by Steph Cha
Even Aunt Sheila hardened at that line, her back straightening as she pulled away. “Now wait a minute. I know she didn’t send her daughter to apologize on her behalf after all these years,” she said.
Grace shook her head. “Oh no, I didn’t mean— She doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Jung-Ja Han has had almost three decades to apologize. Instead, she lied and manipulated her way out of prison, then disappeared without so much as a tearful glance in our direction. No, we aren’t fool enough to accept that.”
“I understand,” said Grace, putting a hand to her heart. “I can only speak for myself, and I am truly, truly sorry.”
“You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about,” said Shawn. “You know that. You weren’t even born.”
She lifted her face toward him. Eyes shining, expectant. Waiting for absolution like it was a wafer he might place upon her tongue.
Of course that’s what she was after. The same thing that Searcey was after, more or less, and every nonblack person who found out who he was, and what had happened to him, and looked longingly his way. Ava wasn’t there to receive their goodness, so they poured it, sloshing, wherever they could. Aunt Sheila used it, and he couldn’t blame her. But he couldn’t stomach it anymore. Not since he was a child, getting his head rubbed by every kindhearted motherfucker who warmed his soul from a safe distance at the bonfire of Shawn’s tragedy. He was forever a black child who’d been publicly wronged, and so he was an altar for the well-meaning pilgrims, who wanted his grace in exchange for their patronage. At least Ava got to die before they made a production out of the great tragedy of her life.
“You want me to forgive you, don’t you? That’s why you came.”
“I wanted to help,” she said, her words so weak he doubted she even convinced herself.
“I didn’t watch the video, and I get why you said whatever it is you said. Other than that, I’ve got no fight with you. You did me no wrong, and I have no reason to forgive you.”
He watched her go over his words to find if she’d gotten what she wanted. She hesitated, then spoke again, evidently dissatisfied. “I just wanted to say I was sorry. That’s all. This is all so new to me.”
“It’s not new to me. I’ve been living without your apology for twenty-eight years, and I’ve managed. So has Aunt Sheila.”
His aunt was quiet, but she nodded, her head heavy. How dare this girl come to their table, pleading about injustice, acting like his sister was a dead body she’d discovered, one they had to help her do something about right now. When they’d buried her a thousand times over. When they’d done their best, the only ways they knew how, to keep her alive.
After she saw the girl to the door, Aunt Sheila claimed exhaustion and went to her bedroom, where Shawn hoped she was napping and not crying into a pillow. He unpacked the takeout—orange chicken and beef with broccoli, fried rice and chow mein—and called the kids out to help set the table.
The door to Darryl’s room bust open the second he said their names, and they both came tumbling out.
“Who was that?” asked Dasha, her eyes sparking, concerned. “Where’s Grandma? Is she okay?”
Darryl said nothing, but his shoulders were squared and tight, and Shawn could tell both of them had been listening in as hard as their ears would allow.
“Nobody,” he said. “Grandma’s just tired. Here, let’s set the table and eat. Food’s gonna get cold.”
“Come on, Uncle Shawn. Who was that Asian lady?”
“Did you meet her?” Shawn asked. Something about the idea unnerved him.
“Not really. Grandma made us go to our rooms. But we saw her. And we know something’s up. We’re not stupid.” She looked to her older brother, as if for confirmation. Darryl nodded vaguely. “This is about Dad, isn’t it? And that Korean woman. The one they say he shot.”
Shawn sat down and closed his eyes. He had to collect himself. Dasha was right—they were not stupid. Their father had been arrested. Even if Shawn tried to protect them, they knew how to read the news. But this was something different. That girl had come with her burden, her blood; she had thought nothing of bringing it here. The kids—his kids—had seen her; she’d forced their paths to collide. It was nothing short of an invasion.
“What did she want?” asked Darryl.
“Don’t worry about it,” Shawn said, his throat dry. “She’s got nothing to do with us.”
III
Wednesday, April 29, 1992
The day of the verdict, Aunt Sheila kept them home from school. She said it was so they could all be together, but Shawn knew there was more to it than that. He heard the nerves in her voice, saw the fear and pleading in her outstretched hand, her soft mother’s smile.
