Familiar Things

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  ‘She’s a sick old granny. We have to encourage her to eat.’

  While the dogs ate, the only sound was of chewing and bowls rattling. Just then, more barking was heard out in the yard. The woman looked out the window.

  ‘Time to feed the rest.’

  Bugeye peeked outside. There were more dogs in the greenhouse.

  The woman looked at Baldspot and said, ‘I saw the dokkaebi lights last night, the whole Mr. Kim family, way off in the distance.’

  ‘I saw them, too, a few days ago, down by the bend in the stream. Mr. Kim didn’t talk to me.’

  ‘Still, if they showed themselves to you, that must mean they like you.’

  The dogs emptied their bowls and walked around, peeking into each other’s bowls, and either sprawling out flat or growling at each other. They weren’t as playful as regular dogs. Some dragged their hind legs behind them; others hopped around on three legs. When another dog came over to her bowl and lapped up the rest of her food, Scrawny cowered and crawled onto Baldspot’s lap again. The tiny dog let out a long sigh, sounding very much like a little old lady, and gazed up at Bugeye through watery eyes.

  ‘Where did all of these dogs come from?’ Bugeye asked, addressing the woman for the first time since he’d gotten there.

  Instead of answering, Baldspot and the woman looked at each other and smiled. Bugeye was well aware that no one would have actually paid money for these filthy, mangy creatures.

  ‘Peddler Grandpa collects everything,’ Baldspot giggled.

  ‘These dogs were thrown out by people,’ the woman explained. ‘Like everything else here.’

  She told him that they’d started with just one or two dogs that had either gotten lost or were abandoned, but as more and more older neighbourhoods in the city were torn down and replaced with new apartment buildings, the number of abandoned dogs had increased as well, and so here she was. Baldspot headed out to the yard to feed the rest of the dogs, with Bugeye following right behind him. The woman lifted the lid on a large cooking pot, fashioned from a discarded oil drum, sitting on top of a brazier. She peeked inside.

  ‘Lots of vittles today!’ she exclaimed.

  The woman’s father, Peddler Grandpa, collected leftover food every few days from restaurants in the city. The woman used scraps of paper and cardboard to stoke the fire beneath the cooking pot. At the sound of people shuffling around in the yard, the dogs got worked up all over again and began to bark louder. When Baldspot opened the door to the greenhouse, they barked and whined and whipped their tails back and forth as they crowded around him. Even Bugeye had three or four dogs jump at him and rest their paws on him or leap high to lick at his hands. The thirty or so dogs in the greenhouse were as varied in size and appearance as the ailing, elderly dogs inside the house, and there were quite a few big dogs among them as well. The woman added dog food to the leftovers boiling in the pot, then ladled it into plastic bowls, while Baldspot and Bugeye ferried the bowls into the greenhouse and set them down in one long row. Afterward, they went back inside and ate sujebi soup that the woman had prepared for their own lunch.

  Baldspot and Bugeye spent the rest of the day playing and hanging out near Scrawny’s house. The junk that Peddler Grandpa brought home was sorted into neat piles outside. Refrigerators and washing machines kept to their own circles, while televisions and computers were stacked on top of each other like brick buildings. Glass shards and sheet-metal were spread out in the work yard where electronics were disassembled. Glass bottles that had once held beer, soju, cola, or other beverages sat in a crate; cardboard boxes that had been taken apart were tied together in bundles; tiny plastic items were gathered inside buckets and baskets; and large items of similar size were roped together.

  Peddler Grandpa arrived late in the afternoon behind the wheel of his one-ton truck. More junk, strapped down with bungee cords, filled the back of the truck, towering well overhead. Peddler Grandpa was a short, balding man in his sixties with a white beard. Like the other junkyard owners and private truck drivers, he purchased discarded items and resold them to recycling plants, and collected electronics from different parts of the city and took them apart himself to sell the components. The work of dismantling electronics took place once every few days with the help of the occasional women or elderly men who lived nearby and found themselves with a little free time in the afternoon.

