Walking into Ho's

[lofro]

"Walking into Ho's"

That smell of frying rice punctuates the air
As I walk into my favorite dingy resturaunt
somewhere on South Broadway, Saint Louis.
The woman behind the counter, small, nervous,
the only white person in the establishment,
asks me for my order. I'm there for pickup;
hot-braised chicken and fried rice.
The little Chinese woman comes out of the back
with a paper bag full of food,
and as she has every time I have come here for years
(since I learned to drive) she asks,
"Where your old man?"
And as always I smile and say he's at home
and pick up my food and go out to the car.

As I start up the engine and bite into that first
free-with-twenty-dollars-or-more crab rangoon,
the tangy taste of being home from college,
it hits me that this little Chinese resturaunt
is as much a part of me as anything in Ireland;
that though my ancestors may have been Scottish once
the lady from Ho's is my heritage too,
my reach-out-and-touch-it tradition.

Pulling out into Broadway's traffic,
Crunching on the last of my rangoon;
These are the delights of Friday night Chinese food,
The wonders of being American.

1/4/2008