by Mia Yun
Out of breath, we stagger after Jason and sit slouched on the seesaw. In the red sunlight, Jason’s face sparkles in golden amber. Inah’s face, cooked red, looks like raw sirloin steak under cling wrap at a supermarket meat counter.
“Jason, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Inah asks, cooing.
“Oh, no! Not again!” Jason rolls his eyes, smacks his own forehead and crosses his eyes. Inah giggles. She loves to play the stupid rhyming games over and over again. Never ever getting tired of it. But Jason is oh-so-patient with her. Not so much with me. Maybe because she kisses up to him so. He even tells her to let him know if anyone ever bothers her and calls her names. He will kick butt. Be it yellow butt, white butt or black butt. He likes to sound tough, but he’s only twelve and a half, still soft-skinned and skinny as a calf.
“Jason, Jason, guess what? Inah wants to marry you when she grows up!”
“No, I do not,” Inah says, flinging me an angry look.
“You do! Remember?”
“Like when?”
“The summer we came from Korea. When Uncle Wilson and Auntie Minnie took us sightseeing with Jason. In the car, you always sat next to him, saying oh-kay, oh-kay, because that was the only English you could speak. And you were always touching him, too, so Auntie Minnie told you to leave Jason alone. If he were a bar of soap, you would have worn him out many times already.”
“I did not!” Jason makes a snorting sound, and Inah giggles.
“So, Jason. Tell me again what you would like to become when you grow up. Please,” begs Inah, cooing like a baby dove. I walk behind Jason and try to pull him off the seesaw.
“Let’s go get fruit bars,” I say.
“Soon, Yunah,” Jason says, and Inah smiles happily. I stick out my tongue at her and slouch down between them. My head throbs from running around in the heat.
“You want to be? …” Inah swivels her head and smiles expectantly at Jason.
“A magician maybe. Or a musician maybe,” Jason recites. “Definitely a sensation with a reputation. But not a politician or a physician.”
“That’s sooo good!” Inah says adoringly. “Oh-kay, now my turn,” she says, sitting up. “When I grow up, I want to be a pomologist or an anthropologist or an archaeologist. But not a capitalist or a Baptist. A Buddhist maybe, but surely not in Budapest.”
“What’s a pomologist?” I ask. “I bet butt you don’t know and if you don’t know, you can’t become one.”
“Yes, I do,” Inah insists.
“Do not,” I say.
“Do too,” she says and turns to Jason. “Do you want to hear a poem I made up?” Jason snorts and falls back, rolling himself off the seesaw. He lies on his back on the ground, spreading his arms and legs in a capital letter X.
“It’s short! Ready?”
Jimmy is a baby
Plump as the purple plum in his plump hand
He plunks the purple plum into the toilet
And the plump plum gets stuck in the toilet
So they call the plump plumber
Even though they say he’s got a pea for a brain.
The plump plumber comes
Wearing a hat with a purple plume
Carrying his toolbox
That’s been sitting in the puddle
Left by his white poodle!
He tries a plunger, tries flushing
To no avail!
The plumber is pissed
So he says his piss of a son is a punk
That’s why he works till he smells like a skunk.
“How do you like it, Jason?”
“Uh, not bad,” he says, lying on the ground, blinking his eyes.
“Now your turn,” Inah says. “Do that one about Brook-lyn.”
“No, Inah! I’ve done it a zillion times already!”
“But it’s so good!” Inah gets off the seesaw and goes to Jason and tickles him. He rolls around the sand, squirming like a centipede and squealing like a girl.
“All right already!” Jason climbs back up to the seesaw and closes his eyes. Inah sits at full attention, supporting her chin with her clammy hands. I am so mad at her, I feel like kicking her in the butt. And Jason goes:
There’s not a brook in Brooklyn
That anyone can see
Clean or dirty or otherwise.
Some call Brooklyn Crooklyn
’Cause it’s got plenty o’ crooked corners
Where there’s not a tree for a shelter
Where pigeons go crook, crook
Looking for crumbs
Clean or dirty or otherwise
All day long, sunny day long
Brooklyn is no Brookhaven
It’s more likely a Crookhaven
He’s a crook for sure,
The bookie with the crooked teeth
One or two capped with gold.
He hangs around the corner all year long
Crying and laughing
For no good reason.
