Eat a Bowl of Tea. Louis Chu

Loy realized now that he would never get rid of the bell ringer by staying in bed. His arm made an arc and the covers flew off. He leaped out of bed, turned and smiled at his bewildered bride and then gently pulled the blanket back over her. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

      As soon as her husband was out of the room, Mei Oi sniffled several times and dabbed at her eyes with her red pajama sleeves. Ben Loy does not love me any more, she sobbed, almost inaudibly. She had been most happy, happy with an ecstatic quality that was beyond expectation or belief. She had had no idea that married love was such a wonderful thing. But this picture of happiness suddenly faded when her bridegroom strangely abstained from any more love-making. At first she had thought Ben Loy was just tired and that he would resume his ardent courtship in a few days. Now it was almost three weeks since he had last charged her body with that wonderful feeling.

      Ben Loy walked briskly through the long hall to the door. He unlocked the door and yanked it open. The morning light showed the silhouette of a young woman.

      “Let me in, you sleepy head,” she said impatiently. “Where have you been all these weeks?” She was about to step inside when Ben Loy raised his hand.

      “I can’t let you come in,” he shook his head.

      “Aw, come on, honey,” she pleaded. “Just this once.” The girl began pushing her way in.

      “You can’t come in here!” Ben Loy raised his voice. “I have my wife here.”

      “Ha ha, I don’t believe it.”

      “What’s the matter with you? I said I have my wife here!” Ben Loy excitedly pointed in the direction of the bedroom. “There, in that room. My wife!”

      “This I’ll have to see,” she laughed. “You married? Ha, ha, ha … Listen, honey … will you … just this once, huh?”

      “No!” Ben Loy almost shouted. The veins on his temples bulged and his face reddened like Quon Gung’s. “I told you I have my wife with me,” he continued more calmly. “What do you want me to do? Kick my wife out of bed and put you there?”

      “Do me a favor. I need the money. Let me in … just this once and I’ll never bother you again.”

      At this moment Ben Loy’s eyes fell on the clothes line strung along the wall in the hallway and now, for the first time, he noticed his wife’s panties hanging there. “Here,” he said quickly. “Look at these. They belong to my wife!”

      The girl stopped short and began backing away slowly. She was a brunette, in her early twenties, whom Ben Loy remembered as one of the girls who had come to his room in his bachelor days. She stared once again at the clothes line. Then she fled down the stairs.

      Ben Loy closed the door behind her. A sense of deliverance accompanied him as he tiptoed back to the bedroom.

      “Who was that?” Mei Oi asked cheerfully, having recovered from her private eye-drying. “Why did you talk so long?”

      “Oh, a crazy man.”

      “A man? I thought it sounded like a woman.”

      “No, it was a man. He might have sounded like a woman.”

      “He must be crazy,” said Mei Oi. “Waking people up so early in the morning. What did he want?”

      “Oh … he … he wants to sell me some insurance.” Ben Loy climbed back into bed, greatly relieved.

      But the encounter made him uneasy. It brought back memories he wanted to forget. It was like the opening of an old wound. Even staying in this apartment seemed an affront to the purity of Mei Oi.

      II

      One Saturday several months before the wedding, the day had broken humid and muggy. Heavy rain had splashed the sidewalks of New York intermittently during the night. The month of May had just ended. Chong Loo, the rent collector, hobbled down the flight of stairs to the Money Come club house in the basement at 87 Mott Street in New York’s Chinatown.

      “No money!” Wang Wah Gay, the proprietor, greeted the agent as he came through the door. “Wow your mother. No money today. You come back.”

      “All right, uncle, all right,” said Chong Loo. “I’ll be back on the fifteenth.” He started to leave. Then he stopped abruptly, with one hand on the door knob. When he turned his head, he gave the impression of having a stiff neck; his whole body swung with it. “Did you see the pugilist master at the Sun Young Theater last night?” he grinned, showing his new set of teeth. The last time he had come around he had not a single tooth.

      “Wow your mother,” said Ah Song, a hanger-on at the club house. “Go sell your ass.”

      “Did you hear about the fight last night between a Lao Lim and a Lao Ying in front of the Lotus Tea Shop? This Lao Lim accused Lao Ying of taking his wife out.”

      “Wow your mother. Why don’t you go and die?” said Ah Song, looking up from his newspaper, the Chinese Compass, at the mah-jong table.

      “Later on the police came and separated the two men,” Chong Loo continued. “Heh heh. Women nowadays are not to be trusted.”

      If the rent collector weren’t so old, people might mistake him for a student, with his ever-present brief case. His head was big at the top and tapered off almost to a point at the chin. He had no hair on the dome, but sparsely-scattered long black hair mixed with grey on the circumference.

      “Remember a year ago some Lao Tsuey ran down to South Carolina with Lao Ning’s wife? She’s the niece of the president of the Bank of Kwai Chow,” Chong Loo persisted. “Have you heard the latest about …?”

      “Wow your mother,” said Ah Song, this time a little louder than before.

      Across from Ah Song, sitting on the couch, the proprietor, Wang Wah Gay, smiled his agreement. “You many-mouthed bird, go sell your ass.”

      “Heh heh. See you on the fifteenth, Mr. Wang.”

      His stooped shoulders and large head and brief case disappeared out the door and he began mounting the steep steps that led to the sidewalk. Wah Gay, from his half-reclining position on the sofa, could follow his exit until the rent collector’s unpressed pants gradually ascended out of sight.

      “Wow his mother,” exclaimed Wah Gay, stretching himself. “He never fails to show up on the first of the month. You don’t have to look at the calendar. When he arrives, you know it’s the first.” He crossed his legs and flicked the ash from his cigar on the tray.

      “Chong Loo is all right,” said Ah Song. He turned another page of the Chinese Compass. The circle of light from the over-hanging lamp played on the newspaper. “Wow your mother. That’s his job. It’s his responsibility to show up on the first of every month to collect rent. Maybe he is a many-mouthed bird but he works for a living.”

      Ah Song let the newspaper drop flat on the table. Usually he read with glasses, but today he had been looking at the big letters in the advertisements. “Wow your mother, Wah Gay, do you think he’s like you, never worked in your life?”

      They both chuckled. “You dead boy,” said Wah Gay. “You’re still young yet. Why don’t you go to work?”

      “Who, me? I’ve worked more than you ever hope to work, you sonavabitch.” Ah Song was a youthful-looking man in his mid-forties, with just a touch of grey at the temples. His neatly combed black hair had the effect of a crew-cut. A white handkerchief always adorned his breast pocket. Even on the hottest days he would never roll up his shirt sleeves or be caught without a necktie.

      “When did you ever work?” replied Wah Gay. “I’ve known you for almost twenty years.” He pointed a finger at Ah Song. “You sonavabitch, if you ever worked at all, you must have worked when you were a mere boy. Ever since I’ve known you, you haven’t done a single day’s work.”

      “Shut