The Queen of Tears (15 page)

When the bus arrived at their stop, the three of them waited for the hydraulic hiss of the bus doors opening. They got out and walked towards the apartment. The moon was out. Cars whizzed by. For the first time that night, she thought about her brother with a sudden and depressing amount of pity. She knew it had been his fault, but she wanted to go to him and help him. It was an instinct she’d always had when it came to her brother. No matter what he did, she’d always wanted to protect him. He certainly wasn’t going to protect himself.

When they got to the apartment, Kenny and Brandon were watching television. It was the same monkey documentary Crystal had seen the night before. She shot to the sofa and wedged herself in between Brandon and his father. “Did it just start?” she asked.

Kenny looked up at Won Ju with a frown. “Your brother called,” he said.

Soong went to Brandon’s room, then the bathroom. The shower turned on. “Won Ju, you gotta see this,” Crystal said from the sofa. “It’s like Shakespeare’s
Richard III
.”

Won Ju sighed and picked up the cordless phone. The apartment was way too crowded. She felt like a bartender during happy hour. All these people to serve in this tiny space. She walked to her bedroom and closed the door. She dialed Donny’s number. “Hello?”

They spoke in Korean. “It’s me. Are you O.K.?”

“I’m better than O.K. I’m glad she’s gone.”

“Good, good. Wait, just a second.” Won Ju stepped out of the room. Kenny was giving Crystal’s breasts the side eye. “Hey, Kenny. Why don’t you take Donny out?”

Kenny’s eyes immediately focused on Won Ju. “Is that him on the phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell him I’ll pick him up in a half an hour.”

Won Ju walked into the bedroom and put her mouth back to the phone. “Donny, go out with Kenny tonight. He’ll pick you up.”

“O.K, Won Ju. Tell him I’ll be ready.”

Won Ju hung up the phone. It went way too easy. Neither of them gave her a hard time. She walked outside. Kenny got up and walked past her toward the bedroom. Crystal reclined in the empty spot and put her feet slightly under the sofa cushion Brandon was sitting on. Brandon did not move, but Won Ju sensed sudden discomfort flicker in his face. She looked at Crystal and suddenly saw a dangerous animal that had the power to devour her husband and son whole. It’s amazing how admiration can turn into fear and loathing so quickly, she thought. She looked at the light brown monkeys on television. “Africa?” she asked.

“Sri Lanka. Wherever that is,” Crystal said.

“Good. I don’t like animal documentaries in Africa. Lion ones are the worst.”

Crystal looked up. “Why?”

“Because they never show the people. There’s probably a hundred times more film on the lions of Africa than there are on the people.”

“Mom, stop being weird,” Brandon said.

“Yeah, Mom. Lighten up,” Crystal said.

Won Ju turned around to leave the room, but there was not an empty room in sight. She looked toward the window. For a moment, she recognized it as the only way out, and the thought of spattering on the pavement from twenty stories high seemed very tempting. She’d finally be able to get some sleep.

-7-

Kenny and Donny found themselves at Club Mirage. They sat at the stage with a beer in one hand and a wad of dollar bills in the other. They were looking into the crotch of a fake-breasted white girl wearing nothing but makeup, white platform shoes, and bleached hair. “Hey, Donny,” Kenny said as the stripper spread her legs and repeatedly thrust her crotch inches from his face, “I wish I was a gynecologist.”

Donny smiled and sipped his beer. He put a dollar in the stripper’s garter. Some loud eighties hard-rock band was blaring from the CD jukebox, so Donny had to yell. “Do you want a drink?”

The stripper smiled. “Aren’t you Crystal’s man?”

“Not anymore.”

“Liar.” The stripper went to the other side of the stage and squatted in front of two local men wearing Honolulu Police Department T-shirts.

Kenny put his hand on Donny’s shoulder. “What was her name again?”

“Serenity, I think.”

Kenny laughed. “Well, I knew it wasn’t Chastity.”

It kind of amazed Donny how much fun Kenny was having. He was acting as if he’d never been to a strip club before. “Hey, Kenny, let’s sit in a booth.”

Kenny responded with a disappointed shrug. “O.K.”

Donny ordered two more drinks. “So I suppose you heard about the breakup.”

Kenny laughed. “Yeah, I heard. Not much, though.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

The waitress, who was wearing a red bikini with pictures of white hibiscuses on it, put the bottles of Bud Light on the table. “Ten dollars,” she said.

