Necessary Roughness

by Marie G. Lee

  The dreaded field goal. Just thinking about it made my ribs hurt. On a dry field I couldn’t always do it. Now the field was an oil slick.

  ALL-PRO’S eyes were almost luminous beneath his helmet.

  “Get the ball there. I’ll kick it in.”

  thirty

  You know that scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy has to watch the hourglass of her life run out? That’s how I felt, keeping one eye on the field, one eye on the clock, and shivering so hard that I bit my lip to bleeding. We had possession, we were creeping down the field, but oh so slowly.

  How was I going to kick in this slippery goo, even if we did get down there? Neither the soccer or football cleats provided any traction.

  Barefoot.

  Like in tae kwon do. A natural kick.

  I’ve kicked through boards before, with my instep. It might hurt a little, but that goes away.

  Tentatively I took off my left shoe and sock and planted my foot in the freezing muck. I gripped the earth with my toes.

  Less than two minutes to the final gun. But ALL-PRO was almost there. He ran the ball in himself to the twenty-eight.

  “You ready, Chan?”

  I nodded.

  Kearny looked at me and my bare feet like I’d lost my mind, but Coach merely patted me on the helmet. I did a few roundhouse kicks in the air to loosen my hips.

  “Chan! Chan! Chan!” our side yelled.

  “We’re there, buddy,” ALL-PRO said as I joined the line. “We’ll cover you. Don’t worry ’bout a thing.”

  “Remember to turn the laces,” I said, although I knew he would.

  “Where ya shoes—jap?” came a call from the Spartan side. “He thinks he’s Bruce Lee.”

  I was so used to all that crap from Rom and Jimmi, it didn’t even make me annoyed. My eyes never left the place where ALL-PRO was going to set the snap. I lined up the hash marks, marked my place, felt the wind on my cheeks. If I could get this kick off, the wind would help it along. I just had to get it off.

  The Spartans started howling like a kennel of dogs. But above that, I heard a slightly soggy C-note. A vote of confidence from Young.

  I gave the signal that I was ready.

  The rest was a blur.

  When I kicked, my left foot dug hard into the ground, like I was a one-legged bird trying to stay on a branch. My right leg went up high on the follow-through. The connection felt right. There were big yellow uniforms hurtling toward me, but I knew it was too late for them to stop the ball.

  Everyone carried me on their shoulders—even Rom and Jimmi. Once we started screaming, we couldn’t stop. Someone dumped a whole barrel of muddy water on Kearny, and he just laughed.

  I went over to the stands to see Rainey. Her hair was plastered to her face in dark ringlets.

  “I’ll see you at the parking lot at school when we get back, okay?”

  She just smiled.

  We got in late, still making noise. Coach said we needed to go straight home and rest. He was serious.

  “What? We’re not going out and celebrating?” I whispered to ALL-PRO. “How can that be?”

  “We’re going to State, Chan. You won’t believe how good those teams from the Cities are. We really do have to rest up.”

  “But for a month?”

  “You’ll see,” he said.

  Rainey was waiting out in the parking lot.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “The boss says we can’t go out.”

  “For real?”

  “For real. The coaches will cruise around town,” ALL-PRO said, and he opened the passenger side of the Probe. “See ya, Rainey.”

  We managed to get in one quick kiss, tasting of rain.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  We arrived chez Kim just as Donna was pulling in with her funny yellow car that looked like a newer version of Leland’s Hunchback.

  “Hey, Young,” said Mikko.

  Young looked scared, confused. The lights in the house were off. Lou wasn’t in the driveway.

  “Young, they’re not here,” I said. “Lou’s not in the driveway.”

  ALL-PRO looked surprised to hear me blabbering away in Korean.

  “They’re going to come back soon, I bet.”

  “Who knows? Sometimes they work late.”

  “I said I wasn’t going to see him. We already talked about it.”

  “This isn’t a date. It’s a coincidence. O-Ma and Abogee can’t fault you for that. I’ll watch for you, anyway.”

