Sena Moon is a writer from Seoul, South Korea and is the recipient of the 2020 Pen/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Guernica, Boulevard, and The Fiddlehead, among others. She currently resides in Ann Arbor.
A man died on the subway today. Wasn’t suicide, if you’d believe it. He died attending a public complaint right around 7:30 p.m., when the train was jam-packed and going fifty mph. Trapped between hard metal and plexiglass—and to think a man could perish in such a manner on the busiest line in Seoul at rush hour, on the hottest day Korea has seen in a decade to boot, is mind-boggling. This is what public service has come to, risking youth to save not lives but time.
Just minutes ago, the evening crowd had stood in messy rows. I’d felt the heat. The items control clerk at work had ordered two million boxes of product as opposed to the regulated twenty-thousand, and by some miraculous rule of delegation, this became my problem. Half the office would have to work overtime tomorrow, most likely all night. The clerk was sacked, poor guy. Stupid guy, fucking Choi.
The screams began in earnest around 6:32 p.m.
“Is he dead?” The question was directed at nobody in particular and floated above our heads. The tide of dispersing workforce was unusually still, but our mouths were going. And as a collective, we ate the fear.
“Excuse you,” an office-lady type grunted as I pushed through.
“Watch it.”
“Ah, ssib.”
Someone was sobbing by the insurance ad on the safety doors, her palm landing on the handsome aquiline nose of a well-known actor. The crowd thickened most by this ad. Cheap suits and knee-length skirts blended together, tightening at the seams, and at the center of its bland kaleidoscope, the body.
A bold splash of red. Not as dramatic as the screams entailed, but on closer inspection, I found the utilities worker on display a few feet away. Trapped between parallel doors, most of him embraced the train but his head faced out towards the platform. The rectangular window showcased the passengers inside packed intimately and refusing to look. The ones closest to the window refused the most, their twisted forms bearing remarkable resemblance to the worker’s body. Slowly, I traced the blood down to the source and found a memory.
Mie cooked meat last night. Meant to. She soaked the hunk of beef in water to let blood but forgot about it somewhere between picking Minho up from Tae-kwon-do and the three-thirty grocery run. Then our AC unit needed a check-up, and an issue with car insurance warranted a dash to the bank, and when you get down to what could go wrong in a day, a botched dinner is nothing. The beef went bad overnight; our family woke to the stench of blood. I made a comment that Mie took the wrong way, and we’d parted ways this morning without speaking. The usual.
But that smell found me again as I faced the deceased. The man’s eyes were open, reflecting back the final moments of the inevitable—not unlike jumping off a bridge and seeing the murky waters below or seeing parents succumb to a genetic Russian roulette with unending rounds. Resignation came with that final push. But who pushed? What had gone through his mind in that brief pocket of time? Instantly, the outlines of my world grew dimmer.
“Should’ve picked a better time to die.” Someone cussed, bringing me back. It was a middle-aged suit, whose coffee breath resembled by own. The platform buzzed with the sound of people calling home, reassuring loved ones that there had been an accident—no, not a fire, because the 2003 Daegu tragedy was still fresh on our minds a near decade later—and yes, they were safe, and yes, they’d be home soon. What? Nah, just one man dead. Better yet, it wasn’t me. We were all thinking it.
Still, I thought the suit tactless and told him so under my breath.
“What?” he demanded. A pair of cauliflower ears leapt into view, followed by Irezumi tats under rolled-up sleeves: the severed head of a dragon rendered in red, green, and black.
“Nothing.” I ducked.
A good distance away, I pull out my Galaxy S6. News portals already featured articles on the accident that I linked in a text to my wife: ‘Accident in two-hosun. Not kidding. Check this, someone died. Might be late.’
Pocketing the phone, I stood to the side and thought of the utilities worker. He wouldn’t leave my mind. I was certain I knew this man. There was no question he was someone I’d once spoken to, whose voice would be recognizable should I hear him speak or laugh in passing. This was a person I must’ve seen on a regular basis, even if from a distance. But who?
“Excuse me.” A college student pushed by. Plaid shirt, nondescript slacks. Only his back was visible, but I was confident he wore thick-rimmed glasses and drank discount coffee by the bucketful. I watched his gangly form part the crowd shoulder-first and thought of Jun.
