I'm Ok

by Patti Kim

  twenty-two

  After church service Deacon Koh takes my mother and me out to lunch again. He has taken us out the last two Sundays. He took us to Pizza Hut the first time. Then he took us to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Today he’s taking us to McDonald’s. The whole world seems to be eating at McDonald’s after church. It’s packed with people dressed in their Sunday best. Even the McDonald’s workers wear hats, green-and-red elf caps like Santa’s little helpers.

  There are no empty tables large enough for the three of us, so my mother and Koh sit at a table for two, while I sit behind them at another table for two. This is perfect. I wish we could always sit like this whenever Koh wants to take us out on a date.

  I bite into my Big Mac. I get my book out and read My Side of the Mountain, which Ms. Lincoln strongly recommended. Like me, Sam hates his life. Unlike me, he does something about it. He leaves his family in the city and runs away to the mountains. He ends up living in a hollow tree. He befriends a falcon and a weasel. He eats plants and animals to survive. He wears deerskin. I admire Sam. I wish I could be like him. Get up and go.

  A man puts a tray down across from mine and asks, “This seat taken?”

  My mouth is full, so I shake my head no.

  “Mom, come sit here,” he says, and helps an old granny into the seat. He leaves her with me, while he goes to sit in a booth near the bathrooms with his wife and three kids.

  The granny sits hunched over. Her hands tremble as she unwraps the cheeseburger and brings it to her mouth. Her head trembles too. All the trembling makes it very difficult for her to eat. She’s never going to get the sandwich in her mouth, but she finally does and chews with her lips pressed tightly together. The red lipstick bleeds into her deep wrinkles. Her hat looks like a blue puddle about to slide off her head of thin white hair. She must be a hundred years old.

  Behind me, Koh talks about the apocalypse. Bible says this. Bible says that. My mother tells Koh she wants to take English classes. Koh says it’s important to prepare for the future because one never knows what the future holds. Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. Has she thought more about getting life insurance? My mother says she wants to learn to drive. Koh says he wants to visit Hawaii. Hawaii is just like paradise and wouldn’t it be wonderful to see it together, just him and her?

  “Deacon. Please,” she whispers loudly.

  I feel her eye the back of my head. I know she mouths to Koh to be quiet so they don’t make me feel like the third wheel. Three’s a crowd. I suspect they resort to passing notes to each other or communicating with sign language so I can’t eavesdrop on their plans for dumping me and starting a new life together, just the two of them. Aloha-ha-ha.

  I feel sick to my stomach. I want to get out of here. I take a sip of my Coke. I prop up my book. As I turn a page, I see the granny’s shaking hand reach toward me. Wrinkly, bony, covered in spots and veins, her hand, curled like the talons of a falcon, creeps closer and closer. I pull back, shielding my mouth and neck with the book. Is she trying to cast a curse on me? Is she trying to choke me? I nearly jump out of my seat when her hand stops over my tray. Her trembling fingers pick up a fry, dip it in my blob of ketchup, and aim it at the moving target: her mouth opened wide. She is stealing my fries right before my very eyes, but I want to cheer her on. Come on, you can do it! Get it in! There! You did it! She gets the fry into her mouth. While chewing and swallowing, she reaches for another. The granny is eating my fries.

  I pour the rest onto her tray. As the fries spread out before her, the granny giggles like a girl and says, “Hot diggity!” Pointing her crooked finger at me, she slowly declares in her quivering voice, “You are a real man.”

  I realize she’s a stranger. She’s old. She probably has blurry vision. Her hearing is going. She trembles all over. She has trouble feeding herself. But she called me a real man. Not just a good man, like Charlie Brown, who’s sad and sorry all the time, but a real man. This is the closest I’ve come to having my own side of the mountain.

  “Will you run away with me?” I ask the granny.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she says, giggling and nibbling on her fries.

  twenty-three

  My mother and I shop at Sears for a new pair of jeans and sneakers for me. “As an early Christmas present,” she says. There’s a Korean adage that says if you buy shoes for someone as a gift, you’re really telling him to run away. Put these new shoes on and get lost.

