by Sonia Patel
Then my eyes play tricks on me—I think I see Ha-na in the corner.
I look again.
It is her!
She’s at a table with a Korean woman who I guess is her mother. Her wide, dark eyes meet mine and narrow to crinkled slits. She looks away, muttering something to herself.
14.
The air smells of freshly cut grass, the wind is the sun’s kiss, the birds—the sky’s carefree children. I hold my palm out to catch a cherry blossom petal. It lands gently. I rub the soft pinkness between my fingers, then release it back to the breeze. It floats this way and that, taking its own sweet time. That’s me today—a petal without any hurry.
I stretch, then amble towards my first class, touching every third cherry blossom tree. If my finger hits one of the small horizontal cuts on the rough bark, I touch my knife.
Soon I’m in a touch-touch rhythm. I look up. The scant pink flowers flutter in a few bunches, like bridal bouquets. Vibrant green leaves have replaced most of the bloom reminding me that there’s only a few more weeks of school until summer vacation. I smile inside.
Walk. Touch a cut. Touch my knife.
There are a few white wisps curling in the blue. I count them. Six.
Mom loved clouds. Of course: because they brought rain to her precious city. She loved rain. But she really, really loved clouds. She had a special place in her heart for them.
This one time, the three of us had just finished a nice picnic lunch at the Han. Dad was smoking and Mom was lying on her back admiring the sky. She laced her hands behind her head and said, “Clouds, nature’s masterpiece.” She looked at me. “Like us, Rocky. Like our family. Family is one of nature’s masterpieces too.” Then she pointed to three enormous clouds. “Those clouds,” she said, giggling, “a cloud family.” She sighed. “But it’s not just that, Rocky. A plain blue sky, even if it’s the most gorgeous azure or cerulean, is boring. A silvery cloud or two makes the perfect sky more like real life—imperfect.”
Mom used to talk to me like I was a grown-up even when I was a kid. I didn’t mind. At least she talked to me. Not like Dad, who talked to me less and less the older I got.
I reach for my Dunhill tin.
“Hey, Black Coolie!” someone shouts.
Obviously, it’s not me. It’s not Braid or Strike’s voice. My hand veers to my knife.
There’s a small crowd of students up ahead.
Soon the one voice becomes an angry mob. They form a tight circle, fists pumping high above their heads, and chant, “Blackie! Coolie! Blackie! Coolie…”
I move quickly, crane my neck.
It’s Ha-na.
She slams her eyes shut and ducks her head under her left arm to wait it out. The kids close in. Hands push and pull at her. A loud tear. Everyone looks to the side.
One of the popular girls is holding Ha-na’s sleeve in her hand. Her bracelets clink as she looks back and forth between the torn sleeve in her hand and Ha-na’s exposed arm. Her eyes grow to the size of ancient rattan shields.
No one says a word. Then all eyes zero in on Ha-na’s bare right arm—it looks like a Po Kim painting with its mix of flesh-colored keloids, dark reddish-brown scab lines, and more recent reddish-pink slashes.
I squeeze my knife handle.
The popular girl’s bracelets clink again as she tosses the sleeve on the ground. She stomps on it, laughing. A cruel laugh. She points to Ha-na’s arm and says, “You’re such a dumb loser, you can’t even figure out how to kill yourself!” She struts over to her. “Kill yourself, Coolie,” she whispers. Then she says it again, this time louder.
Everyone starts laughing. Everyone starts chanting.
“Kill yourself, Coolie! Kill yourself, Coolie!” they yell.
That’s when it bubbles up inside me, a new voice. It erupts. “SHUT UP!” I holler, pushing my way into the circle.
Ha-na opens her eyes and looks up. Our eyes meet. The dread I see in hers is enough to make me pull out my knife. My shiny blade gleams in the sunlight.
“Get away from her,” I growl, gripping my knife near the side of my head.
No one moves.
“I said get away from her!” My eyes dart around from student to student.
They look away or drop their heads, anything to avoid my eyes, but they’re still standing near her.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?”
