The Queen of Tears (13 page)

Kenny had always been proud that he went to school in the mainland, even if it was some half-ass small private school in Northern California that would admit anybody willing to pay the exorbitant tuition. “Well, I’m going back to bed,” Kenny said.

Won Ju nodded. When he disappeared back into the darkness, Won Ju pulled another cigarette from her purse and cracked open the window. Maybe he wasn’t trying to smother her, but she felt like he was as she inhaled deeply from the cigarette and futilely blew the smoke into the wind. There’s something wrong with me, she thought.

At about twelve-thirty, while Won Ju was convincing herself about how she was getting old and liking the fact that her looks were fading, and how once her son became a man that it’d be all over, the phone rang. It was Crystal calling from downstairs. She was rambling about driving a car and horizontal elevators, whatever they were, flat escalators at certain airports, Won Ju imagined, when Won Ju finally had to cut her scratchy intercom voice off by telling her she’d be right down. She put on her sandals, put a coat on over her thin nightgown and walked out the door.

While in the elevator, she wondered what brought her sister-in-law there so late. She could guess, but she found herself anxious to hear specifics. She also wondered, if the fight was bad, who could work with Donny during the next day’s night shift. Because she had overdosed on her mother’s company, she decided it would be nice to work with him, not only because she wouldn’t have to take the bus, but also because she’d get to hear his side. However, the thought of Crystal and her mother working alone together during mornings made a new schedule impossible. Soong would never work alone with Crystal. The language barrier was too strong. Not only in terms of speaking, but also in terms of entirely different attitudes on life. No, they would never work together.

When the doors opened, Crystal was standing behind the glass door. She was wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and big black platform shoes. Her hair was piled on top of her head and held together with a chopstick. She was excitedly wringing the straps of her little leather backpack. Won Ju could tell she wasn’t wearing make-up or a bra, but then, she often wore neither, so Won Ju couldn’t guess whether it was because she was in a rush, or whether it was Crystal just being Crystal. But besides the huge chest, Crystal looked like a little girl wearing a backpack too small for her and shoes way too big for her. Won Ju opened the door and stepped out. “So what’s up?” she asked.

Crystal dug in her bag and pulled out a cigarette. She smoked Virginia Slims. Menthols. “It’s over between me and your brother.”

“What happened?”

Crystal lit the cigarette and took a drag. “He was being a cock. Ever since the place started to make money, he thinks he’s some kind of fuckin’ Korean warlord. Or some kind of king monkey.”

Won Ju didn’t get the monkey thing, but she kind of knew what she meant. Money can often turn men into pricks. “Did you guys have an argument or something?”

Crystal blew out smoke. “Yeah, something like that. Can you believe that asshole wanted me to suck his little flaccid dick? Like he was ordering a burger from McDonalds or something.”

This was way too personal for Won Ju. But then, she knew about the blowjob thing. Kenny always thought he deserved it after he went down on her, only he could never get enough of it. “Crystal, you have to understand. It’s a cultural thing.” She was consciously, but also innately, trying to defend her brother with what she knew was bullshit.

“Fuck that. You can’t tell me there are drive-thru blowjobs in Korea. You can’t tell me that every man in Korea is a cock.” Crystal was on to her.

Won Ju laughed. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. It’s more like they think they can be.”

“Well that fucker thought wrong.”

“O.K., just calm down. You can sleep over here and we’ll straighten everything out tomorrow.”

Crystal dropped the cigarette and stepped on it with her enormous black shoe. “O.K. Thanks, Won Ju.”

“By the way, how did you get here?”

“I drove.”

“I thought you didn’t know how to drive?”

“I don’t. But I guess I do now.”

Won Ju opened the glass door for Crystal. She was impressed with Crystal’s recklessness. Won Ju, like her mother, was always afraid to learn how to drive. She thought Crystal was the same way. She looked at Crystal’s hand. “What happened to your nails?”

“Fuck my nails. They were a pain in the ass anyway.”

When they got in the elevator, Won Ju realized that there was no place for her sister-in-law to sleep. Not only that, but her mother would freak seeing Crystal in the morning. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Crystal. You don’t mind sleeping on the ground, do you? I’ll set up a pillow and blanket. My mother’s in Brandon’s room and Brandon is on the couch.”

