Free The Love Wife by Gish Jen Page A

paid a tenant’s rent rather than see a certain old couple or young mother or rascally codger out on the street.
    The couple proved worthy of help. Even Mama Wong saw the point, in the end, of providing two old geezers in wheelchairs with a place to set their brakes. Also I made a good case for the single mother with twins. Anita went on, in fact, to become the best super we ever had; the twins grew up happy to cut our grass and shovel our snow. But what about the codger? Didn’t he have two sons in sports cars who ought to have done their share?
    — This is America. Nobody can count on a son, I argued once. Except, of course, you.
    To this Mama Wong at first laughed appreciatively.
    — You are the last real Chinese son in America, she agreed, her forefinger in the air. She crouched forward for emphasis, springing up at the end of the point like a conductor. Then she fetched her body back, her chin, her arm. Repacking herself, it seemed, in a kind of tai qi maneuver. — I know you will never forget what you are, she said. No one going to have to tell you.
    But other days she waved her hand dismissively.
    — For what can I count on you, you tell me? she said. Give money away to rich people, that’s what. How can you be my son? I tell you honest way, I don’t know who you are.
    Her face then was resigned, and slack. Only her hands moved, dropping down to her desktop to rearrange the beautifully sharpened pencils. She watched some leaves, blown flat against her window; they lifted loose. Away they flipped, back out into the yard, flipping, flipping. Who cared? In her youth she had exuded a lovely suppressed animation. People had watched her, not because she was so beautiful, but because at any moment her face might break into something else. Something about her promised revelation.
    Now, in her enfeeblement, she was becoming straightforward.
    It was true that the codger, when he died, left half a million dollars to his favorite charity, the National Basketball Association. He left, in addition, one dime each to his sons. This was so they could each call a friend and cry. They wouldn’t have had to do this, he wrote, if they had learned to hustle like even the lousiest substitute player in the National Basketball Association. Also he left a broadcloth shirt to me, writing,
    You would have given the shirt off your back to me. So I give the shirt off my back to you. You did touch me, you poor schmuck. But what kind of championship you ever going to win? You got this country all wrong, young man. You should listen to your mother. Rent is rent. Get rich, be happy. Isn’t that what they say in China? It’s the same here. Be poor, be miserable. Old world, new world, every world is still the world.
    BLONDIE /  Carnegie never wore the shirt.
    CARNEGIE /  I was in my poetry phase then; the phase in which I walked in the woods and considered myself working. I was entranced by the deathless morph of villanelles. And the compulsion of terza rima! Like a person with attachment problems. I owned an inkwell and a blotter and was never without a thesaurus.
    Naturally all this was related to a lady friend who finally, finally slept with me, only to announce a half hour later that she wanted to be friends.
    — Let’s have a correspondence in verse, she said.
    I switched to double e the next week.
    BLONDIE /  His mother was delighted.
    CARNEGIE /  She had a consolation girlfriend all picked out.
    — Lily Lee, she said. Daughter of Filbert and Flora. Valedictorian in high school, now is medical doctor. But not just medical doctor. I’ll tell you what her character is. Look like her mother have some trouble with her kidney, right? So what is her specialty? Kidney! Her mother never have to go see stranger, always get the best care. That’s what kind of girl she is.
    I declined to meet Miss Lee.
    BLONDIE /  Instead he stood by large trees with his hands in his pockets. Carnegie had left home; he had left his mother. He