“Jun,” I spoke aloud. “Jun Kim.”
From a dusty corner of my past, I excavated the long-forgotten name. Baby Jun rockstar, the boy who lived next door when I was seventeen, a wunderkind who, at the age of nine, could recite the many digits of pi and calculate the velocity of a moving plane. His invention of a semi- biodegradable water filter had made him a local celebrity. Last I saw, Jun had been a scrawny youth of sixteen about to enroll in KAIST, in some joint program that brewed geniuses of the national kind. I’d been a twenty-four-years-old bokhakseng fresh out of the army, for whom the world had moved on quickly. My own alma mater was in Seoul, but barely. I’d already felt ancient and irrelevant, and whiplash had smacked harder with Jun’s glowing presence next door. But was it really Jun?
I perused the day’s articles. More had popped up since, and the portal was full of titles screaming, Tragedy on Two-hosun: Why the Present System Needs Overhaul. My heart dropped at Kim Anonymous, age twenty-eight. Prodigy Boy would have been twenty-eight this year.
With this revelation came another face, looming larger than the teenage Jun’s boyish smiles. A rather licentious face, surrounded by a cloud of orange perm that framed an eager smile and the black mole that clung to its fleshy bottom lip: Jun’s mother, Mrs. Lim, but to neighborhood gossips, That Woman. In lieu of a husband, That Woman had elderly amours she flaunted about town. She gabbed about her son’s golden prospects to anyone nearby, smoking menthols by the town church in hot-pink hiking gear. Generally loud. Excessive touching of the forearm. She borrowed money and claimed her son would pay it back someday, when he became an important man. The sight of her flowered down-jacket drove my father mad with rage, convincing him once and for all that Jun’s mother was part-snake, part-essence of what drove Eve to taste the forbidden apple. When I imagined her receiving the news of her son’s death, I heard her screech: What do you mean, my son is a subway utilities worker?
That was unfair. I clucked my tongue in shame.
The ambulance arrived. The crowd had thinned, and a wizened man sat by the vending machines that sold gum and cold beverages. Swathed in two ratty coats, he glanced upwards at the ceiling from time to time, as if in reverence. He smelled. A twenty-something strode by, leaving traces of Chanel No.5 in her wake like crossfire. I gulped for air. That perfume had been my first-salary gift to Mom, back when I thought all women adored perfumes. She’d cried. Cried harder when my too-large, newly-pressed suit yielded an extra gift, an envelope of cash to make up for the years I’d spent as a baeksu—unemployed. Today, my pockets were empty. My belly rested heavier on the belt and felt oddly out of place, as if it belonged to an older man than I. The phone buzzed. When will you be home? ETA?
Dry urine, Chanel No.5—I closed my eyes and didn’t resurface for a while.
. . .
Before I knew it, home. I vaguely recalled the cab driver offering condolences when he heard my supposed tenuous link to the deceased on the news. He was tickled pink when I noticed his car, a 2011 Genesis BH303 that roared me back home in thirty minutes, mighty fine car. Then the reality of kicking shoes off to find the socks damp in the soles, peeling them off and guzzling the long-awaited drink of barley water as I dodged Mie’s questions, shoveling rice by the spoonful, thanking the gods Mie cooked cod instead of beef.
Now one with the sofa, I sit bloated. Blink, and a plate of sliced peaches materializes on the formica, soft and runny, the kind I like best. Mie’s halfway back to the kitchen, but I can tell she’s been waiting. Pinpricks and static, she holds back until the peaches are gone
“I got a call from Elite,” she begins. “What about?”
“Minho hasn’t been doing well lately. I just received the monthly feedback.”
Elite Academy is an after-school hagwon reserved for students aiming to get into a prestigious secondary school. Its goal, like all other after-school academies in Korea, is to produce a troupe of baby elites who would become bigger evolved versions of themselves, going on to earn big bucks in renowned companies or cure cancer. Whichever. We pay our soul to that academy, $1,500 per month minus textbook fees. Sounds bogus, but Mie has her heart set on D Middle School, and Elite has a high matriculation rate for D.
“That’s not all,” says Mie as she collects the empty plate. “He never showed today. The instructor expected Minho to arrive tardy, but he didn’t for the entire duration of the class. But when I got there, he was standing by the building to get picked up, all casual as you may.”
