Bloody Seoul Read online

  Another smoke. Yes. That’s what I need. That and more makgeolli.

  I polish off my half bowl and what’s left in the bottle. My hand tries to crush the bowl. I can’t. So I hurl it across the balcony. It shatters on the tile.

  One, two, three, four shards. Unlucky four, the number that in Korean and Japanese sounds like the word for death. Also in Mandarin, according to Mom. I might as well count one, two, three, death…

  Tragic four, death for sure.

  I peel my eyes away. Light up a Dunhill. Smoke it fast and hard, then crumble the stub in my hand, letting the grainy mess rain into the ashtray. I spring up and march to my room.

  I go straight to my armoire, seize my knife from the top shelf. Three quick steps to my designated spot. Aim. Throw. No spin. The knife hits the wooden beam four meters away. It stays stuck, quivering slightly from the force of the impact. I walk the six steps to the beam, take a moment to run my fingers over the hundreds of small cuts already there—years of target practice—then pluck out the knife. The only knife for me. The kind assassins use.

  I inspect my knife. I buff out a smudge on the blade with my sleeve.

  My knife will take care of him. It always does what I command…

  “This knife matches mine. It will always do what you command…” Dad ran his finger over the polished stainless steel blade, “…but you have to be the boss.” He lit up a Dunhill, took a long drag, exhaled three rings. “It was made by a craftsman in Busan who specializes in ancient weapons. Go on. Pick it up.”

  I lifted it. It was heavier than I expected. The blade was almost as long as my six-year-old forearm. I inspected it from all angles. It radiated death. I checked out the handle and my heart fluttered. My name was carved in Hangul on one side, and there were three stars carved on the other.

  Smile! Hug him! Hug me back, Dad!

  I bowed. “Gamsahamnida,” I said, my face straight. I examined my new knife a bit more. I thought about the three black stars tattooed on my father’s chest. I asked, “Abeoji, why are there three stars?”

  “Ahhhh,” he said, stroking my head. “I’ll tell you. But it’s our family’s secret, ok?”

  I nod.

  “One star for each Yi brother.”

  Mom’s voice. “Let’s eat,” she called out from the kitchen.

  “Coming.”

  I sliced the air with my knife, then thrust it into the heart of an imaginary foe.

  Dad laughed. “Tomorrow we’ll go to the park at sunrise. I’ll teach you to cut and throw.” He lifted my chin. “With practice, you can control any fight. You can hurt someone. Or kill them. It’s you, not the knife, that decides.”

  I watched his lips move, taking it all in. My fingers traced the stars. My thumb traced my name. I traced again, looking at the blade. Does real blood look as watery red as it does in Mom’s movies?

  He held up the leather box. “But remember, always an eye for an eye. Never more.” He motioned for me to put my knife back. I hesitated.

  “Tomorrow,” he promised with a hard nod.

  I placed my knife carefully in the box. He closed it, then returned it to the chest. He walked to the packed bookshelf, gliding his index finger over the spines on the middle shelf. He stopped on an olive-colored one and pulled it out. “Here. Study this tonight. It’s the best,” he said holding it out. “Learn it well.”

  I took the book: The Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations: The Cardiovascular System. I flipped it open and skimmed a few pages of detailed, colorful illustrations of the inside of the human body. I closed the book, cradled it against my chest.

  “You need to know the human body if you want to be a true knife master,” my father said. He pointed to the book. “Open it again.”

  I turned to a random page, to a color drawing with the words “exposure of the heart” printed above it.

  “The red blood vessels carry the clean blood to the body, and the blue vessels carry the dirty blood back to the heart, then to the lungs for purification.”

  I started memorizing. Aorta. Superior vena cava.

  “You’ll understand it better when you read the descriptions.”

  I looked back at him.

  He poked his chin out. “Remember, the red ones are your targets.”

  Targets. His knife. My knife’s twin.

  How many red ones has he hit? Will he hit one tonight? More than one?

  I’m squeezing the handle so tight that blood can’t flow to my hand, it’s all white and tingly. I’m breathing faster.

  Aim. Throw.

  Sixteen times, one for every year of my life.

  Aim. Throw.

  Ten times, one for every year Mom’s been gone.