No one budges yet. The popular girl even opens her mouth. “B-but—”
“No buts!” I yell. “LEAVE NOW!” I thrust my knife in the air.
That’s when they finally start to take cautious steps away, keeping their eyes on my blade. A few seconds later they scatter like ants.
I slip my knife back into my sheath, looking at Ha-na.
She remembers her arm and tries to hide it behind her back, but it doesn’t work. She ends up staring at the ground.
My gaze wanders down her naked arm, shoulder to wrist.
Is her other arm like that too?
My stunned eyes soften, but then harden again.
Who did it? Sure my boys and I have bullied her, but we’ve never hurt her like that. Did she do that to herself? I’ve heard of kids cutting themselves.
I lower my head.
If she did it to herself, why so many times? What’s so bad that she had to—
Shit.
15.
Supplemental class ends. The students spill out of the door, straight into the chaos of the late afternoon hallway. But it takes my boys and me five minutes to finally get up and trudge our sorry asses out of the room. We move like slugs in the crowded corridor. I catch our reflection in a tinted window at the end of the hall—no swag in our walk, no air of bravado. We look so…so…ordinary. The opposite, in fact, of badass gangsters to be feared.
I grip my knife handle and trace its stars, but my badass knife doesn’t cut back my patheticness.
My boys and I slog across the campus, sullen, trying not to fracture the brittle, icy air between us.
The day had started with them asking me about Ha-na’s slashed up arm. I hadn’t told them yet, but how could they not have heard when it was the only thing everyone at school was blathering about it. And spinning. Anyway, I filled them in on what really went down, and then our gangster spirit turned into shameful cowardice. It was bad. We were the opposite of our usual selves. A few grumbles and groans exchanged in between classes, but no spitting contests. No horseplay. No hectoring. No witty banter. No not-so-witty banter. Actually, no conversation at all.
We arrive at the campus gate. I stop.
My boys stop beside me.
Braid looks at me. “What, boss?”
I stare straight ahead and say, “We’re getting out of here.” And I know just the place to go.
A quiet train ride to the outskirts of Seoul followed by a short walk to our destination: Nolda Land, an amusement park that’s gifted many teens in Seoul—including my boys and me—a handful of fantastic childhood memories. Too bad for young kids these days, they won’t grow up with their own set of good times here because this place has been long abandoned.
We pause at the front entrance to behold our beloved Nolda Land. I count the ways nature has taken it back, starting with the sun—the selfproclaimed king. His royal, fiery majesty shoots glorious rays at us from behind the gigantic roller coaster’s metal skeleton.
Strike looks around, leans in. “Heard this place is haunted,” he whispers.
Patch nods.
“You scared?” Braid asks, elbowing Strike. Then he turns to me, pointing to Strike and Patch with his thumb. “Boss, I don’t know if these two can handle it.” He pouts at Strike and offers his hand. “Poor little Strike needs to hold big brother’s hand,” he says in a baby voice.
I smile inside. Things are better already.
Strike slaps Braid’s hand away. “Shut up,” he mutters. “Don’t come crying to me when you hear kids laughing and footsteps that aren’t yours or ours!”
Braid scoffs as he
kicks a pebble.
Strike mutters something else, but I’m not listening anymore. I’m lost in my memories.
I count the letters on the Nolda Land sign and the stars on the sides. Seventeen. Then for a second I’m a kid again, about to enter a fully operational park. The flashy oasis of fun beckons, an escape from the wasteland of bedtime. My parents and I waltz in, holding hands, me in the middle. The multi-colored lights of the rides tempt me. So do the ice cream and cotton candy booths. The games. The prizes. The clown that creeps all the other kids out but makes me laugh inside…
An easygoing wind whispers a delicate measure. Then a sudden gust blows the gates open, daring us to enter. We exchange nervous glances.
“Oh shit,” Strike whispers to himself. His teeth chatter. “See?” he mouths to me.
Patch holds himself and hides his big body behind Strike, pretending to be frightened. Then he doubles over in silent laughter.
I enter. My boys follow. Braid bites his nails and bumps into Strike on purpose.
