When I was 14, my parents bought a hamburger stand after my dad quit his company job. That was when my mom, who had always stayed home and made us after-school snacks, started working full-time for the first time in my life. They started leaving at 5:30 in the morning and returning after 10pm, six days a week. That left us three kids to run the household.
I don't remember how much housework we had done before my mom started working. I remember helping her with the laundry at times and assisting in the kitchen. And learning how to make a dish here or there. But I can't recall if we even had regular chores until then.
Once she started working, I remember the three of us sitting in front of the TV a lot and fighting over the remote control. While resenting that my brother always wanted to watch horror films, even as we sat next to him on the couch with our hands cupped over our eyes. And endlessly eating burritos and eggrolls stashed in the freezer in wholesale size boxes that my parents had brought home from the burger shop.
Those days are now a blur, but my memory then skips to a time when we started doing the groceries. And the laundry. And the dishes. And cooking dinner. And endlessly fighting over who should do what.
We fought daily. Over the same set of gripes day after next. It's your turn to do the dishes. I did them last night. It's your turn to do the laundry. Why am I always doing them? You have to make the dinner tonight. You said you would!
In my teenage world, having to do something out of turn was a grave injustice. I shouldn't always have to be the one to do the dishes. Why is it always up to me to figure out what to make for dinner? Why can't you fold your own laundry for once?
We had no sense of order. We were living in the realm of the Lord of the Flies, and I was sure it was my place to impose order. And justice.
I developed a habit of ranting freely. Whenever the situation seemed to call for it. The three of us fought with all that was within us. With the fervor and intensity of divorcing couples. There was no sense of boundary of what would be deemed proper behavior. Within our four walls, we screamed at each other and cried regularly. We nursed our headaches afterwards.
Looking back, it's now clear that we were fighting over more than just having to wash one more dirty dish or carry a bag of groceries from King Kullen two blocks down the street. It was a time of change and anxiety for our whole family. We had lost our sense of security that had come with my dad's company job, and we didn't know how to cope with the emotional stress of feeling like we had been spit out into the world to fend for ourselves.
Years later, my mom rued that she and my dad had not imposed a sense of order when they both started working. We were so busy, she said. We shouldn't have left the three of you alone like that.
With no adult to guide us, we never really developed the skills to manage ourselves or each other. And couldn't seem to find a way to cope, except with the passing of time and by drifting away from each other.
One year, when I was home from college, my aunt came to visit from Korea. She happened to come when our family was in the middle of moving from our rental apartment to the first home we had ever owned. She watched me and my sister organize all the furniture, tear down all the boxes, and sort through all that needed to be put away in cupboards and drawers. Later, she told my mom that I was ready to run my own household. That I would be quite the catch. That any bachelor would be lucky to have me in his home.
I remember feeling my face stinging from that comment. It was the same shame I felt when I went to stay with a friend at her aunt's house during one Thanksgiving during college, and as we were helping with the dinner, the aunt observed that I managed myself in the kitchen like someone who had a lot of experience.
Oh, I just helped my parents out here and there, I remember responding.
I felt that I had become overly domesticated. Domestic skills were nothing to be proud of. In my world, they were associated with resentment and bitterness. Something acquired despite myself. I didn't want them to be the dominant markers of my teenage years, even as I gloated when my parents thanked me for helping them.
When I first started living alone, I shunted domesticity to the side. I took my laundry to the laundry service. I had two pots and one frying pan, but took months to acquire cooking utensils. I loved eating out. I'm too busy to cook, I loved to say. Too many other important things going on.
Over the years, I've learned to become more balanced by cooking occasionally and doing my own laundry. And breaking out the vacuum and the mop on a regular basis.
Now that Jeff and I have our baby, though, domesticity once again threatens to dominate our lives. Our days are now filled with laundry, bottles washing, grocery shopping, and cooking. Sometimes I find myself reverting to my teenage self, a complaint on the tip of my tongue over having to wash an extra bottle or yet again doing the laundry. In a preemptive move, I prepared a chart -- with many a revisions -- specifying exactly who is responsible for what and presented it to Jeff after sending it to him on Google Docs.
Do you want to be in charge of clearing the Diaper Genie? I propose to Jeff. Then I'll be in charge of unloading the dish-washer.
He looks at me patiently and asks, Can't we just work together?
It takes me a few minutes to remember. Oh, right. We're grown up now.
I'm grateful to him for the reminder.
Showing posts with label Upbringing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Upbringing. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
All in a Name
The summer after I finished fifth grade, my family moved from Flushing, Queens to the suburbs of Houston. For the past three years, I had attended P.S. 20 just two blocks from our high-rise apartment building. We played in the asphalt-covered playground at P.S. 20 and sometimes hit tennis balls against the handball court wall. By this age, I had done enough research to know that this was not the childhood I was meant to have.
One or two Judy Blume books would have been enough to teach anyone about the proper American childhood. I had read them all. For starters, we were supposed to live in a house. Our own house. Not in some apartment building where the downstairs neighbor came charging up the minute you ran from the bedroom to the kitchen. And this house, our house, was supposed to be in the suburbs. And everyone was supposed to have a lawn. With sprinklers. And the house was supposed to come with at least one pet, preferably a quadruped.
When my parents announced that we were moving to Houston, I knew this was it. To set it all right. To start the childhood I was supposed to have. I pictured the houses with pools, the school buses, the sprinklers, the lawns, the whole schbang. I imagined myself riding my bicycle down the tree-lined blocks, waving at neighbors and friends across the street.
And there was one other thing. To go with my new life, I decided that I needed a new name. One that fit my new life, my new beginning. No one would butcher my new name trying to pronounce it. And no one in Houston would call me “Shin,” as my teachers always did. I remember coming home and crying to my mom that I’m not a shoe (a homonym for shin in Korean).
I thought about it incessantly. What name would go with my last name? Would it roll off the tongue easily? Would it present me as I was meant to be presented? As I walked around, I sounded out different names to myself. Catherine Oh? Connie Oh? Michelle Oh? I told myself that it didn’t matter that I already knew a Connie. We were moving and she would never find out that I stole her name.
After much deliberation, I decided to go with Christine. It had just enough syllables to balance out the exclamatory Oh. And while I knew a couple of Christina’s, I knew no Christine. I was relieved that I would not have to defend taking another’s name to my sister and brother.
When I announced it over dinner to my mom and dad, they were startled.
“Shinyung is a perfectly good name. Why would you change it? Don’t you like it?”
I still remember the hurt look on my mother’s face. But it didn’t prevent me from changing my name.
During my third year of college, I took a class called American Lives. In the class, we read biographies and autobiographies of famous Americans. While reading Harriet Wilson’s “Our Nig,” we discussed the significance of naming in American culture. What it meant, as Americans, to be able to name ourselves, to take ownership of our identities.
In the course of that class, I started thinking about my own name. Why I had, as a 12-year-old child, shed my Korean name and picked an American one out of the blue. Suddenly, I started feeling like a phony. Even though I had named myself, I felt like it had been for the wrong reasons, as if I had given up a part of myself. Instead of making others pronounce my name correctly, I had sought an escape.
I reverted to my Korean name then. As I had done to my parents almost eleven years earlier, I forced my friends to adjust to what was to them my new name.
