San Francisco State University - Franciscan Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

Page 27 text:

ULU PA HS HETUH Tonight Old Pang will return to walk the halls for a last time. That is what Wong, the fortune teller told Pang Shee. Tonight as I sit in my room, I am truly alone. A couple of stools under a card table, an alarm clock and an electric heater, a pot of black coffee and halfa pack of cigarettes, a handful of pawn tickets, two dollar bills, a quarter, two pennies, and a dime, and I, with my only good suit of clothes on, sitting on an unmade bed. That is all of me, everythingl possess. No one has occupied the front room next to mine since Old Pang had a heart attack last month and had to be taken to a hospital. No one is at home in either of the two rooms in back of mine. No one is at home in the whole row of rooms across the hall. ln fact, there is no one in the building tonight but myself. 25

Page 26 text:

You opened, Tommy. What do you say? Tommy looked doubtful. Guess l'll check it. Pete with three of a kind, bet three. Bill saw it. Hayan stayed. Then Tommy put in his three and raised five. They all looked at him in sur- prise. Hmm, a little sandbagging, huh? Pete said. l'll raise you five. Tommy smiled. Well, l'm not backing down. l'll raise you five. Bill dropped out, saying, Looks like you have too much for me. Rayan called. Tommy knew he had Pete topped but was afraid to raise again. They might suspect he was too sure of himself and wonder why. He called, too. Pete laid down his three of a kind and smiled. Three little kings. Beat that if you can. Hayan threw down his two pair in disgust. Tommy knew this was his big moment. He held his cards until they were all looking at him. Then, with a triumphant grin, he spread out his full house. You guys really had me worried for awhile. When Pete raised me for five, I damn near dropped out. Tommy reached forward and scraped in the chips. -Hichard L arrick. .yi ab T, Wil l ,. lx ' 1 3 - . yi: - 'mln un! ily.-5 . I may ,.IVI,.I,p! w', rl tgp? i. HZMMKMH J 1-' A 1, V, 354417. , .4 YD T i ' lil '- ei ik me T if r i l 'fit n lalllnllihl? Mi, 'V 'Ii Am' 1 I-Ti f if it if T f .. . .and this dame A goes to State, see, 24

Page 28 text:

The building had once been a hotel, just one of the many shady es- tablishments in the red light district below Kearney Street. But then the place became respectable when Old Pang leased over the hotel. The old man put in new pipes, gave the building a new coat of paint, cleaned out the wash basin in each room, and hung a private family sign on the street door. For some fifteen or sixteen years now the place has been a respectable residence. 'Old Pang had converted adjoining rooms into suites for his family tenants, but there happened to be two odd rooms left over on the third floor. I occupy one of them, and a fellow named Joe occupies the other one directly across the hall. Joe and I are the only single men living on the third floor. About eight or nine o'clock on other evenings, kids in the building would be playing in the hallway. Now and then I would hear some little girls singing as they jumped rope, a pair of skates rolling by my door, some little boys' mimicry as a little girl went crying home to her mother, a couple of kids roughhousing down the hall. In between the children's play I would hear a pair of leather slippers clattering up and down the hall. That would be Old Pang going to and from the kitchen doing his janitorial chores. He used to sweep the two floors of the building, burn the garbage, clean the public kitchens, and check the toilets each night before he went to bed. The children used to show great enthusiasm in greeting the fat little man in faded blue overalls. Hello, Old Uncle Pang, the familiar little voices would shriek, and Old Pang would sometimes reward the children with boxes of candy, candy which he had received from his own children and grandchildren who didn't know what else to give an old man for his birthday or for Christmas. Tonight Old Pang will return to walk the halls for a last time, but tonight no children will greet shim in the hall, no adult voices will call the children home at bedtime, no one but myself will even dare stay in the building. Everyone has gone out for the night to avoid meeting Old Pang on the old man's return. I too would have stayed out until after midnight, if my friends hadn't mochkingly asked me earlier in the evening if I should care to spend the night with them. I pretended to be nonchalant when I asked them, What for? and I lied when I added, I'm not afraid because I don't believe. I would have gone to a late movie tonight, but then the 32.37 is to last me until Friday. lt's too cold to bum the streets at this time of night, so I really have no alternative other than to come home and anticipate with awe the return of the dead. Pang Shee, Old Pang's second daughter, had immediately consulted 26 j