Part 1h. Wo Hop
The Wo Hop that moved into the building on Ocean Parkway still matches perfectly the Wo Hop of Mott street in Chinatown.
There's still the glass enclosed swinging door entrance area with an umbrella stand and a pile of old newspapers, and the bubble gum machine with a blurry photocopied kid on crutches printed on a piece of paper like a parody of an outdated lions club charity scam inside with the gum.
Just beyond the second door a cracked pay counter with cigarettes and mints stacked in one of those old enameled metal lifesavers display racks that look like the actual rolls of candy.
There were some of the usual things decorating Wo Hop. Candles with fruit in front of them, gold statue in a box, one of those smiling cats with a moving arm that ticked as it waved.
One corner side booth was decorated with random party objects in anticipation for the celebration of Herman.
Spinettes with congratulations and happy birthday on them were draped along the corner wall with silver pop-rivet hinged golden coated cardboard wedding bells. Red and yellow crepe paper streamers were strung over the booth and below the table along with mini chinatown holiday lanterns with lights in them and some sort of writing up and down the sides. I don't know what they said because like I told you already I can't read mandarin, I also can't read Cantonese. If in fact it was even Cantonese written on the lanterns.
I walked into the entryway and stopped for a moment to watch Herman excited in the role of guest of honor through the window.
The basement people were all gathered around my giant little friend in his shriner hat dressup as he clapped and smiled sitting at the table all laid out for him with some of his favorite items, his fork placed neatly on the red polyester napkin cloth next to a plate of multicolored deep fried shrimp chips.
The deterioration of Herman into the guy I was watching in Wo Hop, wearing a Shriner hat, clapping in a sparkled mist of my own hallucination surrounded by the basement people, the deterioration of the original Herman, it was gradual and obvious and there was nothing could be done to stop it.
I know I've mentioned this several times, possibly too many at this point. But unlike the old lady folding wontons in the corner or a hooker buying groceries in a regular supermarket, I actually did have a singular purpose, and that was to care for Herman. Something which his deterioration marked my failure with on a moment to moment basis.
The basement people were patting Herman on the back and shaking his hand.
Before pushing on the second entry door I noticed it appeared as if they were going to start singing at any moment, I checked to see if anyone saw me so I could retreat into the staircase shadow.
There is only one thing I hate more than cartoons and musical montages, or even cartoons with musical montages, and that is singing in a group.
I had almost decided my escape when George spotted me and shot over an 'if I need to be here for this nonsense then so do you' look, so I went in.
Everybody waved and George came up to me. "Finally. What the hell took you so long? Never mind don't answer that. Let's get out of here."
I hooked my coat up at a booth across the room from the Herman festivities and sat down. "You just made me come in George. I'm not just leaving. It'll be fun, try to tolerate yourself."
George huffed and sat back down across from me. He lit a cigarette. "Manny showed up today."
I looked over at Herman in the party, the singing was still going on, the old lady folding wontons at the round corner table on the other side of the room stood up and saluted in Herman's direction. Not sure why. In all my years going to Wo Hop I have never seen her do anything but fold wontons and drink some sort of wine from a tiny cup.
She was one of those kinds of people we see regularly but only in a certain context, and so we assume that person to have a singular purpose.
Someone constantly pesters you, eventually they end up in the category of pest, neighbor is always noisy, making noise must be their main function and you may be surprised to see them doing something else. Even hookers go do things like wear regular clothes and buy groceries.
Sometimes a person's style and occupation can deflect any probing beyond the stereotype they appear to fit into.
I had no idea what the basement people were singing. It sounded like some sort of Russian memorial ballad stuffed into the structure of happy birthday with an Asian tone of beat and measure. For a moment it seemed there really was something sparkly hanging in the air around Herman.
I took one of George's cigarettes and he lit me a match. "There were no consequences or anything..." George looked at me as if I knew what he was talking about. "... I mean about Manny." He still didn't have my attention, I was watching Herman across the room again. George decided to go with parody. "Well, oh my George you say you ran into Manny, the guy who works for the Imbecile, the guy who wants to take Herman away from this, inject enough stress and rumor so our special friend over there snaps out and packs up, taking everything and us along with it in a gigantic shwoop." I should probably explain that last bit.
