But he’s not always quiet. He talks a lot when we drive. But he’s not like the others. It’s not like I’m getting the full interrogation with him. “How’s school?” Actually, that’s the only question they seem to ask, but they ask it constantly, like when I say, “O.K.,” they don’t believe me. But Kaipo doesn’t even ask me anything. He just points out mountains, beaches, and roads that I’ve seen a thousand times before, and tells me what went on there like hundreds of years ago. His favorite is the Pali Lookout. We pass it every day to pick up Mom and Aunty Darian, and he always points it out. It’s either the Kamehameha story, where the king pitched a bunch of Hawaiians off the cliff like two hundred years ago, or the whiffle ball story, where Hawaiians used to jump off on windy days, and get gently blown back up. They did it for fun, those crazy bastards. We stop up there sometimes. Kaipo jumps on the wall, wets his finger, and tests the wind. Then he shakes his head. “Not windy enough,” he says. There would have to be like a hurricane to blow him back up. Me, on the other hand, as small as I am, it might work. I stood on the wall a couple of times with him. It scared me, but I felt that sinking feeling, like I wouldn’t just drop, but I’d float. It was neat looking down and feeling the wind fill my T-shirt like a balloon. It was a good scared feeling. It was weird thinking that if I just took one leap something would happen, and it would happen fast. Sometimes things don’t happen fast enough, and it hurts. I guess that’s why people who know people who died are all thankful if he or she “went quickly.” I guess velocity is kind of neat. Suddenly, I got nervous, and Kaipo must’ve seen it because he laughed. Then he asked me the first question I remember him ever asking me. “What kind Hawaiian you?” It was a good question. I still don’t know.
Mom doesn’t even talk about her or Dad. Nobody does. After Kaipo picks me up, and we go cruise and stuff, and we have to pick up Mom and Aunty Darian from the restaurant in Kailua, it’s like the quietest ride in the car. And Waianae is far. They sit in the back and talk about work and Grandma. Apparently, Grandma isn’t showing up for work, so the dumb fuck works by himself in the mornings. Good for him. But it’s only been a week. I think everyone is worried about Grandma. I’m kinda worried, too. She’s like old. What if something happened to her?
But they don’t talk about that, either. They talk about how maybe they should give up the restaurant. How there’s too much work for just three people. How any day now, the dumb ass isn’t going to show up and open. How, even though they’re shocked that he’s made it a week, that it can’t last long. They’re probably right. So it’s like the car is already crowded with the four of us, but there’s like all of these other people in there sitting with us, too. And for me the ones that they don’t talk about take up the most space. It’s like a clown car and Crystal and Dad are wearing the biggest clown shoes.
A couple of times I daydreamed that I told them in the car how much I love Crystal. They all started laughing. Even when I try to force to dream them up as being like sympathetic to my deal, I just can’t imagine it. I’m just a dumb kid. I don’t even know what love is. Blah, blah, blah. Like they do.
When is the bell going to ring? There they are, playing basketball. Back and forth, back and forth. Put the ball into the basket, then run the other way. I remember during the first week of the basketball part of the class, Coach Randy tried to teach us the weave. It’s so stupid. The weave. I never saw anyone do the weave in a basketball game on TV before. It like looks pretty and all, but nobody ever does it in game situations.
It’s like sex in the movies. The first time me and Crystal were about to do it, I was trying to make all smooth, like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, which was a pretty shitty movie with great special effects. But then I thought, the first time me and Crystal were about to do it, that I was glad I sat through the like forty hours of the movie, because at least I had an idea now how to kiss. Boy, was I wrong. I didn’t see any tongue action in that movie, but Crystal was giving me all kind of tongue action. So Titanic ended up being a complete waste of time.
But me downloading porn was not as much of a waste. That’s kind of how sex is. I didn’t feel like this kind of corny, tingling love thing when we were doing it. That came after. When we were doing it, I just thought it was the coolest thing in the world. And when she started making noises, boy, that was it. I guess I don’t know how it is for other people, but for me it was like sex was sex, and all of the other stuff was kind of separate. Or maybe it was that all of that stuff is like after-sex stuff. The post-game show. But that’s not right. The post-game is shitty compared to the game. The other stuff wasn’t shitty. Maybe it’s like science. Maybe sex is the catalyst.