Now that I am expecting our baby, with the due date just three months away, I’m wondering about this naming business all over again. What kind of name should he have? Should he have a Korean name and an American name to reflect his mixed heritage? Would he be embarrassed of his Korean name as I was as a child? Could I find a name that fits in America as well as in Korea?
I raised this topic with my mom on the phone the other day. We’re thinking of giving the baby a Korean middle name, I told her.
“What do you need a Korean name for?” she said. “We live in America now. Keep it simple. Just give him a name that’s easy to pronounce, that sounds good. Why not name him Jeff Jr.?”
It wasn’t the reaction I had expected. I thought she would be proud that I wanted to retain some connection to Korea for our baby. But maybe it was just sentimental jibberish to her.
But for me, the thought of handing my baby over completely to America, the culture in which I had to learn to make my home as a child, feels like cheating in some ways. Learning to live here, while treading the disparity between our origin in Korea and our present lives, has defined me in more ways than I can articulate. Many of the strands of life that have shaped me – and still remain flapping in various directions – stem from this disparity. Finding ways to interpret and accept our family’s differences. Negotiating my need to fit in with my peers with my parents’ values. Accepting that our family was here alone, with no extended relatives to help us in times of need. Appreciating the loneliness that seemed to hover over us at times.
I find these aspects of my life – my identity – hard to leave behind. I want to give them due credit, instead of moving on as if they never existed. And I want them to be acknowledged and remembered somehow. To account for our history – and our family’s struggles.
So I find myself walking around, sounding out names in my head, as I did as a 12-year-old child. Trying to come up with the right sounds, the right syllables, the right identity. And hoping that this time, it is for keeps.
One or two Judy Blume books would have been enough to teach anyone about the proper American childhood. I had read them all. For starters, we were supposed to live in a house. Our own house. Not in some apartment building where the downstairs neighbor came charging up the minute you ran from the bedroom to the kitchen. And this house, our house, was supposed to be in the suburbs. And everyone was supposed to have a lawn. With sprinklers. And the house was supposed to come with at least one pet, preferably a quadruped.
When my parents announced that we were moving to Houston, I knew this was it. To set it all right. To start the childhood I was supposed to have. I pictured the houses with pools, the school buses, the sprinklers, the lawns, the whole schbang. I imagined myself riding my bicycle down the tree-lined blocks, waving at neighbors and friends across the street.
And there was one other thing. To go with my new life, I decided that I needed a new name. One that fit my new life, my new beginning. No one would butcher my new name trying to pronounce it. And no one in Houston would call me “Shin,” as my teachers always did. I remember coming home and crying to my mom that I’m not a shoe (a homonym for shin in Korean).
I thought about it incessantly. What name would go with my last name? Would it roll off the tongue easily? Would it present me as I was meant to be presented? As I walked around, I sounded out different names to myself. Catherine Oh? Connie Oh? Michelle Oh? I told myself that it didn’t matter that I already knew a Connie. We were moving and she would never find out that I stole her name.
After much deliberation, I decided to go with Christine. It had just enough syllables to balance out the exclamatory Oh. And while I knew a couple of Christina’s, I knew no Christine. I was relieved that I would not have to defend taking another’s name to my sister and brother.
When I announced it over dinner to my mom and dad, they were startled.
“Shinyung is a perfectly good name. Why would you change it? Don’t you like it?”
I still remember the hurt look on my mother’s face. But it didn’t prevent me from changing my name.
During my third year of college, I took a class called American Lives. In the class, we read biographies and autobiographies of famous Americans. While reading Harriet Wilson’s “Our Nig,” we discussed the significance of naming in American culture. What it meant, as Americans, to be able to name ourselves, to take ownership of our identities.
In the course of that class, I started thinking about my own name. Why I had, as a 12-year-old child, shed my Korean name and picked an American one out of the blue. Suddenly, I started feeling like a phony. Even though I had named myself, I felt like it had been for the wrong reasons, as if I had given up a part of myself. Instead of making others pronounce my name correctly, I had sought an escape.
I reverted to my Korean name then. As I had done to my parents almost eleven years earlier, I forced my friends to adjust to what was to them my new name.
Now that I am expecting our baby, with the due date just three months away, I’m wondering about this naming business all over again. What kind of name should he have? Should he have a Korean name and an American name to reflect his mixed heritage? Would he be embarrassed of his Korean name as I was as a child? Could I find a name that fits in America as well as in Korea?
I raised this topic with my mom on the phone the other day. We’re thinking of giving the baby a Korean middle name, I told her.
“What do you need a Korean name for?” she said. “We live in America now. Keep it simple. Just give him a name that’s easy to pronounce, that sounds good. Why not name him Jeff Jr.?”
It wasn’t the reaction I had expected. I thought she would be proud that I wanted to retain some connection to Korea for our baby. But maybe it was just sentimental jibberish to her.
But for me, the thought of handing my baby over completely to America, the culture in which I had to learn to make my home as a child, feels like cheating in some ways. Learning to live here, while treading the disparity between our origin in Korea and our present lives, has defined me in more ways than I can articulate. Many of the strands of life that have shaped me – and still remain flapping in various directions – stem from this disparity. Finding ways to interpret and accept our family’s differences. Negotiating my need to fit in with my peers with my parents’ values. Accepting that our family was here alone, with no extended relatives to help us in times of need. Appreciating the loneliness that seemed to hover over us at times.
I find these aspects of my life – my identity – hard to leave behind. I want to give them due credit, instead of moving on as if they never existed. And I want them to be acknowledged and remembered somehow. To account for our history – and our family’s struggles.
So I find myself walking around, sounding out names in my head, as I did as a 12-year-old child. Trying to come up with the right sounds, the right syllables, the right identity. And hoping that this time, it is for keeps.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Hot Dog Nuggets
One of my most memorable fights with my mom featured Nathan's hot dog nuggets. Sixteen of them. You know, those that look like miniature corndogs, but without the sticks. They came in a green and yellow paper box with a flimsy cut-out latch, the kind that never kept the box properly closed.
I picked them up at Nathan's in the Long Island Railroad terminal in Penn Station on my way home from work. I was in my early 20s, living with my parents in Long Island, and working as a paralegal at a law firm in midtown Manhattan. On the nights I worked late, the firm allowed me a $15 stipend for dinner. On this night, instead of buying dinner while I was working, I waited until I got to the train station to get the hot dog nuggets.
I remember thinking that it would a nice treat for my mom. Just a little something to change her daily routine. My parents worked late hours at their dry cleaners and never ate out. Every other weekend, my mom cooked a vat of chicken wings in hot sauce and packed six at a time in foil. She piled them in the top shelf of the freezer, and every morning on their way out to work, she threw one into her bag. That and rice was their lunch, day in and day out. Three chicken wings and a small tubberware of rice.
I felt guilty that I could go out and eat whatever I wanted for lunch. Sometimes I went down to the corner deli and picked up a corned beef sandwich. Or to the gourmet pizzeria down on Lexington for a slice of pizza. Or some giant sized California rolls from the Korean fruit stand/buffet counter on 52nd and 3rd. Many times, the attorneys I worked with took me out with them when they grabbed sushi or udon. They treated me like their little sister and generously picked up the bill whenever we ate together.
