Kimchi & Calamari(8)

I was listening, but honest to God, I didn’t get Dad. He knew I’d heard Nonna and Nonno Calderaro’s immigrant rags to middle-class riches story umpteen times. I knew things were hard back then. But why was my life hard for Dad to talk about? After all, he chose to adopt me.

Dad kept going on about the neighborhood his parents moved to after they opened the tailor shop. Italian Harlem, that’s what they called it. I grew madder with each word. Why’d I ever think I could talk to him about this?

“They’re not my ancestors,” I blurted, interrupting Dad.

The Mad Meter suddenly switched on and started pulsing at an eighth-note tempo.

“That’s a heck of a thing to say about your grandparents,” he said.

“They’re great, Dad. But I’m asking you about my Korean relatives, and you’re not helping.”

“I don’t know any more than you do, Joseph. Talk to your mother about that.”

Dad picked up his water bottle and T-shirt from the grass. Time to go home.

Talk to your mother, he’d said. As if I’d asked what’s for dinner.





Towel Boy




On Monday afternoon the school bus screeched to a halt in front of the post office and I hopped off. Rain sprinkled on my face like salt on french fries. I was headed to the library. So far, the only thing Nash had found about the day I was born was that Pusan had set a record for rainfall. That would hardly take fifteen hundred words to describe. So I decided to get a few library books and load my essay up with a bunch of who-what-where facts about Korea—in case Nash didn’t find anything in time. Maybe if my writing was clever enough, Mrs. Peroutka would forget about all that ancestry stuff.

First, though, I’d stop at Mom’s shop to get money for a snack.

By the time I got to Shear Impressions, my backpack was soaked and my hair looked like black spaghetti. Nutley was setting its own record for rain.

“Joseph, my little water rat. Where’s your umbrella?” Mom called from the register as she rang up a customer.

“Hold the flattery, Mom. I’m off to the library on an empty stomach. Can I have three bucks for a salad?”

“Salad my behind. You’re headed to Randazzo’s Bakery,” she said.

Mom’s customer handed her a tip and smiled as if she was in on the joke, too. She was one of what Mom calls her SOWS, Sweet Old Wash ’n’ Setters.

Aunt Foxy walked out from the back room with her arms full of wet towels. She was dressed up fancy: a red satin blouse, huge hoop earrings, and a suede skirt, which meant she was over her recent wrecked romance. Aunt Foxy usually wears a sweat suit without makeup when she’s recovering from a breakup. She’s had plenty of boyfriends, but Mom says no one ever treats her good enough. Not that I’m betraying any deep family secrets by saying this stuff. You hang out in a hair salon for more than ten minutes and you could write a biography about any one of the hairdressers.

“I’m so happy to see my favorite teenaged godson,” Aunt Foxy called out.

“Wouldn’t have to do with that sack of towels, would it?” I pointed to the plastic bag she was filling on the floor.

She came over and gave me a hug. “Of course not.”

I knew Aunt Foxy’s joy had just as much to do with the towels as it did with my being her favorite godson. (I’m her only godson, by the way.) Whenever I walk into Shear Impressions, Mom and Aunt Foxy immediately see me as Joseph the Towel Boy. I’ve been carrying wet towels to Jiffy Wash Laundry ever since they bought the shop together five years ago.

Jiffy Wash was only a block away from the library, so I didn’t mind running this errand. Besides, doing a good deed might earn me extra moolah to get two sprinkle cookies and a soda. Niente per niente. Mom taught me well.

Mom opened her purse. “Here’s four dollars. Odd numbers are bad luck,” she said.

I stuck the money in my back pocket just as a tall, older girl walked in. She had a pierced nose and a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder. If I could’ve teleported a message to Mom and Aunt Foxy, it would have said, “Don’t treat me like Towel Boy in front of her. Please.”

But I wasn’t so lucky.

Aunt Foxy rested the towel bag right smack in front of me. “I counted forty-six towels. This is heavy, so don’t drag it on the sidewalk—it might rip.”

The girl didn’t even look at me. She grabbed a magazine and sat down. She probably thought I was a busboy from the Chinese restaurant across the street. People always think I’m Chinese; they think anyone with narrow eyes is. It used to bug me, but like Mom always says, you gotta get over the idiots in this world.