A Small Revolution Read online

  The phone rings, and Lloyd snatches the receiver and holds it up to his ear but doesn’t let it touch his head, as if he thinks the police can send poisonous gas through it.

  THEY’RE FINE. UNLESS YOU DO SOMETHING STUPID. UNDERSTAND?

  He thrusts the phone at me. TELL HIM I HAVEN’T HURT ANYONE.

  I speak into the mouthpiece. “He hasn’t, but hurry.” Daiyu and Faye join in with their own “Hurry.” Lloyd snatches the phone away, and I can feel his breath on my cheek as he holds the phone between us. SHUT UP OR ELSE I’LL FUCKING TAPE YOUR MOUTHS TOO. They stop.

  A man’s voice is on the other end of the phone. He says his name is Detective Sax, he asks if we’re okay, and I look to Lloyd, who nods, so I tell him we’re four of us, four girls. “It’s going to be okay, I promise,” Sax says with such composure I think I might be dreaming this whole thing. “How many gunmen, did you say?” he asks.

  “One.”

  “Try to stay calm, we’re working on getting you out of there, I promise. If he has a list of demands, tell him to write them down, and I’ll try to get them for him, relax,” he continues.

  “His name is Lloyd, Lloyd Kang,” I reply, and Lloyd removes the phone and slams it into its cradle. I DIDN’T TELL YOU TO TELL HIM MY NAME, he howls and holds the butt of the shotgun above my head.

  Daiyu and Faye gasp.

  “Don’t, Lloyd. If you hurt us, you won’t get anything you want,” I tell him, looking up at him.

  He stares at me, and I can see his eyes are rimmed in red as if he’s rubbed them too hard. YOU DON’T EVEN CARE IF HE DIES IN A NORTH KOREAN SHITHOLE.

  “But he’s not alive, Lloyd,” I remind him. I can’t make myself call you dead. “The accident in Korea, you remember, he’s gone. There’s no one to save.”

  YOU LIE, he spits, lowering the shotgun. Where’s the handgun? Is it close to me on the bed? YOU DON’T EVEN LOVE HIM. I CAN PROVE HE’S ALIVE. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO THEN? HOW ARE YOU GOING TO EXPLAIN TO HIM WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO DO UNTIL I STOPPED YOU?

  He waves the shotgun at all of us. YOU’RE GOING TO FREE HIM. HE’S WORTH A HUNDRED OF YOU.

  12

  Once, in my high school gym, I stepped off the bleachers from the top row, expecting to make my way down as everyone else was doing at the end of a school rally. As soon as my foot found air, I knew something was wrong. Instead of finding a foothold on the level below me, I was falling, and I told myself, I’m falling: I must have time because I’m aware of this, and here is air around me, space and air, I’m falling, I can move my arms, I can put out my hands and brace my fall. So move, now, I told myself, move your arms, get your hands ready. My mind told my hands, my arms, even my legs to adjust, and I was convinced I could still make this happen even as my shoulder slammed onto the polished wooden basketball court, even as my head followed suit, making contact with the surface—I believed I had a chance to affect the way I landed. Stunned, I couldn’t believe how fast the floor had risen to greet me. Hard, unforgivingly hard, and my body ached. I lifted my head. What had happened to my chance? My sister looked down at me from the fifth row, where I’d been moments before, and said, “You fell like a rock.”

  13

  We sit and wait. Why isn’t Detective Sax calling again? Faye leans into me, and I lean into her. Heather, on the other side of Faye, sits up tall. Daiyu leans into Heather. Lloyd paces, twitching and mumbling at something on his shoulder. From outside, in the direction of the parking lot, come sounds of car doors slamming shut and tires crunching gravel. Loud voices call to each other. I HAVE PROOF. I HAVE PROOF, Lloyd mutters as he paces. He jerks the gun around his body. He and the shotgun are one unit, and we are stuck in our places. I hold my breath. He levels the gun with his other hand, pointing it at each of us one by one. I’LL KILL THEM. I WILL. YOU KNOW I CAN, he shouts at the ceiling.

  It’s Heather who talks to him. “The police aren’t going to let you just kill us. They’ll come in any minute. Give up right now and save yourself.”

