Chapter 9 Sadie #2
As far as she could tell, the records indicated that the lot in Ms. Lina’s proposal was a government-owned property, and had been so since 1980, at least—owned, at various times, by the federal government, the city of New York, and the Central Brooklyn Model Cities project.
But what about before 1980?
8/9/1978
DEED DUN HO WONG
78 LIVONIA AVE LLC
2/3/1967
DEED ARNOLD COHEN
DUN HO WONG
Dun Ho Wong.
Immediately, she thought of Mr. William from the 99 Cents store.
Wong, the landlord.
Sadie threw open her bedroom door and, with her laptop in her arms, raced downstairs to speak with her father. He wasn’t there, but Sadie found her mother sitting on the stoop with a bowl of candy in her lap, engulfed in a tidal wave of Elsas and Luke Skywalkers.
“You’re home!” Her mother laughed, surprised to see her. “I thought you were out with friends.”
Sadie waited for the kids to disperse.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He went to the fish store. We were thinking salmon for dinner.”
Sadie craned her neck down the block, hoping she could see her father among all the trick-or-treaters. “Are you all right?” her mother asked.
“I need to talk to him. Can’t we just order in?” Sadie grumbled. “Why do we always have to have an elaborate home-cooked meal?”
With no choice but to wait for him, Sadie plunked herself down on the stoop, grabbed two Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups from the candy bowl, unwrapped them, and popped them in her mouth.
Her mother mused, “I’ve been out here for ten minutes, and I’ve already gone through two bags of candy.”
Like usual, her mom wore jeans and an old sweater, her graying hair parted evenly in the middle. This evening, however, there was a red zigzag on her forehead and masking tape on the bridge of her glasses.
“Are you supposed to be Harry Potter?”
“Correct!”
“You should tie your hair back.”
“I couldn’t find my scrunchies.”
Sadie handed over one of the hair ties on her wrist. Her mom, who taught fiction at The New School, had never been interested in material things. She was more like a flower shedding petals, maturing naturally and without a care.
At that moment, another wave of children arrived, but this time most of them lacked costumes, though a few wore cheap plastic masks.
Sadie helped her mother hand out the candy, and she knew a younger version of herself would have looked at these kids with disdain: How can you go trick-or-treating without a costume?
Yet it was the adult version of Sadie, the reporter, who saw them now, who discerned they were not from Park Slope.
At last, she spotted her father among the trick-or-treaters. A lump of fish swung in the bag on his arm.
“Dad!” she called as soon as he was in earshot. “Who is Dun Ho Wong?”
“Your grandfather.”
“What?” Sadie jumped up from the stoop.
“My father,” he said. “What’s the matter?”
“But I thought his name was Richard Chin!”
“He was born a Chin. Then in the States we had the fake name Wong, so his legal name here was Dun Ho Wong. He went by Richard Wong for decades.” He ascended the stoop. “I told you that Wong was our fake name, right?”
“Our fake name?” Sadie hugged her laptop. “What do you mean, fake name?”
“Come.” He opened the front door and motioned her through it.
Leaving the fish on the counter, her father crossed to a bookshelf in the living room and selected a green folder.
The papers were yellow and brittle with age.
“Your name is Jason Wong?”
“Under the Chinese Exclusion Acts, they only let a Chinese person over if their father was here. My grandfather pretended to be someone else’s son—to be a Wong. So, my dad became a Wong, and I was born a Wong, and then when I was a kid, we went to a government office and changed it back to Chin.”
“Did you also know we were landlords?”
Rocking his head from side to side, he moved toward the kitchen and selected a cutting board. “Landlords? I guess you could say that.”
“You guess?”
The smell of the salmon sickened her.
“So my parents owned a house on Amboy Street. The restaurant was on Livonia and there was a landlord we called Mr. Cohen. And then after we closed the restaurant and moved to East Flatbush, my father bought the restaurant building and rented it to tenants for a few years. So, I guess you could say he was a landlord.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? When I told you about that man who said there was a murderer named Mr. Wong in Brownsville?”
“But you didn’t give me the name of the murderer. You just said he was Chinese.”
“He was talking about your dad!”
Her father’s brow furrowed. He rinsed his hands in the sink, dried them, then leaned his back against the counter.
“You’re saying this man thought my dad was a murderer?”
“Yes!”
“Well, we know that isn’t true.”
“Do you know that for sure?”
“My dad was screwed up in a lot of ways, but he wasn’t a murderer.”
He turned to the refrigerator and removed the soy sauce and hoisin.
“You’re not going to do anything about it?”
“I mean, you’re the journalist, Sadie.” He was facing the fridge as if looking for another ingredient. “Do you assume everything you hear is true?”
“You have to tell me everything you remember about your dad’s time as a landlord.”
“There’s not much to tell you. It was a money-losing venture for him. So he sold the restaurant building, and that was the end of it.”
She waited for her father to say more, but instead, he turned to the stove and added oil to the wok. He refused to think or speak about his childhood, and now it was standing in the way of understanding what had happened to the people of Brownsville.
“When I see something that troubles me, I look at it,” Sadie snapped. “I’m not like you—I don’t run away.”
Sadie shut her laptop and marched up the stairs. She heard her father calling her name and ignored him. If he was going to be so indifferent, she would figure things out on her own.
With the bedroom door closed, Sadie searched in ACRIS and found 80 Livonia had a very similar deed history to 78 Livonia. She would call Ngen Ngen to ask follow-up questions, then go downtown to look at the Fire Records.
Her phone vibrated. Sadie groaned, assuming it was her mother trying to coax her downstairs to talk things over.
But it was Tyrell.
Sadie, whats up?
She answered as quickly as she could.
Nothing really, you?
She found herself hoping for some sort of personal invitation.
U in the Ville?
I can get there if u want me to.
No a lot of shit goes down Halloween.
I wanted to let u know cuz ur not from here.
For ur own safety don’t come to Brownsville tonight.
Got it. Thanks.
He didn’t want her to be there, she thought. He thought she couldn’t handle whatever was “going down.” But he also wanted to protect her. That meant that he cared about her well-being on some level, right?
Sadie wondered if she should tell him anything about her conversation with her father.
Hey Tyrell. What would u guys think about an article on the history of the lot on Livonia? Maybe I can interview Ms. Lina and then write a feature.
Sounds dope.
I’ll ask Ms. Lina when I see her.