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

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

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 29 text:

Wong the fortune teller about proper death rites, Cas in the old country? after her father died in the hospital. I can almost hear Wong explaining the time chart in the Chinese almanac to the illiterate Pang Shee: .... You said your father was born at nine o'clock in the morning. That is under the sign of thetiger. And you said your father passed away at three o'clock in the afternoon. That is under the sign of the ox. Now let me see .... The tiger and the ox meet at the time of the dog, and that is between eight and ten in the evening. You may expect your father's spirit to come home for his last hearty meal and worldly possessions sometime between eight and ten in the evening, ten days after his death. Pang Shee knew well her duties as daughter in matters of death rites. She had come to her father's home early this morning. She had prepared a three course meal and left it out on the table for 'her father's return on this night. She set out on the table everything she thought her father would want--the old man's best suit of clothes, a new white dress shirt, a blue tie, Old Pang's black umbrella, his brown hat, a pair of white socks, and a pair of black shoes. Then Pang Shee burned the incense in a pail of sand and left. She was certain that her father's spirit would come home tonightg she was even more certain that her father's spirit would leave satisfied. 1 It is nine o'clock now, and still I have not heard' any sound of Old Pang's return. They said that if I stayed home, I might be able to hear the noises Old Pang makes, the rattling of dishes and the clanging of pots and pans. And I believe that Old Pang would make such noises too, - .N - . ....1....w,. - A lt- , g f if-VN ' , . K KJ 4 ' 4 if ,QS 'T ipl ' o ' - f,,-- I CQ' XX .5 W , t t aaa,-,gf X j l 5' tr' 1 ' V XEXN- y ' yf V3-V Tj Wi x , . ,.,,,,,,.,,, My kg M MMR ' A l Z 27