My mom’s life was very different from mine. Once in a while, she wondered what it would be like to have a normal life.
"Wouldn't it be nice to grab a cup of coffee and walk around the neighborhood – or on the beach?" she would say. The first time I heard her say it, I was shocked by the modesty of her wish. I encouraged her to get her cup of coffee whenever she wished, even though I knew that she and my dad saved every quarter they earned and hardly had time to roam around the neighborhood when they worked the long hours they did.
Because they didn't have time to explore the world as I did, I often found myself trying to bring as much of the outside world into our home as I could. To my mom who loved to eat, food was the proxy for the outside world – encapsulating cultures and histories and human differences in bite sized portions. I brought them Thai takeout so that they could try pad thai and coconut curry. On another occasion, I picked up some brioche by Macy's in Herald Square. Or an extra order of linguine when I met with a friend at an Italian restaurant. Just watching her eat my offerings appeased some of my guilt.
So on this night, I happily brought the hot dog nuggets home through the 45 minute train ride to Port Washington and the ten minute drive from the train station to my parents’ home. When I arrived, my parents were already in bed, so I stuck them in the fridge for my mom to find them in the morning.
When I woke up around 5:30 in the morning, I heard my parents rustling in the kitchen. I rushed up the stairs to point out the bag of nuggets so that my mom could pack them with her lunch. As I entered the kitchen, I saw her putting the nuggets into a Ziploc plastic bag.
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “I got those last night so you could take them as a snack.”
She nodded and said, “I figured you must have gotten them.”
“You can have it as a snack today,” I said.
Without raising her head, she said, “I’ll just give them to your brother so that he eats something for breakfast.”
As soon as she said that, I felt myself boiling up, and the $11 and change that I had spent for these hot dog nuggets suddenly seemed like a huge sacrifice.
“What are you talking about? I got them for you!” I said.
She just brushed me aside and said, “Your brother never eats breakfast. He should eat something.”
I felt tears coming into my eyes, even as foolish as it appeared even to myself. They were just hot dog nuggets. Why did I care so much? But I did care. I cared that I had not eaten my own dinner the night before to bring this little snack for my mom. I cared that I had bought them for my mom, not my brother. I cared that my brother, who also worked in Midtown, could stop by Nathan’s anytime he wanted to, and my mom couldn’t. And I cared that my mom thought nothing of taking my little gift to her and passing it onto her son.
I don’t remember what happened next. I think I screamed and stomped down the stairs. And I distinctly remember my brother eating my hot dog nuggets innocently as we took the train together into work that morning.
A few years after that, I was shopping at King Kullen with my mom and my sister. It must have been during a summer when I was visiting from law school. I don’t remember how the conversation came up, but I remember my sister and I accusing our mom of treating us differently from our brother.
“You’ve always treated us differently, just because he’s a boy,” I said.
We gave her examples of the disparity we faced as we were growing up. How our brother always got a whole portion of whatever we were eating while the two girls had to share one – after being told that we had to share “because we were girls” – and how our brother always got to stay out late when we weren’t even allowed to go out in the first place.
My mom looked at us with a surprised look on her face and said, “I don’t do that. I treat all of you the same. I don’t think boys are any more special than girls. You know how happy I am that I have daughters.”
I listened to my mother and could not believe that she did not see the bias in her own behavior. How could she not see it, when it was so blatant, and how could she deny it with a straight face? And then I thought of her upbringing in a family of four daughters and one son. The one son who received all of the numerous parcels of family land after the parents passed away. The precious one.
After pausing for a few seconds, she continued, “If I ever treat you differently, you should just tell me right then so that I stop doing it.”
When I called them about a month ago to let them know that the baby we are expecting is a boy, I listened carefully to their reactions. My dad, as I expected, was delighted with the news.
“A boy! Oh, my. Good job. Job well done…”
My mom, on the other hand, just said, “Oh, ok. As long as he’s healthy…”
I was relieved that she didn’t betray any bias.
And I wondered what kind of bias I would bring with me into the next generation. What would my children see that I don’t see? And would I be defending myself against my children, trying to explain how the world differed when I was growing up? Would they understand if I try to explain that it’s the world that changed around me?
I picked them up at Nathan's in the Long Island Railroad terminal in Penn Station on my way home from work. I was in my early 20s, living with my parents in Long Island, and working as a paralegal at a law firm in midtown Manhattan. On the nights I worked late, the firm allowed me a $15 stipend for dinner. On this night, instead of buying dinner while I was working, I waited until I got to the train station to get the hot dog nuggets.
I remember thinking that it would a nice treat for my mom. Just a little something to change her daily routine. My parents worked late hours at their dry cleaners and never ate out. Every other weekend, my mom cooked a vat of chicken wings in hot sauce and packed six at a time in foil. She piled them in the top shelf of the freezer, and every morning on their way out to work, she threw one into her bag. That and rice was their lunch, day in and day out. Three chicken wings and a small tubberware of rice.
I felt guilty that I could go out and eat whatever I wanted for lunch. Sometimes I went down to the corner deli and picked up a corned beef sandwich. Or to the gourmet pizzeria down on Lexington for a slice of pizza. Or some giant sized California rolls from the Korean fruit stand/buffet counter on 52nd and 3rd. Many times, the attorneys I worked with took me out with them when they grabbed sushi or udon. They treated me like their little sister and generously picked up the bill whenever we ate together.
My mom’s life was very different from mine. Once in a while, she wondered what it would be like to have a normal life.
"Wouldn't it be nice to grab a cup of coffee and walk around the neighborhood – or on the beach?" she would say. The first time I heard her say it, I was shocked by the modesty of her wish. I encouraged her to get her cup of coffee whenever she wished, even though I knew that she and my dad saved every quarter they earned and hardly had time to roam around the neighborhood when they worked the long hours they did.
Because they didn't have time to explore the world as I did, I often found myself trying to bring as much of the outside world into our home as I could. To my mom who loved to eat, food was the proxy for the outside world – encapsulating cultures and histories and human differences in bite sized portions. I brought them Thai takeout so that they could try pad thai and coconut curry. On another occasion, I picked up some brioche by Macy's in Herald Square. Or an extra order of linguine when I met with a friend at an Italian restaurant. Just watching her eat my offerings appeased some of my guilt.
So on this night, I happily brought the hot dog nuggets home through the 45 minute train ride to Port Washington and the ten minute drive from the train station to my parents’ home. When I arrived, my parents were already in bed, so I stuck them in the fridge for my mom to find them in the morning.
When I woke up around 5:30 in the morning, I heard my parents rustling in the kitchen. I rushed up the stairs to point out the bag of nuggets so that my mom could pack them with her lunch. As I entered the kitchen, I saw her putting the nuggets into a Ziploc plastic bag.
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “I got those last night so you could take them as a snack.”
She nodded and said, “I figured you must have gotten them.”
“You can have it as a snack today,” I said.
Without raising her head, she said, “I’ll just give them to your brother so that he eats something for breakfast.”
As soon as she said that, I felt myself boiling up, and the $11 and change that I had spent for these hot dog nuggets suddenly seemed like a huge sacrifice.
“What are you talking about? I got them for you!” I said.
She just brushed me aside and said, “Your brother never eats breakfast. He should eat something.”
