The Immigrants (5 page)

FIsherman’s WharF

Perhaps never before in history—or since for that matter—did a new city arise from the ashes of the old as quickly, as hopefully, as vitally as San Francisco. Almost five square miles in the heart of the city had been turned into blackened timbers and ashes. For seventy-two hours, men, women, children, firemen, sol diers, and policemen fought the flames, and shortly after seven o’clock on Saturday morning, the twenty-first of April in 1906, the fire was brought under con trol, and its advance was halted. Already families were making their way up Howard Street and Folsom Street, clam-bering up California Street and Washington Street and all the other avenues and streets within the wasted area. Regular army soldiers and National Guardsmen tried to bar their way—having maintained looting rights to themselves over the past three days, but not even the threat of guns and bayonets could deter the homeown ers from claiming their particular bit of ashes.

In the Tenderloin, saloon operators, pimps, and pros titutes picked among the ashes looking for coins or cashboxes that might have survived the holocaust, for there not a building had been spared.

The tall hills that only a few days before had sparkled with light and re flected the rising sun so cheerfully from their thousands of white clapboard houses were now somberly black, but not dead; indeed they had taken on a strange and grim majesty, and the still half-naked citizens, soot-blackened and homeless, greeted the ruin as they had always greeted their city. Had the world ever seen such a sight before? Go elsewhere? Live in another place? Be damned if they would!

The next day, it rained, and the fire was out for good. A week later, teams were hauling the rubble down the steep hills and

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dumping it into the bay. Tents sprang up on the blackened lots.

Thousands of ordinary citi zens joined in the effort of clearing the rubble, and cots appeared in the foundations of burned houses with makeshift lean-tos to keep out the weather. Men who had never handled a hammer or saw before turned car penter. For almost nine weeks, the shattered city, known not only as the “Queen of the Pacifìc” but as the “queen of larceny” as well, entered into a period of benign brotherhood, common effort, good humor, and goodwill; and during this time, crime almost disap peared from the streets of San Francisco. Money in the form of relief as well as paid insurance poured into the city, and every out-of-work carpenter and mason from a thousand miles around descended upon it. Ships loaded with food made the journey across the bay from Oak land and from southern California and from the states of Washington and Oregon, and the common kitchens and the breadlines were orderly and good-humored.

And then, as the rebuilt city began to take shape, people re-verted to the habits of civilization. The total destruction of Chinatown had given the Oriental popu lation of the city a brief respite from that peculiar racial hatred that marked this city. For a matter of weeks, whites were kind to the Chinese. That came to an end. For three weeks, San Francisco was a city without saloons or prostitutes; that too came to an end, and no where in the city was that marvelous American aptitude for organization and construction better exhibited than in that area which had once been the Barbary Coast. Within three months after the great fire, almost a thou sand saloons and whorehouses had risen, phoenix-like, out of the ashes. At the same time charges were brought against Abe Ruef, the city boss, and Mayor Schmitz, his friend and co-worker, that, in taking advantage of the earthquake and fire, they had granted monopolies in transportation and utilities in return for enormous bribes.

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Life had returned to normal in San Francisco. City planners had drawn up splendid projections for the re building of the city, holding that never again would a city such as this have such an opportunity to rebuild from ashes. The people ignored the plans; they wanted homes, not Utopia, and if they were warned against the conse-quences of pushing a million tons of rubble into the bay—well, where else could it go? The city mush roomed. Rebuilding became a race, and the area around Powell and Market earned the name of the “up town Tenderloin” with an overnight, jerry-built creation of saloons, restaurants, and music halls. The cable cars were put back into service, and once again they crawled up and down the steep hills. A month after the earth quake, the Orpheum Theatre opened, a month later the Davis Theatre, on McAllister near Fillmore, and then, in reasonably quick succession, the Park Theatre, the Colonial, the Novelty, the American. During the follow ing year, there were seven strikes, the opening of six new banks, and the sentencing of Mayor Eugene Schmitz to five years in San Quentin for corruption.

