by James Aura
I stupidly watched as the Bel Air eased out toward the blacktop. Tommy had found out more about Soo Jin in twenty minutes than I had in two weeks! I made a mental note to look up more about these places next time I was at the library. I thought she might be Vietnamese or Chinese but felt it would be rude to ask.
“Did she say anything about how she lost her teeth?”
“Russell, now that would be rude! Tell you the truth I almost asked but decided you’d be able to fill me in on that little detail.”
This was embarrassing. It was a reminder that Uncle Wallace had yet to fill me in on some things, including Soo Jin. Hell, I knew more about Wonju’s history than I did about Soo Jin, maybe that was no coincidence.
On the way into town, Tommy sprang another one on me.
“That’s quite a dog, Russell. I’ve seen that monster before, in town. The Felton brothers had him, down at their compound past the railroad depot.”
“You were hanging around with the Felton brothers? I wondered why the dog seemed so carefree about your arrival.”
“Not hanging around, you know better than that. But I did spend some time down there. The Feltons got that jack-leg mechanic but when they need real work done, they call me. They had a Chevy Van that was in bad shape. I replaced the starter and tuned it up then got the hell out of Dodge. The Feltons run a creepy place out there, but the dog was cool. I tossed him some ham from my sandwich and we were buddies after that.”
The Felton brothers were notorious hoodlums, druggies, thieves and you-name-it. So another piece of the puzzle fell into place, thanks to my auto mechanic friend.
We headed for town. It was spring time. The sap was rising. Sammy Johns was on the radio. We sang the Chevy Van song along with him
I wondered if the hootchie mama women all had dental problems, or whether that was just Soo Jin. I made a mental note. Maybe Uncle Wallace could look into getting her some dentures.
Another sweaty couple of weeks and the crops were doing well. A strange assortment of vegetables and herbs in the ‘cash crop’ section. All would be grown organic, no chemicals. Uncle Wallace was convinced we’d have no problem selling them to folks who put a premium on such produce.
The raw milk project was slow to take off. The general store would have no part of it.
Proprietor claimed the state health department would be on him like white on rice if they tried to sell milk that hadn’t been pasteurized. So we enlisted a few neighbors and friends to spread the word that we had delicious, fresh, filtered raw milk just busting with all the original vitamins and minerals. And all they had to do was bring their containers by the farm and we’d fix them up, for a price.
So far our only taker was Tommy’s older sister, Evelena, who signed up for two gallons a week. The rest we kept putting out for the dairy truck to pick up. I was concerned that Uncle Wallace’s marketing plans might not work out. We’d put a fair amount of his money and my labor into a possible big disappointment.
I decided to go have a visit with Opal, who we hadn’t seen since Grandma’s service. Rumor had it there were problems with her chain of manicure shops and she had gone back to work, at least temporarily, to help straighten the company out.
She lived in a fancy subdivision a couple of towns away. It felt odd to be driving Grandma’s old Ford pickup past houses with Mercedes and Caddys in the driveways.
At least the truck was washed and polished. It looked pretty good, considering.
I had phoned ahead, so she was expecting me.
She met me at the front door, even at home, she looked dressed up. She was wearing a kind of pant suit with what looked like a pearl necklace. Opal had done all right for herself that was a sure thing.
“Russell, so good to see you. How’s school? Are you on break?”
I knew this was going to be awkward, but I had forgotten just how awkward it might be.
“Opal, I didn’t do so well on my finals. I am afraid I will lose that scholarship.”
She shook her head with disappointment and summoned me into the living room.
Out of habit, I left my shoes in the front hallway.
“Why did you take your shoes off, Russell?”
I thought about telling her about Soo Jin and our new neat and tidy household, where footwear was always left at the door, but decided to hold off on that one.
“Just didn’t want to track the farm in here onto your nice pretty carpet.”
“Well, that is very considerate Russell. I see you are minding your manners. Sit down and have some tea.”
Opal’s house smelled like furniture polish and the living room had what you’d call ‘objects of art’ situated alongside big mahogany bookcases and frilly curtains. She had lots of books, too. This old gal had come a long way from Blackwater Creek.
She brought out a fancy tea service with teabags and a kettle of steaming hot water. I wasn’t used to anything but iced sweet tea. The little teacups felt fragile. I was very careful, concerned I might break one.
“I feel awful that I haven’t been over to see you Russell. I’ve been spending a lot of time in Louisville with business things. But I’ve been thinking about you. I am sure you have been missing your grandmother. I miss her too. Tell me what’s been going on.”
So against my better judgment, I unloaded. Told her about the visit with the dean, final exams, Uncle Wallace moving in, and our plans for the organic crops and the raw milk and the dog. A few things I left out.
She sat transfixed while I talked, chin on her hand, teacup on her knee, seemingly more intrigued with each new revelation.