I felt tears coming into my eyes, even as foolish as it appeared even to myself. They were just hot dog nuggets. Why did I care so much? But I did care. I cared that I had not eaten my own dinner the night before to bring this little snack for my mom. I cared that I had bought them for my mom, not my brother. I cared that my brother, who also worked in Midtown, could stop by Nathan’s anytime he wanted to, and my mom couldn’t. And I cared that my mom thought nothing of taking my little gift to her and passing it onto her son.
I don’t remember what happened next. I think I screamed and stomped down the stairs. And I distinctly remember my brother eating my hot dog nuggets innocently as we took the train together into work that morning.
A few years after that, I was shopping at King Kullen with my mom and my sister. It must have been during a summer when I was visiting from law school. I don’t remember how the conversation came up, but I remember my sister and I accusing our mom of treating us differently from our brother.
“You’ve always treated us differently, just because he’s a boy,” I said.
We gave her examples of the disparity we faced as we were growing up. How our brother always got a whole portion of whatever we were eating while the two girls had to share one – after being told that we had to share “because we were girls” – and how our brother always got to stay out late when we weren’t even allowed to go out in the first place.
My mom looked at us with a surprised look on her face and said, “I don’t do that. I treat all of you the same. I don’t think boys are any more special than girls. You know how happy I am that I have daughters.”
I listened to my mother and could not believe that she did not see the bias in her own behavior. How could she not see it, when it was so blatant, and how could she deny it with a straight face? And then I thought of her upbringing in a family of four daughters and one son. The one son who received all of the numerous parcels of family land after the parents passed away. The precious one.
After pausing for a few seconds, she continued, “If I ever treat you differently, you should just tell me right then so that I stop doing it.”
When I called them about a month ago to let them know that the baby we are expecting is a boy, I listened carefully to their reactions. My dad, as I expected, was delighted with the news.
“A boy! Oh, my. Good job. Job well done…”
My mom, on the other hand, just said, “Oh, ok. As long as he’s healthy…”
I was relieved that she didn’t betray any bias.
And I wondered what kind of bias I would bring with me into the next generation. What would my children see that I don’t see? And would I be defending myself against my children, trying to explain how the world differed when I was growing up? Would they understand if I try to explain that it’s the world that changed around me?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
To Wear or Not to Wear
[Cross-posted on Kimchi Mamas.]
I was the only one in my family who didn't throw her shoes on the pile behind the front door. As soon as they entered, the other members of my family took their shoes off and chucked them where they landed. The left pair of my mom's florescent yellow plastic slipper often sat between my dad's brown strapped slippers that he had owned since Korea and his tennis shoes, whose back flaps had been permanently folded down. My sister's sandals from the past summer were piled up on top of the sandals from the years past. My mother's pumps gathered dust next to her various pairs of $8 black, thick-soled, orthopedic-like shoes that she picked up from a Chinese vendor under the bridge on Flushing's Main Street. My brother's assortment of sneakers -- all of which looked the same but served some mysteriously distinct functions -- provided additional heft to the pile.
Unlike them, I kept my shoes in my own closet. The ones out of season, like my winter boots, were in their original boxes stacked in the back row of my tiny closet. The ones in current use, like my sturdy pair of rubber-soled black leather shoes that I purchased in the Village, sat prominently in front row, along with my favorite summer sandals and running shoes.
My sister always wondered what it meant, that I kept my shoes separately, in my room, when the rest of the family kept theirs in the front foyer. "Maybe you're more Americanized," she said. I wondered what it meant. In a family that had Korean passports, I was the only one who got naturalized in the 90s, and for the longest time, I was the only "American" in the family. We joked that we would have to stand in two separate customs lines when we traveled to Korea. If the family got deported, I would have a right to stay. And when everyone else had Korean names, I adopted the name "Christine" when I was in 6th grade, because I was tired of my teachers calling me "Shin," until I decided in college that it was silly to be called by some random name.
As soon as I moved out of my parents' house, I started wearing my shoes all day long, in and out of the house. It mattered little to me. I never sat on the floor, and even if I did, was it any worse than sitting on the grass outdoors? I saw no need to distinguish between public and private spaces, the same way I saw no need to keep our family secrets secret. My mom's constant refrain, "Don't talk about this outside of the family" never made sense to me, especially when she confided about things that would have been better shared with a friend, not a daughter.
When Jeff moved in with me about two years ago, we didn't need to discuss whether to wear our shoes indoors. That's how he lived, and that's how I lived.
A couple of months ago, a friend stopped by our place for dinner. As we were talking about my pregnancy, she asked if we would keep wearing shoes in the house once we have our kid.
"They lick everything off the floor, you know," she said.
Suddenly, I noticed bits of dirt scattered over our hardwood floor, the dried out crimps of torn leaves, tufts of Sherlock's fur. I pictured our precious little baby crawling bare hands and legs where our shoes and Sherlock's paws had trodden. And licking the floor where Sherlock had licked it the same morning, as he did daily. And I thought of the times when Sherlock had stepped in his own pee during one of our many walks.
That night, I turned to Jeff. "We have to stop wearing shoes in the house! The baby's going to lick everything off of the floor."
He looked at me as if I suggested burning the place down.
"We're fine," he said. "We wore shoes in the house when I was growing up, and look how I turned out."
I brought it up every day for the next three weeks, and Jeff always responded, "Oh, the baby will be just fine..."
One morning, as I was leaving the house, I noticed water running out of a sewer line in front of our house. I ran back in to grab Jeff and asked him to call someone to fix it before I rushed off to my meeting.
When I pulled up in front of the house later that afternoon, I noticed that the water was no longer running. But there were bits of dried-out tissue paper spread all over the sidewalk about five feet down from where I had parked. When I walked into the house, Jeff told me about the horrors he had seen bursting out of the sewer line that morning.
"The plumber pushed back as much as he could, and the rest he just washed down the street."
For the next two weeks, we crossed the street and walked on the other sidewalk. We avoided parking down slope from our house. We were grateful every time it rained. And we took our shoes off when we entered the house. We also agreed to stop wearing shoes in the house for good when the baby shows up.
I was the only one in my family who didn't throw her shoes on the pile behind the front door. As soon as they entered, the other members of my family took their shoes off and chucked them where they landed. The left pair of my mom's florescent yellow plastic slipper often sat between my dad's brown strapped slippers that he had owned since Korea and his tennis shoes, whose back flaps had been permanently folded down. My sister's sandals from the past summer were piled up on top of the sandals from the years past. My mother's pumps gathered dust next to her various pairs of $8 black, thick-soled, orthopedic-like shoes that she picked up from a Chinese vendor under the bridge on Flushing's Main Street. My brother's assortment of sneakers -- all of which looked the same but served some mysteriously distinct functions -- provided additional heft to the pile.
Unlike them, I kept my shoes in my own closet. The ones out of season, like my winter boots, were in their original boxes stacked in the back row of my tiny closet. The ones in current use, like my sturdy pair of rubber-soled black leather shoes that I purchased in the Village, sat prominently in front row, along with my favorite summer sandals and running shoes.
