by James Aura
That was it. Kind of a letdown, although it was fun seeing Mr. Hudson playing the hits on the radio. I was also a little relieved that we weren’t going to be dealing with somebody who wanted their 50-dollar reward.
As we got up to leave, Mr. Hudson played a commercial for Evelena’s beauty products. She blew him a kiss from across the room. Tommy made a ‘gag me’ gesture and we walked out to the parking lot.
There, parked next to the pickup was the Sheriff’s squad car. He was leaning against the trunk and he didn’t look happy.
“I figured it was you guys. I’ve had three calls from three different deputies, said they heard the dog announcement on the radio. We’ve all had our eyes peeled for that dog, Russell. What in hell were you thinking? You realize you could pull down some trouble from an announcement like that?”
I didn’t know what to say, except I was sorry we had surprised him and I did feel a little foolish.
Tommy was quick to blame his older sister.
“Sheriff, Evelena came up with this idea. She felt bad because she thinks she was the reason the word got around that the dog was out on the Teague farm. We figured we didn’t have anything to lose.”
The sheriff frowned, seemed confused.
“Sheriff, Tommy’s sister Evelena comes out to our farm now and then. She saw the dog out there and mentioned it to someone in town. That’s why she wanted to help us.”
“You boys know the Feltons owned that dog originally. We’ve kept a close eye on them and we’re fairly sure the dog is dead, Russell. But they may be put out that some yahoo on the damned radio is talking about the dog now. Be careful.”
I thanked the sheriff for his concern and we headed for Tommy’s car. Just before I got in, the sheriff beckoned me over to his squad car.
“Russell, I wanted to give you a head’s-up. Kim told me about your Uncle Wallace and that Korean woman. I am going to have to come out there and talk to him about that. See what that’s all about ”
I thought my heart was going to stop! Kim and her big mouth! I wondered what else she had told him. If the sheriff came out to the farm he might also ask to see our garden project, laying in waste out back.
I couldn’t think of anything to tell him.
“Well come on out Sheriff. I really don’t know the details, myself. She’s a nice lady, though.”
Tommy drove me back to the farm and I was in a deep dark place. I barely slept a wink but come morning, Uncle Wallace tapped on my bedroom door.
“Russell, it’s nearly eight o’clock. Past time for the cows and we are curious to hear how your radio announcement came out, too.”
I didn’t stop to talk to them at the breakfast table, just grabbed the milk bucket and plunged out the back door toward the barn. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out any way to head off the sheriff.
When I returned to the kitchen, Soo Jin took the pails from me.
“Sit down Russell, have some breakfast and tell your Uncle about the radio station. I will take care of this.”
She sat a plate of sausage and eggs in front of me. I stared at Uncle Wallace.
“Radio station project went fine, Uncle. But we didn’t get any real leads on Wonju. We had one caller who said he had seen the dog out this way, several weeks ago. So that was no help.”
He sipped his coffee, watched as Soo Jin walked out to the henhouse. I tried to figure out how to tell him about the unfortunate development. This was going to be awkward.
“Uncle Wallace, I have screwed up. I told the sheriff’s girlfriend Kim that a Korean woman had moved in with us and I wasn’t sure how it came about. She told the sheriff and now he says he is coming out for a visit. I don’t know whether he will ask about the garden project. And I’m awful sorry.”
I was prepared for a bawling out, but it didn’t come.
“You know that Kim girl used to date your Dad.”
“Yessir, that’s how I know her.”
“Why on earth would you tell her about Soo Jin?”
“Well, I ran into her in town and she wanted to know how we were doing since Grandma died. She was at the hospital when Grandma passed . And I mentioned Soo Jin without thinking.”
“Why would the sheriff want to come out here then? People move in together all the time?”
“Well she asked me how you met and I guess I was vague. You never did explain all of that Uncle Wallace! Does the sheriff have some reason to be suspicious?”
I had turned it around on him.
My Uncle got a faraway look. He sat staring out the window.
“Well, we’ll just have to tell him the truth, Russell. She was a mail order bride! I have the certificate and everything.”
He was a more creative liar than I expected. I didn’t mention the garden, or that the sheriff was angry with us for putting the dog announcement on the radio. This was enough for one morning. When Soo Jin came in, he beckoned her to their upstairs bedroom. Shortly afterwards, there was a commotion. Soo Jin didn’t like any of this. I could hear her tearful wail.
“Wallace, we must hide. They might come and take me away again! Maybe the sheriff is connected with the Clarksville people.”
I hadn’t thought of that wrinkle. She shifted over into Korean and I couldn’t make out the rest, but Uncle Wallace seemed to calm her down. Soo Jin stayed upstairs. My uncle came down with a folded up document.
“Here you go, Russell. Here’s the rest of the story.”
