the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
5.03.2007
Tilt-O-Whirl
When I was a very young child, around 5 years old and in the first grade, my dad owned a small gift store in Newark, New Jersey. He sold things like plastic toy kitchen sets, incense that had names like "Sexual Chocolate," t-shirts with Simpsons characters on the front, gold teeth with money-sign cutouts, and slap bracelets. My brother and I took to carefully opening boxes of toys, playing with them halfheartedly, resealing the boxes, and placing them back on the shelf. We spent much of our time in the back room where there was a dirty bathroom where I once saw my dad crush a rat dead with a wadded up piece of newspaper, much like you would a cockroach or a spider. Whenever I recall that bizarre memory, my dad looks away with a sheepish look that comes with a deep pain beyond the point where grimacing would be appropriate -- and tells me not to bring things like that up. I don't remember whether or not my dad had a gun to protect himself and the store, but I do remember my parents talking about it.
We were often confined to this small room filled with dusty boxes, with a small card table in the middle and two rusty folding chairs for entire days during the summer -- we were not allowed to stay home by ourselves and we could not afford a babysitter.
I never took well to babysitters anyway. Well, we never had the typical teenage white babysitter who chewed gum and wore socks scrunched down and waited for the parents to leave so she could pig out and talk to her boyfriend on the phone. Usually, we got dropped off at a Korean lady's house, someone my parents knew from church, usually someone with kids around our age. I hated it. They were always fake-nice, speaking to me in a patronizing baby-voice when my parents were watching. Fake-nice was never a part of my family, so it was alien to me, unwelcome. I remember crying as my parents were leaving, following them to the door, with my red shoes clutched in my chubby hands in a dramatic display that I was going to put them on my feet and go with them, no matter where it was they were going in the first place. In my mind, I was grown-up enough to travel with them, or not grown-up enough to be left with a strange fake-nice Korean lady who made rice with hard, bitter, black beans -- a noxious combination not fit for human consumption in my opinion at the time.
When I was 5 and my brother was 8, we both were given tape recorders and several blank tapes. He got a Panasonic, I received a Sony. Mine had speakers on the back and had three equalizer settings on the front, but of course, I was still envious of the Panasonic if only for the fact that it wasn't mine. We have dozens of tapes that we recorded with these, including tapes of my mom snoring (she requested this to be taped as she didn't believe that she snored, since she couldn't hear herself snoring while she was asleep); my brother and me pretending to be on a radio show (my shyness prevented me from being more than a small presence) where I called myself "Harbee," a misheard pronunciation of "Harvey," the guy who announced the prizes on Nickelodeon's Double Dare and its successor, Super Sloppy Double Dare; my brother and me reading problems out loud from a TOEFL textbook that my mom played in the car to help her study for her English Language exam (which she failed at least one time before passing and becoming a nurse); and recordings of me, my brother, and my mom talking at night before going to sleep about anything and everything.
I never knew what to say on those tapes. We always used the Panasonic recorder because I never initiated with my Sony. I used mine to make mixtapes, though my musical knowledge was so limited due to my Korean family having little grasp on popular music, that my first mixtape was of television theme songs like "Full House," "Family Matters," "Growing Pains," "Saved by the Bell," and "Perfect Strangers" (my favorite out of all of the theme songs). I remember crying and being locked in the closet in the dark as "punishment" for not participating in radio shows to the capacity my brother, a natural showman, expected me to. I always said very banal things -- uncertain observations, mostly, like "Dad gave our cat away to someone, I'm sad, I think" or "today it was cold."
On the tape that we recorded the night before we left at 5am for a flight to Korea (which would be my first time seeing any of our extended family, as I was born in America -- Jersey City, in fact), I was still shy and unable to say anything too interesting.
"I'm Harbee," I said. "I'm a five-year-old guy."
