Triplines (9781936364107) (10 page)

“Nothing,” he says.

She eyes him suspiciously.

He asks her where Mom is.

“Shopping. She wanted to buy more Korean food for when Grandma gets here.”

“You know that I get the bed and you get the cot, right?” he says.

“I don't know why you can't share the basement with Ed.”

“He's too old. When he leaves I'll get the basement.”

Ed will be spending the summer in California with his friends before starting college, which means Lenny can take
the room. He has already begun researching how to get free cable TV wired into the basement.

Mira watches him blend more garlic for another minute, and wanders back to her room.

He pours the pale clumpy garlic mixture into a jar, and cleans out the blender. Then he runs over to meet Sal who is fixing up the crawlspace under his house as a secret storage room. Lenny knocks on the small wooden door.

“Come in.”

The small door swings up, and he sees Sal leafing through a porn magazine. Sal says, “You got the garlic spray?”

Lenny holds up the jar.

“All right. Let's go.”

His mini bike is out of gas, so they have to walk to the swamp. Lenny recently learned that Sal had been left back a grade, and he probably has to go to summer school again. He barely goes to his classes, and can't even remember what courses he's taking. He says, “I don't care. They don't teach me anything I can't learn on my own.”

“Like what?”

“I'm learning about genetics, like how to breed certain strains. I asked one of my bio teachers about dominant and recessive traits. He told me some stuff, but it only made sense when I had to think it through with buds and strains. I even got a booklet on how to produce female seeds with the strains I like. I can't ask my bio teacher about that. What's the point of school if I can do this myself?”

Lenny makes a mental note to look up books on genetics.

When they arrive at the site, they inspect the young plants, and find a few of the beetles chewing on the leaves. They try the garlic mixture in the sprayer, but the clumps
clog up the pump, so they have to apply the garlic with their fingers, spreading it over the leaves. Sal says, “This smells like we can eat it.”

The plants have already grown almost a foot since Lenny first started, and in just another couple of weeks, they will be hardy enough to fend off most pests. While pasting the leaves, Sal asks Lenny about his brother, wondering why he hangs out with the dirtbags.

“He does?”

“Just wondering.”

Lenny says they aren't close. “I hardly see him.”

By the time they finish it's getting dark, and Sal describes the motorcycle he's going to buy when he starts selling the crop. “It's a Kawasaki, so it's one of those jap import jobs,” he says, glancing at Lenny, and hesitating. “Sorry.”

“I don't care. I'm not Japanese.”

“Anyway, you get more for the money. What about you? What will you buy?”

“Some books. A TV.”

“You've been doing good work, so if everything turns out okay with the crop you'll get a bonus.”

Lenny tells him that he has to go home now for dinner. Sal says, “We smell like garlic, man.” He sniffs his fingers. “The things I do for my crops.”

He smiles and punches Lenny lightly on his arm.

Sal seems lonely. Although Lenny occasionally sees him hanging out near the Gables movie theater on Merrick Road with a couple of other older kids, most of the time Lenny finds him either at his house or riding his minibike, and even when he sees Sal with his friends they seem more
like people he just happened to run into. Maybe he's selling weed. Lenny wonders if that's why Sal asked for help, because he doesn't have anyone close to trust. Lenny knows that as a kid, he can be bossed and threatened, and ultimately discarded, although he begins to see that Sal has taken a brotherly interest in him. Once, while they tend his crops, he asks Lenny what he wants to be when he grows up. Lenny says he's thinking about being a martial arts instructor or a kung-fu star.

Sal stops checking the leaves. “Can you actually do that?”

“I guess so.”

He looks impressed and continues working. Then he says, “What if you get hurt? Isn't that like a professional athlete?”

Lenny didn't think of that.

Sal says, “My uncle played college baseball on scholarship. He wanted to go pro. But he had shoulder injuries that made him lose his scholarship. He didn't have a back-up plan, so now he's working at a gas station.”

Sal straightens up and pushes the hair out of his eyes. “You always need to have a back-up plan.”

“What's your back-up plan?”

He points to the marijuana plants. “You're looking at it.”