It was an official looking certificate stating that Wallace Hyde and Soo Jin Song were married on March 5, 1975 in Clarksville, Tennessee.
This made no sense, based on what Soo Jin had told me, but I wasn’t going to argue. It was bad enough the sheriff was going to come out. Maybe he’d see this and get his nose out of our business.
I didn’t even ask if they were really married, because I knew they weren’t. I handed it back to Uncle Wallace and didn’t say anything. I just finished my sausage and eggs, had another cup of coffee and thought about all the catastrophes that could be headed our way. I had no idea.
Soo Jin came finally downstairs while I was going through some more correspondence from the trash ditch. She stood in the doorway, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“Oh Russell, you know it is a lie! But what can we do? We can go to the tent revival this Sunday night and ask for God’s forgiveness..”
The sheriff didn’t come until after dinner. He had called Uncle Wallace mid-afternoon apparently to set up a time. We were sitting on the front porch when his squad car pulled up. Soo Jin was upstairs in their bedroom. I had a feeling she was not inclined to have any part in this.
Sheriff Randolph Parker was a big man. He ambled up to the porch and tipped his hat to Uncle Wallace.
“Evenin’ fellas, nice out here tonight.”
My heart was down in my gut.
“Howdy Randolph. Glad you could come out. Russell says you heard my good news.”
“You’ve got a woman, I hear, Wallace. A Korean girl? You want to tell me about that?”
It occurred to me that this was none of the sheriff’s business, except I had said something to Kim about it being a shady deal. I began to kick myself, mentally, around the porch.
Now it was Uncle Wallace’s turn to screw up.
“Yeah, Sheriff, I got me a mail order bride. Pretty girl from Korea. Here’s the marriage certificate.”
He handed Randolph the document with a flourish.
After a minute the sheriff tipped his hat back and scratched his head.
“How does this mail order thing work Wallace? You pay for them to come over here, I guess.”
“It’s pretty simple, Sheriff. I paid this outfit in Seoul a thousand bucks and next thing you know, she’s on the doorstep, ready for matrimony. Things are tough in Korea, she is happy to be here.”
“Says here that you tied the knot back in March.” He glanced around, as if he was waiting to deliver a punch line.
“That is correct. We’ve been
very happy and she’s helped us a great deal on the farm, especially when I broke my arm.”
“Wallace the thing is, I loaned you a thousand dollars because you told me you were flat broke. And I hear that money is pretty much out the window now too, with your crop flooded. You planted in a floodplain, Wallace? I figured you knew better than that!”
My uncle shot me a look of disappointment. He paused then began to stutter.
I interrupted him, figured I could give him a little time to pull his thoughts together.
“Sheriff, we sure appreciate your making us the loan. And we’ll pay you back. It just might not be until next growing season. It wasn’t just the flood. That big rain washed a bunch of coal slag down on everything. We might have salvaged some of it except for that.”
Randolph Parker took his hat off and held it on his knee.
“Tell you what. I might be inclined to do that, but since Wallace had a thousand bucks to spend on a Korean gal, and never told me, I would like to have my money back. Let’s say by the end of the month.” He turned to leave.
Uncle Wallace jumped up from the rocker. “Sheriff, what about the moonshine? Surely you have sold some of that.”
“I hadn’t thought about the moonshine Wallace. I believe we have taken in what would be about a hundred dollars of your share. So I’ll just keep that, and you owe me Nine Hundred Dollars.”
The sheriff left and we both stared out at the woods.
“Russell Ray, you told her about our crop failure, too, I assume.”
“And you told the Sheriff you spent a thousand dollars on Soo Jin.”
He put down the coffee can spittoon and looked dolefully out at the woods. “A liar needs a good memory! I reckon we both screwed up, Russell. Why did I have to do that? I am a man without luck!”
He slowly got up and shoulders sagging, walked into the house.
I began to wonder if I too, had become a man without luck.
I went back to my room and started going through the bags of old paperwork from the trash ditch. Old invoices, receipts, insurance notices, Christmas and Easter cards.
Soo Jin appeared in the doorway. She was barefoot, in pajamas.
“Russell, I have brought much trouble to you and your uncle. Will the police come back and arrest someone. Will they arrest me? Should I leave?”
“Soo Jin, you haven’t been trouble. You have been a blessing on our house. With your help on the farm, I might even be able to go back to college this fall, except we may have to pay back the loan to the sheriff and that won’t leave much in the bank account. This is not your fault. It is my fault and it is Uncle Wallace’s fault. We both said a couple things we should not have said, and now we’re going to pay.”
She looked miserable standing there. I wanted to give her a hug. But I was sitting in the middle of a bunch of paperwork on the bed.
“Russell, you know your uncle and I are not married. He got that paper from someone for some legal reason, I guess. We are living in sin and we must ask for God’s forgiveness.”
I thought about the tent revival coming up Sunday night. We all had some sins to atone for.