“I am sorry to say, I never really knew Wallace, or your mother’s side of the family. But I know Sally relied on him to help out with chores when you left for Auburn last year. We did talk about that some. She would have left you everything, Russell, including the livestock, but I know she felt she owed Wallace for all his help.”
She went on to explain that Grandma had expected I would sell the farm and Uncle Wallace would probably ship the livestock off to market for the cash. Apparently they didn’t know about my uncle’s distillery ventures or his interest in organic agriculture.
“My biggest problem, Opal, I get the feeling that Uncle Wallace is keeping me in the dark about some things. He’ll go off and do things then fill me in as an afterthought.”
Selling the farm did seem like a logical step for me. The money from our 140 acres would have probably paid for all my college expenses, and more. But Uncle Wallace had been so urgent and plaintive in his sales pitch. I realized I hadn’t given it enough thought. Truth to tell, I would have hated to part with the home place so soon after Grandma’s passing.
“How does he keep you in the dark, Russell? You don’t trust the man? Or you feel like he doesn’t respect you enough to involve you in his plans? It does seem a good sign to me that he has committed some of his own money to the enterprise. You’ve got to give him credit for that.”
So I told her about the sudden appearance of Soo Jin, and how Uncle Wallace usually did not answer my questions directly about her, seemed to drift off into Korean War stories and other things to deflect my attention. I couldn’t bring myself to go into the deal with the Sheriff’s department and the moonshine, though.
“Russell, it seems perfectly clear to me that this woman was living with him down at the trailer and he just took the opportunity to get her involved in the housework. What about Soo Jin, does she seem like a nice person?”
“Well she makes a great breakfast and she keeps the house spic and span. And she’s doing the kitchen garden and gathering the eggs now. She is a little bossy, though. Soo Jin is the reason I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving my shoes at the door. It does keep the house cleaner.”
Opal chuckled. “Bossy women! Oh lordy, you men and these bossy women. She doesn’t let you walk all over her, is that the picture, Russell?”
I realized some might regard Opal as a little on the bossy side. I was sorry I had brought that pa
rt up.
Opal then proceeded to give me a pep talk. She was prone to these pep talks. The last one I recalled getting from her was around age 14, when Tommy and I got caught smoking cigarettes in the machine shop. We had gotten a blistering lecture and a colorful description of what happens to your lungs after years of tar and nicotine. Rots the brain too, she said.
But Opal kept this one short and sweet.
“Russell, do you know what intelligence is? Intelligence is the ability to act on your knowledge. You can be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but if you just lay there, what good are you? Now get back home and put your knowledge to work. If I were you I would start with some direct questions to your Korean lady and your uncle. And I wouldn’t put up with any nonsense. I have full confidence in you Mr. Russell Ray!”
Her speech had a familiar ring to it. I tried to recall something similar I had heard recently. It was Elaine sitting out under the stars at Auburn.
“Russell why don't you let your thoughts become deeds,” she had said.
Opal surprisingly wasn’t that concerned about me losing the scholarship. She said I could figure things out and there were plenty of good schools right here in Kentucky that wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg in out-of-state tuition.
Before I left, I realized I hadn’t asked Opal anything about herself, or her business. When I inquired, she sighed and said it was hard to find good help sometimes but she was doing fine.
Opal’s speech on top of Elaine’s did me a world of good. I was ready to start steering my own ship again. I was Leif Erickson, at the helm. Confident and strong, headed for new worlds and new conquests. I felt a strong breeze at my back. I burned up the blacktop with that pickup on the way back to the farm.
When I arrived, no one was home. The Bel Air was gone and so were Soo Jin and Uncle Wallace. Probably running errands, I thought. I got out the milk buckets and headed for the barn. It was time for the evening chores. I then noticed the cats. They had come down from their refuge in the loft and were running to and fro nervously between the house and the barn. No dog to be found, which was very strange. Wonju had become a fixture around the house.
I finished milking, poured the cats their bowl of milk and sorted out the evening batch. Some I ran some through the cream separator for our lone raw milk customer. It was dusk and still no signs of Uncle Wallace, his woman or Wonju.
I had worked out some questions for my uncle, had planned for a ‘come to Jesus’ session over our evening meal, but the eerie quiet became increasingly strange. There was a stillness. No cricket chorus, no tree frogs either. It was the dark of the moon. Maybe that was it.
I made a sandwich, grabbed some skim milk from the fridge and sat on the front porch in the cool of the evening. The cats sashayed up to my rocking chair, like they again owned the place. They had stomachs full of fresh milk and the tom cat was ready to play. He chased after a moth that rose from the shrubbery out front. Then I thought I saw Grandma walking from the chicken house to the barn. She looked upset. I still missed her. She’d sit right where I was now, and she’d knit and sometimes she would sing a hymn, usually a little off-key.
