I'm Ok

by Patti Kim

  We get off at our stop. I walk slowly so Mickey can follow. She follows me from a distance, playing it calm and cool. She looks like a spy. I cross the parking lot, pass the Dumpster, turn the corner of an apartment building backing up to the woods. As I wait against the brick wall, I peel off the tape around my fingers. It feels good to move them freely again.

  Birds chirp. The yellow leaves of a maple tree glow in the sunlight. A breeze blows. Branches shake, and I think how it’s nice that leaves fall while at their prettiest.

  There are cigarette butts on the ground. I squat, collect them into a pile, crush them with my fingers, and peel one open, uncovering the cottony filter and the leftover bits of ash and tobacco; this is something I used to do with the cigarette butts my father left in his ashtray. I smell my fingers and suddenly miss him. I suddenly feel like talking to him. Appa, my grades are excellent. My teachers all like me. I’m very popular in school now, especially among the girls, but I don’t let the attention distract me from my studies and our plan for success in the USA. I grew an inch. I’m eating a lot of meat like you told me for the protein. I’m drinking a lot of milk like you told me for the calcium. I’m reading a lot too. I’m currently reading a book about the solar system and all the different planets. Did you know that the solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago? Can you imagine that length of time? It’s like eternity. Appa, is that where you are? Somewhere in eternity? Can you see from there? Can you hear from there? Can you feel proud of me from there?

  Mickey’s shoes appear before me. Startled, I quickly stand up, brushing ashes off my hands. Her sneakers look worse than mine. The rubber soles flap like loose tongues. We have the same holes on the tips, where our big toes bust out, except hers aren’t covered in duct tape. She wears socks with pom-poms on the backs of the ankles. Mickey’s pom-poms don’t match. One is green; the other is yellow. And they don’t look round and puffy the way pom-poms are supposed to look. They look mangled and chewed up like spitballs.

  She hands me a comb. It’s one of those small black combs the school gives out for free on picture day. It looks cruddy, and some teeth are missing. Mickey sits down. I stand over her pile of hair and go to work.

  “Don’t you brush your hair? How come it’s so tangled?” I ask.

  “ ’Cause I tease it,” she says like I’m stupid.

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause it needs body.”

  I’m not as gentle as I can be. I yank and pull, trying to run the comb through the knots. A lot of hair falls out. Mickey sheds.

  “Owww,” she says, and elbows my shin.

  “Owww,” I say, and knee her in the back.

  She slaps my foot. I step on her other hand.

  “You best watch yourself. My fingers are gonna get all broke up, just like yours,” she says, and laughs.

  “Hold still,” I say.

  Mickey sits still like a statue. She’s unusually silent, and I wonder if she fell asleep, but she blurts out, “For your information, I know what a Medusa is. I looked it up. That was mean. I want you to take it back,” she says.

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Well, then I forgive you,” she says.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “And I take back ‘ching-chong,’ ” she says.

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Well, I’m glad we’re all in the clear about that. You from China?”

  “No.”

  “Then where you from?”

  “You do realize there are almost fifty different countries in Asia?”

  “So?”

  “So, why does everyone think Chinese?”

  “ ’Cause there are, like, a billion Chinese people. Higher chance of you being Chinese than, like, Mongolian. Do the math. So where you from?”

  “Mars.”

  “So you’re, like, a Martian?”

  “I guess so.”

  “That explains a lot,” she says, chuckling.

  “I was born in Korea,” I say.

  “Where that at?”

  “Next to China,” I say.

  “Everything’s next to China,” she says.

  “Everything’s made in China.”

  “I ain’t.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Born and bred right here. I never lived outside Riverdale, Maryland, and I wouldn’t have it no other way. Now, make it extra pretty,” she says.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “ ’Cause my daddy’s visiting.”

  “Why does he have to visit? Doesn’t he live with you?”

  “My daddy’s never lived with us. Ever. He can’t stick around for more than two days,” she says.

  “Why not?”

  “ ’Cause he drives a tractor trailer. He drives all over the country. That’s his job. There ain’t a state in the USA he ain’t been to. He said the road own him. His wife and kids don’t own him. That’s for sure. I got a strong hunch he loves the road better than us,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause him and my mom fight.”