Next morning at breakfast Uncle Wallace and I tossed around alternatives to the sheriff’s ultimatum. Uncle Wallace said he needed to repay the loan, because they had shook hands on the deal, but he hadn’t been completely honest. I questioned whether the sheriff had the right to demand payment so soon. Plus there was the moonshine. Some higher ups in the law enforcement community would have quite a problem with a county sheriff who was selling illegal moonshine along with his deputies. On the other hand, Uncle Wallace was the maker of the moonshine. The raw milk was iffy too. The government took a dim view of farmers selling unpasteurized milk, even though we were extra careful to keep it clean and pure. So we had each other over a barrel. But we decided the sheriff had the leverage.
“Uncle Wallace, I reckon we should draw the nine hundred out of the bank and take the check up to the sheriff.”
“What will that leave you, for school Russell?”
“Well, there’s about eleven hundred in there now, and we’ll have the soybeans coming in this fall. I’ll just have to postpone college for now. We need to come up with a new plan, Uncle Wallace. But you spent a lot of money on the farm. I don’t begrudge you the money.”
“You are a better nephew than I deserve, Russell.”
Soo Jin stood at the sink drying the breakfast dishes. She said “I am looking forward to the tent revival!”
I wondered how she would even know what a tent revival was like. Maybe they had them in Korea.
Sunday morning after the chores I considered attending services at Wesley Memorial. Sort of ease back into the religion thing before the tent revival that night. Uncle Wallace didn’t want to bring Soo Jin to that church but apparently a religious event a few counties away seemed safe.
So I resumed my search of items from the trash ditch. When a silverfish slithered out of a pile of papers, I took everything outside to the front porch and sat in the rocker sorting it into a couple of piles.
The dates on the bills were more recent, 1973 into 1974. I came across some unopened air mail envelopes addressed to MSG SGT Bob Teague, Army Post Office, San Francisco which I knew was for Saigon.
They had been forwarded here to the farm after Dad had passed away.
I got a lump in my throat. I missed Dad. He hadn’t been there much when I was growing up, always assigned to some important mission for the Army. But we’d had a great time when he was around. It was always a big event when he came home on leave.
The original postmark on these letters was Clarksville, Tennessee. The return address was a P.O. Box. Strange. I didn’t know anyone who would write to Dad from there. That was the town near Fort Campbell, the big army base. His unit had been based at Fort Campbell but they returned from Vietnam in 1972.
I finished sorting the papers and turned back to the unopened envelopes. There were four of them. One seemed to be from inside Vietnam to the APO number, the others all from Clarksville, Tennessee. I opened them in order, by date. The first one was from Clarksville:
“SGT Bob,
All is well stateside. Miss you every day. Say hello to the Wild Bunch.
Green light on Viet honeys. Advise soldiers, time and arrival.
Springtime in Tennessee.
Best,
Jerry”
That made no sense.
I opened the next one; it was from the girl in Huế
“Dear Bobby,
We are coming to Saigon! My aunt's cousin will take us in. So Anh and my brother Vuong are coming with me next month! I am so afraid but also excited. Why do we not hear from you? We will check with the embassy exactly as you told us.
Hope to see you soon.
All my love,
Linh”
The next letter, from Clarksville, was dated six weeks after Linh Dao’s.
“SGT Bob,
All is well stateside. Miss you every day. Say hello to The Good and the Bad.
No response from you. Assume problem in-country. Clients are ready.
Scarlet ribbons in her hair.
Best,
Jerry”
I had no idea who ‘Jerry’ might be, or what response he was looking for from Dad.
Next letter:
“SGT Bob,
All is well stateside. Miss you every day. Give our regards to Cool Hand.
Viet too complicated now. Operations cease. Back to Seoul honey plan. Holding your payment stateside for now. Contact when you can.
Say goodnight to Irene.
Best,
Jerry”
So whatever it was, they switched from ‘Viet honeys’ to ‘Seoul honeys’. Seoul was the capital city of South Korea.
I saved the letters and the envelopes, threw the leftovers back in the trash bag.
This was murky. I didn’t like murky when it had anything to do with my dad.
The day was a scorcher. Clouds slo
wly covered the sun.
“A hot and humid summer day here in Kentuckiana and all points south,” I intoned, trying out a radio announcer voice.
A red-tailed hawk and some buzzards flew in a slow spiral over the highway past the woods. Uncle Wallace came out and sat in one of the rockers. He had a glass of ice water and a fresh pouch of tobacco.
“How is it that Soo Jin even knows about tent revivals?”
“Russell there are lots of Christians in Korea. Missionaries worked hard over there. But she and Evelena have gotten to be friends. I think Evelena saw it in the paper and told Soo Jin about it.”
He looked at the letters and air mail envelopes I had placed on the porch, didn’t say anything.
