Necessary Roughness (18 page)

“Are you here, like for real?”
ALL-PRO
asked.

“No, I’m a ghost,” I said, unpacking my stuff.

Rom and Jimmi weren’t there to greet me. When I asked Mikko where they were, he said he didn’t know. He’d seen them head off with Coach and that had been that.

“Hey, Kim! Get your butt in gear,” Kearny yelled. Then he tipped the bill of his cap toward me. “We’re glad you’re back.”

The locker room stank of rust, jock-itch medicine, and sweat. I couldn’t believe how good it smelled.

Out on the field, the tennis courts were empty, and I started thinking about Rainey again. I was wondering if there was any chance that my life would get back to normal.

“Glad to see your appetite is back, young man,” Mrs. Knutson said as she watched me shovel in pounds of tuna-fish-and-egg-noodle hotdish as if I were stoking a furnace.

I woke up in the middle of the night desperately needing to go to the bathroom. Because the bathroom is all the way downstairs, I usually try to go back to
sleep. This time I figured I might as well get it over with.

There was a funny smell coming from the living room.

I saw a smiling face illuminated in the glow of small flames. It took me a second to see that Abogee was holding sticks of incense in front of the Buddha statue.

Was Abogee actually
praying
to the Buddha? In church school we had always been taught that to worship anything other than Jesus was betraying God.

“Abogee,” I said quietly. He turned, slowly. The look on his face was remarkably calm.

“Are you—are you—um, what are you doing?”

The smoke from the incense slowly spiraled upward in curls.

“I am wishing your sister safe passage on her journey.”

Young’s photo, black ribbons running diagonally over its frame, smiled back at us.

“You think I’m an old, superstitious man, don’t you?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know what I thought.

“In Korea, this is what we always did to honor the dead, to wish their spirit safe passage to the next place. It’s not meant to be an affront to Jesus Christ. No, in fact, in this way all religions are supposed to coexist peacefully, even help each other.”

Abogee chuckled.

“You know the president of Korea? One of the first things he did when he moved into the Blue House was to take the Buddha statue out of the garden. After all, he is a good Christian man. But that year, all sorts of bad things happened in Korea
—
bridges collapsed, buildings fell
—
so much that the people start calling him the ‘accident president.’ So what does this man do? He has the Buddha statue put back, at night, of course, so people don’t see. He is still a good Christian. He put the statue back just in case.”

The lights from the candle and the incense cast a warm glow on Abogee’s face and smoothed out some of his wrinkles.

“Now, with your sister, I believe her spirit has gone up to heaven, but this way I will make sure she has a pleasant journey, just in case. The Lees told me to send her some things she loved, so I burned some books for her. And then I thought about her flute.
…”

The living room looked so different in shadow. All of a sudden I felt so far away from everything.

I reached out and put my hand on Abogee’s shoulder. It was bony, slightly stooped.

“She has her flute, Abogee. I made sure of that.”

Jimmi was at practice the next day. Maybe Rom would show up too. Who knew? I just lowered my head and got down to business. I admit I did miss Rom’s glass stomach. The end-of-practice sprints now seemed to take forever before someone puked.

Today I did the honors. It came out as watery gruel, not real, true puke. But we got to stop.

“Morning sickness,” I joked as
ALL-PRO
and I started our extra laps.

“Hey, Chan, can I talk to you for a sec?” It was Jimmi.

I glanced at Mikko, who shrugged “Okay,” I said.

We went over to the bleachers, strangely empty now that the home-game season was over. An old candy wrapper went blowing by like tumbleweed.

“Coach and I had a talk yesterday.”

“Uh-huh.” I couldn’t look at him, so I stared at my shoes.

“About you getting jumped in the locker room.”

“So you heard about it, huh?” I tried to not let my voice drip with sarcasm.

“I was in on it.”

I took a breath. Something was swelling inside me. I concentrated on seeing how well I could lace my fingers together. It was just me and him, now, face-to-face. Oh, what I could do in a fair fight. His face could be mush in a minute.

“But I didn’t go through with it.”

“What? You liar.”

“I didn’t. It was Rom and some of his older druggie buddies you don’t even know. He wanted to jump you, teach you a lesson.”

“Teach me
what?”

