by Steph Cha
Shawn almost smiled. “What’s your alibi then?”
“I don’t have one.”
“You weren’t at home?”
“I was out.”
“Where?”
“Just driving.”
Shawn’s heart sank. Ever since Ray started working for Duncan, his reformed-church-boy act had slipped and he’d become hard to pin down. His hours were vague and irregular, but he was out of the house a lot more than forty hours a week. Seemed like he barely even saw the kids. There were a few times Nisha had called Shawn, worried that her husband was unaccounted for. Shawn was too busy to keep an eye on him, and besides, Ray was a grown man—a father, too, with no desire to land back in prison—but he couldn’t help but worry. Palmdale was full of ex-bangers from the old hood, and plenty of them got tired of commuting into L.A. for bullshit pay. Some of them found other ways to make ends meet. Put their heads together with old friends or friends of old friends. There was mischief around, if that’s what Ray wanted.
“Shit, Ray,” Shawn said, tacking on a laugh. “Was it you?”
“No. And you’re sure it wasn’t you?”
For a moment, Shawn remembered the weight of a gun, the resistance of a trigger against his squeezing finger. He tried to picture Jung-Ja Han now—not in the bloom of pregnancy, but graying, wrinkling, a woman in her fifties with terror in her eyes, the knowledge that her sins had caught her at last.
“No,” he answered. “I been right here the whole time.”
II
Saturday, March 16, 1991
There would be no more sleep for Shawn today. First, the rattling sound of pulled blinds, the flush of morning light, and then Ava was sitting on his arm, poking his forehead with a wet finger.
“Wake up, Shawn,” she said, singsong. “Wake up, baby brother.”
Shawn groaned. It was a Saturday morning, and he’d been up late reading comic books until his eyes wouldn’t stay open anymore, waiting for Ray to come back from wherever he was. He glanced at Ray’s bed: still empty.
He pulled the covers over his head and mumbled through them, wishing his sister would go away. “What time is it?”
“It’s almost ten, sleepyhead. Aunt Sheila said to go get milk.”
“She said for who to go get milk?”
“She didn’t say, ‘Ava, go get some milk.’ She said we need it. For breakfast. And she’s making breakfast, so that leaves you and me, I guess.” She paused, and Shawn lowered the covers to see her frowning at Ray’s side of the room. Getting milk was a Ray chore—he let Ava boss him and never thought Shawn could do much of anything, and until like a month ago, he was all about helping his mom.
“Do you know where he is?” Shawn asked.
“He said he was hanging with Duncan and them, didn’t he? Probably stayed out late doing whatever and crashed with him.” She shrugged, but Shawn knew she was just trying to keep him from worrying. The first time Ray didn’t come home, Shawn had wandered over to Ava’s room in the middle of the night and slept curled at the foot of her bed.
He didn’t remember their mother too well. He’d been too young when she died to retain any memories he couldn’t question. The short halo of hair, the narrow, gleaming eyes—he knew her features, but they matched her photographs too perfectly, her smile always the same smile, the one that went with her green cardigan, with the two children bundled in her arms. When he was three, he’d gotten lost at the supermarket and wandered out to the parking lot, where his mother found him playing with a grimy stray dog. Shawn remembered that dog, its perked-up ears and long whip of a tail, and he remembered his mother’s shout of horror and relief—“Shawn Matthews! Get away from that rat!” But it was a story Ava had told him before that was maybe more vivid to him now than it had been when he was younger.
What he did know about his mom was that she’d left home one day like any other, and a drunk driver rammed her car into a building and sped away. It was that quick and that random, and it had changed everything.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a drunk driver who got Ray, but Shawn knew something could get him. Anything could happen, and Ray was putting himself in anything’s way.
Ava snatched the covers out of Shawn’s grip and tossed them away where he’d have to sit up to reach them. “Up, up,” she said. “You can go like that. Just brush your teeth.”
When he came back from the bathroom, Ava was wearing a Dodgers cap—Ray’s Dodgers cap, the new one he’d left out on their desk.
