“Like what?”
“I’m learning about genetics, like how to breed certain strains. I asked one of my bio teachers about dominant and recessive traits. He told me some stuff, but it only made sense when I had to think it through with buds and strains. I even got a booklet on how to produce female seeds with the strains I like. I can’t ask my bio teacher about that. What’s the point of school if I can do this myself?”
Lenny makes a mental note to look up books on genetics.
When they arrive at the site, they inspect the young plants, and find a few of the beetles chewing on the leaves. They try the garlic mixture in the sprayer, but the clumps clog up the pump, so they have to apply the garlic with their fingers, spreading it over the leaves. Sal says, “This smells like we can eat it.”
The plants have already grown almost a foot since Lenny first started, and in just another couple of weeks, they will be hardy enough to fend off most pests. While pasting the leaves, Sal asks Lenny about his brother, wondering why he hangs out with the dirtbags.
“He does?”
“Just wondering.”
Lenny says they aren’t close. “I hardly see him.”
By the time they finish it’s getting dark, and Sal describes the motorcycle he’s going to buy when he starts selling the crop. “It’s a Kawasaki, so it’s one of those jap import jobs,” he says, glancing at Lenny, and hesitating. “Sorry.”
“I don’t care. I’m not Japanese.”
“Anyway, you get more for the money. What about you? What will you buy?”
“Some books. A TV.”
“You’ve been doing good work, so if everything turns out okay with the crop you’ll get a bonus.”
Lenny tells him that he has to go home now for dinner. Sal says, “We smell like garlic, man.” He sniffs his fingers. “The things I do for my crops.”
He smiles and punches Lenny lightly on his arm.
Sal seems lonely. Although Lenny occasionally sees him hanging out near the Gables movie theater on Merrick Road with a couple of other older kids, most of the time Lenny finds him either at his house or riding his minibike, and even when he sees Sal with his friends they seem more like people he just happened to run into. Maybe he’s selling weed. Lenny wonders if that’s why Sal asked for help, because he doesn’t have anyone close to trust. Lenny knows that as a kid, he can be bossed and threatened, and ultimately discarded, although he begins to see that Sal has taken a brotherly interest in him. Once, while they tend his crops, he asks Lenny what he wants to be when he grows up. Lenny says he’s thinking about being a martial arts instructor or a kung-fu star.
Sal stops checking the leaves. “Can you actually do that?”
“I guess so.”
He looks impressed and continues working. Then he says, “What if you get hurt? Isn’t that like a professional athlete?”
Lenny didn’t think of that.
Sal says, “My uncle played college baseball on scholarship. He wanted to go pro. But he had shoulder injuries that made him lose his scholarship. He didn’t have a back-up plan, so now he’s working at a gas station.”
Sal straightens up and pushes the hair out of his eyes. “You always need to have a back-up plan.”
“What’s your back-up plan?”
He points to the marijuana plants. “You’re looking at it.”
“What was your main plan?”
“To be a superhero.”
Lenny laughs.
“Seriously. I was going to be a caped crusader. It didn’t work out.” He bends down and continues checking the leaves. “Besides, it paid shit.”
By the time Lenny returns home his mother has prepared Mira’s room for Grandma. In a corner of his room sits a small green army cot his father bought at a surplus store. His mother tells him that he has to be a good roommate, because everyone in the family has to work together for her operation. Grandma will be arriving tomorrow. His mother’s operation is in two days.
That night, while he gets used to the fact that he and his little sister are sharing a room—every time she moves on the cot it squeaks—he hears his parents arguing quietly. They move from the living room to the kitchen, where their voices are muted, shrouded by the humming of the refrigerator, and after a while it becomes quiet. His father listens to classical music. His mother comes into his room to check on them. Mira is already asleep.
His mother whispers, “I am so happy your grandmother is coming.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“You were too young. But did I ever tell you how she raised four of us by herself?”
“A little.”
