Triplines (9781936364107) (4 page)

Lenny has a trail of clues that confirms bits and pieces
of his father's history. The pucker wound on his leg is supposedly an old football injury, but now Lenny is certain it's a bullet wound. He first noticed the scarred hole on his father's thigh when he watched his father mow the lawn, and when he asked about it Yul explained that someone had kicked him during a football game. But a kick, no matter how violent, wouldn't give someone a pucker scar like that.

That Yul has a military background is obvious. On weekend mornings he awakens the family by opening all the windows, even in the winter, barking at them that they need the fresh morning air. If he had a bugle they would undoubtedly have morning reveille.

He keeps his shoes meticulously polished and lined up in his closet. He teaches Ed and Lenny the intricate method of shoe shining—the proper stages of brushing, cleaning and polishing—and occasionally slips them a few dollars to shine his shoes for him, as long as their work “passes inspection.”

And he's obsessed with his children being weak. This seems to be a fault far worse than any other, even being lazy, of which he often accuses Ed. Weakness is unpardonable. Physical, mental and emotional weakness are all related, in his estimation, and despite being a child, Lenny isn't allowed to show any kind of frailty.

One summer evening Lenny whines about the water being too cold at Newbridge Pool. Yul says Lenny should be able to take it, and he orders Lenny in. Afterwards Lenny complains about the shower being too hot, and his father whips the towel at him and says he's too babied. He needs to be tougher. This only makes Lenny whine louder. When he almost throws a tantrum, his father tells the rest of the
family they will be leaving without Lenny.

Lenny has only his bathing suit and flip-flops. His father grabs his bag and leaves the pool. When Lenny tries to follow his father pushes him back, and says, “You act like a baby. You learn to take care of yourself.”

Lenny watches from the gate. His father orders the rest of the family into the white Dodge Dart, and Mira keeps looking back in confusion. He sees her asking their mother, “What about Lenny?” But they climb into the car. Umee yells at Yul, but they drive away. Mira presses her face against the rear window, looking back in alarm. Lenny sits down near the gate, not sure what he is supposed to do. He doesn't even have his street clothes with him.

It's getting cold. Lenny wraps himself in the towel and huddles on a chair, suddenly hungry. Families begin packing up and leaving, and only a few groups of teens are still in the water. The night lights flicker on, the pool glowing. Lenny stares up at a large bug zapper near one of the lights—the sparks fascinate him, since he knows the bugs are being electrocuted. After a while he walks back to the gate, expecting someone to be waiting, but no one is there. It takes about an hour for him to realize that his father was serious. He wonders where he will sleep. A few families eat in the food court, the smell of burgers and fries making him hungrier.

After two hours he walks back into the quiet and empty locker rooms and takes a long, hot shower. He considers sleeping here overnight, and then walking home in the morning. It's about seven miles back to the house, and he isn't sure he can make it in his flip-flops, definitely not at night, definitely not in his bathing suit. The logistics of survival
begin to overwhelm him. He dries off and looks for clothes to steal, but there aren't any. He needs dinner. He walks back out to the food court and stares at the counter where a teenaged girl with a red and white paper hat prepares a hot dog for a customer. He wraps his towel tightly around his shoulders, and moves closer to a heat lamp, the glowing red coils humming. He can't stop shivering.

The girl behind the counter sees him and motions him over. She has acne all over her cheeks. Without saying anything she throws him a bag of potato chips.

“I don't have any money,” he tells her.

She smiles, put her finger to her lips, and winks. She turns to a customer, and Lenny stares at his small bag of chips, amazed by this act of kindness. Then he tears into it and tries to eat too fast, the chips cutting his mouth.

“Lenny?” his mother calls.

He turns. She carries her straw beach bag and is wearing a sweatshirt. She waves him over, and he runs to her, his flip-flops slapping the cement.

“Are you okay?” she asks, taking him into her arms.

He is so relieved that he buries his face in her sweatshirt and sobs.

