Keyword: Mom
8/25/08 This will be a ten minute reply as I’m being fitted with a fried eggs and apples for breakfast and today is first day of school for B, an 8th grader who lives with us, or more accurately, we live together, and while last night was kept short of the Olympic Closing Ceremony (which I felt was really really unnecessary and ‘no’ its not ‘cool’…try believing me) her MOM (we all live together) asked me to take her on the Transbay Bus morning commute at 6:10 in the morning. I agreed and so out of the shower, mousse emulsified in pelo, and…in short I leave now in 3 minutes. Here’s the short of it. R had been with the same people for ten years. To really understand it you need to know a little about R. The biggest thing in his life is baseball. He was on a minor league team…
You tell me about hernia and I say something about chinchillas by the dozen…I don’t know that his reference to ‘sinking’ has big meaning, in fact the laugh that fell out at the end, seemed to read ‘so what’s the fuss?’…it can’t be as painful as replacing one’s hip.
Hmm..I have to admit I didn’t see this coming.
I’m going to leave the ‘void’ alone for now. It’s not my methaphor. So we arrive at the chinchillas. I never had any real fondness for chinchillas. Until Sunday, I had never seen one. They were being exhibited at the State Fair in Sacramento by the dozens. Getting into the Fair to see them proved to be difficult. There were four of us. First, we stuffed ourselves with watermelon cut into cubes. A potful, with cantaloupe mixed in. My grandmother gave it to us, the silver pot and all. She came by them after church service the night before. It’s nothing new but its a guess as to which is edible…we pull into the lot and park under rows and rows of solar panels. It was warm in the car. Finally, fresh air…with the doors swung open it was easier to breathe. We got there by 10:30 a.m. and the lots were filling up fast. The watermelons were good. We eat generously to no end. The woman and the girl give up. They leave it up to me and my father, Y. ”Eat up boy…” we jab at the fleshy morsels and they kept coming. I couldn’t breathe so easy anymore. People started honking from both ends…they wanted a parking space of their own. Maybe they had a pot filled with watermelon. They stare at us with sour looks and yell. We can’t hear. Their windows were up, I’m guessing for the air conditioning. I pull my legs in and slam the door shut. I’m ready to blow up…we eat even faster, just to get rid of them…now were face to face, they can’t stand to look at us anymore…
I bolted for the gates, it was painful to walk. I thought my bladder was ripping. So I get there and piss all over…I get in line to pay the admission before Y, the woman and daughter get there. I wanted to prove I could be as generous as my grandmother. In truth she despises us. One child, one senior, and two adults. ”How many adults?” I can’t make out her face exactly through the reflection on the glass. Two, I say. There’s no money available on the card. Later I find out there’s no balance available til Tuesday. I’m overcome with shame. I see the three of them walking up shining all over. People around felt ashamed for me. Oh well.
This time, Y’s turn. Same result. Glad we had watermelon. We walk back to an ATM Mobile, stand shoulder to shoulder punching at the keypad. We look over at each others screens. Nothing.
The girl and the woman are outside when we step out with empty pockets. The woman says nothing. The girl is staring at her shoes, leaning on her mother. ”B! Stand up straight why don’t you!”
“Jin Wu. How much do you have on you?”
“Well, I paid the toll, which was four dollars, and…”
“How much do you have?”
“A dollar.”
Were ouside the ATM Mobile digging for paper and come up with $42.00 and some change which was enough to get everyone in.
Chinchillas are native to Argentina. Their natural habitat is at 12,000 ft above sea level. At one time they were popularly bred for their amazing hair. They are the most adorable little, furry, round, things with a baseball bat shaped tale. The girl knew something about them. You can fetch $230 a Chinchilla. She did the math too. Counted 20 or so per cage, her eyes got big. Big eyes mean big ideas.
We went across the fairground to look at livestock. Never seen so many sheep. All shaven. They were being show-cased. We didn’t stay there long. We had lunch afterwards. The woman got her bank card from the car. She looked pretty beat after that. We all did. There weren’t many chances to sit down. We kept moving. When the Peking Acrobats came out things were sizzling and windy. There was scattered applause. I sensed a little sarcasm in the audience’s reactions. No medals were given out. Then a hypnotist entertained the crowd for another 45 minutes…he wanted people to buy DVD’s, lessons, and more DVD’s… the lines grew. The little acrobats were out done. In the end, we all walked away with smiles. The girl finally to go on a couple rides short of vomit and just smothered a cotton candy clean which the woman appreciated…Y put a basketball in a hoop and won a basketball…and I won a purple monkey for tossing a softball into a tilted bucket. We forgot all about the chinchillas.
Jin Kim (aka Sole) wanders between the California Bay Area and Busan, South Korea. He speaks middlin’ Korean, grammar school Italian and Russian and is a fan of Dostoevsky. Jin works in light construction and has been putting off finishing an MFA in Studio Art for a stupid long time.
The “Keyword” series of California Sole pairs Jin’s tagged photos with text from his correspondences.