  14

  It’s my fault my friends are in this room facing this crazy man. Heather’s room is two doors down from mine. I met Heather on the day I moved in. Her little brother ran into me with a stuffed toy Dalmatian in his hands. Later Heather introduced me to Faye, who was her roommate. Daiyu was in Faye’s biology lab. Clear line, friend to friend to friend.

  15

  My hands are tingling. The tape is too tight around my wrists. I have to get out of this somehow. What can I say to Lloyd to make him let us go? What would you say if you were here? You would say we had to try, no matter what, that we could never give up.

  The phone rings, and Lloyd holds it up in the air. Sax’s voice comes through. “You sound like a reasonable person, Lloyd. We can work this out. We don’t want this to get out of hand. I’m here to help you.”

  YOU’RE THE BALD MAN IN THE LONG COAT, AREN’T YOU?

  “I want to help you.”

  I’VE GOT THE SAME COAT. WHAT ABOUT THAT?

  “That’s a good start, Lloyd. How can I help you?”

  My heart catches in my throat. Will it be as easy as that? Sax will give Lloyd what he wants. Lloyd is sweating and keeps wiping his face with the palms of his hands, which have dirt and grime on them. Each time he wipes his face he leaves streaks of black and brown on it. The phone doesn’t reach the window overlooking the parking lot, so Lloyd runs back and forth to see what’s going on outside as he talks to Sax on the phone.

  “I WANT PRESIDENT REAGAN, PRESIDENT CHUN DOO HWAN, AND KIM IL SUNG TO MEET WITH ME PRIVATELY.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Sax says without missing a beat. Is it every day that someone requests a meeting with three world leaders? Hope rises in me again. We can hear Detective Sax’s voice on the phone because it’s quiet otherwise, so quiet otherwise, as if everyone outside has frozen in place too and is listening intently, even the birds. Lloyd holds the phone away from his ear, out to us.

  Sax is talking. “I understand. Give me some time. You’re talking about the White House.”

  YES. THE WHITE FUCKING HOUSE. I’LL TRADE THESE GIRLS FOR JAESUNG KIM. HE’S AN AMERICAN STUDENT IN NORTH KOREA RIGHT THIS MINUTE. LET HIM GO, OR ELSE THESE GIRLS AREN’T GOING TO MAKE IT THROUGH THIS. DON’T THINK I WON’T DO IT. REAGAN, CHUN DOO HWAN, KIM IL SUNG. IN THAT ORDER.

  “You mean the leaders of North Korea and South Korea and President Reagan?”

  My heart falters. Sax doesn’t sound as confident as he did a moment ago.

  Lloyd’s voice rises. ARE YOU STUPID, OR ARE THESE GIRLS NOT WORTH IT? IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE SAYING? YOU GOING TO TELL THEIR PARENTS THAT?

  “It’s the other side of the world, that’s all, Lloyd. What else? Can I get you something else? Work with me, Lloyd.”

  THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD DEPENDS ON FREEING JAESUNG KIM.

  “Tell me about Jaesung Kim.”

  YOU THINK I’M STUPID? YOU’RE STALLING. GET ME WHAT I WANT. I’VE GOT FOUR GIRLS IN HERE. I’LL SHOOT THEM. DON’T THINK I WON’T.

  “Listen, I’m just making sure. We have to be sure. I wouldn’t want to get the wrong president.”

  FUCKING ASSHOLE, PATRONIZING ASSHOLE.

  “Wait, wait, listen, I said it wrong. Let’s be realistic: getting the president—you’re talking leaders of three countries—will take some time. Let me help you. You need any food? Water, anything at all until we can arrange what you want?”

  YOU’RE STALLING AGAIN.

  “I’m being helpful. Let me help you, Lloyd. But let me be clear, you won’t get to talk to the president if you hurt anyone. I work with you; you work with me. Agreed?”

  DON’T BULLSHIT ME. YOU’VE GOT ONE HOUR.

  Lloyd slams the phone down into its cradle.

