by Jack Bunker
Back at Warsaw Wash, the couple hours to closing I did paperwork, which I kept simple. I followed Jules’s lead and paid my employees just enough to keep things legit. Instead of designating them as employees, I called them contracted labor, paying them a set amount and settling any overages in cash. Jules had kept all of the accounts in a ledger, with handwritten entries. Soon as my head cleared from my new investment, my new marriage, and the threats from the Doko family, I was going to buy an iPad and start doing all the record-keeping online.
I was standing on the sidewalk by the car wash, watching the last employee walk away for the day, when Yun pulled up. She opened the car door and said, “Get in.”
I paused for a second and then realized I was in no hurry to get home and face Soo Jin. Last night’s episode in the bedroom wasn’t sitting well with me. I hadn’t forced Soo Jin to have sex, but I’d been wondering if she’d wished she was somewhere else during the act, that she’d only been doing her duty. The thought made me embarrassed and angry. I could get that kind of loving at a massage parlor. It would also be a more honest exchange.
I got in next to Yun and she hit the gas. She lit up a Parliament and blew smoke out the window as she drove.
I looked at Yun’s earthy, sensual profile. She had a small smile on her lips as she hung a left on Wilshire toward West Hollywood.
I asked, “You mind telling me where we’re going?”
“One of my favorite places. The farmers’ market over on Third. You ever been there?”
I thought about it and remembered I’d been there with Will, the first month we were in LA. We’d gotten drunk on pitchers of beer. All the way home I’d worried about being pulled over and getting a DUI.
“Not in a long time,” I said.
“I’m taking you to dinner,” said Yun, glancing my way. “I should have taken you three nights ago, before you got married.”
“So you heard?”
“You’re getting quite a rep in Koreatown. The Famous White Idiot.”
“I had my reasons.”
“I don’t know if you’re brave, stubborn, or stupid.”
“Out of the three I’d probably go with stubborn.”
We pulled into the lot. The farmers’ market was a sprawling conglomeration of restaurants and shops, covered but open to the air. I followed Yun inside and wondered why I didn’t come here more often. There was a relaxed vibe in the air. I was getting hungry walking by the stalls selling all kinds of ethnic food.
I asked, “Where are we going?”
“All the way down to the end, to the Cajun place.”
The Koreans I knew were all Korean, all the time. They shopped, ate, and drank Korean. I was impressed and surprised by Yun coloring outside the lines.
I asked, “Are we celebrating something? I thought we did that yesterday.”
“Maybe we are. Depends on you.”
At the end of the corridor there were a bunch of tables in an open area surrounded by a handful of restaurants and a bar.
Yun said, “You order the beer. I’ll get the food.”
I’d never seen Yun outside the car wash. I only knew her as a customer. It was strange having her tell me to buy beer while she bought our dinner. I looked over my shoulder at Yun scanning the menu at a counter for a restaurant called The Gumbo Pot. As weird as it was being with Yun, it also felt good.
The bartender said, “What can I get you?”
I saw they had Sam Adams on tap and bought a pitcher. I sat down at a table and poured two glasses as Yun walked over with a loaded tray.
Yun set a plate of oysters on the half shell in the middle of the table, then two bowls of crawfish gumbo, collard greens, and an oyster po’ boy. She sat down and took a long pull at her beer.
I looked at the spread of food. “Wow,” I said. “We’re off to a good start.”
Yun compressed her lips together and then said, “My husband is dead.”
I’d been reaching for an oyster and froze. “That’s terrible. I’m really sorry for you. It sounded like you guys were married for a long time.”
“I’m not sad,” said Yun. “We were not man and wife for years. Tell you the truth, I don’t think he even liked me.”
I took a sip of beer, not knowing how to respond to this news.
“He died ten days ago, in Boulder,” said Yun.
“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”
“I thought I had more time.”
I was thinking, More time for what? but I didn’t say anything.
Yun went on with her story. “He went out to take care of his mother, thinking she was going to die of about a half dozen things that were wrong with her. She survived; he died. Of lung cancer. He never even told me he was sick. He smoked all the time when he was here. Maybe in Boulder, with nothing much to do, maybe he started smoking even more heavy.”
“How are your kids taking it?”
“They cried at the funeral, but they’ll get over it.”
Yun reached for an oyster, doused it with lime and hot sauce, and slipped it down her throat in one gulp.
“He wasn’t a bad man,” said Yun. “But he had a cold heart.”
I was about to say it was hard for me to understand her pain, because I’d never been married. Then I realized I was married.
“I should have come to see you ten days ago,” said Yun. “Now, maybe it’s too late.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“No,” said Yun. “I want to date you.”
As the oysters disappeared one by one, Yun explained that she had wanted to hook up with me for a long time, but it just wasn’t done in Korea. If a woman was married, she stayed faithful, no matter how lousy a guy the husband was. Koreans didn’t get a divorce for minor reasons—like falling out of love. During the long march across a loveless landscape, the husband could screw around as much as he liked. The wife not at all.
Yun said, “For the rest of my life, I was expected to sit around wearing old-lady underwear and playing Chinese dominoes with a bunch of other miserable women. Now I don’t have to.”