“He skipped class?” I ask. In the search bar of my phone, I type “child skipping class.”
“And pretended he never left! He’s never done that before.”
Mie’s eyes reflect a world of hurt. It isn’t possible to live and breathe in a world where her child will deliberately lie to her, so every lie is a personal affront Mie must dig deep to forgive. But forgive she does, always. It’s a cross she bears because, someday, Minho will shower her with gratitude in the form of handwritten thank-you notes, hugs, grandchildren, and an annual Thai massage membership on his first salary. Mie dubs this turnaround the paramount goal of parenthood, a redemption of sorts for having borne children. She kids, but only a little.
I see things differently. Minho is stretched thin across bread that’s wider than he spreads, which is a tale well-known to Koreans, but it’s gotten worse over the years. English classes in nursery schools, what are they thinking?
“Will you talk to him?” Mie asks, after a beat.
The water’s running. Minho is taking his sweet time in the tub, dipping in and out of worry as his toes make dapples in the water, fantastic ones—he’s never found water so fascinating, so magical; he doesn’t ever want to leave. I’ve been there.
In lieu of punishment, I decide on a speech. My speech will speak to a bigger picture, to show I understand my son and where he’s at, but at the same time, address Mie’s grievances. My speech will span years, told in insightful segments, relevant to the times and watered down to accommodate Minho’s age. It will transport him; he’ll remember on my death bed, this speech. He will quote me to his own children by the time he’s forty-something. I finger the crack on my phone as I click and scroll, click and scroll.
“Well?” Mie asks again, and I’m confused. All that escapes is, “Check this, Mie. Sampo- sedae. That’s what they’re calling Minho’s generation. It’s on all the news.”
“Oh?” She makes a noncommittal noise and walks back to the kitchen. I follow.
“Getting married, having children, securing your own house—kids nowadays are giving up on all three. That’s why it’s sampo, give-up-three. Some are going as far as saying it’s opo- sedae, give-up-five generation. Scratch that, n-po. Insert any number. Isn’t that something?”
“What has this got to do with Minho?” Mie asks. She plunks Tupperware down by the sink. Beads of moisture cling precariously to the lids that store kimchi, marinated squid, and pickled cucumbers she made from scratch. Leftovers.
“He’s a part of this generation. It’s relevant,” I explain.
“Relevant?”
“I’m getting there. It’s all in here.” I tap my forehead, tap it too hard.
“Are you drunk?”
Can’t answer that; that’s a trick question.
“Is it work? The accident?” she asks, shrewdly. “Did something happen?”
“No.” I leave her.
In the darkness of the bedroom, I call Father. He picks up immediately, sending an involuntary pang through my chest.
“Father, it’s me,” I choke.
“You never call at this hour. Something’s happened.”
The way he assumes and never questions is expected. No use pretending like I’ve called for any other reason than my own curiosity, like I do with Mom sometimes.
“Do you remember when we used to live in Shinrim-dong, we had those neighbors?” I picture the one-and-a-half -story villa, its dull sheen and missing shingles on the roof. “A mother and son. The Kims?”
“Of course I do,” he answers cuttingly. “That woman was a snake.”
His anger is fresh and unforgotten. I doubt she ever had the pleasure of interacting with him one-on-one, but Father operates in black and white. Everything warrants commentary.
“Do you know whatever happened to them?”
I never saw them leave, for Mie got pregnant right out of college. Before Minho was born via sokdo-ouiban, our nuclear family relocated to Seoul to escape Father’s wrath and settled in a studio apartment. Mie and I got hitched on paper when Minho was but the size of my thumb. This saddened Mom, for the idea of any grandson, wedlock or otherwise, filled her with joy.
Father is thinking. He taps his finger on the speaker with zero regards for my ears, and I have to hold the phone an arm’s length away. After a while, he grunts.
“They moved away after the boy won that prize, the year your mother had water in her lungs. Didn’t even say goodbye. Bad manners but smart boy. He got into KAIST, didn’t he? But that mother of his was no good.”
“Guess there’s no way of knowing where he went,” I murmur.
“What?”
I bring myself closer. “Do we know where he went? I assume we didn’t keep in touch.”
