Slice of pepperoni, he says.
The pizza guy doesn’t even look up. We’re closed, he says.
You don’t look closed. The man glances over at Bird and his father, who half steps in front of Bird like a screen. They’re here, he says.
We’re closed, the pizza guy repeats, louder. His thumb flicks upward across the phone, and an endless river of pictures and posts whizzes by. Bird’s father jostles him on one shoulder. The same jostle as when they pass a policeman, or roadkill in the street. It means: Turn around. Don’t look. But this time Bird doesn’t turn. It’s not curiosity; it’s a need. A morbid need to know what’s been crouching behind him, unseen.
Look, I just want a piece of pizza, the old man says. I just got off work, I’m hungry.
He slides the bill across the counter. His hands are leathery and tough, the fingers knobbled with age. He looks like someone’s grandfather, Bird thinks, and then the thought arrives: if he had a grandfather, he might look like this man.
The pizza guy sets his phone down.
You don’t understand English? he says calmly, as if commenting on the weather. There’s a Chinese restaurant over on Mass Ave. Go get yourself some fried rice and spring rolls, if you’re hungry. We’re closed.
He folds his hands like a patient teacher, and stares squarely at the old man. What are you going to do about it?
Bird is frozen in place. He can only look and look: at the old man, jaw set, one leg squared behind him as if braced for a push. At the pizza guy, the oil spots speckling his T-shirt, his large meaty hands. At his father, the lines on his face making whiskery shadows, his eyes fixed on the flyers on the window, as if nothing is happening, as if this is just an ordinary day. He wants the old man to deliver a biting comeback, he wants the old man to punch the pizza guy in his smirking face, he wants the old man to back away before the pizza guy says—or does—something worse. Before he lifts those hands that pound and flatten thick dough into compliance. The moment tautens and tightens, like an overtuned string.
And then the old man plucks the money from the counter again, wordlessly, and tucks it back into his pocket. He turns, away from the pizza guy’s grin, and looks at Bird instead, a long hard look, then at Bird’s father. And then he murmurs something to Bird’s father, something Bird doesn’t understand.
He has never heard these words before, has never even heard this language before, but it is clear from the look on his father’s face that his father has, that he not only recognizes the language but understands it, understands what this man has said. He has the feeling, somehow, that they’re talking about him, the way the man looks at him and then at his father, that meaningful gaze that cuts right through Bird’s skin and flesh to scrutinize his bones. But his father doesn’t reply, doesn’t even move, just quickly glances away. Then the old man strides out, head held high, and is gone.
A timer dings and the pizza guy turns to open the oven. The hot smoky air shrivels Bird’s throat.
Some people, the pizza guy says. I mean.
He slips the long wooden paddle into the scorching oven and extracts their slices, slips them into a waiting box. For a moment he stares through narrowed eyes at Bird, then at his father, as if trying to place their faces. Then he slides the pizza across the counter.
Have a good night, Bird’s father says, and he takes the box and guides Bird toward the door.
* * *
? ? ?
What did he say, Bird says, when they’re back on the sidewalk. That man. What did he say?
Let’s go, his father says. Come on, Noah. Let’s get home.
At the corner, a police car glides by, lights off, nearly silent, and they wait for it to pass before crossing. They reach the dorm just as the church tower across the way begins to strike nine.
It’s not until they’re back in the apartment that his father speaks again. He sets the pizza down on the counter and pries off his shoes and stands there, his eyes very far away.
Cantonese, his father says. He was speaking Cantonese.
But you understood him, Bird says. You don’t speak Cantonese.
Even as he says it, he realizes he does not know this is true.
No, I don’t, his father snaps. And neither do you. Noah, listen to me very carefully. Anything that has to do with China, Korea, Japan, anything like that—you stay away from it. You hear someone talking in those languages or talking about those things, you walk away. Understand?
He pulls a slice from the box and hands it to Bird, then takes one himself and settles wearily into a chair without even getting a plate. It is the second time, it occurs to Bird, that his father has climbed all those steps in the past hour.