Cooking the books ’round the clock
All day long, sunny day long
Calling me a gook when I walk by
“Yo gook!” he says,
“Got a lo mein to go?”
“Got a chow mein to go?”
Inah claps appreciatively.
“Now can we go?” I ask.
“All ready,” Jason says.
We file out of the park, sweaty and clammy and smelling like dust. It’s still sunny, and we carry three extra-long shadows with us. When we reach the corner of Sanford at the crosswalk light, a white pickup comes up the road and slows to a stop at the red traffic light. The driver is a white man in a blue T-shirt, its sleeves rolled up to hold a cigarette pack. His freckled, beefy arm, covered with reddish curly hair, rests at the edge of the rolled-down window. It’s sunburned red and peeling bad in tattered sheets of dried glue. The light changes to Walk, and we start to cross. Inah calmly walks over to the pickup and yanks at the peeling skin on his arm. He jumps in his seat and Inah runs past us across the street, shrieking like a bugle. Scared, Jason and I dash across and up Sanford, pedaling our hot feet as fast as we can.
“Hey, kid!” the man swivels his head and shouts at Inah, running up the sidewalk. “You get over here!” he yells. I am so scared that I think I am going to wet my pants. The light changes and he rolls the pickup along, glancing at the sidewalk where we run for our lives. Jason steers Inah onto Roosevelt Avenue. I turn and look for the pickup. It has stopped again at a red light. He’s still straining his head to get a good look at us.
“Holy mackerel shit, Inah. What did you do that for?” Jason asks when we finally stop, out of breath and gasping for air.
“I couldn’t help it,” Inah says, looking at her hand.
“No shit! You’re so weird!” Jason says, scratching his head. I am still too scared and out of breath to say anything. The hair salon is empty, and the only person we see is the shampoo lady, Yolanda, sitting behind the cash register, worrying with her brown eyes. When she sees us file in, she puts her finger to her lips and rolls her eyes toward the back room. We tiptoe in and peek through the curtain. Auntie Minnie is on the couch, all made up as usual like an Asian Dolly Parton, her Ivory-soap-pale short legs folded one on top of the other. She’s pulling at the cigarette madly smacking the air with her other hand, armed with pointy press-on nails. The ashtray on the coffee table is littered with butts freshly stained with her fuchsia lipstick.
We also see Uncle Wilson by the minifridge, where he has rooted himself like a tree. His brown wrestler’s arms are folded over his barrel chest. He sees us and smiles with his big, hooded eyes.
“Hey son,” Uncle Wilson says to Jason in his thick, boom-box voice. “Where you kids been?” Inah and I hang back, not sure if it’s oh-kay to be friendly with him. We know Uncle Wilson is soon marrying Cecilia, his black girlfriend. Afterward, they are moving down to South Carolina. They are taking Jason with them.
“You no fool them,” Auntie Minnie sneers at Uncle Wilson and waves u
s away. We go and sit on the swiveling salon chairs, spinning to the left and to the right, letting our dangling legs fly. Auntie Minnie’s voice is rising and rising like the voice of an opera singer, and soon she’s spitting out cuss words. Jason looks at us with a here-we-go-again look and covers his ears with his hands.
“Everyone know you butterfly me plenty, you madda fucka! It your fault, no my fault we divorce. But I no care. I no give no damn you marry that ugly black mama. I no make it my business. But Jason, he no black! You lie to him, I know. You say to him he black but he no black. You no can fool Jason. You no can fool me. You think he want to go live with you and black mama?”
“Oh, yes, he does. Just ask him. And let me tell you, mama, Jason is as black as Jesse Jackson and no more Korean than I am. You know what I’m saying? If you don’t believe me, show me one Korean who thinks Jason is Korean ’cause I am yet to meet one damn Korean who does. Anyway, you Koreans are all goddamn racists to begin with. I ain’t stupid, mama. I’ve seen them treat you like shit just because you’re married to me, a black man.”
“What that got to do with Jason? He my son, that all I care!”
“I am not denying Jason is your son, but he’s my son, too. That’s a fact and don’t you ever forget that!” Uncle Wilson walks out to the salon, and we all jump out of the chairs and stand at attention. Auntie Minnie runs out and lunges at Uncle Wilson, pounding his broad back with her tiny, closed fists. She looks like a teddy bear trouncing on a grizzly. Uncle Wilson turns and grabs her by the wrists, trying to keep her hands away from him.
