by Harper Kim
“Any names attached to those stories?”
Michael hangs his head as if in defeat, and slowly moves it side to side.
My mood turns sour. Michael is turning out to be of little value to the investigation.
“Okay. So there was trouble at home,” My voice takes on an edge of exasperation, “but what was your fight about? If she didn’t talk to you about her family problems then the fight couldn’t have been about her mom and stepdad, am I right?”
He scratches his head, and blushes again. “All I wanted was the best for her and I believed in her even when she didn’t.” Lifting his head, his blue eyes lighten slightly. “It worked you know. I wasn’t the only one who believed in her.”
“What worked?”
Reaching into his back pocket, he unfolds a torn piece of notebook paper.
“I tore a page from her notebook one day when she wasn’t aware and sent it in to collages that emphasize literature.”
Empty vessel, sinking deep…
HOSPITAL ROOM (IV):
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
6:40 P.M.
The blinds are drawn tight. It could be dusk or dawn, morning, noon, or night. In this tiny room where I will die, where my nose and eyes burn with disinfectant and bleach, how can I tell? The smell is harsher now. I feel my bowels slowing, gurgling to an uncomfortable halt. That thick smell envelops me, all mustard gas and shit. Of Death, stroking smoothly, confidently toward me across a deep lake of bleach where no light reaches the bottom.
If the disease doesn’t kill me this stench sure will.
Joe’s body felt weaker today. Every movement was stiff and sore. His throat burned and scratched every time he tried to swallow. Going in and out of consciousness every so often, he felt the end closing in. Maybe now he would finally get to be with his beloved and she wouldn’t slip away from him anymore.
Turning his head took more effort than it did yesterday. The dividing curtain was pulled back. His trusty neighbor was fast asleep. Only able to see his neighbor’s right profile and the gentle rise and fall of his chest, Joe was often concerned about what the man looked like from the other side; not that it mattered any. Flowers continued to color the man’s bedside table. Today there were yellow daisies, last week there were pink tulips. And that Chinese lantern awhile back was a real beaut.
Hey Sarg. Whimpy, you hear me?
When he heard no response except the steady beeps of the monitors, he simply nodded and closed his eyes. These days, Joe had been closing his eyes more often. His lids felt heavy, as if weighed down by lead.
Isn’t life so predictable. The way people go about their daily rituals day after day without so much as a thought of change. Or of why they do it. How every day is executed the same as yesterday, the same as tomorrow. Why is that, I wonder? Is it monotony they enjoy? The knowing of how things will play out in advance? Do people experience some kind of solace in the knowing? Maybe. That way, even when the mind blanks out, the body will continue down the well-worn Road Always Taken. A path seared into the subconscious mind like grill marks, freshly tilled furrows in a mental bean field, like a department store pianist playing the same dreary piece of music every day, over and over, that sometimes their mind drifts—goes into autopilot—and when it returns they realize they’ve been playing the piece, riding the same furrow, without a single hitch.
I guess mindless routine has its benefits: never forgetting what you’re supposed to be doing, always being productive in the eyes of others, never worrying about wasting a moment because it was already laid out in advance, your loved ones knowing when to expect you and when not to…I guess you can feel safe in the knowing, because it is dependable. Being dependable is safe. Safe is good.
You know, I was one of those people that stuck by a ritual. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true. I woke up at seven, ate scrambled eggs (one yolk and three whites), toast, and coffee while reading the paper. Got washed and dressed. Took the pug out for a quick loop (don’t forget the plastic bag!). Got to work by nine. First break at eleven. Lunch at one. Second break at three. And headed home when the clock struck five-thirty. Drove to Keil’s for some groceries. Came home. Went for a walk with the pug. Made dinner. Ate dinner. Washed dishes. Watched a television show or read a book and was in bed by eleven. Weekends were also the same: by nine I was in the yard pruning my garden. Then lunch. Next, I would straighten up the house, do laundry, vacuum, and dust. Then I’d follow the same weekday ritual all over again. I enjoyed it. It was safe. It worked for me. But now, as I spend my time lying on this squeaky bed and staring up at this room, this room (oh, that smell), I wonder if it was how I should have lived my life. I guess there’s no point pondering it now. The past is the past, right? And if I enjoyed my life while I was living it, I shouldn’t regret it now.
