by David Yoon
That last part—I don’t ever want to lose you—gets lost as I kiss her.
It’s way longer than two minutes. Let her car get towed away. Let them all.
Because fuck it. I’m not going to waste my life blaming her. I’m not going to waste my life fanning embers of regret alone in the dark.
“I love you, yubs,” says Joy. “I’m always gonna love you. Do you agree that we’re always gonna love each other and that it was all just circumstance?”
“I do.”
“I do too.”
“I now pronounce us husband and wife,” I say. “You may now, uh, go off to college and not see me until the holiday season.”
“Grr, your stupid jokes!” shouts Joy amid the din of the traffic, and lands the best hit ever with her open palm.
“I will love you forever, Joy Song.”
“I just needed to hear you say it.”
“I can’t help but love you, Joy Song.”
“Now I’ll have something to keep.”
“I’ll keep it, too,” I say.
The traffic takes on an insistent tone, and I begin to imagine a curious cop discovering her empty car.
“Your car,” I say.
“I know,” she says.
“Go do you,” I holler, before she heads toward the bushes again.
Joy looks back. Her smile glints in the dark. “What the hell else is there, right?”
chapter 36
life is but a dream
The final two weeks of summer pass like cats after an earthquake. Mom-n-Dad, sensing my melancholy, tiptoe around me. Asking if I need anything. Cutting melon after melon.
My ankle feels strong now. I feel taller, as if things healed in such a way to grant me extra height. I leave the house to go for runs without telling anyone, come back whenever, fix my own meals. I’ve been researching the local music scene in and around Palo Alto. I’m starting to see myself there.
I tell Mom-n-Dad all about it, and they can tell I’m getting excited. It makes them sappy (sad plus happy). Because just when they thought their son was all done growing, here I go changing on them all over again. I’m becoming different.
Q notices, too. We finish up Totec’s Return in a blaze of savage glory under my meat-headed command. I do not fight smart. I do not think it through.
“Totally insane man, I love you,” shouts Q.
What neither Q nor Mom nor Dad can see is the secret little chamber in the wunderkammer of my heart, and what it contains.
Back to my campaign of reckless blood: by the time Paul finally shows up to play, we’ve already destroyed the Supreme Bladeling in ¡P’Qatlalteiaq’s central keep, divvied out the piles of treasure, and traveled back to our homelands. Normally we would now spend time gathering resources and healing and training for the next big campaign, but there will be no next big campaign. So Q just closes up the campaign book, folds up his cardboard screens, zips his big backpack shut, and exhales.
Paul examines his figurine of Totec before slipping it into its little special bag.
“I guess we’re finished,” says Paul. “Isang bagsak?”
We clap.
“So when do you guys leave tomorrow?” says Q.
I look at Paul. “Mr. Olmo, what time?”
Me and Paul are driving north together. I’ll drop Paul off at Santa Cruz, then keep going to Stanford.
“I dunno,” says Paul. “Nine? Ten? Maybe eleven. After lunch?”
“Sunday traffic should be light,” I say. “Convocation’s on the Monday after—it’s all good.”
“I can’t believe this is the last time we’ll—” says Paul, unable to finish.
After a truly uncoordinated group hug that evades headbutts only by millimeters, Paul and Q leave.
Seconds later Mom hustles in. “They leaving already?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh,” says Mom with a sag. “I saying goodbye.”
“You’ll see them at Thanksgiving.”
Mom starts to say something, but stops. I want to say the same thing.
But Dad won’t be around then.
“Are you okay?” I say.
“I’m okay,” says Mom.
“Mom, just say it. Whatever it is, I want to hear it.”
“I’m okay,” is all Mom will say, and leaves to pretend at laundry.
Joy and I have been texting again. We send idiotic stickers and animations and so on. She sends me a photo of her new dorm room, and a stealthy candid of her roommate, who looks eerily like an African-American version of Brit.
Joy’s messages start out strong but begin to dwindle as she explores her new world. And that, I decide, is perfectly okay. It would be strange otherwise.
That night Mom makes my favorite dinner of seafood pancakes and cold mul naengmyeon noodles, and we try not to panic when Dad makes a heroic show of eating with forced gusto. He winds up vomiting most of it back into a to-go cup.
“I sorry, Mommy,” he says.
“Aigu,” says Mom, which means, Don’t worry about anything. It wasn’t your fault.
She gives him water to sip. He pushes it aside.
“Gimme two beer, would you, please, Frankie-umma?” he says. That word please. He’s gearing up to something.
“Shouldn’t be drinking, you sick,” says Mom.
“Doctor say drink as much beer as I want, doesn’t matter,” says Dad.
This stops Mom cold. She sees him, sitting next to his son on his last night before college, and understands. She knows the next time I see him might be late one night, after a rushed trip back home from Stanford, in some hospital room.
So she brings the beers. She opens them. She leaves us.
“Beer is terrible,” I say. “Why do you drink it?”
“It’s all-natural barley water,” says Dad, and we toast.
I drink, because I can’t think of anything to say. I drink again. Terrible.