“You madda fucka!” Auntie Minnie curses. “I no can live without Jason. He my life,” she cries, hammering at his chest. “Before you take him, kill me first!”
“Get the f … away from me, mama,” Uncle Wilson says, peeling her off him like she’s a sticky wad of gum, but she lunges right back like she’s connected to him by an elastic cord. Jason tries to get in between them, but Uncle Wilson tells him to stay away. With his big hands, Uncle Wilson grabs Auntie Minnie’s shoulders, and she screams as if she’s hurting. “Call police!” she yells to us over her shoulder. Inah and I look at each other. We feel ashamed and sorry for Auntie Minnie. We don’t know what to do. We just stand there, stamping our feet. “What’s gonna happen?” Inah cries.
“You want the police? What for? You want to get arrested or something? Go ahead, call the police, mama!” Uncle Wilson peels her off him again and gives her a quick shove, sending her spinning. Auntie Minnie loses her footing, hits the back of a swivel chair and falls down. Jason starts crying. Inah and I are frantic. The shampoo lady, Yolanda, runs out of the salon, not knowing what else to do. Auntie Minnie gets back up on her feet and reaches for Uncle Wilson’s face with her press-on nails. Inah and I rush over, squat down and wrap our arms around each of Uncle Wilson’s huge legs, holding on to them desperately. We are so scared, we crush our eyes shut.
When we finally open them, Uncle Wilson is looking down at us. He seems surprised to see us down there on the floor holding on to his legs. He throws back his head and bursts into a roaring laughter like he has never seen anything so funny. Jason quickly goes over and puts his skinny arms around his mother’s round waist from behind. Auntie Minnie shouts at Jason to let go of her, ranting in Korean and in English and flailing her arms. Her wrists are red and welted. But Uncle Wilson can’t stop laughing. He laughs and laughs and wipes his eyes.
NINE
Saturday afternoon, the day before Uncle Wilson’s wedding, Daddy takes us to the Flushing Meadows Corona Park. That morning, because Auntie Minnie wouldn’t, Mommy took Jason to Caldor’s and bought him a black polyester suit, a white penguin-tailed shirt, a black bow tie and a pair of shoes, so he could go to his daddy’s wedding looking clean and decent.
At the park, we pick out two bicycles at the bike rental. Inah climbs onto the back of the one Jason will ride, and off they go. Daddy props me up on the other one and shows me how to steer the handlebars. Afterward, with him walking alongside, I take off in a zigzag, stiff and tense with the fear of falling. After just a few feet, the bike careens off and I end up ditching it. Daddy wants me to try again, but I don’t feel like it. Jason and Inah, though, are having a great time together, going around and around the sphere fountain. Laughing and hollering. Getting sprayed by the spewing mist. Daddy takes out the camera and snaps pictures. Inah and Jason. Riding the bike together.
But Daddy can’t get them to laugh when we sit down on the bench later outside the scrubby flowerbed, where roses are wilting in the heat. After tomorrow, after the wedding and the banquet, Jason will be moving down to South Carolina with his dad and new mommy. And that makes everyone so sad.
Daddy puts his arm around Jason’s hot, sad, sagging shoulder and gives him a squeeze. And then they sit quietly, both squinty-eyed in the glinting sunlight. In Jason’s hand, the soft chocolate ice-cream cone Daddy got him from the Mister Softee truck is fast melting.
“Jae-son,” Daddy says, calling him by his Korean name, “after tomorrow, you leave your mommy and go far away to live with your dad and his new wife. So it’s natural you are very sad. Everyone sad. Especially, your mommy. She most brokenhearted. She say things and hurt your feelings, but don’t mind too much what she says. She may been here many years, but her thinking is still Korean sometimes. She can’t help it. She think less with her head and more with her heart. That can be good and bad. But she loves you. Even more than her own life. You most important to her. You don’t believe? Ahh, this uncle knows what Korean mommies are like. Better than anybody. They love too much and sometimes, it can feel like burden. But you very lucky to have a mommy like that. And I know you are upset because she says you are Korean and your dad says you are black. But you both. No more one thing and no less the other. And we not blood related maybe, but we are like family. Korean. Black. It not matter. Look at Inah here. She loves you. You are her favorite person in the whole world. But it’s not just Inah, we all love you. Remember that for me?