Or should I?
I found comfort in the sameness that’s centered on a routine. Routine is a comfortable afghan on a cold clear night. No surprises. No curve balls, no going off-course into the unknown. Because, if you didn’t stick to a routine…if you tried to jump out of it and into the blind, what if you got whipsawed? What if you found yourself doing something you shouldn’t be doing? Something wrong. Something damaging. Something you’d later regret, and have to spend time, money, and blood to repair. I guess that’s the price you pay for being spontaneous. In my opinion, such spur-of-the-moment behavior just isn’t worth the price of admission.
Right?
Choices are made throughout your life. Easy choices. Difficult choices. Sometimes you don’t even realize you are making a choice, but you are. You always are. And every choice you make steers you one step further down a long and mazelike path, always culminating in the life you experience in the Here and Now.
Just like the true/false section of any exam you didn’t study for is always the hardest part because it is the trickiest. Sure there’s a 50/50 chance you’ll pick the correct answer, but there’s always doubt when you make your choice. There’s no gray area. It is just black or white. It’s hard to choose when you don’t know jack shit and there’s no partial credit. No bullshitting your way out of that one.
Here’s an even trickier one: if you never know the question is being asked, no one rings a bell to let you know the test has begun—in all that fog—how do you know which choice to make in any given moment? Which reality do you choose…
Now?
…and Now?
…and Now?
Idiots. It doesn’t really matter what reality you choose! Tallied up, it’s never all right or all wrong. It’s just our condition.
It’s ridiculous how some people can openly complain about their stake in life as if they had no choice in how it turned out. Why are they so poor while others live so grand? Why are they so down and out, so unhappy, so fat, so ugly, whatever, while others are living it up with looks and money and cars? That’s not fair, right? Like they had no choice in whether to suck or sing, that everything was and is completely out of their hands.
I’ll tell you, there is only one ladder, and it reaches all the way down and extends all the way up, buddy. If you want to be higher up, you just have to shut up and climb. If you fall, you just have to get up and climb again. I’ll tell you, whining gets you nowhere; or, at least that used to be true until the therapeutic-state Democrats got their mitts on D.C. this last time. Now China owns our asses.
Damn it, why should people who continually make the right choices silently pull up the slack for those who make bad decisions hand-over-fist, who don’t pull their weight yet still complain about their circumstances? What’s that, you say? The Upstanding Citizen is too well off, too fortunate to be the squeaky wheel, you say? It’s not Politically Correct to be so hard on the poor and disadvantaged, you say? Bah.
What’s more ridiculous is that our society actually panders to fuckups more than Upstanding Citizens. That’s a dying breed, the Upstanding Citizen. Exemplars are hard to find. I understand charity and good deeds and all that—esp
ecially when it comes to children—but when did all that goodness become diluted into entitlements for unmotivated, uneducated, beer-guzzling, cigarette-smoking, drug-using, hate-spreading, littering, dead-eyed baby factories?
Shut those bastards down, sober ‘em up, make ‘em work in chain gangs if you need to until they wise up. Why is it all of the sudden a person’s God-given right to throw ambition into the garbage, make a mess of their life, and then get a chip on their shoulder when the healthcare and pension system aren’t good enough? And why is everyone so damn afraid to discriminate when it comes to issues of poverty and charity, of net contribution to Country? Why can’t we turn the faucets off in our bleeding hearts for a damn minute and realize all that blood just makes a mess if we don’t use our heads in all this business? Who knows. I sure don’t. I can scratch my head thinking about it all day long until my head bleeds, my stomach gets an ulcer, or I die from cancer and I still won’t have a goddamn clue.
