Kimchi & Calamari(12)

“Let’s switch to blackjack,” I said. “I’ll deal.”

I shuffled the deck while he got up and threw his soda can in the Dumpster. A breeze blew, and I smelled hamburgers from the diner across the street. My stomach growled.

“Hit me,” Yongsu said after I dealt his top card. I gave him another card. He had a ten of diamonds on top of a nine of clubs showing.

“I’m over.” He flipped his bottom card. Six of spades. The wind stirred and sent the card flying off the table. He bent down to grab it just as a white hatchback pulled up.

Yongsu ran over, and a Korean man got out of the car. Yongsu bowed, and the man nodded back. Must be his dad, I figured. They talked, and the man looked over and waved to me.

Clearly Yongsu inherited his friendly gene from his paternal side.

They walked to the rear entrance. Then Yongsu ran back and began shuffling the cards.

“Was that your Uhppa?” I said, remembering how he’d called his mom Uhmma.

“Apa,” he corrected. “You say ‘Apoji’ when you’re older.”

“So you speak perfect Korean?”

“I lived in Korea till I was seven. You know any Koreans here?”

“Not really.” Of course, I always notice other Asian kids. But in my school, if they’re not in your classes, your neighborhood, or your after-school activities, they might as well live in Antarctica.

The wind picked up again suddenly, and I wished I’d worn my band jacket.

Yongsu told me he had a sister who was also in eighth grade. She hadn’t moved yet because she was in a gifted music program. She’d already composed a piano piece that her school orchestra performed at a state competition.

“You’re twins?” I asked.

He dealt the cards. “No, she skipped a year back in grade school.”

“I’ve got twin sisters,” I told Yongsu.

“You’re a triplet?” he asked, confused.

I explained that my sisters were younger and not adopted.

“My sister’s staying with my aunt and uncle in Flushing for a few more days until the music program is over,” he said.

“What’s her name?”

“Ok-hee.”

I must have made a face.

“Ok-hee’s a popular name in Korea,” he said. “Like Brittney or Jessica in America.”

“Or Kelly.” Popular with me, for sure.

We stopped playing cards. Yongsu took a handheld computer out of his pocket. It was a Japanese video game he’d bought off a street vendor in Flushing. It played like a space arcade, but involved morphed grasshoppers searching for food and fighting four-legged bad guys.

“You ever heard the name Duk-kee before?” I asked.

“One of my best friends in Taegu was Duk-kee.”

He pronounced “Duk-kee” differently. More like “Took-ee.” Not “Ducky,” the way I say it.

“Do you know where you were born in Korea, Joseph?”

“Pusan,” I said. “You been there?”

He nodded. “It’s a two-hour drive from Taegu, where we lived. In the summer my parents took us to the fish market and beach in Pusan. My cousin goes to university there.”

I wished I had a Korean cousin. Then I could write about him or her for my essay. I’d settle for just about any Korean relative at this point.

“Yongsu, can you think of any famous Koreans? Like how we have George Washington and Tiger Woods?”

His eyes sparkled like his mom’s. “You ask funny questions.”

“I’m not kidding,” I said. “It’s for a school paper.”

Yongsu said there were plenty. His dad had shelves of Korean history books.

“Problem is they’re written in Korean,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s a big problem for me.” I glanced at my watch. It was five thirty. I was starving, and that burger smell was torturing me.

“Yongsu!” his mom called from the window. She shouted something in Korean, and even I could figure out it meant “Get your butt inside.”

On my way back to Shear Impressions, I practiced saying my Korean name, Duk-kee, the way Yongsu had pronounced it. But it just didn’t sound right coming out of my mouth.





Sounds like Baby Moses




Mom came home from work as the sun was setting on Wednesday. She had dark circles under her eyes and a cardboard box of fried chicken in her hands.

“I had one heck of an afternoon perming crabby Mrs. Congelosi. After an hour of wrapping her whole head in medium-sized silver rollers—and listening to her complain about her daughter-in-law—she changes her mind and says she wants tight blue rollers. And then she had the nerve to tell me to hurry up! No way am I cooking,” she declared.