Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's a Daughter To Do? A Memoir (Sort Of) by Elaine Lui Read Free Book Online Page B

leading up to my grandmother’s apartment where she ran a mah-jong den. The door was already open. It was a mess when we stepped inside. There was glass everywhere. The television had been smashed and was lying on the floor. Mah-jong tiles were all over the place. The couch had been slashed. I remember slipping on a chopstick, my mother catching me by the arm before my head hit the corner of the coffee table. My grandmother was wailing in the bathtub. My grandfather was chain-smoking in the bedroom, the door closed.
    It turns out Grandmother had been playing high-stakes mah-jong at one of the bigger mah-jong dens in town. She was carrying big losses and was behind on her payments. The mah-jong dens were run by local gang members and they’dsent some of their thugs to collect. When Grandmother couldn’t come up with the cash, they gave her a warning by trashing her apartment. Next time, they warned, they’d come for something more permanent.
    Ma knew these were serious threats. She also knew they could not be put off any longer and that the situation was beyond her negotiation skills. Ma took my hand and marched me out the door. We walked to the bank where one of her good friends, Auntie Lai, was the bank manager. She told me to wait outside. I could see her in Auntie’s office through the glass, smoking her cigarettes, waiting while Auntie walked back and forth between the teller and the vault. Eventually Ma signed some papers and zipped up her purse. We were on our way to pay off Grandmother’s debt. After Ma settled up at the mah-jong den, we headed back to Grandmother’s apartment. On the way, she stopped at a toy store and bought me a pop-up card game. I sat on Grandmother’s shredded couch, playing my new game, while Ma bathed her mother and put her to bed. I kept playing while Ma picked up the chairs and the overturned tables, while she swept the broken pieces of television into a trash bin, while she mopped the tiles on her hands and knees with a washcloth, her perfect long red nails pushing back and forth, scrubbing the dirt and the dust off the floor.
    Two days later, we flew back to Canada, our trip cutshort by a month. Ma went back to work. She was already working two jobs, but she took on an extra job on weekends so she could pay off the loan she’d taken out to save Grandmother’s ass.
    My ma repaid her mother’s debt. She did the same for her father when he fell ill. I was eleven that summer. Grandfather had been ailing for weeks. I was afraid to look at him. His eyes were yellow. His face was yellow. His breath smelled. Grandmother suspended gaming at her mah-jong den. It wasn’t fun anymore to go to my grandparents’. Before Grandfather’s illness, it was always boisterous over there. The mah-jong players gossiped. They were the entertainment. Now, without them, it was too quiet. Grandfather kept moaning from the bedroom and there was no one to play with, no one to talk to. People had started to write him off, saying it was only a matter of time.
    Ma had a doctor of Chinese medicine come over to examine Grandfather, looking for a cure. The man had very long nose hairs. I was hesitant to greet him at the door. Ma scolded me for being rude. They disappeared into Grandfather’s bedroom for a long time, so long I started to worry that Ma would have long nose hairs herself when she came back out. When they finally emerged, Ma had that expression on her face I was beginning to recognize—determination. After Dr. Nose Hair left, she picked up the phone to call myauntie Lai, making arrangements to have me stay with her for a few days because she had to go on a trip to help Grandfather. I started crying. I didn’t want Ma to take off on me because Dr. Nose Hair told her to.
    But Ma was off to Mainland China. She said she was going in search of a magic turtle that could save Grandfather’s life. A magic turtle!? This made me rethink the grossness of Dr. Nose Hair. The dude was recommending magic