My ignorance of the masculine gender-connotation of "guy" notwithstanding, I went on tentatively about how we were going to see our relative in Korea. My contact with my extended family (my dad has five sisters and one brother, my mom has two sisters and one brother, and at that point there were three surviving grandparents) were through awkward long-distance phone calls we made only on holidays, several times a year. We had to shout so they could hear. My weak grasp of the Korean language, which barely made an improvement even after 3-4 years of Korean Saturday school, became non-existent due to my nervousness when the beige, plastic phone receiver made its rounds to me. It became so bad during my teenage years that I would pretend to be in the bathroom for about an hour to avoid speaking to them. It was always the same questions and statements -- What grade are you in? What school do you go to? I trust you will do well in school and make your parents happy.
A distant, faceless voice speaking to me in a language I couldn't relate to expressing general good wishes was not a good way for me to establish a bond with my family that lives across the sea. I felt nothing for any of them, really. I felt no connection with them.
"Neh," was always my weak affirmative answer, one of the only safe Korean responses I knew. My palms were always sweaty and my nervous, horrifically grinning parents would stare at me expectantly, huddled around me with their ears bent in to hear what was being said. "What grade am I in?" I would hiss at them each time. "How do I say 'seventh grade' in Korean?" I'd ask, desperate.
Besides these terrifying phone calls, I had had no contact with anyone, and at age 5, I was going to meet them. It was absolutely terrifying.
On one of the first nights in Korea, we stayed at my grandmother's home. I remember my mom was sitting indian-style and had me in her lap, and she was talking to her mother in a strange voice, one that was overly happy or eager or cheerful, strained, telling her about all of the "great accomplishments" that I'd made in kindergarten or whatever grade I was in. I didn't like it. It was uncomfortable. My mom then picked me up, and to my absolute horror, tried to pass me over to my grandmother as though I was a Christmas ham on a platter being passed around the dinnertable, and this woman, whose flesh and blood was approximately 25% of my being, was an absolute stranger to me. I bucked, kicking and screaming and crying, nails scratching, to cling onto my mom's white neck. They laughed, but uneasily. I didn't like being on display. I was never a ham and didn't know how to be.
That night, I slept on a bed next to my mother, I think. Or actually, I think I was alone in a separate room, maybe it was my mom's sister's room once, and the pillow was a cylindrical woven thing made of straw, and my neck hurt. The air was dry. And I had a nightmare.
In this nightmare, my mom and I were in some kind of wagon, being pulled by a horse. It was like a wagon in the Old West, maybe, but it was filled with people with dirty faces, like Holocaust victims being shipped off to somewhere terrible. We were going to be slaves, or were going to be killed. And in my nightmare, my mom looked at me tearfully, and asked me in Korean, "Nehga uhnjeh nuhrul ddoh ubbuh jool-soo essulka?" or, "When will I ever be able to carry you my back again?"
Putting my arms around her neck and slowly rocking me back and forth while softly saying a rhyme was something my mom would do only when I was deeply upset about something, and it would always put me to sleep. I used to have a temper that would make my face feel red hot, and my legs would shake, and my voice would crack when I'd try to speak. Something about the idea that someday, my mom would not be able to give me a piggyback ride, rang through my subconscious dream state like an ear-shattering alarm and broke into my conscious state. There was some understanding in this nightmare that I was going to be separated from my mother once we got off this wagon, and I would see her only when I was too grown for her to carry me on her back and rock me to sleep. I woke up crying, a desperate emptiness in my heart, a pain of a black hole tearing through my chest, so pressurized that it was turning things inside-out. My mom came in and slept next to me, snoring. I laid awake for a little while before falling asleep with the heavy presence of her arm under my neck and tears moist on my face and on the straw cylindrical thing that was my pillow.
My dad told me a few years ago that he was sent off to some kind of boarding school when he was very young. I imagine he was probably 10 years old, maybe younger, and he said he wasn't able to see his parents for long stretches of time. And that on certain nights, when the moon was just coming out, when it was just becoming dusk, he would feel a loneliness, a kind of cry inside, a longing for his parents. I was really struck by this when he told me about it. My dad and I rarely talk about these things.