Donny gave her a twenty, and she gave him ten dollars in singles. He gave her one of the singles, and she smiled and walked away. Kenny’s predatory eyes followed her. Donny was never a prude, but he didn’t really enjoy Kenny’s antics. He always felt that Won Ju was the only person in the world who truly loved him, and he felt protective of her.

Kenny took a gulp from the bottle. “Anyway, no, I’m not surprised.”

Donny lit a cigarette. Kenny continued. “I had this friend in college in my frat. A real party animal, but really smart too. He told me something I’ll never forget. He said, ‘Never get seriously involved with beauty contestants, psych majors, or strippers.’”

“Why?”

Kenny smiled. “Because all three are too self-involved and think they’re the shit. You can’t marry someone like that. That’s why I hooked up with your sister. She was pretty enough to be a pageant girl and had the body of a stripper, but at the same time, she was always worried about other people and not herself. Her ego ain’t strong.”

Donny didn’t know whether his sister was being complimented or criticized. “That sounds like good advice.”

“It totally is. I’m telling you, you’re better off without her. Girls like that, they only live for themselves.”

“So which one’s the worst?” Donny asked.

“Which one what?”

“Psych majors, beauty contestants, or strippers?”

“Oh, you might have it easy. Psych majors are the worst. They get into it because they want to find out why they’re so fucked up. And I’ll tell you, there’s no worse psychologist than the one who analyzes herself. Talk about digging a deeper hole.”

“Sounds like you know from experience.”

“Yeah, I’m dating one now. She’s probably at home trying right now to analyze why I didn’t call her. She’s wondering, is it me? Does he have intimacy problems? When the fact of the matter is, I’ve done my own self-analysis, and come to one conclusion.”

Donny was shocked that Kenny trusted him with the knowledge that he was cheating on Won Ju. He was also surprised that Kenny referred to it as dating. “What?”

“I’m a womanizing pig. I’ll tell you, Donny,” Kenny said as he put down his beer and looked directly at Donny’s eyes. Donny turned away. “It’s us against them. You think of life as competition, and it simplifies things. It’s all a game. Your problem is that you have Los Angeles Clipper mentality. Once you get so used to losing, it gets so you expect it and start looking for a scapegoat. You know how many head coaches the Clippers went through?”

Donny took a gulp of beer and tried to forget what Kenny had just told him. He tried to focus on what was said about Crystal. He agreed Crystal was a selfish bitch who thought she was better than him. But Won Ju? No. “So why do you pursue this psychology person?”

Kenny smiled. “Shit, if you have them wired, they’re the easiest to control. Deep down inside they’re still fucked-up little girls. In fact, now that I think about it, Won Ju could have majored in psych, but I’m glad she didn’t. What happened to her in Vegas, man, it was fucked up. It was so fucked up, it fucked me up for a while, and it happened way before we met. I wanted to kill the son of a bitch. When I told her that, she got really quiet, more than usual. I guess it was a one-conversation deal.”

Vegas? Donny thought.

“But getting into psych would’ve just fucked her up more. So I’m glad she goes through her phases. You know, all that zodiac, Scientology bullshit. It keeps her harmlessly distracted. But I’m a little scared that she’s running out of stuff. Hell, even I was a phase, marriage and all, I suppose. And I tried. Vegas, I wanted to kill. But a larger part of me wanted to break her fear. But it was bad. She had to get sloshed every time before we’d have sex. In fact, that’s how I knew we were going to have sex. She hasn’t gotten drunk in a long time.”

Vegas? Donny asked himself again. She was mugged, and beaten pretty bad, but he didn’t think that it was that scarring for her. His mother had gone ballistic when she had arrived from the airport to the hospital, and seemed to, of course, immediately blame him. He always shamefully thought of the ordeal as more traumatic for him than his sister. “So anyway,” Kenny said, “Who cares? I missed WWII; I missed the sixties. If a documentary on Native American genocide is on PBS, one of those docs that Won Ju loves, and it’s on at the same time as
Who
Wants To Be A Millionaire
, you better believe I’m watching Regis. I’m not the solution to the world’s problems, and I don’t pretend to be. Does that make me evil?”

“Vegas wasn’t that tough on her, was it?” Donny asked Kenny.

Kenny nearly spit a mouthful of beer out. “Are you kidding?”

