‘I’ve never seen you before.’
‘I just moved here.’
‘Hm. Make sure you come to church next time.’
Bugeye found himself automatically saying, ‘Yes sir,’ in a barely audible voice before turning to go, his face burning bright red. As soon as he was outside, Baldspot poked his face out from the crowd of children and said, ‘Almost didn’t get food, did ya?’
‘Ugh, that was embarrassing …’
Bugeye ran ahead, worried that one of the church people might try to stop him. Children who’d come out of the tents were already pulling the rubber bands from around the styrofoam containers and eating the half-moon-shaped songpyeon rice cakes. The rich scent of sesame oil filled the air. Bugeye and Baldspot were passing the front of the shop, their boxes of ramen tucked under their arms, when they saw a crowd of women rushing towards the church with their children in tow. News of the food must have spread. One of the women stopped Bugeye. Her eyes were fixed on the box of ramen clasped tightly to his side.
‘Did they run out?’
Baldspot spread his arms wide, and said with that giggle of his, ‘There’s still this much left.’
Bugeye was overcome with shame, not only at himself but at all of the women stampeding towards the church and everyone else he lived with on that island. What a fucking joke, he thought.
At the entrance to the shantytown, Baldspot set his box of ramen down on the ground, held up the styrofoam container, and said, ‘Hyung, can’t I have just one?’
In a gentle tone, without any browbeating, Bugeye said, ‘They’re ours, so let’s leave half at home and cook up the other half at HQ.’
‘Headquarters? Okay,’ Baldspot said with a nod, and picked the box back up. ‘If we leave the whole box at home, my dad’ll get drunk and eat all of it with his friends.’
When the two boys were nearing the shack, they could hear Baron Ashura’s drunken voice.
‘We did all our work, so we deserve to get paid now, too. That’s only fair.’
Bugeye saw Baldspot flinch, so he placed one finger to his lips and snuck over to the side door. The second shack that had been built onto the Baron’s had become the boys’ room. Bugeye hid his own ramen box beneath some folded-up blankets, and handed Baldspot his styrofoam container before motioning with his chin for Baldspot to go into the other shack. Baldspot led the way, with Bugeye right behind.
‘Boys, you’re right on time. I was just about to set the table …’
Bugeye’s mother looked happy to see them, but the Baron looked them over with suspicion.
‘What’s that you’ve got?’
‘They handed it out at school,’ Baldspot giggled.
‘The church gave you that?’
‘Oh, you know, it’s one of those things,’ Bugeye’s mother said, recalling her days since the orphanage, ‘where rich ladies come to have their picture taken.’
Baldspot opened his styrofoam container and, as if unable to stand it a second longer, shoved one of the songpyeon into his mouth.
‘Dinner first, little man!’ Baron Ashura said, rapping his knuckles against the boy’s head, but Bugeye’s mother stopped him.
‘It’s Chuseok. Let them enjoy their treats.’
She picked up one of the songpyeon and fed it to the Baron. Then, noticing the look on Bugeye’s face, she quickly picked up two more and gave one to Bugeye and ate the other. The four of them munched happily on the treats.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make these for you myself. We just don’t have the means. But we are getting paid today, aren’t we?’
‘It’s like I just told you,’ the Baron said. ‘We all talked it over and agreed that since the private sectors are holding their purchasing day early because of the long holiday, the district sectors should get to do the same, that it’s only fair, and we went to the management office about it. They said instead of working our usual shift this afternoon, we can sell off what we’ve collected.’
‘That’s great!’
Bugeye’s mother was thrilled, but Baldspot was still pouting from the rap to the head he’d taken, and Bugeye kept stuffing songpyeon into his face with little interest in the matter. By the time his mother had set the table with their meagre meal of dwenjang stew and kimchi, a loud, whirring sound suddenly approached, and the plastic over the windows shook. Baron Ashura, who had just picked up his spoon, looked up at the ceiling and cursed.
‘Why do those sons of bitches have to come around at dinnertime and make such a goddamn racket?’
Bugeye’s mother latched the door to keep it from blowing open, and checked that the plastic sheeting over the windows was secure.
‘Hurry up and eat,’ she said.
Bugeye and Baldspot knew what that sound meant. They were itching to finish their dinner and get outside so they could watch the action. Twice a month, the city sent helicopters to fumigate Flower Island. Likewise, twice a day, after the bulldozers finished covering the garbage with a layer of fill dirt, cultivators sprayed insecticide. If not for that, the shantytown would have been so thick with flies that no one could have done their work properly. Back in Bugeye’s old neighbourhood, the local administrative office used to send around a truck that sprayed for mosquitos. The mosquitos merely dodged the clouds of vapour and refused to die, but out here, the helicopters dumped a fog-like layer of insecticide, and the flies dropped like hail. The trash pickers had welcomed it at first, but later took to rushing away from the dumpsite and taking shelter inside their shacks without bothering to remove the dust or gas masks they wore while working.