He taps again. “Haven’t heard of him in a while. That mother of his was wrong then. Her boy was smart but didn’t have it in him to be better than smart.”
I disagree by staying mute. Father is also quiet. It is clear we’ve exhausted our conversation.
“You should talk to your mother,” he prompts.
“I will.”
“You should now.” He emphasizes now.
“Is she awake? Could you hand her the phone?”
“She’s asleep. You should know that.”
Mom is ailing. With her, Father ails. He’s slipped into the role of caretaker surprisingly well but is still rankled when he’s unable to will her into health. Father strikes me as the type of man who wouldn’t do well alone. Widowhood will cement his isolation from the world. This I think often, and unlike before, I actually consider the aftermath. Will he move in with us? Will Mie let him? Will he let Mie let him?
“Good to talk to you, Father.”
“You should call in the morning. And text first.”
“Okay.”
“Call in the morning next time.” With that, he hangs up.
There must be approximately ten million Kims in the Republic of Korea. Common name. I reason there must be at least fifty Jun Kims who are twenty-eight and male, give or take a few. Enough to assuage my fears. Besides, a subway utilities worker? Knowing Jun’s mother, she’d never let her son work in anything less reputable than a university or research institute.
“Hey Mie,” I prompt. “How many Kims are there in Korea?”
“Dunno.” Her answer is sharp, but with a quizzical nuance. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
Can’t be him.
I squeeze by my wife to pluck a can of beer from the fridge. Guzzle it. Polishing it off, I fish out a second can. Mie promptly grouses that I’m depleting her supply. It’s been a while since I’ve drunk on my own time. Asahi used to be a woman’s beer in my eyes, too light, before years of corporate drinking destroyed my liver. Now it suits me fine. Wonder if Jun Kim ever drank Asahi. My personal belief says he never had to make that transition. It only makes sense that Prodigy Boy would’ve gone on to do magical prodigious things, appreciating only certain kinds of liquor—if any at all—by their taste and body but never by habit. Asahi would cross his path once in a while when there was nothing else to accompany his smorgasbord of fancy cheese and meat. There’s no doubt about this.
But if the man at the station is not the Jun Kim I knew, it doesn’t change the fact that he was twenty-eight, diligent, and died in a subway.
Something clicks. “I got it.” “What?”
“This is exactly how this particular Jun Kim died. Let me tell you.” I approach my wife, and she recoils. “He didn’t give anything up. He wanted the house, the family, and the promised life. Wanted to start early. If you’ve got a trade, that’s a lifelong job, no? How many jobs can boast that in Korea? He tried to escape the sampo generation but look where that got him.”
Dishes are rattling. Mie’s gloves are up to the elbows in soapy water. She refuses to ask me, who the fuck is Jun, refuses to give in to tangents, my beautiful segues.
I sense her annoyance but jabber on. “Wanted marriage, kids, and a nice flat near a greenbelt. Tried way too hard. That’s what I’ll tell Minho. You can’t try too hard or this country punishes you. Am I right?”
I mean to lighten the mood, but Mie whips around. Crow’s feet flash beside her eyes as she drops her sponge. “What kind of talk is this?”
“Just saying,” I shrug. “It’s a part of my speech.”
“What speech?” She stares at me. I stare right back, mirroring her wide-set eyes.
“In our parents’ days,” I explain quietly, “it was possible to start poor and end rich. Or anywhere halfway decent.”
“Yes, and?”
“Now you start poor, and the best you can hope for is to keep the status quo. Hope to god your kids will float higher. Start rich, you’ll get richer or poorer, but at least you get a choice.”
“Hmm.”
“We shouldn’t try so hard. The world knows our limits and we all get exactly as much as we need. Let’s tell Minho that. Don’t try too hard, know your limit.”
Mie makes a lunging motion at my back. “Are you crazy?” She catches me again, this time on the arm. First time she’s actively touched me this week.
“Mie.”
“You’re not in front of your colleagues. This is our house. That’s our son. Your contemplations can stay outside.”
Technically, our parents paid for about half the house. Her parents covered one-fourth. But I don’t say that.
“Mie, look at me.” My smile stretches, my eyes drooping like prawns. This face used to make her laugh. She loved my smiling eyes and how I looked to be in a perpetual good mood, almost as if I was built to be happy, and wasn’t that a blessing? Mie deflates.
