Fresh Off the Boat Read Online Free Page A

ended it in the basement. The illness was terminal; the pain was too much. My mother told me what happened, but none of the other cousins knew. I don’t know why she told me, but there’s no reason not to. I dealt with it. Quietly. And didn’t speak a word of it to anyone, not even my brothers. I had a feeling my family would never be the same without Grandpa at the top. I remember when my grandma died years later, everyone was hysterical, crying, loudly mourning. With Grandpa, it was silence. I can’t say why; maybe it had to do with the suicide. Or perhaps we knew he didn’t want anyone to cry for him. He never really needed our sympathy. Or maybe everyone was worried about themselves. Mind on the money.
    What happened after is “adult business.” Suffice to say, primogeniture was alive and well in 1980s Chinese families. My father decided not to work for Uncle Tai managing the furniture store after Grandpa passed. My dad had loved Grandpa and he always says that Grandpa was his best friend. But Dad was a grown-ass man; he never would have taken orders from anybody but my grandpa. So when my grandpa passed, he went solo. Mom loved her family, but she understood why my dad struck outon his own. My dad opened up his own store in the Fair Oaks Mall. He became the first Thomasville furniture dealer in Virginia.
    Coming over as a broke Taiwanese immigrant, he was really proud of himself and I was, too. He somehow saved up enough to get the shop going, but things went south quick. Within two years, the store folded and my dad left home. My parents were constantly fighting, because we had lost everything and the court froze our bank account. For a while, it looked like my parents might even get separated. It was one of the worst times in my life. Even as a seven-year-old, I knew exactly what was going on.
    The winter of 1989 was the worst. My father decided to take a new chance to make it happen for himself in America. He left the DMV and went down south to Orlando with his friend Lao Zhou, where he got a job as a line cook at Steak ’n Ale and L&N Seafood. He wasn’t really trying to kick off a career as a line cook. What he wanted to do was get into the restaurant business. He knew some people who would help him get on his feet, and restaurants were going up all over the place in Orlando. Landlords would give you a restaurant with no key money and three months free rent if you’d sign a lease. It was a theme-park and sunshine-fueled boomtown. After working a few weeks as a line cook, taking notes and watching how they set up the operation, my dad signed on his own spot: Atlantic Bay Seafood.
    I couldn’t believe it. One second we had a frozen bank account and no furniture store; the next, my dad had gone down south and he and Lao Zhou had a restaurant. Mom wasn’t convinced by Dad’s reports. She kept us back in Virginia while she went to go visit Dad, to make sure he really was a success. It was Thanksgiving weekend. #4 Aunt moved in to babysit us for the week and all we ate was Domino’s Pizza every single day. For years after that, I didn’t want to see another fucking Domino’s Pizza box ever again. She wouldn’t let us play video games and we weren’t allowed to go outside or stay up past 9 P.M .
    One night, I crept out of my room. I usually never did that, because we lived in a one-story house with a long hallway that looked like it had no end and I was scared of the dark. There was one night-light on the right side so I put one hand against the wall, held my breath, and walked toward thelight. I got to the living room, turned on the television, and put it on mute so #4 Aunt wouldn’t wake up. Surrounded by Domino’s boxes, I watched the news and they kept talking about this wall coming down. On either side, people were going nuts. Some were banging on the wall, they were holding signs, others climbed on top of the wall. I saw families. I knew they were families, because they were embracing, hugging,