“That’s Ray’s hat,” said Shawn.
“He won’t mind.”
“You took the tag off.”
She’d given Ray crap for leaving the tag on last time he wore it. “I did the dum-dum a favor. He looked like a fool with the tag hanging off the back of his head.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth, shaping her mouth into a grin.
It was early enough that the streets were quiet. Shawn’s friends would all be sleeping, taking advantage of their one day to stay in bed with no school and no church. No Crips out either—whatever they’d gotten up to the night before, it was over now; the score would get counted later. Ava was right. Ray probably got high and crashed at Duncan’s, like last time and the time before that.
They walked past Frank’s Liquor, their old corner store, where Aunt Sheila and Uncle Richard still got their butter and eggs. Frank had probably forgotten about the magazine incident by now, and even if he hadn’t, all three of them looked different—Frank wasn’t from the neighborhood, so they never saw him around—but they were used to bypassing his store, and habit was habit.
“You know he gonna get it when he gets home,” Ava said. “That’s three nights this week.”
Shawn nodded. “Aunt Sheila gonna whup his ass.”
“Hey.”
“His butt.”
Ava rubbed his head in approval and Shawn glanced around instinctively, but no one took any notice. “He’ll be lucky if he just gets his ass whupped,” she said. “If Uncle Richard throws him out, that’s game over for Ray Ray.”
Their usual corner store was two blocks past Frank’s. Figueroa Liquor Mart was also a liquor store—if they wanted a grocery, they all had to drive to the Food 4 Less on Western—but it had what they needed, more or less; milk, anyway. It even called itself a grocery—there it was right under the main sign, painted on the wall in blocky black letters: FIGUEROA GROCERY—MONEY ORDER—MEAT—PRODUCE.
An electronic bell sang out as they entered—two tones, ding-dong. A woman looked up from behind the counter, watching them come in with a strange expression that snagged Shawn’s attention. He’d seen this woman a couple of times before. She was a Korean woman—he couldn’t tell how old, maybe twenty, maybe forty—with bobbed hair and a thin, hard mouth. Probably she was Mr. Han’s wife. She was there alone, where Mr. Han usually stood with his arms crossed, watching the happenings in his store. Shawn didn’t mind Mr. Han. He wasn’t friendly, but he wasn’t rude, and he didn’t look at Shawn like some Korean men looked at him, like he was nothing but trouble in a boy suit. He always nodded at him when he came in, a stern nod, but one that signaled recognition.
There was none of that in Mr. Han’s wife. She was staring at them—no, Shawn realized, she was staring at Ava.
“What’s up with her?” asked Ava. “She’s looking at us like we’re wearing ski masks.”
Ava and Shawn were on the same page, picking up the same signs. It was a gift, this sibling connection, a joint intuition about as close to psychic power as anything Shawn had ever seen. Together, they ignored the bad vibes. What was another rude Korean cashier? They needed milk, and they were already there.
Ava held the door open and looked through the quart jugs. “Two percent, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Shawn glanced back at the cashier. They were the only people in the store, and she was watching them closely.
“These are all about to go bad,” said Ava. She pulled out jug after jug, setting them on the floor, going for the ones in the back. She fro
wned and picked one. “I guess next week is better than this week.”
Shawn helped her put the rest of them back.
“That bitch still staring at me?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Come on, Ave. Let’s get home.”
She made a show of looking at Mr. Han’s wife with a wide smile, then she put the quart bottle in the kangaroo pocket of her sweatshirt and smiled a different smile for him.
By the time he walked away from the refrigerated wall, Ava was already at the counter, facing off with the cashier. The woman’s face was red, and she was shouting at his sister: “I see you! That’s my milk!”
Ava raised her hands and started backing away from the counter. The plastic jug was still in her sweatshirt, so large and obvious it might as well have been held in her hand. But it wasn’t, and before Ava could take it out, the woman reached across the counter and grabbed her by the collar. She pulled her like she might drag her over the barrier between them, the wall of glass and plastic that was supposed to keep them safe, one from the other.
