I’M Ok

The vomero’s is & cal. Dooming in some eyes, fins, and tails would turn the pair into two fish facing off. Her eyes are red from crying. Her cheeks are streaked with gray from mascara that made a run for it. She looks down at me. I sink into my corner seat. There’s no place to hide in the basement of the First Korean Full Gospel Church.
“I feel so sorry for you. Poor, poor boy. Poor, poor Ok. What are you going to do? My heart, my heart,” she says, slapping her chest with her right hand, which is shackled with golden rings suffocating her plump fingers. “My heart aches for you and your mother,” she says, and pounds my back with a force that would dis lodge a rock from my throat.
I bow my head and wait for her to move on to the group of women in the middle of the room, huddled around my mother like burrowing wasps, buzzing loud prayers. They moan and babble because the Holy Spirit has a hold of them. I wish the Holy Spirit would get a
hold of me so I could wail my sadness too.
As soon as Fish Brows leaves, another woman rushes to me. She squats down at my feet so she can meet my lowered head. She puts her hand on my shoulder, looks up into my eyes, and tells me my father is in heaven, smiling down on me. See him? The woman bids me to be good and strong for my mother and have faith in God’s will, because I’m the man of the house now. God works in mysterious ways.
I nod like a robot. She stands and pulls me in to her, pressing my cheek against her stomach. I hear her heart beat, her insides gurgle, and her stomach growl. She opens her purse, digs out her wallet, pulls out bills, stuffs the money into the pockets of my borrowed suit jacket two sizes too big, and tells me to take good care of my mother. What does this mean? Isn’t she supposed to take care of me? I politely say thank you.
As Moneybags leaves, another woman walks toward me. She carries a plate of food. She’s short and round and looks plenty hungry. I brace myself for baptism by spit and bits of food. The plate is piled high with rice, fried dumplings, grilled short ribs, fried chicken wings, kimchi, bean cakes, potato salad, and japchae noodles. The woman looks down at me, smiles like we know each other, and puts her plate of food on my lap. It smells good. She tells me to eat, eat up, even if I’m not hungry, even if I don’t feel like it, because I’m going to need all the strength and energy to grow through this very hard thing that’s happened to me. It’s not normal, she says. It’s all wrong. What a senseless mess. Makes you want to kick some idiot’s butt, she says, shaking her head and exhaling, “Aigo. Aigo.” I take a bite of rice. It’s warm and soft and sticky, and tears start to form in my eyes, and soon my food is being sauced with snot. The woman hands me a napkin, and I thank her. I wipe my face, thinking how much I need my father to come back to life. I help my mother sew. I stand behind her as she’s over a borrowed sewing machine parked on our dining table. I pin the cuffs to the sleeves and stack them in a pile, waiting for my mother to stitch them. She earns a nickel for every cuff and sleeve she brings together. This is her job at night, after she’s cooked in the morning for a carryout called Soul Nice in DC and worked in the afternoon and evening as a cashier at Arirang Grocery. She works without stop ping, to make ends meet, to keep us fed, to keep a roof over our heads, to send me to college someday, to keep from missing him, to keep alive my father’s plan for success in the USA. In two years, he said, he would buy his dream property, which was the dilapidated house located outside our apartment complex. Fix it up. Live in it. Sell it for a nice profit. In five years he would own his roofing business. In six years he would send me to college. In eight years he would visit Korea. In ten years he would buy me a car for my graduation.
“Ok-ah,” my mother says. “Fix these pins. They’re
crooked. Pay attention.”
As I straighten the pins, I accidentally prick myself. A bead of blood forms on my thumb, and my mother elbows me away, telling me to hurry and go get cleaned up before I stain something, because we can’t afford to pay for what gets damaged. The point is to make money, not lose it.
I go to the bathroom. While putting on a Band-Aid, I remember how my mother used to make her own with toilet paper and Scotch tape. She would fold a square down to the size of a quarter and gently use it to cover my wound with two strips of tape. She made such a fuss whenever I got hurt. She’d say, “Aigo. Aigo. What have you done to yourself? Hurry, let me take care of it before you bleed to death.” Her urgent attention always had a way of making me feel better, even if I was bleeding to death.
I quickly return to help. Once I’ve backed up my mother with a tower of pinned cuffs and sleeves ready to sew, she says, “Go make some ramen for us.”
I go to the kitchen. I’ve gotten good at cooking ramen. When the water boils, I add the blocks of noodles and soup base. I chop green onions and cut Spam into little cubes. I crack two eggs into the pot, break the yolks, and father in front of me. Between sips of his Coke, he told me that I could accomplish anything in this country if I put my mind to it. Opportunities abounded.
I sit in front of the Singer, wondering, How hard can it be? Working a sewing machine can’t be as hard as making the best ramen. I take off my T-shirt and use it to practice. Press pedal with foot. The harder you press, the faster the needle pumps. Guide the fabric through like you’re feeding the hungry needle. Chomp-chomp. It’s a cinch. I sew my first cuff to a sleeve. It looks good. A nickel earned. Ka-ching. I sew my second pair, then a third. I’m on a roll. The sewing machine hums. I complete the pile. The point is to make money, not lose it. Ka-ching. I want my mother to wake up and see what I’ve accomplished for her, but she snores.
I wash up, go to bed, and sleep.
I dream that I’m running through a field with Clifford the Big Red Dog, except he’s not as big as he appears in the books. He’s the more reasonable size of a horse, rather than a house. And Emily Elizabeth is there too, running with us. She’s very cute, and she keeps calling me Charley, but I don’t mind. We play fetch. We laugh. We ride on Clifford’s back. We feed him apples. It’s all perfect and happy, like a dog-food commercial, until Clifford starts to bark. He barks and barks and barks and won’t stop. Then he growls and growls and growls. His growling wakes me up, and I slowly realize it’s not Clifford, it’s the sound of the sewing machine.
My mother shouldn’t be sewing. There’s nothing left
to sew. I finished it all. I get out of bed to see what’s going on.
I stand in the dark hall. My mother doesn’t notice. me. She’s hunched over the machine, its needle pumping thread through fabric. The jelly-bean-size bulb lights her face. She picks up a set from the pile I sewed, takes a seam ripper, and pulls apart my stitching. My stomach sinks. I did it all wrong. I made things worse. I made more work for her. I feel so sorry. I feel so stupid. She turns the cuff, rearranges it against the sleeve, and sews it correctly. I return to my room and crawl back into bed. I stare up at the ceiling. I knuckle my head twelve times, for each year I’ve been alive, mumbling, “pabo, pabo, pabo, pabo,” just as my father would’ve done. Don’t call me stupid. My name is Ok. At least I didn’t trip while working on a roof and come tumbling down and land so hard and wrong on concrete that my neck broke. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I knuckle my head again. They said he died instantly. They said he felt nothing. No pain. I feel the springs of the mattress against my back. The barley grains inside my pillow cradle my head. The blanket warms my cold feet. The moonlight casts a shadow of the tree outside my bedroom window. Its dangling leaves make me wish money grew on trees.