Dim Summers

It was that kind of morning. The kind where between waking up and opening your eyes you run a complete system check. You lay still and enjoy those quiet moments between sleep and when your body begins to register pain in several areas, particularly the head and stomach. I would make the mistake of saying never again but I've already broken that promise too many times to believe it anyway.  Besides, a far more troubling thought occupied my mind now.

Did I really agree to go to Chinatown for lunch today?

Yes.  Yes, I did.  Drunk Tim committed Sober Tim  to go get dim sum with his buddies. Drunk Tim probably acted all excited about it, too. Drunk Tim is a dick. After a quick shower I was off to our version of the far east. Chinatown is like no other place in the city. It is still the most authentic neighborhood in Boston. Every other neighborhood from the North End to South Boston have become more racially diverse in the past years. Not Chinatown.

Going there is like being on vacation because you don't feel like you're in Boston at all. I was a mile and a half from my apartment and it might as well have been across the world it felt so foreign. Luckily, we had a guide. Enter Kit. He is a high school friend and our token Asian. He weaved through the streets expertly and we arrived at our destination, China Pearl.

We sat down and were immediately given tea and water. Very little water. I held up the slightly-bigger-than-a-shot-glass of water and immediately said a silent apology to my body. I will hydrate you soon, I said. Fuck you, it answered. Heated carts of food started rolling by and the women pushing them were ignoring everyone at the table but Kit. It's like they knew that we were only there because of him.

Then one of my buddies nailed it. "Look at all the tables of white people," he said. Without fail, every table of white people had a token Asian that was ordering for them. Soon, our Asian had filled our table with several plates of things that looked very hot and slightly gelatinous. It did not look very appealing. Everything I know about food I have learned from Iron Chef; and these people were not getting high marks for plating.

However, they were off the charts in the taste department. I loved it all. I was literally shoving food in my face (the consistency of the food upped the degree of difficulty of chopsticks). The whole time my taste buds were yelling at my eyes: "This is awesome! You were telling me this was going to be terrible! You don't know shit! Everything you know is wrong."

However, the saltiness of the food and the hangover combined to make me issue the following threat to Kit: "Listen, these people are ignoring me. Unless you get us a pitcher of water soon, I am going to stand on my chair and yell 'Excuse me, white people are thirsty' at the top of my lungs." I'm pretty sure Kit knew I was bluffing, but soon enough we had water.

I gorged myself on everything, only pausing to ask Kit what I was eating. His response every time was, "I don't know." I didn't care, it was good. We were very full when the busboys came by to collect the obscene amount of plates we had used. They were in black and gold vests and bow ties.  They reminded me of the blackjack dealers at Foxwood's and it was oddly fitting since this meal certainly felt like a gamble. We left there up big-time and will definitely be back to play again.