Strycker asked her to describe the events that took place in the Fine Chao between 11:30 and 11:45 p.m. on December 24. Who were the last guests to leave? She said James Chao and the hired help. Also, “that American woman,” which could have been Brenda, could have been Katherine. I didn’t know O-Lan felt contempt for Americans, but it was in her voice. Strycker wanted to know who was still in the restaurant between 11:45 and 11:59 p.m. She said, Dagou Chao and Leo Chao and herself. She was vacuuming the carpet. During this time, she could hear Leo Chao and William Chao arguing in the kitchen. She says she could hear them because she stopped the vacuum to clean up with a mop.
According to O-Lan: During this confrontation, between 11:45 and 11:59 p.m., Leo Chao claimed Dagou took from his (Leo’s) Ford a bag containing $50,000. He called Dagou “a thief.” O-Lan said Dagou didn’t deny taking the money. Big Chao said the money rightfully belonged to a stranger, and that he (Big Chao) had been planning to turn it in to the police (Fang says this doesn’t sound like Leo Chao ). He told Dagou he was going to tell the police what Dagou did.
At this point, Jerry leaped out of his chair and yelled, “Objection, hearsay! Objection, please admonish the witness to answer only what she’s been asked. Motion to strike everything after the answer to the question!” The motions were denied.
Strycker made O-Lan identify Exhibit No. 7, which is a picture of the door to the freezer room. She couldn’t do it. Had she ever been in the freezer room? The basement? No and no. Did she know anything about a key on a shelf inside the freezer room? No. He said, please see Exhibit No. 2 (the sign about the key). He asked her if she could read the sign and she could not.
Oh, and there was one weird thing. When Strycker asked O-Lan if she’d ever been in the freezer room, she said,
“No. I am a vegetarian. My mother was a vegetarian. That room is Leo Chao’s temple.”
“What do you mean by ‘Leo Chao’s temple’?”
“He goes into that room and worships meat.”
“What kinds of meat did Leo worship?”
(A pause here, while the people wearing JUSTICE FOR ALF buttons fixed their eyes on her and held their breath.)
“All meats. Every kind of meat.”
The assistant defense attorney Sara Stojkovic’s questions for O-Lan were mostly about her immigration status. She’s been living in Haven for years, but with no papers. Would she confirm she’s in the US as an undocumented immigrant? Yes. Did she receive any payment in exchange for testifying? No. Did she ask the State, that is Mr. Strycker, to help her with her immigration issues? Yes. Did Mr. Stryker refer her to a lawyer who would help her with her immigration issues? He did.
That’s it for this morning. I’m going to call Fang. This afternoon, more witnesses for the prosecution, including James, who has been subpoenaed.
“I’ve Got This!”
At the McDonald’s, James waits for Fang, watching the rain rush down the gutters to the bottom of the hill. He rereads Lynn’s blog. Judge Lopate has ruled witnesses aren’t allowed to be part of the audience in the courtroom until after they testify. In order to be near Dagou, James has come every day to sit in the courthouse waiting room. From across the hall, he has no idea what’s happening in the courtroom. He knows he’s not supposed to read anything about the trial, or talk about the trial with anyone who has been in the courtroom. But he can’t help himself.
James rereads, I am a vegetarian. My mother was a vegetarian. He rereads, The Chaos work hard, but she is their servant. He turns off his laptop and stares at its blank screen.
He knows, now, why Cecilia Chang, the stranger at the holiday party, was so familiar to him. Her expression and her hair cut into bangs. She’d been the girl with the beagle from the snapshot he had seen, held in the old man’s shaking hand, months ago, in Union Station.
He remembers telling his father, in what now feels like another life, of his desire to be small, to be a part of something larger than himself. Throughout the trial, but especially today, as the moment for him to testify draws near, he has felt like a tiny creature approaching the enormous machine of justice, with its wheels juddering, ready to crush his life as well as those of his brothers. He told Fang he believed in the process. He now sees that the machine of justice, supposedly fair and impartial, is in reality subject to loosened screws, worn parts, and any number of quirks and forces that lie outside of his knowledge.
Fang enters the McDonald’s, talking on his phone.
“Didn’t he use the word ‘inhuman’?” Fang asks. He listens to the voice on the other end. “Doesn’t matter. He managed to work it in. You wait,” Fang says. “Gotta go. I’m with James now.” He puts away his phone. “That was Lynn. She’s become hung up on the question of where Dagou got his cash.” Fang yanks off his wet cap and lets it drip on the table. “Bag of cash!” he scoffs. “She’s still buying into Strycker’s case. Strycker’s all about appealing to clichés: The bag of cash. The American Dream. The inhuman laborer. The ambitious and ungrateful son who can’t appreciate what’s been done for him.”
“He said my parents ‘worked inhuman hours’ to build my dad’s American dream,” James says. “He did use the phrase in a positive way, if that’s possible.”
“You, too! You’re buying into the prosecution’s story,” Fang says. “He says Big Chao is a hardworking, stoic immigrant whose inhuman hours are an investment into the American Dream. He’s the quintessential Asian American, the model minority: humble, diligent, hardly a person. He put his sweat and blood into his children’s lives like every Asian parent.”
“That’s ridiculous,” James says. He pictures his father: coarse hair sticking straight up, eyes bulging suggestively at Katherine, winking lewdly at Gu Ling Zhu Chi and yelling, “Pork hock!” “Stoic? How can anyone believe—?”
“But as it turns out, a lot of random people who’ve been to the restaurant do believe he’s low to the ground, a humble server. The jury was nodding. Here’s the other thing,” Fang says, taking off his rain-speckled glasses. “According to the prosecution, Big Chao’s son William, a.k.a. Dagou, is not like him. William is a bad minority. He doesn’t appreciate the opportunities he’s been given in this country. He’s lazy and ungrateful, dishonest, a thief, and sexually enamored of a woman not appropriate for him, a white woman.”
“That’s also ridiculous.”
Fang squints with his naked eyes, rubbing at his glasses with a napkin. “Isn’t the idea that Dagou would carve and serve up Alf ridiculous? Isn’t this all ridiculous? Anyway, the prosecution says Dagou is an overindulged, oversexed, shiftless yellow-brown delinquent. He possesses an unscrupulous and insatiable greed. He’s a thief. And he wants Brenda, and money, and the restaurant, badly enough to kill. That’s Strycker’s story.” He examines his lenses. “What’re you eating for lunch?”
“Not hungry.”
“Buy something. Come on, you’ve gotta testify this afternoon.” He peers at James through his now-smeared glasses. “Where’s Ming?”
“His flight gets in at two o’clock. He’s coming straight from the airport. Fang, I need your advice. Last night I was thinking about my testimony. I had an idea about something you said a few weeks ago.”
“Let’s order.”