Her sweatshirt is soft. Soft and warm. The contrast with the cold air, the smell of chlorine and sunscreen, the stinging salt of the potato chips on his chapped lips—all of these remain vivid in his memory, and he's certain it's because of the uniqueness of the experience, the distress imprinting every detail so that all he has to do is smell chlorine and remember everything.

Perhaps his father's connection to the Navy and his obsession with weakness makes most of Lenny's early experiences with water traumatic. Yul tries to teach Lenny to swim by throwing him off a dock and into a lake in Upstate New York. He watches Lenny thrash and panic, and Lenny yells for help, but Yul just says, “Swim.”

Lenny sinks. He stops thrashing. He looks up and sees the wavy, blurry blue sky through the water, and his father's silhouette leaning over. He knows enough to hold his breath, but not enough to paddle. As he sinks deeper down he thinks, It's so quiet.

Then his father jumps in and pulls him out, sighing. He lifts Lenny up onto the dock, where he curls up and shivers. He breathes deeply. He's confused by the whole experience. Yul stares at him, puzzled, almost incredulous, as he says, “You don't have a survival instinct.”

In his own warped way he is trying to prepare his children for the harshness of the world as he knows it, and has the drill sergeant's mentality of instilling discipline, though
it's hard for any of his children to respect his authority since he is so obviously undisciplined himself—an alcoholic and wife-beater rarely instills much confidence.

However, after Lenny learns of his father's military background, he understands him better. Lenny researches at the Merrick Library what Navy commandos do. He learns that they are highly trained fighters who infiltrate enemy territory and dive and plant bombs underwater. He also reads about commandos knowing close-quarters, hand-to-hand combat, and becomes convinced that his father must know martial arts.

His father has seen the kung-fu books, and he has watched Lenny train on weekends in the back yard, but he never says anything. Not too long after Lenny learns about his father's military background, and while Lenny practices his kicks in the back yard, his father walks out and watches him. Lenny asks him if he knows tae kwon do.

His father says he doesn't.

“Didn't you learn it in Korea as a kid?”

He shakes his head. “Tae kwon do is Japanese k-k-karate made K-Korean. It d-didn't happen until I was in the Navy.” His stutter is particularly bad during quieter moments like these, the hard consonants elongating and stumbling.

“What did you learn in the Navy?”

He says, “Self-defense.”

“Martial arts?”

“Judo.”

“Can you show me?”

“You want me to show you judo?”

Lenny nods his head.

His father puts down his drink and says, “I will show
you one move. It's a basic flip. Come here.”

He approaches, knowing that his father only had one or two glasses, so is okay. Yul tells his son that he will use Lenny's own movements to help take him down. He says, “Come at me.”

“How?”

“Like you want to grab me or push me.”

Lenny steps forward. His father yanks him closer, pulling him off-balance, and then everything suddenly spins over him. Lenny lands on the grass with a thump, but his father cushions the fall with his arm. He lets Lenny go and stands over him. “You see how I use your force to flip you?”

He pulls Lenny up, and laughs when Lenny staggers back, dizzy. He then shows Lenny how to pivot his body, thrust his hip out, and pull an opponent over his hip and onto the ground. When he tells Lenny to try it on him, Lenny says, “You're too big.”

“The bigger your opponent, the more momentum he has. Try.” His father moves toward him and grabs his shoulders, pushing. Lenny steps back, pulls his father forward, and turns. His father then lets Lenny flip him over his hip, and his father lands on the grass.

He stands up slowly, brushing off his jeans. He then pats Lenny's head and says, “Good job.”

Lenny turns to the house, and notices his mother watching anxiously. When she sees that he's okay she smiles and disappears into the kitchen.

His father picks up his drink and sits on the rickety patio chair, propping his feet on a picnic bench. He watches Lenny continue practicing his martial arts.

He asks, “You really want to learn tae kwon do?”

“Yes.”

“They teach it at Korean churches. Maybe we all go tomorrow.”

Lenny asks if he would have to go to bible study.

“Yes. You have to take Korean language lessons too.”

“I don't know any Korean.”

“That is why you take lessons.”

