A Moment of Silence: Midnight III (The Midnight Series Book 3) (18 page)

While I was away in Asia, my Umma and sister stayed in the basement apartment of the father of Sudana, Mr. Ghazzahli. I rented that space from him even though we had just purchased our new home. Our new home wasn’t cleaned and sanitized, cleared out, repaired, painted, or furnished yet. It had no telephone or even power. All of that was my responsibility, but I had to move swiftly to Asia to get my first wife. So it made sense to provide a clean, organized, furnished apartment for my Umma, in a house owned by an Islamic Sudanese family where she and my sister were adored. The basement apartment was separate, with its own door and locks and phone, so I did not have to worry about anything improper. And Mr. Ghazzahli owned a taxi car service. So in addition to paying him rent for the month, I also paid him in advance of my leaving to drive my Umma to work and back home each day. This was the only way I could have peace of mind while traveling.

Now my liquid cash flow is tight. Umma and I had emptied our bank account in order to buy our new home. I was only able to travel to Asia because my father had given me, before we left Sudan and moved to Brooklyn, three diamonds to keep forever, or to use in
case of emergency. The diamonds were valued at a minimum of fifteen thousand dollars for each one. Even though I did not want to sell them—they were heirlooms that I treasured and hoped to pass on to my future sons—I did sell one in order to have cash to set my Umma up properly before leaving, and to obtain my airline ticket and handle all travel expenses. A trip planned for one week turned into a necessary adventure that stretched over a month. Over there, I spent money and I made money, returning with ten thousand dollars remaining in my hand, plus the two diamonds I never sold and a second wife.

Ten thousand dollars is not a lot of money. Maybe it would be if I were not married or expecting, or had not just purchased a new home. Maybe if I just had to spend it on myself, I could coast and chill for a while. That wasn’t the case. So I’m pressed, but not exactly under an unbearable pressure.

Umma has her own chest of precious jewels. Even though she had been relying on her small job salary until we were able to rebuild our treasury by working Umma Designs, she would not sell her jewels. They are each an intimate memory to her, and each one comes with an amazing story of my father and our Sudanese life and lifestyle. She had parted with only one of his memories. Right before I left for Asia, she handed me my father’s Rolex. It was a Datejust with a cracked bezel that I had never known she had. It seemed like she wanted to part with it for her own reasons. Fortunately for me, while in Asia, I sold the Rolex to a Namibian jeweler in exchange for diamond bangles and a diamond ring, all the jewels I wanted, in order to propose properly to my second wife. I am aware that it was and is my father who gave me the means and the gifts that secured both of my wives. I want to be the same caliber of man that my father is to my future sons,
Insha’Allah.
And I am striving.

Building the wall had cost me two thousand dollars. Of course I didn’t have to pay myself for working on it. All work and supplies were included in that sum. That was a big bite right there. There
was also the furniture we purchased and the cost of the security gates I ordered for the ground-level windows. I settled my bill with Mr. Ghazzahli upon my return, so that while I scheduled to turn on the power and water and cleaned up and prepared the new house to make it good enough for Umma, she could stay on there. My first week back home, my wives enjoyed the overpriced hotel I checked us into upon our return from Asia. After all, Mr. Ghazzahli had two unmarried young but grown sons in his house. Although they were Muslim men, still I did not want them encountering my wives all of the time. Sometimes one or both of my wives would be visiting with Umma at the Ghazzahlis’ basement apartment, or chilling with me in Queens for some hours as I prepared the house. I was working early morning to late night every day in the new house even before Ameer and Chris and I began building the wall, and before reporting back to my job in Chinatown.

My decision to ask Umma to give notice to her job at the textile factory was an expensive one, because her wages there covered my sister’s private schooling and our family health care for many years. However, I had a plan to expand the business we owned, our products and services, and to free my mother of being a wage earner any longer. I wanted her to be able to work from home on her own schedule, to be comfortable and to just breathe and enjoy life, her new daughters-in-law, and of course her daughter, my sister, Naja. I had also decided that I was going to grow and expand my vending business and discontinue working my job as well. It was all a gamble, but I was betting on myself and planning on winning.