  That day, Bugeye came to have a newfound respect for Baldspot. In the shantytown where they lived, children were useless, worth less than scrap metal. To make matters worse, no one wanted to deal with a kid like Baldspot, who was slow and stammered when he spoke. For the grown-ups, who had to work nonstop from dawn to dusk, children were nothing more than an obstacle that slowed them down. Bugeye suspected that Baldspot merely pretended to be simpleminded but was actually clever and given to deep thoughts. The hideout had only impressed him a little—every neighbourhood had a place like that where kids could play, after all—but the sights he saw at Scrawny’s house were enough to knock him down a peg.

  The greenhouse and Peddler Grandpa’s junkyard were not the only surprises to be found behind Scrawny’s house. From the back of the house all the way out to the western-most corner of triangular Flower Island stood a forest of trees and plants, both big and small: from willows, elms, and mulberries, to bush clover and wild roses. Along the river’s edge, silver grass, cattails, and reeds rose up over Bugeye’s head. When Baldspot suggested going down later to the bend in the stream on the other side of the forest, Bugeye felt bothered by the way the little guy lowered his voice and shifted his eyes around. It made him uneasy to have spent the whole afternoon loafing around at a stranger’s house.

  ‘Let’s go home. They’re probably looking for us.’

  ‘We’ll be fine until sunset,’ Baldspot said. ‘Unless you really want to leave now.’

  Baldspot went in to say goodbye, giving Bugeye no choice but to follow him. But when they stepped inside, they heard quiet music start to play somewhere in the house. The woman’s shoulders began to rise and fall, her arms crisscrossed her chest, and her whole body shook. As Baldspot hurriedly searched around, the woman turned her head and gestured with her chin.

  ‘It’s in there,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  Bugeye recognised the melody. Hey, you silly sleepyhead, sun is up, why are you still in bed, time to get up, ding dong dang, ding dong dang! The woman’s legs went stiff, and she fell flat on her back. Her arms stretched out to the sides, her legs twisted and flailed. Her eyes rolled back until only the whites were showing, and her mouth foamed like a crab’s. Baldspot ran into the room and turned off the alarm clock, but the woman was still writhing on the floor, her limbs stiff. Bugeye was so frightened that he ran for the door and grabbed his shoes, ready to make his escape.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ he yelled.

  Baldspot calmly folded a thin floor cushion in half, placed it under the woman’s head, and kept watch over her.

  ‘It’s time,’ he said with his characteristic giggle.

  Not only was Baldspot not surprised by any of it, he just sat there, completely unperturbed and smiling away at Bugeye as though he was used to this sort of thing. After a while, the woman sat back up, dishevelled, and stared as if she were seeing the two of them for the first time.

  ‘You’re early today,’ Baldspot said.

  Bugeye had no idea what was going on, and kept looking back and forth between the two of them. The woman finally seemed to recognise Baldspot, and turned her gaze instead to Bugeye.

  ‘You’re the dogs’ uncle,’ she said to Baldspot, ‘but who’s that kid?’

  ‘My hyung. He fell off a garbage truck. Who am I talking to?’

  ‘Granny Willow, from down by the water.’

  ‘Aren’t you kind of young to be a granny?’

  ‘I used to be a young bride, but now I’m old so I’m a granny.’<
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  ‘Why have you come to visit us?’

  ‘I’m this woman’s guardian spirit. She worries too much, and asked for my help.’

  Baldspot spoke nonchalantly with the woman, whose voice and facial expressions had changed completely. The woman pulled up the hood of her hiking shirt and headed out the door. Baldspot and Bugeye followed. Peddler Grandpa, who had been outside in the yard sorting through the items he’d collected, seemed to understand at once what was happening, because he pulled off his cotton gloves and headed over. He reached out his hand to stroke his daughter’s cheek and pry back her eyelids.

  ‘You were fine for so long, but now you’re out of your mind again?’

  The woman made no move to brush his hand away, and only said in a docile-sounding voice, ‘I’ll cook dinner after I’m back from the village.’

  ‘Stay home. Play with the kids and the dogs.’