I tell you Whimpy. I fear for what this country will soon become. I fear it in my dying bones…
AS JOE RATTLED ON, THE DOOR TO THE ROOM yawned open. Yellowish light flooded in, exposing the right profile of Sgt. Whimplestein’s serene face. Nurse Freckles appeared, pushing a metal cart filled with extra pillows and blankets. Catching the tail end of the conversation, she frowned, her eyes filled with pity. His state of mind was deteriorating, he was uttering more gibberish and delusional thoughts. The morphine was clouding his judgment and the illness was spreading. His organs were shutting down. He didn’t have much time left, she thought.
Joe feigned sleep.
He didn’t like the way she looked at him, like he was senile and vulnerable. He didn’t want pity from his nurse, just assistance into the afterlife where all this pain and suffering would be but a distant memory. He forced out a few grunts and shifted to the side, wincing from the shooting pain in his abdomen.
From the tiny slits of his teary eyes, he made out a blurred Nurse Freckles fixing the machine to drop more medicine into his system.
Sweet Savior! It must be seven o’clock. Love medicine time.
He inhaled slowly and shivered, relenting to the chill of the morphine as it dripped into his veins.
Nurse Freckles unfolded the extra blanket she brought with her and placed it over his shivering body. With a tight smile she tucked the blanket along the length of his body, cocooning him in its warmth.
As his mind grew heavy, Joe slowly relented to the heavy tug of the opiate. Betsy’s sweet voice called his name. Peppermint wafted into his nostrils. An inane thought crossed his mind: Whimpy’s granddaughter missed her daily visit. With a mental smile and slight movement of his lips he mumbled, I wonder what choice she made to throw off her balance? Was it good or bad? Black or white?
Or is she a believer in the gray?
At this thought, the oceanic sleep of a heroin addict overtook him.
Detective Kylie Kang:
8:00 P.M.
Follow-up from the Michael Cobb interview takes longer than I expect. Entering the crowded hospital lobby fills my throbbing head with unease. A cacophony of coughing, sneezing, belching, crying, stomping, fidgeting, and throat clearing greets me with demented cheer as I move through the atrium and down the hall toward the elevators.
The sudden whiff of feces reels me back on my boot heels. Others join my disgust, their faces scrunching into that universal pucker of foulness. Orderlies whisk a janitor’s cart into a nearby room. A moment later the smell is displaced by bleach and Hefty bags, but shit always lingers. In pit-stop time, the orderlies wheel out with solemn faces and unsavory cargo. The staff in this hospital are definitely efficient and very likely underpaid.
People dressed in scrubs rush past in different directions while piles of paperwork fill my peripheral vision. With a sigh, I think about my own pile of paperwork waiting for me back at the station.
Coffee. I need coffee. Rubbing my temples, I dream of sleep. I envy those who can sleep standing up; my mind just didn’t come equipped with an off switch. God, I just need one restful night. One without the ghosts from my past cropping up, without the constant reminders of what I did and who I disgraced.
This case has dredged up hidden feelings and memories that weren’t meant to be uncovered.
Ever.
Why now, when I’m just starting to get a grip on my life? If living in solitude, avoiding men, denying myself a relationship—except for the one I have with Gramps, who is in a coma—burying myself in work, never taking a vacation except for visiting the hospital, and harboring guilt for something I did when I was eleven years old constitutes a grip on life. Ugh…I know, I’m fooling myself.
The coffee machine is just around the corner (makes a better java than what’s back at the station); it wouldn’t be more than a five minute detour, but I can’t do it. First I have to visit Gramps, then coffee.
I always feel a twinge of guilt when I don’t make my daily visit. Logically, I know that it doesn’t matter, that he can’t know if I visit or not. If I missed a few hours, a few days, months, even years, I’m sure he would not be able to tell the difference. That all my visits meld together in one long string. But it matters to me. He took me in, loved me, saved me.
