NUMBER ONE SON

                        by MONFOON  LEONG
                      

                 A YOUNG MAN MAKES HIS DECISION

     In the Oriental culture into which Ming was born, the oldest
     son traditionally accepted the full burden of supporting the
     family should anything happen to the father.  It was not a
     matter of choice but a matter of custom.  Age was respected,
     and youth did not question.  What benefits and drawbacks can
     you see in such a system?


Write these questions down on a piece of paper.  Answer them as
you find information in the story.

1.   What did Ming's father do for a living? 
2.   Where does Ming work? 
3.   How does Ming feel upon learning of his father's death?
4.   Why hadn't Ming's mother called him as soon as his father
     died?
5.   Why do Ming and Grandfather Choak go to see neighbors and
     business people?
6.   How do the opinions of Kwon Kim, Mr. Chung, and the Widow
     Loo contrast with regard to Ming's father?
7.   What are the good and bad points of being the number one
     son?

                         NUMBER ONE SON

                        by MONFOON  LEONG
                    

                 A YOUNG MAN MAKES HIS DECISION

     In a few minutes Ming would be home. Slumped in his seat, he
glared out of the window as the suburban bus jerked and shook its
way through the downtown traffic. The usual hurrying shoppers
pushed along, arms filled with packages. The usual harried
policemen watched over the intersections. The usual drivers
inched through the crowds to make their turns. All were
preoccupied with the business of shopping for Christmas.
     Ming wondered, and reproached himself even as he wondered,
if he really cared any more than those strangers did that his
father had died. This father of his had been little more than an
old man with iron-gray hair that he saw occasionally on his
Sunday trips home. Then it was nearly always only, "Hello, Pa,"
answered by an almost inaudible grunt as the old man hurried in
from the restaurant to spend his two-hour rest period in bed. The
dishwashing was bad for his rheumatism, Ming had heard him say
many times, but you had to work when there were six children and
a woman to feed. Really, there were only five since Ming was out
working as a houseboy, but Ming had never corrected him. Now he
was dead.
     Ming braced himself against the window ledge as the bus
turned a corner and headed toward Chinatown. He wondered if Mrs.
Warner would be able to take care of the house and the twins
without him. The twins, a pair of hellions, were only eight, but
they were nearly as tall as Ming, and he was fifteen. He had
planned to teach them to play football. There was always a time
right after school before he had to start helping with the
preparation of dinner. He saw again the three square boxes
already under their Christmas tree. Two helmets and a football,
probably. He caught himself wishing that his father could buy him
a football helmet and he shut the Warners from his mind. His
father could never buy him anything. He should be grieving, but
all he could feel was a harsh resentment against the man who had
been hardly aware of his existence and who had just left him with
a family to support.
     He deposited a dime in the coin box and got off the bus to
walk the one block to his home. A half dozen of the neighborhood
boys were playing football in the street. They stopped their
playing to let a car go by and saw Ming.
     One of the boys yelled, "Come on-" but stopped short when
one of the others whispered fiercely into his ear. Ming raised
his hand in greeting, but said nothing. They very carefully
ignored him and started playing again.
     "Home" for Ming was in a long, one-story building running
the entire length of the block. Set at regular intervals in the
once whitewashed plaster wall that faced the street were screen
doors, each flanked by a large, screened window. Most of the
screens were brown with rust and sagging gently in their frames.
Ming stopped at the third door from the corner and pulled it
open. He stepped directly into his front room, for the heavy
inner door was open.
     The entire family was in the small room. He knew that his
mother must have gathered them together to await his coming. On
the worn, faded couch that squatted in front of the window sat
his brothers, the three youngest of the family. All three turned
identically serious faces toward him as he walked in, faces whose
subdued quality was strained and unfamiliar, almost ludicrous.
The younger of his sisters, sitting near the end of the couch in
a straight-backed chair with her thin, brown legs wrapped around
those of the chair, looked as if she were about to burst into
tears. The other was seated with their mother opposite the boys.
She held her mother's hand in both of hers and was looking
anxiously up into her face.
     His mother's eyes were dull with a lifeless opaqueness,
their lids red and puffy. Her fleshless cheeks were tightly
drawn, her lips set in a line of resignation. Ming wanted to run
to his mother, to throw his arms around her to ease the pain of
her grief, but his Chinese childhood and years of working as a
houseboy had taught him to restrain his impulses. If he did hold
her in his arms, he would not know what to say to console her. He
did not know the proper Chinese words. He took a few steps toward
her and stood mute for a few moments, searching for something to
say. Then he said quietly and deliberately in his mother's
Cantonese dialect, "Papa ... when die?"
     She opened her mouth, closed it again and swallowed hard,
then said hoarsely, "Last night. I wait till morning to call you.
Not want to wake up your boss."
     Poor mother, Ming thought. Afraid he'd lose his job? The pay
wouldn't be enough to take care of the family. He said, "Papa is
where now?"
     "At funeral parlor. Last night they took him there."