She tells him that Grandma went to a high school founded by American missionaries, and they nicknamed her “Maria.” She learned how to play the piano well enough to be hired at church services and weddings. She wanted to be a professional, but her father had forbidden it. But she encouraged her children to love music and literature.
“What did she end up doing to support you?”
“Everything. She was cheated out of a business deal for a lumber company because she was a woman, so after that she always ran her own businesses. She sold food to the Korean Army. She ran a small sneaker factory. She owned a coal mine. She ran a bus-driving business. She did whatever she had to. My father died from leukemia when I was very young, so it was up to my mother to provide.”
“Do you remember your father?”
“Very little. Almost nothing. I was just a baby.”
“What’s Grandma going to do when she gets here?”
“Cook. Take care of the house. She will help me.” She leans forward. “Be good and listen to your halmonee. And if anything happens to me…”
Lenny doesn’t like hearing this.
His mother notices his expression and says, “Oh, everything will be fine.” She kisses him on the forehead and tells him to go to sleep. She takes a deep, slow, unsteady breath, and he realizes that she is terrified.
21
Short and hunched, Grandma has thinning silver hair and wears a wrinkled beige pantsuit with large black shoes that clunk on the kitchen floor. She arrives late the next evening as they prepare for bed, and the presence of a stranger in the house—since they almost never have guests—throws everyone off balance. Grandma looks around the kitchen as Yul brings in her suitcase from the garage. Umee has on a big smile, her cheeks flushed, as she introduces her children to their halmonee. Grandma claps her gnarled hands together, taking them in, and asks Umee in Korean with an incredulous voice if Lenny is the same boy who used to be so small and skinny. Grandma holds her arms out for him. Lenny hugs her, and she speaks to him in Korean. She smells of mothballs and cigarette smoke, her wool jacket rough and scratchy. Umee explains to Grandma that Lenny can’t understand Korean. They have a brief discussion about this, and then Grandma hugs Mira, saying her Korean name, “Won Hee,” fondly.
Yul asks Lenny where his brother is, but Lenny doesn’t know. They stand around awkwardly for a moment, until Yul picks up the suitcase and carries it out of the kitchen. Grandma says to Lenny, “Not see you since baby.”
He nods his head. She looks nothing like his mother, and he finds it odd that this strange old woman is his mother’s mother. Grandma pinches Mira’s cheek and pats her head. Mira blinks and stares.
Yul returns to the kitchen and tells the children to go to bed.
Umee says, “Let them stay up. They should get to know their halmonee.”
He shrugs his shoulders and retreats to the living room. Grandma watches him with a cold expression, and she says something to Umee in Korean, her voice low and hard, and Umee shushes her. They sit in the breakfast nook as Umee brings out leftovers and talks to Grandma in Korean while Lenny and Mira nibble on pajun, a seafood pancake, and dried cuttlefish. Umee speaks quickly and excitedly. Lenny hasn’t heard her like this before, almost childish. Even her gestures are unusual—quick head movements and leaning forward over the table.
After a while Mira yawns lo
udly, making Grandma laugh. She pats Mira on the head again, and Umee shoos her off to bed. Yul comes into the kitchen and pours himself a whiskey on ice. Grandma and Umee stop talking.
Once Yul leaves, Grandma says something quietly, and Umee glances at Lenny, who pretends to be preoccupied with the dried cuttlefish, which is chewy and tough, and requires two hands to tear with his teeth. Grandma repeats herself, and Lenny knows it’s something serious about his father from the way his mother tenses. Lenny is getting good at reading their body language, hearing the inflections, and he knows Grandma just told his mother she should leave his father.
They talk quietly for another few minutes, and then his mother waves the discussion away. She mentions the surgery tomorrow. With that Grandma stands up, pushing her chair back, and pulls Umee away from the table. Lenny’s mother tells him to go to bed, and Grandma says, “Sleep good.”
He watches them leave the kitchen, heading for Grandma’s new bedroom, and when he sees that they have left all the food out, he begins putting it away.