“Go ahead, assholes, make fun of me,” Strike mumbles, “but you’re on your own when…”
The thick layer of dead, dry leaves crunches as we walk. We pass a little red train.
Mom! Mom! Look at me! Choo Choo!
We turn right and the space fighters appear. Last time I was here this was my personal fleet of state-of-the-art spaceships.
Dad! Watch this! Watch me destroy the evil galactic emperor! I will save you and Mom!
We turn left at the rusty merry-go-round. On either side of us are the bouncy animals now covered in twisty vines. The dragon bouncy catches my eye.
My dragon will burn you! Then I’ll slice you with my magic sword! Ei-ya! I’ll slice…
Ha-na slices…
Up ahead, the tagada looms. My parents never let me ride it when I was younger. And then the park was shut down so older me never got to try it out either. I’ve heard it’s the scariest and funnest ride in one. Not just because there aren’t any safety restraints to keep you secure as you spin but also because you’re at the mercy of the tagada operator who controls the speed and direction of the ride. If he or she’s had a bad day…
The unpredictable tagada, the perfect place to cop a squat. I hop on and sink onto my heels. My boys join me. We take a few seconds to light up some cancer sticks.
“Shoot,” Braid mumbles, checking his watch. “Boss,” he says, “just remembered. It’s collection day. Those two junior boys are gonna show up at the underpass in an hour.”
I’d forgotten, but I don’t say that. I don’t say anything. I take a long drag instead, squinting a little.
I blow dragon smoke from my nostrils and the sides of my sealed lips, stretching my arms so that my elbows balance on my knees. The ash on my cigarette rains down like tiny white and black blossoms.
“Boss?” Braid asks. He takes a drag, exhales a cloud. “How about it?”
“Not today,” I say, my eyes on the tagada floor.
He nods.
Though I’ve never called off a job before, my boys don’t question me. We stay like that, in silent squats, for awhile.
Strike crushes his cigarette stub on the tagada floor and stares at it. “So…Ha-na…” he begins. Then he looks at me with expectant eyes and Patch and Braid do too.
I give a slow stroke to my sideburn.
None of us have dared to utter “Black Coolie” since Ha-na’s secret arm was revealed.
Secret…I recall Dad’s words.
But she had a dark side. She had secrets.
Mom and Ha-na both, it turns out.
I wish I knew everything about Mom’s dark side and her secrets. Maybe then I could’ve helped her. Maybe then she wouldn’t have left. I never got the full story from Dad that night at the restaurant and I haven’t really seen him since.
Ha-na.
I take one more long drag.
I have to help her.
I smash the burning end of my cig on the floor.
Well, at least not hurt her anymore.
Strike lights up another cigarette and takes a few drags. After he exhales he asks, “What’s up with her arm, boss?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.” I count the cracks near my feet.
Strike rests his forehead on his hand. “Bet she did it to herself,” he mumbles. He takes another draw, exhales. “I wonder if she’s done it to her other arm…”
“Probably,” I say.
“That’s fucked up.”
None of us say anything else.
Braid puts out his cigarette, then lays his straight arms on his knees so that his hands hang limp.
I glance at Patch. He ashes his cig. His eye is shinier than usual.
“Listen,” I say.
My boys look at me.
“We’re gonna leave Ha-na alone from now on.”
My boys nod.
“And if you see anyone harassing her, step in. Do whatever it takes to make them stop. Understood?”
They nod again.
“The new law is that Ha-na is protected,” I say.
Then something kind of weird happens. We all let out long, barely audible breaths at the same time, like we’re balloons with a slow leak, deflating as the tension that had been making us float gets released. And we’re crumpling to the ground, only in relief.
16.
The sun is a spoiled cantaloupe. It pulls a gray blanket over itself and attempts to go back to sleep. The gloominess overhead is catching. I tilt my head back to bask in it. That, and to ignore the happy students wandering all around me. They’re happy because it’s the last day of school. But the shrouded sun and I, we have other things on our mind.