“What was your main plan?”

“To be a superhero.”

Lenny laughs.

“Seriously. I was going to be a caped crusader. It didn't work out.” He bends down and continues checking the leaves. “Besides, it paid shit.”

By the time Lenny returns home his mother has prepared
Mira's room for Grandma. In a corner of his room sits a small green army cot his father bought at a surplus store. His mother tells him that he has to be a good roommate, because everyone in the family has to work together for her operation. Grandma will be arriving tomorrow. His mother's operation is in two days.

That night, while he gets used to the fact that he and his little sister are sharing a room—every time she moves on the cot it squeaks—he hears his parents arguing quietly. They move from the living room to the kitchen, where their voices are muted, shrouded by the humming of the refrigerator, and after a while it becomes quiet. His father listens to classical music. His mother comes into his room to check on them. Mira is already asleep.

His mother whispers, “I am so happy your grandmother is coming.”

“I don't remember her.”

“You were too young. But did I ever tell you how she raised four of us by herself?”

“A little.”

She tells him that Grandma went to a high school founded by American missionaries, and they nicknamed her “Maria.” She learned how to play the piano well enough to be hired at church services and weddings. She wanted to be a professional, but her father had forbidden it. But she encouraged her children to love music and literature.

“What did she end up doing to support you?”

“Everything. She was cheated out of a business deal for a lumber company because she was a woman, so after that she always ran her own businesses. She sold food to the Korean Army. She ran a small sneaker factory. She owned a
coal mine. She ran a bus-driving business. She did whatever she had to. My father died from leukemia when I was very young, so it was up to my mother to provide.”

“Do you remember your father?”

“Very little. Almost nothing. I was just a baby.”

“What's Grandma going to do when she gets here?”

“Cook. Take care of the house. She will help me.” She leans forward. “Be good and listen to your
halmonee
. And if anything happens to me…”

Lenny doesn't like hearing this.

His mother notices his expression and says, “Oh, everything will be fine.” She kisses him on the forehead and tells him to go to sleep. She takes a deep, slow, unsteady breath, and he realizes that she is terrified.

Short and hunched, Grandma has thinning silver hair and wears a wrinkled beige pantsuit with large black shoes that clunk on the kitchen floor. She arrives late the next evening as they prepare for bed, and the presence of a stranger in the house—since they almost never have guests—throws everyone off balance. Grandma looks around the kitchen as Yul brings in her suitcase from the garage. Umee has on a big smile, her cheeks flushed, as she introduces her children to their halmonee. Grandma claps her gnarled hands together, taking them in, and asks Umee in Korean with an incredulous voice if Lenny is the same boy who used to be so small and skinny. Grandma holds her arms out for him. Lenny hugs her, and she speaks to him in Korean. She smells of mothballs and cigarette smoke, her wool jacket rough and scratchy. Umee explains to Grandma that Lenny can't understand Korean. They have a brief discussion about this, and then Grandma hugs Mira, saying her Korean name, “Won Hee,” fondly.

Yul asks Lenny where his brother is, but Lenny doesn't know. They stand around awkwardly for a moment, until Yul picks up the suitcase and carries it out of the kitchen. Grandma says to Lenny, “Not see you since baby.”

He nods his head. She looks nothing like his mother, and he finds it odd that this strange old woman is his mother's mother. Grandma pinches Mira's cheek and pats her head. Mira blinks and stares.

Yul returns to the kitchen and tells the children to go to bed.

Umee says, “Let them stay up. They should get to know their
halmonee
.”

He shrugs his shoulders and retreats to the living room. Grandma watches him with a cold expression, and she says something to Umee in Korean, her voice low and hard, and Umee shushes her. They sit in the breakfast nook as Umee brings out leftovers and talks to Grandma in Korean while Lenny and Mira nibble on pajun, a seafood pancake, and dried cuttlefish. Umee speaks quickly and excitedly. Lenny hasn't heard her like this before, almost childish. Even her gestures are unusual—quick head movements and leaning forward over the table.

