Together We Kill

The Dread Chinatown Man

The other day I was walking down Sixth Avenue in New York and directly ahead I spotted a frighteningly familiar face. It was a lot older now, the frame it set on a little stooped, much thinner, but the same face that made my guts churn every time I saw it. So, I did the same thing I used to do a long time ago. Since there was no crowd to get lost in, I stopped, walked back a block and crossed the street to safety where he couldn’t get at me. He had on a faded, dingy’ uniform, but he wasn’t military. He didn’t own a thing, but the comer was his. Eight million people in New York, but he could pick you out of the mob in a millisecond without goofing once, except in my case... and I hated to have to shatter that stupendous ego again... even after being made to look like an idiot a dozen times.

You see, he was the Chinatown Man. He was the advance agent for a sightseeing bus to the Mott and Pell Street section and he had a big card above the visor of his cap that read CHINATOWN TOUR and made him took like that old conductor on the Toonerville Trolly. He could spot a tourist six blocks off, wait for him to hit the corner, then hassle him into a buck-and-a-half trip so fast the poor yokel never knew what hit him and there was no way his country training could protect him against the big city con the Chinatown Man could pitch.

Of course, no self-respecting New Yorker would ever buy the scam, far less than being tabbed for a hayseed. The true natives could handle that with one icy glare or a few choice epithets in a foreign tongue that had plenty of tonal muscle even if he didn’t understand it. But he rarely ever heard it because, psychologist that he was, hayseed picking was his specialty.

Now in the old days, I had an office on 45th Street, three blocks away from his outpost. I was a busy little executive in Howard or Crawford suits. I didn’t wear white socks and my shoes all came from Thom McAn’s. A copy of the World Telegram was always under my arm and a faint five o’clock shadow made me look like I had suffered a hard day at work. In other words, I was the typical New Yorker’s Brooklynite headed for the Brighton Beach B.M.T. and a pot roast supper.

But not to the Chinatown Man. Oh, no, never to the hayseed picker. I could feel his eyes grab me the minute I turned the corner, keeping me locked in on his mental radar until I got within striking distance; then, out of that whole throng, he’d zero in on me with his pitch and brochure, ticket held at ready and left hand at his change holder on his belt. The spiel was hard, fast and loud with everybody listening in, watching my face get red while I fought him off and if I dropped the World Telegram I didn’t ever stop to pick it up.

How I got to hate that guy! Every damn night! I couldn’t even cross the street without feeling I had lost some of my dignity. All I could do was try to outwit him and look forward to holidays and Thursdays when the shopping crowd gave me enough cover to get by on an end run behind a swarm of blocking backs. Or grin evilly when he was already engaged with a real hayseed and had to let a prospective customer slip out of his grasp.

Then the final insult at me... the glove across the jowl, the chip knocked off the shoulder.

I had gone to college at Fort Hays, Kansas, and four of my fraternity brothers came east to visit me. Now, I don’t want to finger them as hayseeds, because in their backyard a city boy was an absolute misjudgment of nature, but they did leave their shoes on the north side of the bed; flush toilets were political necessities and Sears Roebuck was the Neiman Marcus of the area, or even better because the catalog held a dual purpose. They marveled at my white sweater since nobody ever wore anything except maroon or navy blue and at the one BIG formal school bash they wondered what that shiny stripe was going down my ‘tux’ pants and how come I wasn’t wearing brown shoes like everybody else? You see, there I was the outsider... now they were here and we were all walking down Sixth Avenue after I had given them a big taste of the big city, Automat for breakfast, chop suey for lunch, early show at the Apollo Burlesque, where Georgia Southern flipped them out, and a quick run-through of the office where we put comic books together.

Big city brother had the country cousins in tow, enjoying having them on his own turf for a change, proving that we had garages bigger than the hotel in Hays, 20-chair barber shops and more taxis than Kansas had cars. They marveled at my dollar tips, the speed of the express elevators in the Empire State Building and interpreted New Yorkese for them in the Stage Door Deli.

Oh, I was big, all right, but I never should have brought them back to 45th Street to see the office. I had forgotten that the Chinatown Man would be waiting. But when I remembered it was too late — until I looked at the Kansas Kids. They were the best cover I ever had. This time he’d have to draw the line smack down the middle once and for all, and after that I’d be home free.

I guess you know what the lousy slob did.

All of a sudden those watery blue eyes picked up their target right in front of the Big Man’s audience, grabbed my sleeve and started his pitch. Only this time I didn’t drop the World Telegram. The Gotham gambit hit me with the secondary move and I looked the Chinatown Man straight in the peepers with a Times Square snarl and said, “Look, I was born in New York, I lived here and I already been to Chinatown 20 times and if I go there I don’t take no sightseein’ bus. You unnerstan’?”

He reeled, he choked... and as the literary types say, he was aghast. My fraternity brothers were real proud of me, but wondered what had happened to my language. They hardly understood it at all. The Chinatown Man’s eyes were a little misty.

The next day the guys went back to Kansas. I went back to work. I came out of the office at a quarter after five and headed for the subway. I almost made it. The enemy I had thought was dead wasn’t dead at all. The bastard had bailed out and all of a sudden he was coming at me again. The hand grabbed my sleeve, the brochure and ticket was shoved in my face and I said, “Look I told you yesterday...”

“Oh,” he told me with casual reluctance, “It’s you.”

Now here it is 30 years later. I’m walking up Sixth Avenue going north. Wars have been fought, tycoons have been battled and beaten, books, movies and TV have made you famous and people say hello on the street. The suit is custom made. You’re a big boy, buddy, so march on... everybody knows you.

But, like I said, there are some battles you never can win, so I withdraw, walked back a block, crossed the street and flagged me down a cab.

I still couldn’t face the Chinatown Man.