear out to Jackson Street. Riding home on the bus, my heart finally began to slow down, and I consoled myself with the thought that Old Man would be going home in about a week, so I would never have to go back to Chinese Hospital.

Two days later I made up my mind to go back. I phoned to make sure Ms. Ching was still there. She'd checked out, but they wouldn't tell me where she'd gone.

I cornered Jo, who was poring over the want ads. She'd be graduating in a few weeks and would have to find a job and a place to live.

“Jo, you've got to help me.”

“What have you ever done for me?”

“Okay, I'll owe you. I'll help you move or bring you a hamburger at your new place. Just do me this one favor. Here's what you're going to do.” I explained the plan to her, without telling her just why I had to talk to Paula Ching.

Jo waited an hour, then phoned Medical Records at Chinese Hospital. She gave an excellent rendering of a Chinese-American accent. “Good afternoon, this is Mrs. Fong from Chinese Social Services. A Ms. Paula Ching was referred to me for home care. Ching, Paula, yes.” She waited while Medical Records got Ms. Ching up on their computer.

“This is terribly embarrassing,” Jo gushed into the phone, “but I've somehow copied down the wrong address for Ms. Ching, and now she's waiting for me, but I don't know just which house is hers. I'm here in a phone booth at the corner of—”

I wished I'd picked up the extension to hear what Medical Records said.

“Yes, of course I could call the office to get the correct address. Try to understand my predicament. This is my very first assignment with Chinese Social Services; I just graduated from Cal last month. Oh, dear me, I'd probably lose my job if they knew I'd made such a silly mistake on the very first address they ever gave me.”

I could hardly keep from laughing. I limited myself to exaggerated gesturing.

“Of course you can't give out addresses, I understand fully. Perhaps I should talk to your supervisor? Oh, yes, well, you could give me Ms. Ching's phone number, then, and I could call her to get the address directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak.”

This was going so well!

“That's very kind of you,” Jo said, scribbling down some numbers. “Tell me your name? Oh, no, no, I promise not to tell your supervisor. Would I do that to you? You've practically saved my job, my whole yellow neck.”

“
Stop!
” I whispered, waving my arms. Jo was definitely getting carried away and would blow the whole thing in a second.

“And may the goddess of the monsoons rain havoc—” I yanked the receiver out of her hand and slammed it down, and both of us burst into wild laughter.

I didn't phone Paula Ching until Jo was out of the house. I was nervous dialing. What if she was working? What if Hackey was there with her? Once I heard her voice, though, I took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Ms. Ching, this is Greta.”

“I don't know anybody by that name,” she replied. Although she spoke in a casual American fashion, there was the hint of an accent in the way she clipped the end of her words.

“From the hospital,” I explained.

“Oh,
you
. We pulled a fast one on that Hackey, didn't we!”

“Well, I was wondering—” There was so much I wanted to ask her. I wanted to know if she actually worked for Hackey and how well she knew my mother. “What I was wondering was, why did you do it?”

“To Hackey? Oh, just to see if I could. I was afraid that something had changed when those doctors cut into my gut. But I'm the same old Paula Ching. And he's the same old Hackey Barnes. It's so easy to outsmart that man, haven't you figured that out?”

“I didn't know that, no.”

“He's got some very big weaknesses, like all men who think they wow the ladies.”

“Ms. Ching, you know my mother, don't you?” My mouth was so dry that my throat rubbed against itself. I was afraid to swallow, afraid I'd miss a word.

“Oh, slightly,” she replied. “Same union, you could say.”

“Do you think she could have outsmarted Hackey, the way you do?”

“Well, baby, it's a little different with your mother.” I pictured Ms. Ching looking at her impeccable manicure while she spoke, or maybe she was sifting through some heirloom jewelry, with the phone nuzzled up to her ear. “Your mother had a little problem with Hackey that I'm never going to have.”

I think I was supposed to press her for details, but I waited out the embarrassing silence instead. I figured that was the only way I could be in control of this conversation.

“You see, your mother's hung up on Hackey. Love, you got it?”

“Don't you love Hackey, too?”

A great gust of laughter hit me, the same one I'd heard from her hospital room time after time. She cleared her throat. “Let's just say no,” she finally stammered.

Then how could she kiss him with such passion and tolerate his hands on her? Even as I asked myself the question, the full realization of my mother's life came back to me once again. I chewed my knuckles, grateful that Paula Ching couldn't see me.

“You should hear how that man brags about you. He's always telling me how smart you are. Well, you can keep two or three steps ahead of that old fool, baby.”

“I really don't understand you, Ms. Ching. You and Hackey seem like such good friends, the way you laugh together and tease each other and kiss and all.”

“Hackey and I are good friends. He's lots of fun, and he's been great for me professionally. I was new in town, and he set me up in business. Now I'm one of his most profitable investments. But I'm way ahead of him upstairs, where it counts.”