My sister always wondered what it meant, that I kept my shoes separately, in my room, when the rest of the family kept theirs in the front foyer. "Maybe you're more Americanized," she said. I wondered what it meant. In a family that had Korean passports, I was the only one who got naturalized in the 90s, and for the longest time, I was the only "American" in the family. We joked that we would have to stand in two separate customs lines when we traveled to Korea. If the family got deported, I would have a right to stay. And when everyone else had Korean names, I adopted the name "Christine" when I was in 6th grade, because I was tired of my teachers calling me "Shin," until I decided in college that it was silly to be called by some random name.
As soon as I moved out of my parents' house, I started wearing my shoes all day long, in and out of the house. It mattered little to me. I never sat on the floor, and even if I did, was it any worse than sitting on the grass outdoors? I saw no need to distinguish between public and private spaces, the same way I saw no need to keep our family secrets secret. My mom's constant refrain, "Don't talk about this outside of the family" never made sense to me, especially when she confided about things that would have been better shared with a friend, not a daughter.
When Jeff moved in with me about two years ago, we didn't need to discuss whether to wear our shoes indoors. That's how he lived, and that's how I lived.
A couple of months ago, a friend stopped by our place for dinner. As we were talking about my pregnancy, she asked if we would keep wearing shoes in the house once we have our kid.
"They lick everything off the floor, you know," she said.
Suddenly, I noticed bits of dirt scattered over our hardwood floor, the dried out crimps of torn leaves, tufts of Sherlock's fur. I pictured our precious little baby crawling bare hands and legs where our shoes and Sherlock's paws had trodden. And licking the floor where Sherlock had licked it the same morning, as he did daily. And I thought of the times when Sherlock had stepped in his own pee during one of our many walks.
That night, I turned to Jeff. "We have to stop wearing shoes in the house! The baby's going to lick everything off of the floor."
He looked at me as if I suggested burning the place down.
"We're fine," he said. "We wore shoes in the house when I was growing up, and look how I turned out."
I brought it up every day for the next three weeks, and Jeff always responded, "Oh, the baby will be just fine..."
One morning, as I was leaving the house, I noticed water running out of a sewer line in front of our house. I ran back in to grab Jeff and asked him to call someone to fix it before I rushed off to my meeting.
When I pulled up in front of the house later that afternoon, I noticed that the water was no longer running. But there were bits of dried-out tissue paper spread all over the sidewalk about five feet down from where I had parked. When I walked into the house, Jeff told me about the horrors he had seen bursting out of the sewer line that morning.
"The plumber pushed back as much as he could, and the rest he just washed down the street."
For the next two weeks, we crossed the street and walked on the other sidewalk. We avoided parking down slope from our house. We were grateful every time it rained. And we took our shoes off when we entered the house. We also agreed to stop wearing shoes in the house for good when the baby shows up.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
To Begin Again
So we left - the unmovable high rises, the corner deli packed with Italian men with mustaches, strong accents, and leering eyes, the pizzeria down the street with its stacks of steel plates that had been reused year after year. We packed all of our belongings and left behind that city where lonely trees were confined to two cubic feet squares of growing spaces in slabs of concrete, where we children were confined to handball courts and paved inner city blocks devoid of grass or flowers.
We left behind the elevator that took us up to our fourth floor apartment, where we had once been mugged at the point of a dinner knife by two scrawny teenage boys who looked so daunting to my eight year old eyes. After my mother hurriedly handed over the $48 in cash, the thugs skipped out of the elevator on the third floor. When we reached our floor, how madly we had rushed from the elevator to our apartment at the end of the hall across from the fire escape. And to prevent those thugs from running up the stairs and overtaking us, my eleven year old brother held the fire escape door shut with all of his strength while my mother nervously fumbled with the keys. How quickly we had locked all three of our deadbolts once we jumped inside our apartment and breathed a sigh of relief that we weren't tied up in our bathtub waiting to be found as Mr. Kim on the second floor had been the month before.
To begin again. That is what I wanted. To begin again, in a new world, where our sense of security didn't shatter at the point of a dinner knife, where we didn't have to look over our shoulders wary of teenage thugs. Leaving NYC was to begin again. I dreamed of living the life of a character in a Judy Blume tale, where inner city worries faded as you drove deeper into the suburbs, where summers were meant to be spent poolside - at a real pool, not the indoor pool of a YMCA where the sun didn't reach, where kids had pets and real playgrounds with sand boxes and swing sets, where families lived in houses with lawns.
For this new life, I began my preparation.
A new beginning meant a new wardrobe, a new look, and most importantly, a new name. So I announced at dinner shortly before the move.
- When we move to Houston, I'm going to change my name to Christine.
My startled parents stared at me.
- You're what?
- I'm changing my name.
- What's wrong with the name we gave you? Shinyung is a beautiful name.
- My teachers call me Shin - and I'm not a shin. I want an American name.
I had thought about my new name for weeks. I picked one that sounded the best with my last name. I wasn't going to have a funny name anymore.
From then on, I enforced my new rule with a heavy hand. I only responded to Christine going forward because beginning anew required determination. No one said it would be easy.
We left behind the elevator that took us up to our fourth floor apartment, where we had once been mugged at the point of a dinner knife by two scrawny teenage boys who looked so daunting to my eight year old eyes. After my mother hurriedly handed over the $48 in cash, the thugs skipped out of the elevator on the third floor. When we reached our floor, how madly we had rushed from the elevator to our apartment at the end of the hall across from the fire escape. And to prevent those thugs from running up the stairs and overtaking us, my eleven year old brother held the fire escape door shut with all of his strength while my mother nervously fumbled with the keys. How quickly we had locked all three of our deadbolts once we jumped inside our apartment and breathed a sigh of relief that we weren't tied up in our bathtub waiting to be found as Mr. Kim on the second floor had been the month before.
To begin again. That is what I wanted. To begin again, in a new world, where our sense of security didn't shatter at the point of a dinner knife, where we didn't have to look over our shoulders wary of teenage thugs. Leaving NYC was to begin again. I dreamed of living the life of a character in a Judy Blume tale, where inner city worries faded as you drove deeper into the suburbs, where summers were meant to be spent poolside - at a real pool, not the indoor pool of a YMCA where the sun didn't reach, where kids had pets and real playgrounds with sand boxes and swing sets, where families lived in houses with lawns.
For this new life, I began my preparation.
A new beginning meant a new wardrobe, a new look, and most importantly, a new name. So I announced at dinner shortly before the move.
- When we move to Houston, I'm going to change my name to Christine.
My startled parents stared at me.
- You're what?
- I'm changing my name.
- What's wrong with the name we gave you? Shinyung is a beautiful name.
- My teachers call me Shin - and I'm not a shin. I want an American name.
I had thought about my new name for weeks. I picked one that sounded the best with my last name. I wasn't going to have a funny name anymore.
From then on, I enforced my new rule with a heavy hand. I only responded to Christine going forward because beginning anew required determination. No one said it would be easy.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Silent Noise
She scoops out the rice for each of us, always a big scoop followed by a smaller scoop, because only one scoop would signify stinginess of affection. My father gets the first and the biggest two scoops. Although my mother is supposed to serve herself next, she always skips herself and serves my brother, then me, then my sister, and then herself. We wait until everyone has been served, and we pick up our chopsticks only after our father has his first bite.