In the morning Mira wakes Lenny up with her creaking army cot, and he needs a minute to figure out where he is. He hears his father arguing with his mother, and the smell of Korean food carries down the hall, an unusual smell for a weekday morning. When Lenny enters the kitchen he sees pots bubbling over and smoke rising from a frying pan. Grandma wears his mother’s apron and mixes something in a bowl.
She waves him to the table. She pours him a bowl of jook, a rice porridge, and pats his head. Yul appears in the kitchen in his suit and tie, and looks around, shocked. He speaks to Grandma curtly, who replies in a scolding tone. His father throws up his hands and walks out the back door. The screen door slams shut by itself.
Grandma snorts to herself. Her annoyed expression fades when she glances at Lenny. She points, making an eating motion with her fingers. Mira complains that she just wants cold cereal—Frosted Flakes—but Grandma puts a bowl of jook in front of her, with a small container of soy sauce to add as flavor. When their mother appears, she sits down with them. Ed tries to sneak out of the back door, but she calls him over.
Grandma greats Ed warmly, and speaks to him in Korean. He understands most of this and nods his head. He sits at the table, and their mother says, “I go into surgery today.”
They wait.
Grandma puts a bowl in front of their mother, who says in Korean that she can’t eat before surgery.
“I’ve got to get to school,” Ed says.
“Your father will be coming home from work early to drive me to the hospital, so I won’t be here when you get back from school. I need you all to be good.”
Ed, Mira and Lenny look at each other, and then they nod their heads to her.
Because the children can’t really communicate with Grandma, she tries to connect with them through food, presenting them with platters that they like for the novelty but tire of quickly. She promptly stores these dishes in Tupperware in the freezer. She cleans constantly—scrubbing appliances, vacuuming, waxing furniture—and this is just her first full day. Lenny comes home from school and finds her on her hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor with a rag. She pulls herself up and presents him with a snack: kim bop, rice and vegetables in a seaweed wrap. She tries to talk with him, but he can’t understand her. She then pushes him out of the kitchen, pointing to the wet floors, and she goes back to cleaning.
When his mother returns home two days later, she has a long, inflamed, smiley-face scar over her throat that she immediately moisturizes with Vitamin E oil. She hugs her children tentatively, then goes to bed. The operation went smoothly, and the only real after-effect is her exhaustion.
Yul grunts a thanks for the dinner Grandma made, the stovetop sizzling non-stop while Umee was at the hospital. The smell of soy sauce and fried batter overwhelms the kitchen, and Yul leaves the windows in the kitchen open all night.
The tension between Yul and Grandma isn’t obvious at first, because they are both focused on Umee, but as she recovers over the next few days, her energy returning, delighted at having her mother around, Yul becames curt. He complains about the constant smell and heat in the kitchen. He says that there just isn’t room in the house for this many people. He then says that since Umee is feeling better, Grandma must go.
Lenny hears his parents argue quietly in the kitchen while Grandma watches TV with Mira. Everyone hears them clearly. Grandma sighs to herself. Umee raises her voice, saying in Korean something about the two weeks not being over yet, but Yul says she has recovered so there is no need for two weeks.
Mira tries to speak with Grandma, asking about what she did in Korea, but the language gap is too large. Grandma just smiles.
The fight in the kitchen grows louder, with Umee’s voice scratchy and hoarse. Lenny glances at Grandma whose expression darkens as she sits tensely on the edge of the sofa. Mira is the only one watching TV, a variety show with a singer, and when Yul breaks a dish and yells something, Grandma stands up and walks quickly to the kitchen.
The voices stop. After a moment Grandma says something sharp, and Yul retorts back in a louder and more threatening tone. Grandma replies, and Umee tries to intervene.
Lenny tells his sister that they should go to their room.
She eyes the TV, weighing her options.
“Want to go back into the church?” Lenny asks.
She perks up, and they throw on their shoes and leave through the front door to avoid the fight.
Lenny and Mira enter the church through the back door again, and this time they go to the small auditorium where there’s a stage and an open room that’s used for a dining and meeting area. It’s dark, but they find the light switch panel by the side door, and after searching behind the stage curtain they turn on one of the spotlights. Mira stands shyly on the stage. Lenny tells her to sing something.
