by Anthony Youn
The jocks don’t care. My roommates, all liberal-arts majors, none of them into science and none of them geeks, don’t care. They all manage to attend class, study, and date. They have lives outside of the classroom. They ask girls out. Girls say yes. Laughing, drinking, and sex follow. For everyone. Except me.
I refuse to let a little thing like being frozen out of the best parties stop me. I see girls everywhere—walking across campus, in the library, in the cafeteria, and in all my classes. I need a new tactic. I create a dating strategy designed to get my feet wet. I’ll select a likely candidate, someone attainable, and ask her out. Someone not too cute. Someone who’s clearly eager for companionship. A safety date.
I ask out Magda, a girl in my organic chemistry class. She replies with a bored “I don’t think so.” I can’t believe it. Rejected by my safety date. All the way back to my dorm, I mutter aloud, “I just got shot down by a girl in my organic chemistry class.” It had taken me two weeks to confirm that Magda was a girl.
I shake it off. I have to find another candidate. In biology, I start absently sketching in my notebook. I feel someone looking at me. I look up. A girl across from me is watching me draw. She smiles. She has beautiful, arresting eyes. She blushes and turns away, clearly embarrassed that I caught her staring. I wait for her after class. She comes out of the classroom, sees me, ducks her head, grins. Close up, she’s even prettier than I thought.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.”
She half-smiles, walks faster.
I catch up to her. We say nothing for about thirty seconds.
“I was wondering,” I say finally. “Would you mind if I gave you a call? Maybe we could go out to dinner sometime.”
“I guess so,” she says.
In my head, I scream, “Score!”
“Nice,” I say.
I don’t want to appear too eager, so I wait an hour and then I call her. She doesn’t answer. I leave a message on her answering machine. I identify myself, mention dinner. I call her again two days later. She doesn’t answer. I leave another message. Play it nonchalant, I tell myself. You are not desperate. Well, you are, but don’t show it. Be cool.
I call her twice the next night. Leave two messages.
She doesn’t call me back.
I keep calling. All told, I leave her nine messages.
She never calls me back. Not once.
I make a decision.
I’ll give her one more chance.
I call her for the tenth time. Phone in hand, waiting for her recorded voice to finish telling me to leave a message and she’ll call me back as soon as possible, I hang up.
I’m starting to pick up a vibe.
It’s possible that she’s not interested in me.
. . . .
EARLY DECEMBER. FINALS loom, then home for Christmas break. I assess my first semester.
Academics. No problem. Unless I tank every final, I see not a B in sight.
Living situation. So-so. Ross slinks in and out of the suite like a tenant who’s ducking the landlord. He’s pleasant enough but rarely interacts with the rest of us. The other two guys are fine. They don’t study much. Or go to many classes. They spearhead a series of all-night poker games in the student lounge, culminating in a winner-take-all Texas Hold’em tournament. They’re decent guys, and since they come in for the night at the same time as I leave in the morning, it works out.
Social life. Nonexistent. I’ve made several friends in my classes, but they remind me of the first group of nerds I hung out with in high school—socially inept and repellent to women. One day, while eating lunch with them, I notice a cute girl sitting alone, reading. I excuse myself, walk over to her table. I say hello, make clumsy small talk leading up to asking her out. Suddenly, her eyes fill with panic. Sure. I’m about to ask a girl out, and her immediate reaction is horror. Loser, I think. That’s what I am. Lose-her. And that’s what I do. Every time. I lose her. I don’t know why no one will go out with me. Even the girls I wouldn’t be caught dead with in public turn me down.
I feel a presence behind me, hot smelly breath fouling my neck. I whirl around and see that the whole group of geeks I’ve just left—all six of them—have gathered behind me. Why are they here? What are they doing? My role-playing, video-gaming, motherboard-loving so-called friends have advanced upon the girl I’m trying to ask out as if they are the children of the corn and she is the corn. They guffaw maniacally at something. I shush them and turn back to the girl. She’s gone. I catch a glimpse of her back as she bolts through the door and sprints into the quad.