I stared at the dark sky and again went over that fateful night when I lost the person most precious to me, my grandmother. It had been about this time in the evening that we were sitting in the front room and the announcer came on with that news bulletin about Saigon. I retraced my actions from that awful night, re-thinking how I might have done things differently, and how I might have saved Grandma. I remembered how I drove around town desperately looking for the hospital sign. It was like a bad dream, only I was awake. Then the phone rang. It was Sheriff Parker.
“Russell, can you drive into town and pick up your uncle? I’m afraid we’ve had some unfortunate events, and he will explain when you come in to the hospital. He’ll be at the emergency room.”
Not the emergency room again! I pulled into the hospital parking lot next to a sheriff’s squad car. Uncle Wallace was sitting just inside the door, his left arm in a cast and a large bandage on his cheek. But it was the nurse’s station down the hall that drew my attention. There she was. Standing at the counter, occupied with paperwork. Light blue nurse uniform, white stockings, hair of reddish gold. She was a vision. It was thrilling to see her.
Uncle Wallace tugged on my shirtsleeve with his good arm.
“Russell, let’s get out of here. It’s been a bad day, all around. I’m hurting, need to go home.”
He rose and winced, as if his ribs were hurting him. Then the sheriff came toward us past the nurse’s station. He reached out, put his long arm around her shoulder and gave her a hug. He gave my nurse a hug!
“See you later, Kim honey,” he said.
She smiled at him, and then glanced in our direction. No sign she knew me at all. Not a smile, not a frown. No nothing. Her expression was blank. So much for my fantasies about the nurse.
I opened the door for Uncle Wallace and we got into the pickup. I sat there for a minute, retracing in my mind the strong drive for questions and answers that I had felt only a few hours earlier on the trip back from Opal’s.
Uncle Wallace looked awful. He had a hangdog, defeated look. I remembered his moods. He could go into a dark place and stay there for days. Then he would emerge, the black cloud would seem to be gone and he’d be back to normal.
“They killed the dog, Russell. They killed Wonju! And they damn near killed me. Hoodlums. Sheriff thinks maybe they were with a gang in town. He’s got deputies knocking on doors over there now.”
“But why? And did they take anything? How’d you get hurt?”
He leaned against the door, rested his head against the truck window.
“They tried to take my wallet and they killed the dog, Russell. The bastards killed our watchdog! I still can’t believe it.”
I wanted to hear more but he asked me to step on the gas and stop at the drugstore for a painkiller prescription the emergency room doctor had written. When he came out of the pharmacy, medicine in hand, I sprang it on him.
“I guess maybe the Felton brothers were mad because you had their dog that the sheriff took in a drug bust?”
“Why would you think that, Russell?”
“Because I happen to know that Wonju belonged to the Feltons and he was confiscated along with some of their property when the sheriff’s boys raided their place last month. I get around, Uncle Wallace; I know more things than you might think.”
With his good arm, he reached into his bib pocket for a chew and paused, staring out the window. He looked even more defeated.
“Well I guess you knew more about it than I did Russell. I wish you’d told me. Sheriff didn’t mention all that. I had got real attached to that darn dog. I guess it’s a wonder they didn’t shoot me, too.”
They ambushed Uncle Wallace when he came out of the machine shop. One of them shot the dog then ran for a black van parked in the woods on the neighbor’s place. The other had asked for his wallet and threatened to strike him with some kind of bolo, a machete-like thing. Fortunately he’d been carrying his walking stick and managed to beat off his attacker. He’d broken his arm when he fell backwards onto the machine shed’s concrete apron.
He described his assailants as young guys, ‘chicken shits’ who seemed nervous, dirty with dusty clothes, as if they’d come off a construction job. He reckoned his attacker would have a big lump on his head from the walking stick.
Soo Jin came running out the back door when she heard the gunshot, and found him staggering toward the house. He had a broken arm, a nasty gash in his cheek and a cracked rib. She drove him to the emergency room, but he insisted she leave him at the door and drive the Bel Air back to the trailer. Uncle Wallace wasn’t ready to introduce Soo Jin to others, just yet.
I couldn’t help myself. As we drove out to the farm I was thinking that now I’d have to milk both those cows, morning and night for awhile and do most of the other chores. I was also in a blue funk about the nurse. I sank back
into the seat and felt drained. It seemed like Leif Erickson had lost all his oarsmen.
Soo Jin was waiting for us at the farm when we got back. She said she had gone back to the trailer as he instructed but couldn’t wait until morning to see how Uncle Wallace was doing. She looked very concerned as we helped Uncle Wallace into the front room recliner. He wanted to sleep there for the night, rather than get undressed and get into bed. It appeared the painkiller pills had knocked him out.
Soo Jin mentioned she had heard someone come into the house while she was in the upstairs bedroom getting some canned beets and corn. She had presumed it was Uncle Wallace. Now she figured it might have been the attackers instead. She wanted to sleep in the upstairs guest room, to be on hand first thing in the morning. I allowed that I had no problem with that, but I decided to put a condition on it.