  Aim. Throw.

  Ten times, one for every year Dad’s been the most pissed off person I’ve ever known.

  3.

  The new kid is strong. He twists and kicks as Patch and Strike drag him behind the dumpster. The more the kid struggles, the harder my boys clamp down on his shoulders and arms.

  Braid and I saunter behind, hands in our pockets.

  Braid kicks a pebble, then looks at me. “Boss?”

  I quick check the open end of the alley. There’s no one between us and the math building on the other side of the long, parallel rows of intense pink cherry blossom trees.

  I nod.

  Braid half smiles. His waist length, tight braid whips the air when he turns to the new kid. “The payment is due today, you dumb jock,” he says, grabbing a fistful of the kid’s hair and yanking his head back. “No less than five hundred thousand won.”

  Dumb Jock scowls. The ripe pimples on his face bulge. “I don’t have it,” he spews. He curls his upper lip. “As if you rich boys need it,” he mutters.

  Braid lets go of DJ’s hair. He jogs to the other side of the dumpster, then marches back, slapping DJ’s baseball bat onto his open palm.

  “Not his face or hands,” I say before I light up a Dunhill. Not where anyone else will notice.

  Braid nods. He’s already in a batting stance. He makes a couple of small circles above his head with the barrel. Then he lets a home run rip, straight into DJ’s gut.

  DJ wails.

  Braid drops the bat. He plows forward and punches DJ in the chest. Then Braid snatches the top of DJ’s ear and stretches it. “Listen up, junior boy. Since you’re new here, let me spell it out for you. We’re your seniors. We run the school. If you don’t pay our price, your body pays instead. Got it?”

  DJ glares at Braid. “Bring it,” he dares. Then he spits. The frothy wad meant for Braid lands on Patch’s shiny shoe.

  Patch shakes his head, his lips pursed.

  Strike chuckles. “You shouldn’t have done that.” He points to Patch with his chin. “He’s gonna—”

  DJ cuts him off. “Why don’t you let the patch-wearing cyclops speak for himself?”

  Strike looks at Patch. With a professorial voice he says, “This loser is also a complete idiot with no real knowledge of classical Greek mythology.”

  Patch smiles. He clinches DJ’s arm extra hard with one hand, then slips the soiled shoe off with the other. He shoves it in DJ’s face.

  “Put your spit back in your mouth, jackass,” Strike orders.

  DJ turns his head away.

  Braid slithers behind DJ. “Do it!” he yells, his plier hands forcing DJ’s face to the shoe.

  DJ seals his lips.

  Strike knees DJ’s flank.

  DJ grimaces but presses his lips together even more.

  Patch mashes the spit-covered toe cap onto DJ’s lips.

  “Do it now!” Braid shouts.

  DJ’s lips part slowly. He licks the shoe clean.

  Then Patch wipes his shoe on DJ’s sleeve before he slides it back on.

  Strike smiles at DJ. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it? And for your information,” he says, “my buddy here has two eyes. He just wrecked one doing a noble deed. And why should he throw away perfectly good words on the likes o
f you? But you wouldn’t understand any of that, you pathetic waste of space who doesn’t deserve the two working eyes and vocal cords he has.”

  Patch grins, then knees DJ’s opposite flank.

  DJ grunts.

  I smile inside. Both flanks. Even is good. I take a full draw on my cig, hold it in my mouth. The woody, peppery, sweet mint flavors fuse. I release three smoke rings, one for each of my mini Three Star Pa school gang. I stare at DJ. Another drag. The gentle heat embraces my lungs. I exhale through the side of my mouth. The smoke coils up.

  Braid looks at me. “What should we do with him, boss?”

  “Yeah, boss,” DJ chimes in, “What should they do with me?” He gives a sly smile. “Can’t be worse than what I did with your mom,” he says.

  My face stays blank. No comeback. Yet. I let my cig dangle from my lips. My hand drops to my knife, my fingers waltz over my stars, my name.

  DJ licks his lips. “Your mom was delicious,” he says in a smoky voice.

  Cool face. Hot inside. My heart pumps boiling blood. Without warning I stub out my cig on DJ’s arm, mashing it into his flesh good and hard so he’ll have something to remember this day. He jerks his body and contorts his face as the cigarette burns, but he doesn’t let out the scream I know wants to escape.