“Please don’t talk like that. It’s not funny.” She bends down to pick up the sponge. “And will you talk to Minho or not?”
I realize I haven’t consented. “I will.”
“Just talk to him? Without the set-your-limit part. He might listen to you better.”
It kills her to admit this, I’m sure.
“Will do.” I beam. I’ve the best smile when I’m a tad buzzed. “Nep!”
Mie resumes cleaning. Her shirt is untucked, but this isn’t my place to say. Mie gets irked when I tell her she looks good in the morning with her face greasy and hair flat on one side; I’m mocking her, apparently. The years have washed away my cavalier charms, and all she sees is an open mouth. But let me tell you, this open mouth keeps us afloat. My supervisor says in case of a drowning accident, they’ll find my lips bobbing to the surface like a fishing float. He’s an avid angler who lost his marriage to chasing yellowtails and white perch, a man with skin like cracked agate who hails from a prestigious university that’s miles, leagues—damn, light years—above my own alma mater. He and his elite buddies never fail to remind me how I’ve “done well” for someone from KK University. I keep smiling because pride gets you nowhere.
My wife once waited twenty-two months for me. In my youth, the mandatory army service had me at the outskirts of Kangwondo, where all we saw was snow, more snow, and potatoes. Her eyelashes froze from tears. She thought my buzz-cut hideous but took multiple selfies of us by the road, pictures I know she still has. It cost a pretty penny to travel from her hometown to Kangwondo, and for burdening Mie so, her friends hated me. My friends pitied me and called me names, until they themselves were drafted, the idiots. Caught up in youthful bravado, I gifted Mie a pair of beige heels and told her to be happy. As the saying goes, don’t gift your lover shoes; they will run off in them with other men. But Mie stayed. We learned to love Kangwondo and its bountiful rolling hills.
If only she’d smile like she used to—but Mie reserves her rare smiles for Minho. Our distance is cultivated by nearness. Bridging the gap may only bring awareness to what little we share, and that, I don’t need. Who needs that.
“What’s taking our kid so long,” I gesture at the bathroom door. “He’s taking forever!”
Minho is our stabilizer. Before, it was sex and bike rides by the Han river. Or historical dramas about food that set the menu for our next date.
“He knows what he’s done,” Mie answers. “You’ll talk to him?”
“God, yes. I will. I said I will, didn’t I?”
After that, we fall silent. I remain on the sofa, swiping through articles. I find one that may be of interest to Mie. “Hey, they’re launching those nonstop trains next month. Only two hours and fifteen minutes from Seoul to Busan! Amazing.”
“Hmm.” Mie hmms.
“How about a weekend trip? You like seafood.”
“No time,” Mie deflects, but she’s mollified. “But Minho’s allergic to shellfish.”
“He is?”
When the big hand of the clock reaches nine, our bathroom door creaks open. Out teeters Minho with his glasses fogged up, his body steamed pink like the inner flesh of a sausage. Seeing us, he leans a little to the left, unsure.
“Come here sweetie,” Mie snaps. “Daddy wants to have a talk with you.”
Our son is smooth and free of lines. There’s a nick on his forehead from when he greeted a glass door too hard, but he’s perfect. Minho’s head is very round. Mie believes this is her doing, having rolled him around a couple of times per day, making sure nothing went flat out of negligence, but I know he takes after his father. Those long legs, too. But his thin lips are undeniably Mie’s, and they’re protruding out a mile.
“Let’s go take a walk, just you and me,” I propose.
Minho is instantly terrified. He swivels to his mother, but Mie has already left the room. His gaze swivels back on me. Lowers. Minho prefers a known threat to the unknown, much like I preferred Mom’s tirades to my dad’s unending silence.
We ride the elevator in silence. Outside, the air is warm and cloyingly sweet, the grass packed with the buzzing drones of August mosquitoes. From afar comes the faint scent of grilled chicken, and it’s a reminder that it’s Tuesday at the rotisserie place across the street. Soon, we hear children. The apartment complex roundabouts a playground filled with kids only slightly older than Minho, kids who holler in broken English picked up from after-school academies. When chided, they volley back with foreign words: sorry, not sorry. We meander down a gentle slope, where a convenient store is just outside the gates, and without a word, I enter its side doors. Minho follows suit. The electronic bell tolls as the steady blast of AC cools our skin, and we stand before the beverage display.
