Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk(66)

“That’s a long time, since 1970.”

“Too long if you ask me,” he says. “We’ve been in the States for twenty years, ever since I was a little kid. We came when a lot of other Asian people came, after the law changed.”

“I remember that,” I say.

And I do, more or less. I remember Kennedy talking about the need for it—calling the old system of racist quotas intolerable—though it was Johnson who finally signed it. I used to be able to remember these things perfectly: Names and dates leapt to mind with no effort, along with a half-dozen rhymes, and maybe a pun or two. Now I find myself in a golden age of trivia—as evidenced by that board game Gian and all his friends love so much, with its polychrome plastic pies—just as my recall has started to fade: a gunslinger growing slow on the draw even as the Gold Rush is breaking out. The Hart–Celler Act! How could I forget? Emanuel Celler, Brooklyn’s long-tenured hero! Defending the huddled masses in the shadow of Liberty herself!

C. J. is watching me from over my wrapped parcels; I have let myself drift. “What’s that you’re watching?” I ask, diverting attention from myself, pointing at the small black-and-white television set on the counter behind him. “Dick Clark in Times Square?”

“It’s about to be the Tonight Show,” he says. “It’ll be a rerun.”

“Are you kidding me?” I say. “If you’re short on holiday spirit, at least show some civic pride.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m still mad at Johnny Carson for moving his show to L.A. It was so adult when he was here in Manhattan. It was for grown-ups. It had an edge. Now that it’s in beautiful downtown Burbank, or Bakersfield, or wherever, it just isn’t the same.”

“He used to do the show here?” C. J. says. “I never knew that. I guess I’ve seen some of them, those old shows of his. I don’t always understand them. Maybe he didn’t really have people like me in mind when he made them. Young people. Brown people. Anyway, I guess a lot has changed since then.”

“That is true,” I say. “A lot has changed.”

“Well, I don’t blame him for moving. L.A. is where the stars are, right? I’d go there myself if I could. That’s where my family came in—on the West Coast, anyway—but then we kept going, to New York City. I have no idea why. We should have stayed put. The Golden State. I’ve got a ton of cousins out there. I’m thinking of going back.”

“Oh, C. J., I hate to hear promising young people say things like that. This city needs you.”

“Lillian, no offense,” says C. J., “but you just met me. I haven’t been feeling so promising lately. To make our rent here, we’ve had to start staying open all night. My parents have to sleep sometime, so I’m taking a break from school to help. I’m scared for them. I don’t want my mom or my dad working here alone in the middle of the night. If the neighborhood gets any worse our customers will stop coming. We’ll just be here to get robbed. But if it gets any better the rent will go up. It’s not a good situation.”

C. J. is looking at the television, not really watching it. On the screen are crowds of people, laughing and waving, some holding hand-lettered greetings to the folks back home, others raising two fingers for peace. The volume is either off or too low for me to hear.

“Since you have a date with the Best of Carson, and I have a party to get to, I won’t bore you with the specifics. How much do I owe you?”

“Oh man, sorry,” he says. “$10.55.”

I remove eleven dollars from my wallet and in the process discover that a faintly alarming quantity of bills still remains inside. This, I realize, is the result of an error, one of my little lapses: I took out cash from the bank yesterday, having forgotten until this moment that I’d also cashed a check at the market that morning. Nearly a hundred dollars. Traipsing through Chelsea after midnight with such a heavy pocketbook seems like a foolhardy undertaking.

“Listen, C. J.” I say, “Keep the change.”

I hand him the rest of the bills left in my wallet.

He looks flummoxed, even a bit angry. “What?” he says. “No way, Lillian. I’m not going to take all your cash. I didn’t tell you my story because I’m looking for charity.”

“I know that,” I say. “Come on, C. J. You’ll be doing me a favor. You see, I’m walking from here to a party in Chelsea, and then home to Murray Hill.”

“And so what? The cash is too heavy?”

“No, silly. I don’t want to be carrying that much money on me. I’d feel too vulnerable.”

He stares at me, open mouthed with exasperation. “Lillian,” he says, “that is the craziest thing I’ve heard in all of 1984. It’s New Year’s Eve! It’s going to be pandemonium out there! What if you get in trouble and have to catch a cab?”

“If I get in trouble,” I say in my sweetest old-lady voice, “I’ll catch an ambulance. Now, look, C. J., I don’t want to offend you, and I won’t try to make the case that you need this more than I do. But come on—Happy New Year.”

His gaze shifts from my face to the bills on the countertop. “All right,” he says. “All right. If you insist. Thanks, Lillian.”