  “Donna,” I said, walking up to her and bowing like an Englishman. “Would you like a spot of tea before your long, cold journey home?”

  “I’d be most delighted,” she said.

  We left Young and Mikko outside. Inside I boiled water and dug out a tea bag. Mrs. Knutson had left us some peanut-butter cookies, so I put a few of those on a plate.

  We carried the tea to the living room and turned on the TV down low so as not to wake Mrs. Knutson, and we watched some late movie.

  The street was quiet, as usual. That was good. When Lou, the danker and wanker, came within two miles of the house, we’d hear him.

  About half an hour later I peered out the curtains. Young and Mikko were huddled together so closely, they looked like one glob. I think they might have been kissing, but I closed the curtain before I could determine that. I didn’t really want to know what they were doing, to tell you the truth.

  A minute later Young came into the house.

  “Mikko said he’ll call you tomorrow,” she said, her voice sounding uplifted.

  “I guess I’d better go.” Donna got up. “Congratulations, Chan. I don’t usually pay attention to the games we play at, but I was glad I did today. Awesome kick—was that a field goal?”

  I nodded. “Thanks. See ya.”

  I didn’t feel like going to sleep. Not after such a glorious game.

  “Let’s play cards,” I said to Young.

  “Thanks, Oppa,” she said.

  “For asking you to play cards?”

  “No, silly. You know. For helping me out.”

  “I’m your oppa. It’s my job to look out for you,” I said. “Besides, then you’ll owe me. So how about a game of War?”

  “No way, Oppa, that is such a stupid game,” she said, but then she took a look at my puppy-dog face and relented. I happily split the deck in half.

  “You know,” Young said as she slapped her cards on top of mine, “maybe it wasn’t such a horrible thing coming here. I really like Donna and some of the kids here. And back in L.A. we always had so much pressure to do better than the other kids, don’t you think?”

  Young was talking about the Korean kids. Back in L.A., everyone’s parents whipped everyone into a frenzy about whose kids were doing the best. We always had to endure constant news reports of who got great SAT scores, who got accepted early decision to Harvard, who found the cure for cancer. It was like, hint, hint, why aren’t you doing that great, huh? I’m surprised we didn’t all end up killing each other.

  “I think O-Ma and Abogee are less uptight here too,” she said.

  “Well,” I said. “At college-application time next year, it might be a different story.” For our birthday O-Ma and Abogee had given us SAT prep books. Young had the Princeton Review and I had Barron’s. We were supposed to swap them when we finished. Not everything had changed.

  “I just feel so much freer here,” Young said, the dim light from a lamp glinting off her eyes. “Like maybe it’s good to get away from all the Koreans. Here we’re different and special.”

  “I have news for you, Sis,” I said. “You’d be special even without all those prizes. Just ask Mrs. Knutson—she adores you.”

  Young blushed. “Thanks, Oppa. You’re pretty special too.”

  It was a pretty goopy moment. Fortunately, a war with cards kept things from getting too sloppy.

  When O-Ma and Abogee came home at about one o’clock, we were still up playing. They were like, oh, you’re still up, but
they seemed glad to see us, like the vision of Young and me playing cards in the living room of a borrowed home was just about the best thing in the world.

  thirty-one

  Mikko and I were on the football field all by our lonesomes. The coaches had generously given us a whole day off to rest before the real killer workouts were to begin.

  Mikko still wanted to practice. It had been raining cats and dogs earlier but had stopped, so I went along with him. Besides, the girls’ tennis team was playing their last game away, so it wasn’t like I’d be missing time with Rainey.

  I noticed Mikko kept looking out to the street side of the field, all during practice.

  “Young said she might stop by,” he finally admitted. He looked so glum, I felt bad for him.

  “Don’t sweat it, man,” I said. “She probably got held up at band or something. They have to practice more now too.”

  Frankly, I didn’t want to get involved. I mean, when they get married, I’ll be the first to toast them. But keep me out of the messy details, please.