The city lived again.

And with the passing of the next two years, one might walk from East Street to 20th Street, from Van Ness to Bryant Street, and see no sign or indication that this area had once encompassed the greatest civic trag edy ever to strike an American city.

The year 1910 began with a month that saw the lay ing of the cornerstone of the American Music Hall The atre, on Ellis Street between Stockton and Powell, and in the same month, four other new theaters opened their doors, causing the
San Francisco
Chronicle
to boast that no other city except New York could rival the number or variety of San Francisco’s theaters. The newspaper did not boast that according to the most re cent count, there were over two thousand saloons of one description or another and half as many whorehouses.

Well, that too was a sign of life and vigor. Once again, the great

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jewel of a city sat white and gleaming upon its great hills, with the magnificent blue expanse of the bay beneath it and around it.

For two hours, Feng Wo, a Chinese man in his mid-thirties, had been waiting on the wharf. He was a slender man of medium height, and neatly dressed in an an cient black suit that had been carefully patched and re paired in a dozen places. He wore a white shirt, very clean, and a black tie, and his cracked shoes were polished until they glistened. His dark felt hat was some what large for his close-cropped head, but he wore it with dignity and held himself very straight. He carried a folded newspaper under his arm, and inside he was filled with a desperation that was almost like a sickness. He had not eaten for two days.

He had stationed himself early that morning in front of a two-story shanty built of wood frame and siding, and standing out from the wharf on piles. For all of its crazy-quilt construction, the shanty appeared to be in good repair, and the door of the building, polished red wood with bright brass fittings, gave it an odd distinc tion.

During the two hours since he had arrived there, Feng Wo had studied the building until he felt that he knew every board and beam in its construction.

Now the fishing boats were coming in and tying up and unloading their catch. Feng Wo watched them, glancing from the shanty to the boats and then back to the sign above the door, where in polished brass letters was spelled out: Daniel Lavette Fresh Fish and Crabs. During the two hours he had been there, on the busy wharf crowded with buyers and sellers and fisher men and commission men and market owners, he had spoken to no one and asked no questions. That was only common sense and reasonable caution.

This was 1910 and San Francisco, and he was Chinese. He lived

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and breathed and walked and talked by sufferance, and there was no moment in his life when he was not alert and wary.

Now his eye was caught by three boats coming into the dock in precise, triangular formation, sloop-rigged and under sail with their motors quiet. In the lead boat, a massive hulk of a man, standing in the bow, his black, curly hair blowing in the wind, gave the signal to drop the sails and then leaped onto the wharf with remark able grace and agility. He was a very young man, no more than twenty-one or twenty-two, Feng Wo decided, but with a total air of authority and a sense of knowing precisely what he was about. He made no wasted mo tions, and as the boats tied up, he issued a few terse orders, paused to watch the beginning of the unloading of the catch, and then strode past Feng Wo to the shanty. He carried his oilskin jacket flung over one shoulder and walked with a slight, rather unselfconscious sway and swagger. He had a large head, a heavy face, a small nose, and a wide, sensual mouth—a face of contradictions, Feng Wo thought, a face which de fined him at one moment thus and the next moment as something else entirely.

At the door to the shanty, he paused and glanced at Feng Wo.

Their eyes met. He studied Feng Wo carefully from head to foot, then took keys out of his pocket, opened the door, entered, and closed the door behind him.

Feng Wo sighed deeply and thought, “No use. No use at all.”

Still he had spent better than two hours here and he had no other place to go. He went to the door of the shanty, took off his hat, and knocked.

Silence, then steps, then the door swung open, and the tall man stood there, towering over Feng Wo.

“Well?”

“You are Mr. Daniel Lavette?”

“Yes.”

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“Please, sir, with all humility, may I announce that my name is Feng Wo. I am thirty-four years old and in good health, and I am a bookkeeper.”

“What the hell—”

“Please, sir, please do not send me away without hearing my argument. Here in the news”—he held out the paper—“where I read your advertisement.”