At 3:00, they gathered. Uncle Richard and Aunt Sheila, Shawn and Ray, the four of them hip to hip on the sofa, links on the same chain. By 3:15, Aunt Sheila’s hand was warm and damp where she gripped Shawn’s arm. It felt like the courtroom all over again. His heart thudded and his head throbbed, his body struggling to contain his dread and anger, his screaming hope that maybe this time, things would be different. That the difference might reach back and change everything else.
It had been almost six months since Jung-Ja Han’s trial. Aunt Sheila had spent that time in agitation and protest, condemning the judge, the jury, the whole justice system. The decision was an atrocity, the sentence a bad joke, and everyone seemed to know it. The people, the prosecutors. Even the media seemed to be on their side. But just last week, the state appeals court held up the judge’s decision. It was unanimous—a united front. Every back turned on Ava and her family. Shawn didn’t know one person who thought this was right or even conceivable. Maybe Shawn didn’t know one person who mattered.
Aunt Sheila straightened in her seat and Uncle Richard turned up the volume.
The verdict was in.
The reporter’s face gave away nothing, but Shawn knew all the same what would come out of the white man’s mouth. Whatever hope Shawn had vanished like fog in daylight.
They’ve all been found not guilty.
It was a clean sweep for the defendants.
The mayor is expected to call for calm throughout the city.
I don’t think there’s much doubt that there’s going to be quite a reaction.
Not necessarily relevant, there were no blacks on the jury. There were twelve on the jury, of course. Ten of them were white, one was Latino or Hispanic, and one was an Asian.
Smoke rose in a pillar like something from the Bible, dark and alive and climbing, becoming one with the gray sky. Shawn felt a pinprick of heat on his forehead, touched it and gazed at his finger. Ash. It was everywhere. Flakes of it landing like snowfall.
He opened his mouth, tasted the burning air. His eyes stung, scalded with smoke and tears.
Ray clucked his tongue. “Damn. Niggas ain’t messing around. Not today.”
Shawn saw Ava lying on the floor of the liquor store, and for a panicked moment, he thought it was burning with her in it, her body—the body of his sister, buried a year ago in a small grave in a dirty cemetery, where the weeds grew wild—pinned forever to the place he last saw her alive.
“Shawn!”
He was halfway across the street when Ray caught him by the elbow.
“What you think you’re doing? Can’t you see the place is on fire? What’s the matter with you?”
He watched it burn as Ray dragged him away. The sign was blacked out now, almost illegible. Figueroa Liquor Mart a thing of the past. It was what he wanted, he realized now, what had drawn him after Ray into the street, with Aunt Sheila shouting behind them. The store had been closed since the day Jung-Ja Han killed Ava, the family scared, with good reason, that the locals would come looking for vengeance. Word was they’d been trying to sell the place, but no one wanted to buy. It was cursed. Haunted. An evil place that deserved to burn.
But who else had the right to destroy it?
He shook Ray off and ran, half chok
ing on bitterness and acrid air. Home. He’d go home. Home where he had no father, no mother, no sister.
What did Ray know about anything? If it weren’t for Ray, they never would’ve had to go to Figueroa in the first place. They might’ve never met Jung-Ja Han. If it weren’t for Ray and that asshole Frank, Ava would still be alive.
He ran without thinking, just one shoe dropping in front of the other, but when he looked up, Frank’s Liquor was right there in front of him. Lights out, doors closed, like it was trying its best to hide. He heard footsteps running toward him, then slowing until Ray stood next to him.
“Frank the Crank. He used to scare the shit out of me,” Ray said. “Bet he wouldn’t scare me now.”
Shawn tried to picture him, came up with a tall, thin man with graying hair, a stern face made sterner with glasses. It was true—he might’ve cowed them when they were kids, but they were older now, Ray a straight-up banger. But then again, it wasn’t a Crip or Blood who killed Ava.
“You think he’s in there?” Shawn asked, his voice croaking.
“What?”
He cleared his throat. Spat on the ground. “Frank. You think he’s in there?”
