Ducks

Every year more and more townies flocked to the Little Duck and we stir-fried beef and pork and chicken and chicken and chicken and watched them gulp it all down and the oil slicked off their chins and the restaurant’s name grew more and more ironic. Dad opened the Duck back in ‘98, a hole-in-the-wall place right by campus, thinking he’d lure in all the Chinese kids studying here and missing home. But it turned out all the Chinese kids studying here and missing home didn’t have any money and the townies did, and though Dad hated them and their greasy fatty sugary appetites, it was easy enough to smother all that hate with cash. So we didn’t serve duck, because duck was more expensive, because Americans preferred chicken, because in China they say duck has the power to heal, because Dad had no interest in healing our customers. Dad had only two rules in the kitchen and he gargoyled on our shoulders and repeated them again and again like a spell: be fast be perfect be fast be perfect be fast be perfect. Cody minced garlic like a jackhammer, but the pieces came out lumpy and uneven and sometimes he sliced off a little sliver of finger too. Suzie ribboned her chicken thighs and scallions and chilis with such precision that her Kung Pao belonged in an art gallery, but it took her so goddamn long that Dad had to hand out free spring rolls just to apologize for the delay. I was youngest and slowest and my food was ugliest. The first time I spaced out and burned a beef and broccoli, Dad threw a bowl at my head.

Mom died and Cody and Suzie went east for college and stayed there and the recipes got weird. Dad coated the char siu in congealed maple syrup. He lathered the bok choy with slabs of butter. One day, I caught him massaging the dead chickens with both hands, fingers crawling over the naked pink flesh. Customers complained about the changes. Our Yelp ratings plummeted. I worried everyone who walked through the door was another health inspector sent by the county. Dad remained undeterred. Eggplant with garlic sauce became eggplant drenched in Roadhouse BBQ. Our chow mein was buried beneath melted heaps of Kraft Singles. Scallion pancakes were served with square packets of grape jelly. When I graduated high school, Dad closed down the Duck and spent the whole day cooking and I steeled myself for some new abomination. He served me a plate of roast duck instead and said: eat the duck eat the duck eat the duck! I poked the meat and searched for the baffling ingredient I was sure hid somewhere in the dish and Dad lurched across the table and grabbed a fistful of rice and duck and shoved it all into my mouth. The skin was crisp, and the meat was moist, and it was perfect.

Christmas Eve I came home from college and found the Little Duck burning with Dad inside. Firemen broke down the door and put out the fire and told us too late the blaze already cooked him alive. In the half-melted freezer and in the busted ovens and in every burnt pan and wok and pot, we found nothing but ducks—charred and crisped and ashed little birds—and all I remember thinking was: God, what a waste we couldn’t eat them.