God, I miss her. I can’t wait for the bell to ring. Last period. I’m going to force myself to get up and go to the parking lot, and I hope she comes. I don’t think she will, though. How could she? Everyone hates her except me. Mom and Grandma probably want to kill her. Of course the dumb ass does. But I don’t know if he knows what happened between me and Crystal. Dad’s probably pissed. I’m supposed to stay with him this weekend, so I guess I’ll feel that out. It’s weird, I don’t really miss him, but I think I’d probably miss Mom, even though she pisses me off more than he does. But with all of this, there’s no way I’m ever going to see Crystal again. Besides, I’m just a kid. Besides, even if I got a job at Safeway, what kind of chick would want a guy who works at Safeway? Besides, I don’t think she loves me. It’s funny, all that time, after I heard about how there’s six billion people in the world and thought about that plus how we’re on a planet, in a solar system, in a galaxy, in a universe, I was kind of sad that I was just one of them. Now I want to take it back. I want to just be a number again. I want to lie in bed and sink into my mattress. Being like a person is too hard.
Well, all of them, Mom, Aunty Darian, Kaipo, Grandma, Dad, and the dumb ass, they’ll all start talking about her again. They’ll start talking all right. Because if she doesn’t show up today after school, I’m going to tell them that Crystal is pregnant, and she’s keeping the baby. Me, the kid, is going to be a father. And pretty soon it’s going to be time to see what kind of Hawaiian I really am. Will I float or sink like a stone?
SILVER KNIFE
chapter eight
-1-
In 1974, when Won Ju was nineteen, she left Fresno, California with her sixteen-year-old brother and moved to Las Vegas. She was sick of playing nursemaid to her stepfather and one-year-old half-sister. She was sick of assuming the role that her mother left her when she had fled back to Korea. She was nineteen, and the last thing she wanted to do was take care of a middle-aged ex-military man and his constantly crying infant daughter. Besides, she hated the city of Fresno itself. There was nothing but stuck-up whites, crazy Mexicans, and grape vineyards farther than the eye could see. She grew to hate grapes, and almost gagged just at the sight of them. She was no farm girl. She craved the city life. Besides, Elvis Presley performed in Vegas. She’d always wanted to see an Elvis show.
Her mother had just upped and left. Soong’d had another conversation with Henry about money, then fled to Korea the next day. Won Ju told herself she could do the same. She took care of the baby Darian by day, and bagged groceries at Safeway by night, earning enough money for the move. And she would have left alone, had her brother not been awakened by the fight she had with her stepfather and begged her to take him with her. She was used to taking care of Chung Yun, and felt sorry for him because he took weekly beatings at his high school for being a Korean with a bad accent. She remembered her own beatings had forced her to drop out, so, feeling empathy for her younger brother, she decided to take him with her.
Won Ju and Chung Yun took a cab to the Fresno Air Terminal. It was nine at night and the taxi whizzed by rows of grape vineyards. Passing the grapes by car always left Won Ju with an unsettling feeling. They looked like stilts walking rapidly, always keeping up with the vehicle. She felt like the grapes were chasing her. This night was no different. She tried not to loo
k outside.
Chung Yun’s head leaned against the closed window. His thin body seemed too weak to hold up his round head. When she looked at him, he smiled. He seemed even happier to be leaving. Won Ju guessed why.
“Hey gook.”
“Hey jap.”
“Hey chink.”
Won Ju had heard it on a daily basis before. The only thing was Won Ju and Chung Yun were neither Vietnamese, Japanese, or Chinese. They were, for the most part, Korean. But to both the Mexicans and whites, it didn’t matter. All Asians looked the same. Won Ju shook her head. Ignorant farmers. Did they not know Asia, like Europe, like America, was filled with different nations that were not only different, but had despised each other for centuries? Their calling her and her brother “gooks” was just as stupid as calling a Frenchman a “kraut,” or calling an Apache a “wetback.” But to them, it didn’t matter. Once she or her brother opened their mouths and spoke their rotten English, it was like the ringing of the Pavlov bell for the other students.