I had something else I wanted to ask her; it seemed so silly now, but so imperative.

“So, uh, is that it, Gertie?”

“One more thing. Do you speak Chinese?”

“What do you think, I wear this face for decoration? Of course I speak Chinese. My English isn't bad for a Chinese girl, don't you think?”

“Do you have to go back to the hospital for a checkup or anything?” I asked. This was crazy. Why was I doing this? If she thought I was so smart, this was only proving how dumb I truly was.

“What if I did?” she hedged.

“Would you do me a little favor?” I asked. I was trying so hard to sound humble, while my ego soared.

“I already did you a big one, remember?”

“I know, and I'm grateful, really I am. But if you go back to Chinese Hospital, would you stop in and visit that man next door to you, Mr. Kwang? Just tell him the Girl of the Lu Yun Poem says hello.”

“I'm not going to do that!”

“Please. It means a lot to me.”

Ms. Ching sighed deeply. “If I'm in the neighborhood. Only
if
.”

“I think you'd better hurry, because he's going home in a few days. You'd better go up there today or tomorrow.”

“Hey, you don't have to worry about any guy like Hackey Barnes. You're a conniver, like me, Gertie.”

I smiled, but said nothing.

“Listen, don't call me again, okay? Never.”

“Aye-aye,” I said, like a private accepting an order. I filed her number away in the back of my mind for rapid recall, if I should ever need it.

23

Why is it that when you're really on top of things and you're finally getting the world by the tail, something happens? Carmella was due back the day after Pammy signed the final papers on Baby Boy Wilkins. He then officially became Derek William Stemmons, son of Mr. and Mrs. William Stemmons, and brother of Randall Stemmons, who was his father.

Jo, Pammy, Sylvia, and I all went to Alcatraz to mark the double-whammy occasion. This time we were prepared, wearing ski parkas and gloves. We stood in the cell that had housed Al “Scarface” Capone. Now the chartreuse paint was peeling away, and the grimy toilet and wash basin were corroded by time and salty air.

We sat on the bunk Machine Gun Kelly once slept on. We stepped into the Hole and took turns closing the door on one another, to feel the utter terror of being alone in stony, damp darkness. A few seconds was all any of us could tolerate. I wondered how those men felt alone in there, if they found enough inside themselves to keep them going through the long hours between the bread-and-water rations. I kept thinking of Old Man, wondering if he felt utterly alone, like these men, between Wing's visits. I knew I would crack under such unrelieved loneliness.

“Let's get out of here.” Sylvia shuddered. “There's got to be someplace more cheerful on this rock.”

There was. We walked down the aisle across the west-end cell house. The prisoners had named it Times Square. Another walkway between two cell-blocks was called Broadway. The western block of cells they called Sunset Boulevard. And out of respect for Al Capone's Chicago roots, his cellblock was nicknamed Michigan Avenue.

It lifted my spirits a little to know that these men without hope still had a biting sense of humor.

“I wouldn't call it a sense of humor,” Jo observed. “I'd say they were just trying to humanize an inhuman situation.” She'd been to visit her mother in Vacaville for the first time. I wondered if she spoke from experience now.

We caught the ferry back to Fisherman's Wharf. We were all feeling gloomy and unwilling to cast our gloom to the wind just yet. Finally Pammy said, “You know, the last time I was on this boat, not counting an hour ago, but the real last time, I was afraid the baby would come while we were out on the water, remember?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jo, “I remember you were fretting your fool head off about what country the kid would be a citizen of, as if we were in international terrorist waters out here.”

“Oh, well, I was pretty young then,” Pammy said.

What were we talking about, two months ago?

“A lot's happened,” Sylvia agreed, with a sigh. “The baby, my Bradley, I went down almost two sizes, Darlene's gone, Jo's looking for an apartment.”

We all received the catalogue of events silently, distilling our own memories from it. Then Sylvia said, “I guess we've all changed but you, Greta.”

My head snapped up. For a minute I thought it was a joke. But I saw that she was gazing off into the bay and thought so little of the remark that it had already slipped from her mind.

How little she knew me! How little any of them knew me. Paula Ching, who didn't know me at all, knew me better than these girls I'd lived with for four months. I wasn't the same Greta Janssen who'd checked into Anza House with cinammon buns for hair and baggy overalls for clothes, to keep me from looking too dangerously feminine. I wasn't the same Greta Janssen who said she didn't need anyone or anything. And I wasn't the same Greta Janssen, the fugitive. It was more than two weeks since I'd had a nightmare or even a threatening daydream about Hackey.

I had confronted him, that day at the hospital, and nothing had happened. I had slipped away from him, and nothing had happened. He could find me easily, I finally admitted, but hadn't bothered.