  I drop the cigarette butt and extract my knife in a perfect flow that takes three seconds because I make it take three seconds. I slice the air with the shiny blade. I look at Braid. “Hold his mouth open,” I command.

  DJ’s face contorts. He clenches his mouth.

  Braid pries DJ’s lips and teeth apart.

  I make my blade dance a little. Then I skim the tip over my cheek, keeping my eyes on DJ. “Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?” I ask.

  DJ’s eyebrows bump together. He moans. He squirms, but my boys tighten their hold.

  “I guess I’ll have to teach you,” I say. My left hand captures his tongue. “Lesson number one, never speak about anyone’s mother.” I touch the flat side of the blade to the tip of his tongue.

  DJ gets all bug-eyed.

  My boys laugh.

  DJ shuts his eyes, a few tears leak out the corners. A wet patch spreads on the front of his trousers.

  Then, just like that, I holster my knife.

  Braid lets go of DJ’s mouth.

  “Have the money to us within the hour,” I say.

  DJ nods vigorously, sweat dripping.

  I chin up to my boys. They close in. They finish the lesson the old fashioned way—corporal punishment.

  Meanwhile I lean up against the wall for another smoke. I light up and hold the cig close to my body in between drags.

  Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of red at the alley’s open end. I turn my head. A guy in a black suit with a red pocket square darts by. He disappears before I get a clear look at his face.

  It couldn’t be a student. Pocket squares are not part of our uniforms. Was it some random guy passing by with a red pocket square? Perhaps. But unlikely on our school campus.

  I take slow draw on my cig, sucking the smoke deep into my lungs. I hold it there.

  Or, Chul-moo? Or Braid’s older cousin, In-su?

  Maybe. The privilege of wearing red pocket squares was bestowed on those two TSP guys—and those two TSP guys alone—by my dad. See, they’re higher ups in TSP. My dad’s most trusted men.

  But why would either of them be here?

  I look again. This time, nothing. No one. I release a billowy cloud.

  Shrug inside. Doesn’t matter.

  4.

  The noise of smashing and shattering wakes me up like a punch to the groin. I bolt up, all my senses on high alert. My clock trumpets the time in blood red. 1:05 a.m. But besides my heavy breathing and thumping heart, there is only silence, a strange stillness. I push the covers back, slink out of bed, and sneak into the living room. All the lights are on. Dad’s slumped over on the sofa, an empty whiskey bottle in one hand and his knife in the other.

  Broken glass and black wood fragments litter the coffee table and surrounding floor. I take a few cautious steps, but then a bright flash immobilizes me. Lightening cuts the sky in the distance, brilliant zigzags on a coal background. I hold my breath.

  Thunder booms loud enough to make me shudder.

  I exhale and move toward my father, tiptoeing around the pieces of glass that seem to be from the tabletop photo frame that lays broken on the floor. The photo is cut in two unequal halves. It was of the three of us, the only family photo we had on display, but Dad sliced my mother out of it.

  I pick up Mom’s half, then I retrieve Dad and me. I lay both halves on the coffee table. Stare at them, palms to my forehead, fingers splayed.

  Yeah, Dad’s been wasted and awful plenty of times before, but this… how could he do this? And with his knife?

  That’s not what your knife is for, Dad. That’s not what you taught me. How could you let your knife be so cruel? What about the first tenet of the TSP code?

  Maybe he was following the second tenet.

  Mom left us, cut us out of her life, so shouldn’t we cut her out of ours? An eye for an eye.

  I shake my head. No. I don’t like that. But maybe he just really misses her. Like I do.

  I take the knife out of his hand, put it on the table. Then I pry his fingers off the empty whiskey bottle, set it next to his knife, and lower his torso onto the leather cushions. Slide a pillow under his sweaty head. His legs are deadweight when I swing them onto the opposite end. I drape his arms over his gut. He looks like he’s in a cremation casket. Bad luck. I roll him on his side, towards me. Better. And this way he won’t choke if he pukes.

  Back to the debris. I clean up the glass and wood. Then I carry the two sections of our family photo back to my room, all delicate, like they’re ancient scrolls. I fit the bisected edges together. Tape it, front and back.

