“What’s wrong? Don’t believe everything you read?” Al asked.
“No.”
“Maybe you’re smarter than you look after all.”
“So you’re a homeowner?”
“Yes. I’m a homeowner. Don’t I look like one? Own a car, too. Homelessness is nothing more than a state of mind.”
“Never looked at it that way.”
“Most people wouldn’t.”
“Can I ask a question?”
“Shoot. I’ve got nothing pressing,” Al said, inhaling deeply as he stretched his arms out to embrace his environment.
“If you’re a homeowner and you are choosing to be homeless, why don’t you just lend your house to someone who doesn’t want to live on the street? Let someone live there who needs it?”
“I do, Jake. My brother lives there. He is more needy than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Al stared at Jake, sizing up the young man. Jake looked around at Al’s belongings, his life on display.
“So Marilyn called you?”
“I have a phone line with an answering machine. I check it every few days from the phone booth at Potomac Point Park.”
“Why?”
“You never know who may try to get in touch with you,” Al said, more lucid than a minute ago. “So, back to the first question. How can I help you?”
“Your first question was actually ‘what’s your problem?’”
“Touché, Jake. Touché.”
“I need help finding a girl.”
“Hey, buddy, don’t we all. And if you think it is hard now, try angry, unemployed, and homeless. Those are not three qualities the ladies are looking for.”
Jake laughed. Al didn’t.
“Who is the girl?”
“Her name is Wei Ling and she is Chinese.”
“Ling?”
“Yes”
“Well, there aren’t too many of those. Why don’t we look for a John Anderson in Chicago while we’re at it?”
“She is from China, but she was working in the garment industry in Saipan.”
“The garment industry in Saipan?”
“Yes.”
“We call those sweatshops here in the real world.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You say ‘garment industry’ and I say ‘sweatshop.’ Let me educate you. Girls from poor Asian countries pay a couple thousand dollars, money they don’t have, to work in these sweatshops for pennies a day. Saipan is sweatshop-central U.S.A.”
“I didn’t think we had sweatshops in the U.S.”
“Most people don’t…and as long as the price is right on their khaki pants in the Sunday advertisements, most Americans don’t care.”
While Jake thought about the statement, Al continued. “Saipan is actually very interesting. It straddles a political fence. Saipan is a giant international employment loophole. Companies operating on the island don’t need to adhere to the intricacies of United States employment law. Workers are paid well below the minimum salary their stateside counterparts receive, and it is all perfectly legal. As a United States territory, Saipan gives companies, domestic and foreign, an opportunity to manufacture goods that are officially ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ These companies corner the market on cheap labor and U.S. businesses pay no import tariffs because the goods aren’t technically ‘imported.’”
Jake’s head was spinning. The heat and a homeless man giving him a speech on international labor gave him vertigo.
“What do you want with the girl?” Al asked.
“Marilyn didn’t tell you?”
“I’m not asking Marilyn, I’m asking you.”
“I think the girl is in trouble.” Jake pulled out the fax and tried to hand it to Al. Al looked at it for a split second, and left it in Jake’s hand without reading it.
“So what does this have to do with you?”
“Nothing, I guess. I just want to help. I want to know who she is.”
“Jake, Jake, Jake. If you knew who she was, what would you do?”
“I don’t know. Find out if the fax is for real. Find out who is running the company, who is keeping her against her will. Write some letters.”
“Write some letters?”
“Yeah.”
“You go to school, Jake?”
“Yes.”
“What did you study?”
“I’m getting my Masters in English Literature.”
“No wonder you want to write a letter.”
“The pen is mightier than the sword,” Jake snapped.
“Oh Jake, now you are singing my song. I love banter. Shall we take a minute to flex our mental prowess? Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”
“What?”
“Mark Twain. I thought we were exchanging quotes.”
“No thanks.”
“You lose. So, who the hell are you going to write a letter to?”
“I don’t know. This is Washington—there has to be some group willing to raise a little hell. There is a protest every week in this town.”
“Forget the letter, Jake. Why don’t you just talk to your father?”
“How did you know about my father?”
Al looked at Jake but didn’t answer the question. “Why don’t you just talk to him?”
“I already did. He said he took care of it, but I don’t believe him. I even called the Saipan Police Department and they said everything checked out.”
“So why don’t you believe them?”
“I don’t know about the Saipan Police, but I could tell my father was lying.”
“And if they were both lying?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
Jake was getting perturbed. “Then what is the right answer, Al?”
Al stumbled with the rebuttal. “What are you going to do to help this girl?”
“Whatever I can.”
“Well Jake, there are a million tragedies played out every day in this world. If there aren’t a hundred dead bodies no one cares. You may not be able to help this girl, Jake. Just so you know. Some things are beyond our control as humans.”
“Well, I’d feel better about myself knowing I tried.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Failure has a flavor all its own, and you aren’t going to see it as a pizza topping any time soon.”
“Probably tastes like giving up,” Jake answered.
Al rubbed his three-day-old stubble. “Okay, Jake. I’ll see what I can find out. Give me a couple of days.”
Al dug through a small pile of street throwaway goodies and pulled out a cloth environmentally-friendly shopping bag with a faded picture of the earth on the side. Al stuffed a pair of shoes, a few newspapers, and a sweatshirt into the bag. He stood and smiled at Jake, his reddish-brown hair and blue eyes alive. “I have somewhere I need to be, Jake. Gotta run. Come back in a few days.”
“How long is a few days?” Jake asked, looking for a specific day and time. “Does that mean Wednesday? Thursday…?”
“A couple of days, Jake. It’s not like I’m going anywhere. I don’t move to the winter house until November,” Al said, laughing.
Al walked away, leaving his front door open and his guest standing in his living room.
Jake asked a parting question. “No offense, but how are you going to find out about a girl halfway around the world?”
“Jake, I have my ways. I wasn’t always homeless you know.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re a homeowner.”
“A homeowner who used to work in intelligence.”
“Intelligence?”
“Yeah, intelligence, Jake. That’s how I met your father,” Al said walking away. “Come back in a couple of days,” he added over his shoulder, his voice echoing under the bridge.
Chapter 15
Chow Ying walked from Union Station to Chinatown, a fifteen minute stroll through what used to be some of the meanest streets in D.C. Gone were the open-air crack markets and shooting galleries, the hookers and the pimps. A prolonged police crackdown in the late-Nineties eventually took its toll on the local dealers. Those who didn’t end up behind bars, or dead, simply migrated across town, one rundown block at a time, until they reached southeast D.C. or Anacostia. The crackdown on dealers had been good for the neighborhoods but hell on the crack consumers who had to follow their fixes across the city.