April Loves Black Coffee: First Impressions (17 page)

I close my eyes as I listen to Lina’s soft laughter. I choose not to answer Bryan’s comment. It’s true that he blew up my phone last week, but I ignored it out of habit. Bryan is entitled to the hope that one day I will return his phone calls and text messages.

“Bryan, take your arm off me please. You smell like old cologne,” I mumble. “Come on!” I do my best to remove his arm.

“Did you know when you hit and yell at someone, it's an expression of love?” Bryan asks as he refuses to move his hold around me. His affections have always been suffocating to say the least.

“Bryan, this is so not the day.” I toss my head back against the booth.
I have bigger fishes to fry!
Amused, my conscience gives Bryan an adoring smile. She has a soft spot for him–much like adoring an orphaned puppy.

“Aww, what’s wrong May?” Bryan examines my face. “Can I help you with
anything?”

“Yes, go away,” I tell him bitterly.

“Bryan, leave her alone for once.” Lina finally intervenes with a grin. My cousin finds our relationship hilarious and often does little to prevent Bryan from crawling under my skin. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“Looking for my brother,” Bryan answers her. He starts running his hand up and down my hair. I dig my fingernails into his arm. Bryan pulls away quickly and says, “You want me don't you May?”

“Yes Bryan,” I say lazily, placing a finger on my temple to keep my head from exploding. “I want you just as much as I want to open a freshly delivered pizza box to find maggots inside. I want you just like I want a good sunburn that will leave me with skin cancer. I want you just as much I want to squeeze lemons onto a cut.”

“Oh god.” Bryan withdraws from me. I think for a second my comment has finally put him off, but he reaches for my right finger instead. “What happened to your finger?”

This is where I drew the line. “Nothing.” I pull my finger away from him. I don’t want to explain or disclose any information.

“Leave her alone Bryan.” Lina slaps him on the forehead finally. “Your brother’s at my house.”

Bryan looks back at Lina with suspicion. “Because he tore ours apart?”

“We’ll be by later today to clean it up,” is all Lina says.

Evidently, we are not going to tell Bryan what is going on. The less Bryan knows about the incident last night the better. It is difficult for him to keep anything a secret, especially since he has gotten in with the wrong crowd lately. Bryan used to be a sweet and nerdy teenager, but now he’s into hard styles and harsh words.

I glance at my watch and realize noon is rapidly approaching. “I got to go to work. I’m going to be late.”

“I’ll take you to work.” Bryan reaches for my wrist again.

I shake him off me. “Bryan, do me a favor and get yourself a real girlfriend.”

“I’m dating May. I’m dating to forget you, but I haven’t met anyone with your
it
factor,” Bryan replies as though this is all truth coming from the depths of his soul.

Girl! This kid is hilarious!
My conscience is grinning with all her teeth showing.

“Sometimes I wonder if you really do like me or you just like to annoy the living life out of me, Bryan.” I pull away from him indefinitely. “I don’t have time for this. I’ll talk to you later, Lina. Call me.”

“Bye May.” Lina is suppressing laughter at the sour look on Bryan’s face. “Call me after your dinner tonight.”

“I will,” I answer my cousin. My heart beats a little faster at the reminder.

“Dinner?” Bryan makes a face. He leaves nothing to the imagination. “With who, May?”

I give him a brisk wave before leaving. If he thinks I am going to tell him, Bryan seriously needs me to set him straight one day.

“She’s just playing hard to get.” I hear Bryan’s statement behind my back.

“I don’t think that’s playing hard to get Bryan, it’s more like
a plain rejection,” is Lina’s snappy remark.

I suppress a laugh at Bryan’s childish ways. I realized long ago that Bryan continues to tease me because I put up with it. If I return his supposed feelings, Bryan will be the one hiding from me. Bryan makes it hard to take him seriously because his antics are so outrageous.

I
END UP LEAVING MULA
feeling lighter. Now that I have worked out the kinks with Lina, I do my best to keep my mind off the impending dinner with Choi Sangwoo tonight. I allow myself only a moment to think about how he is going to call me; I never gave Sangwoo my number, so how are we going to meet tonight? Something tells me that predictability and organized scheduling is not Choi Sangwoo’s style. Now, I am on a different tangent thinking about how I want to discuss the money-borrowing ordeal with him. I have never borrowed money from anyone, much less thirty thousand dollars. Mayhem must be affluent to have thirty thousand lying around for someone as average as Spyder to borrow.
Well, Mayhem’s going after it so that proves he doesn’t regard money lightly.
My intuition’s whiny voice shatters my peaceful flight.

I arrive twenty minutes later at The Trax no longer refreshed. Instead, I am on edge and wired. The Trax is in its full restaurant mode. The foot traffic increases by mid-afternoon and all staff members are wholly busy, so break schedules shift to an hour after the usual time.

By the time my break comes around, I find myself sitting at the end of the bar. Tailor mixes me a refreshing drink before fulfilling his bartender duties with a group of executives at the other end of the bar. I am in the middle of stirring the ice cubes against the bluish green drink when the stool next to me groans.

Son plops heavily down next to me. “God, it’s hot!” He wipes a sheet of sweat off his forehead. Without waiting for Tailor, Son reaches over the counter and grabs a bottle of water.

“I thought Joolie is taking her break,” I comment. I look around for my other co-worker and find her taking orders from a table near the window.

“We switched,” Son answers with a hoarse throat. He opens his water bottle and chugs it down like a fish. When he finishes, Son wipes the corners of his mouth. “Are you okay?”

Uh Oh. Can he see it on my face too?
I glower inside, hating the fact that I am such an open book.

He may not show it often, but Son does care about the people he works with. Although Son takes his job seriously, he’s mindful of the people associated. As of the moment, Son is looking at me with sincere concern.