Crystal shrugged. “I don’t mind. As long as no one minds if I sleep naked. It’s so hot nowadays, I can’t fall asleep with clothes on.”

Won Ju hoped to God she was joking. “And tomorrow. What do you think? Maybe I should call Darian and see if she can work for you?”

“Yeah, her or my brother. I’m sorry, Won Ju, just one day. We’ll straighten everything out in the morning.”

The doors opened. Won Ju led Crystal to the door. “Don’t worry about Brandon. He’s a heavy sleeper.”

“Good,” Crystal said. “It means he’s probably not doing drugs.”

Won Ju was surprised by the remark. This was definitely a different kind of woman.

Won Ju brought out a big comforter and pillow for Crystal. They set everything up at the foot of the sofa. Brandon did not move. Won Ju said, “Good night.”

Before she walked out of the room she heard Crystal. “This is bad timing. The business was doing so good, I was about to start thinking about going to school.”

Won Ju smiled and went to bed.

-3-

Crystal’s eyes shot open. It was still dark and terribly humid. She felt her body and smiled. Sometime during the night, she’d stripped naked while sleeping. She’d stripped half asleep before onstage, so why not during R.E.M.? Not even the blanket was on her. As her eyes adjusted, she remembered she wasn’t alone in the room. Her back was facing the sofa. She quietly turned around and saw the whites of Brandon’s eyes. He quickly shut them. She had a difficult time holding in her laugh. She quietly looked for her thong panties and slipped them on. She found her T-shirt and put it on, too. She looked at Brandon. Her eyes were good in the dark and she could see his eyelids flutter slightly, trying too hard to feign sleep. He was so cute. He kind of reminded her of a smaller form of the surfer she had seen the night before. He was tall and thin. He would grow up to be a lean, nicely built man. And the innocence was there. Once, she had thought of innocence as the same as naivete, but now it was beautiful to her. Not being able to help herself, she touched Brandon’s cheek. Only when he turned over did she see his hands buried by his crotch under the blanket. Not as innocent as she thought. Suddenly the movie
The
Outsiders
popped into her head. Wasn’t there a line in the movie capturing something about lost innocence by some poet that everybody had to read in high school? She made a note to herself to talk to Darian and ask her about it, that and about a dick monkey in some Shakespearean play who offed the good king, took over, and was offed by a new king. She tried to fall back asleep while the images of Brandon, a brown monkey with a gash on his head, and school caused what she considered her insomnia. But then, isn’t insomnia something that prevents you from sleeping like ever? She almost always managed to find sleep before the sun rose. For a second, she considered herself full of it, but before she could mentally comment on her moment of self-awareness, she slipped out of consciousness.

-4-

It was no picnic working with the Queen of Tears the next morning. After an hour bus ride, hearing her complaints about the sex-crazed Crystal sleeping in the same room with her grandson, Won Ju was tired of listening to her mother. For someone who had been known as the Queen of Tears, her mother did very little crying, in fact the only time she’d seen her mother cry was on-screen, but she did do a lot of complaining. It was never a whining complaining, but it was always stern, like she was a movie director tired of seeing her actors not deliver their lines in the way she wanted them to. Maybe the industry had more of an effect on her mother than she thought. It was like she was working the process of her family’s life into a final scene. Once the film ended satisfactorily, she would walk off the set. Won Ju thought that it was too bad that there wasn’t editing in life, her family. Their lives could use some editing, but then she realized that there was editing. It’s called nostalgia. Won Ju turned her head toward the window, but Soong continued, even after they got to the restaurant. Once she was on a roll, that was it. There would be no film worth salvaging at W&D Drive Inn today. While Won Ju was chopping cabbage in the kitchen, Soong asked the same question she’d asked at least eight times on the bus. It was one of those questions that didn’t search for an answer, but searched to accuse instead. “Are you crazy? Allowing that woman sleep by Brandon?”

“Where else could she sleep?” Won Ju answered for the ninth time.

“You should have sent her back to Chung Yun.”

“Mom, she was not about to go back to Donny. She was upset.”

“That woman knows nothing about marriage.”