  16

  The first weekend after classes started, Heather and I went to a party in the student union. I could hear music pounding from the room, Prince’s “Purple Rain,” as we approached a large gothic building in the arts quadrangle. All paths converged t
here, and everyone walked in crowds toward that building. It was dark by eight, but there were so many lights on around the quad and the student union that it seemed like daytime. Huge spotlights were set up on the grass outside, and tables with signs inviting students to join this athletic club or that community service group were everywhere.

  That night could have been a new start, as it was for many freshmen like me. Everyone was friendly and open, easy to talk to, smiling. The air was festive. In Korea, the last time I had seen you, you’d said to me, “Freshmen have to suffer,” and sent me away. I found myself making note of things to tell you when I saw you again. The stone staircase up to a large terrace outside the entrance with more tables covered with flyers announcing clubs for political organizations and campus newspapers. Apparently there were two rival publications, one that was radical and one that toed the official college line. The conversations about President Reagan and the economy, the talk of South Africa’s apartheid system and how other colleges were protesting. You would feel at home here, I thought, as I signed my name to the mailing list for the radical newspaper.

  Heather waved to a group of students by the door when we entered the building, and we walked over to them. One of them had gone to her high school. I tried to pay attention when introductions were made.

  I met Daiyu and Faye that night. Daiyu lived in Taft, the modern concrete-block behemoth across the quadrangle of buildings of the main campus. Uglier on the outside than Reynolds, where Heather, Faye, and I had our rooms, Taft was reputed to have plush new mauve carpeting and had more bathrooms per floor than our dorm. All freshmen were housed in these two buildings. The four of us walked around, picking up flyers, signing up for clubs. Faye laughed about everything, and Heather and I looked at each other wondering why. “I’m sorry, I have this problem,” Faye said. “I get silly spells.” Then she burst into laughter again and tried to stop it, resulting in loud hiccups. I wondered if she was on drugs. Or was it immaturity? Silly spells? Didn’t we use words like that in third grade? Daiyu tripped three times on our walk to the dorms. She was the accident-prone one.

  I tried to relax around them, my new friends. There was nothing to hide, unlike the way it had been back in high school. I had nothing to hide, because my parents were in Lakeburg. And you had done something to me; meeting you had changed me. I felt it. I could stop and look around and take in the looks of others without feeling embarrassed or ashamed. I could weather being inspected for once and not squirm under their gaze. “Let them look,” you used to say. “Let them. Be yourself.”

  17

  What would Willa do in my place here in this room?

  My sister, Willa, was always falling in love. I don’t know how she could when our parents were poor examples of what follows after you fall in love. The old childhood limerick that Willa welcomed—Willa and Tom or Eric or whoever she had a crush on that week sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage. But you know, for me, love was something I resisted. Even with you.

  My sister was the social one at school. She had loads of friends and spent her time after school and on weekends at her friends’ houses. Boyfriends kept her out of the house when she got older. She avoided all things Korean as if they were the reason our father lost his temper. How could I blame her? Being Korean seemed to be the reason for his rage.

  “They make fun of my English,” he used to shout as he threw a chair to the floor. “I don’t get the promotion, I don’t get the raise. What are you looking at?”

  It seemed all I could do was hold up the test I’d taken at school as he made his way toward my mother. “See my A-plus,” I said to him. “Look, look.”

  Sometimes it worked, his eyes registered what was on the page; sometimes it was as if I were invisible. “How are we going to protect our children from this?” he shouted before he knocked our dinner off the table. I said, “I’m here, right here. Stop, stop, stop.” But he ignored me. I ran from him to my mother, back and forth, waving my hands. Look at me, stop, stop, stop.

  18

  I’ve read that the five stages of grief are denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Is it denial if I speak to you in my head as if you’re alive somewhere and can hear me?

  19

  Two months before I started at Weston College in central Pennsylvania, I went to Korea. It was July 6, 1985. I boarded a plane at the county airport near Lakeburg, New York, transferred at Kennedy Airport in New York City three hours later, and flew to the other side of the world. You and I were on the same plane that left New York City, along with several others who had just graduated from high school or had done so the year before. You were one of those who had graduated from high school a year earlier and had already finished one year of college. I didn’t see you on the plane, which is hard to believe now. How did I not notice you?

