by Marie G. Lee
Tonight there were plenty of cars in the lot. I recognized the Hunchback—Leland’s banged-up Omni hatchback—Rom’s red pickup, Kearny’s sporty Firebird. Abogee parked Lou next to the Hunchback and actually made the Hunchback look good.
We made our way past the bar and TV lounge into a hall filled with tables covered with white paper. Name tags in swirly writing told us where to sit. Everyone looked scrubbed and presentable—almost too presentable. I was used to hanging out with everyone stinking, retching, and burping, looking imposing in helmets and pads and ground-in dirt. Now everyone looked smaller, more like kids and less like warriors. It was vaguely disappointing.
Abogee studied the walls, which contained murals: furious orange, red, and green scenes of battle, painted comics style. I took him to our places and checked out the tags next to us. We were going to be sitting next to ALL-PRO and his dad.
“What’s this?” said ALL-PRO, looking at the other tags. “Romulus Kreeger? Jimmi Joseph Beargrease?” He looked like he was considering moving them, but then he turned to Abogee.
“Hi, Mr. Kim.” He held out his hand. “Mikko Ripanen. Remember me?”
Abogee’s smile was a little stiff, as if he needed more practice to get it right. Still, he took ALL-PRO’S hand.
Across the room, Coach and ALL-PRO’S dad were rolling in some shared laughter, Coach bent over double, slapping his thigh, ALL-PRO’S dad going “Haw haw-HAW!” like I’d never heard him. The two of them had played on the Miners together, twenty-four years ago.
When we sat down to eat, Jimmi hadn’t shown up yet, but Rom had. His father introduced himself as Dr. Kreeger. He wore a nice three-piece suit and a ring with a diamond in it. Abogee seemed impressed. Then he turned around and asked me in Korean where the bathroom was.
“That was a beautiful twenty-yard pass you completed last week,” Dr. Kreeger told ALL-PRO.
“Dad, shut up. The coaches are about to speak,” said Rom.
My mouth popped open like a mailbox, but no one else at the table—including Dr. Kreeger—seemed shocked.
Dinner was mud-colored roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn. Abogee ate carefully, sawing each little piece of meat just so. My meat had been tough and gristly, and I left a bunch of chewed wads on my plate, but Abogee ate everything. For dessert we had Jell-O with pink foamy stuff on top.
As coffee was being served, the coaches started circulating from table to table. Dr. Kreeger got up and started saying hi to people at other tables. I just sat there with Abogee, both of us silent.
“Hi, Mr. Kim, glad you could make it,” said Coach. “Jann has worked really hard this year. We’re very proud of him.”
“Oh, my son terrible,” Abogee said, the briefest of smiles betraying him. Korean parents always counter a compliment to their child with an insult, to appear properly modest. “Chan, he lazy, not study. No good at football either.”
Coach looked from Abogee to me, as if he was trying to get a clue on how to take it. I thought for a second of letting him think that Abogee was mean, but I grinned back at him instead. He seemed a bit relieved.
“Jann’s not only talented, but he’s also a hard worker,” Coach went on. “I’ve never seen a kicker work so hard to get downfield.”
Abogee just nodded. I don’t think he could tell downfield from a shuffleboard court.
“Hey, Mikey!” Coach went on to talk to Mikko’s dad. “Oh, geez,” I heard Mr. Ripanen say. Soon the two of them were guffawing again, Mr. Ripanen clapping his hand on Mikko’s shoulder. They were talking about when the Miners went down to State—back when they were in high school. I guess Mr. Ripanen had caught the winning pass. The way the three of them were laughing, it was like they shared a secret language or something.
“Okay, quiet please.” Coach was at a podium set up in the front of the room.
You could have heard a piece of mooshy roast drop to the floor. A good coach is like that—he commands attention the minute he walks into a room. And he makes you want to do things for him not because he yells at you or shames you, but because you want to make him proud.
“It’s always great to be at the father-son dinner, to have the dads sharing in some of their boys’ accomplishments. This year we’re really on a roll. Of course, we’re not there yet, but our record up until now is something to be proud of. It just goes to show that if you work together, you can achieve anything.