All that matters to Lenny is the tae kwon do, so he agrees. He hurries back to his room to study up on tae kwon do terms.

That night he listens to
The Five Deadly Venoms
on the small cassette tape recorder, the large white earpiece chafing his ear canal. Since he recorded the movie simply by placing the recorder next to the TV, it also picked up his sister asking him what he was doing, and his shushing her. Lenny memorized most of the dialogue and can envision the scenes as the story unfolds in his ear, the cheesy sound effects even cheesier when isolated from the screen. But he mouths the words of his favorite character, the Scorpian.

In his other ear he hears his parents fighting. Even though he doesn't know the Korean language, he seems to be able to understand bits and pieces of the fight, especially when the occasional English word is dropped in, like “store” or “taxes.” They are arguing about the store losing money, about the robbery, and about going to church. The fight isn't a bad one, because his mother seems to get a concession, although Lenny isn't sure what that is. They withdraw to different parts of the house—his father in the living room, his mother in the bedroom—and the house becomes oddly quiet.

His mother reads the bible, his father plays classical records on the stereo, his sister writes her book, his brother
is out with his friends, and Lenny listens to the static-filled tape of a badly dubbed kung-fu flick. It's a normal Saturday night.

Lenny understands that his father has had a hard life, including a traumatic stint in the Korean War and financial and familial pressures in the U.S., and he knows his father is profoundly unhappy. During a quieter moment his father tells Lenny of his dream to own a large sailboat and sail around the world.

Yul sits on the front steps drinking a whiskey and ice, the glass sweating and leaving a dark ring on the bricks. His face is flushed, his eyelids heavy. The muggy heat of an unseasonable spring afternoon eases away as the sun sets and the fireflies begin to glimmer. Lenny returns home from the movies, and sees his father sipping his drink and watching the cars drive by. He sits with his shoulders hunched and he sways forward and back. He looks up as Lenny approaches and asks where he's been. Lenny tells him. His father then begins talking to him as if continuing a conversation, and he says that the boat has to be junked. Lenny realizes he's talking about an old sixteen-foot boat he bought and docked in Freeport. During a fierce storm a couple of weeks ago, the boat, which his father had tied up too close to the dock, was swamped. His father says there's too much water damage to repair it.

Lenny knows the boat is another source of contention between his parents, since it was more than they could afford and the docking fees have been adding up, but Lenny also knows his mother didn't fight this as hard as she could
have. She told him that having a boat had always been a dream of his father's, and although he preferred a large sailboat, his sixteen-footer with an outboard engine was good enough for now.

Lenny has only been on the boat once, on a family outing shortly after he and his brother repainted the hull. His mother felt nauseated, which annoyed his father, and Lenny didn't understand the point of having a boat. He asked Ed where they were going, and when Ed told him that that had no real destination, Lenny felt like that it was a waste of time.

When his father tells him about losing this boat Lenny asks him if he's going to get another one. His father looks up at him, almost startled to hear him speak. Yul thinks about it and shakes his head. He says that when he was Lenny's age all he dreamed about was getting away from home and sailing around the world. He wanted to see so many things. That was why he ran away and joined the Navy. He says, “I was happy when I was out at sea.”

Lenny asks him why. He tells his son he wants to see the world, and to live on a sailboat and travel from port to port is the best way to do this. This is the first time Lenny has ever heard him utter anything close to a dream, and it surprises him. He begins to realize how stifling it must have been for him to live in the suburbs, commuting two hours a day into Manhattan, chained to a mortgage and a family.

There are definitely some things Lenny appreciates about his father. That he directs Lenny to a Korean church is his attempt to help, and he also offers another brief lesson in judo, showing Lenny how to fall back and flip an attacker over
him. This particular move is useful when Frankie harasses Lenny one morning as he walks to school.

Lenny sees Frankie in the distance, his jeans too large and slipping down his waist. He yanks them up as he moves sloppily across the street, his book bag jostling, his stomach jiggling, and he calls out loudly to Lenny that he owes him for his chips.