We sit in our semi circle, the legs of the children dangling from the chairs. The father at the head, mother to his left, his eldest son to his right. The scent of the pickled cabbage and radish infuse the air. Steam from the grilled beef rises in a stream before diffusing under the dangling lamp. Our rights arms rise and chopsticks move like mini swords in the air, criss crossing and clicking, as we reach for a bite of this, a bite of that. An ensemble of utensils ring against the dishes, sounding an unlikely orchestra. In the midst of the chewing, words and ummms are thrown out randomly to fill the silence as others respond with more words and ummms, our minds preoccupied by the task at hand.
In the midst of the chatter, my mother stops chewing, leans down and moves her head closer to mine. For a few seconds, she listens, and turns to me and listens some more.
Are you singing? she asks.
All the heads turn to face me and there is sudden silence.
Me? No, Mom...
We return to our chewing. The chopsticks fly again and words and sounds fill the room once more. After a bite of the beef and a bite of the cabbage, my mother stops chewing once more and leans down again to listen. I can smell the pungent cabbage on her breath.
Are you sure you're not singing?
No...
Hmmm, she says. You're making some sound, do you know that?
I don't think I am...
As she resumes her dinner, she ponders out loud what she had heard because she is the mother and I am her child. It is a mother's job to know her child better than the child knows herself, to know she is cranky because it is feeding time, to know her child needs her sleep even as she protests.
I think you're humming to yourself. Hmmm, I wonder what you're humming. Do you want to sing for all of us? Or maybe you have something to say?
It is an open invitation, but I keep my head down and focus my eyes on my plate. I can feel my cheeks burn and I can feel their eyes waiting for a response. I swing my dangling legs slowly to do something and I finger my chopsticks now resting on the table.
But I wasn't humming...
Ok, that's fine. Why don't we all finish our dinner. Here, have some more beef...
And she plops a big mound of beef on my plate of rice.
Chew slowly, she says.
The noise in the room stirs again. As I start chewing in my little corner, my breathing softens and I stop swinging my legs. My head stills, and I move my jaws up and down slowly, taking care to land my teeth softly on my food. I quiet myself so I can listen secretly, to see if I can hear what she heard. And as I listen, I wonder what it is that I have to say, what it is I want others to hear.
We sit in our semi circle, the legs of the children dangling from the chairs. The father at the head, mother to his left, his eldest son to his right. The scent of the pickled cabbage and radish infuse the air. Steam from the grilled beef rises in a stream before diffusing under the dangling lamp. Our rights arms rise and chopsticks move like mini swords in the air, criss crossing and clicking, as we reach for a bite of this, a bite of that. An ensemble of utensils ring against the dishes, sounding an unlikely orchestra. In the midst of the chewing, words and ummms are thrown out randomly to fill the silence as others respond with more words and ummms, our minds preoccupied by the task at hand.
In the midst of the chatter, my mother stops chewing, leans down and moves her head closer to mine. For a few seconds, she listens, and turns to me and listens some more.
Are you singing? she asks.
All the heads turn to face me and there is sudden silence.
Me? No, Mom...
We return to our chewing. The chopsticks fly again and words and sounds fill the room once more. After a bite of the beef and a bite of the cabbage, my mother stops chewing once more and leans down again to listen. I can smell the pungent cabbage on her breath.
Are you sure you're not singing?
No...
Hmmm, she says. You're making some sound, do you know that?
I don't think I am...
As she resumes her dinner, she ponders out loud what she had heard because she is the mother and I am her child. It is a mother's job to know her child better than the child knows herself, to know she is cranky because it is feeding time, to know her child needs her sleep even as she protests.
I think you're humming to yourself. Hmmm, I wonder what you're humming. Do you want to sing for all of us? Or maybe you have something to say?
It is an open invitation, but I keep my head down and focus my eyes on my plate. I can feel my cheeks burn and I can feel their eyes waiting for a response. I swing my dangling legs slowly to do something and I finger my chopsticks now resting on the table.
But I wasn't humming...
Ok, that's fine. Why don't we all finish our dinner. Here, have some more beef...
And she plops a big mound of beef on my plate of rice.
Chew slowly, she says.
The noise in the room stirs again. As I start chewing in my little corner, my breathing softens and I stop swinging my legs. My head stills, and I move my jaws up and down slowly, taking care to land my teeth softly on my food. I quiet myself so I can listen secretly, to see if I can hear what she heard. And as I listen, I wonder what it is that I have to say, what it is I want others to hear.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Lessons of Silence
It happened one day. When it started, we didn't notice. We must have gone through the day like any other - and perhaps unlike any other. We probably didn't notice even after a week. I don't know when it was a week later because I don't know when it started. But I know when it built up, when the silence became deafening.
It started out as something in the air. Something that felt off, no longer what we had always known, but what we couldn't quite place. Over time, the air became thicker with it until it started to crawl onto my skin, and I scratched to get it off. I wanted to scrape it off as one does a swarm of bullet ants, but it kept getting thicker and thicker, enveloping me, and eventually building a wall around me, around all of us.
After a while, it became normal - a part of our every day lives, like the furniture, a plant - something that wasn't even worth mentioning because it was with us all of the time. We didn't know that we could pierce through it by reaching out. It was easier to ignore, to pretend that it didn't exist.
There we would sit at dinner and talk - but only among us - and try not mind that our father had gotten more and more quiet over the years. We would talk, and he would often just nod in response. We would ask questions, and he would answer a yes or a no, but no more. Sometimes we talked at him. Every once in a while he would talk, but only to repeat his refrains, about school, about money, about the tidbits no one cared to discuss, like checking the stove before going to bed or setting the security code on the burglar alarm. But otherwise, we would talk among ourselves. And the day would pass by.
We understood some things. That this was the sound of a crushed dream. That this was the silence of the night because he had put all of his ambitions to bed. That he wanted to quiet his mind and no longer second guess whether he had made the right decision. That he had returned to a safe place from his childhood where silence had been his shield. And that this was how he preferred it now.
And under the weight of this silence, we desperately clung to our voices. I never let an argument pass without vocalizing my position, and I took unusual pride in my opinions. My sister took the other fork against silence - writing journal after journal, poem after poem. We are the fortress against the eerie silence that pervaded our house as we traversed from teenhood to adulthood, bypassing the silence that read the newspaper in the evenings, ate dinner with us every night, showered, went to bed, and even snored.
It started out as something in the air. Something that felt off, no longer what we had always known, but what we couldn't quite place. Over time, the air became thicker with it until it started to crawl onto my skin, and I scratched to get it off. I wanted to scrape it off as one does a swarm of bullet ants, but it kept getting thicker and thicker, enveloping me, and eventually building a wall around me, around all of us.
After a while, it became normal - a part of our every day lives, like the furniture, a plant - something that wasn't even worth mentioning because it was with us all of the time. We didn't know that we could pierce through it by reaching out. It was easier to ignore, to pretend that it didn't exist.
There we would sit at dinner and talk - but only among us - and try not mind that our father had gotten more and more quiet over the years. We would talk, and he would often just nod in response. We would ask questions, and he would answer a yes or a no, but no more. Sometimes we talked at him. Every once in a while he would talk, but only to repeat his refrains, about school, about money, about the tidbits no one cared to discuss, like checking the stove before going to bed or setting the security code on the burglar alarm. But otherwise, we would talk among ourselves. And the day would pass by.