  My mother gets enough kimchi orders that she doesn’t have to sew sleeves or work on the weekends at Arirang Grocery anymore. Word got around about her kimchi, and people who don’t even go to our church are ordering jars. Our home has gone from being a sewing factory to a kimchi factory.

  While her kimchi business grows, my braiding business is steady but slow. I’ve managed to save forty-two dollars. I was thinking about giving it to my mother, but it doesn’t look like she needs the money anymore.

  My mother pays for my sneakers, then wanders over to the women’s clothing department. I wander over to sporting goods. As I leave the aisle of fishing rods, I see the most amazing display. A family of mannequins is camping. The dad stands next to the tent, which is as big as a real house and is a color Crayola calls Shamrock. The boy stands near the fire, made out of jagged pieces of red cardboard. The girl stands with her mom, who’s boiling water in a kettle that sits on a portable stove the size of a dictionary. The Styrofoam snow is pure and beautiful. The family is frozen in a moment of happiness.

  I carefully walk over to the tent, push open the flap, and look inside. Four puffy sleeping bags are lined up on the floor. I step into the tent, zipper shut the door, and then, like Goldilocks, try out all the sleeping bags. The boy’s green one is just right. I am cocooned. The air smells fresh, like brand-new shower curtains. The tent’s ceiling glows green from the store’s fluorescent lights and hypnotizes me: You’re getting sleepy. You’re getting a tent. Your own home. Your hollow tree.

  “Assistance needed in shoes.”

  The voice, which sounds like the school secretary’s, springs me out of the sleeping bag. I bolt out of the tent like I’m escaping a crime scene.

  I hurry to the aisle of tents, which are boxed and shelved according to size. The smallest is a two-person tent called the Shelter 365. Lightweight but tough. No stakes needed. Erects quickly. Durable mesh window and door. Nylon wraparound floor to keep out moisture and bugs. Cost: $59.99.

  I want the Shelter 365. I need the Shelter 365. Without it, there is no way to escape. I must run away. Dump before you get dumped. Leave before you get kicked out. It’s inevitable. Deacon Koh is on his way in, and I’m on my way out. My mother doesn’t need me anymore. And with the Shelter 365, I won’t need her.

  twenty-four

  Mickey’s bedroom is filled with trophies, ribbons, tiaras, and pictures of her wearing lots of makeup, fancy dresses, and Dolly Parton hairdos. When she was little, she competed in pageants. She really was Miss America.

  “My daddy was all into it, and I’d do anything for my daddy ’cause he truly believed in his heart of hearts that I could be Miss America, so he started me real young, putting me in every pageant on Earth and hooting and hollering in the audience when I did my signature strut. Ma hated it, thought it was the biggest waste of money and time, and they fought about it like cats and dogs,” she says, and stands up to look at herself in the mirror. “You know that girl Lenore?”

  “No,” I say.

  “That girl lie to my face. She promise she do the talent show with me, then she say her mama won’t let her roller-skate onstage ’cause it’s too dangerous and she don’t want her breaking any bones, so I tell her we could just dance instead without the skates, but she say she can’t do the talent show period ’cause it’s against her religion, then I see her singing with some other girls during recess. Religion, my butt cheeks. I know they getting ready for the talent show. I hate Lenore. I want to roller-skate over her throat. I heard that girl sing, and believe y
ou me, that girl can’t sing. Worst part is she think she sound good, and she sing real loud and with all this feeling that only make her face look constipated. If she don’t get kicked out by them girls, she gonna get laughed at by the whole school and not in the good kind of way,” Mickey says.

  “Is it hard?” I ask, wondering if I might replace Lenore. I still have no act for the talent show, and there’s a hundred bucks at stake, and I’ve seen Mickey skate. I figure she can dance in her skates, while I just stand onstage. It’d be the fastest and easiest fifty I’ve ever made.

  “Is what hard?”

  “You know, skating.”

  “At first it is, but then you practice, and you get the hang of it,” she says. “Why? You want to learn to skate?”

  “I don’t know. I really suck at stuff like that,” I say, shrugging and looking down at my feet in hopes of winning her encouragement.

