The Human Zoo by Sabina Murray

Author:Sabina Murray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2021-07-23T15:59:58+00:00

XIV

Preparing for an outing to Dad’s World Buffet, like preparing for a colonoscopy, entailed a certain amount of fasting. Tuesday was the day to go (as it was less crowded). Tita Dom, who was turning seventy-five the following weekend, was an expert on how to maximize the experience. She would start with sashimi, move on to tempura (here I substituted the Filipino pork bar, preferring the lechon, crispy pata, and bagnet), only include vegetables if they looked exceptional, and leave room for the halo-halo. She had a Happy Diner card that she dug out of her bag as we hit the top of the stairs. You could eat as much as you wanted at Dad’s, but if you left any food on your plate, you had to pay double.

“Okay, Ting,” she said, handing me a plate at the buffet. “What did you have for breakfast?”

“Water,” I replied.

Each of the counters held a shocking excess of mostly meat dishes, glistening in the bright light, arranged according to country. There was Korean barbecue, Japanese fish, Filipino fiesta food decorated with the head of a lechon pig, blind to the proceedings, its crispy eyelids having been forever sealed upon the spit. My tita Dom heaped a decent amount of raw tuna on her plate and then on mine. She looked at me, her face lit with anticipation. At the pork bar, she argued with the attendant that the crispy pata didn’t look that crisp, and he quickly provided a new batch fresh from the fryer. I looked at the mound of food on my plate, carefully engineered into the shape of a volcano.

“Do you have enough?” Tita Dom asked.

I shrugged. “There’s always seconds.”

A waiter led us to a table by the window and we ordered mango shakes. I didn’t really want a mango shake, but it was tradition to get one.

I took a bite of the bagnet and closed my eyes in reverence. It was crunchy, salty, and oily. It was the taste of heaven.

“Really, Ting,” said Tita Dom. “How can you live in the States without bagnet?”

“I don’t come here for the bagnet,” I said. “I come for the family.”

“Come for the bagnet. Stay for the love.”

Tita Dom had for a while run a radio station, for which she had written the ad copy for a range of products. She had also been a pizza czar, an accountant for Jim, and a number of other odd and disconnected professions, all successful, but she was happiest in her retirement doing nothing after a life of work. “What do you know about Laird?”

“Laird? Why?”

“Rikki was asking.” Rikki was her son, who worked at the bank. “He said there was something strange about him. Also, why does Laird keep hanging around? He’s supposed to be learning about his in-laws. That’s not us. That’s Remi and her brother and all those Santiagos.”

“I’ve been wondering about that too,” I said. So far Laird had managed to show up at my cousin’s daughter’s baptism, a family outing to Magnolia for ice cream, and even Wednesday Mass.

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