Sprinkles on my face, the sky’s tears. They trickle down my cheeks like they’re my own. I cross the courtyard to the stairwell and climb, counting the steps even though I already know how many there are. Then three paces on the landing. Ten more steps to the third floor. Twenty paces to the library.
When I get to the second floor landing something, rather someone, throws off my counting.
Ha-na.
She’s wilted on a step, resting her chin in her cupped palms. Her face doleful.
She happens to look up, and our eyes meet. She crosses her arms over her chest and turns away.
Slouching, I fidget in place. Then I turn away, too.
Neither of us moves…until I can’t help myself, and I look at her again.
Her peeved expression makes me wish I’d taken the back stairs. I pivot on my heels and step down, but I can’t go further because it’s like I’m stuck, sinking in quicksand. I grip the handrail to save myself, imagining my wrists tied to galloping horses that pull me out of the mire. Too bad they’re dragging me in opposite directions, a mental torture rack. Should I stay or should I go? Should I say something or not?
I count the cracks in front of me, telling myself an even number means I should stay quiet and go.
Please be even.
Seven.
Shit.
I can’t NOT follow my rule.
I slowly lower myself next to her. Scoot over as far right as possible because she’s on the left.
A couple of students skip down between us. They look back. Their bewildered expressions remind me that I’m in enemy territory sitting quietly here next to my innocent foe.
I peek at Ha-na. She’s tugging on one of the long sleeves of her jacket. Her hair shields her face from the likes of me.
I take a deep breath. “Ha-na,” I say. “Are you ok?”
She doesn’t answer, she only tucks her hair behind her ears.
Is she trying to hear me better?
“Has anyone bothered you recently?” I ask.
She stares at her feet.
I try again, more specific this time. “Has anyone called you Black Coolie recently?”
She keeps staring, except now her upper lip curls, and she looks away.
“Has anyone mentioned…” I swallow before I finish my question…“Your a
rm?”
Her fists ball up, and she’s shaking a little. Then all at once she’s facing me, her angry words boiling over. “How could you? All these years…so mean. But those girls at the restaurant, you help them. And you don’t even know them. But me, I have to be beyond completely humiliated for you to do the right thing?” Tears race down her cheeks.
I’m paralyzed. I blink tears away, but one manages to escape, barrels down into my mouth—briny shame.
“I-I’m sorry…” I start but can’t finish.
She pushes both of her sleeves up. Her scars scream fuck you like her expression. She shoves her hand in her pocket and brings out her knife. She pulls the blade out, then makes like she’s slicing her arm. “Don’t worry about it. You can’t hurt me more than I can hurt myself.”
“I didn’t mean for you to—”
“What did you think I’d do?” she cries. “Are you completely stupid? Are you dead?” She closes the blade, crams the knife back in her pocket.
Sweat beads up on my forehead. “I’m sorry, Ha-na. Please forgive me!” I beg, my voice wobbly.
“No!” She shoots up and scurries down to the first floor.
17.
I cradle the whiskey bottle like it’s a baby. I have to because my dad says these expensive Japanese blends are precious like babies. “How co-could I leave you, my love?” I slur-whisper. My unsteady hand lifts it to my lips. Big gulp. My sixth, I think, or is it my third? The liquid burns my throat, but the sweet sound of Brindisi soothes. Mom told me this drinking song is to a lover, but I don’t care because it still encourages me to drown my sorrows in the amber elixir. It also makes me feel. Feel anything and everything with my entire being.
I raise the bottle high above my head and make a toast with Pavarotti. “Ok, buddy, you’re right. Let’s drink. To you!” Swig some more of the smoky harshness. “You, buddy, only you, understand me.”
I close my eyes and surrender to his voice, but instead of tranquil bliss, my brain explodes. My body releases. Tension. Tears. Sad ones. Guilty ones. Angry ones.
I push myself off the loveseat. Sway. Guzzle. Stumble. Thud. Sharp pain on my face. I rub my tender forehead and strain my eyes. When I realize my face rammed into the half shut sliding glass door, I turn my body sideways and squeeze through the opening.