“What should I sing?”
“How about that Annie song?”
Although they’ve never seen the musical, Mira received the record for her birthday, and learned a few of the songs. She steps forward and sings “Tomorrow.” Lenny turns off all the lights except for the spotlight, and she squints. Her voice is quiet and nervous, so he yells for her to sing louder, and he moves toward the back, near the kitchen with two large serving windows. Slowly, as she realizes that she’s essentially alone in the dark, she raises her voice and belts it out. Unlike Lenny, she has no speech impediment, and because of her constant mimicking, she has a good voice. She pretends to hold a microphone, making Lenny laugh. She raises an arm to the audience, giddy, and her eyes shine in the spotlight.
They return home and find their father sitting in his lounge chair, the coffee table turned upside down and the green ceramic lamp broken on the floor, the bulb lit and sending odd angles of light onto the wall. Broken dishes lay scattered throughout the kitchen. Their mother is crying in the bathroom. Lenny and Mira walk by the bedrooms, expecting to see Grandma sitting on the bed, but she’s not there. He tells Mira to play in their room.
“Where’s—”
He puts his finger to his lips, shushing her. He walks past the living room, avoiding his father’s gaze, and checks the basement. Ed isn’t there, but neither is Grandma. When Lenny returns to the kitchen and looks out into the back, he sees her sitting on the brick steps at the door, hunched over, her arms folded tightly, and she stares down at the crab grass. She wears only a thin sweater, and she’s shivering.
Lenny opens the door, but then his father yells, “She does not come into my house! This is my house!”
Grandma shakes her head at Lenny, waving her hand to the door, motioning for him to close it. He does. She studies him, her face wrinkling as she stares through the darkness. She gives him a small smile and turns back around.
He hears his mother come out of the bathroom and yell at his father. They continue fighting, and because Lenny doesn’t want to walk by them to get to the bedrooms, he hurries downstairs and into the boiler room, the water heater rumbling. He kicks
his make-shift punching bag a few times, the tightly-packed rags in the bag exhaling with each hit. Farther in is the storage room, where old, moldy boxes filled with clothes, books, photo albums and his mother’s old paintings have lain untouched since they first moved here. Curious, he digs through the books, and finds stacks of large art books—Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh, Monet—with colorful prints.
He hears footsteps above thumping quickly across the house.
More yelling, and then the back door opens. Grandma snaps at Yul, who bellows back, and when Umee screams, Lenny jumps. He hasn’t heard her scream like that before. He runs to the stairs, unsure if he should go upstairs.
From down here Lenny can see the back door open, and after a minute of more yelling, his father pushes Grandma and Umee to the door. Umee tries to push back, but Yul easily knocks her aside, and shoves Grandma against the screen door. They argue, Umee crying, and she struggles with him. He hits her chest with an open hand that sends her flying back into the wall.
She lets out a strangled cry and collapses.
Everyone stops. Yul peers down at her. He sways drunkenly. Umee, curled up on the floor, holds her throat. Yul says something and walks back into the living room. Grandma kneels down and speaks softly to Umee who is sobbing, shaking her head, repeating something over and over. Grandma takes her head in her arms, cradling her. She coos, and Umee quiets down. Lenny returns to the storage room and leafs through the sketchings of da Vinci, whom his mother once told him was his namesake. His hands shake as he turns the pages, sweaty fingerprints staining the corners.
22
The first marijuana catalog arrives, simply a dozen pages stapled together, each page listing a book—or, rather pamphlets. But the pamphlets are all about growing and cultivating marijuana. The publisher, a commune in California, highlights their ten-year expertise with growing marijuana indoors, even in closets. Other titles include: preparing and cooking with marijuana, basic hydroponic gardening, lighting principles, and seed preparation. To order any of these, Lenny only needs to send a check or money order and they will send the pamphlets in a plain brown wrapper.
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