Shawn shouted something, he didn’t know what. His fear mashed the words on his tongue. Ava would fight this woman. He was sure of it. His sister was not one to bear insults.
Her footing slipped as her legs slammed against the rows of gum and candy, knocking them loose. Shawn couldn’t see her face, just the back of her head, Ray’s cap gone now, fallen to the floor.
She struggled, trying to writhe out of this stranger’s grip. The woman wouldn’t let go; she was stronger than she looked. But Ava did not lose. If anyone asked him, he could have said so—he was her brother, and she had beaten him and shielded him. Ava did not yield and she did not lose.
Her feet scraped the dirty floor and then righted themselves as she held on to the counter and found her balance. He couldn’t see her face, but he saw the change in the woman’s, the rage mixing with a familiar curdle of fear.
Ava planted her feet, and with the woman’s hands still on her sweatshirt, she punched her, swinging but swift, swift and true. Her fist landed on the woman’s jaw, and she punched her again, and again, and again, four hits to the face, with all of her power.
He knew his sister could fight—Ray told him stories, things he’d seen and heard. She got suspended once, for fighting a junior after school. The junior got it in her head that Ava was giving her attitude, and she stopped Ava by the buses, pushed her shoulder, and said, “What you looking at, orphan bitch?” Ava socked her so hard it knocked the wind out of her; she might’ve done worse if the junior’s friends hadn’t gotten in the way.
But Shawn had never seen it. He’d seen her strength and her stubbornness, but never her violence, never what happened when someone tried to push her down.
The contorted cry rose again from his throat, but he didn’t move. He either couldn’t or didn’t want to. He was terrified—his sister would get in huge trouble—but he knew, too, that she was there blazing in front of him, sure of herself and winning.
The woman let go of Ava’s sweatshirt. Her face was already swelling, and she raised her hands to touch it, her eyes dry but enraged, crackling red. Ava stepped back, and Shawn stepped toward her, numbed and vibrating with shock and relief. It was over. Ava was gonna get it and get it soon, but right now, it was time to leave.
She turned around. She put her hand in her front pocket, grabbed for the milk jug. That’s what Shawn was watching—he wanted to see what she’d do with it, whether she’d put it back in the refrigerator, or take it with her, or fling it to the floor—when Ava fell. She dropped, and the jug dropped, and his sister was down.
And then Mr. Han was rushing into the store, shouting and shaking his wife. It was like Shawn wasn’t there at all—Mr. Han barely looked at him. He yelled at his wife in his strange language, and she cried back at him, suddenly helpless now, a desperate woman choking with sobs.
Shawn couldn’t move. He was on the floor by his sister—how had he gotten there?—the knees of his pajama bottoms wet with blood and milk. There was a hole in her forehead, raw and shining. That’s what this was—the woman had shot his sister.
Weren’t there stories—he thought there were stories—of people who got shot in the head and survived?
911, Shawn thought. He had to call 911. Would they let him use their phone to call 911?
Mr. Han was on the phone. Shawn wanted to be the one talking, but he couldn’t move, and he couldn’t talk.
“My wife. Rubber lady.” That’s what Mr. Han kept saying. “My wife shot the—”
Robber lady.
Ava still warm on the ground, and Shawn there, watching, listening, and already there were lies in the air.
It happened so fast—that’s what people said, and when he watched the video, he saw for himself, it was all over in a matter of seconds. But was there a moment when he could’ve stopped her? When he could’ve run to his sister, shouted and hugged her until she reabsorbed the poison of her pride?
How many times did he have to relive it? For the cops, for the lawyers, for the judge; for Aunt Sheila, for Uncle Richard, for Ray; and for himself, most often and never-ending. Yet what did he really remember? A hand tugging a quart of milk. The hand and the milk falling, and his sister on the floor. Later, he could call up Ava’s face as a hole ripped through it, and the woman behind her, Jung-Ja Han, standing in awe with a smoking gun.