I need new friends. These guys could scare away a horde of zombies. At the very least, I need to keep them far, far away from any girl with potential. Damn, I need to go out on a date. I’m horny, yes, but my confidence feels as if it has totally disappeared. I can feel my hands shaking, my bottom lip trembling. I start checking myself in the mirror. Everything is where it’s supposed to be. I can’t call myself handsome, but I’m not fugly, either.
Two nights later, I meet a girl in the checkout line at Kmart. I’m buying CDs, and she’s purchasing a large bottle of lighter fluid. We start talking. She’s hot. Long jet-black hair with occasional streaks of red. Dark gray eyes. Smoky. Curvy lips that look as if they’ve been drawn on. Exotic. She’s sexy enough to pose for an album cover. I ask her out. Right on the spot. In freaking Kmart. When she says yes, I feel like breaking into a victory dance.
We meet Friday night for dinner at the Olive Garden. Driving over in my Ford Tempo, which has developed a sudden hacking cough, I start to freak out. I have a date. An actual date. With a real live girl. What the hell.
It occurs to me then that I have never been on an actual date. What do I do? What do we talk about? And what is the point? I buy her dinner and then . . . what? I take her home? We’re meeting at the restaurant. Dumb move. I should’ve picked her up. In this? In my tubercular Ford Tempo? I’m a wreck.
I pull into the restaurant parking lot and start to sweat. Perspiration gushes from my armpits as if they’re faucets, sopping my shirt. Nothing I can do. I’m already ten minutes late. I dash inside and locate my date, seated at a corner table. She’s done something to her hair. Braided it like a challah. Killer. And she’s done something to her lips. Applied dark Goth lipstick, the color of licorice. Murderous. She stands when I approach and, to my shock, gives me a hug. She rubs her palms in a slow circle on my back.
“You’re warm,” she says. “And your shirt is kind of . . . moist.”
“Yeah. The AC in my car conked out.”
“Ah.”
We sit. I fumble my menu. It flies out of my hand, lands at the foot of a woman two tables away.
“We can share,” she says.
I laugh like a hyena.
I need to chill. I need to calm the hell down. She slaps her laminated menu on the table, folds her hands, and laps me up with her eyes.
“So,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“What do you want to know about me?”
“Oh.” I clear my throat. “Everything. I mean, okay . . . do you have a job?”
“No,” she says.
“Ah,” I say.
“I have a career.”
“Oh. Nice. What field?”
“Entertainment.”
“Wow.”
“I’m a fire-eater.”
“Interesting.” I pause. Stutter. “So . . . you eat . . . f-f-f-fire. Where?”
“In a carnival. We move around a lot.”
Perfect. I’m dating a carnie. The hits just keep on coming.
“Do you enjoy eating, you know, fire?”
“Love it. I don’t want to brag, but they call me the Human Candle.”
Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet my new girlfriend. As you can see, she’s not Korean. But if our pilot light ever goes out, we’re sitting on gold.
“Tony, you look pale. You all right?”
“No, no, yeah, I’m fine.”
&nb
sp; “Why don’t you tell me about you.”
“Sure. Well, let’s see. I’m Korean. Korean-American. When I’m not in college, I live with my parents. My mother and father.”
“Those would be your parents.”
“My father is strict, hard-line, tyrannical. But in a good way. My mother is just great. Everyone loves her. She’s a wonderful cook. She makes these amazing native dishes. Delicious. A lot of shellfish. Steamed in their own juices. Very fresh. Still alive, basically. You kind of poke them with your chopsticks. Crustaceans swimming around with their little beady eyes. If you’re squeamish, you might be nauseated the first time . . .”
I’m off and running. I can’t stop myself. I speak in whole paragraphs. Pages. Chapters. Volumes. Tomes. I cannot shut up about my mother and her delicious Korean cooking. I spew forth nonstop as if I have some form of Tourette’s. At some point, I glimpse a stricken look on the carnie’s face. She glances nervously from side to side like a spy who suspects she’s been followed. I pause to catch my breath, and she plunks both of her hands on top of mine, pinning them to the table. I scan the backs of her hands for burn marks.
