Mona Lisa

by Julie Peterson Freeman

Nat King Cole is singing Mona Lisa on the 33-rpm record spinning on the portable record player the day I walk into Gim Loong Chow Mein at 4948 France Ave. South in Edina, Minnesota.  Wearing a yellow poplin Doris Day shirtwaist with a full pleated skirt, I am fourteen years-old and applying for my first job.  The Chinese takeout restaurant has a large rectangular shaped kitchen with a walk-in cooler and long industrial stove top that houses three prodigious woks for orders cooked from scratch.  In the center of the room is an extended warming table that simmers copious amounts of pork chow mein in oblong containers.  Through the swinging door, there's a small waiting room as one enters through the front door.

“Okay, Jurie, you come in tomorrow after school, and I have girl train you in,” says Robert Huie, a young Asian man dressed in food-stained, starched whites from head to toe.

“Okay.  Thank you, Mr Huie,” I reply.  There is no interview.  I am hired on the spot.

Thus begins my job of four years working seven days a week for a dollar an hour at Gim Loong Chinese takeout.

Peggy Garven, a senior from Edina with a kind of Amy Winehouse vibe, is the National Indoor and Outdoor Speed Skating Champion from 1961.  She is also the girl who trains me how to take orders by phone, scoop chow mein from large vats into oyster cartons, and ring up customers in the front waiting room.  I am in awe when Peggy’s boyfriend, a handsome boy who goes to De La Salle, comes to pick her up for dates.

“Beware of Robert’s ex-wife and their two little boys when they come in,” warns Peggy, her teased raven updo securely sprayed in place.  “She is the Chinese Witch of the West and the little boys act like those nasty monkeys.”

I make a point to not take negative talk about others as fact until I’ve had a chance to meet them myself.  Surely Robert’s little boys can’t be that bad.

“Da da da duh da da dah da da duh da da dah,” sings Jack, the celery boy, to Miss Gulch’s signature tune from The Wizard of Oz.  June Huie strides through the back door, followed by two miniature Roberts scurrying behind.

“Robert, you good for nothing loser of a man, I need money,” cackles June in her piercing nasally voice.  Little Dougie and Brian chase each other around the warming table, knocking over piled-high cartons while throwing candy wrappers on the floor.

“New girl.  Get me a Coke,” demands Dougie.

“Can you say please?” I inquire.

“GET ME A POP,” screams Dougie.

“No, I don’t respond to little boys…”

Peggy walks into the cooler and brings out two cans of Coke for the boys.

“It’s not worth the trouble,” says Peggy handing them each a can.

June continues her tirade.  “Hoi moon chin...”  The rest is in Mandarin, but it is obvious her rant is comprised of hate-filled nastiness.

Robert says nothing.  He simply hands June a stack of bills and goes back to cooking.

After June and the boys leave, I whisper to Peggy. “Geez. Is she always like that?”

“Sometimes worse,” she replies.  “And those little shits make me want to hurl them into a vat of grease.”

“Why does Robert put up with it?  Why does he give her money?”

“He loves her,” replies Peggy.  “I think he thinks he deserves it.  Robert likes to gamble and drink when he’s not working.  And his drag racing on the weekends doesn’t help much, either.”

Peggy graduates from high school that year, and it isn’t long before I take over Gim Loong’s leadership role, sans the teased hair and speed skater thighs.  There is no air conditioning in the back room since the open vats of chow mein have to be kept warm.  In the summertime the temperature in the kitchen is unbearable, so to keep us from suffering heat exhaustion, Robert keeps cases of pop for us to drink in the walk-in cooler.

In the summer of 1966, Robert buys a brand-spanking-new black Chevy Chevelle Super Sport 396.  Having recently passed my behind-the-wheel driver’s test, a pristine State of Minnesota driver’s license rests safely in the wallet in my purse.

“Jurie, you know how to drive stick shift?” asks Robert.

“Yes,” I reply. “Why?” 

“You drive down to Dairy Queen and get us ice cream,” he says, throwing me the keys to his new car.

“Okay,” I answer.  “Is it parked around back?”

“Yes.  I want banana split.  You get what you want.  I pay.”

Demanding to be driven at breakneck speeds, that black beast of steel lurches the nine blocks down 50th to the Dairy Queen.  As I pull in, several of the people with whom I go to school stare in awe.

Hair in a flip, wearing pedal pushers, saddle shoes, and bobby socks, I open the door. Getting out, I wave and shout, “It’s my bosses car.  He races it at Minnesota Dragways.”  I buy Robert’s banana split and a Dilly Bar for me and jerk my way back to Gim Loong.

Friday nights are always busy.  I overhear Robert confirming a cooking order over the phone.