  “Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?” I let out a feigned laugh and do my best to hide it by taking another sip of my drink.
Remember that Crist member Son? He’s helping me pay off a thirty thousand debt my cousin and her loser boyfriend racked up.
My conscience sits down on the talk show chair.

“You just seem kind of out of it lately,” Son remarks. He cocks his head to the side and eyes me warily. “Like you have a lot on your mind.”

“Really?” I ask nonchalantly. “Maybe working two jobs is getting to me. I’m almost always on the brink of exhaustion.”

Son nods his head at the familiar sentiments. “That makes sense.”

I tap the side of my glass twice as a thought permeates my mind. “Can I ask you something?”

“What?” Son asks. He takes another swig of his water bottle.

“Remember that night when that Crist member was here?” I start slowly, not wanting to sound too eager for the information.

“Yeah, and he threw up everywhere on this counter?” Son makes a face.

“Oh yeah.” I withdraw my elbow from the surface. “How did you hear about gangs like Crist?”

Son’s eyebrows come together. He has a faraway look in his eyes. “You live under a rock May?”

“Come on. All I know is work and school.”

“How long are you going to use that excuse for?”

“It’s not an excuse!” I laugh at Son’s aggressive tackle on my ignorance.

I expect him to laugh with me, but Son’s smile slowly fades from his lips when he answers my question. “My cousin was a Crist member.”

My eyes grow big at Son’s revelation.
Oops. This is not what I was expecting.

“They’re more prevalent than you’d think May. You just have to know how to identify them.” Son narrows his eyes in an obtrusive manner. “People have preconceived notions that gangsters wear saggy pants, oversized shirts, designer shoes, and stand on street corners. Those are the lower street gangsters. Crist members are higher up in the food chain. There are social rankings and a complex hierarchical system in organized gangs. There are the street soldiers, the carriers and runners, the recruiters, the underbosses, the bosses. There is a lot more that I am not too familiar with. I only know from when my cousin was active.”

“When he was active?” I repeat after Son. There’s a queasy feeling in my stomach.

Son gives me a lost look. A sad expression strikes his face. “That’s how it usually ends when you’re in a gang, May. The only way out is death.”

I suck in a deep breath. Electricity charges through me. “Was his Boss nice to him?” I imagine Son’s cousin working under Choi Sangwoo.

Son lets out a deep chuckle that rumbles from the bottom of his throat. “Yeah, his boss was nice to him. Nice enough to green light my cousin’s execution.”

Shock electrocutes me. I nearly drop my drink from Son’s comment. “What else do they do?” My voice is barely above a whisper.

Son doesn’t answer me. Instead, his eyes focus towards the front entrance of The Trax. I follow his gaze to see two figures entering the restaurant. The woman is walking briskly with the man following her heels closely. The two are dressed business casual. The man is wearing khaki pants with a dark blazer while the woman is wearing black slacks and a white blouse. Even at a distance, I see her red nails curling over a dark manila folder. Her dark eyes are scanning the room. When her keen eyes land on Son, the blood drains from his face. I can almost see the hairs stand on his arms.

Son stands abruptly from the bar and mumbles, “What are they doing here?”

“Who are they?” I ask. 

“The Bosses.” Son leaves without clarifying if I had heard him right.

I’m alarm
ed by his abrupt departure. I have never seen Son react this way. In fact, I have never seen even one Boss much less two of them. There is something unsettling about them. A couple of co-workers stop in the middle of their tasks, shell shocked at the sight of Son scampering after the two unfamiliar figures. When Son reaches them, the woman gestures toward the long hallway as though to indicate why she is here.

“She doesn’t look like a health inspector.” His breathless voice breaks my concentration.

I jump slightly at Tailor’s phantom appearance. He is in full bartender gear, complete with the Fedora hat. Tailor’s usual grin is not apparent on his face. He looks worried, reflecting how I feel inside.

“Son says they’re the Bosses,” I mumble, well aware that I am lighting a fire under the gossip log.

“Bosses?” Tailor lifts up an eyebrow. “I’ve never even met one Boss. I’ve worked here for three years.”

Right?
I feel another chill ripple down my spine. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

I get up from the barstool and head into the bathroom to wash my face. Thoughts of my conversation with Son travels back to my consciousness. The thought of Choi Sangwoo green lighting someone’s execution traumatizes me. I don’t know what to think about all the rumors. It seems as though the more I try to figure out these gang lords, the more rumors and tainted truths I am coming across. There are too many grapes marching through the grapevine.

At some point between running the cold water under my fingers and thinking, I decide to give up. There is no use dwelling on something I cannot settle on. I will probably never get to the bottom of the truth. The only conclusion I am sure of is Choi Sangwoo, and his dangerous counterpart Mayhem, will remain in shrouded mystery. People who dedicate their entire lives to investigating gangs may never obtain the type of information I am asking for. Who am I, a nobody, to be pursuing such truth?

Talk about positive thinking, May.
My conscience is all sarcasm when I leave the bathroom.

I go back to work with a buffer mindset. I put the rest of my efforts into a happy appearance and customer service mannerisms. Fortunately, time speeds by and before I know it, The Trax is nearing its closing time. Because Sunday nights are never much at The Trax, the venue closes two hours earlier than its usual time.

Son is still missing in action. A couple of the co-workers start to whisper that Son is in trouble for his management executions while others speculate he is getting an award for his czar-like pursuits.

As the remaining customers trickle out of The Trax, I head to the bar to drop off some empty glasses. Tailor is in the mi
ddle of stacking bottles back on the shelves when he greets me. “Staff meeting,” he states. He motions towards the hallway where a couple of co-workers are heading.

“Staff meeting?” I don’t even disguise the surprise in my voice. Our staff
meetings are usually at the beginning of the month.