Chinatown owned and planned by the Chinese themselves, home now to more than fifteen thousand people of Asian heritage. In recent years it has begun to attract artists and young professionals of all races, and has become a hip place to live.
The Chinatown of LA is about the thriving avant-garde mix of people who make it their home, who live and work there. The streets are lined with meat markets with duck carcasses hanging in the front window, fish markets where the fishmongers wield razor-sharp knives, and places to buy herbs and medicinal cures that the Chinese have been using for thousands of years. Signs in windows are written in Chinese. The primary language spoken is Chinese in a multitude of dialects. But alongside the traditional Chinese shops are contemporary art galleries, and boutiques, and yoga schools.
Jace had moved himself and Tyler to Chinatown after their mother died. They had dumped their meager possessions in a couple of laundry bags pilfered from the back of a delivery truck parked behind a restaurant, and jumped on a bus. Every evening when he returned to Chinatown, Jace recalled the day he had led his brother by the hand beneath the Gate of Filial Piety and to a place no one would ever come looking for them.
Alicia Damon had died as a Jane Doe in Good Samaritan Hospital. Jace knew this because he had taken her to the emergency room himself, “borrowing” the car of a junkie neighbor who was too wasted to notice the scrawny kid next door taking his keys.
His mother had not given the admissions clerk her name or address. She had not allowed Jace to appear to be with her, or to attract attention to himself in any way, or to give anyone his name or tell anyone where they lived.
Alicia had trusted no one in any position of authority, her greatest fear being the Children and Family Services people, who had the power to take her sons away from her. What little mail they got came to a rented box, never to whatever crappy apartment they were living in at the time. They had no phone. Jace had been registered in public school under the name John Charles Jameson. They lived on what money Alicia could make at menial jobs that paid cash, and on a Social Security check that came monthly, made out to Allison Jennings.
They had no family friends. Jace had never brought any school friends home with him. He had never met his father, or even seen a photograph of him. When he was younger, he had asked why, but he had stopped asking by the time he was six, because it upset his mother so much that she would go into another room and cry.
He had an idea who Tyler’s dad might be—a bartender from a dive his mother had worked at briefly. He had seen the guy a couple of times because he had secretly followed his mother to work, afraid to stay alone in the room they were renting at the time. Twice he had seen them through a window, kissing after everyone else had gone from the bar. Then suddenly the Damons picked up and moved to another part of the city. Some months later, Tyler was born. Jace had never seen the bartender again.
Whenever Jace had asked for an explanation about the way they lived, Alicia would only reply: “You can’t be too careful.”
Jace had taken her at her word. After her death, he had made no claim on his mother’s body, because people would ask questions, and questions were never a good thing. He had been just thirteen at the time, and knew without having to be told that Children and Family Services would swoop in like hawks and he and Tyler would be put into foster care, probably not even together.
There was no money for a funeral anyway. And besides, the mother he and Tyler had known was gone. The dead body had nothing really to do with who she had been and would never be again. And so the body had been shipped off to the LA County Coroner’s building to be stored in the morgue with the other three hundred or so Jane and John Does that came in every year, waiting in vain for someone to
The Chinatown of LA is about the thriving avant-garde mix of people who make it their home, who live and work there. The streets are lined with meat markets with duck carcasses hanging in the front window, fish markets where the fishmongers wield razor-sharp knives, and places to buy herbs and medicinal cures that the Chinese have been using for thousands of years. Signs in windows are written in Chinese. The primary language spoken is Chinese in a multitude of dialects. But alongside the traditional Chinese shops are contemporary art galleries, and boutiques, and yoga schools.
Jace had moved himself and Tyler to Chinatown after their mother died. They had dumped their meager possessions in a couple of laundry bags pilfered from the back of a delivery truck parked behind a restaurant, and jumped on a bus. Every evening when he returned to Chinatown, Jace recalled the day he had led his brother by the hand beneath the Gate of Filial Piety and to a place no one would ever come looking for them.
Alicia Damon had died as a Jane Doe in Good Samaritan Hospital. Jace knew this because he had taken her to the emergency room himself, “borrowing” the car of a junkie neighbor who was too wasted to notice the scrawny kid next door taking his keys.
His mother had not given the admissions clerk her name or address. She had not allowed Jace to appear to be with her, or to attract attention to himself in any way, or to give anyone his name or tell anyone where they lived.
Alicia had trusted no one in any position of authority, her greatest fear being the Children and Family Services people, who had the power to take her sons away from her. What little mail they got came to a rented box, never to whatever crappy apartment they were living in at the time. They had no phone. Jace had been registered in public school under the name John Charles Jameson. They lived on what money Alicia could make at menial jobs that paid cash, and on a Social Security check that came monthly, made out to Allison Jennings.
They had no family friends. Jace had never brought any school friends home with him. He had never met his father, or even seen a photograph of him. When he was younger, he had asked why, but he had stopped asking by the time he was six, because it upset his mother so much that she would go into another room and cry.
He had an idea who Tyler’s dad might be—a bartender from a dive his mother had worked at briefly. He had seen the guy a couple of times because he had secretly followed his mother to work, afraid to stay alone in the room they were renting at the time. Twice he had seen them through a window, kissing after everyone else had gone from the bar. Then suddenly the Damons picked up and moved to another part of the city. Some months later, Tyler was born. Jace had never seen the bartender again.
Whenever Jace had asked for an explanation about the way they lived, Alicia would only reply: “You can’t be too careful.”
Jace had taken her at her word. After her death, he had made no claim on his mother’s body, because people would ask questions, and questions were never a good thing. He had been just thirteen at the time, and knew without having to be told that Children and Family Services would swoop in like hawks and he and Tyler would be put into foster care, probably not even together.
There was no money for a funeral anyway. And besides, the mother he and Tyler had known was gone. The dead body had nothing really to do with who she had been and would never be again. And so the body had been shipped off to the LA County Coroner’s building to be stored in the morgue with the other three hundred or so Jane and John Does that came in every year, waiting in vain for someone to
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