“What are you, a retarded jap?”
“Why don’t you learn our language, you fuckin’chink.”
“My father died in Vietnam, gook. Now I’m going to take it out on your ass. It was probably your commie dad that killed my pops.”
Won Ju checked the window. The grape stilts were still following her. She imagined them whispering, “Where are you going, you chink? You can’t hide from us.” She turned her attention back to her brother, who was still glowing. She spoke in Korean. “Don’t look so happy, brother. Las Vegas is still America. Las Vegas has a high school. And I expect you to go to that high school.”
Chung Yun’s smile didn’t break. “I don’t care.”
“Then why are you so happy?”
Chung Yun looked at his sister. “I don’t know, but I am.”
Won Ju was curious. She fully understood that this new life they were beginning was not going to be easy. They would have to find a place to stay; she would have to find a job which would hire her despite her bad English. And Chung Yun would have to enroll in school. All of this would have to happen in the first week, or the money she’d saved would not be enough. “You’re scaring me.”
“Maybe I am happy because I think I will never see Mother again.”
“Why should that make you happy?”
Chung Yun’s smile disappeared. “I hate her.”
“You shouldn’t say that.”
“She left us like she always did. Career first. Money first. She does not care about us. I say I hate her not to hurt you or her. I say I hate her because I do.”
Won Ju turned back to the window. Beyond and above the horizon was a dark empty place. The Fresno sky was empty. There were no clouds, no stars. It was often like this. It was like the city itself. There was nothing bright, nothing moving. To the nineteen-year-old Won Ju, it was limbo. And her mother had taken her to this place and left. Perhaps she hated her mother, too.
When they emerged from the grapes, and entered what Won Ju considered a pathetic joke of an airport, she paid the Mexican cab driver and unloaded her suitcases. She and Chung Yun carried the suitcases to the one-story terminal and approached the ticket purchasing line. A few men wearing cowboy hats and flannel shirts stood in front of them. When she got to the counter, Won Ju reached into her purse to pull out her checkbook. A folded piece of paper flew out and landed on the ground. Won Ju knew what it was. Her stepfather Henry had made her take it with her. It was her mother’s phone number in Korea. She decided to leave it where it fell. Now came the part that Won Ju dreaded. She cleared her throat and prayed she’d get it right. “Two going Las Vegas?”
She realized she did not request it, but asked for it. She cursed herself. Americans did not ask for things they were going to pay for. The blue-haired Caucasian woman behind the counter gave forms for Won Ju to fill out. This part Won Ju did not mind. Her writing in English was better than some of the people she had gone to high school with. She was born with a fit mind, but unathletic tongue. She rapidly filled out the forms, trying to make up for her verbal mistake, and handed them to the older, red-scarfed woman. The woman smiled. “You know, you are very pretty. You’re Chinese, right?”
Won Ju smiled while writing the check. “No. Korean.”
“Is that your brother?”
Chung Yun was sitting on a suitcase a few feet away from her. Won Ju felt herself nod rapidly and subserviently. She hated herself for it. “Yes. He my younger brudder.”
The ticket lady smiled. “Such a handsome boy.”
Won Ju smiled so hard she thought her cheeks would pop. “Tank you, tank you.”
As the woman processed the paperwork, Won Ju wondered at her inability to control herself when talking to Americans, especially older white ones. Here was this over-painted, overweight white woman serving her, and yet Won Ju could not help but to look for her permission and approval. When the woman handed her the tickets Won Ju smiled and waited. Finally the lady said, “Oh. Check in your luggage, then you can go. Gate four is that way.”
Won Ju bowed slightly. She bowed! Even after six years in America, she bowed. At this point, she despised herself. She motioned for Chung Yun to bring the suitcases. He stood up and dragged them to the counter. He stopped to pick up the piece of paper that had fallen out of Won Ju’s purse. The edges of his palms were red from the weight of the luggage. “Here,” he said.