As the helicopters churned overhead, the shantytown filled with a chemical stench. The boys, who’d been carefully gauging the right moment to make their escape, wolfed down the rest of their stew and rushed off to get a closer look at the helicopters. The Baron yelled for them to stay indoors, but they pretended not to hear him. The helicopters must have already passed by overhead, because the roofs and roads had turned a shiny black from dead flies. The only ones outside, of course, were the children of Flower Island. Excited, they all ran to the clearing from where the dumpsite was visible. The helicopter was hovering seven or eight storeys above the ground and spewing out insecticide left and right. It was low enough for the children to be able to make out the faces of the pilot and the city employee next to him. The employee, who wore a gas mask and a hard hat, waved both arms at the children to try to shoo them away, but the kids just waved back and shouted. He even tried throwing cans down at the kids to keep them from coming any closer.
‘Hey, you little idiots! You wanna get sprayed, too?’
*
At nightfall, open clearings in every section of the shantytown lit up with bonfires. On top of stoves fashioned from oil drums sawn in half, meat was grilled, and stew fixings were mobilised from land, sea, and air. Now that the three-day Chuseok holiday was on the wane, the peak season for discarded items would be upon them soon, and the people of the shantytown would be able to gorge themselves for the first time in a long time on all sorts of holiday food waste. For the past two or three days, there had already been a growing amount of discarded food past its expiration date, no doubt from people cleaning out their refrigerators. City folk were always throwing out perfectly good food that they’d either been unable to finish and had let go untouched or had bought too much of and grew sick of eating. Once-frozen rice wrapped in plastic, now slimy and defrosted. Plastic bags, chockfull of shucked oysters. Whole fish, dried out and leathery. Hunks of meat, still frozen. Yellowed heads of cabbage that were still fresh once you peeled off the wilted outer leaves. Bucket upon bucket of fish heads and tails and guts thrown out of the fish market at dawn, and perfectly edible parts of the fish left over after the day’s sale. At this time of year, every night was a feast for the people of Flower Island.
On holidays, when memorial ceremonies for family ancestors were held
, those who rented rooms down in the village and commuted across the stream to the landfill would go into town and purchase simple food offerings, and even those whose families lived in the shantytown couldn’t bear to set their ancestors’ tables with food picked out of the trash, and would instead purchase songpyeon and even a small packet of meat from the shop near the dumpsite to make soup for the ceremony. The shopkeepers made a point of stocking songpyeon from the nearby town every year at Chuseok, just for that purpose.
As for Baron Ashura, he kicked off the holiday the same way he spent every other day—getting drunk in the clearing with the same guys he always got drunk with. He didn’t return until the middle of the night, when the revelry had begun to settle down. Bugeye was awoken by the sound of someone pissing outside close by. Goddammit, he thought, couldn’t they pee somewhere further away? He heard the Baron come through the door, belching nonstop as if he’d had far too much to drink.
Bugeye’s mother exclaimed sharply, ‘What kind of man are you?’
‘Look, bitch, stop acting like you’re my wife. What kinda man am I? I’m a trash picker, what’s it to you?’
‘Hand over the money. You think I don’t know that you’re blowing it all on alcohol and gambling?’
Bugeye heard Baldspot stir. He gave him a tap and whispered, ‘Hey, let’s go to HQ.’
Baldspot got dressed without saying a word, while Bugeye rolled up one of the blankets they shared. Baldspot folded up the other blanket and followed Bugeye outside. They left the shantytown with its rows of low roofs that barely concealed the sound of people coughing, babies crying, drunken fits, and fighting. The moon sat high in the sky, and the fields and river looked misty. The two boys made their way over the hill and down to the river’s edge. As they were crossing the ridge of the former peanut field, Baldspot suddenly dropped into a crouch. This time, Bugeye didn’t complain or pester him with questions, but simply followed suit.
In a low voice, Bugeye asked, ‘Where are they? Which direction?’
Baldspot pointed wordlessly to the right. Bugeye squinted at the silver grass waving along the western edge of the river. He saw something—first one blue light, then two, then three and four. They were moving slowly. The next moment, the lights were moving quickly, then stopping, then moving again, making their way down the river away from the boys. And then, all at once, they disappeared. Baldspot swallowed hard and stood up.
‘Hyung, did you see that?’
‘Yup,’ Bugeye said, and swallowed as well. Now he knew that Baldspot hadn’t made it up. The lights were far too big to be fireflies, and they made no sound as they moved. Their gentle bobbing reminded him of dancing.
Bugeye remembered how Scrawny’s mama had referred to the blue lights as the Mr. Kims, and he asked, ‘Those are dokkaebi?’
‘Told you so.’
Baldspot looked bewitched as he stared at the silver grass where the lights had vanished. Bugeye grabbed Baldspot.
‘Let’s follow them.’
‘They say it’s bad to startle them.’
Baldspot shook off Bugeye’s hands and headed down to the hideout. Bugeye had no choice but to follow him, but he kept glancing back now and then.
As promised, Mole had scrounged up some scrap lumber, cardboard, and vinyl, and Bugeye had built a roof for the hideout in just half a day with Baldspot’s help. Baldspot groped around on the table for the lighter and lit a candle. The candlelight made the hideout feel cozier than the shack. And they didn’t have to put up with the night-long din of grown-ups cackling and fighting and singing, which sounded less like music and more like pigs being slaughtered. Even the sound of cars driving along the riverside expressway in the distance was just a soothing refrain. But best of all, the stench was gone, so their noses finally got some relief. The boys spread out their blankets and lay down. The space was even bigger than Baron Ashura’s room; their entire gang could have slept there comfortably.