“So in a show of faith, we have some awards for you hardworking juniors. We’re going to count on you to grow up, provide the leadership for the underclassmen next year.”
The coaches started handing out different awards. Mikko got “Best Arm for a Junior,” and when he went up, the coaches presented him with a black-and-red letter jacket. I almost gasped, it was so beautiful. The sleeves were thick black leather, the body heavy red wool with a big IR on the front.
“This next one is the Twinkle Toes award for our guy Jann, who comes out and kicks and then runs like hell to make the tackle. He’s not just twinkle toes for his magical kicking, either: He’s a real wiry runner, an excellent back. Greased lightning. This one’s for you, Kim.”
The applause picked me up by my armpits and escorted me to the front of the room. I came back with my prize—it felt like it weighed thirty pounds—and I couldn’t help looking at Abogee and grinning, a little. Abogee looked back at me and nodded. There is a drop of pride inside that Abogee statue somewhere, I think.
“We gotta get Thorson to quit calling you Jann,” ALL-PRO said, already wearing his new jacket. “It’s driving me crazy.”
“Did you have a good time, Abogee?” I asked as we got up to leave.
“Interesting,” he conceded.
On the way out we passed a mural I hadn’t seen before. A guy was running out of the jungle, firing guns in both hands, Rambo-like. There were faceless enemy soldiers in the background, but I noticed that they were colored in yellow paint. Hmm.
And Rom and Dr. Kreeger were looking at it.
“My brother died in ’Nam. Khe San,” I heard Dr. Kreeger mutter as we passed them. “Damn gooks.”
“Dad, I’ve heard you tell that story a billion times. Don’t make it a billion and one, okay?”
Abogee looked over at them, not because of what they’d said, necessarily, but because of the tone in which they’d said it. I stepped behind them and opened the door for my father, which is what all good Korean boys do.
twenty-seven
“I want to see what eating in the gym is like,” Young announced as she, ALL-PRO, and I made our way to school in ALL-PRO’S new Ford Probe. The ink had barely dried on his driver’s license.
“It’s nothing very exciting,” I said. “It’s just a place to hang out.”
“Why don’t you come and see for yourself?” ALL-PRO turned a bit from the wheel to look at Young, who was sitting in front.
“Really?” she said, with a little squeal that was new to her. I hoped she wasn’t picking up any weird Iron River speech patterns. “Can I bring Donna?”
“Sure, whatever,” he said.
I had this semi-strange feeling that Mikko liked Young, and vice versa. I mean, at first I wasn’t sure—I was just picking up circumstantial evidence. For instance, Mikko seemed to insist more and more that we meet at my house, and when we did, he seemed to always have an ear out for signs of Young. And Young always came home with this weird hopeful/expectant look on her face.
It was semi-strange, not fully strange, because it was ALL-PRO. If it were any other guy, especially someone on the football team, I’d want to kill him. I mean, I am Young’s oppa, after all, and it’s my job to look out for her. And to me, there’s hardly a guy that exists that’s good enough for her. Especially not the guys in the locker room, who seem to think you handle a girl the same way you handle a football.
“There are two of you?” said Rom, at lunch. Today he was wearing a shirt that said TEN REASONS WHY A BEER IS BETTER THAN A WOMAN.
“She’s my sister,” I said as
menacingly as I could.
I think for the first time I noticed that Young is really pretty. I mean really pretty. Even among all these blond buxom beauties around here. Young is just unique, with her straight glossy hair and awesome bone structure. I was glad all of a sudden that she dressed on the frumpy side and hung out with quiet, smart girls like Donna. Could you imagine what life would be like if I had to be pulling jerks like Rom and Jimmi off her all the time?
Young and Donna sat in the corner and ate together, like chipmunks. To my relief the rest of the guys ignored them.
“Thanks, Oppa,” Young said as we walked back to our lockers together afterward. “I just wanted to see how the other half lives.”
“Don’t thank me. Mikko was the one who invited you.”
“Yeah, but he did it because he’s your friend.” She hugged her books to her chest. “It’s wild, Oppa. I was just writing a letter to Sujin telling her how you’ve become this popular football star.”
