The Queen of Tears (30 page)

The bouncer, a Samoan man as wide as Crystal’s brother, but not as tall, demanded a seven-dollar cover charge at the register. Soong reached into her purse, just as, as far as Soong knew, the most gaudy Korean woman approached her. The plump woman with thinning, burnt hair, who looked like she was dressed by Armani and accessorized by a pawn-shop dealer, was about Soong’s age. She put her hands on Soong’s shoulders. “Mul Ui Yau Wang?” The Queen of Tears?

Soong twisted the earring in her right lobe, and nodded. The woman laughed. She looked at the bouncer angrily. “No charge. What’s wrong, you. This great actress.”

This amused Soong. Of course the bouncer would not recognize her. Only middle-aged Koreans who were hardcore movie fans would recognize her. The woman took Soong’s arm. “Come with me.”

They walked towards the bar, then the woman stopped. “What are you doing here?”

“I am looking for one of your employees. Crystal?”

“Crystal? Why?”

Soong was embarrassed for having any ties to this place. “She used to be married to my son.”

“Donny? That’s your son? Wow, he used to be a very good customer. How is he doing?”

“Fine. But I really need to see Crystal.”

“How is your daughter? I saw a picture of your family, years ago, when I was in Korea. I remember thinking how great it must have been to be you. So rich, so beautiful. What are you doing now?”

Soong was growing impatient. She looked around the club without really looking. “Is she working tonight?”

“I made tons of money when I got here. Just think, I was a poor Korean girl selling myself to American soldiers in Seoul for close to nothing, now I have over a million dollars.”

Soong frowned. Why was this stranger telling all of this to her? She was bragging, but why and about what? A million dollars made on doing this? Just as Soong was about to insult this woman, the woman said, “Crystal is in the dressing room. I’ll show you.”

Soong was relieved that she wouldn’t have to sit at the stage and talk to the girl from between her legs.

Just as Soong and the woman, who mentioned that her name was Kilcha, were about to walk into the dressing room, Crystal came walking out in a black teddy with no underwear. Her thick hair was piled up on the top of her head, deftly held together by a well-placed lacquer chopstick. “Jesus,” she said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Kilcha laughed. “I thought same ting when I first see her. She look for you.”

Soong could barely hear them because of the loud music, which progressed to rap. The bass shook the walls. A waiter called Kilcha, so she ran off. Soong looked up at Crystal. She towered above her on her huge platform shoes. “I need talk,” she said, as loudly as she could.

Crystal shrugged. She grabbed Soong by the arm and led her towards the front door. Soong stopped. “Outside? But you naked. No panty!”

Crystal laughed. “So I’ll give a free show. C’mon.”

Soong shook her head as she followed Crystal, looking at her bare ass.

They walked through a red velvet curtain at the back door. The parking lot was filled with a variety of cars: sedans, SUVs, pick-ups, and luxury vehicles. The asphalt was littered with cigarette butts, most with rings of red lipstick. A big, blue plastic barrel was filled with empty beer bottles, both brown and green, emanating the smell of rotten barley. The moon was a perfect half, and light clouds slowly floated in front of it. The light from the moon made Soong’s discomfort over Crystal’s lack of dress increase. She wanted desperately to find a robe and put it on Crystal. Crystal stopped and simply stood there as if everything was natural. She smiled. “So Soong Nan, what can I do for you?”

The headlights of a car blinded Soong momentarily. “I… I … I worried. You pregnant?”

“Not that it’s your business, and I’m not trying to be rude, but yes, I am.”

Soong sighed. “You, you, how you take care?”

“Are you kidding? Like half of the girls that work here are single mothers. They manage.”

Crystal’s curtness surprised Soong. When she’d first met the girl, she was certainly lewd and boisterous, in fact very silly. Crystal seemed very serious now. “By yourself?”

Crystal shook her head. “This isn’t like the Middle Ages. I don’t need a man or a mother-in-law. God, lady, you make me want to smoke a cigarette. Which I don’t do, by the way. Big surprise, the slut Crystal believes in prenatal care. Listen, I have to go on. What do you want?”

Soong felt completely powerless. She could not talk to this woman like this. Besides, Crystal was the one with power. She had the unborn child, and like Chung Yun said, it was hers. As much as she wanted to reach her hands into this woman’s womb and tear the child away to rescue it, she knew she couldn’t. She needed to approach this differently.