‘This is nice,’ Bugeye murmured.
‘Hyung, can’t we just live here, you and me?’
‘We’re only kids. They would never leave us be.’
Bugeye knew what he was talking about, because back in his old neighbourhood as well, whenever a parent suddenly died or took off, grown-ups would come from the local government office or the police station and take the kids away. After his father went missing, Bugeye’s mother would swear to him as they lay in bed at night, No son of mine is getting sent to some orphanage. Bugeye couldn’t have cared less what others thought about him or where he lived or any of that nonsense, and yet, why had he felt so ashamed each time he bumped into that girl in the middle-school uniform?
‘Should we blow out the candle?’ Baldspot asked.
Bugeye turned his head to extinguish the candle on the desk. The hideout went pitch-black, but after a moment the plastic-covered windows began to brighten, and the moonlight seeped in. Just as they were teetering on the brink of sleep, someone coughed outside. Instantly awake and alert, Bugeye sat up in bed and strained his ears toward the sound. There it was. Another cough.
‘Who’s out there?’ Bugeye shouted, waking Baldspot.
More curious than afraid, Bugeye opened the door and went outside. Baldspot followed and stood in front of the door. Bugeye walked all around the hideout, but all he saw was moonlight. He turned to head back inside when Baldspot pointed.
‘Someone’s coming.’
When Bugeye turned to look, there was a shadowy figure making its way towards them from the river’s edge. Baldspot rushed over to Bugeye’s side. It was a child. The child stopped some distance away and looked at them. Baldspot stepped out in front of Bugeye and addressed the child.
‘You’re one of the Mr. Kims, aren’t you? It’s okay. It’s just us.’
The child came a little closer. Bugeye could make out the child’s features now. It was a boy, about their age, with the same shaggy hair, stained shirt, and discarded blue jeans hacked off at the knee as all the other boys on the island.
The child came closer still and said, ‘I know you two. Grandpa told me to come find you.’
Bugeye realised then that the coughing sound he’d heard had been the child’s grandfather poking around outside the hideout.
‘What do you need us for?’
‘Our family’s sick. He says we’ll get better if we eat something.’
‘What do you eat?’ Baldspot asked. ‘We’ll find whatever you need. We can find anything in the trash.’
The child hesitated and said, ‘Memilmuk.’
Bugeye and Baldspot stared at each other a moment. Neither of them were expecting the answer to be buckwheat jelly.
‘We’ll find it,’ Bugeye finally said with a nod. The child bowed to them.
‘Thank you.’
‘But why do you look just like us?’
The child laughed quietly.
‘Because we’ve been living alongside you all this time.’
‘The people here make a living going through the trash. What do you guys do?’ Baldspot asked.
‘We farm. But it’s much harder now.’
‘The fields out there all belong to the farmers in the village across the stream. Where do you have room to farm?’
The child laughed again. He raised his arms and spun around in a circle.
‘All of this is ours. Though it’s harder with all that trash.’
Before leaving, the child added, ‘Grandpa said that after all the people leave, we’ll slowly put things back to how they were.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Bugeye said. ‘We’ll find you some buckwheat jelly.’
‘We’ll bring it to you,’ Baldspot added.
The child turned and headed down towards the river, his silhouette growing smaller and then disappearing. Baldspot and Bugeye realised that their hearts were racing and their legs were shaking, as if all of their streng
th had fled them.
‘We just saw a ghost, right?’ Bugeye muttered.
‘Well,’ Baldspot answered, ‘he did say they’ve been living alongside us all this time.’
Those words had left an impression on Bugeye, too, but he was more surprised than frightened. And he couldn’t help feeling a little sorrier for the child than he did for himself and Baldspot. The two boys returned to the hideout and lay down again. The moon was already tilting way over to the west.
*
When they awoke in the morning, a wet fog had crept up from the river to the base of the island, making the sky look very overcast. It was so chilly and damp that Bugeye and Baldspot slept curled up tight like two little larvae. The cold was probably what woke them. Bugeye pushed Baldspot, who was spooned right up against him, with his bum and said, ‘Time to go home.’
‘I don’t wanna go home.’
‘We need to get the ramen. We forgot all about it.’
‘Oh! The ramen!’
Baldspot grabbed his baseball cap, put it on, and sprang up to go. The two boys walked over the hill through the thick fog and into the shantytown. Baldspot, who was walking in front, asked worriedly, ‘Hyung, how are we ever going to find buckwheat jelly?’
‘I’m worried about that, too,’ Bugeye said. ‘All they have at the shop is tofu and bean sprouts, and that sort of thing.’
‘Can we ask Mum?’
Bugeye’s fist went up towards Baldspot’s head, but he stopped himself in time.
‘We can never tell her. And we can’t tell Mole or any of the other guys either.’
‘But Scrawny’s mama knows.’
Familiar Things Page 7