  I get the knots out of Mickey’s hair. It’s easier than I thought. Her hair is oily, so the tangles come out easily. It feels smooth and soft. My fingers feel greasy, like they’re covered in lotion. I comb gently.

  “They fight like cats and dogs,” she says, picking up a cigarette butt and squeezing out its insides. “I don’t know why people say that, ’cause we got three cats and a dog, and they never fight.”

  “What kind of braid do you want?”

  “Make it go around my head like a crown. You did it on that girl Crystal, and it looked so pretty. I couldn’t stop staring at it. She looked just like a princess. I want it just like that. I want to look like a princess,” she says.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Don’t your parents fight?”

  “No.”

  “Lucky duck.”

  “I guess.”

  “ ’Cause it’s real ugly. I wouldn’t wish that kind of hell on any child, not even the likes of Asa Banks. I hate that boy,” she says, and squeezes the insides out of another cigarette butt.

  “Yeah. Asa’s a jerk,” I say.

  “I hate him. You know what he call me? He give me so many nicknames I can’t even keep track. Old McD. White Trish-Trash. Mick the Hick. Mickey Gives Hickeys. You know what he said today? He was going around telling this one joke about me that went something like, ‘Mickey McDonald look like Miss Piggy and a troll doll had a baby.’ Only time he ever called me by my proper name. That one hurt. Makes you wonder, don’t it? I mean, he takes all this time and effort to think up all these jokes and nicknames about me, for what? I don’t know. Just makes you wonder, like, is he in love with me or something? ’Cause I seem to be on his mind a whole lot. I’m going to break his heart one of these days. I can’t stand how he smiles. He smiles so evil. I swear he got Satan on his side,” she says.

  “Those troll dolls are cute, and Miss Piggy isn’t bad. She’s the best-looking Muppet,” I say, and push her head down. I turn it sideways so I can take a small portion of hair from behind her ear. I divide it into three parts and start to braid.

  “You trying to be my Kermit?” she says.

  “Right,” I say sarcastically.

  “You can dream.”

  “You really bring out the amphibian in me.”

  Mickey laughs, taps my foot, and says, “Wait. Wait. I have a joke. What does a fat girl eat for dessert at Chinese restaurants?”

  “What?”

  “Four chin cookies.”

  “You managed to offend both of us in one joke,” I say.

  “So, you think I’m fat?”

  “And you think I’m Chinese?”

  “No, you’re not Chinese.”

  “No, you’re not fat.”

  “Shut up. Stop lying. I know I’m fat, and it don’t bother me none. What bothers me is people’s ignorance. Like no one’s got a clue that way back when, being plump was the way to go. Plump meant healthy and
attractive, and if you were bone skinny, no one wanted to marry you. That’s why all those paintings from the Renaissance are full of plump women. It meant you got food, and you had money. And if you were skinny, it meant you were sick and poor,” she says.

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s all relative. Take, for instance, tanning. Everyone here wants to get suntanned, but in Korea if you have a tan, people consider you a low-class rice paddy worker,” I say.

  “Well, I love laying out in the sun and getting me a golden tan,” she says, running her fingers through clovers. Her nails are bitten down to stubs.

  Mickey’s neck is what Crayola calls Apricot. Her ear is covered in tiny hairs that make me think of newborn piglets.

  “Look! It’s a four-leaf clover!” she says, leaning forward to pick it.

  “Hold still. You’re messing me up.”

  “Today’s my lucky day. Looks like you’re not the only lucky duck around here. Hey, you doing the talent show? ’Cause I’m going to need you to do my hair for the show,” she says.

  “I don’t have a talent,” I say.

  “Well, I’m going to be in it, and I’m going to knock their stupid socks off and show them all who’s boss. I got stuff to prove, so I need you to do my hair. Hey, you should dress up like a Martian and braid everyone’s hair.”

  “I’d have to braid with my toes to win,” I say.