I pushed a spent lime around on my plate. “If you had come to me a few days ago and told me this, I still would have married Soo Jin. I needed the money.”
“I know you like me,” said Yun. “You were just too shy to make a move.”
“I’m kind of stuck here,” I said. “Being with Soo Jin and all.”
“I don’t want a ring,” said Yun. “I just want you to fuck me.”
SEVENTEEN
I lay back in Yun’s double bed, listening to the noises from the street. I felt wrung out—Yun had taken me through the paces.
I could hear her clanking around in the kitchen, making us a couple of mugs of green tea. On the way home from the farmers’ market, Yun had called ahead and asked her babysitter to keep her kids for the evening. Once we got to her house—a one-story dilapidated Craftsman on Normandie—we didn’t waste much time talking. We’d done it with her bent over the foot of the bed, with me on my back and her riding hard, and a third time more gentle and slow, face-to-face lying down on the bed, on sheets soaked with sweat.
I felt eyes on me and looked toward the door. A huge mastiff dog was sticking his head into the room, giving me the once-over. Yun brushed by the dog and closed the door.
“That’s Jamjari,” she said. “He won’t hurt you. He can tell who my friends are.”
“He’s huge.”
Yun handed me a mug of tea. She watched me take a sip and said, “I’m glad you’re here.”
The tea was strong. “You know,” I said. “I went through quite a dry spell. Now it looks like I got more than I can handle.”
Yun took my hand and put it on her breast. “I think you can manage.”
I felt her nipple stiffen under my palm, and I pressed her breast. She moaned, and in seconds we were hip-deep into the fourth time that night.
* * *
Standing in Yun’s living room as she looked for her purse, I took
in the surroundings. The furniture was a mishmash of styles, probably secondhand stuff. A Mexican blanket—maybe a tapestry—covered one wall. It showed chestnut-colored horses galloping on a black background. I could see into the kitchen, where a refrigerator had photos of her kids held in place with magnets. A copy of People magazine lay on the coffee table. There was nothing in the house that screamed, “Korea.”
Yun came into the room and switched on a light, still looking for her purse. I noticed an upholstered chair in the corner, with a wraithlike silhouette shadowing the wall behind, the shadow climbing to the ceiling like a dark ghost.
Yun noticed me looking and said, “That was my husband’s favorite chair. He’d sit there for hours, smoking away like he was getting paid. Sometimes he wouldn’t move or say anything all night.”
“The shadow is from his cigarettes?”
“Black tar and nicotine,” said Yun. “I’m gonna have to wash it off—it’s too spooky. Like it’s watching me.”
Yun found her purse on the floor by the sofa. She took out her car keys and said, “Let’s go.”
* * *
I could have walked—it wasn’t that far—but Yun insisted on driving me, since she had to go out and pick up her kids anyway. The June night was warm. I put my arm out the window, cupping the air, feeling like a teenager again.
I said, “You didn’t pick the greatest time to hook up with me.”
“I had to grab the moment,” said Yun.
“The thing I have with Soo Jin, it’s a business arrangement.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“I want to see you again.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t tell anyone,” said Yun. “It should be our secret for now.”
The soft air felt fine. “That makes sense,” I said. “People would think I was a real dog, marrying Soo Jin and taking up with you the same week.”
We drove on in silence. I dug my wallet out of my pocket and said, “Let me pay for the extra time for the sitter. How much is she going to charge?”
Yun weighed this in her mind for a second or two. She pulled over in front of my apartment building. “Give me twenty. That should cover it.”
I handed her a bill and said, “Am I going to see you tomorrow?”
Yun smiled, looked down. “I wish you were coming home with me tonight.”
* * *
Upstairs, as I unlocked the door to my apartment, I heard voices. Then I realized it was coming from the DVD player.
Soo Jin was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching what I recognized as Man on Fire, a wild film with Denzel Washington wreaking havoc on a bunch of bad guys in Mexico City. I’d taken it out of the library a couple days ago. I must have watched it a half dozen times over the years.
Soo Jin looked over her shoulder at me and said, “I brought you dumplings.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot. I’ll have them for breakfast.”
The room felt really small. Maybe I wasn’t feeling too proud of myself. I had no qualms about fucking Yun. But I should have called Soo Jin to tell her I wouldn’t be home until late. Especially considering her track record with husbands.
Soo Jin stared at the TV as Denzel cut off a hood’s fingers with a wire cutter.
I said, “Next time I’ll call.”
Soo Jin held out a scrap of paper in her hand. “My number.”
Jesus. She must have been sitting there for hours, with that number in her hand, waiting to give it to me.
I took the number and saved it in my phone.
I asked, “You understand this movie?”
“Sure. The black man is trying to save the little white girl.”
“I talked with Shin Doko today.”
Soo Jin looked at me, eyebrows raised. She paused the film.
I said, “I tried to make peace with him, but he’s stuck in his ways. The old dude knows you Nang are almost finished. He’s not going to lay off. He can smell victory.”
“I’ve never met Shin Doko,” said Soo Jin. “But I know of him. Sometimes he sends me photos of all his grandchildren.”