  “Look,” I added. “Young never goes for ugly football players, so she must really like you. Not to mention that she’s not supposed to date until college.”

  “That’s nuts.”

  “Tell me about it. Rainey’s parents have me over for dinner all the time, but then I have to be like, well, uh, no, in fact, you can’t come over.”

  ALL-PRO cracked half a smile. “See, you’re sneaky.”

  “What’s right is relative,” I said. I tossed him the ball, an easy spiral, but for some reason he dropped it.

  Somewhere in town a siren sounded.

  Then another, more drawn-out. RRRrrr, RRRRrrrr.

  “Fire truck,” ALL-PRO said.

  “Hope it’s not Mom and Mrs. Knutson,” I said. The other day the two of them had been up to some culinary experiment that failed, and it made so much smoke, I thought the fire trucks were going to come. Luckily Mrs. Knutson thought to dump a box of baking soda on top of it.

  “I’m feeling a little bushed. Let’s go home,” Mikko said suddenly.

  There was a smell of pot roast—unburned—in the house when I got home.

  “Where’s Young?” Her shoes weren’t by the door.

  “She’s out with Donna,” O-Ma said. “She should be home by five thirty.”

  I went upstairs to put my stuff away.

  * * *

  At five forty-five O-Ma joked about withholding dinner from Young.

  But she didn’t return by six, or six thirty. She was never late. Always “on the dot,” as Mrs. Knutson would say. She always called.

  By seven we knew something was wrong. O-Ma called Abogee, and he came home from the store. We were all sitting silently in the living room. No one moved except for Mrs. Knutson, who was attempting to do some knitting but was strangling whatever it was she was making.

  The phone rang. We all fell over each other trying to get it. I won.

  It was Mrs. Leschke, Donna’s mother, wondering if Donna was over here.

  “No, she’s not. Young isn’t back either.” I barely whispered into the phone. As I hung up I said a silent prayer. Please, God, let Young be all right. I know she’s never late, but let her and Donna be out playing some stupid prank for once. That’s all I ask.

  The doorbell rang. A man in a police uniform was there. He said he was Joe Skotvold, chief of the Iron River Police.

  I let him in, stiffly, formally, as though he were a guest and we were expecting him.

  “My daughter,” O-Ma said, half rising. “My daughter Young. Do you know—”

  Sometimes these things just come and you can’t stop them.

  In between the words Your daughter Young and the rest of the sentence, was killed, hung the most ghastly silence I have ever experienced in my life.

  Someone was yelling, screaming. There was the sound of things breaking. Make them stop, I was thinking. I put my hands over my ears. Make it stop.

  It took two slaps from Abogee to bring me back.

  When I opened my eyes, it was like observing a scene in a wax museum. O-Ma and Mrs. Knutson were huddled motionlessly together on the couch. The policeman stood with his eyes to the floor. Abogee paused, hand still raised.

  Young was dead.

  She was not dead.

  She couldn’t be dead.

  I am going to contest this play, I was thinking. Show me the instant replay. I am going to contest this play.

  I kept repeating that, over and over and over. It was the only way I had of keeping my head from blowing apart into a million pieces.

  thirty-two

  We had to go to the hospital to identify the body. Young and Donna had been in a car accident. The doctor said she was going to be hard to look at. He suggested only Abogee go in.

  “She’s my daughter too,” O-Ma said. I took her hand. We all went in, as a family.

  We met Donna’s parents outside her hospital room. Donna had broken her back, but she was in stable condition. Thank God for small favors and seat belts, I was thinking with one side of my brain. The other side was practically screaming with jealousy. Why did Donna get to live, and not Young? Why?

  Abogee and O-Ma were on the phone constantly, to L.A. and Korea. When they hung up, the phone rang again. Once, Mikko called; once, Rainey did. I told them I couldn’t talk right now, and I acted like I had something pressing to do. Of course it was a lie. Nothing was pressing anymore.

  The doorbell rang. I made the mistake of answering it, thinking it might be flowers or someone bringing food.