We understood some things. That this was the sound of a crushed dream. That this was the silence of the night because he had put all of his ambitions to bed. That he wanted to quiet his mind and no longer second guess whether he had made the right decision. That he had returned to a safe place from his childhood where silence had been his shield. And that this was how he preferred it now.
And under the weight of this silence, we desperately clung to our voices. I never let an argument pass without vocalizing my position, and I took unusual pride in my opinions. My sister took the other fork against silence - writing journal after journal, poem after poem. We are the fortress against the eerie silence that pervaded our house as we traversed from teenhood to adulthood, bypassing the silence that read the newspaper in the evenings, ate dinner with us every night, showered, went to bed, and even snored.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Training
I had to wait until I was called. Right outside room 215, back leaning against the cool tiled wall, my legs jutted out like stilts, propping myself into an isosceles triangle with the wall and the floor. Rolling my eyeballs if I had to, scratching my neck when itchy, digging the dirt out from my fingernails, sighing but not too heavily in case they could hear me from behind the closed door. I slithered down the wall until my butt hit bottom, and I bounced back up like an accordion playing to my internal rhythm. Just as I started to think about quickly running to the bathroom because I really, really had to go, I heard her screech out my name -- or a decapitated version of it.
- Shin, are you there? Shin?? Would you come in please??
I bolted upright, brushed the dust off of my hands, smoothed out my clothes, straightened my backpack, reached for the doorknob, pushed it open trying not to make a creak, and slid my neck out slowly like a turtle weary of its surroundings.
- Yes, Mrs. Millman... I'm right here.
She was sitting behind her teacher's desk, her face caked with enough foundation to support her bird cage buffon that diminished her already beady eyes, her thick arms encased like sausages in a multicolored top, and her thighs in black polyester pants, jutting out like dolphins from behind the desk. My old second grade teacher, Mrs. Gettleman, sat across from her in one of our fourth grade chairs. She wore the bleached blond clown wig that fell off once during our arithmetic exercises when her inch long manicured nail got caught in one of the curls while she gesticulated in the air. As I approached, I could smell the thick perfume that always gave me a headache.
I inched closer, but they hardly bothered to turn their heads to see me as they continued with their conversation.
- Oh, no, Barbara! Don't go there. They have much better prices at Woolworth's. I got mine for only $19.37. By the way, do you want onions on yours?
Mrs. Millman scribbled as Mrs. Gettleman adjusted her hair one more time with her fingers poised in the air, and I saw her candy sized rings glimmer through her wig.
Mrs. Millman finished scribbling and handed me the piece of paper folded in half with a $20 bill.
- Now, Shin, run straight to the store and please bring back the change.
- Yes, Mrs. Millman.
I pushed the folded note and $20 carefully into my back pocket with a flap and button and buttoned my pocket. I ran my hand over it to make sure that I could feel them through the fabric. And then I headed back out, taking a quick peek behind me to make sure I hadn't dropped the note or the $20.
I walked down the hall, down the stairs to the first floor, across the bathrooms, and thought about stopping by the bathroom because I still really, really had to go, but what if I drop the note or the $20, and won't I really, really be in trouble? I checked my pocket again to make sure the note and the $20 were still there, and I kept walking, extra quickly past Principal Bratton's office, and out the front door and down the front steps. I crossed across the basketball court that was also a handball court and then past the big slap of concrete that was our playground. I saw Tina and Mei from my class playing jump rope and Sun and Penelope playing jacks. They waved at me, but I just waved back quickly because I didn't want to stop.
I stopped at the corner and when the light turned green, I crossed and stepped into Sal's Deli. There was already a line past the deli counter, and I quickly got behind the man in a brown uniform. I prepared by taking the note and the $20 out of my pocket. I held the $20 firmly in my left fist, and opened the note with my right and practiced how to say the order when it became my turn. When the man behind the counter finally got to me, I said my order with perfect pronunciation. One pastrami sandwich on rye with onions and mustard and one turkey sandwich on wheat with swiss cheese, mayo, lettuce, and tomatoes, please.
After placing my order, I ran to the refrigerator to grab two Italian sodas, one cherry and one raspberry. I ran back to the counter while the man rang up the prices, and it came to exactly $11.28. When he gave back the change, I asked for a receipt so that I could show Mrs. Millman exactly how much they cost, and I put the receipt with the change back into my back pocket with the flap and the button. After I buttoned up the pocket, I ran my hand over it make sure they were in there safely.
I hugged the brown paper bag with the two Italian sodas, the pastrami sandwich, and the turkey sandwich to my chest, and I ran out of the store, back across the street and toward PS 20. Just a short walk across the playground, the handball court, up the stairs and up to room 215. And if I walked really, really fast, I would be back in less than 15 minutes. I could then have my lunch, and maybe Tina and Mei would still be jump roping.
I was selected out of the entire class to run this important errand. And even though I didn't know it, maybe that is when my training began...
- Shin, are you there? Shin?? Would you come in please??
I bolted upright, brushed the dust off of my hands, smoothed out my clothes, straightened my backpack, reached for the doorknob, pushed it open trying not to make a creak, and slid my neck out slowly like a turtle weary of its surroundings.
- Yes, Mrs. Millman... I'm right here.
She was sitting behind her teacher's desk, her face caked with enough foundation to support her bird cage buffon that diminished her already beady eyes, her thick arms encased like sausages in a multicolored top, and her thighs in black polyester pants, jutting out like dolphins from behind the desk. My old second grade teacher, Mrs. Gettleman, sat across from her in one of our fourth grade chairs. She wore the bleached blond clown wig that fell off once during our arithmetic exercises when her inch long manicured nail got caught in one of the curls while she gesticulated in the air. As I approached, I could smell the thick perfume that always gave me a headache.
I inched closer, but they hardly bothered to turn their heads to see me as they continued with their conversation.
- Oh, no, Barbara! Don't go there. They have much better prices at Woolworth's. I got mine for only $19.37. By the way, do you want onions on yours?
Mrs. Millman scribbled as Mrs. Gettleman adjusted her hair one more time with her fingers poised in the air, and I saw her candy sized rings glimmer through her wig.
Mrs. Millman finished scribbling and handed me the piece of paper folded in half with a $20 bill.
- Now, Shin, run straight to the store and please bring back the change.
- Yes, Mrs. Millman.
I pushed the folded note and $20 carefully into my back pocket with a flap and button and buttoned my pocket. I ran my hand over it to make sure that I could feel them through the fabric. And then I headed back out, taking a quick peek behind me to make sure I hadn't dropped the note or the $20.
I walked down the hall, down the stairs to the first floor, across the bathrooms, and thought about stopping by the bathroom because I still really, really had to go, but what if I drop the note or the $20, and won't I really, really be in trouble? I checked my pocket again to make sure the note and the $20 were still there, and I kept walking, extra quickly past Principal Bratton's office, and out the front door and down the front steps. I crossed across the basketball court that was also a handball court and then past the big slap of concrete that was our playground. I saw Tina and Mei from my class playing jump rope and Sun and Penelope playing jacks. They waved at me, but I just waved back quickly because I didn't want to stop.