But it’s the best drink I’ve ever had.
“So,” says Dad. “I’m reading other day. I’m learning new word.”
Dad waits for me to take the bait, so I take the bait.
“What word, Dad?”
“Neohumanistic.”
Dad’s being cryptic. Here we go.
“What does neohumanistic mean, Dad?” I say dutifully.
Dad takes a sip. “I am Korean. You Korean too. But you also American boy, hundred percent. You so-called neohumanistic. You know neohumanistic what it is?”
“Sort of,” I say, looking into my beer.
“Spiritual essence, so-called nucleus of soul, like particle, physical particle. You know what is quark? Nothing different. Atom? Nothing different, same-o same.”
“Okay, Dad,” I say.
Meanwhile, Dad winds up for another round of free-form arcana. I gird myself. Tonight is our last night together. Must maintain.
“Anyway,” says Dad. “Anyway.”
He’s silent.
“Anyway what, Dad?” I say.
“I very proud you,” says Dad. “So, so proud. I love you, my son, okay?”
He places his hand atop mine. His skin is so thin. He has a hospital needle port thing taped to his wrist, and always will.
I can barely get out the words, they’re so frozen shut. “I love you too, Dad.”
I get that old floaty feeling again, but this time it’s not me doing the floating. It’s not Dad. It’s all the crap around us. The chairs and toaster and pots and pans and thousands of kooky knickknacks atop bookshelves coming unmoored from their spots in the carpet.
It’s beautiful, this constellation of ephemera.
“Anyway,” Dad declares, restoring gravity with his voice. “Life is but a dream.” He releases my hand with the pretense of wiping clean his sweating beer can. He’s ne
ver been comfortable with prolonged physical affection. It’s never been his way. And that’s fine.
“Come on, Dad. Don’t be morbid.”
“No, I’m not be morbid,” says Dad. “Life is but a dream. My dream? So beautiful dream I’m having whole my life, God giving me. Beautiful wife I having. Store success having. Beautiful son Stanford going. My daughter too, beautiful woman she becoming. You telling Hanna my dream is best dream.”
“Tell her yourself,” I say.
Dad laughs, which in Korean means, I am so terribly ashamed by my own behavior.
“Dad,” I insist. “Tell her yourself. Okay?”
“Okay, Frank.”
“You need to talk to Hanna. She has big, important things going on right now. You hear me?”
“Okay, Frank, okay.”
I sip the bitter-sour beer. Who likes this crap? I sip it again, and again.
Thank you, beer.
“I going sleep,” says Dad. “Big day tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe I’m sleeping, you waking me before you going, okay?”
“Of course, Dad.”
“Also music study? No money earning, music,” says Dad. “You majoring business. More better.”
I just laugh to myself. Because you know what? I’ll do what I want anyway. I need to. So did Dad, after all.
“Okay, Dad,” I say.
chapter 37
fire hazard low
Before me and Paul hit the road, I have one pit stop to make: Q’s house.
He forgot his big bag of dice again.
“Wait here,” I tell Paul, and run up the three-hundred-kilometer-long gravel driveway.
When Q opens the door, he’s all alone.
“Where is everybody?” I say.
“Mom-n-Dad are with Evon up in SF tooling around before Stanford starts,” says Q. “She said you might want these back, by the way.”
Q hands me a fistful of cables in Loco-Lime™ green, Grape-Escape™ purple, Citrus-Spin™ orange, and so on. All the colors of the rainbow, in order.
“Thanks,” I say.
“What about your million relatives?”
“Mouse World Theme Park,” says Q.
“Jesus,” I say.
“I told them I had tapeworm.”
“Nice,” I say, and give Q a fist bump. “You forgot your big-ass dice.”
I hand him the bag, and he presses his lips to mine.
“What—” I say, only to have him kiss me again. Curiously, his lips are softer than Joy’s. More tentative. He smells like lime soda and Blazing Hot Nachitos.
When he pulls away, I see his eyes are brimming with tears.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” he says.
A wave surges the sea level in my chest; two new tears sting my eyes with their salt. Suddenly realizing that Q, my top chap, has been living with a secret fear—secret even to me—for who knows how long makes me want to rage out against entire stupid world.
But Q does not need rage right now. He needs the opposite.
I wipe his tears with both my thumbs and study his face. I never noticed how fine it was, how lovely in shape. I never noticed his freckles, even. It is a face, I realize, whose beauty shows itself only when it’s ready—a face that has the grace and strength it takes to reveal the true self just beneath. It is a face someone will no doubt fall in love with one day. So I tell Q this.
“One day you’re gonna make some lucky boy very happy.”
“I’m gonna miss you,” he says.
“I’m gonna miss you too,” I say.
* * *
• • •
We know we’re out of civilization when we reach the burned forest. The flames that ran through here were the same flames that started while I was breaking Brit’s heart, a million years ago.
“Man, I guess the fire reached pretty far,” says Paul Olmo.
“Yeah,” I say. It’s been an hour and a half of driving, and I’m still kind of in shock.
Suddenly I need to get out of the car. “Hey,” I say. “Gotta pee.”