  But no. It was ALL-PRO.

  “I don’t want to talk right now,” I said, starting to close the door.

  He put his hand in the jamb.

  “But I do.”

  I hadn’t talked to ALL-PRO since before the accident, I realized. The last time he was actually inside the house was when the three of us watched TV that time. I couldn’t believe it. I let him in.

  “Have you seen Donna?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Did she tell you what happened?” He looked different, like his cheekbones poked out more or something.

  “She said she swerved to miss a deer and the car hit a slick patch. The deer lived.”

  “What were they doing on the highway?”

  “Cruising, I guess. She just got her license.”

  “Was she a good driver?”

  “How should I know?” I said. “Why are you asking me all this?”

  “I just want to know. I don’t know a thing about what happened except what I saw in the paper. So was Donna a good driver?”

  “Hell if I know,” I said. “It’s not like things will change if you figure out exactly what happened. My sister’s gone, Mikko, gone.”

  “I just have to know,” ALL-PRO said. His eyes were red. He slammed his fists into each other.

  “Young’s dead,” I said. The tonelessness of my voice surprised even me. “The end.”

  ALL-PRO grabbed me by my shoulders.

  “Goddammit, Chan! You’re not the only person who’s lost someone. What about your parents? What about me?”

  “So I’ll put you out of your misery too. My father owns a gun.” I put a nice layer of sarcasm on top of everything, to hide my true intentions, whatever they were.

  “Don’t do anything stupid, Chan.” ALL-PRO’S eyes were practically boring through my head. His nostrils were white. I tried to put myself in his shoes, to experience his loss of Young, but I couldn’t. Mine loomed too large. Way too large.

  “I’m sorry” was all I could say to him.

  Suddenly Mikko leaned over and touched my hair, like you do with a little kid who needs soothing.

  “We gotta be there for each other, buddy,” he said. “That’s all any of us can do.”

  thirty-three

  The house was beginning to fill with people. The Kims, the Lees, the Parks—Sujin’s parents. And Sujin. Those were the people who could afford to come out here. None of the people in Kor
ea could.

  Abogee had called his brother, Bong, now living in Milwaukee. He was supposed to be coming too.

  All of them brought food. Korean food. I had basically stopped eating since the accident—we all had—but the longed-for smells of kimchi and namul vegetables were too much for me.

  “My, you really like that, don’t you?” Mrs. Knutson put one birdlike hand on my shoulder as she peered at the red peppery, garlicky, sesame-seedy expanse of veggies, meat, and rice before me.

  “Glug,” I said, mouth full.

  Mrs. K. had been amazing in all of this, arranging the funeral at her church, cleaning the house, holding O-Ma’s hand for hours on end. O-Ma had barely come out of her room since the accident.

  Now Mrs. K. was going to stay with a friend so we could have more room, especially when Bong showed up. We would all be meeting at the funeral.

  Bong arrived by bus right into Iron River, at the Gas ’n’ Carry. Abogee and I went to pick him up.

  He was the same old Bong, hair sticking up like a rooster’s comb, watery smile. He didn’t say anything other than “Hi” when we picked him up. Abogee didn’t say anything either.

  O-Ma asked me if I might say a few words at Young’s funeral, but I refused. How could I possibly begin to tell anyone what it was like to lose a person who was more than just a sister—who was more like half of me? I didn’t know what to tell myself.

  I said I’d let Sujin speak for me. She was good at putting things into pretty words; she’d be able to tell people what a good person Young was.

  The house rustled with people moving to and fro, but there was barely a murmur of voices. I put on my sports coat and khakis, my one good outfit. As I dug around for my good shoes, I came across my soccer shoes, still covered in mud from the last game. That game seemed an eternity ago, and so small somehow. I couldn’t believe I had put so much time and energy into chasing after a stupid football.

  When everyone was downstairs, I slipped into Young’s room. I almost held my breath when I was in there, panicky that I’d detect some scent, some trace of warmth from when my sister was alive. But there was none.