“Tony.”
“Yes?”
“I have to call it a night.”
“What? Why? We haven’t even ordered yet.”
“My stomach is acting up. Shooting pains. I have a very sensitive stomach. Feels like it’s on fire.”
“Well, sure, your line of work. I’ll drive you home—”
“No. I have my car.” She shoots to her feet, extends her hand. I shake it. Feels as if she’s concluding an unsuccessful job interview. “This was lovely.”
“Totally. Maybe we can do anoth—”
Before I finish, she burns out of there.
MY FIRST CHRISTMAS home from college.
The Christmas from hell.
First semester, over and done. I can’t wait to chill out at home. See friends. Go to parties. I even entertain thoughts of hooking up with Janine. Desperate men do desperate things.
My brother came home from Northwestern a day earlier. When I walk into the dining room and see Mike’s face, I know we’ve got a problem.
“Dad wants to talk to us.”
“About what?”
He shrugs, drums his fingers on the oak tabletop. If he knows, he’s not saying. I don’t press him. We sit without speaking for ten achingly long minutes until my parents arrive in the dining room. My father nods at my mother, steps farther into the room, leaves her framed in the doorway. “Your brother,” my father says to me.
A lump rises into my throat. Mike must be sick. I look at him. He looks down. I turn to my father. “What’s wrong?”
“Look.” My father slides a sheet of paper toward me. It flutters against my outstretched hand.
I pick up the paper and start to read: Northwestern University Official Transcript. I hand the paper back to my father. “This is none of my business. These are Mike’s grades.”
“No. Read. Please.”
I hesitate, then reluctantly scan the transcripts. One A, the rest B’s. I look helplessly at Mike. I don’t know why I’m here, why I’ve been included in what should be a private conversation between Mike and my father. Mike stares straight ahead. He looks numb.
“Your brother,” my father says, “has shamed the family.” He lowers his voice, speaks solemnly. “How can he become a doctor with grades like these? No way. Impossible.”
Normally, at this point, my brother would stand up to my father. But today, a week before Christmas, he doesn’t fight at all. He seems defeated.
“Michael, how?” My father leans back, then shoots up both hands in surrender. “How you get into med school? You need to study. Both of you.”
I blink, not understanding.
“You don’t study?” my father says, his voice rising. “You can’t become a doctor. You end up bum on the street. You have to study every day. Christmas, too.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not sure what’s happening here. We finished school. Took our finals. We don’t have anything to study.”
My father pulls out a chair. On the seat, he has placed a stack of MCAT-prep books. Each one weighs in at three hundred pages, minimum. “You study these. MCAT prep.” My father holds, waiting for the fight in Mike to come out.
Mike shakes his head, amazed, stunned. I try a tiny laugh to soften the moment. “You mean a couple hours a day—”
“No, no,” my father says. “All day, every day. Otherwise—” A massive helpless shrug aimed at my mother. She nods sadly from the doorway.
None of this is making sense. I look at my mother to get my bearings. She stares back, her mouth flat-lined in compliance. I look back at my father. “I thought we were going to L.A. for Christmas to see Grandma. We have plans, plane tickets—”
“No more,” my father says. “Not going to L.A. Not this year. This year you boys study. Very important. This year Daddy cancel Christmas.”
Mike swears under his breath. He jerks a book out from the middle of the pile, causing the rest of the stack to topple and crash onto the floor. My father flinches slightly but shows no other reaction. Mike opens his book in slow motion, drops his chin an inch above the page, and starts to read, moving his lips. My father pivots and walks out of the room, my mother at his heels. Mike and I look at each other and then, the dutiful sons, now prisoners, begin silently reading, studying for the MCAT.