After a while Mira yawns loudly, making Grandma laugh. She pats Mira on the head again, and Umee shoos her off to bed. Yul comes into the kitchen and pours himself a whiskey on ice. Grandma and Umee stop talking.

Once Yul leaves, Grandma says something quietly, and Umee glances at Lenny, who pretends to be preoccupied with the dried cuttlefish, which is chewy and tough, and requires two hands to tear with his teeth. Grandma repeats herself, and Lenny knows it's something serious about his father from the way his mother tenses. Lenny is getting good at reading their body language, hearing the inflections, and he knows Grandma just told his mother she should leave his father.

They talk quietly for another few minutes, and then his mother waves the discussion away. She mentions the surgery tomorrow. With that Grandma stands up, pushing her chair back, and pulls Umee away from the table. Lenny's
mother tells him to go to bed, and Grandma says, “Sleep good.”

He watches them leave the kitchen, heading for Grandma's new bedroom, and when he sees that they have left all the food out, he begins putting it away.

In the morning Mira wakes Lenny up with her creaking army cot, and he needs a minute to figure out where he is. He hears his father arguing with his mother, and the smell of Korean food carries down the hall, an unusual smell for a weekday morning. When Lenny enters the kitchen he sees pots bubbling over and smoke rising from a frying pan. Grandma wears his mother's apron and mixes something in a bowl.

She waves him to the table. She pours him a bowl of
jook
, a rice porridge, and pats his head. Yul appears in the kitchen in his suit and tie, and looks around, shocked. He speaks to Grandma curtly, who replies in a scolding tone. His father throws up his hands and walks out the back door. The screen door slams shut by itself.

Grandma snorts to herself. Her annoyed expression fades when she glances at Lenny. She points, making an eating motion with her fingers. Mira complains that she just wants cold cereal—Frosted Flakes—but Grandma puts a bowl of
jook
in front of her, with a small container of soy sauce to add as flavor. When their mother appears, she sits down with them. Ed tries to sneak out of the back door, but she calls him over.

Grandma greats Ed warmly, and speaks to him in Korean. He understands most of this and nods his head. He sits at the table, and their mother says, “I go into surgery today.”

They wait.

Grandma puts a bowl in front of their mother, who says in Korean that she can't eat before surgery.

“I've got to get to school,” Ed says.

“Your father will be coming home from work early to drive me to the hospital, so I won't be here when you get back from school. I need you all to be good.”

Ed, Mira and Lenny look at each other, and then they nod their heads to her.

Because the children can't really communicate with Grandma, she tries to connect with them through food, presenting them with platters that they like for the novelty but tire of quickly. She promptly stores these dishes in Tupperware in the freezer. She cleans constantly—scrubbing appliances, vacuuming, waxing furniture—and this is just her first full day. Lenny comes home from school and finds her on her hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor with a rag. She pulls herself up and presents him with a snack:
kim bop
, rice and vegetables in a seaweed wrap. She tries to talk with him, but he can't understand her. She then pushes him out of the kitchen, pointing to the wet floors, and she goes back to cleaning.

When his mother returns home two days later, she has a long, inflamed, smiley-face scar over her throat that she immediately moisturizes with Vitamin E oil. She hugs her children tentatively, then goes to bed. The operation went smoothly, and the only real after-effect is her exhaustion.

Yul grunts a thanks for the dinner Grandma made, the stovetop sizzling non-stop while Umee was at the hospital. The smell of soy sauce and fried batter overwhelms the
kitchen, and Yul leaves the windows in the kitchen open all night.

The tension between Yul and Grandma isn't obvious at first, because they are both focused on Umee, but as she recovers over the next few days, her energy returning, delighted at having her mother around, Yul becames curt. He complains about the constant smell and heat in the kitchen. He says that there just isn't room in the house for this many people. He then says that since Umee is feeling better, Grandma must go.

Lenny hears his parents argue quietly in the kitchen while Grandma watches TV with Mira. Everyone hears them clearly. Grandma sighs to herself. Umee raises her voice, saying in Korean something about the two weeks not being over yet, but Yul says she has recovered so there is no need for two weeks.