In memory of two special Chinese restaurants
In Which Lorne Makes a New Friend
There are exactly two Chinese restaurants in Lorne’s hometown of three thousand souls. Mr. Tang owns the King’s Buffet, where patrons can sit up front on vinyl banquettes or in the formal dining room in the back, where the Rotary Club meets on Tuesday nights and the Daughters of the Empire meet on Thursday mornings. The Lams, who arrived in town in the mid-seventies, opened The Palace across the street. Friday nights, when shift ends at the Welland Pump & Compressor, workers in search of a generous pour head to the Palace. The only telephone booth on Main Street is located in its smoky front entrance. Lorne tells his daughter Ella to “run to the Palace” if she needs a ride home from the pool, if she needs anything. But Lorne has never eaten there. He’s been loyal to the King’s Buffet, not for the food, but because he’s had a soft spot for Mr. Tang ever since the older man first came to Lorne’s hardware store years ago, looking for, of all things, wallpaper glue.
Lorne had never seen Mr. Tang outside his restaurant. He’d never seen him without his apron, or his clipboard. Mr. Tang looked older under the weight of his puffy winter coat; a fur-lined hunting cap balanced on his head.
“Mr. Tang!” Lorne said. “What can I help you with?”
“Pat Quinn is falling off the wall,” Mr. Tang explained.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Orland Kurtenbach, too. All the players are peeling away. I need glue.”
Now, if Lorne had bothered to look around in Mr. Tang’s restaurant, he would have recalled the peeling poster Mr. Tang was worried about. But Lorne was always in a hurry on Friday nights, and he simply ran in and out with his warm brown take-out bag. More often than not, he snuck at least one chicken ball in the car, burning his fingers and tongue, dripping pineapple sauce on his best plaid jacket.
“I’ll come have a look. Get a better idea of what you need.”
The following night Lorne was standing on a Formica table at the King’s Buffet, looking up at the framed twenty-four-foot mural of the Vancouver Canucks.
“Where did you get this?” Lorne asked Mr. Tang. How had he never noticed it before?
“From the General Manager after the ’72 season. I was a big fan back in those days.”
Lorne tried to lift the corner of the mural where Pat Quinn was leaning over the plastic bird of paradise. “What brought you east?”
Mr. Tang gestured expansively across the room. “Opportunity,’ he said, but something in his voice –chagrin?– made Lorne turn and stare.
“Opportunity, Mr. Tang?”
The gentleman shrugged. “Would you care for a sherry, Mr. Lorne?”
They sat on the stools by the cash, and Mr. Tang turned off the neon “OPEN” sign.
“We were eight children in my family. We lived in a small apartment, above our restaurant on Hastings. My older brother took over the restaurant…” Mr. Tang wiped his eyes. “And Daisy.”
Lorne took a long sip of sherry. Something in the way Mr. Tang said Daisy made him wonder.
“I got a job as a cleaner at the Pacific Coliseum, and I took every shift possible. Sometimes I slept there, in the locker rooms– ”
“Wait a minute. You slept at the Pacific Coliseum?”
Mr. Tang’s eyes lit up. He smiled and nodded. “I was a paid fan.”
Lorne nursed the last few drops of sherry. “We’re going need more than wallpaper glue to get Pat Quinn standing up straight.” He paused. “Epoxy might do the trick.”
Mr. Tang nodded enthusiastically. “Good, good. Let’s start right away.”
“We should do it when the restaurant is closed,” Lorne said. “It smells terrible.”
“I’ll close tomorrow. It’s bad business to let things go like that.”
Lorne scratched his chin. Maybe his mother-in-law could open Valley Hardware in the morning. “I’ll be back.”
It was ten o’clock when they started. Dressed in old coveralls, Lorne and Mr. Tang pulled the booths away from the wall and set up the ladders. First, they gently steamed the poster’s edges to flatten it back against the wall, then they applied the adhesive, beginning the slow job of coating the entire thing with a thin layer of glossy, marine-grade epoxy. Lorne opened the front door to keep the air moving. The cold rushed in.
“Tell me more about the Canucks,” Lorne said.