“How’s Brandon?” Crystal asked. The question was posed in a way that showed genuine interest. Soong wanted to give a genuine answer, but it occurred to her that she didn’t really know how Brandon was. According to Won Ju, he was despondent, and if this were true, then the woman standing in front of her was at fault.

“Why you do what you do?”

“You mean, dance?”

“No, you not dance, but why you…Brandon?”

Crystal sighed. “I liked him. I don’t know, he seemed so pure. I guess I felt like I needed some purity in my life.”

“Brandon not good. Why you do?”

Crystal wrung her hands and shook her head. A couple of men across the street whistled at her. She glanced across the street, then held up her middle finger. The catcalls persisted. What did she expect? Soong thought.

“Men,” Crystal said. “I didn’t want to hurt Brandon. I didn’t think I could hurt him. He’s a guy. I thought he’d look back on what we did, how he lost his cherry, and be happy about it. I mean, and I don’t want to sound conceited, but what fifteen-year-old wouldn’t love to have me for their first time and tell their friends about it?”

She was talking a bit too quickly for Soong now. “I don’t understand you.”

“I don’t understand you either.”

“What I do?” She meant the question. She had no real idea what she was trying to accomplish here, and at the same time she knew that she wasn’t accomplishing it.

“You go home. I have to work now.”

“I don’t know what to do. Why I here?”

“I don’t know. But let’s be real. We’re not family. We’re too different. I’m keeping the baby, and, hey, maybe you guys can visit. Tell Brandon, once the kid is born, he can stop by anytime.”

Soong was distracted by a scar on Crystal’s abdomen. She could barely see it at night, but through the teddy, she saw a distinct scar. Crystal suddenly yelled to the men across the street. “Get a fuckin’ life!”

They began to walk away. Soong pointed at the scar. “What happen?”

Crystal looked down and rubbed the scar. “I got hit by a car when I was fourteen.”

Soong clasped her hands together. “Me too! What happen?”

“I guess what happens to everybody who gets hit by a car. I went to the hospital. Surgery. Actually, I almost couldn’t get it because I didn’t have insurance. It kind of fucked up my life.”

“Oh.”

“But I moved here to town. My big move after the accident. You know, Waianae is only like fifty miles away, but it’s farther than that. Anyway, I had to get the hell out of there. Do you know what that’s like? You just gotta go? Listen, I have to get back. Tell Brandon I said, ‘What’s up.’ Bye.”

Crystal walked back through the red curtain. Left standing in the parking lot, Soong turned her head back and forth. She was surrounded by one- and two-story buildings. There was a back street in front of her off the city bus route. She could not tell in what direction the mountains or ocean were. She knew she was in Honolulu, on the south side of the island, but could not tell if she was facing north, south, east, or west. She looked up to try to locate the North Star, but could not find it. Only the seemingly geometrically perfect half moon illuminated the sky behind a transparent mist of clouds being pushed slowly by the weak wind. Even if she’d been able to locate the star, she wasn’t sure that it would have been much help to her. She looked down at the blacktop at the cigarette butts and shards of brown and green glass. Old gum, now hardened black disks, overwhelmed some of the small valleys in between the rugged peaks of asphalt. Several bubbly globs of male spit also sat in stillness. This is where I am, she thought. Why did I come here? Where do I go from here? I still have twenty thousand dollars, she thought. She felt a sudden, deep desire to spend it.

-4-

The truck was in line at a stoplight on the corner of Kapiolani and Kalakaua. As the light changed, the traffic slowly rolled eastward. It was nine at night, and there was still traffic. Won Ju had spent the ride from Waianae to Honolulu looking at town and street names. Many of them were Hawaiian. On the freeway, there were exit signs indicating towns: Waipahu, Aiea, Honolulu, Likelike, Pali, Kinau. But as they got into town and on Kapiolani Boulevard, six lanes of traffic lights, bars, business buildings, a shopping center, and a convention center, the names varied: Cooke, Ward, Pensacola, Piikoi, Keeaumoku, Kalakaua. But she didn’t let the Hawaiian names fool her. A convention center? A shopping center with a gigantic Sears and Neiman Marcus? This was an American city.