Down to $4,880, my first wife and I had an appointment at an obstetrician/gynecologist, a female Korean doctor recommended by her mother’s side of her Korean family. I had no idea how much the doctor would charge for the safe medical delivery of our twins. With Akemi only three months pregnant at the time, I knew I had time to stack some paper. Although I was feeling the pressure, I was not a desperate man.

*  *  *

Somebody was working my spot in Chinatown at Cho’s Fish Market. I expected that to happen when my trip to Asia had stretched to longer than a week. I had phoned Cho from overseas, not wanting to stick him. His weekend business began on Friday morning and was always packed with hard work to do and plenty of customers. That was my shift.

Early Saturday morning, June 14th, instead of giving some sort of explanation or excuse for my extended absence, I did the only thing the Chinaman respects: washed my hands, threw on my rubber apron and the welder’s glasses I used for eye protection, and fell right into the rhythm of the work. I was carrying styrofoam crates filled with fish, shovels of crushed ice, empty barrels and tanks for the live fish, boxes of plain brown and waxed wrapping paper, and cartons of hundreds of plastic bags for the customers, and hosing down the prep tables. I was letting loose live eels in the tank, live scallops and clams and live crabs and lobsters, each in their own buckets and barrels. I was gutting and scaling sea bass, branzino, snappers, sea bream, rainbow trout, porgies, and whiting and a variety of types for the display.

The Chinese customers preferred to buy their fish fresh, as in still alive. The Americans were usually in a rush and wanted it fresh but dead, quickly cleaned and packaged and ready to go.

We worked like that till all of the customers were served, all of their choices prepared to all of their specifications—heads off, heads on, gutted, cleaned, split, sliced or filleted, and packaged and wrapped nicely for them to carry home without any leaking.

I worked that Saturday double shift for two reasons. One, I didn’t work yesterday, which was Friday, the day I finished cleaning and setting up the empty house in Queens, to bring my family home. Two, because I wanted to speak with Cho after we closed up his shop. I wasn’t charging him for my labor for the day. I wanted
to make a new business relationship with him instead. My double-shift free labor was an investment in his ability to hear me out and consider what I was saying, while understanding and respecting my growth as a man.

He chose the spot for dinner. It was his regular spot. The Chinese did not dine in the same places or in the same manner or off the same menu as their tourist customers. So we were in a back room of a restaurant whose red canopy boasted bold Chinese letters, which I could not read. I could, however, read the English lettering in small print beneath the Chinese letters. It read
CHUON TU CHIO JA.
I learned from the restaurant business card that it meant Spring Restaurant. The room where we sat looked like a pig temple. There were pig heads and pig carcasses and even pig statues on mantels, and dead ducks with stretched-out necks, and damn, I did not want to be rude, but . . . I’m comfortable working with all kinds of seafood, but would not be comfortable working in a butcher’s shop that was not halal and had pork displayed everywhere. Really, I did not want to consume anything in there, but I did not want to insult Cho, either. So my mind was swiftly putting together a plan where I could satisfy my faith and his culture without compromise.

I thought I was meeting with Cho for dinner. But when we arrived, there were ten other Chinamen standing in a huddle as though they were waiting for him. Cho and I joined them. I was just following and listening and watching. The ten men were looking at Cho as if to ask, “Who the fuck is he?” I heard Cho either introduce me or define me as “Jen Lu Li.” Then he turned towards me, put his hand on my shoulder, and said in English, “Very hard worker.” I knew then that was my name in those men’s minds. At least it would be the description that separated me from whatever they thought based on my appearance and their prejudices. The Chinese don’t call each other by names directly. The Sudanese and other Africans and Asians are the same on this issue. Most
customers who were Chinese and regulars, if they were younger than Cho, called him “Shushu,” meaning uncle.