  Mickey slaps her knee and laughs. I like her laugh. It’s nothing like the fake, high-pitched laugh my mother delivers when Deacon Koh is trying to be funny. Or the laugh of ridicule that I hear at school. Mickey’s laugh is real and sounds like it comes from someplace warm in her heart.

  “So, aren’t you going to ask me?” she says.

  “Ask you what?”

  “What my talent is?”

  “Okay. What’s your talent?”

  “For me to know and you to find out,” she says.

  “Okay,” I say, braiding past her neck. I’m almost up to her other ear. Her greasy hair is easy to work with. The oil acts like glue and holds the links together nice and tight. The rope pattern takes shape around her head. It looks like a crown. It looks a whole lot better than the tangled mess she had before. I wonder about what she said. What is it that she knows? What is it that I need to find out?

  I finish. Mickey hands me a rubber band and bobby pins to tie and tuck in the tail end of the braid. She touches it, trying to get a feel for how her hair looks.

  “How do I look?” she asks.

  “Fine, but stop touching it. You’re going to mess it up,” I say.

  “I am so excited I am going to piss in my pants. I need a mirror,” she says, jumping up and down and moving her arms like a T. rex.

  “If anyone asks, I charged five dollars,” I say.

  While she runs to the parking lot, I pick up my backpack and head home. I look over my shoulder and see Mickey admiring herself in the side-view mirror of a parked van. My hands feel oily. I check to see that no one is around and sniff my fingertips. They smell like puppies. I cross the field, kicking up leaves along the way. I look back to see if Mickey is still at the van. She walks across the parking lot toward the swimming pool. She walks with a bounce in her step, like someone who has something to look forward to. I pass the creek, wishing my father were driving in some tractor trailer on his way home to visit me.

  sixteen

  When I get home from braiding Mickey’s hair, I find my mother on the kitchen floor, pounding cloves of garlic with a wooden mortar and pestle. She is surrounded by heads of cabbage, bags of dried red peppers, gingerroots that look like gnarled hands, a cutting board, a gleaming knife, onions, and a box of Morton salt advertising that when it rains, it pours.

  My mother crushes the garlic, pounding it with a force that makes the ingredients tremble in fear. Without looking up at me, she says, “Where have you been? What have you been doing? Why are you home so late? Don’t you care about your mother?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and put down my backpack.

  As she continues to pound, she orders me to take care of the sewing. She says, “Get that stack of sleeves. Not that one. The one on the chair. Put it over there. Not there. Over there. Pack this other stack in that box. Not that box. The one next to the door. What’s wrong with you? Can’t you hear? Move. Move. Why are you so slow? Why are you moving like an old man?”

  Her pounding and the garlic odor make me feel sick and hungry and hard of hearing. As I move a tower of sleeves to the couch, my mother yells, “Don’t get that pile mixed up with the other one. Don’t let it fall over. Don’t leave it on the edge. Push it to the back.”

  I arrange everything the way she wants it. As she takes the knife and splits a head of cabbage in half, she says, “It’s too dark over there. Put that lamp next to the sewing machine. I don’t want you messing anything up. Sit down. Finish sewing those cuffs. Faster. Hurry. They’re coming to pick up tonight. They’re bringing money. After you finish that, I need you to go to the store. We have eleven kimchi orders. We have to make them tonight. Go to the store for me. Buy everything on that list next to the sewing machine. Don’t forget a single ingredient. Take the bus. Take the shopping cart. Take the money in my purse.”

  As I sit at the sewing machine and turn it on, she says, “If we can’t pay rent, we’re going to be homeless. Do you want to be homeless and live under a bridge?”

  “No,” I say, threading the needle.

  “If we can’t pay rent, we’ll end up in a stranger’s basement. Do you want to live in a stranger’s basement again?”

  “No,” I lie, and press the sewing pedal.

  When my family first moved to America, we lived in a stranger’s basement.

  I was three years old. I remember the crickets, chirping and hopping across the floor, antennae moving like a pair of wands. I chased them, trying to cup one in my hands. They were too fast. My parents would tell me to leave them alone because they brought good luck. So I don’t know why my mother threatens me: Do you want to live in a basement again? Because it wasn’t bad back then. The three of us together.