Who does? Won Ju gave Crystal credit for her courage, even though she was upset that Crystal just did what she felt like doing, despite the repercussions. Who did she think she was? “And you are an expert at marriage? I remember when you left one time.”

“That was different.”

A marine walked in. The Korean chatter stopped. Won Ju took the man’s order while Soong went in the back to cook it. He was a typical customer from the U.S. marine base in Kailua. He sat at one of the tables and drummed his fingers. Won Ju walked into the back where her mother was cooking three pieces of chicken on the black grill. Won Ju sighed. “Let me get it, Mom. Relax.”

“No, I have it.”

“You have to respect a woman who just gets up and leaves. Sometimes Crystal reminds me of a man.”

Soong shook her head. “She’s a little girl who left over a stupid fight. No, you cannot respect a woman who just gets up and leaves. Look at Chung Yun. I left, and look at him. Crystal reminds you of a man. There is nothing great about being a man.”

“You have more options.”

“Options are things valued by those who cannot make decisions and live with them.”

Soong pulled the chicken off the grill with her long chopsticks. She put it on a disposable plate. Won Ju took the plate to the front and added two scoops of rice, one scoop of macaroni salad, and a small plastic container filled with kimchee. The marine stood up and picked up his plate. Won Ju made his Coke and handed it to the marine. He paid in exact change, then sat back down to eat. Won Ju returned to the kitchen. “Sometimes I think of leaving.”

Soong was putting the stainless-steel container with the raw marinating chicken back into the enormous stainless-steel refrigerator. “Don’t think that way,” she said as she leaned into the cold metal box. “You have a son to think about.”

“Mom.”

“Yes?”

“Why are we scared of driving?”

Soong looked at her daughter with a frown. “I’m not scared of driving. I just see no sense in driving if you do not have to. Driving all the time is hard business.”

Won Ju didn’t understand the response. “Well, I’m scared. All of that thinking, all of that traffic. All of that potential to get into an accident.”

“Like I said, why drive if you don’t have to? Men like to drive, so let them. You can always navigate.”

Won Ju shrugged and started chopping more cabbage. Can’t one person do both?

-5-

Crystal arrived after the Saturday afternoon rush, feeling state-of-the-art sleek with short, unpolished fingernails. The first person she saw was Darian, who had been there helping out her sister and mother, and now she was leaning against the counter, reading
Vogue
. Crystal put a hand on Darian’s arm. “Hey, what’s up?”

Darian, not putting the magazine down, smiled. “I heard.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“Did he deserve it?”

“Yup.”

“Cool. Hey, your nails.”

“They were kind of tacky anyway, right?”

“Yeah. But beautiful, Las Vegas-style, nonetheless.”

Crystal walked behind the counter. Darian was wearing denim shorts and a black halter top. If she stripped, she would make some good money. She’d make outstanding cash with a boob job. “Is your sister back there?”

Darian turned the page. “Yeah, her and my mom.”

Crystal liked the way Darian spoke. Her English was so well-enunciated that she sounded as if she put a great deal of concentration in it. She sounded like one of those women DJ sidekicks she’d hear on morning radio. “Oh, I wanted to ask you something. Is there a play by Shakespeare with a dick king who kills a good king and is killed at the end?”

Darian put down the magazine. “Well, a lot of kings bite it in Shakespearean literature, but the one you’re talking about sounds like
Richard III.
”

“Does a good king take over?”

“Yeah. Henry VII. He was a Lancastrian. Actually, the first Tudor.”

Crystal put down her purse and pulled out a cigarette. “Wow. I saw a monkey documentary just like that.”

Darian looked over her shoulder. “Hey, can I have one?”

Crystal pulled another cigarette out of her purse, put both in her mouth and lit them. She handed one to Darian. “O.K. One more. What was that poem in the movie
The
Outsiders
?”

Darian smiled. “It was a book before it was a movie. One of my male professors at Berkeley said it was a book obviously written by a young woman. The poem you’re thinking about is ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay.’”

“Ain’t that the truth. Jeez, I gotta go to school.”

Crystal stepped into the kitchen. Won Ju was mixing a batch of macaroni salad in a big stainless-steel bowl while Soong was marinating thinly sliced beef. She walked up to Won Ju and hugged her. “Thanks, Sis.”