When I was in high school or maybe during my first two years of college, my mom's mother passed away, and then shortly after, my dad's mother passed away. My dad's father is the only surviving grandparent, 80-something years old, gaunt and proud. Both my mother and father took separate trips to Korea to see their parents on their deathbeds, only to have them die right before they arrived on Korean ground. Both of them missed their chance to see them and say goodbye, to pay their respects. There are photographs of my dad and his many siblings and his father on a mountain in Korea where they all have a hand pressed against a giant mound of dirt covered in a tarp. I guess this was some kind of burial shroud. I think my dad's family owns the mountain, and that is where our ancestors are all buried, together. There was no headstone as far as I could see, just a hill of dirt about 7 feet tall, maybe, and a dozen Korean people whose faces I couldn't recognize with one hand each pressed upon it. My grandmother was inside or under this mound with a tarp covering it, and soon, the hill would wear down, erode to become flat.
My mother, upon seeing this photo of the mound of dirt when my dad returned, told me in private, "You know, I heard that your dad's father was on that mountain next to the burial, and he looked around and said, 'I'm actually not sure if this is the right mountain.'" We both found this absurdly funny, and though perhaps tasteless, we laughed until we were out of breath and my stomach and face began hurting. But this photo had captured my dad with red eyes, face swollen, wearing a black shortsleeved polo t-shirt, hair carefully parted to the side. He was crying. And it made me so uncomfortable to see it that laughing was a relief, was a distraction from the sadness.
By the time I was grade-school aged, I joined my brother at a private Catholic school, where I wore a gray plaid jumper with a white blouse underneath, blue kneesocks and shiny black patent leather shoes that smelled terrible. I had deemed myself too fat to wear shorts in gym class, so during the hot summer months, I was the fattest, tallest, and sweatiest red-faced girl in the class. My legs were always boiling, and I imagined steam coming off of them when I changed back into my jumper. I remember graduating from the first grade and saying out loud, "That went by so fast!" and embracing the summer months that were to come.
During the summers, our school put on a county carnival. It was huge -- with a ferris wheel, that arctic ride that always seems to be blasting rap music (there is one at Coney Island, I've noticed), rides upon rides upon rides. And parents of students were required to either work the stands of the carnival or pay a hefty fee to be exempt -- the school ran an annual scam as far as I was concerned, with parents working all night, every night for at least a week or two -- basically for free. One year, my parents worked shucking clams. My brother and I ate our fill -- 5 clams to a plate, with a segment of lemon and a splash of Tabasco sauce. I ate so much that by the end of that summer, on my fourth clam, I was sick behind a tent. Since my parents had to work and I had no one to take me home, the puke had to be rubbed out with wet towels, and I had to display my shameful stained shirt. I think I hid somewhere the rest of the night, trying hard to stop crying, watching the lights of the rides blink and flash and whirl. I wanted to go home.
Some nights my brother and I did stay home. I had no choice, I had come down with the chicken pox, and my brother was forced to stay home to watch me. It was even worse than being at the carnival all night. We weren't used to being left alone until very late at night (which when you are very young, is about 9 or 10 at night, I suppose). My parents were unable to use a phone because of being forced to work so much, and my brother and I became very frightened. The possibility that something had happened and they were never coming back was a fear that felt like a knife stabbing me again and again. My brother, the brave one, tried to distract me by playing games with me. "Bubblegum, bubblegum, in-a-dish. How-many-pieces do-you-wish?" was a good one. We then tried playing 7-Up, but since we were the only two playing, it was maddeningly easily to figure out who had pushed the other's thumb down, even with our eyes closed. We decided to carefully go downstairs, ring our downstairs neighbor's apartment door, and ask if they would let us in. No one answered. We ran across to our neighbor's house and knocked as loudly as possible and called to him. Nothing. We ran back, holding hands tightly, in the dead of night, with bugs chirping deafeningly in our ears, and we went back home to the empty apartment. Soon after, we heard the lock rustle, and they were home, weary, apologetic, saddened by seeing our swollen faces and our pajamas with tear-soaked necklines.