George continued "Well George that's very interesting and important George, please, tell me more about the encounter with Manny, oh, and I almost forgot, how could I? I don't know, but I did, I almost forgot to thank you for bringing Herman the stupid chocolate, which
I didn't have time to pick up during the 15 minutes I myself was able to leave the building for without turning into powdered moss."
George caught his breath, and then snapped his fingers in my face. "Hello, you listening? Powdered moss?"
I was certain there was indeed a golden glow of sparkles hanging in the air around Herman, put there by the basement people somehow. I turned around to George. "Oh, yeah, Manny. I'd love to choke the sweat out of that weasel."
I turned back to watching Herman. "Thanks for picking up the stupid chocolate by the way."
George made a frustrated face and then turned around to look in the direction of the beaded kitchen area divider. "Where's my special wine already."
'Special wine' was just regular wine served in a teapot, a tradition that survived from back before the Benevolent Committee repealed all outdated drinking laws, under which Wo Hop had functioned as an after hours establishment.
There was the sound of a plastic party toy, one of those things with the paper that rolls out. One of the old Wo Hop waiters came through the beaded kitchen doorway wearing a cobalt blue pointy hat with silver glitter in his hair from it.
George looked at the waiter, then back at me with a puzzled face. I shrugged. "The guy's being festive."
It was odd to see the 1950's style Chinese man in his red and black waiter jacket and long square unsmiling face wearing a pointy hat with glitter on it.
"Pu-Pu for Herman." He was carrying a large wooden plate with a cast iron round grill and purple blue sterno flames waving above its grate.
There were various little items in the grooved bowls of the wooden rotating platter. Bits of chicken wings, steak on sticky bamboo skewers, triangles of tin foil wrapped chicken and butterfly shrimp fried in a batter. Tiny eggrolls in a woodpile stack with small strings holding it together.
"Pu-Pu. Pu-Pu. Puuu-Puuu-uuu!" Herman clapped his hands together as the Chinese man with the pointy hat placed the platter in front of him on the table.
George got up and pointed at the service cart next to the kitchen entrance. "I'm going to grab some noodles and duck sauce."
I looked at the service cart and then at George. "Ok. You need my permission or something?"
He ignored me.
Herman took his time examining each little stack of items around the cast iron Pu-Pu platter flame pot.
The basement people watched and nodded in anticipation as Herman carefully chose first to have one of the chicken foil wrapped triangles.
One reason for this anticipation was for the pleasure in celebration of Herman. But also is there were undoubtedly several bets placed on which Pu-Pu treat Herman would choose first.
At Wo Hop there was some sort of wager going on between the waiters at any moment and on just about any thing.
It wasn't unusual to see two of them come running out of the kitchen with duplicate orders, banging into each other and kicking chairs in a race to get their dish on the table first, often ending in a shuffleboard style tie breaker knocking of one plate into the booth floor below; the looser left sulking back to the kitchen through the other waiters silhouetted behind the curtain in a flurry of chalkmarking walls and paper money.
One time I went in and one of the old waiters in green surgical gloves with cotton stuffed in his nose was measuring a blue crevice in one of the urinal cakes with a micrometer, while the others stood around him rapidly talking in some form of carnival French slash Pidgin Cantonese with fingers in the air.
It took over an hour to get a simple bowl of wonton soup that day.
There were three color coded take a number machines at the front counter of Wo Hop and not once did I see them used for seating customers.
When a customer did randomly happen to take a number, once seated it would be placed into a gray lockbox in the kitchen's refrigeration unit to be counted in order to generate some sort of jackpot numbers game contest. Leftovers were often weighed and photographed before leaving the restaurant without explanation.
Funny thing is at the end of each day of constant betting, there wasn't one time in almost 100 years the Wo Hop waiters didn't break even. Playing with the houses money, nothing to declare. Almost as if the pattern of betting regulated some other offsite system that needed the type of balance that could only be provided by the Wo Hop waiters' style.