They told him he cried and fell to his knees, but he could have sworn he was silent, removed and catatonic. When he could speak again, he spoke, and he told the truth. The video backed him up. Ava wasn’t armed, and Jung-Ja Han waited until her back was turned to shoot her in the head. It was a relief—even the cops believed him; they were nicer to him that day than they ever would be again, because he was still a boy then, for the hours before the shock wore off.
But even with the video, even after he testified—Mrs. Han’s smooth-talking black lawyer in his face, urging him to remember Ava’s threats to kill Jung-Ja Han, to kill her right there or come back and kill her later—even after a jury took four days to convict Ava’s murderer of voluntary manslaughter; even then, the lie had sway, the young Korean wife in mortal fear of the black gangbanging robber. The white lady judge gave Jung-Ja Han five years probation, four hundred hours of community service, and a $500 fine. A week later, she sent a man to jail for thirty days. He had kicked and stomped a dog.
Seven
Saturday, August 24, 2019
Even with all the Crown Royal weighing down her blood, Grace couldn’t imagine falling asleep. Miriam had given up looking after her at around four in the morning, going to sleep in Grace’s bedroom, the one they’d shared for so many years. Grace was sober and miserable and wide awake, nothing but heartache and headache for her troubles. She felt bad, helpless against the torment clawing her from the inside out. She remembered her teenage years, before she went on the pill, curling up with merciless cramps every time she got her period. That desperate pain. Her mom bringing heated stones and stroking her hair to coax her to sleep.
There was something Yvonne said—that you missed your mother when you were sick, when you were suffering. Grace thought of her in the ICU, fighting for her life. She couldn’t bear the thought that she might not make it out. How could Grace get through this without her?
She was alone in the kitchen. Before she knew what she was doing, she had her phone out, her browser open. Her thumb selected the search bar. The video—that’s what summoned her. The twenty-eight-year-old security footage circulated around the world.
It didn’t take her long to find it, linked from a retrospective about the L.A. Riots. She lingered over the link, wondering what good it would do to watch this thing. Grace was squeamish about violence; it fascinated her, but while she could spend hours reading about serial killers, she avoided horror movies and certainly had no interest in snuff films. And that’s what this was, wasn’t it? A snuff film, with her mother behind the gun.
But she had no choice. This was the video that had damned Y
vonne, the one that was meant to show she was a villain, a cold-blooded murderer. All those people who watched it and judged her, they didn’t know her like Grace did; they were biased going in, the mere idea of a dead teenager enough to rile up their sympathies, to make them side with the victim. As if teenagers were all so innocent. Grace owed it to Yvonne to watch the footage with an open mind; she owed it to her mother to try to understand her.
She clicked the link. The video played. It was only fifteen seconds long—it took almost the full loop for Grace’s eyes to adjust, to locate the moving blobs on the screen. She blinked, hit replay and pause before YouTube could generate the next video. Incredible. She’d just watched her mother shoot and kill a stranger, and she’d missed the whole thing.
This was the video that got everyone all worked up? It was so short, so silent, so removed from anything grand or gory or even particularly human. The footage was blue and grainy—she squinted at the still image. It took some concentration to distinguish the human outlines from the fuzzy blues of their surroundings. They were just left of the center, their black hair the two darkest spots on the screen. Facial features were blurred, expressions unreadable.
She replayed it, and this time, she knew where their limbs were and followed their every motion. Five seconds in, she paused again—she’d just seen Ava Matthews, the victim, punch Jung-Ja Han.
What on earth? How was this not self-defense?
She rewound and watched it again, and this time she saw that Jung-Ja Han had grabbed the girl before she got punched, yanking her forward. But she didn’t punch her. Grace had never been punched in her life, and she doubted Jung-Ja Han had either, at least not before this—people just didn’t go around punching other people. This girl—she was obviously crazy. She wasn’t some innocent little angel.
Grace hit play again. Her righteous anger gave her a tiny jolt of courage; she felt more equal now to what was still to come.