My Blothel-in-Raw, they sentenced him to eight to ten — he served only five for good behavior. He’s on the outside now, rehabilitated he says, living again with my sister, their how you say…kinder — by now (late, almost time to close forever) even the old chef, alright already, so less a chef than a cook, with a tattooed Buddhabody under a cloudy toque and a head whose face is weighed down and almost permanently soured by this seriously octopusal Fu-Man-Shu, also he knows his way around a knife to make a little extra money down Pell Street and environs, better not to ask: he’s come out from the back to listen, peering behind him another busgoy, this a trainee mensch who’ll within a week get promoted to the position of Mashgiach though without a raise in pay, the future manager of kashrut for this restaurant after its brief closing, its rushed reform then the mandate of inspection — and the requisite bribes, a bissel of grease, dumplings’ schmaltz — his name to be made the Honorable Rabbi Shimi-Li Dong, at least according to the certificate to be notarized by the not yet ordained other senior busgoy (but first, promoting himself to busboychick), the future Reb Boaz ben Wa, framed to hang lopsided on a wall of the kitchen, threatening to fall into the boil of any black pot: kashrut reform, and attendant refinancing, to be organized by this most obliging of Blothels-in-Raw, just out of prison, just returned into the soup, the stir, Dim Sum up until the very night of their successful grand reopening (Thursday) to be suspect, and can you blame him, expecting the alarms and their flames to be scheduled for the late eve of that next Shabbos or so, to get the firedepartment and police off their guard. This morning, he says, he sent me a telegram, says he’s coming down for a visit, that he wants to reconcile, is bringing the family, says he’s an allnew mensch, remade, that I’d be proud, prisonreformed with him converted and even circumcised, can you believe, and that he’s inherited a little money, too, like guess who’s got this great idea, and all he needs is a partner.
He’s hurt me before, but I love him, I have to, he’s family…
I pray, and here he raises his head to B to stare Him in the mouth, that your arrival will be for me as a blessing.
That you, Wan Lo goes on, have already brought us luck.
Not that we’re being nice to you just for profit, God forbid. Though profit wouldn’t hurt. Two or three of the who knows how many, if illegally, uniform the waitstaff here, they raise their heads to Him then sigh, let their lashes flutter.
Suddenly through the silence ensuing this dishwasher shrieks pong, a girl from the prep-&-line kings kong — B’s frightened out of His seat then turning around to stare at them gathered intimately at their green felt fourtop under the white tablecloth half cleared and bunched away with its little lantern, too, and the finechina cradles of sauces to accommodate the dipping of the rolls on special tonight as they are every night, for the hosting of their dealing, discarding, their bustly clatter (that and the distraction of their giggle allowing an unscrupulous waiter’s wife to cheat a chow: a meld made of three suited tiles in their appropriate order, hoarding the stray shards of what has to be ivory into her lap when no one’s looking, no, she doesn’t think), their amusement hand over mouthed, light as if to say to Him, don’t worry, it’s all just play, only fun and games goodnatured, we’re on your side, your team, you’re safe here. No one’s keeping score, Israelien. Thinking then, it’s not Him they recognize as much as an opportunity, a good turn, a mitzvah made to order — He thinks, just wait until I’ve merited their check. Mistrusting to the bitter end, the serving of His just desserts. But as closingtime closes in, with its receipts to tally to nothing and those grains of rice to count, inventory these cups to smash and bowls to shatter, then the counting of their pieces not privy to a game, Dim Sum brings to His table a treat, the sweet and dry house cookie: a brittle thing, lost lonely atop a dull green jaded tray. With one thumb to each of its nibs, He rips the thing in half. And inside’s a paper that lets slip a message. A fortune He owes in return — holding it up to the light of tables after empty tables of lanterned candles still lit festively, foretellingly, if guttering as if from the exhalations of His fear — thinking how much’s left from His pawn…it’s nothing, though — it’s free.
Today?
What does it say, what does it say, give it here…
Suspicious.