When a twelfth Chinaman arrived, the eleven others greeted him with great excitement and respect. He was clearly older than all of the rest. His arrival inspired a chorus of “
Nee how ma
,” which is the greeting our Chinese customers used every day, meaning “How are you.” “
Nee how ma shushu
” was their way of showing him respect as a man older than each of them. The old Chinaman responded, “
Chen-how
,” meaning “very well,” but then he added “
Les-lah
,” which I did not know the meaning of, but when he made a face and body gesture, I felt he was saying he was really tired. The other eleven Chinamen guided him to his seat, and not until he sat did the rest of us sit at the round table. I was the last to take a chair, and the youngest in our group.

The Chinese sit shoulder to shoulder even though our dinner table was wide and round. They don’t waste space or air. It was an adjustment for me, having a business meeting at a table with twelve Chinamen who had nothing to do with the business I wanted to conduct with Cho. Each of them was either alone or with one or two others, but either way we were all together, each doing our own thing in our own language.

The food was placed on a small circular revolving table that was in the center of the huge round dinner table. One waiter came out and bowed to his guests, which was surprising because I’d never seen the Chinese bow. I always saw the Japanese and Koreans do so. I figured it was because he was a server. Right behind him came another Chinese male waiter carrying live fish in a clear plastic bag with water inside. I recognized the fish as sea bass. The men examined them from the sitting position and the elder gave the waiter the thumbs-up.

Chopsticks and no forks. I had been in this position many times in my Asian travels. I’m comfortable with chopsticks, even though I don’t have the same ease in using them that the Chinese have. Now
all of the food dishes, including
mee-fah
(rice),
pie gu tong
(spare rib soup),
hui gau jo
(pork belly),
ching jung uuer
(steamed sea bass),
Shang Hai cai
(bok choi),
sil gwa
(stir-fried vegetables), and
shi-gwa
(watermelon), had been placed in the center, and each of us had our own bowl for white rice. The elder
shushu
spun the table, serving himself what he wanted. He called out, “
Kuai-choo
!” which seemed to mean, “Let’s eat.” Everyone then took from the revolving table what they wanted. It was unique and interesting and a bit emotional watching each of the eleven Chinamen take some vegetable from their uneaten dish of food and place it into the bowl of the elder, as a show of both love and respect. In all of their actions, it was as though they were constantly conscious of distinguishing one man’s age and position from the others’, all the while remaining unified without a trace of envy, resentment, or competition.

I selected my foods last. I chose rice, steamed fish, and watermelon, but I left all of the soups and vegetables alone because of the pork I knew was inside or could be inside as a seasoning. And like all of the men at the table I drank
nu cha
, which is green tea.

Cho was straight-faced and slurping soup. I couldn’t be sure, but I think he thought it was funny allowing me to follow him in here and fall in.

“Cho,” I said. He grunted. “I have a new business,” I told him.

“You work fish market? You no work fish market?” he asked me.

Instead of answering, I pulled out the neatly folded pamphlet, which contained photos of the vending machines. I had used a razor to perfectly slice out from the Japanese catalogue only the images I wanted to show, without revealing any Japanese letters or even English lettering or contact information.

“I would like to put this machine outside of your store,” I said, handing him the photos. It was the same as though I had handed it to each of them at the table. All twenty-four Chinese eyes were on the paper, and it was then being passed around. Cho took it first, looked, flipped it backward and then forward. The next man took it from Cho and the paper made the rounds, around the round table.

“For what?” he asked me.

“For customers,” I said, of course knowing that he didn’t sell sodas or waters or any of the merchandise that my machine could offer for sale.

“How much?” he asked.

“I’ll deliver the machine to the store tomorrow if you agree. Customers buy from the machine. I keep the machine restocked and I take the money,” I said. I knew it was the best business scenario for me. I knew it was a long shot for him to just say yes and allow it, and then to allow me to keep all of the revenue, but I purposely pitched my offer at a starting point that was best for me; in case it got shaved back, I’d still make some profit.

Twelve Chinamen laughing, that’s what I saw now. Even though we were not in the same conversation, and the men had arrived at separate times in varying numbers, we all seemed to be having the same conversation now. Then they erupted into the Chinese language among themselves, fingering the photo and passing it around the table to each man a second time.