Mooch by Dan Fante

Eighty-sixthStreet. Sometimes I’d have a buzz going, sometimes not, but I always bought the same thing. And Yee always smiled. It went on that way for a few nights. Being new in the bereavement business, unsure of myself I practiced on Yee. She enjoyed my formal, exaggerated good manners, bowing when I bowed, playing along. Shaking my hand. Her smile had a gentleness from a galaxy a billion miles away from Taipei or the ‘IND’ Subway Station. When she would bend forward, reaching into the glass case to get my bagel, her hard, small-nippled breasts would show themselves in the gap in her uniform blouse…One night when I came in, the baked-goods case was empty. Until then, our conversations had never exceeded a minute or two. I poured myself serve-yourself coffee and waited for Yee to finish taking care of another customer. When she was done, seeing me, she walked down the counter to where I was standing. ‘Hello,’ she said, bowing, smiling, mimicking my mortician-trainee stiffness. ‘Hey,’ I said playfully, ‘you’re out of bagels.’ She stepped closer, pressing herself against the counter. From within the pocket of her white jacket, she removed a clump of carefully-folded waxed paper, then slid it toward me across the glass. ‘I save for you, ‘she whispered. ‘I know you come.’…A little startled by the kindness, I unfolded the offering. ‘Thanks,’ I said, seeing the bagel. It felt like a birthday gift. Yee beamed, ‘See! You special customer. My special customer.’…I didn’t say anything, worried for fear my incautious tongue might sabotage the moment by dispensing some smart-assed, gratuitous idiocy. Instead, instinctively, formally, I extended my mortician’s hand. Yee shook it. It was then that our eyes met, really connected. I knew. Yee knew too. Zammo!…The next few nights our greetings went by with us grinning and shaking hands some more. On Sunday night, the end ofYee’s week, I waited at the register after paying. ‘I want to take you out on a date,’ I half-blurted; ‘to a movie.’ Yee glowed; her magic, shy smile. ‘I never go to movie,’ she said. ‘Okay…’ I replied. ‘That’s okay. But do you want to go?’ I’d made her uncomfortable and she began re-stacking coffee lids. Then the smile was back. ‘Okay, yes,’ she said, then nodded, ‘I go. Thank you very much for ask me, Bruno. I go.’…The following afternoon I called in sick to my supervisor, Lawrence, at the funeral parlor, got a warning because I had already missed two days on account of illness, then walked uptown on Eighth Avenue in the honking bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic. I was mostly sober except for a few beers, and my pants were pressed and fresh from the cleaners, and my shirt was new. Not a starched, bereavement-demo work shirt, but a twenty-five dollar blue cotton deal with jazzy buttons. Turning the corner at Fifty-eighth Street, I walked into the shop…Yee’s father was behind the counter. Not Yee. I assumed she was in the back room. Pop recognized me and looked away. We’d seen each other a few times. ‘Hello, Mister Chin,’ I said, holding out my hand, trying for cheerfulness. ‘Nice to see you.’ He ignored me, keeping his attention on the register. ‘You want bagel?’…‘Is Yee here? I asked.…Pops was stone. ‘Yee off today. Not here.’…Unsure of what to do, attempting to conceal my disappointment, I nodded okay…But after he rang me up, I tried again: ‘Mister Chin,’ I said, ‘Yee told me she would be here. We’re supposed to be going to the movies.’…Two black darts bored into my forehead. ‘Yee off.’…‘I know. I’m here to pick her up.’…‘I say to you, Yee not here. I say Yee off.’…Paying for my order, I took the bag and walked out…For the next hour, covered by the shadows of the subway entrance across the street, I waited, sippingmy coffee, smoking cigarettes, watching the donut shop’s door. Yee never appeared…The next day I was