“Not to have such a swelled head.”

Swelled head—me? Compared to
him?
Now, this was getting interesting.

“I admit I wasn’t so crazy about you coming in to the team like that—I’ve been playing football since I was a freshman. It was like you come in, not knowing crap, and then boom! I’m on the bench.”

“We’re supposed to be a
team,”
I said. “And don’t forget, you guys asked
me.”

“Ripanen asked you, not us.”

“Whatever.”

“Look, I just wanted to say I’m sorry about your sister, and about you being jumped. I could’ve done
something about it, but I didn’t. I told Coach all about it. I thought he was going to kick me off with Rom, but he didn’t.”

“I still don’t believe you weren’t in on it. What about the bruise I saw you with the next day?”

“What about it? Rom gave it to me. Right between the eyes when I said I wouldn’t go.”

If this was true, Jimmi was a sicker puppy than I’d thought.

“Explain one thing to me, then,” I said. “Why the hell do you stay buddies with someone who punches you when you disagree with him?”

“Rom’s not all bad,” he said. “He just loses it too easy. He doesn’t like new people. But you know, if not for him, I wouldn’t even be able to play football.”

I looked at him.

“We don’t have a car, my dad and me. Rom, he gave me a ride every day. That’s almost two hours for him. He helped me raise up the money to get a letter jacket, so I could be like the rest of you guys.”

Jimmi spat. “You know, everyone at our school thinks Indians are scum. Teachers too. They don’t care if we dry up and die on the res.”

“So how are you getting home now?”

Jimmi started unpeeling some tape from his wrists.

“Coach, actually.” He laughed a little when he saw the way I was looking at him. “Okay, so some teachers do care.”

*  *  *

It would have been a perfect ending if we had shaken hands, or hugged, or gone to a sweat lodge or something together, but Jimmi just got up and left. I went back to Mikko.

“What was all that all about?”
ALL-PRO
said. “You look like Jimmi just gave you the secret recipe to Reddi Whip or something.”

“He sort of did,” I said. “A lot of unexpected ingredients.”

“I can get you some really good seats at the state tournament,” I said tentatively.

Mrs. Knutson brightened. I knew she would love to get her hands on some tickets. O-Ma and Abogee didn’t say a word.

“The state tournament is kind of a big deal.”

“You better believe it,” Mrs. Knutson said. “Ok-Hee, Sung-Ho, you might as well just close your store because no one’s going to be in town. We haven’t gone to a state tournament in ten years!”

“I’d like you all to come,” I said. “It would kind of mean a lot to me if you could see me play.”

A shadow passed over O-Ma’s face.

“But Chan, it’s hardly been three weeks since Young …”

“I know, O-Ma, I know,” I said. “At first when Mikko was trying to get me to come back, I thought, That’s crazy. But then I got to thinking. Just because Young died doesn’t mean we should stop living. I
mean, I don’t think
she’d
want it that way.” I hesitated. “Um, this might sound crazy, but the other night I dreamed about Young. I think she’d want me to play.”

“Son,”
Abogee said.
“I think your mind has left you. Are you talking about ghosts? Spirits?”

But his voice wasn’t angry. It almost had a hint of a laugh in it.

“I believe in ghosts,” Mrs. Knutson said firmly. “And angels, too.” We all stared at her. How the heck had she understood what Abogee was saying?

“You will just love Minneapolis, I guarantee it,” she went on. “It’s such a beautiful city, so clean, so cultured.”

“And we could stock up on some
kimchi,”
I said.

“Yoho,”
Abogee said to O-Ma. “I think we should go. To watch our son—our only son.”

“We will go,” she said, finally.

“I’ll buy three tickets,” I said.

Abogee and O-Ma were going to see me play.

The pep stuff continued to sell like gangbusters. Mrs. Knutson had gotten us some huge foam
GO MINERS!
pickaxes that the little kids loved to brain each other with. It seemed like no one came into the store without leaving with some.

Once, when I came to the store to work, I saw Abogee studying a book,
Understanding the Basics of Football,
which he shoved under the counter when he saw me. I pretended not to see, but inside I couldn’t stop smiling.