“The ad says 4 p.m.”

“And I am Chinese.”

“You sure as hell are,” Lavette agreed.

“And if I appeared at four, as the advertisement says, there would be ten Caucasians here. Then who would hire a Chinese bookkeeper?”

“Only a horse’s ass, which I am not.” He turned away, beginning the process of closing the door in Feng Wo’s face.

“Please, Mr. Lavette, I beseech you. I have not eaten today or yesterday.” The words flooded out. “I have a wife, I have a daughter of thirteen years. Give me a chance. I am honest. I will work any hours you choose. Pay me what you will. Please, please, I beg you.”

The door opened again, and Dan Lavette stood there, staring at him. Moments passed. Feng Wo was acutely conscious of all that his world contained, the warm sun, the salty wind from the bay, the fishermen hawking their catch and calling their prices, and the tall young man in front of him.

“What did you say your name was?”

“Feng Wo, Mr. Lavette.”

“Where did you learn to keep books?”

“I taught myself, sir.”

“Do you know what a ledger is?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Do you know what double entry is? Have you ever worked with a twelve-column analysis book?”

“I am not stupid, sir. I can learn anything you wish me to.”

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“I ought to have my head examined,” Lavette said. “I swear I ought to. All right, come on in.”

Feng Wo followed him into the shanty, trembling now, unable to believe that it was actually happening. Inside the door was a single large room, a rolltop desk, a kitchen table and chairs, a three-drawer wooden filing cabinet, and a rack from which hung two big sea slick-ers, to which Lavette added his oilskin jacket. On the walls a calendar, an enormous stuffed fish, an old-fashioned whaling harpoon, and a shelf of canned goods. A small gas stove and a coffee pot completed the furnishings. A narrow staircase led up to the second floor.

“I live up there,” Lavette said, indicating the stair case. “This is the office.” He pulled a chair out from the table. “Sit down.

What the hell do I call you?” he asked as Feng Wo seated himself.

“Feng—Feng Wo?”

“As you wish, sir.”

“Feng—all right, Feng then.” He pulled open one of the file drawers and took out a plate and a fork and spoon and a can opener.

“I don’t know what a Chink eats. How about canned beans?”

“I am not here to eat. Please, sir, I am here to work.”

“Bullshit,” Lavette said, as he opened a can of beans and set it to warm on the gas stove. “You’re shaking like a leaf. You ever work for a white man before?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where did you work?”

“I did coolie work on construction, pick and shovel. Then I got sick. I hurt my back. I tried pick and shovel again—I can’t.”

“I’d give you beer, but that’s no good if you’re starved. Can you drink coffee?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lavette emptied the half-warmed can of beans into the plate and set it in front of Feng Wo. He poured him a mug of coffee, and then sat down to face him as he ate. The beans were like honey in

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Feng Wo’s mouth, and he fought for control, fought to eat slowly and po litely, recalling with each mouthful that his wife and daughter had also not tasted food for two days.

“So you want to be a bookkeeper,” Lavette said. “Well, screw the lot of them. Why in hell shouldn’t I hire a Chink? Let them burn their asses. But let me tell you this, Mr. Feng—I’m no soft touch. If you can’t do it, I’ll boot you out of here on your yellow backside. I may look young and innocent, but I take no horseshit from anyone. I got three boats and eleven men on my payroll, so this job is no cinch. Now I want you to shape up here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. I’m not going out with the boats, and if you are what you say you are, we’ll spend the day trying to make some sense out of my books.”

Feng Wo had finished eating. He rose, picking up his hat and his newspaper. “I would try to thank you, Mr. Lavette, but I don’t know what to say. I am so grate ful.”

He turned and started for the door.

“Hold on!”

He paused and slowly faced Lavette, who said to himself,
My
God, the poor bastard’s terrified
. And then aloud, “Don’t you want to know what I pay?”

“Whatever you pay will be sufficient.”