“She was mugged and beat pretty bad, but…”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“I shouldn’t say if the old dragon lady and Won Ju didn’t say anything. But I’ll say this, I’m glad I’m a man.”

Just then the bleached blond walked to the table. Her white thong bikini glowed under the black lights. “So you were going to buy me a drink?” she asked.

Kenny made room for her on his side of the table. “Sit down. I’ll buy you one.”

Serenity sat by Kenny and asked, “So what’s your name, sweetie?”

Kenny smiled. “Whatever you want it to be.” Then he looked seriously at Donny. “Remember, I said I’m glad to be a man, not proud to be one.”

Rape. But why was it my fault? Donny asked himself.

-8-

Kenny walked into the dark apartment and closed the door. He took off his shoes and felt the carpet between his toes. Home. He missed his single-man apartment. He remembered the tiny one-bedroom in Salt Lake with nostalgia. One room contained his surfboards, paddles, golf clubs, and other sports equipment, and the living room, the first room a person saw when they stepped in, contained his twenty-seven-inch television and his king-sized futon bed. He’d loved bringing women over. The first thing they saw was the bed. There were no chairs, only the bed. Once he got them upstairs, he batted a good .900. He never referred to it as his Bat Cave, which many of his friends called their single-guy apartments. He’d called his “The Spiderweb.”

But now this two-bedroom was home, and he thought the carpet in this apartment felt more plush than any other carpet he felt. But there were way too many people on his carpet. Here he was, entering like a ninja into his own home. He took a few cautious, drunken steps and stopped when he saw the faint outline of two sleeping heads. One was on the sofa. The other was on the floor. He waited in stillness for his eyes to adjust. The silhouettes became more distinct, and the shape of Crystal’s body began to materialize. Kenny looked towards his bedroom and let out a quiet sigh.

There were no two ways about it. Kenny was drunk and horny. He stepped quietly towards the sleeping body on the floor and squatted in front of it. He looked at his sleeping son, then his eyes darted towards his bedroom again. After waiting a few seconds, his hand slowly extended towards the head of long, dark brown hair.

His hand stopped. He looked around. He remembered he’d awakened in the middle of the night the night before, and his wife had been smoking a cigarette by the window. He looked towards the window. She wasn’t there. His eyes focused on Crystal again. Still in his squat, he took a step closer to her. He felt his penis harden in his jeans while he stared at the shape of her breasts, covered by a cotton T-shirt. He wanted to dive into the neck of the T-shirt and start sucking away. He looked towards the bedroom again. Again, no movement.

He held his breath then exhaled. He crawled closer to her and lightly touched her breast. He pulled his hand away quickly. He felt like an awkward teenager copping his first feel. He felt like a bobcat wondering how he was going to eat a porcupine. His hand moved forward again. This time he let his hand stay on the breast longer. He put her nipple between his index and middle finger and squeezed gently. With her eyes still closed, Crystal let out a quiet moan.

The excitement was overwhelming. She moaned! She knew it was him and she moaned! He had to force restraint on his desire to rip her clothes off and smother her with his body. He looked towards the bedroom again. Again silence. He put his other hand on the other breast and began rubbing it, feeling the nipples become erect. Suddenly, it was as if his drunkenness left him, it was like he was aware of every sound and movement around him. She wanted him. He would take her right here with his wife in one room, his mother-in-law in another, and his son not more than two feet away. He looked at his son. Brandon did not move. It was crunch time, and he wasn’t about to stay seated on the bench. Coach, put me in, he thought.

He began taking off Crystal’s shirt. As the shirt moved up slowly, he saw a smile flicker on her face. She wanted it. When the shirt moved up to her chest, she opened her eyes. The scream that followed shook Kenny so badly that he tasted the bile that leapt to his throat. His erection was lost in a matter of a split second. He stood up and stared at his bedroom door, knowing what was coming next.

Both bedroom lights turned on. Both Won Ju and Soong, dressed in robes, came out and turned on the living room light. Kenny was standing over Crystal. Crystal had her hand over her eyes. Brandon, who was also awakened by the scream, looked up at his father with a questioning face. Kenny, for a few seconds, imagined his life falling apart. His wife would leave him, his son would go with her, he wouldn’t be able to find strippers to ease him because Crystal would have him blacklisted, and this little crazy Korean woman who now stared at him would hire someone to have him killed. He felt like Scott Norwood missing that last-second field goal at the end of Super Bowl XXV. Scott “Norwide.”