“Don’t look like it,” said Ray. “Why?”
Shawn walked up and tried the door, Ray following behind. It was locked.
The door was glass, and he peered inside. Their old corner store, familiar even shrouded in darkness. His eyes adjusting, he made out rows of snack food and toiletries, a wall of refrigerated drinks.
“It’s empty,” Ray said. He pulled at the door, rattling it, making a little bell chime at the top. It didn’t budge for him any more than it had for Shawn. “Damn,” he said. “I was gonna clean him out of magazines.”
Shawn looked back toward Figueroa Liquor and found the fire. It wasn’t the only one. The air was hazy, the sky getting dark. Night falling, smoke rising. The streets were filling with people. He could see them roaming, hear them shouting from blocks away. It was on now. The streets zapped with energy. He could feel it, and he knew it was something big, surging through the neighborhood, the city. Shawn and Ray buzzing on the same frequency as Aunt Sheila and Uncle Richard at home, as all the people in the world who’d been forced to tune in. Everyone is a part of this. The sweat on his skin sang out.
Frank must’ve heard the trouble coming, closed up shop, and gone home. As if this weren’t his problem. As if it were as simple as leaving, waiting out the storm from a different island. He was wrong. He was in this. And he had shit to answer for.
Shawn was getting in. What was a locked door anyway? Just a plea for obedience, asking people like Shawn to be civil and turn around, as if that had ever helped them. As if they didn’t know what to do with a little bit of glass.
For a moment, he thought about punching through the door—it seemed like it should be that easy. Then he collected his thoughts and looked around, scanning for something he could use instead of his fists. There were no baseball bats or hammers; no fallen branches either. But there was a broken curb at the edge of the parking lot, a loose piece of concrete sitting right there like a key to a castle in a video game. He walked over, picked it up, Ray watching him with his mouth open.
“Oh, shit,” Ray said. “Do you know—”
Shawn threw the concrete block and it broke through the door, leaving a jagged hole big enough for his arm to reach the lock.
He opened the door and entered, Ray behind him, stepping carefully.
“This is some shit.” Ray laughed.
“Don’t move!”
They snapped their heads toward the voice. It belonged to a Korean man, positioned behind the register like a soldier in the trenches, head and gun rising over the counter. Frank.
He looked older and skinnier than Shawn remembered, his face gaunt in a way that made Shawn think he could be sick. But what did that matter? He had a gun, and he was pointing it right at Ray.
Shawn’s mouth flooded with fear and anger. “Or what?” he said, the hardness in his voice surprising him. “You’ll shoot us?”
The gun didn’t move, but Frank’s eyes shifted to Shawn, appraising him. Shawn tried to see himself as this man saw him. He was fourteen now, not as tall as Ray, but much bigger than he’d been a year ago, more a man than a child. He’d been growing by the week—one day, he’d realized he was the same height Ava was, and one day soon he’d be the same age. His face, too, was older, the baby fat fallen away, the happy glow of the old days gone with it. He hardly smiled anymore.
He was a thief. A threat. A thug. Dark skin and danger.
They held still and silent, standing off, until Frank lowered the gun. “You’re the brother,” he said, staring at Shawn.
Shawn stared back, keeping his face steely, hiding his surprise.
“You’re the girl’s brother. The one Han Jung-Ja—” He swallowed, unable to finish the sentence. “You kids come here before. I remember.”
There was a gentleness in his voice, and a part of Shawn understood that this man felt sorry for him, that he saw his pain and acknowledged it. This part of Shawn understood that Frank had never meant him harm, and that he meant him no harm now. That he was just a man minding his livelihood. But the part of him that blazed understood things differently.
“She died ’cause of you,” he said, his voice quiet and dry.
“What?”
He cleared his throat and spoke louder. “I said, she died ’cause of you.”
Frank looked from Shawn to Ray with genuine confusion.
Ray picked up a stack of magazines and threw it on the floor. “Why’d you have to be such a hard-ass, huh? Over a motherfucking magazine.” He picked up a Penthouse, glanced at the cover and threw it down with the rest. “What’s this cost? Two dollars?”