“Popular? Dream on.”
“Of course you’re popular. I’ve heard girls talking about you.”
“About me? What’d they say?”
Young laughed, sort of pushed me away.
“Your head is swelling as we speak.”
“No it’s not. Come on. Tell me.”
“I just hear them talk, about how this football player or that is so cute. And your name comes up under the ‘cute’ category. Girls say Rainey is really lucky. That’s all I’m going to say.”
“Are you joining us tomorrow, dear sister?”
“No thanks. This was fun for a day, but, uh, football players don’t have the daintiest eating habits.”
“I guess,” I said. I was wondering if she was referring to Rom’s chewing with his mouth open, Jimmi’s nasty fat-crusted baloney sandwiches, or Leland’s dumb “see food” seafood jokes. Even ALL-PRO was a sight, trying to eat four or five pb&h sandwiches in the allotted time limit.
Well, we were football players. What did she expect?
Our season ended early because it got cold sooner up north. If we won the Moose Creek game, it would be almost a month—and more freezing practices—while we waited for the southern conferences to catch up, and then we’d all meet at the heated Humphrey Dome in the Cities around Thanksgiving.
I’d been writing to Manuel, telling him he’d have to come visit, try the cold out for himself.
One morning Young and I stared out the window together.
“Wow,” I said. “Where’d the green go?” Our lawn looked like silver Christmas tinsel. We high-fived each other.
“Frost,” Young diagnosed. “This is only the beginning. Just think, Oppa, we’re going to have our first snow! I can’t wait.”
On the way to practice that morning, the tops of puddles were layered with brittle ice. But Mikko kept saying over and over again that this weather was strangely warm; by this time they almost always had snow.
At practices we froze for the first half hour, especially if the wind was blowing. It was painful. Then we’d be dripping sweat, which didn’t feel so healthy either. But the coaches told us we had to buck up, so we did. Coach wore a big fat IRON RIVER FOOTBALL parka, but Kearny toughed it out in just a tiny windbreaker, to show us he was with us.
In school my grades were okay, but I was glad they’d be coming out after the state tournament. You could say I was a little distracted.
My first thought when I got up was football.
After the morning practice I was half asleep all day.
When I woke up at three, it was time to do it all over again.
After that I just wanted to soak in Mrs. Knutson’s tub. Sometimes Young would sit outside the door talking or playing me a new song she’d learned.
Tonight I came home ready to ease myself into the tub, but then I stopped. What was that delicious smell?
Korean hamburgers! Wow! I immediately volunteered to set the table.
We sat down to Mrs. K. and O-Ma’s version of hamburgers—beef patties coated in egg, soy sauce, and green onion and cooked in sesame oil.
“I had to use this other kangchang, Chungking soy sauce, and corn oil for sesame oil,” O-Ma apologized. I was already inhaling about three burgers. A layer of kimchi on top and real rice, not Uncle Ben’s, would’ve made it perfect. But then, you can’t have everything.
“The last time I had Chungking was at Donna’s house,” Young said as we gobbled, earnest as pigs at a trough.
“Her mother had bought all this chow-mein stuff and used the recipe off the can,” she continued. “And then when I came in the house and went ‘Yum, what is this?’ everyone just looked at me, like I was supposed to say ‘Ooh, chow-mein medley is my absolute favorite dish!’ It didn’t even look anything like the chow mein at Fortune’s Garden.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Like when I ate over at my friend, uh, Ron’s house”—only Young knew Ron was actually Rainey—“her, um, his, dad was trying to explain to me how a ravioli was like a wonton, not realizing that I am the Chef Boyardee king: cheese ravioli, mini ravioli, roller coasters—I stock them all.”
“Not to mention that ravioli is closer to mandu for us, not wonton. Geez.”
“Gosh,” said Mrs. K. “I learn so much about Korean culture from you two.”
Abogee glanced up at O-Ma. “The taste of this is good,” he said, chewing noisily.
Young and I had finally convinced Abogee that eating loudly—a compliment to the cook in Korean households—was considered rude here, but Mrs. Knutson was busy eating a second helping, and O-Ma looked happy.
