This Old Man by Lois Ruby

door open against a throw rug, which folded like an accordion when the door caught it. Wing stamped it back into place and led me into his home.
    What hit me was the incredible clutter. My mother wasn’t a prize-winning housekeeper, but our apartment had never been like this. Most of our junk was shoved into a closet when anyone came over. Then I remembered that eight people lived in these rooms, and on closer inspection I noticed that the clutter was orderly.
    â€œLet me clear off a place for you.” Wing moved some stacks of newly ironed laundry from the couch to the ironing board. I smelled the starch. Hackey’s mother used to wash with starch. Her dresses looked stuffed with plump bodies when they hung on the clothesline.
    Half the living room was taken up with a folding table that held an old black and brass sewing machine a pile of mending was neatly folded behind the sewing machine. A bus passed in the street below, rattling the wobbly table legs. I felt the vibrations through my feet, rumbling up my legs.
    A TV set occupied one corner of the room, with suitcases and cartons piled behind it. I tried not to stare, but Wing followed my eyes.
    â€œWe haven’t completely unpacked. Where would we put it? Anyway, we’re on the waiting list for the Ping Yuen project apartments, and when we get one, we’ll have more room. Even a balcony.” He said this proudly, as though they already lived there. “I suppose you’re wondering about the rest of the place?”
    I was dying to know about it. “Where does everyone sleep?”
    Wing said, “You are sitting on my parents’ bedroom. It opens up into a bed at night. There are also two other bedrooms. My two little sisters share one, my two brothers and I share the other one.” He smiled for the first time that day. “Yes, three Chinese brothers in one bed, can you picture it? And of course there’s a corner of our room that’s surrounded by screens, and that’s Old Man’s room.” I knew, without asking, that no one had occupied Old Man’s bed all those weeks he’d been in the hospital. “It’s Old Man I want to talk about,” Wing said.
    I dreaded what was coming. “I’m not really mad anymore.”
    He brushed that off. He probably knew I was lying. “I want you to know about him so you’ll understand him.”
    â€œHow am I going to understand him, Wing, I mean, looking at it realistically? I’m a sixteen-year-old Caucasian American girl with practically no family, and I eat spaghetti and meat loaf and happen to think they’re delicious. He’s absolutely the opposite of everything I am.” I allowed a bitter edge to creep into my voice. The vibrations in the floor were getting to me.
    â€œI’m not much like Old Man either.”
    That was true, he wasn’t at all like the intolerant tyrant I had heard ruling his universe from the other side of the door. Somehow Wing was able to love that most unlovable of men. How? I decided to listen.
    â€œHe was better today.”
    â€œOh?” I would listen, but not too enthusiastically.
    â€œDr. Tseng put a stethoscope up to Old Man’s ears and let him listen to his own heart. Old Man loved it. He said it was like a poem, in perfect meter. His heart is very strong, you see. Now he isn’t calling Dr. Tseng a turtle anymore.” Wing looked at me pointedly. “Turtles are out.”
    â€œWhat’s in?”
    â€œHe has a better name for the doctor. The name is—” Wing hesitated. “You’ll get mad if I tell you.”
    â€œI’m already mad,” I reminded him.
    â€œThe name is Guang-doo , which means feebleminded person. That’s an improvement over turtle. I should know.”
    â€œOld Man is all too generous,” I said.
    Wing grinned, and for some reason it felt like a patronizing gesture. How had things turned, all of a sudden?
    â€œHas Old