Shawn looked at Ray. Two dollars. That’s what Ava had in her hand, ready to pay for the milk that cost her her life. She was holding those dirty bills when she died.
“Why you here anyway?” Ray asked. “Any of you?”
The question hung nastily in the dirty air, disappearing into the sound of approaching sirens—fire or police? Frank straightened, standing taller behind the counter, a man defending his pride. “This is my store,” he said.
“Yeah? What, you couldn’t do this in Korea? This ain’t home for you. We don’t want you here. You think we’re stupid, yeah? You think we pay ten bucks for some potato chips and apples and we don’t know you ripping us off.”
“Do I look like rich man to you? I work hard, you steal from me, you threaten me. My friend Mike Oh, he get killed. He has family, and he die for hundred dollar in cash register.”
Shawn knew the story, or at least the tune. Jung-Ja Han’s lawyer trotted it out about a hundred times during the trial. All the Korean liquor store owners killed by shoplifters in South Central in the year before the shooting. Fucked up, yeah, but he’d gotten tired of hearing it. Like some bangers running stickups had anything to do with his sister, shot in cold blood.
His mouth was parched, his tongue noisy. “How about your friend Jung-Ja Han?”
“She is not my friend,” he said. “She did wrong. I’m sorry.”
But he was behind the counter, staring down two black hooligans on the other side. His eyes gave him away. This motherfucker felt sorry for her, and he deserved whatever he was going to get.
Shawn didn’t notice the other boys until the bell rang and they tumbled in. Four of them, older than Ray, their faces vaguely familiar. One of them—the short dude with giant arms—might have been a Crip called Sparky, who shot his neighbor’s dog for disrespecting his parents’ lawn.
Frank snapped his attention on the newcomers, raising his gun. “Get out!” he shouted.
Sparky looked at his crew, then at Ray and Shawn, giving Ray a nod of recognition. He smiled. “What, you gonna take all of us?”
Frank hesitated, his grip visibly weakening. He blinked once, and Sparky pulled his own gun, pointing it right at the Korean man’s head.
; “You know I know how to use this,” he said. “Now I’m not trying to lose control today, but I gotta defend myself if you don’t put that thing down.”
Frank didn’t move, and Sparky walked toward him, his stride swinging and slow, weighted by the shorts that brushed his calves. Step by step, he closed the gap between them, leading with the gun. Before anyone could say anything, he had it an inch from Frank’s forehead.
“You best get going, old man. This place don’t belong to you no more.”
Frank’s skin turned a sallow yellow. He looked older than he had a minute ago. He closed his eyes and nodded, his thick eyelids trembling, his papery cheeks shiny with tears.
He said nothing as he let Sparky escort him out of the store. Shawn watched him leave, saw him turn back and take one long look, a heartbroken man saying goodbye. He almost felt sorry for him. Then he remembered—Jung-Ja Han had cried, too. For her reputation. For her livelihood. Her sorrow for herself. There were things worth mourning and things that weren’t. Frank’s Liquor was just another corrupted place.
The boys went to work like they’d done this a thousand times. Sparky took the gun, took the money out of the register. His crew went from aisle to aisle, picking things up so fast it didn’t seem possible they were stealing at random. Ray joined in, bumping fists with Sparky, and Shawn looked around, wondering what he wanted.
He didn’t want magazines, or batteries, or beer, or cigarettes. He didn’t want snacks, or diapers, or lottery tickets. He looked around him at all the junk, this ugly store that meant enough to Frank that he stood his ground to protect it, crouched in the dark with a gun. What did Shawn want with any of it?
What he wanted he couldn’t have. Blood unspilled. History undone. So what good would a pack of gum do him?
He coughed. The others were hollering and laughing, and their noise mingled with the fire that knotted the air. He caught a whiff of his T-shirt—soot and smoke. There was only one thing he wanted to do.
He found a fifth of vodka and poured it over the pile of magazines on the floor, the sharp stink of the alcohol cutting through the smell of burning. There were cigarette lighters by the register, but he knew he wanted matches. He found a box of long ones. Thirty-two count. He only needed one.