  The first time I saw you was in Gimpo Airport in Seoul after we landed. I was in the crowd behind you, making my way to the exits. You and another boy, who could have been your brother except for the widow’s peak that made your hair jut out over your forehead, were shaking hands with men and women on the other side of the cordoned-off hallway, perfectly at ease. Men in business suits or patterned button-down shirts open at the neck to show white T-shirts underneath reached across and patted you on the back. Women in knee-length floral dresses in muted colors with their hair styled and pressed powder on their cheeks waved you in closer to see if you were who they sought. Everyone there looked more formal than those of us who had arrived from the States in our bright, casual vacation clothes.

  You smiled and leaned in with a stranger’s hand still in yours to hear what he or she said. You blushed at the compliments. There must have been compliments. You had a glow about you, a confidence. And you charmed those hundreds of people reaching to touch us as we walked off the plane, reaching for our clothes, our hands, our elbows, as if touching us would make us become who they wanted us to be—their loved one, relative, or dongchang, old childhood friend.

  It was my first international flight, and on the other side of the world I shrank from those throngs even as I saw you and your friend reach out to them, and I thought how arrogant you were. And I also thought how kind, even as I hurried past. I didn’t think I’d see either one of you again.

  I had immigrated to the United States when I was a year old, and here I was seventeen years later. I remembered nothing from back then, of course. The entire experience was new. My uncle, my mother’s sister’s husband, was a legal adviser in the government, so I was immediately swept away by his chauffeur. You expected it to be so. “You have a princess telephone in your bedroom,” you said to me later. And I couldn’t admit you were right about that. I had a white-and-gold phone on my white-and-gold dresser in my gold-wallpapered bedroom in Lakeburg, New York. But the rest of what happened in my house was a secret I didn’t tell you.

  Outside the airport, the air was heavy with July monsoon-season rain, and my uncle’s small black Daewoo sedan was conveniently waiting for me curbside along with dozens of other cars lined up, occupied and not, with people shouting and whistles of traffic officers shrieking. The chauffeur referred to the other teenagers and me that day as jemi kyopo. “Korean students who study abroad,” he explained in Korean.

  “But I’m American,” I said in my hesitant Korean.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he replied.

  20

  No matter what Lloyd says here now in this room, don’t believe the part that he loved me. That I gave him the impression that I loved him. You’re the only one I ever loved. I don’t know what he means by you being alive or how he can save you by killing us. I wanted to believe Lloyd at first. I wanted to believe you had survived as he had survived. I wish I could believe him now, but he’s ranting like a lunatic, and he has guns. And I’ve pushed him to this—it’s my fault he’s enraged. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted him to be right about you.

  21
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br />   I remember in Korea, driving from the airport that day, I saw a girl on a corner, no more than a child herself, with a sleeping baby tied to her back, kneeling on the concrete. At another intersection, a man my father’s age with a blue cap on was riding a green bicycle. He cut in front of us and then swerved just as suddenly out of sight in the sea of glinting cars ahead. A man with a bent back pulling a wooden-wheeled cart, too old to be doing such work, came into view. I saw an old woman in a white hanbok, her silver hair in a neat roll at the nape of her neck, a white handkerchief in her hand, held to her mouth. She was coughing. Standing still in the middle of the street, nearly motionless in front of an uneven row of small Hyundai and Daewoo sedans all edging forward. For a moment I thought she’d be struck by one of them. I leaned forward. Her eyes looked straight into mine as our car passed. She leaned toward us, and our car brushed her chima. Or was it just our speed that made her skirt billow for an instant? Wait.

  At one of the stoplights, a woman my mother’s age, an ajumma, my mother would have said, an auntie, stood by the curb. With a gap in her front teeth, her gums receded to the point that I could see the beginning of her teeth’s roots, where the white narrowed. She tapped my window. I unrolled it.

  “Let me touch your face,” I heard her say in Korean.

  I recoiled in my seat behind the driver.

  “Not ‘touch,’” the chauffeur said to me as if reading my mind. “Turn closer to her. She wants to see your face.”

  I did as he directed. The woman spoke again, but I didn’t understand her words this time, and the driver shook his head. “I see the resemblance,” he answered.