“Pick something,” I prompt.
Minho’s eyes dart to my face, suspicious.
“Anything you want,” I offer again.
Minho dodders to the beer selection and picks out Mie’s favorite. I snort. “Yeah, none of that until you’re out of school.”
“I don’t know what to get,” he pleads.
“What you want,” I snap. “Just get what you want. I won’t tell your mom.”
Concentration replaces fear as Minho digs around with renewed energy. From his damp hair, rivulets of water snake down his neck. The back of Minho’s shirt is sopping wet the way kids’ backs are sometimes, not because their nimble arms can’t reach all the way, but because they can’t be bothered. It hasn’t occurred to them yet the necessity, or futility, of such grooming. My back is dry, but the dreadful alphabet M is creeping into my hairlines. It’s not so visible now but will surely make itself prominent in a few.
“This one.” After careful consideration, Minho picks out a sickly-sweet chocolate drink that tastes like powdered milk. God forbid, it’s endorsed by a horrid company. But I don’t question his choice. I pay. Outside, Minho washes down his troubles with long hasty gulps because he’s used to eating fast. Those goddamn academies give students fifteen-minute breaks in between hours of grammar drills and pop quizzes. Ten replaces fifteen in middle school. Sick, that’s what they are.
When Minho’s done and staring at the empty carton with longing, I decide it’s time for my speech. It’s got so many holes, it isn’t even funny.
“Son, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
Of course, Minho doesn’t think before blurting, “A fireman.”
I wince. The image of Minho caught in a burning building pains me. Lousy insurance and scant subsidies can’t possibly be the future for my son. Let’s be honest, Mie is never going to let Minho fight fire. Too dangerous. My own childhood dream was to become a car racer. When my friends spoke of busty race-car models with lust dripping from their breaking voices, I spoke of cars with the same degree of reverence. A Lamborghini Murciélago had been my dream car. A used Miata MX-5 was my possible, relatable dream car, one I figured I’d drive as a grownup, and yes, this was before I embraced the salaryman life, when I was but seventeen, before I learned the average cost of an urban household in Seoul, before I realized there isn’t a road in Korea long enough to sate my desires.
“Fireman. Wow! That’s great,” I say with no hurrah.
As many parents are, I’m seized by a conflicting desire. Yes, but no. No, but yes to anything else? Maybe? How do I explain the unexplainable? Say that I tell him, don’t be twenty- eight and already trapped. Don’t let them send you in those tunnels before closing time, no matter what your supervisor says. Don’t be caught because you thought you could get out before the train came. Don’t commit too much. Convenience isn’t worth dying for. Would it make sense? And say he understands despite the crooked leaps in logic. What then? What else is there to life if not commitment to something, anything?
“Dad. I skipped class today,” Minho cuts in. “I’m sorry.”
My son doesn’t give two shits about my speech.
“I know. Your mom told me.”
He squeezes his empty carton of milk. “I got forty-eight on my verbal quiz. Yunsuk says that if you get lower than fifty, you’re a loser for life. Records are forever, so companies will know how dumb I am. No one will hire me. I’ll be a bum at Seoul Station.”
Who the hell is Yunsuk? My mind rushes to the homeless man soaked in urine at Gangnam Station. The minute angers of the day implode.
“Who’s Yunsuk? Is he your teacher?” I splutter.
Minho shakes his head. “No, that’s Mrs. Byun. Yunsuk’s in my class at Elite. He goes to Y Prep. His dad told him that. He didn’t make it up, emchang.”
“Wow. No. Don’t use that word em—don’t use it. Ever. Do you hear me?”
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Sorry. I mean, he swears on his mom’s dignity.”
Y Prep. An elementary school that caters to rich entrepreneurs. Diplomats. Already, I’m hating this kid and his father who has it all.
“His dad’s a nut. A rotten nut. What does he do anyways?” I ask, digging my own grave.
“Yunsuk says his dad owns Daewoo,” Minho answers.
By owning Daewoo, the kid probably means one division, nothing more. For all I know, Yunsuk’s dad could be a district manager who talks big. Kids embellish, but not more than we do. “He’s a bad person. An awful man, whether or not he owns Daewoo—he probably doesn’t, I can check; your dad knows people—he shouldn’t be saying such things. Don’t listen to him. Listening to nuts will get you nowhere in life.”
