He likes to wear black sweatpants with them, and from below the cuffs, his bare feet stick out, melting into his bug squishing, dark brown leather slippers. He talks on the phone as if the phone weren t actually there, and as if he had to speak loud enough so that the person on the line could hear him in China from our neighborhood in Flushing, Queens. Sometimes he watches action movies-his favorites include those movies with Chuck Norris. My mother is entranced by Robert Redford and Hugh Grant, while dad prefers Charles Bronson. Whenever Channel Eleven is running one of those Death Wish movies, you can be sure that my dad is one of the ten people in New York watching.
Some people walk and chew gum at the same time.
My dad can keep track of a Knicks game, cook chicken curry so that the chicken is tender and the potatoes have been marinated just long enough and haven t gotten mushy, and reads through the whole Chinese newspaper at the same time. He works all week long. A business owner, the head of a corporation which my parents own all the stock for. He ll probably die young. All that steak medium rare, and without any vegetables.