  “If you think you suck, then I guess you suck,” she says.

  “That’s not exactly what I was getting at.”

  “I know what you were trying to get at, and I’m saying I refuse to have as my talent show partner somebody who thinks he sucks. I can teach the skating part, but I can’t teach the attitude part. If you think you suck, I, the teacher, ain’t got nothing to work with,” she says, amazing me into silence.

  Mickey’s door opens, and a boy’s face squeezes in the crack. A gray cat slithers in, meowing. It comes to me and rubs against my ankles, making eights between my legs. I feel nervous. I lean against the dresser just in case it knocks me down.

  “What you want?” Mickey says.

  “I wanna play,” the boy says.

  “Not now, Benny. Can’t you see? I got a guest.”

  He sticks his tongue out at her.

  “Keep that tongue out another nanosecond and I’m cutting it off,” she says, and throws a pillow at him.

  Her brother runs off, leaving the door wide open. Mickey shuts it. “I swear. A girl can’t get no privacy round here. Ain’t that right, Jill?” she says, petting the cat. She sits on the floor, and Jill steps into the diamond nest formed by Mickey’s legs and settles in. She strokes its neck. The cat growls.

  “You scared a cats?” she asks me.

  “No,” I say.

  “Sit down. Pet her. Jill ain’t going to bite. She loves this, but don’t pet Kelly. He’s the orange one. He’s grumpy. He don’t want to be touched. Daddy says he’s mad at us for giving him a girl name. See? She don’t bite,” Mickey says.

  “She’s growling,” I say, pulling my hand away.

  “That’s purring.”

  “Is she mad?”

  “She’s happy. Cats purr ’cause they’re happy.”

  “Oh yeah, I knew that,” I say, and return to petting the cat.

  I actually don’t know much about cats. I’ve never heard a cat purr before. I didn’t even know cats made a sound other than the annoying meow, which reminds me of whining and squeaky doors. Purring is entirely different. The sound doesn’t seem to come out of her mouth. It comes from some deep place inside and vibrates all over. It’s steady and even, as long as I keep up with the petting. I don’t want to take my hand away because I don’t want the purring to end.

  “Wanna see a trick?” Mickey asks, and picks up the cat. She wears Jill around her neck the way athletes wear towels around their necks. The cat’s legs hang down on either side.

  “Cool,” I say.

  “Wanna try?” she asks, pulling the cat carefully off. Before I can answer no, she drapes the cat around my neck, resting her on my shoulders. Her weight and warmth feel good. The fur brushes against my cheeks and ears. No wonder some women are crazy about fur coats. I sink into the comfort and turn my head from side to side, feeling the fur on my face.

  “You wanna ask me something,” she says.

  “Ask you what?”

  “Beating around the bush don’t suit you. Ask already.”

  “Ask what?”

  “I gotta be the one to spell out the desires of your heart? Can’t you ask for yourself?”

  “Ask what?”

  “Repeat after me. Mickey. Say my name. Say ‘Mickey.’ ”

  “Mickey,” I say.

  “Will you,” she says.

  “Will you,” I repeat.

  “Marry me,” she says, and laughs out loud. Still chuckling, she says, “No. No, I’m just kidding. You should’ve seen the look on your face. No, but this time it’s serious. For real. Repeat after me. Will you . . .”

  “Will you,” I say.

  “Show me,” she says.

  “Show me.”

  “How to roller-skate good like you do so I can be your partner in the talent show and we can kick some Lenore butt and win this thing?” she says.

  “Okay. Yeah. That,” I say.

  “Under one condition. As long as you recognize that I am the true star in this partnership and that you are the one riding my coattails,” she says, fists on her hips.

  “And we split the prize money fifty-fifty?”

  “Fifty-fifty. I don’t care about the money. I just want the glory of winning. I am so sick and tired of them making fun of me. They got no idea what I have inside. No idea. For once I want them to see me do something I’m good at and sit there admiring me and wishing to be like me, even for a split second. Is that so much to ask for? Well, you in or not?” she demands, her voice about to crack.

  “I’m in,” I say, and put out my hand, sweating under the weight and warmth of the cat draped around my neck.