     "Did you not call doctor?"
     "Papa died before he came. Doctor said, heart had something
wrong." She paused, then added, "Papa gone now, Ming. You are
number one son, now head of family."
     She needn't have told Ming that. He had heard often of the
old custom. Even his mother was to abide by his decisions now. He
looked around at his brothers and sisters and felt the circle
closing in about his life, tying it in chains of traditional
responsibility. He felt his jaw tighten.
     It was his father who had begotten this big brood, his
father who could earn barely enough to keep them alive, his
father who had left the empty rice bowls for him to fill, his
father who had given him nothing. He wanted to curse his father
and did not dare. There would be no more school for him. He would
have to work full time now to support his father's children. He
had been told in school that his I.Q. was high. What good was a
high I.Q. when he would not be able to finish high school, much
less even dream of college? Damn the Chinese custom. He was an
American. He had the right to leave the family and pursue his own
happiness.
     "Ming?" The voice at the door was a familiar one.
     "Come in, Grandfather Choak," he said, trying to hide the
tremor in his voice.
     The door opened with a creak and a short, round man entered.
He looked like nothing more or less than a Buddha in an American
business suit. Ming had always called the man "Grandfather"
although they were not actually related in any way. It was
customary because he was of the same clan as Ming's mother and
had come from the same village in China. To Ming, he had always
been no less than a real grandfather.
     The old man glanced quickly at all the family, but addressed
himself only to Ming in his mother's dialect. "Ming," he said
very solemnly, "Your father leave no money. We must get money
from friends for funeral. You come with me."
     "I must go?" Ming started to turn toward his mother as he
said it.
     "You are head of family," Grandfather Choak said.
     Ming started to frame a denial, but under Grandfather
Choak's placid gaze, he stopped himself and said, "Yes, I go with
you." He followed the old man to the door, but stopped and said,
"My Chinese not very good. I won't know what to say to people."
     "I talk for you."
     They stopped first at Kwon Kim's herb store. Kwon Kim was
weighing out some bear gall for a customer. Ming watched the
wizened old herbalist behind the counter as he carefully placed a
whole gall bladder on the pan of his balance and peered over his
glasses to read the weight. Ming remembered that Kwon Kim had
always grumbled when the kids had come in the store to beg for
the sweet prunes that were kept in a huge jar on the counter.
They were only to be used by his customers to take the bitter
taste of his herb teas from their mouths, Kwon Kim had said. The
memory of the man's miserliness made Ming very uneasy and he
found himself wishing that Grandfather Choak had decided to start
with someone else.
     When Kwon Kim had finished with his customer, he turned to
Ming and Grandfather Choak. He clucked his tongue and said, "Very
sorry your father pass beyond, Ming. Leave big family for you."
     Ming strained for the words to reply. Grandfather Choak
cleared his throat and said, "Father of Ming leave no money,
Kim."
     The herbalist cocked his head over to one side for a moment
as if to let the statement drain from his ear to his mind. Then,
without a word, he pulled out a drawer behind the counter, picked
up a bill, and dropped it on the counter, shaking his head and
muttering, "Too bad. Too bad."
     While Grandfather Choak pulled a pencil and a tablet of rice
paper from his coat pocket and started writing some characters in
the tablet, Ming stared at the bill on the counter. It was a
twenty. And Grandfather Choak had not even asked Kwon Kim for
money. Kwon Kim was speaking.
     "Father of Ming was good father," he said. "Every day I saw
him go by carrying bag of cakes for children."
     It was true. Ming had forgotten. His father had unfailingly
brought home a bag of cakes from the restaurant when he returned
for his afternoon nap. But they couldn't live on those cakes now.
     He thanked Kwon Kim and followed Grandfather Choak out. The
Buddha-like man waddled down the street with Ming at his side and
turned into a new, self-service grocery. Flaunting its modernity,
shiny gold letters on the big front window announced, "Chung's
Super Market." Grandfather Choak went directly to the well-fed
looking young man who was presiding over the cash register. There
was no mistaking the Mr. Chung of "Chung's Super Market."
     Before Grandfather Choak had finished telling of the need of
Ming's family, Mr. Chung snorted, "Man is fool to have such big
family when cannot make enough money for them." He looked hard at
Ming. "Young man must face truth about father. He was failure as
father and failure as man. Must depend on others even when he is
dead. I would be fool to give money."
     Ming felt his heart pounding in his throat and choking him
and his fists doubled up, ready to lash out at the face with its
upper lip curled over white teeth in a self-righteous grimace. He
sucked in his breath with a sob when Grandfather Choak took his
arm and said, "Come."
     As they turned to go, Chung said, "Wait," rang up a "No
Sale" on the register and drew out a five-dollar bill which he
tossed on the counter. "Here."
     Grandfather Choak picked it up without a word and made a
note in his tablet.
     "Don't take it, Grandfather Choak," Ming forced out through
his clenched teeth.
     "Must pay for funeral, Ming." He put a hand on Ming's
shoulder before he could say anything more and urged him out of
the store.
     On the sidewalk, the anger oozed quickly out of Ming,
leaving him weighted with a great weariness. He unclenched his