“Why do you drive me around?” she asked.

“You need help,” Kaipo said.

“But you don’t owe me anything. You take care of me and Brandon, sure, you’re dating my sister, but you don’t complain, and I feel so bad; you’re not my driver.”

Kaipo shook his head. His huge forearms extended toward the steering wheel. Curly red hair sprouted from hand to elbow. “You no get it? Listen, you tink, jus’ like most odda people, ‘Oh, I goin’ owe him,’ or ‘Oh, he must want something from me.’ I just helping out. I mean, I not one saint or anyting, but what’s da big deal. Someone need help, you can help, help um.”

The light turned green. They were headed toward the apartment. Won Ju had set up a meeting with Kenny to discuss Brandon. She’d already told him what had happened on the phone, and he wanted to get together.

They passed McCully Street. After spending so much time in Waianae, she looked up at her former home and realized how pretentious it was. The surface was more tinted glass than cement. The condominium was sealed from the outside by a parking gate, computerized coded entry, and a handful of blue-shirted security guards. It was called Iolani Towers, named after King Kamehameha II.

Not that she thought of Waianae as any sort of paradise. The small town on the west side of the island scared her. She found the size of the people and poverty very intimidating. The pit bulls secured to houses with rusted, iron chains. The barefoot boys, some of them not even teenagers but bigger than her, strutting around like roosters. Cars that looked more expensive than some of the houses they were parked in front of. But the thing that intimidated her the most was the look on most of their faces. They looked so mad. Not just the men, but the women, too. It was as if the people were waiting for someone to punch them in the face. But it wasn’t a doomed look; it was one of defiance. “Just try it,” most of their faces said. She envied the look.

Kaipo’s entire body had the look. And from what Darian had told her about him, he had cause. He had, in fact, learned to brace himself for sudden, unexpected punches in the face since childhood. His father, schoolmates, juvenile detention, prison; and the fact that he was a red-headed, light-skinned Hawaiian didn’t help. Apparently, he was also short and skinny as a child. But he’d said something funny to Darian. Darian had told Won Ju that he’d told her, “Was funny, though. I swear every time I got whacked, I think I grew half one inch wider and taller.”

As Kaipo pulled up to the entrance of the condominium, Won Ju asked, “How tall are you and how much do you weigh?”

“Six-five, three-thirty,” he said. “I guess I go pick you up in about one hour.”

“Thank you.”

“No prob.”

As she entered the building, and waited for the elevator, Won Ju thought about Darian’s attraction to Kaipo and understood it. The alpha-male thing was of course a factor. In caveman days, Kaipo probably would have been tribal chief. Kaipo’s lack of education was probably security for Darian, too. You are obviously the strong one, so I get to be the smart one. He also had eccentricities that made him, according to Darian, a round character. He was a neat freak. He was also incredibly punctual. Won Ju knew these traits by now. He’d said he’d be back in an hour, which meant that he’d be back in anywhere from fifty-six to fifty-eight minutes. Darian thought of him as a character in a book, which made Won Ju feel uneasy. Real people just didn’t cut it for Darian.

His most attractive quality, Won Ju guessed, for Darian was that he made her feel guilty. His life had been much harder than hers, and she knew it. Won Ju believed that guilt was one of the most powerful emotions a person could feel because it was almost impossible to put down. Maybe whenever Darian felt self-pitying, another strong emotion, having Kaipo around made her feel bad so she felt better.

The elevator doors opened, and Won Ju was relieved to find that no one was there. She hated standing in elevators with people. The person could be on the other side of the car, but to Won Ju it always felt like she was rubbing shoulders with a complete stranger. She would become conscious of her breathing, and stare at the upward or downward countdown of lighted numbers above the door.

She wasn’t anxious about seeing Kenny. But as she thought about him as the elevator ascended, she felt nostalgic about when they had first started dating. He’d come to the place where she was bartending, Club New Office, a name that to this day baffled her, a hostess bar. Pretty Korean women with four-inch heels, layers of makeup, and false eyelashes served drinks and rubbed slack-covered legs; it was during the pre-karaoke days, so most of the music was imported contemporary Korean stuff that made her miss home. Kenny had come in with his friends. He was a lot skinnier back then, and seemingly shy. She’d also found his name charming. It reminded her of her brother’s boy-like name.