“And I know you love your mommy. You don’t have to say. Maybe it so hard for you now, but so long as you don’t forget she loves you, everything will be OK. You understand? Good!” Daddy pats him on the shoulder. And Jason’s mouth fast crumbles at the corners, and soon he’s sobbing with his head down. The soft ice cream melts and flows down in chocolate rivers between his fingers. Daddy wipes it off for him with a paper napkin. Inah is so sad that she doesn’t even try to comfort him.
The next morning, Auntie Minnie brings him over. She’s been crying. Her eyes are all swollen and red. But Jason looks gorgeous, like a prince in the new suit and tie, but he is so quiet that you’d think he’d been born mute. Inah tries to cheer him up, but he doesn’t want to be bothered. He just sits on the couch in the living room, staring at his hands. Auntie Minnie hides in the kitchen because she can’t stop crying. It’s like a funeral parlor, Mommy says. She goes over to Auntie Minnie and scolds her. “This is how you’re going to send him away? How would he feel?! Think about that.”
It’s time for Jason to go. Daddy and Inah and I stand by the apartment door waiting for Auntie Minnie to release him. But she holds on to him, smothering him with her face flooded with tears. She can’t talk, and her body shakes and shakes like Jell-O in a cup. Finally, Jason pats his mommy and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. It’s all so very sad.
“Who’s the child here?” Mommy scolds her, but her eyes have turned red, too. She pats Auntie Minnie’s back and says, “Go ahead, you cry.” And Auntie Minnie wails, holding Mommy’s hand: “I no can live! How I live?!” Jason has never looked so miserable, standing there hanging his head.
“It’s OK, Jason. You go!” Mommy says, waving her hand to him. Daddy goes and brings him over, and we all go out. From the hallway, we can hear Auntie Minnie cry, calling after him.
Inah and I sit in the backseat and Jason in the front with Daddy. No one says anything. It’s another hot, sunny day, and the shadows are extra black. After passing the Brooklyn Ac
ademy of Music, Daddy pulls the car next to the sidewalk, where cracked bricks are caving in and weeds and garbage hem the smashed chain-link fence of an outdoor parking lot. It’s the sun that makes the street look so desolate and desperate and sad. Up a couple of blocks lined with old and shabby-looking brownstones, we can see the tower of the russet-colored, old stone church rise against the blue sky. Once Jason brought us an old creased paper fan from the church. It had Dr.Martin Luther King’s portrait on the front and a Franklin Street funeral home ad on the back. We didn’t know then who Dr. Martin Luther King was, and Jason explained, “He’s the greatest of all of us black people ever lived.”
Jason wants to walk the rest of the way to the church by himself. So Daddy shakes his hand and says, “Jason, I know you’re going to grow up to become a great man.” Jason opens the car door, quickly glances back at us and gets out. We watch him amble up the weed-infested sidewalk in his new suit. Skinny and narrow-shouldered under the peppery-hot sun. The white shirttail spills out the back of his trousers and he doesn’t even know it. He looks like a black-plumed bird with a white tail. Daddy slowly drives the car up the road, to make sure he gets to the church. We stick our heads out the open window.
“Jason!” “Bye-bye!” Jason turns only the slightest angle, and with the hand he pulls out of his trouser pocket he gives us a quick, stingy, little flick. Like he doesn’t want people to see him waving to us. We drive past the church. The sidewalk and the church steps are crowded with black ladies and girls, all dressed up in crisp and cool summer dresses, and black men and boys looking sharp and handsome in suits. Watching Jason walk up, a large old black lady in a peach-colored muslin dress and a wide-brimmed, cream-colored hat breaks into a broad smile. She looks as inviting as a big old tree that throws a cool shade on a hot summer day. She pulls him into her arms and pecks his cheeks twice, one then the other. Daddy says she must be Grandma Wilson.
As Daddy drives up the road, Inah and I turn our heads, craning our necks for one last look at him with his grandma on the crowded sidewalk. And look how he makes a nice picture next to her, handsome and bright and festive as any summer flower. Her skin so dark, almost gray, and his skin, half a shade lighter, complementing each other. It looks as though he has always belonged to that place on the sidewalk full of happy people. He has already become a stranger. We’re puzzled and sad.