“Chan, it’s so exciting to see the town rooting for you young people. All those GO MINERS! signs all over town,” Mrs. Knutson said. “Gosh, if you won, you’d probably get your picture in the paper, and my, you look so handsome in your letter jacket.”
I nearly blushed. Mrs. Knutson had recently told Young and me that she and her husband had had only one child, a girl, who had died in a boating accident when she was five. Mrs. K. kept saying how nice it was, with our arrival, to have “children” in the house again.
“I was reading in the paper how people buy GO MINERS! merchandise in certain stores,” O-Ma said, a thoughtful, concentrating look coming over her eyes.
“Oh, you mean the boosters pins?” Mrs. Knutson said. “Last year they had little mittens, which were much cuter, but the pins are okay. I get mine at Sue’s Sweet Shoppe. Would you like me to get you one?”
“I was thinking we could sell some at the store, maybe other things.”
Abogee sat up at the mention of “the store.” Back in L.A., O-Ma had gotten this idea from talking to the customers that the store should carry Drano and Alka-Seltzer (not to be mixed, of course). Abogee deep-sixed it, saying no one goes to a produce store for those things.
O-Ma, however, insisted. I think Abogee ordered the stuff just to prove her wrong. And wouldn’t you know it, both Drano and Alka-Seltzer became bestsellers. Lots of people get clogged sinks and clogged guts late at night, when the drugstores and hardware stores have closed.
“What a great idea,” Young said. “Like, you know how we already have those Froggie’s commuter coffee cups? I bet if we sold Miners T-shirts and coffee cups and stuff like that, people would buy them.”
“I know I certainly would,” Mrs. K. said. “And I bet my friends from church and the hotdish club would too.”
Young and I exchanged looks. Hotdish club?
“In fact,” she went on, “an old friend of Ole’s”—that was the late Mr. Knutson (God rest his soul)—“runs a novelty printing store. Ooh, maybe he can make those foam hands that say WE’RE NUMBER ONE—I adore those. Let’s see what he can do for us in a hurry.”
“Oh, yes,” O-Ma said, eyes sparkling. “We can donate some of the money we make back to school.”
Abogee had stopped eating. He was looking at all of us, sort of bewildered. I did my best to translate, but I’m not sure how well “booster pins” and “novelty printing” came out.
“We should check with franchise first,” he said.
O-Ma shook her head. “We ask, they say no. We don’t ask, what’s the harm? We supporting the school this way.”
The doorbell rang. It was ALL-PRO. Mrs. K. let him in, and he sat down at the table as if he’d eaten here a thousand times before.
Except this was the first.
“Hi,” he said. His face was scrubbed and beaming I introduced him to O-Ma and reintroduced him to Abogee, describing him as the principal’s son, the one who gave us a ride to school the one day a week we didn’t have morning practices.
“Would you like something to eat?” O-Ma said. “We’re having Korean hamburger tonight.”
“I just ate a full meal at home,” ALL-PRO said. “But how can I resist something that smells this good?”
O-Ma looked just a tad smug as she got up to get him a plate. She bumped into Young, who was exiting the kitchen, already having gotten him one.
“Thanks,” he said to her, as if he were a diabetic and she were bringing him insulin.
“Mikko plays football with me,” I added. “Quarterback.”
“And quite a one,” Mrs. K. said. “He played on varsity as a wee sophomore. I remember that game where you carried for over one hundred yards and I don’t know how many receptions.”
“You have a fan,” I told ALL-PRO.
Young and I did the dishes, as we always did, and ALL-PRO helped. Then we watched TV, all of us smooshed on the couch. Young and ALL-PRO sat together, their hips touching.
I kept my eye on them, though. I really did.
I never saw Young look so happy, ever.
Until I saw her wearing ALL-PRO’S letter jacket, that is. On her ninety-pound frame, it looked like she was wearing Godzilla’s letter jacket.
“Where’d you get that?” I said, trying not to sound overly sarcastic.
“I want to go out with him, like on a date,” she said, her jaw set in determination.