  She pretended not to hear him, and strode off into the trees with her arms swinging. As Baldspot and Bugeye moved to follow her, Peddler Grandpa warned them, ‘Don’t let her go far. Bring her home before it gets dark.’

  They made their way through the thickening underbrush until they reached a spot where the silver grass grew up over their heads. Bugeye stopped. The woman forged ahead, parting the grass with her hands. Baldspot stayed right on her heels.

  ‘Where’s she going?’ Bugeye called out.

  Baldspot looked back at him and said, ‘The bend in the stream. Not just anyone can go there.’

  Bugeye didn’t want to go further, but he followed them anyway, using both hands to push through the tall grass that scratched his face and whipped him in the eyes. The trees began to get taller, and patches of sand appeared in their shade. In a circle of trees stood a small shrine, half-collapsed. The door was missing and the roof tiles had fallen off, exposing the mixture of clay and sorghum straw underneath. An old tree standing next to the shrine was wider around than arms could reach, but it didn’t look all that tall. Fresh, green leaves still sprouted from the long, slender branches that grew out in all directions from the trunk, which was pocked with holes from where the wood had rotted. Later, Peddler Grandpa would explain to Bugeye that the shrine was the original guardian shrine for Flower Island, and the old willow that had grown there for hundreds of years was its sacred tree. Long ago, the residents of the island had held shamanic rituals there, but as their village was gone now, the shrine had naturally fallen into disrepair. What Bugeye learned right away was that, aside from the hideout, the bend in the stream was the most wonderful place to be at sundown. The top of the hillock at the western-most edge of the island offered up the best view of river and sky lit with the glow of the setting sun. The woman rubbed her hands together in prayer as she circled the shrine, picking up scraps of old wooden boards as she went, and trying to fit them back together neatly.

  ‘Aigo, families should stay together. Not scatter themselves about so.’

  The woman, or Scrawny’s mama, as Bugeye would come to know her, kept muttering under her breath and wandering in circles. She picked up a tree branch that had fallen next to a rock, caressed it gently over and over, and then tossed it back into the grass.

  ‘Man of the house has got to have some backbone,’ she mumbled, ‘if the rest of the family is to have any strength.’

  Baldspot followed right behind her, smiling and giggling, while Bugeye kept his distance. He carefully examined the wooden ledge that ran around the sides of the collapsed shrine; the vines that crawled over the rocks, stone steps, and scattered roof tiles; the spiderwort and plantain and wormwood and even goosefoot that grew thick and verdant in the sandy earth.

  Suddenly the woman turned her back on the setting sun and became a black shadow that asked Baldspot, ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘Granny Willow, of course!’ he answered with his usual giggle.

  Undaunted, Bugeye warned Baldspot, ‘We were told to get her home before dark.’

  Bugeye thought it plainly obvious that Scrawny’s mama was a crazy woman half out of her mind, but he didn’t dare say it out loud. Bugeye and Baldspot each took her by a hand and walked her home. When they made it back to the junkyard, the woman’s father was waiting out front. He put his arm around her shoulders and led her inside. The dogs leaped and barked with joy. The sun was setting, and the sky was growing dark.

  ‘Looks like we’ll have to call in a shaman and hold a ceremony for her,’ Peddler Grandpa muttered.

  ‘She’s not sick,’ Baldspot said.

  ‘I’m worried she’ll take off and wander around again like she did last time. I have to work. I can’t stay here all day with her. The two of you should come by as often as you can.’

  At some point, the woman seemed to return to her senses. She slowly got up and began preparing dinner, while the boys headed out into the lowering dusk. Bugeye realised that he was now Baldspot’s closest friend. Though there would be others who knew about the hideout, he was the only one who knew about Scrawny’s house.

  The two of them crossed the fallow fields and the ploughed furrows of the farmers who lived in the village across the stream, which had not yet been taken over by landfill, as they made their way east toward the shantytown.

  ‘You can’t tell anyone we came here,’ Baldspot said in a voice heavy with maturity.

  ‘I won’t tell a soul,’ Bugeye said obediently, without a trace of scorn. ‘I’ll keep it secret.’

  A great many things were still confusing to Bugeye, but since he could not be blunt with Baldspot, he tried to ask indirectly about some of them.

