Necessary Roughness Read Online Free PDF Page A

schedule.
    “Chan, Young, I need you to help me start cleaning up the store,”
Abogee announced.
“We will begin immediately after lunch.”
    Mrs. Knutson offered us some Spam sandwiches. At first O-Ma and Abogee declined—no, no, too much trouble; we don’t want to eat up your food—but the third time Mrs. Knutson offered, they pounced. Abogee said to us that Spam is considered a delicacy in Korea. Young gave me a look.
We
knew Spam was made of rodent parts.
    Mrs. Knutson looked pleased. “Spam is made right here in Minnesota,” she said. “There’s plenty to go around.”
    After lunch Young and I sat around waiting for Abogee. There was no sound coming in from the open window except for the occasional purr of a car, the chirp of a bird. No clanking, honking, or cursing. No sirens, no
whoosh-creak
of a bus going by. It was just … nothing.
    Weird.
    “You know what? I think Abogee’s taking a nap.”
    I strained my ears. Sure enough, there was a slight breathing noise coming from the bedroom, regular as ocean waves.
    “That’s a new one.”
    Young looked worried. “I know. It’s not like him.” She hesitated. “I wonder if I’ll have to sell my flute.”
    “What?” Young’s flute is a solid-silver number that cost a couple hundred bucks. “Do you have a drug habit you haven’t told me about?”
    “Oppa, this is serious,” she said. “I have a feeling money’s going to be kind of tight around here.”
    “When hasn’t it been tight?” Once, Abogee had chewed us out because he thought we were wasting toilet paper. He rationed us to three squares per dump. Unbelievable. O-Ma gave Young and me some money to buy extra rolls on the sly.
    “Listen, Sis. I’m sure we got a fair sum of money from selling the store.”
    “Abogee loaned Bong a lot of money to buy this one. We aren’t making anything now.”
    “Hey, kid, it’ll be all right.” I put my arm around her. “Your oppa will make sure of that.”
    Of course, I was worried too. It’s cheaper to live in the boonies, but you’re also going to have fewer customers. And it’s not like O-Ma and Abogee’s friends are around to give us things like they used to: fresh fish from Mr. Lee’s fishing boat, bags of rice, clothes from the ones who owned stores. I got my favorite soccer shorts from Mr. Park, Abogee’s best friend. I picked them out myself.
    “Oppa, I’m scared,” Young said, her eyes all liquidy like a puppy’s.
    “It’ll be all right, Young.” I stopped to listen to myself. What slim pickings in my big-brother repertoire. I took a breath.
    “Okay, then let’s do something. Maybe
we
need to take charge. Let’s wake Abogee up and get him on the ball.”
    Young gave me a look, like,
I dare you.
    I went upstairs.
    Abogee was sleeping on the Korean quilt, the one that had patterns of dragons on it. He slept neatly, his arms close to his sides like a soldier. Their room, never big to begin with, looked even smaller with all the stuff crammed in. From the corner the Buddhastatue grinned at me from under a stack of legal looking papers.
    Next to the bed was Abogee’s Bible. Back in L.A. he’d always kept it next to the bed too.
    For some reason I picked it up. I looked at the gilt embossed on the cover and realized that even though I knew the Korean word for Bible,
Songkyong,
I had no idea what it looked like written, had no idea which of these clusters of letters spelled it out.
    I opened the book. The text was split in two columns: English on one side, Korean on the other. There were some notations in Korean, on both sides. The writing was faded and wispy, as if it had been painted on by spider legs. On Sunday mornings, even though Abogee didn’t have time to go to church, he was always up early with a cup of coffee, studying the Bible. He’d translate the Korean to English and then check himself with the English version.
    What I remember, too, was whenever there was a lull at the Extravaganza, he’d pull out his