“What an asshole.”
Soo Jin looked away. I made a mental note to watch my language with her.
“I got to ask you a question,” I said. “What could have happened that was so bad that two families would fight for three hundred years?”
“It was a terrible thing,” said Soo Jin.
“Is it too terrible to tell me?”
Soo Jin gave this some thought and then said, “There was a famine in the region surrounding Busan. People were dying. The northern part of the country was afraid the famine would spread, and they blocked the roads. Families held their food close, trying to survive. Bon-Hwa, a Nang merchant, gave Hyo Doko a short measure of rice—five hundred grams.”
“Is that a lot?”
Soo Jin did the metric conversion in her head. “A little more than a pound.”
“The Dokos and the Nangs are fighting over a pound of rice?”
“The Dokos are convinced people died because of that shortage. If it was just money or rice it could be repaid. But you can’t bring back the people who died. The blood feud is all because of Bon-Hwa being greedy. Sometimes it makes me ashamed to be a Nang.”
Soo Jin pushed play and went back to watching Denzel.
I opened the mini fridge and took out a can of Miller Lite. I popped it open and said, “Listen, there’s something I didn’t tell you.”
Soo Jin sat a little straighter. “What’s that?”
“I’ve got a disease.”
EIGHTEEN
Ididn’t like the clinic, but I went there every week. I had to go. I had to give blood. Not that I was such a great guy. If I didn’t give blood I would die.
I had hemochromatosis. Iron overload. If they didn’t take blood from me every week or so my body would start to shut down. I’d lose my hair. Become impotent. Eventually I’d end up with liver cancer or cirrhosis. The doctors tried to sugarcoat things by referring to me as a “super donor.”
Every seat in the clinic’s waiting room was taken, and about ten people had to stand, either leaning against the wall or sneaking a smoke just outside the door. Most of those waiting were Mexican, although there was a sprinkling of elderly Koreans.
The clinic had plenty of reading material but hardly anything in English. I had to content myself with reading Redbook. I searched in vain for an even moderately interesting article and finally found one with tips on cutting your living expenses. Who would have known that you should keep your microwave unplugged when not in use—that a microwave can suck energy just sitting on the counter?
A woman with dyed black hair sat next to me. She looked to be in her fifties, a former beauty, dripping with costume jewelry and wearing a black slouch hat. I’d seen these types often enough, late at night in Ralphs. Hollywood driftwood.
Her eyes scanned the room and then fastened on me. When she turned my way I noticed a huge shiner under her right eye. She asked, “Can you spare some money so I can get some soup?”
I must have been a little slow on the uptake, because she said, “Not here. Later. At Friendly’s.”
I pulled out my wallet. “Yeah, I can spare a few bucks.”
I dug out three dollars, and before I’d even handed them to her she was off on a rap: “You have gorgeous eyes—the prettiest I’ve seen in a long time. The eyes of a poet.”
When she took the bills from me I saw how filthy her hands were. There was dirt worked into the creases of her skin and black grime under the broken nails.
She noticed me looking at her black eye. “You can see it?”
“Yeah. It looks like somebody hit you.”
“My boyfriend—my former boyfriend.”
She dipped into her purse for a bottle of makeup and started dabbing it over the shiner, saying, “This helps.”
I told her, “Time will help.”
The woman smiled with her lips pressed together. “Yes. Time heals all wounds.”
She waited for a second to let that bit of info sink in and then said, “With Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas.”
I did some figuring. I was pretty sure Basic Instinct came out in the late ’80s, early ’90s. Twenty-five years ago.
“What part did you play?”
This question didn’t sit well with her, and she said, “It doesn’t matter.”
The clerk at the intake window called the woman’s name, and she moved quickly toward the door to the examination rooms.
It wasn’t much longer until they called me. I walked down the hall, past the gurneys and the open doors of the waiting rooms, where I caught glimpses of nurses in burgundy scrubs and cheerless patients sitting slumped on exam tables.
I walked down to room six and sat down. The same guy treated me each week, and in seconds he came through the door. Royal Jones. My black nurse. I think the word in use was thick although most people would say Royal was fat. He wasn’t a screaming homosexual, but even Cold War–era gaydar would tip you off quick that Royal wasn’t daydreaming about women.
I remember the first time he took my blood and he had started in on one of his riffs: “When I was twenty-two years old I had a thirty-two-inch waist. I was a Royale. Now I’m a forty-four. I had the physique of a prince, and now I have the build of a pauper. A pauper who ate too much welfare cheese.”
I liked him a lot.
“How are we feeling today?” asked Royal.
“You know how it gets around the end of the week.” I said, “I start to run out of gas.”
“Well, we’ll set you up right.”
He swabbed my skin and stuck the needle in my arm. I watched the blood go up the tube.
“You been eating right?” asked Royal. “You look a little peaked.”
“Champagne and oysters, mostly.”
Royal gave me a fist bump on the hand without the needle. “My man,” he said. “You’re learning how to enjoy life.”
“When it rains it pours.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to say nothing, but I noticed that ring on your finger.”