I said I didn’t make it up, I saw him naked. You should have seen him, Iggie, he was the hairiest thing. I always thought Chinks were supposed to be practically hairless like albinos, isn’t that true? Well, who knows? And those dirty pictures he had on the wall over the bed. He had this one picture of a dark-haired woman with her blouse unbuttoned, four buttons of her blouse, the top four buttons. I don’t know what she was supposed to be, maybe one of those Chinese concubines, you know, like in The Good Earth; that was a really good movie. I also read the book, don’t forget. They have six or seven wives, those Chinamen, you’d think it would be against the law. I don’t think Charlie Shoe had more than one wife, but those pictures on the wall were of concubines or maybe Chinese actresses. All I can remember is the one who had her blouse open and showing everything, and practically naked except for high-button shoes.
It was a good thing I had the presence of mind to get out of there. I was only eleven, Iggie, well, almost twelve, and there he was babbling some kind of crazy English, I’m American, don’t forget, I was speaking English from the day I was born, so how was I supposed to understand what he was saying. I was lucky, I’ll tell you. Lying to me about his daughter, I’ll bet he didn’t even have a daughter, that was just his way of getting around me, you know? Putting me off my guard. He was doped up, Iggie, I’m sure of that, I don’t want you ever, if anybody ever offers you anything, a cigarette, anything, I don’t want you to touch it, do you hear me? You just say no, I’m sorry, I don’t smoke, or tell them your father’s a cop, make up any kind of story, but don’t touch anything. I read in the Journal-American the other day that there’s a lot of marijuana going around the city, that’s how they get you, they could take you to China for all you know.
Maybe he would have done that to me, that’s possible when you think of it. How would you like your mother to be dressed like a Chink in Hong Kong someplace or Shanghai and Paul Muni comes in with his slanty eyes and says here’s your dope, Stella, smoke all your pipe like a nice little girl. How do I know even those lichee nuts weren’t doped up, he was feeding me enough of them. He could have gone to jail for fifty years, do you know that? Fooling around with a little girl? That’s very serious, Iggie, they would’ve thrown away the key. Don’t you ever fool around with any young girls, you hear me? I mean, when you grow up. What happened with Tina in the closet when we were still living in Harlem don’t mean nothing, you were both little kids. But don’t you ever touch no little girls, he could have ruined my life, that man. And for what? So he could put his hand under my skirt? I don’t know what he expected to find under there, I was only eleven. But of course, who knows where it would have stopped?
They had Dr. Mastroiani come up to examine me — that was my mother’s idea, naturally, because she didn’t believe her own daughter, she’d rather believe that nice little Chink downstairs — and Dr. Mastroiani didn’t find nothing because he hadn’t done nothing to me, of course, not that way. You don’t know about these things yet, thank God, but it could have been very serious, he could have, well, penetrated me which Dr. Mastroiani said he didn’t do, and which of course I knew he didn’t do. All he done was put his hand on my leg and under my skirt, which was plenty. And then he put his hand over my eyes, and I think he warned me not to tell anybody about this because God would strike me dead. I guess that was why he put his hand over my eyes, that was like Chinese for you didn’t see nothing, Stella. I’ll bet that was it. Sure.
When you were born, you know, everybody said it was the Evil Eye, that when the Chinaman put his hand over my eyes like that it was some kind of curse, a Chinese curse, and that’s what happened when you were born, though if that was the case, why didn’t it happen to Tony? He was my firstborn, right? Anyway, I don’t believe in that greaseball stuff. I’m American, don’t forget.
After the doctor got finished with me, the priest came upstairs, and I told him what had happened and he made me swear to God on the crucifix that I was telling the truth, and then I guess my mother finally believed me, and she looked at my father, and my father nodded, and then all the men went in the front room, my father and my grandfather and Pino, and then they went to get some other men — Mr. Bardoni who was also from Fiormonte, and Mr. Agnelli from the ice station, though I don’t know why they bothered to call him, he was probably in his office behind the icehouse, who knows where he was? And also my cousin Ralphie, do you remember Ralphie, Iggie? He used to play accordion, he was a very good musician, you should get in touch with him now that you’re doing so good with the piano. They all of them went downstairs to see the Chinaman, and what happened served him right.
Francesco Di Lorenzo, father to Stella, grandfather to Ike, in the intensive care unit of Bronx-Lebanon Hospital on the morning of June 17, 1973. He is ninety-two years, eleven months and ten days old. He will die at 11:50 A.M. Ike has been alone in the room with him since ten minutes to ten the night before. His grandfather is in a semicomatose state, and much of his speech is incoherent. Ike, too, has been talking. Together and separately, they are trying to understand something. They do not always hear each other because sometimes they are talking simultaneously. But now, as his grandfather tells his version of what happened with the Chinese laundryman, Ike is silent.
FRANCESCO: He lives like a pig, this China man, come un porco vero, capisci, Ignazio? We go down, we come in the store, he say hello, hello, I say what you do my daughter? He’s sweat, Ignazio, he’s work in the back when we come inside, he look at us, he does no understand. I say my daughter, my daughter, what you do? And Ralphie, he’s big man, he takes the China man, he throws him in back through the curtain, and we go in. This is my daughter, no? I must believe, no? She swears to the priest, she puts her hand on the cross and she swears this China man he does things to her. But in the back, where is the bed? No bed, Ignazio. On the floor is a straw... come si dice? Mat? Mattress? Come vuol’ dire? No bed. Only this skinny straw on the floor near where he irons the clothes. And Stella, she says there’s movie pictures on the wall, pictures of girls, but where? No pictures on the wall. And a calendar where? No calendar with a Chinese lady, no thing like that. So where she gets this in her head? She makes it up? Or he hides everything when she runs away? He hides the bed, he hides the pictures, he hides the calendar? Ralphie says what you do to Stella? He says I bandage her finger. Ralphie says I give you finger, and push him against the wall, and the China man he’s very scare, he looks at me, he looks at Pino and Giovanni and my father-law. I say aspetta, wait a minute, Ralph.
Because, Ignazio, tell me the true. If there is no bed and no pictures and no calendar, then maybe also there was no touch, eh? Maybe Stella don’t lie, I don’t think she lie, but maybe she think it happen what did not happen. So I sit down with the China man, and I say was my daughter here? My Stella? And he says yes.