Won Ju just wanted to get out of there. She stuffed the phone number into her purse and rushed with her brother to the gate. Won Ju noticed that he kept looking back towards the counter where they’d checked in their luggage. “Why do you look back?” she asked.
He laughed. Then in English he said, “Seem stupid, yeah?”
She smiled, then replied in English. “Yeah, no look back. Fuck dis place.”
She was proud that she could pronounce the word “fuck” perfectly. For her, “fuck” was easy, along with “shit,” but “asshole” sometimes came out “assahole.” She figured she’d better learn how to cuss well considering they were going to Sin City. “Chung Yun,” she said in Korean, “perhaps we should try to only speak English to each other. I think we will learn the nuances of the language a lot quicker that way, even with my clumsy tongue.”
Chung Yun put his carry-on down in front of the gate. He sat down and sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Once we get on the plane, no more Korean. And also, I want to change my name.”
Won Ju sat next to him and frowned. It was the last flight out, and the gate was empty except for them and a group of quiet older gentlemen in suits. She was glad about that. She turned to her brother and, thinking about his name-change proposal, she asked, “To what?”
“Something American.”
She thought about it. “What about Henry? Henry like our stepfather.”
“No thanks.”
“Well every name should have significance, American or not. And everything that has been important to us, besides our stepfather, has been Korean.”
“What about Don?”
“Why Don?”
“I don’t know. It seems like the American version of ‘Dong Jin.’You remember, our real father.”
“I like it.” Won Ju smiled. Chung Yun was still a baby when their father died, and she only remembered bits and pieces. She remembered waking up and seeing him one night, and after that, never seeing him again. It was strange to think that the death of a man she could hardly remember completely changed the course of her life. She also thought about an American film that she’d taken Chung Yun to a couple of years earlier. There was that dignified man that everyone in the film referred to as “The Don.” It seemed like such an adult name. Then she remembered an American song that she used to hum at school constantly called, “Where is the Love?” It was a brother and sister. She thought the brother was gorgeous and remembered his name. “That sounds like a fine idea. But maybe ‘Donny’ instead. Like Donny and Marie.”
Chung Yun frowned. “I don’t like him.”
�
�Girls like him.”
“In that case ‘Donny’ it is.”
They laughed. Then Chung Yun asked, “So what about you?”
Won Ju thought about it. She’d been teased enough about her name in high school to despise it at times, but trying to remember her father made her feel guilty about changing it. It had been one of the only things he had a chance to give her. “I’ll stick to ‘Won Ju,’” she said. “I’m afraid if I change it, and someone calls me by my new name, I won’t answer. It wouldn’t be a good way to start a new job. People will think I’m stupid enough because of my poor English.”
Chung Yun laughed. “Remember, once we get on the plane.”
When they finally boarded, they spent the flight trying to get through conversations in English. They were laughing so hard, tears welled in their eyes. Watching each other fumble with the language was like watching children run down grassy hills, falling and tumbling down. They watched each other tumble and tumble until the plane descended over the neon-lit city. They both stopped tumbling to watch the artificial shine of their new home. The vastness and density of the lights intimidated Won Ju. Chung Yun leaned over her to look out the window. “Cool,” he said.
She smiled. His new name matched him perfectly.
-2-
Won Ju had left California only to find herself working in the California Hotel and Casino several months later. After working in some of the worst dives in downtown, gaining waitress experience, she was glad to get the job. When the new casino opened, she was one of the first to apply. But spending these months in Vegas brought her to the conclusion that besides the neon lights and all-night gambling, it was as if she hadn’t left the state of California in the first place. There were the same hick whites and Mexicans all around her. There were the same racist comments and ogling eyes of men looking for a little geisha. She had never considered herself attractive because she knew her mother was beautiful and she did not look like her. And she had felt even uglier when boys in high school catcalled to her because no truly beautiful woman was treated that way. Her mother was never treated that way. Only trash was treated that way.
The Queen of Tears Page 19