Kimchi & Calamari(36)

In my dream that night, I was back on that dirt road in Korea. My clothes were sweaty as I trekked up a hill, and my arm hurt from pulling the wagon. I must have fallen behind, because all my companions were ahead of me.

My breath was heavy and I wanted to stop and rest, but then I saw her at the top of the hill. My birth mother. She was short and stocky like me and wearing a red dress. Everything about her was crystal clear except for her face. As usual, that was out of focus, even as I got closer.

She recognized me right away.

“Duk-kee,” she shouted, waving wildly. “I’ve been waiting. Hurry!”

The wagon bumped up and down as I charged toward her. Huffing and puffing, I ran until I could almost reach out and touch her, when suddenly I heard:

“Your friendly neighborhood wall crawler says rise and shine!”

My Spider-Man alarm woke me, and I realized I had never heard her voice. I had never, ever seen my birth mother at all. I was crushed.

But she was out there. And I got to thinking, like Dad always says, “The ball’s in my court.” I needed to make this happen.

Jae and I had found each other, against the odds. I knew that she had to be my cousin. This was no time for Chicken Calderaro to appear. I had to overcome the obstacles—to keep going until I got the answers I needed.





A Man with a Plan




I’d come home from school the next day expecting a quiet house again. I needed to call Jae, to ask her if she would speak with her aunt. But instead I found Dad stretched out on the patio chaise longue with Mom beside him, rubbing his shoulder.

“Geez, Dad, what happened?”

“On-the-job casualty, son. Humpty Dumpty does windows,” he said, his eyes darting to the cast on his arm. He had a bandage above his eye and a few scrapes on his cheek.

“It was only a matter of time, Vinny,” Mom said, taking an empty glass from Dad. “What were you thinking, climbing a three-story Victorian to wash old windows stuck shut for twenty years?”

“I’m sorry, Dad. Does it hurt?” I asked.

“Not too much. I just added a few more scars to my weathered look. How can I grumble? I’ve got the best nurse this side of the Garden State Parkway. And she’s cute to look at,” Dad said, pointing at Mom.

Mom smiled but looked concerned. “You’re getting out of that business, you hear me? You deserve better. Look at the books you read!”

She went into the kitchen to refill Dad’s lemonade. I sat on the picnic bench. For a few minutes we said nothing. Both our eyes wandered to the magazine resting on the side table, The New Yorker.

“How long are you going to be out of work?”

“A couple of weeks,” he replied.

Calderaro Window Washers is a one-man operation. As Dad says, all the profits and all the headaches come from one squeegee cleaner. I looked at his broken arm and knew this was going to be rough for business.

“I can help out, especially with school almost over. I’m bigger than I was last summer when I worked for you. And this time I won’t leave streaks. Promise.”

Dad smiled. A happy smile, not like you’d expect from a guy who’d just fallen off a ladder, broken his arm, and messed up his business. “No, Joseph. You focus on your schoolwork until the very last day. I’ll adapt. Believe it or not, I think this accident was the best thing in the world that could have happened to me.”

Frazer trotted over and plunked down between us.

“Yup, the best thing in the world,” Dad said again.

“I give up. Why?”

“Because I got a wake-up call. One minute I was climbing a ladder, on my way to the top of some divorce attorney’s million-dollar mansion. I probably would’ve cleared a nice chunk of change for an afternoon’s work, and you know how I felt?”

I wanted to say, “Off balance?” but I shook my head instead.

“Miserable. Unfulfilled. The next thing I know, I lose my grip and fall into a juniper bush. Broke the same arm I broke boxing twenty years ago. So I drove myself with one hand to the ER and in my head I heard this voice saying, ‘Vincenzo, this could be the sign you’ve been waiting for. Get out of the window-washing business. Today it’s a broken arm. Who knows? Tomorrow it could be a broken soul.’”

The part about falling off a ladder as a sign was more typical of Mom than Dad, but I kept my wisecracks to myself. For once, Dad was pouring his heart out.

“So you’re going to sell the business?”

“I’m not going to do anything dumb. We still have a mortgage. But in the meantime, I’m going to visit the local college and figure out how to get my degree. Night classes, weekends, whatever. I’ll do it. I’ve always wanted to teach.”