An hour before dawn.
Gate up; we have to unlock early. It’s getting rusty. We’ll have to oil it soon or listen to the people above complain. Can you carry this? The keys are in my back pocket.
A click and the door opened soundlessly except for the bells hung from the handle, causing the lights to flicker on from the motion.
You’ll have to keep walking around the main floor to activate the sensors. Otherwise the lights will go, and someone will scream. Somebody always screams – thinks doomsday is here or something else just as hysterical.
The flames lit. The smell of searing spices soon overcame the stench of smoke and gas. By the time the kitchen was operable, the door jangle echoed over the fires.
Good day.
Good day.
Expecting a large crowd today?
Same as usual.
Allright, I’ll be getting ready then.

The trio watched as the first customers filtered in just before dawn. Koreans, Japanese, Filipinos, and Chinese with a few others interspersed. The Oriental labor force. They almost all ordered rice, with a few culture specific dishes taken alongside. They paid well, but tipped little for they had nothing to tip with. Still honor forced off a few quarters onto the trays.
You’ll like them. All of them nice, but they give more than they have. We claim that drinks come free with breakfast, but only for them. Don’t let the others know that, or they’ll start demanding free drinks.

As the sun rose, more and more Caucasians filed in.
Breakfast crowd’s nice. Treat them the same.
And so they were. Frequenters from the rest of the city came in, knowing the kind of food and service to expect. This was an early morning treat, a taste of the exotic East before the humdrum day of work. A few even gave compliments to the chef personally.

The day wore on. The burning spice from the kitchen stung the eyes of any who remained inside for close to an hour. And the lunch crowd complained heavily of it.
These people are different. Watch yourself. They’re from a ways off, come to see the district and more often than not disappointed. They came to see us like a zoo and instead met humans. They’ll likely take it out on the shopkeepers, but if they can’t, they get us.
The normal clatter of dishes and utensils dimmed to be replaced by the whining of bratty children and disgruntled wives.
An obese couple at the counter continually bickered about the odd flavor of their coffee.
An old man with a beard so old that the hair ends were fraying like yarn went on about eating a bug.
How do you know it was a bug?
It stung my tongue. Burned like Hell itself.
No use telling him it was a pepper. He won’t believe you and still demand his money back. Normally I pretend not to speak English well with people like this and they end up still paying, but in tough cases like this I have to stop cooking and talk with him, because he demands to see the manager. Me.
A man at the back asked for a soda. His four year old daughter was bawling her eyes red, clutching a pair of chopsticks in her hand.
Her slightly younger brother looked wide-eyed at her. And she – taking a role of authority – mimicked a stock pair of chopsticks being snapped apart, then gave a deafening screetch, followed by her brother.
Better make that two sodas.
We don’t have any sodas.
C’mon, you must! They won’t calm down until they get some.
I’m sorry, we don’t.

The couple at the counter sat and muttered until their throats had burned out, about four hours time. By then, the dwindling stream of customers became mixed with children let out from school who came to chat with one another or buy rice candy from a bowl next to the register.
When the teenagers start arriving, lock the bathrooms. There’s a sign saying “out of order” by the freezer; hang it over the doors. It\'ll keep you from having to scrape or paint away graffiti three times a week.
A group of tough high schoolers sat in the middle of the dining floor joking about all the stupid Easterners they’d intimidated or fought with.
This is Chinatown, the best place to brag about how much better we are than those damned Orientals. White Power, neonazis.
Please, can you spare a quarter from the register.
No, I can’t. I’m sorry.
Please, just a dime, it’s all I need.
It’d be stealing. I can’t do it. If you’re hungry, come back at closing time. We’ll have leftovers you can take.
No. Thanks. I’ll be fine.
You handled that well, especially for your first time. The kid’s a junkie. Could be heroin, could be coke, maybe something else. Did you see his eyes? He’s getting desperate. Might break into an apartment soon, or mug somebody.
And you never know what to do with them either. Do you give them money and postpone the inevitable or hold it back and bring it a little quicker?
The inevitable? It’s always something. Suicide, rape, murder… ends in death or a lengthy jail sentence (not that those are much good these days), and brings the cops around day and night for weeks. I think they want to find something better for the newspapers than “died by overdose”.
A few make it out, but not him. He’s in too deep. Best forget about it. Nothing we can do. Not now.
But you did good offering him food. More courage than I have.

The evening crowd was different. Much nicer. They all knew the rules and a few knew the etiquette of different cultures, so the waitress didn’t wince as often from customers stabbing their food with their chopsticks or sticking them vertically in their rice.
When the sun had set, the workers of Chinatown returned for dinner. They ate quietly beside the remaining tourists, wolfing down yakisoba and chop suey before returning home, some taking leftovers with them to fill the tiny stomachs of their children.
The stars came out and danced light in places where the lampposts had either yet to turn on or had not been turned on in years. The steam from the kitchen unfurled itself into the street from where it had been vented, bringing with it the saliva-inducing sweetness from the kitchen.
It’s getting late.
I know.
A thin yet steady stream of dirty, lean workers kept the three busy. Order, cook, bus. Try to ignore the moaning and weeping on the streets, drown it out in work. Choruses of urchins in the streets. All the denizens of the night converging on the fluorescent lights of the café.
A single scream split the crowd, sending them fleeing in all directions. No one knew where it had come from, except the men inside, who remembered the boy who begged for the tiniest coin but wouldn’t take a scrap of food.

A sullen-faced Filipino dropped a dime next to his tea cup and waved goodbye.
That’s it. No more today. Close up.
The lights and ventilation flickered and died, leaving the spiced air to sort itself out through tiny cracks in the windows. The tables reflected the moonlight as perfectly as they did every night.
See you both same time tomorrow? Good.
Gate down. A window banging open and curses in many tongues flowing down onto the pavement. Might have to oil it some day.
Just a few hours before dawn.