This, thoughtJack, from a man who believed only in the struggle of the laundrymen, who fought for his kindred brothers, workingmen all, slaves to the eight-pound steam iron.
The tragedy of the laundrymen, recalled Jack. Could they have known where they were going? Hemmed in by racism? Made unnecessary by the age of machines? He had played his fingers over the crispness of the savings bond, speechless in the silence of the private room in the basement of the bank where he'd opened his father's safety deposit box, the silence of things left unfinished, feelings left unspoken. Now it was too late. The bad feelings between father and son were left unresolved. Pa, dying alone. At the end, had there been forgiveness or recrimination?
Jack would never know, but justwanted to say once what in life he'd been too angry and stubborn to admit. I did love you, Father, after all.
The memories ached inside him, undiminished by alcohol. He checked his watch against the darkness outside Pa's window, and remembered Billy, and the midnight meet at Grandpa's.
Struggle
The Golden Star Bar and Grill, known locally as Grandpa's, was a wide basement window three steps down from the street with a video game by the front and a pool table in the back. The bar was a long wraparound oval under shadowy blue light, which ran along the perimeter of the ceiling, obscuring a mixed-bag clientele colored more Lower Eastside than Chinatown. A few Chinese. White. Puerto Rican. Black.
Jack set up a nine-ball rack snugly and tossed the wooden triangle under the pool table. It was eleven p.m., Wilson Pickett doing "Midnight Hour" on the jukebox. Jack hit on a beer, then stroked the stick back and out in a fluid, piston motion, until it felt right, then slammed the tip high on the cue ball, blasting it toward the triangle-shaped cluster of nine balls.
The cluster broke with a sharp crack, scattering the balls, the white cue ball following hard through them. Jack studied the layout of balls. Billy had said midnight so there was time to chase a couple of racks around the green-felt table.
He knew he wasn't good enough to run nine balls unless the rack opened up exactly the right way, keeping the shots simple for him. Rarely happened. Divide and conquer, he was thinking, Sun Tsu. Split the rack. Try hard to run four or five balls, then repeat, a second run of four or five.
Nothing had gone down, the colored balls settling across the middle of the table. The one, two, three, he could make those. The four and five split out toward the end pockets, he'd have to work for those. He scraped the blue chalk cube across the tip of his stick and sighted the two, then drew back on the one, watched it drop as the white ball rolled behind the two. Straight shot, side pocket, followed by the three. He hit the beer, chalked again, scanned the place for Billy. Left-side English on the three spun the cue ball off the side rail toward the far end. Four ball, five, at the end of the table. He drew low and hard. The four went down with a plop, the cue ball skidding toward the other end, positioning off to the right. A cut shot, tight and thin.
He missed the five, took a long swallow of beer. Didn't see Billy. He followed through the rest of the rack until the nine ball dropped, and Billy walked into the bar.
They took a booth in the back and ordered a round of boilermakers, huddled together in cigarette smoke.
"The boys in the shop," Billy said, "think the rapist comes from outside of Chinatown, outside the city, on his day off. Works in a restaurant or factory, upstate maybe, where there's no Chinese around. Takes the bus down to the city."
They gulped liquor and Jack listened.
"The guy probably has a rent-a-bed in the area."
"Fukienese?"
"Probably, but don't get me wrong. Most of them are hardworking people, like slaves. Until they pay back their passage, they have to live under the gun, know what I'm saying?" He ordered more shots.
"Farrakhan," he grimaced, "comes on the TV and calls them bloodsuckers. Colin Ferguson gets on the Long Island Railroad and blows away two Asian women and the Nation of Islam praises him."
The shots came and they touched glasses like it was a declaration of war.
"Black gangbangers loot and burn the Koreans out of L.A. and the cops, man, they cut and run. No one cares."
Jack shrugged. "It's different now. You get killed for looking at someone the wrong way. For stepping on someone's shoe. Dissing, they call it. The rapper's rap it and the movies blow it up bigger than life."
Billy tapped the rim of the beer glass.
"It's open season on Chinamen."
Jack watched him drain it, his eyes telling the truth. Chinesepeo- ple never enslaved Black people, never robbed or lynched them. The Black Rage angle had nothing to do with the Chinese, who suffered under the same weight of discrimination as the Blacks did. The Black-on-Yellow crime wave was blind racist hate, straight up and simple.
"You know how it works, Jack. White cop shoots a black kid, the niggers riot, loot the Asian merchants." He signaled for another shot.
"Ease up," Jack said. "We got time yet."
There was a sigh, a disdainful shake of the head from Billy before he spoke again.
"Yeah. The other thing you asked about. The muscle behind the snakehead human traffickers? Yo, the Fuk Ching are the young guns down East Broadway, but the Fuk Chow have a lot of older guys, in their thirties and forties. Most of them are exPeople's Army. They got military training. Thems the ones you've got to look out for. The young Chings got Tech-nines and Magnums, but the old grunts got Chinese Makarovs and AK 47s. Explosives, too, know what I'm saying? What happened in Fort Lee was strictly hothead stuff. Revenge. You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait till they really set up their numbers."
Jack shook his head, crushed his cigarette.
"A lotta shit," Billy said. "And you're eyebrow deep, pal. The badge that heavy on you?"
"I'm in a different position now, Billy."
"That badge don't make you any less a Chinaman, Jacky. Do what you got to do, but remember, you still just like me, like the rest of us. You don't have to go too far in NYC before someone reminds you who you are. We be Chinamen, Jack. You can't be happy till you accept what you are."
"I don't like boxing myself in like that."
"You kidding, right? You're a homeboy cop working Chinatown. You don't think you're boxed in?"
"I asked for the transfer back, Billy. The old man got sick. It was a hardship thing." Jack finished the beer. Billy shook his head.
"You know Chinatown well as me. Not for nothing, but you think the merchants are gonna stop giving it up because you came on the scene?"
"The merchants think it's easier to pay them off," Jack said.
"Nah, that's not it. They pay off because they know the cops can't protect them. Homeboy, you think you make a difference here?"
Jack didn't answer, but the waitress brought another round and when they toasted, Billy sprinkled whiskey onto the wooden floor.
"Your father was a standup guy, Jack. All the old-timers used to say so. He stood up for the laundrymen against the big laundromats. He challenged the City's labor taxes."
"That was a long time ago," Jack said, "and I wasn't around."
"They tried to make him out a commie, a troublemaker. But he had support in the community."
Jack remembered vague fragments as Billy went on.