O-Ma, Abogee, and Mrs. Knutson drove down to the Cities in her Chevy, since Lou’s heater seemed to have permanently fritzed out. They stayed at the Tom Thumb Inn, where all the Iron River parents were, in adjoining rooms.

Minneapolis did have big buildings. It was amazing how I’d gotten used to the smallness of Iron River. I was right there with the other guys gawking at the
IDS Tower, which loomed over us, covered in swimming-pool-blue mirrors.

“Don’t sunburn the roofs of your mouths,” Kearny told us.

I couldn’t help it. A mall where we stopped for some vitamins had three floors and seemed to go on forever.

“You should see the Mall of America,” bragged Leland, as if he’d built it himself. “It makes this one look dinky.”

When we weren’t gawking, we spent our time getting used to the field, practicing running on Astro-Turf, which was like running on a huge welcome mat. It promised a nasty burn to anyone who fell with skin exposed. The VFW had sponsored a pancake feed to help us buy turf shoes.

It felt so good to be running again, limbs all oiled and ready to go—and to have some purpose. Every so often I snuck a look at the Dome’s puffy ceiling, wondering if Young’s angel might be hanging around.

That night, before we went to bed, Leland asked us if we wanted to pray with him. Leland was very religious, but not in a Jesus-freak way where he was pushing his religion on you. Jimmi rolled his eyes, but when he saw Mikko and me kneel down next to Leland, he grumbled and joined us.

Leland, like Coach, didn’t pray for us to win, he just asked God to give us strength and stuff. I was
almost jealous to see how much comfort he got from praying. He talked to God as if He were his uncle. I don’t think I’d ever have the power to believe in something like that, something I couldn’t see or touch.

“And we pray for Young, Chan’s sister, may she watch over us also. Amen.”

“Amen,” I said. I opened my eyes. Mikko still had his eyes closed. Jimmi looked like he’d never shut his.

“It’s been tough going, huh?” Leland asked.

“I miss her very much.” I nodded over toward Mikko, who seemed to be trembling just the slightest bit.

“I think he does too.”

The Iron River contingent was very much in evidence. There were
GO MINERS!
banners spread across the stands, and a couple of the younger kids had painted their races red and black, looking like they belonged in a deck of cards or something.

I looked into the stands until I found O-Ma, Abogee, and Mrs. Knutson. Their seats were in the middle of everything. All three of them were wearing Miners sweatshirts, even Abogee. They waved to me, Mrs. Knutson using her giant foam hand:
WE’RE NUMBER ONE!

The coaches had needed to do some shuffling in order to tighten the lines in Rom’s absence, but everyone seemed fine, ready to go. The band was playing happily in the comfort of climate control—no need to antifreeze the instruments. Big black cameras waited on the sidelines.

It was time for an extra point, yet another. Mikko caught the snap, and I could swear he was smiling
under his helmet as he set it up. I was running loose and graceful, like a gazelle, and paced my way into the kick perfectly. My leg swung high in the air, long before any of the Seeyerville Heights players came near me.

That beautiful brown ball went sailing toward the stadium lights, which waited like stars.

My vision blurred from the brightness of the lights, and from a sound I heard.

“Did you hear that?” I yelled to Mikko. “Did you hear that, buddy?”

It was the pure, one-note cry of a flute.

I am at the cemetery.

I walk over to the place where the earth is newly turned, where it swells up slightly, as if pregnant.

I brush off the headstone. My fingers are burned by the cold of the granite as I trace the grooves in the Stone.
YOUNG-BOON KIM, BELOVED DAUGHTER AND SISTER. REST IN PEACE.

Already, here, a red-and-black game jersey rests up against the stone. A teddy bear attached to it says
SOMEONE IN THE MINNEAPPLE LOVES YOU
.

I lean the trophy next to it.
MINNESOTA STATE HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL CHAMPIONS.
The gilded guy on the top is a kicker, just like me.

“I was going to burn it, Sis, but I thought it might melt. So here it is.”

Some bits of white land on the back of my hand. Then more and more and more.

It is snowing. At least that’s what I assume it is. I start to laugh, high-five the headstone.

“You see, Young?” I say as the falling snow blurs my vision. “It’s your first snow! It’s your first snow and your oppa is here to share it with you.” I spread out my palms to catch the wafting flakes and am surprised to find they feel warm.