Every morning after breakfast, Mike and I return to our bedroom and hit the books. Or so my father thinks. We alternate standing watch, two-hour shifts each, while the other lies in bed dozing, reading comic books, or listening to music. In reality, we study not at all. At times when my father surprises us with a random check-in, I force myself awake, spin the book around on my chest, hoping it’s not upside down, and pretend to be glued to the page. We take half-hour breaks for lunch and dinner, then “study” into the night until my father dismisses us. My mother and sister do fly to L.A. for a shortened Christmas holiday. On Christmas Day, my father goes to a friend’s for dinner. Mike and I microwave hot dogs and sneak some TV until we hear my father’s car in the driveway. We shut off the set, shove the dogs in the trash, and hustle upstairs, taking our positions in our beds, eyes trained on our MCAT books.
In those two weeks, during the moments when I daydream—and I daydream a lot—I think about my father on the farm in Korea. I imagine how hard he must have worked and how disciplined he must have been to escape from that dirt-poor farm overrun with eight brothers and sisters, not an inch of space for privacy or study, and while I want to hate him for killing my Christmas, ruining my winter break, and humiliating my brother, I can’t. It’s crazy, but I feel a rush of respect for him. I’m also royally pissed and so antsy that I’m jumping out of my skin and embarrassed beyond words to tell my friends the truth, that I’m stuck home studying because my brother bombed his grades and my dad freaked out.
But what the hell. Here I am. I have no other choice. I might as well accept my fate and embrace it. Yes, I’m locked away. But you can’t really call this prison. I’m in my room, all the snacks and soda I want, hanging out with my brother, whom I love, and with whom I’ll laugh about this someday. It could be worse. For my father, it was worse.
The afternoon of New Year’s Eve, my father releases us from our room. I quickly patch together a sketchy New Year’s Eve plan and head off for some party in hopes of finding Janine, which doesn’t happen. My brother, sullen, vague, talks about attending a party with some friends, but he doesn’t really seem into it and stays home.
Three days later, my backpack riding shotgun in the fussy Ford Tempo, I return to Kalamazoo College to my dorm, my suite-mates, my group of nerd friends, and no women, no women at all.
Before I leave, my father announces that he has transferred my brother to Kalamazoo College and moved him into a dorm not far from mine. What I know in my heart but dare not utter is that no matter how many MCAT books my father forces him to study and how many Christm
ases my father cancels, my brother will never become a doctor.
. . . .
JANUARY.
I am a second-semester freshman. And I am horny.
Winter hits, and my dating life goes ice-cold. We’re talking frozen-tundra cold. Maybe I’m simply shooting too high. Maybe I should lower my standards, scrape the bottom of the female species. Consider convicted felons. The certifiably insane. The terminally ugly. Open myself to any woman with a pulse. No. All I have left are my standards. I have to refine my approach. I read how-to books. I flirt. I hint. I ask direct questions. I send out good vibes and sincere compliments and promise a good time or your money back. Ha-ha-ha. Nothing. Blank stares. I study my face in the mirror. Am I that unattractive, unlikable, undesirable? What is my problem? Maybe hiding somewhere in the folds of my skin lies a nasty invisible zit field that appears only when I ask a girl out. I’m at a loss and sinking fast.
One night my suite-mates, minus Ross, invite me to a party. They warn me that it involves alcohol and poker with only a slight possibility of women. Slight possibility? Score! As we dress for the party, one of the guys, Gary, begins banging around the room, searching for a watch he’s misplaced. He flings open drawers at random, thinking that maybe someone stuck it into their stuff by mistake. Suddenly, he goes quiet and pulls something from Ross’s desk.
“Whoa.”
The urgency in his voice pulls us around him. I look over his shoulder. In his trembling hands, he holds a gay porn magazine.
“Ross?” Gary’s roommate says. “Is that his?”
“No, you moron, it’s mine,” Gary says.
Gary swats him with the magazine, then rolls it up and holds it in front of him like a giant undulating dildo. He chases us both into the common room, screaming, lisping, wagging his magazine dick. I join in the fun, flapping my arms and squealing effeminately. Our romp quickly fades, because in fact we are all freaked out, not sure what happens now.
“I wish I hadn’t found this,” Gary says.
“I have to live with the guy,” I say.
“You share a bed with him,” Gary says.
“It’s a bunk bed.”