A year or two later, my dad was transferred to making french fries (he had to wear a paper hat, which he was embarrassed about), and my mom scooped Italian Ices. She told my friends that if they brought their own cups, she would give them free scoops, since the remaining number of cups were how they calculated how much Ices had been sold. I liked the combination of chocolate and blue. My parents joked that they had been transferred since we had eaten too many free clams. Eventually, my brother and I transferred to the local public school, where the work was much easier and uniforms and parental carnival labor were no longer required. My mom would still take us in the summer, though. By this time, I was in the third grade or so, and I remember struggling tooth and nail to let my parents allow me to go off with my friends to go on rides. One night, I think I had gotten into a big argument and I was really upset. It was maybe the last year we were able to go to the carnival before we were moving to a different town, maybe even the last night of the fair. We still had a fistful of tickets left for rides. The place was closing down, but the swings were still open.
I felt embarrassed, ashamed even, of going on the swings. I was too old, I thought, to go on a ride where I'd have to sit in a red plastic chair with a bar that would come down over my lap, and I'd be whirled around in a circle. My brother and my mom were too big to go on, but I squeezed my overweight ass into the thick plastic seat and pulled the bar down. It was night. It was dark. There were a few little kids around me, and I felt huge compared to them, like a monstrously big baby. I would not have fun, I decided. I was going to be as serious as possible to show everyone that I was too mature to be having a good time on the swings.
I was 8 or 9, and I was flying through the air. My hair was flying back, my feet felt funny when I extended my knees straight out in front of me, and my cheeks felt uncontrollably tight -- I was grinning. Not the horrific grin that my parents would make at me when we spoke to our relatives in Korea, not that horrific expectant grin. It was a smile that I couldn't hold in, even though I was trying so hard to make sure everyone knew that I was too grown-up to smile on the swings. I couldn't control my happiness at being flung through the air, around and around in a circle, going everywhere but nowhere at once, holding on so tight to the chains that later I'd find indentations in my palms and fingers. My eyes were tearing with happiness. I was so happy. I could see my mom smiling up at me from down below, where the metal gate was that kept observers out. My brother looked bored and passive and grown up, like I had tried to look, but had failed. Everything was a blur, going around and around, except when I saw my mom and my brother, they were clearly in sight, almost going by in slow motion. I tried to wave, but my hands were too afraid to let go, so I just opened my fingers out in a fan and shook them back and forth, my palm still pressed hard against the chain. I was afraid, but so happy, and I didn't know why.
Now (oh yes, you bet I am going to try to parallel this with stuff going on now, you better fucking believe it), with my college graduation just a week away, I feel this similar feeling. I also feel it when I wake up sometimes and the sky is gray and cold and quiet. I remembered the swings and the carnival and the tape recorder and the trip to Korea somewhat recently, and I felt this strange feeling in my stomach, that there was something about these memories that elicited something in my brain, and that I should write about it and not stop until I was done. I feel like these past decades of my life were like being pressed into that red plastic seat with only inertia, gravity, and maybe some luck and that little metal bar in my lap holding me in, as I was propelled into space at a blinding speed. I didn't know where I was going, but I wanted to put on my serious face while doing it, but still managed to find joy here and there. The ride up until now has been dizzying, yes, terrifying, yes, but every once in a while, I can look down at the ground, and see my family waiting for me patiently, watching me enjoy myself, letting me feel the exhilaration of flying. But I remember feeling comforted and even fascinated looking down and seeing my own two feet, feeling my own two sets of toes curled tightly in my shoes like a pair of foot-fists, knowing that I'd soon get off the ride and be able to stand and walk and run and jump on those feet on my own -- and I felt like I could do anything, just about anything I wanted to do once I got out of that swing and got my feet back on the ground.
[Peek-a-Foo]
