<Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >
Locket # 43
Mr. Flagman, this is about me and Dak Bo. That’s Dak Bo Chin, the Chinese
Restaurant owner. The restaurant down Sheriff Street outside Georgetown.
Everybody believed he was Chinese. I think he was from Vietnam, by way of
Hong Kong, where he hooked up with a Chinese woman, who brought him
here to Georgetown, where she got killed by some stupid gunman, leaving
Dak Bo alone and wondering what to do next, if he should continue with the
restaurant.
I don’t think considered living the rest of his life here, even with his Chinese
wife. After she died he wanted more than ever to leave. I could tell he was
ready to go, but not before making somebody pay for killing his wife.
I helped him understand, hitting back was too easy. There were other ways
he could make the country pay. Work, brace, wait.
So he stayed, he continued on, though not exactly as before. I stayed with
him until he didn’t feel like a total stranger anymore. Still keeping to himself,
but brave again. After awhile he got used to my closeness. I became his #1
reliable partner, the person who could help him deal with unexpected things.
The business was cooked meals. Our menu was second to none. It wasn’t
exactly Chinese. People hear frying noise and see flames spitting from the
pan, they think is just another Chinese food place. My flavourings made the
difference. I had my suppliers of local seasonings. There were two Chinese
cooks in the kitchen.
After a year we had separate partner responsibilities. Dak Bo handled the
“expenses”; plus he had “residency” problems to deal with. In his little office
at the back under the hanging light bulb he’d put on his glasses and talk to
people on the phone. Sometimes he went off somewhere with a briefcase.
I was like the person in charge of supplies, orders and deliveries. First time
in my life I had responsibility. Dak Bo got me a motorbike to use. Working
all day carried us along. Work, save, wait.
And the business thrived, like the “Thriving Restaurant” we have in
Georgetown, though from the outside you couldn’t tell.
You could say we developed our own “brand”. We were ready to serve people
too tired or lazy to cook at home. Getting like the States, yes.
I worked and saved for my only child, my daughter. At nineteen her life was
a ripe grape ready to burst but going nowhere. She didn’t do well in our
schools. She used to help around the house until she got this job in a city
mall store.
I had to pull her back from the shiny floor stuff, her friends there. Make her
go to school again.
I made her stand in our kitchen. Slice, stir, taste. Try out recipes. When time
come, cause you can’t keep them stuck here forever, she left for New York,
stayed with my sister in Brooklyn. Next I heard from her, it was to say she
had applied for courses at an International Culinary school. I felt so happy.
I worry about her, but I don’t let her know. Her time is her own now.
Dak Bo and me, we were a thriving combination. We tried this and that until
we came up with how best to serve customers. Good meals, reliable service.
Midday and after work meals. Special preparation like for when certain men
visiting their women.
Our customers were mostly people on wheels. Police, transport people. I
know how they move, how they think.
We encouraged the pickup, not waiting and “takeout”. You phone your order,
drive up, honk, your order ready for “pickup”. With soup as a side order. I
told people they didn’t need to wash down our meals with beer or soft drink.
The wife of a Govt. Minister sent her driver. We catered sometimes when the
Ministry was celebrating.
It wasn’t a “cook shop” like some bad mind people say. Wasn’t like
McDonalds either, with customers crowding the premises, which was how Dak
Bo’s wife got killed, bandits ordering food, then suddenly shouting, waving
guns and shooting. Saying later, They didn’t mean to kill her!
I was coming in as they came running out. These violent boys, this one side
parenting of our country. I don’t know what to say. Is like nobody care.
The day his wife died Dak Bo stood shaking his head and staring at the blood.
I was staring at the blood.
Next day I came back, the blood stains were still there. He hadn’t done
anything. I could still see the cord strains in his neck. Hurry up with the
mourning, I told him. You have to wash away this blood.
He didn’t move. He must have thought this was it, the end of the world.
Something happened at that point. I can’t explain it other than we felt a
need to put this loss behind us. I went straight home and came back with a
mop. Right there and then he understood there were situations he could
trust others to handle.
For five years after Dak Bo’s clean new premises became his home address.
The day he told me he was leaving I didn’t get upset. It was not my business
to know the reason. But from his muttering I could tell something unexpected
had happened again, only this time there was nothing I could do.
I turned away thinking, well, we had been good for each other all these years.
My cup was filled.
I went with him to the airport. When my daughter left she took a taxi from
our home. Like Dak Bo she was taking a risk, making her way through airports
and Immigration, hoping to start again.
I gave her a hug. Just go, I told her, you on your own. Watch out for the grey
baldies with teeth going crooked. And those spider men with quick bread and
spread for ideas. Show the world what you know.
In the car to the airport it felt like Dak Bo was quietly slipping out the
country. I put my hand on his knee. First time I ever touched the man.
Mr. Fast and Furious, I said to him. And he smiled. First time I ever saw him
smile. Laugh, yes, but Dak Bo hardly smiled.
Yes, Mr. Fast and Furious is leaving you, he sighed.
At forty five you wake up one morning, you study your belly and breast, and
you realize time is really zipping. In this country wet lands could parch fast,
men can be crude. You pick and choose your pleasure, you understand the
sun is never late each calling day.
There were nights, like on Christmas Eve or Old Year's night, when even I
didn’t want to be alone. Didn’t want to be with people jumping up or singing.
I stayed behind on the premises after we closed up.
We drank soup. We sipped the rice wine I made. Another year had gone by,
the business getting better and better. We told stories of life growing up,
and sometimes we got a little carried away.
“I don’t trust these Chinese condoms,” I’d say when his fingers reached for
my arm. Chinese condoms good! he’d say. Time for Chinese fireworks.
Mr. Fast and Furious. At first he didn’t understand what I meant. He didn’t
watch television. For five years he’d close up for the night and retire. I
don’t think he slept very well.
I got him a gun. He said he wanted to be ready for when the next bandit
showed up. I told him if he shot anyone, call me straightaway, not the
police. We would move the body far from the premises. “Found dead”
elsewhere.
Either from pure luck or readiness, bandits didn’t try us again. We had no
blood on the premises to clean up again.
The risk that man took coming here, from Vietnam, via some big boat with
Hong Kong in big letters at the stern, which was another story he told me.
He didn’t talk about his Chinese wife, how they met, if he still had feelings
for her. You can understand why. And he didn’t say much about the other
Chinese business people, who were suspicious of him but left him on his own.
In the beginning I was suspicious of him too. His teeth looked perfect. He was
too quiet, like a man who had fallen from some secret high place, rolling
down the side into our country.
In some men you see no climbing back from a fall. I wanted my daughter
to face risks like Dak Bo. Find a partner, make her way, thrive. That was all
I wanted.
Thelma B.
Georgetown, Guyana
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 