“Take your time,” says Paul. “We’re frankly in no rush.”
“Har,” I say. “You’re olmo funny.”
Paul smiles a sad smile and begins flipping through photos of all of us on his phone.
When I’m done peeing, and the crinkly pattering sound stops, all that’s left is silence. Total and complete silence. I realize why: with all the leaves burned away, the forest no longer makes sound. There is a brand-new sign, probably put here recently to replace the old burnt one, bearing the words FIRE HAZARD LOW.
And yet, there’s a size and shape and quality to this dead forest that is palpable. It is there. Like a soft breathing. This is but a moment in the life of this colossal organism, for the trees will grow back, and everyone will forget there were ever flames hot and high enough to melt houses.
I am standing on a road leading away from home. It’s strange to be here. I shouldn’t be here. Because at home lies Dad with his to-go cup. Mom gets him whatever he needs, which is becoming less and less with each day. He hasn’t checked the security cameras at The Store for a couple of days now. He knows it’s no longer important.
Anyone else would think I was weird for leaving like this.
One day soon I will get the call. I’ll slip out of lecture, or shush my dorm friends, or freeze in midstride on a quad path. I’ll drive home as fast as my car will go, holding ready the one last goodbye I’ve saved in my heart.
For now, Mom-n-Dad would be proud to see me standing here on this road. They insisted I do this. So I’m here for them just as much as I am for me. And that makes me proud, too.
“We are okay,” said Dad when I left. “Have a fun.”
I take out my Tascam. I hit Record. I brace the device in the crook of a tree limb. Memory is cheap and plentiful, and the Tascam will record for hours and hours even with all the other sounds that are still on it: Lake Girlfriend, ocean waves, diners at Scudders, that samulnori quartet, and so on. Maybe someone will find these sounds, and also find delight in them.
I leave the Tascam, get back in the indomitable Consta, and head out north.
thanksgiving
after we end
I have one name.
It’s Frank.
I used to think I had two names: Frank, my quote-English-end-quote name, and Sung-Min, my quote-Korean-end-quote name.
But now, I’m calling Frank my first name and Sung-Min my middle name. That’s for a few reasons:
Frank + Li makes a funny pun, which I used to hate but now I’ve grown fond of.
Having two names is like trying to be two people at once. Who does that?
No one ever calls me Sung-Min, not even Mom. Dad never did, either.
Dad lasted two more months before my phone rang.
“You coming home,” was all Mom had to say.
When I arrived, Hanna was already there in the room with Dad. She let him feel her belly. He took both of Miles’s hands in both of his and said:
“You whole of world number one best daddy for Sunny.”
Hanna and Miles are having a girl, and her name will be Sunny Lane (nine characters).
I stayed in my room. Hanna and Miles stayed in her room. Mom stayed with Dad. We lived like this for three whole days, waking up together, cooking meals together, watching television. Just being bored together. Feeling the jeong. Mom gave Miles whatever he wanted, and too much of it, which meant, I am eternally ashamed of how we treated you and will forever be sorry for our foolishness.
Thanksgiving came, and we had the world’s simplest feast of take-out Korean fried chicken, white rice, and pickled radish. Dad even managed to eat a little and hold it down.
It was fun in a bittersweet way. I felt like a li
ttle kid again for some reason.
Then it was time for Dad to leave.
Everyone gathered on the green slope the afternoon of the funeral. The Apeys, the Limbos. Q was there, with hot sister Evon. Brit was there. Even Wu showed up. Everyone in black, not knowing where to look. Trying not to stare at me or Mom or Hanna. The ceremony was conducted in Korean, and translated in turn into excellent English by Joy’s dad.
Joy was there. When she hugged me, I felt her secretly kiss my neck.
“You look nice,” she said.
“So do you,” I said, and melted with tears. Joy held me up. I don’t know why I cried so much, or for so long. As in I can’t articulate why. All I could feel was my brain exploding with a million tiny dark stars. When I opened my eyes, me and Joy were the only ones left on the green slope. Everyone else had gone to the wake.
We all sat together in a strange room, eating strange food. It was a phantom party in a dream. No one had changed—no one had started dating anyone new, everyone looked the same—but still: all of us were different now. I could feel it. At one point we all ran out of things to talk about, so we just stared at the black framed photograph of Dad flanked by dancing candles.
Hanna was the one brave enough to start the farewell hugs. Everyone else followed one by one. Q was the last in line, with an awkward bro-hug. I understood why he would give me such a hug, what with all these people present. But to hell with bro-hugs: I held him with all my might, to let him know I loved him.
And then, I was all alone.
“Bye, Dad,” I said to the photograph, and felt a hand slip into mine.
“He can do whatever he wants now,” said Joy.
“Probably open another store in the afterlife,” I said.
We laughed at this. Then Joy began staring at me with a look I recognized. It was the look from that night when she snuck into my backyard for our last kiss. There in the funeral reception hall, Joy stood looking back and forth between my eyes and my lips. Waiting.
But the thing about last kisses is this: they are final. Me and Joy already did that. It was done.