  I prop the photo on a floating shelf that’s at eye level. I haven’t had a good look at it in awhile. It was taken ten years ago on the Roof Terrace of Namsan Seoul Tower. I look closer. There it is. The gochujang red lovelock I’d just fastened to the chain link fence. Our family’s lovelock.

  I bounded up the last five steps. I wanted to be the first one to lay my eyes on the Roof Terrace’s long fence, because I knew when I saw it I’d get the Christmas feeling even though it wasn’t December. I loved the Christmas feeling. Warmth and merriment. Candy and raised glasses. Crisp air and cold, red cheeks. Crunchy snow and a crackling fire. Peace and harmony. Love.

  I wanted the Christmas feeling first.

  Plus the fence reminded me of a flat Christmas tree, the thousands of lovelocks hanging from it like an infinite number of ornaments. Silver. Gold. Solid colors. Sparkly.

  I looked over my shoulder. Mom and Dad were climbing hand-in-hand. Talking. Laughing.

  My parents are smiling in the photo, and Dad’s got his arm around Mom. I’m standing in front of them. They’ve both got a hand on my shoulders.

  “Smile, Rocky,” Mom said. She knew I wasn’t smiling even without looking.

  Why didn’t I smile?

  I never did. Not even at the best times—Dad’s private knife lessons in the park and Mom’s weekly haemul pajeon dinners. Not even the one time the best times happened on the same day.

  “Dad,” I said, “may I please show Mom what you taught me today?” I waited for his answer. I wanted to smile, but I didn’t. I focused on the grand spread of homemade banchan on the low table instead. The fiery red, green, and pale yellow of the gimchi…

  “Yes, Rocky. Go get your knife.”

  My eyes widened, but I caught myself. I hadn’t thought that he’d say yes. I wanted to leap up and run to his den, but I made myself get up slow and walk. When I came back with the black box, Mom was standing over the table with the large, sizzling cast iron skillet.

  Pavarotti’s Mamma came on.

  My mouth watered. My eyes didn’t move from the skillet. The familiar, savory aroma made me change my mind a
bout showing her my new knife trick. After we eat. I put the box on the floor next to me.

  Mom kneeled and set down the skillet in the middle of the table. She took off her mitts, smiling at me. She served Dad first, then me, and then herself.

  “I appreciate you preparing this meal,” Dad said.

  “Thank you for making the food,” I said.

  Mom and I waited until Dad lifted his chopsticks before we touched ours. We always let him start eating before we dug in. I dipped my first bite in the sauce then delivered the crispy treasure to my mouth. Closed my eyes as I chewed. I couldn’t imagine anything tasting better. When I opened my eyes, Mom was looking at me, still smiling.

  “There’s no one I’d rather make it for than you, Rocky. There’s no place I’d rather be than here with you.”

  I was used to her saying things like that, so I didn’t think anything of it. Not until I realized her eyes were filled with tears. I was about to smile back, but then Dad muttered something and flung his spoon which was heaped with rice. It hit the wall behind me and landed with a clang on the floor. He pushed his plate away, shot up, and stomped off.

  Mom’s smile was gone. She watched Dad until he disappeared into his den. Then she wiped her eyes and looked at me, tried to smile again.

  I tried to smile back at her, but I couldn’t. My smile stayed inside.

  It’s stayed inside ever since.

  I look at the photo again.

  I need to get out of here. Need to walk.

  I pat the upper left side of my suit. Dunhill tin—check. Pat my trouser pockets. Lighter, pocket watch, cell phone—check, check, check.

  Knife.

  I get it from the beam. “I’d never leave you behind,” I whisper and slide it gently into its sheath.

  I creep to the doorway. Dad’s snoring like his fire-breathing dragon tat came alive but had a bad cold.

  I scan the rack of expensive shoes. My Ferragamo monk strap loafers call to me. Thick-soled for pounding the concrete. Slip my feet in.

  I walk right past the three umbrellas that hang near the door—Dad’s black one, Mom’s yellow one, and mine is red.

  I want to walk in the weather. Mom taught me that, she liked weather. So do I. The way it feels on my face. In my hair. In my lungs when I breathe it in.