Minho nods. I get him another chocolate milk. Heading back to the apartment, I open my mouth several times to speak but nothing comes out. Minho laughs and tells me I look like his classroom goldfish. I laugh along. As we pass the now-empty playground, I collect the wisdom my nearly forty years have accumulated and string them in sequence, but rule all of them out by the time we reach the lobby. Minho’s hands hold secure the chocolate milk like it’s some acclaimed irreplaceable prize. He’s too focused on its beauty.
Years from now, things will be no different. I’ll be forty-something. Minho will have graduated high school and entered college, hopefully, one in Seoul with a four-year program. He’ll register for the mandatory twenty-two months of army service a year into the program. Knowing Mie, she will cry buckets clutching Minho’s buzz-cut to her bosom, and this with Minho seated at the kitchen table because he’ll tower over her five-foot-two frame by then. I’d be holding a bottle of Merlot in one hand, a slightly portlier version of myself, balding with style, none of that propecia crap. In my other hand, an artisan corkscrew received as a gift but never used. Do I hug Minho or put an arm around my crying wife? Both? Mostly likely, I’ll stand with my hands weighed down, my head raised to the ceiling in reverence.
I’m frightened of this image. The way things are going, I’ve a good fourteen, possibly fifteen years left in my corporate life if I’m lucky. After that, I’ll be politely removed with a pittance to my name. I figure I’ll be a taxi driver. Race in small measures, the Gyeongin Expressway my Autobahn. Mie will endorse my new venture with cornflower-blue seat covers she will crochet herself. Twelve hours she’ll spend on those covers with thick glasses perched on her nose, and I’ll display them with pride because she’ll want me to. Work nights, mostly. Mie will continue as an accountant, but part-time. She may take on a night job at a boxed lunch company, from where she’ll bring back slightly-expired, mildly-jostled lunches. Minho will come to despise the sight of his mother wearing sanitary caps, hoarding free food like it’s manna, but I’ll welcome those boxes as a pleasant respite from my godawful cooking. Polish them off in my taxi while browsing the stock market. Just like Father.
In my free time, I’ll study French. I’ll watch the Grand Prix without subtitles and do my own commentaries. To the drunk who stumbles into my cab at three a.m., I might say, “I’ve a son about your age.” In response, the drunken youth will vomit beaucoup on Mie’s covers.
I recognize the futility in thinking I’ve got the game plan. This notion that it will all work out, that Mie will stick around, that Minho will come out of puberty unscathed, or that I’ll have the time or energy to study French in a taxicab—a seasoned friend tells me it’s mighty taxing on the arse—is foolish. Give up car. Give up marriage. Give up house. Give up the bottle of black raspberry wine you indulge in when the games are on. Give up hobbies, friends, excess, and dreams, and for what? A future where Minho may list one less item he needs to give up. Was it worth it? As a parent, absolutely. As a human being, I pray for a cosmic overhaul. Or the lottery—same difference. I used to daydream about waking up seventeen again, but that’s arrogance. Sadism, even. Arrogant are the youth because, to them, death comes at the pace of a snail. Here’s to hoping I’ve a long way to go. Here’s to hoping I go fast; please god, slow and then fast.
Perhaps by then I’ll understand my father’s own unbearable silence, the silence that screamed and engulfed the entire house, the many warnings that went unsaid because, at times, it is better not knowing. The vicissitudes of fortune are better dealt with in the form of a question, not a direct statement of fact. In the end, Minho will not be a fireman. Perhaps, he’d be what he wanted second-best: an architect.
In 2015, this is all but speculation. Minho’s eight. Mie works two jobs—one as an accountant, one as a mother. I do nine-to-six on good days, nine-to-ten on normal ones where the bullpen is filled with others like me, chipping away at our desks a hundred won at a time. What’s made daily we pour back by the dozen, in paper dreams, samgyupsal, and soju shots. Two days after the accident, I’m once again on the two-hosun platform toting a briefcase, in a suit Mie has dry-cleaned for me. Bleary eyes are glued to the screen that hails the 6:10 a.m. train in all its patent glory. Here it comes, true to promise.
