Day 1: 6:00 pm-2:00am
Around three or four a.m. is when they tell me they normally start
cleaning and preparing for the morning.
I envision my mother cackling at the thought of me 'getting ready to serve' the type of people who come to
this kind of place for brunch while canoodling with her latest meal ticket in
the Caribbean. Mostly all the
customers have left except a fairly drunk woman and an exceptionally drunk
man. I begin sweeping the dining
room, brushing white rice and snow peas into the pan mindlessly. My pores leak soy and my skin is
spotted with duck sauce making my fingers stick to one another and every
surface I touch. The lanterns
always shed the same shade of dull yellow and you can never really know what
time is it.
Red
silk cloths cover the tables lined one by one like cadets reporting for morning
roll. Water drips from rock to
rock into a small pond in the center of the room under the belly of the golden
lion statue that is said to bring the restaurant “peace and prosperity.” Maroon columns decorated with dragons
and monkeys hold the water worn ceiling upright. Thin gold trims trace along the corners of the walls helping
to cover the building’s true age.
Each table is dimly lit by a single tea light, just enough to see the
movement of hands and the whites of eyes.
Metal lanterns dangle from any open space. Pictures of plum blossoms and the Great Wall are spread
about. The place looks authentic
and phony at the same time.
Back
in the kitchen, a black cat grinds against the oven next to the fryer where
extra dumplings are sizzling for the employees who are here late cleaning. A hair goes in the peanut oil. Shredded cabbage and daikon litter the
tile floor. Whisks and woks pile high in the sink. Two children chase each other around the kitchen fingering
bowls of noodles and slurping sauce straight off spoons. Blenders, pots, and knives are tossed
about and they punch them as they run by making the plastic cutting boards jump
and fall onto the floor. I scrub
the stubborn grease stains that are splattered from end to end of the kitchen. My eyes are caked with crust and under
my fingernails are thick strips of a black grainy mixture of soy sauce, dirt,
and grease. My hair smells of chicken feet all the way home.
I step into the night and the authentic blackness of the sky reveals the real time-four
o’clock. The streets are slick and
dark. The only light comes from a
lantern hanging on the overhead of the restaurant. The light guides me the
sixteen blocks home, while I contemplate how I will return the lantern to the
Yios if I don’t come back tomorrow.
