The Queen of Tears (32 page)

After he finished talking, Brandon quickly climbed up on the railing. He straddled the top bar, holding on to it with one hand, like he was riding a bull. Kaipo grabbed his leg. “What da fuck you doing?”

Brandon smiled. “I’m tired. Flying or sinking.”

Kaipo wasn’t sure if he’d let go. He never would remember if he did or not. He didn’t think the boy was strong enough to break his grip, but who knew? Brandon was determined. Maybe he wanted to see it; maybe he’d figured that it was Brandon’s life, but he couldn’t remember letting go. What he would never forget, though, was the image of Brandon being levitated by the wind. For a moment, it was as if God was under Brandon, and He pursed his giant God lips and gently blew. Brandon looked like a mullet jumping out of a glassy pool of brackish water in slow motion. He wore the sun as a halo for a second, smiling ten feet above Kaipo. He was a stained-glass window. Kaipo remembered that smile, that glorious smile that was brighter than the sun itself for that split second, right before he crashed toward the canopy like an ill-constructed paper airplane. God inhaled, but Kaipo would never forget that victorious, angel-for-a-second smile that outshone the sun. Just like the moment before a wave rolls and consumes itself on a stormy day, the moment of death can be so beautiful, and like the mullet jumping from the pool, or the marbled, misty breaker, it often goes unnoticed.

-6-

The nameless, egg-shaped man. Soong remembered Henry had mentioned him at least thirty times. The nameless, egg-shaped man had gone through basic training with Henry. Actually, it wasn’t that he’d completed or somehow graduated from basic training, but it was World War II, and like in all wars, the armies need bodies, so corners were cut. Henry’d said, “We all knew. We all knew from the start that this guy wasn’t going to make it. He couldn’t do a pull-up, much less a push-up, and his running was even worse. I’d look at him most often in disgust, but sometimes with pity. Because when I looked at him, I think he knew he wasn’t going to make it, too.”

Soong had often wondered why Henry would always talk about the weak and unlucky men he’d served with. He seemed never to talk about the ones who won medals or saved lives. But now, she thought that maybe he was trying to pass on some wisdom to her. Maybe he was saying that it’s a fact that the weak perish and so do the strong sometimes, because of bad luck. Maybe he was saying that this is so, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. The nameless, egg-shaped man indeed perished on that first day, and as Henry said, probably within the first few steps he took on the Old World. “What happens when you roll an egg down a hill with rough terrain?”

Had Brandon been an egg or unlucky? Soong asked herself as she sat alone in her aisle, onboard the still Korean Airlines DC-10 in front of Gate 42. It could be considered that bad luck, that one moment where Crystal had been allowed to stay at Won Ju’s home, a simple decision, doomed them. But even then, it wasn’t luck, was it? Crystal wasn’t a mortar that made heads disappear, was she? No, even though she’d considered Chung Yun as the egg all these years, it was indeed Brandon. She supposed all people were eggs; the raw ones were the weak ones, and the boiled ones were strong. Brandon had been a raw egg, an egg carefully coddled by layers and layers of tissue. Tissue. What has tissue ever protected? Tissue does not protect; it cleans.

The legacy of her family that started with an orphan girl named Kwang Ja, the matriarch, was ending. Won Ju and Chung Yun would not have children. Whatever Darian would give birth to would be the start of a new, American line. And Crystal had vanished. Despite the desperate searches conducted by Kenny to find her, or more specifically, his grandson, she was gone. Soong knew well the advantages of letting go of your name. There could be new beginnings, and since Crystal had changed it once before, why not again, and someplace else? Soong had been over-boiled. As she thought of the end of the family she started cracking without moisture.

Chung Yun would go on. Won Ju had become like that ghost woman who lived in Kaipo’s house after Brandon died, except she haunted canned-vegetable aisles. Kenny continued on his search for Crystal, at the same time doing everything in his power to convince himself and anyone else that Kaipo had murdered his son, tossed him off the cliff at the Pali Lookout, even though Kaipo was the one who’d contacted the police before he’d even contacted family. But Kenny had the ears of powerful people, so nevertheless, Kaipo sat in jail awaiting trial. Darian had flown back to California where, Soong figured, she belonged. And here she was, on her way to Korea, to sell her artifacts to a museum, including the silver knife. What was hers belonged in a museum. She did not understand this world, and her artifacts proved useless. She would die in Korea.

The plane began taxiing down the runway. Soong thought about reincarnation and wished it were so. She wanted another chance. She still wasn’t quite sure what she’d done wrong, but she hoped with no delusion that she could have another opportunity. But she knew that hope without delusion was not hope at all. Suddenly, she remembered that fortuneteller years ago, the one who had renamed her. She thought she had been properly skeptical. But perhaps she was not. Perhaps a part of her believed that her new name was a lucky one, because she had hope. She had hopes for her family. She felt like she had been duped, which, she supposed, hope often does.

The plane stopped on the runway. The engines wound loudly. The wings of the plane shook. The flight attendants appeared, going over the safety tips and instructions on what to do if the plane were to drop out of the sky thirty thousand feet high. Had she been crying? Her body convulsed. She wiped her face with her fingers. There were no tears. Suddenly, she felt sick. She grabbed for the bag in front of her and vomited into it.

The plane raced down the runway, then slowly lifted. Soong vomited again. As the plane ascended, Soong experienced a series of dry heaves that sent tears rolling down the sides of her face. She could not stop.