  I finish the sewing, pack the sleeves for pickup, go to the store, and bring back everything on my mother’s list.

  When I return, I find her asleep, sitting on the kitchen floor and resting against the refrigerator. The knee of her good leg is propped up, and the other in the cast sticks straight out, leaning against the basin of salted cabbage. Yellow rubber gloves cover her hands, the fingertips stained red. She wakes up, sees me, and slowly mutters, “Are you back already? That was fast. Come help me finish these orders.”

  I know how to make kimchi by heart. I’ve watched my mother. It’s easy. You cut the cabbage and salt it. Wait a couple of hours. I do my homework during this time because I can’t fall behind in school, otherwise I could end up making kimchi for a living for the rest of my life. Rinse the cabbage and drain it. Make the paste by mixing together garlic, ginger, onions, sugar, anchovy, red pepper paste, red pepper flakes, along with my mother’s secret ingredient, which I can’t divulge lest it ruin her kimchi business. Spread the paste all over the cabbage. Pack the cabbage in jars. Wait for it to ferment at room temperature. After a week the cabbage ripens, nice and sour. Refrigerate.

  My mother tears off an inner leaf of the cabbage, tops it with paste, and shoves it in my mouth. The leaf is crunchy. The paste tastes fresh and strong. She looks at me, hovering over the basin, waiting for my approval. She asks, “Isn’t it good?” I chew, giving her two thumbs-ups. She smiles.

  We fill all eleven jars. My mother lines them up along the wall, lays her hands on them, and tells me to do the same. She prays, thanking God for her abilities, for our kitchen, and for me. She says I’m a good son and a good helper. She asks God to bless the kimchi, bless anyone who eats it, make the person strong and good and faithful. In Jesus’s name. Amen.

  We share a big bowl of rice with kimchi. We eat together, sitting on the kitchen floor. It’s late at night. I’m tired. My
hands tingle from touching garlic, onions, and peppers. My homework isn’t finished. I have a science test tomorrow. But the rice is warm and soft in my mouth, and the kimchi is fresh, and my mother doesn’t look sad and tired and worried, and she’s not yelling at me or knuckling me on the head, and I can almost hear crickets chirping outside, making me feel like one lucky duck.

  seventeen

  Ms. Lincoln stands at the front of the classroom with a folder in hand. She says she wants some of us to read our essays entitled “I Am Grateful” before leaving for Thanksgiving break. The essays were written a week ago and displayed on the bulletin board. Out of curiosity, I read Asa’s. He wrote about being grateful for the four Fs: family, freedom, future, and food. It was an impressive essay. Parts of it made me laugh and think that maybe he wasn’t so rotten after all.

  “Asa?” Ms. Lincoln calls.

  His followers and some girls in the back cheer, saying, “Go, Asa!” He limp-struts to the front of the class, takes his essay from the teacher, clears his throat, looks down at his words, and begins to read. But what he’s saying is completely different from what I read posted on the bulletin board. He keeps his eyes down on the paper and moves them left to right, just like he’s reading. He takes pauses, pulls the paper close to his face, smiles, excuses himself for not being able to make out his own handwriting, and continues. Asa Banks makes up the whole thing as he goes along. He pretends to read, “I am grateful for the women in my life. My grandmother, my aunts, my mother, my sisters, and all the beautiful young ladies of our sixth-grade class.” The kids laugh. He goes on, “I am grateful the Pilgrims and Indians decided to put their differences aside and get along for this historic meal. It’s an important lesson. Let’s all get along for the sake of gobble-gobble.” The class applauds. Asa hushes everyone down: “Shhh. I ain’t done.” He continues, “I am grateful it’s almost Christmas, ’cause I was good this year. Can you say the same for yourself ? I sure hope you can, ’cause Santa Claus is coming to town. Don’t you frown. Don’t you be a clown. Don’t you be a hound. ’Cause Santa Claus is coming down to this here town.” Asa crumples up his paper into a ball and throws it across the room into the trash can. He makes the basket, and the class stands up and cheers as if he scored the winning point.