I stopped at the corner and when the light turned green, I crossed and stepped into Sal's Deli. There was already a line past the deli counter, and I quickly got behind the man in a brown uniform. I prepared by taking the note and the $20 out of my pocket. I held the $20 firmly in my left fist, and opened the note with my right and practiced how to say the order when it became my turn. When the man behind the counter finally got to me, I said my order with perfect pronunciation. One pastrami sandwich on rye with onions and mustard and one turkey sandwich on wheat with swiss cheese, mayo, lettuce, and tomatoes, please.
After placing my order, I ran to the refrigerator to grab two Italian sodas, one cherry and one raspberry. I ran back to the counter while the man rang up the prices, and it came to exactly $11.28. When he gave back the change, I asked for a receipt so that I could show Mrs. Millman exactly how much they cost, and I put the receipt with the change back into my back pocket with the flap and the button. After I buttoned up the pocket, I ran my hand over it make sure they were in there safely.
I hugged the brown paper bag with the two Italian sodas, the pastrami sandwich, and the turkey sandwich to my chest, and I ran out of the store, back across the street and toward PS 20. Just a short walk across the playground, the handball court, up the stairs and up to room 215. And if I walked really, really fast, I would be back in less than 15 minutes. I could then have my lunch, and maybe Tina and Mei would still be jump roping.
I was selected out of the entire class to run this important errand. And even though I didn't know it, maybe that is when my training began...
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Saturdays
They were typical Saturdays for my parents, but mine were supposed to come around only every third weekend because they had three children, one for each rotating Saturday. Those days started at six thirty in the morning even though every other fourteen year old I knew snoozed a few more hours before deciding whether to spend the day at the pool, the roller skating rink, or the mall.
Around that time, from somewhere between asleep and awake, I would hear my mother's soft footsteps go past my room into my brother's to shake him awake. Come on, wake up, we have to go, I would hear her whisper at a volume that wouldn't count as a whisper if she didn't speak in a hoarse throttle. More whispers, creaking of the bed, and then my mother's footsteps walking away. Then from the kitchen, my mother's whispering and then my father's footsteps gingerly treading to my brother's room. Let's go, wake up, wake up. Silence.
I would lie in bed with my eyes shut, fists clenched, angrily muttering to him, wake up, wake up, it's your turn. I would then try to will myself back to sleep so that I really would be asleep if they came for me. Despite myself, I would listen to them walk away, back to his room, and then back out. Then their steps would stop outside of my room. More whispering, the sound of the knob turning, and then the light beaming through the opening door. Soon, I would feel the soft touch of my mother's hand on my back. Would you mind, she would plead. We need your help... I would burrow my head deeper into my pillow, curl up into a ball, put my hands over my ears, and she would keep pleading, please, won't you come? Just this time?
After listening but trying not to listen to her cajoling, I would turn to face her with tears streaming down my face and make my case. It's not my turn, I went last Saturday, why can't I have a Saturday like everyone else, why do I have to go again, I am tired, I want to sleep. And through my pleading, she would usher me to the bathroom, where I would shower, back to the bedroom to dress, and then to the car, where I would plunk down in the back seat.
An hour later, we would be at our Mr. Charburger's, where we would unlock the back gate in the cool of the morning, walk into the familiar smell of onions, grease, chili, cheese, char, and begin another day. I would start by cleaning the counters, refilling the napkin holders, the utensils, and the condiment trays, clipping more bags of chips onto the rack, loading the soft ice cream machine, and then joining my mother to chop the onions, slice the tomatoes, and then prepare the chili, the onion rings, and the chicken fried steak.
When the customers started arriving, I would take down their orders in my perfect middle school handwriting, prepare their shakes, bag their burgers and fries, and dispense the cherry cokes. Along with hundreds of burgers, mounds of fries and onion rings, rows of chili dogs, and crates of chicken fried steaks, the day would pass in a blur as we fed hundreds in order to feed ourselves. Past ten pm, after we had cleaned the grills, the floor, the ice cream machine, the counter, after we had put away all the ingredients and taken out the trash, we would step outside of the back gate and pile into the Oldsmobile for the drive back home.
In the dark, when we would be too tired to make the kind of conversation we should have as a family, I would once again lie in the back, lamenting another lost day. And I would try not to look at my mother, who had lost thirty pounds in the past year, now dead asleep in the passenger seat snoring with her mouth open or my father with his newspaper waddled up next to him, waiting yet again to catch up with the world and slapping his thigh occasionally with the palm of his hand to keep himself awake.
Around that time, from somewhere between asleep and awake, I would hear my mother's soft footsteps go past my room into my brother's to shake him awake. Come on, wake up, we have to go, I would hear her whisper at a volume that wouldn't count as a whisper if she didn't speak in a hoarse throttle. More whispers, creaking of the bed, and then my mother's footsteps walking away. Then from the kitchen, my mother's whispering and then my father's footsteps gingerly treading to my brother's room. Let's go, wake up, wake up. Silence.
I would lie in bed with my eyes shut, fists clenched, angrily muttering to him, wake up, wake up, it's your turn. I would then try to will myself back to sleep so that I really would be asleep if they came for me. Despite myself, I would listen to them walk away, back to his room, and then back out. Then their steps would stop outside of my room. More whispering, the sound of the knob turning, and then the light beaming through the opening door. Soon, I would feel the soft touch of my mother's hand on my back. Would you mind, she would plead. We need your help... I would burrow my head deeper into my pillow, curl up into a ball, put my hands over my ears, and she would keep pleading, please, won't you come? Just this time?
After listening but trying not to listen to her cajoling, I would turn to face her with tears streaming down my face and make my case. It's not my turn, I went last Saturday, why can't I have a Saturday like everyone else, why do I have to go again, I am tired, I want to sleep. And through my pleading, she would usher me to the bathroom, where I would shower, back to the bedroom to dress, and then to the car, where I would plunk down in the back seat.
An hour later, we would be at our Mr. Charburger's, where we would unlock the back gate in the cool of the morning, walk into the familiar smell of onions, grease, chili, cheese, char, and begin another day. I would start by cleaning the counters, refilling the napkin holders, the utensils, and the condiment trays, clipping more bags of chips onto the rack, loading the soft ice cream machine, and then joining my mother to chop the onions, slice the tomatoes, and then prepare the chili, the onion rings, and the chicken fried steak.
When the customers started arriving, I would take down their orders in my perfect middle school handwriting, prepare their shakes, bag their burgers and fries, and dispense the cherry cokes. Along with hundreds of burgers, mounds of fries and onion rings, rows of chili dogs, and crates of chicken fried steaks, the day would pass in a blur as we fed hundreds in order to feed ourselves. Past ten pm, after we had cleaned the grills, the floor, the ice cream machine, the counter, after we had put away all the ingredients and taken out the trash, we would step outside of the back gate and pile into the Oldsmobile for the drive back home.
In the dark, when we would be too tired to make the kind of conversation we should have as a family, I would once again lie in the back, lamenting another lost day. And I would try not to look at my mother, who had lost thirty pounds in the past year, now dead asleep in the passenger seat snoring with her mouth open or my father with his newspaper waddled up next to him, waiting yet again to catch up with the world and slapping his thigh occasionally with the palm of his hand to keep himself awake.
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