Mr. Tang brushed the liquid over the poster in a gentle rhythm, as though he were painting a masterpiece.
“They didn’t have a chance, but they played with such…” He pointed to his chest.
Lorne plays pick-up hockey on Friday mornings with the old-timers before the store opens. He doesn’t stand much of a chance out there, but he likes to think he plays with his heart, too. Not so much that he’d risk losing a tooth, like some of the die-hards, but he can keep up. He passes the puck and what more can you ask for?
“Do you still watch hockey on television?”
Mr. Tang shook his head. “I listen to the radio when I’m cooking.”
Lorne climbed down from his ladder and stretched. It was after midnight but they were almost done. The smell was terrible.
“Why did he give you such a huge poster?” Lorne asked.
“Because he knew I didn’t want to forget them. I didn’t want to forget how to use my heart.”
“Tell me about Daisy.”
Mr. Tang waved his brush, small splatters of epoxy flew through the air. “She was the funniest girl on our street. She always got herself into trouble but sweet-talked her way out every time. All the boys loved her. I wasn’t the only one with a broken heart when she set her eyes on my brother.”
“But you didn’t want front row seats to the romance?”
“Would you?”
Lorne shook his head.
“I had front row seats to the Canucks, and by the time I’d saved enough money to take the train to Toronto, I’d almost forgotten I wanted to marry Daisy.”
“And you never found another…?”
Mr. Tang shook his head. “There was no other Daisy. And so, I do the work of two.”
Lorne wanted to go home and crawl into bed beside his wife’s warm body. Without her, he’d work all the time, too. The fumes were beginning to get to him.
“This smell is something else.”
Mr. Tang made a homemade sign and taped it to the door. “Closed for Renovations.”
“Thank-you for your help, Mr. Lorne.”
Lorne cleaned up his brushes, loaded his truck and went home. Monica let him sleep until after nine the following day.
“How did it go last night?” she asked.
“I think I like Sherry.”
“Who?”
“It’s like wine, but sweeter.”
Monica kissed him on the top of his head and went to make coffee. Lorne took a long walk over the bridge across town. A slew of joggers in a rainbow of Gore-Tex occupied all of the outdoor seats along the sidewalk outside the bakery, so he carried on in search of somewhere quiet to read the newspaper and enjoy the sunshine. He stopped when he reached the Palace. He didn’t expect it to be open before the lunch service, but the lights were on and Randy Travis’s mellow voice floated out onto the sidewalk. Curious, Lorne peeked in the window. There was only one customer. Mr. Tang.
Lorne opened the door and went inside, walking past the telephone booth and towards the bar.
“Sorry, sir, we’re not open yet,” a thin waitress with a stained apron looked up from a row of bottles. Her eyelids were painted a shade of blue that hadn’t been fashionable for decades.
“I’m just here to see my friend,” Lorne pointed towards Mr. Tang.
“Oh. But William is watching the game right now,” she said. Then, dropping her voice, she whispered. “He doesn’t like to be bothered when the Canucks are playing.”
“But they haven’t played for days…” Lorne said.
And then a voice from the middle of the restaurant. “Mr. Lam tapes the games for me to watch when I have time,” Mr. Tang turned and smiled at Lorne. “And since the King’s Buffet is closed for renovations, I have time.”
Lorne looked at the waitress, who shrugged and returned to filling up the ketchup bottles. The menu was simple: Chinese and Canadian Food. You could order an egg roll with your burger, but that was $1.99 extra. He looked around the Palace, taking a moment to consider the décor. No posters in here, just beer advertisements and elaborate paper fans with Chinese calligraphy and ribbons of red and gold.
“Are you busy?” Mr. Tang asked.
Lorne had to be back at the store by noon, but he shook his head. Busy was a choice, like where you lived, who you loved, the work you did, the team you supported, year after year.
Mr. Tang gestured to the table beside him. Lorne sat down and opened his newspaper. The sun shone through the window, warming his back. The waitress brought him a coffee and topped up Mr. Tang’s mug, too.
“Do you want me to lower the volume?” he asked.
“No,” Lorne answered. “This is perfect.”
The End