“Okay, you want two order beef, tomato, and green pepper. That be twenty minute,” he says, hanging up the phone.

The phone rings again.

“Okay, you want three order shrimp egg foo young,” says Robert to another customer. “Ready twenty minute.” 

“Robert, stop telling people twenty minutes!” I shout.  “We are too busy, and you cannot get all those cooking orders out in twenty minutes.”

Again the phone rings.  

“Okay, two orders chicken fried rice and two orders chicken egg foo young,” confirms Robert.  “You come twenty minute.” 

There is a swinging door with a window and a mirror set so we can see from the back if someone is in the waiting room.  We are so busy this particular Friday night, the entire waiting room is packed with people waiting for their orders.  Chow mein orders are no problem, as it is premade.  We scoop up the chow mein and white rice into cream colored origami boxes, ring the customers up, and they are on their way.  But the cooking order customers, having waited thirty to forty-five minutes past when Robert said their orders would be ready, are beginning to get frustrated, impatient, and downright aggravated.  One man with an especially large order has been told over and over that it will be just ten more minutes.  When I come out front to ring up an order of chicken chow mein, the cooking order man has been waiting ninety minutes.  He rushes toward me, grabs me by the collar, and pulls me over the counter.

“Where is my GOD DAMN ORDER?” he screams.

Robert slams through the swinging door, meat cleaver in hand shouting, “You get your hand off her!  You get your hand off her!” 

The man, seeing Robert with the meat cleaver raised above his head, lets go of me and storms out the front door.

Back in the kitchen, I am fuming. The next time Robert goes into the walk-in cooler, I slam the big silver door behind him.

“Jurie.  You let me out.  It cold in here.” shouts Robert.

“No, freeze in there, Robert,” I reply.

“Jurie, I cold.  Let me out of here,” demands Robert.

“Are you going to say twenty minute anymore?” I ask.

“No. I promise.  I not say twenty minute anymore, Jurie.”

“Okay, but if you ever say twenty minutes again and people have to wait that long for their orders, you’re going to freeze like a popsicle in there, Robert.”  Then I let him out.  And true to his word, he never says, “twenty minute” when we are busy again.

It is the summer after I graduate from SW High School and the last night I will work at Gim Loong Chow Mein before heading off to the University of Minnesota to study music.

“Jurie, you dance Mona Lisa with me?” asks Robert.

“I like Nature Boy better,” I reply.

“No, Mona Lisa,” counters Robert.  “Mona Lisa my favorite song.”

“Okay, but no funny business, Robert,” I warn.

Robert is a surprisingly good dancer.  He glides me around the back room to Nat Cole’s mesmerizing voice.  I feel unmitigatingly melancholy.

“Robert, Bicycle Built for Two,” I say as the eight o'clock closing time approaches.

“Okay, Jurie,” says Robert. A big smile on his face.

Robert and I hoist ourselves up by our hands between the warming table and the stove edge and move our legs as though we are on a bicycle built for two.  You get a little wacky and familiar when you work together for four years, seven days a week.  I am really going to miss Robert. I’ve grown to love him.

I'm in my second year at the University of Minnesota when I get the call.

“Julie, Robert Huie is dead,” informs my mom.

“Dead?” I reply, shocked beyond words.  “How did he die?” 

“His car went off the I-494 bridge at the Minnehaha Creek crossing,” she explains.

I know better.  Robert is far too good of a driver and the roadways have been dry. He was just thirty-six years old.

I drive my Ford Fairlane highway patrol car (for which I paid $278.00) from my digs at the University of Minnesota to Golden Valley to attend Robert’s funeral.  The sounds of women crying incessantly can be heard from the narthex.  There are six professional wailers up by Robert’s casket.  June, the ex-wife, is right there in the front row.  I give her the stink eye and sit several rows back on the other side of the sanctuary.  

Sanctuary my ass, I’m not feeling unburdened in the least.  The minister doesn’t know a thing about Robert; he just keeps saying garbage like, “I’m sure Robert would have… I’ll bet Robert was this or that…”  The whole thing is extremely aggravating.  At the end of the service, the minister announces there will be a funeral procession to the cemetery and that we are to line up in the church parking lot where there will be a police escort.  

Oh, but that funeral procession is glorious.  All of Robert’s gearhead friends from Minnesota Dragways line up for the procession. There are angry Dodge Chargers, souped up Camaros, screeching Road Runners, and snarling SS Chevelles like Robert’s, all ready to hit the streets.  I’ve never in my life seen so many muscle cars launching at each other’s rear ends.  It is a stellar tribute, and I can’t help but grin at its magnificence.  

That night they serve chow mein at the University of Minnesota dining hall.  I walk out, go to bed, and weep.