Three o’clock was Gramps’ favorite time with Halmoni when they were both alive and well, so I always try to visit around that time. They used to sit on a wooden bench out on their porch, drinking gobo tea and watching neighbors go for walks, kids riding their bikes, and cars whizzing by. Holding hands, they would enjoy the warmth of the sun when it was out, the chill of the biting wind when it whistled past, and the trickling rain when it washed the dust and dried leaves off the roof of their house. Those simple moments were a time they both treasured because it was their time to just be and appreciate life. And even though Halmoni has passed on, I want to keep that special moment alive; for them and for me.
I always thought they were the cutest couple; my exemplars for the perfect marriage, for my real parents sure aren’t. After hearing the many stories about Halmoni’s second chance at love and my mother’s upbringing, I wonder how two women, so different, could share the same blood. Umma is weak whereas Halmoni was strong. My parent’s marriage is of duty whereas Halmoni’s and Gramps’ was about love and enduring all that is possible.
The Korean War was a sorrowful and frightening time that instilled dishonor and broke a country in half. It was during the violence, disorder, and uncertainty that Halmoni delivered my mother; alone and with no knowledge whether my grandfather was alive or dead. She was pregnant and her husband was fighting in the war. There was no room for weakness or pity, only a dependable and slow constant strength that got Halmoni through the difficult times. She didn’t think twice when the contractions started testing her control, but calmly took action.
She was far from home, squatting at a stranger’s temporarily vacated home, cold and alone. Family was scattered, some fighting the war, others helping another deliver a child or taking care of the ill and elderly. She wouldn’t think to bother another to help her. She was young and able; she’d manage alone.
Stepping away from the chaos, she created a somewhat sanitary and safe bubble to deliver her child. She unrolled the blankets she carried, made her seaweed soup, cooked a small amount of rice, boiled water for the knife, tied a sturdy rope to a notch in the floor and waited. Waited alone.
While the North and South waged war, while the men fired their weapons and bombed the enemy, while the women were raped and ran from the fire, while children cried and died from hunger and shame, Halmoni delivered her first child, my mother, a girl who would never have the privilege of meeting her father.
The war divided Halmoni’s country, killed her husband, and disgraced her from her family.
The pendant, which now hangs protectively around my neck, was a gift from Halmoni’s first husband, Won Bae Kim. With the onset of war and their separation looming, Won Bae gave her the pendant to wear as a shield over her heart. He was a good ma
n who loved his wife and unborn child and had the bad luck of getting in the way of a weak brother, brainwashed from the war, and a group of scared and restless countrymen who never made it past the bridge.
The pendant was a symbol of love, honor, and protection, a piece of the woman I loved and the man I only knew from stories told. And when the pendant was passed down to me, I felt its strength and vowed to find my own. The pendant is a reminder of who I came from and who I am, and now that Halmoni has passed and so has Gramps’ spirit, I keep their memory alive by remembering their stories.
There’s times like now when I wonder why I can’t be strong and unfazed like Halmoni was when she was younger. Why do I house so much guilt and crippling wants and demands when I’ve been lucky and lived well, untainted by war?
When in times of war, people bind together, sharing their misery as well as their hope, while times of peace breed selfishness and self-entitled spirits. Yes, I don’t want to be in the hospital room, enclosed by barren white walls that house so much grief, pain, blood, and tears. Yes, I want the last three years to be erased and to go back to the time when Halmoni was alive, a time before the illness sapped Gramps of his health and brought upon so much pain—and truthfully—so much extra weight and responsibility.
Gramps had always been the father I wished mine was. He exemplified strength, courage, honor, and love, all of which make a great Sergeant of the US Air Force, friend, and grandfather. Gramps met Won Bae in Pusan and they had an instant connection. It was August, 1950 and the Battle of Pusan Perimeter was underway. Gramps was thirty-six and after eighteen years on the force he still enjoyed the pull of exotic lands, rich cultures, vibrant and sometimes humiliating cuisine, and interesting yet odd people; the thrill of danger, and the adventure that stems from it all.