'Everybody smoke here. Even cooks smoke, okay? Plenty MSG. No American Express.' Mama looked at her, smiling. 'Not for you, right?'
'It certainly is not,' said the woman, pushing her chair back. 'Come on, Robbie,' she said to the sheep.
'Have a nice day,' Mama told her. She watched the woman and the sheep walk out the front door, giving their table a quick wipe. She looked around her empty restaurant and smiled. Business was good.
I slid out of the booth, bowed to Mama as she approached. Terry bounded over to her, his arms open. Mama clasped her hands at her waist, bowed to the kid. It stopped him like he ran into a wall, confusion overflowing his face.
'Easy. Move slow, okay?' She smiled down at him.
'I was just going to . . .'
'You going to kiss Mama?'
'Sure!'
'You see Burke kiss Mama?'
''No . . .'
Mama's face was calm. Set. 'Mama kiss babies, Okay? Not kiss man.'
Terry stared at her face, figuring it out. Knowing by her tone not to be afraid. 'I'm not a man,' he said.
'What, then?'
He looked at me for help. I blew smoke out my nose. I didn't know the answer. He took a shot on his own. 'A kid?'
'Only two pieces,' Mama said. 'Baby or man. No more baby, time to be a man.'
'I won't be a man until I'm thirteen.'
'Who says this?'
'Mole.'
Mama glanced over at me. 'Bar Mitzvah,' I told her. 'Jewish ceremony.'
'Good. Not
'Right,' Terry told her.
'Start now,' Mama said, bowing to him again. Case closed.
Terry bowed.
Mama sat down across from me. Terry waited, saw there wasn't going to be any more instruction, sat down too. Mama said something to the waiter. He disappeared.
'Soup first, okay?'
'Can I have fried rice?' the kid wanted to know.
'Soup first,' Mama said.
The waiter brought a steaming tureen of Mama's hot-and-sour soup. Three small porcelain bowls. Mama served Terry first, then me. Then herself. I pressed my spoon against the vegetables floating in the dark broth, taking the liquid in first, holding it above the bowl, letting it cool. I took a sip. 'Perfect,' I said. It was the minimal acceptable response.
Terry pushed his spoon in too deeply, covering it with vegetables. He carefully turned the spoon over, emptying it back into the bowl. Tried it again. Got it right. He swallowed the spoonful, tears shooting into his eyes. His little face turned a bright red. 'It's good,' he said, his voice a squeak.
Mama smiled. 'Special soup. Not for babies.'
I took another spoonful, swallowed it slowly. Let it slide down, breathing through my nose. Terry watched me. Tried it again. Smaller sips this time.
I threw a handful of hard noodles into my bowl. Terry did the same. He watched as I spooned off the top layer of liquid, mixing the last spoonfuls with the vegetables, not chewing any of it, gently breathing through my nose. The kid went right along.
When my bowl was empty, Mama spooned it full again. Terry was right behind me. Mama called for the waiter. He took the tureen away. Came back with a heaping plate of fried rice for Terry. The plate was beautiful - big chunks of roast pork, egg yolk, scallions - each grain of rice floating on top of another into a perfect pyramid. The kid's eyes lit up. He dug in without another word. I helped myself to a few forkfuls, bowing my acknowledgment of perfection to Mama.
Terry was halfway through the giant mountain when he looked up at Mama.
'What's MSG?' he wanted to know.
'Bad stuff. Special salt. Make weak food taste strong, okay? Chemical. Fake. No good for you.'
Terry smiled at her, putting it together. 'No MSG here, right?'
Mama smiled back at him. 'Right.'
I lit another cigarette. 'How's business?' I asked her.
'Always same.'
I put the money from the lawyer on the table. Split it into two piles. 'For Max,' I told Mama, touching one pile. 'For the bank,' I said, touching the other. Mama would hold the money for me. Her bank didn't pay interest. In fact, she took a piece for a storage fee. But her bank was open twenty-four hours a day and it didn't file federal paper every time you made a deposit.
Mama's long fingers flashed over the money, faster than a blackjack dealer's. The two piles became four. She pointed at each in turn. 'For Max. For the bank. For Mama. For baby.'
I nodded agreement. I knew the pile marked for Flower had some of my money and some of Mama's. Max knew nothing about it - it wasn't his business. Whenever Mama saw Immaculata, she would have a pink silk purse in her hand. 'For baby,' is all she ever said.
Down where we live, every day is a rainy day.
14
We were in the back room, the one between the restaurant and the kitchen, waiting for the cook to finish chopping up a pile of thick marrow bones, putting together a food package for me. Terry was in the kitchen, watching everything. Staying out of the way.
Three pay phones stood in a bank against the wall. The one at the end rang. Mama looked at me. I nodded. She picked up the receiver.
'Mr. Burke not here. You leave message, okay?'
I couldn't hear the other end of the conversation. It didn't matter what they said - Mama never went past the script.
'Not here, okay? Don't know. Maybe today. Maybe next week. You leave message?'
Mama listened. Wrote something on a scrap of paper. Hung up.
She handed me the paper. A phone number I didn't recognize.
'Woman. Young woman. Say you call this number before nine tonight.'
'She say what she wanted?'
'A job for you.'
'Anybody we know?'
'I never hear the voice before. Woman say her name is Belle.'
'I don't know her.'
Mama shrugged. Bowed goodbye to me and Terry. The steel door closed behind us. I turned the Plymouth north to the Bronx.
15
Terry was quiet on the ride back. I let him have his silence - it's something a man has to learn. As he got older, I'd teach him not to give things away with his face.
I didn't fill the silence with the radio or my tapes. The radio works, but the faceplate is really just to disguise the police-band scanner built into the dash.