  ‘Those creatures that you said looked like blue lights before, were those dokkaebi?’

  ‘Shh!’ Baldspot glanced around at the darkening field and lowered his voice. ‘They might be nearby.’

  ‘Was Scrawny’s mama possessed by the spirit of a willow tree just now?’

  ‘Duh.’

  Bugeye couldn’t bring himself to say what he wanted to say, which was, You’re all nuts. But if nothing else, this day had been the most fun he’d had since moving to Flower Island. The secret he had come to share with Baldspot made him feel reassured somehow. His stupid mother could sponge off the Baron all she wanted, now he had a new world of his own to enjoy.

  They were just passing the dug-up peanut patch when someone suddenly popped out of the darkness.

  ‘Oy, Baldspot!’

  Startled, Baldspot tried to run away, but two more boys came after him and wrestled him to the ground. Bugeye stood facing the biggest of the three kids, who blocked his path, and debated in his mind whether or not to intervene. Though the kid was big, he was only a bit bigger than the other two, and looked like he was about a head shorter than Bugeye.

  ‘You the new guy?’

  Bugeye figured this must be Mole. He’d already heard all about him from Baldspot, and knew that he could not be the first to back down.

  ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Bugeye.’

  The two boys on the ground giggled at his nickname, but Mole frowned and said, ‘How old’re you?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  Bugeye added two years to his age, just as he used to do back in his old neighbourhood whenever he was confronted by older kids. Still pinned to the ground, Baldspot yelled,

  ‘He works for my dad!’

  Mole visibly relaxed.

  ‘Whatever. I was here first, which makes me your hyung. I hear you two’ve been hanging out at headquarters without my permission.’

  Bugeye understood now why the boys had jumped him and Baldspot as soon as they saw them. One of the boys must have spotted the two of them either going to or coming back from the hideout. Bugeye figured there was no reason for him to make an enemy of Mole, so he smiled.

  ‘Baldspot was telling me about you,’ he said. ‘We went to see if you were there.’

  ‘What for?’

  �
��So we could be friends, what else?’

  Bugeye held his hand out the way adults did when they wanted to shake hands. Mole turned his head and scoffed.

  ‘Look at this guy, trying to get on my good side,’ Mole said, but he took Bugeye’s hand lightly and just as quickly let go.

  As soon as they’d shaken hands, the mood changed completely. Mole led the way up the hill to the hideout, and everyone else followed behind. When they got to the hideout, they raised the awning, and Mole lit a couple of candles. He set the plastic bags on top of the table and squatted down.

  ‘Hey, the ground is all dewy. My bum’s wet. We better build a roof.’

  Bugeye surmised that Mole had been planning to make dinner out there with the others. Mole pulled ingredients out of the bags. The boys all got to work without having to be told what to do, toting the food and cans down to the river’s edge, while Baldspot prepared some kindling by tearing up a cardboard box and placing the pieces inside a stove that had been fashioned from part of an oil can. Mole looked over at where Bugeye was sitting off to one side by himself.

  ‘You said your name is Bugeye? Think you could build us a roof for next time?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, a roof’d be good. If you help me, I could build one by tomorrow or the next day.’

  ‘I work in one of the private sectors, man. I’m busy. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll pull together some lumber or whatever else you need so you and Baldspot can make us something nice.’

  The boys finished prepping the ingredients and came back from the river. They’d filled empty cans with water, and cleaned and gutted two fish that had come out of the trash from the fish market. Bugeye had seen a lot of this sort of thing since arriving on the island: even food that was on the verge of spoiling or was well past its expiration date tasted delicious once it had been boiled with some hot pepper paste or fermented soybean paste. Then, if you threw in some instant ramen noodles or a hunk of cold rice, it was worth fighting over. Hidden under the low table in the hideout were pots and empty cans, and even spoons and disposable chopsticks. Baldspot lay on his stomach in front of the small, soot-blackened stove, and added strips of corrugated cardboard to get the fire started. All at once, the air filled with the smell of burning plastic. Mole smacked Baldspot on the back of the head.