  “Put it here, partner? Oh my Lordy, you are the corniest. You wanna spit in our hands to seal the deal like they do in the movies?” Mickey says, shaking my hand. Her hand feels damp.

  “But I don’t have skates, and I don’t know how to skate,” I say.

  “You could use my old pair,” she says, and hurries out of the room, leaving me on her bedroom floor yoked by the cat. I feel hot. I feel chills. How do I get this cat off me? I lower my head to the floor, hoping she’ll step off and move along, but she stays put. Mickey returns with a pair of black roller skates. I feel strangely disappointed they aren’t red, white, and blue like hers.

  “Try them on,” she says as she lifts the cat off me.

  “They’re too small.”

  “Your feet ain’t as big as you think. Now put them on,” she says, and pulls my sneakers off. I curl my toes so she can’t push my foot into the skate.

  “I’ll show you,” she says, tickling my foot.

  “Stop!” I say, suppressing a giggle. My toes relax, and she pushes my foot into the skate. It fits.

  “Let me make it clear to you that I have never skated in my life.”

  “That’s fine. You’ll get it. It’s so easy-peasy,” she says, tightly lacing up the skate.

  “I don’t know about this.”

  Mickey double-knots the laces and says, “If you get any doubts about yourself, just think about the money. Keep your eye on the money. I know about you, Ok. I know how much you love money. Just think about all you can do with all that cash.”

  Winning the talent show would get me the Shelter 365 with change to spare. I could stop braiding.

  “Stand up,” Mickey says. I stand. She presses her thumb on the toes of the skates the way my mother does when checking the fit of my shoes. The skates feel good and snug on my feet. For once in my life, I feel tall.

  twenty-five

  My mother practices her signature on a napkin at Burger King with Deacon Koh’s gold pen. He sits across from us at a booth, shuffling through sheets of paper in a folder labeled HOME BENEFICIAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY.

  My mother nods as he explains death benefit, cash value, interest rates, future insurability, premium cost, and beneficiary.

  As my mother signs the papers without reading them, the deacon smiles, leans in to her, and says, “Praise the Lord. Think about the peace of mind this brings. You don’t have to worry about the future anymore. Who’s hungry?” he asks, rubbing his hands toget
her.

  I don’t answer. My mother elbows me. I reluctantly play along by raising my hand and saying, “Me.”

  “No problemo. Ok looks like he wants a Whopper with onion rings,” the deacon says.

  “Oh boy, how did you know?” I say in monotone.

  “I know these things. I, too, was once a growing young man with a big appetite,” he says, and goes to order our food.

  “Be nice,” my mother whispers.

  “Ŏmma, you didn’t even read those papers. You don’t even know what you signed,” I whisper.

  “I don’t need to. He explained everything to me,” she says.

  “But what if he’s lying?” I ask.

  “The deacon doesn’t lie. He cares about us,” she says.

  “No, he doesn’t,” I say.

  “I trust him,” she says.

  “I don’t,” I say.

  My mother is quiet. Her lips tighten. She shoves the papers at me and says, “Then here! Read them yourself! You think I’m so dumb I’ll sign our lives over to just anyone? I don’t understand you sometimes. The deacon has been so helpful. He’s been nothing but kind and generous to you, and you with your ‘okay, okay, okay’ and rolling eyes is so disrespectful. What’s wrong with you?” she demands, her volume rising.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “Give me a real answer,” she says.

  “He tries too hard,” I say.

  “Of course he’s trying hard. He wants you to like him. What’s wrong with that?” she says, her teeth clenched.

  “I don’t like it,” I say.

  “Then would you rather he not take you out with us and feed you? Would you rather we have you wait in the car while we eat? Would you rather we ignore you and treat you like you’re nothing but a big bother and nuisance and burden?” she says.

  Deacon Koh brings a tray of food and drinks with a big smile and says, “So, what’s this I hear about you not knowing how to swim, Ok? That’s an important life skill. I can teach you. No problemo. I have a membership at the YMCA. I’m going to take you with me and teach you how to swim. No drowning accidents allowed on my watch, no, indeed.”