fists. "He was right, Grandfather Choak," he said. "My father was
a failure."
     "Do not talk that way about your father."
     "But he was. Family lives in hole in wall, goes without so
many things other people have. Mother washes all our clothes with
washboard and tub. You know I have worked since I was nine years
old." All the resentment of years began to boil out of Ming. He
stuttered and stumbled over the words that had to be torn up from
his Chinese vocabulary, but they had to come out. "Father had no
love for me. Hardly knew he had eldest son."
     Grandfather Choak again put his hand on Ming's shoulder and
stopped him. "Your father did best he could, Ming. Came from
China without education, without English. What could he do?
Raised fine, healthy family. Loved his children."
     Ming's lips squeezed together. "Father loved children? He
did not know what love is."
     They glared into each other's eyes for a long time. Then
Grandfather Choak said gently. "You go home, Ming. Perhaps it
will be better if I go see others by self." He patted Ming's arm
and waddled off. Ming watched him go up the street, then he
turned and started homeward.
     From babyhood he had been taught to respect the words of his
elders. Always he had had an especially profound respect for the
wisdom of Grandfather Choak, but he felt sure that Grandfather
Choak was dead wrong now. Perhaps his father had tried, but
trying wasn't enough. He thought of Mr. Warner's home, the
football helmets. His father had not given him even the love of a
father. And now he was expected to revere his memory, to take his
place, to give up his chance for an education, to struggle and go
down as had his father. They had no right to ask it of him.
     He was about to pass the Widow Loo without speaking when she
gripped his arm. "Ming Kwong!" she said. "How tall you are now."
She was a dumpy woman of about forty, several inches shorter than
Ming. The note of surprise dropped from her voice as she
continued, "I heard about your father. Am so very sorry. Your
father fine man."
     She released Ming's arm to fish in a wellworn purse she was
carrying. "Many times your father helped me and children. He had
little money but much heart." She pulled two crumpled bills from
her purse and put them into Ming's hand. "I know he did not leave
you much," she said. "Maybe this will help a little."
     Ming whispered a "Thank you," and she bustled away. He
looked at the two one-dollar bills in his hand for a long while.
     His mother was anxiously waiting at the door for him. "Ming,
your father's watch. They took it with them last night. We must
get it back."
     "Watch? Of what importance is watch? We can get it back at
any time."
     "No. It is gold watch your father had for many years.
Undertakers will keep it. He told me many times that he wanted to
give it to you when he was ready to go."
     Ming could not believe his father had actually said that,
but he said, "OK," then continued in Chinese, "We go now."
     The young man in the office of the undertaker greeted them
cordially. He listened politely while Ming explained that they
had come for the gold watch that his father had been wearing when
they had taken him away. The man said that he would check on it
and glided into another office. He returned and said with a
smile, "I'm sorry, but your father had no watch when he was
brought in."
     Ming interpreted for his mother. She looked sharply at the
man and said to Ming. "He lies. Your father always wore watch.
They try to steal it." Only the knowledge that his mother's eyes
were filling with tears kept Ming from hurrying her out of the
office. He turned to the man, who was listening curiously.
     "My mother says that she is sure that he had it on," he
said.
     "I'm sorry," the man said with a shrug of his shoulders.
     The condescension on the man's face struck deep into Ming
and his anger began to rise within him. Did this man think that
he was talking to a child? He spoke deliberately, trying to keep
the tremor out of his voice. "I suggest that you check on it
again."
     "But I'm sure it is not here."
     Ming used his deepest tones to say, "If the watch isn't
found, we will go to the police."
     A slight twitch passed over the man's face, but he recovered
quickly and said, "Of course, we may have overlooked it. I'll
check again. " He disappeared into the inner office. It was not
long before he strode back in, waving his fist triumphantly. "We
did find it in a pocket we had overlooked," he said. He put the
watch into Ming's outstretched hand.
     Closing his fingers over the watch without looking at it,
Ming muttered, "Thank you," and, taking his mother's arm, walked
out.
     Ming blinked at the sudden wintry sunlight. He stopped with
his mother in the shadow of the building and looked at the watch
in his hand. It was large and heavy, attached to a massive
looking chain. It must have been many years old for it was of the
type whose face was protected by a snap cover. He squeezed down
the stem and the cover flipped open. Inside the cover, he saw
several words engraved in ornate script. Squinting his eyes
against the brightness he read, "For Ming, my son." His mouth was
suddenly dry and he had difficulty swallowing as he tried to
moisten it.
     His mother was watching him. "Only last year, your father
had something put in cover," she said.
     Ming couldn't speak. They started walking homeward.
     "You are number one son, head of family now, but after
funeral, you must go back to Mrs. Warner and to school," his
mother said.
     "But the family."
     "Many things a woman can do at home to earn money."
     "No," Ming said firmly. "I will work and go to night
school."
     His mother started to say something further, but Ming
stopped her with, "Remember, I am number one son, head of
family."
     He took her arm to help her across the street.

                          T H E  E N D