I crossed my arms over my chest. In Korean,
hunni
meant to “do anything.” Sookie explained that in English it meant pretty much the same thing. “It's an easy way to make a few hundred won if you don't have a steady GI,” she said. “Rub your chest against him; lick his mouth, his ears, his neck; put your hands down his pants,” Sookie instructed. “Only when he can barely scoot off the seat do you take him to a backbooth for honeymoon. I promise, it'll be quick.”
“No,” I stammered. “I can't do that.”
“You can,” Sookie said. “You can do anything if you have to. And let me tell you something, Hyun Jin: it's easy. It's easy because the more you do it, the more you know it's not the real you. The real you flies away, and you can't feel anything anymore.”
Â
Sookie told me to invite Lobetto over to her apartment one night. “We can drink some beers,” she said. “Hang out, watch TV before he has to work. It'll be a good time for us.”
But he looked so uncomfortable, so out of place. He stood in the entrance hall fidgeting in his bare feet, flinching at the door whenever he heard a creak. Unwilling to sit on the couch or even step into the kitchen, he kept asking, “What if Chazu comes home?”
Ignoring him, Sookie threw herself on the couch and moaned, “I'm so bored.”
“How can you be bored?” I asked. “You have everything here you could want. Even a TV. I could spend hours looking at TV.”
“Try days,” Sookie pouted. “Try weeks.”
“Unngh,” I growled, thinking she was spoiled.
“I hear someone coming up the steps!” Lobetto jumped toward the door. “What if it's Chazu?”
“I have no friends,” Sookie whined.
“What about me?” I demanded. I marched to the front door and pulled Lobetto into the room. “Shit, Chazu's not even in the country. He's not coming home tonight!” From what I had heard, there was a good chance he was never going to come home; the word was, he was in Vietnam teaching farmers how to shoot guns.
“Exactly!” Sookie said.
I sat on the floor in front of the couch. Lobetto crouched beside me. “Exactly what?”
“Chazu never comes home anymore!” Sookie said. “I am always aloneâ”
“I'm here,” I pointed out.
Sookie waved her hand in the air, impatient. “You know what I mean! I am a young woman! I have needs, I want to have fun!”
I twisted the knob of the television. The soap opera about the bathhouse flickered on. I liked that show. “So have fun,” I told Sookie, flopping onto my stomach to watch the show. “Who's stopping you?”
Sookie dropped to her knees, blocking my view of the screen, and hugged my shoulders. “You're right, Hyun Jin!” she said, kissing the top of my head. “Thanks!”
When she jumped up and ran into the bathroom, I called out, “Wait, what?”
She didn't answer.
“I don't think this is a good thing,” said Lobetto. “She's going to blow her ticket out of here.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean she's not playing it right.” Lobetto, gingerly sitting on the edge of the Racey Boy, turned up the volume on the TV. The patriarch of the show was scolding his daughter for dating the son of his rival.
Sookie came out of the bathroom in a thigh-baring, sleeveless dress with a hole cut out of the middle and tangerine-colored platform wedgies that matched her nail polish. “Let's go,” she said, winking at me.
Lobetto and I followed Sookie toward the stretch of black clubs. “I'm going to try and set something up,” Lobetto said. “Which club're you going to hit?”
“All of them,” said Sookie. She walked away, dismissing him.
He scowled at her retreating back and I shrugged. “Foxa, I guess,” I said, jerking my head at the club closest to us.
“Hyun Jin!” Sookie studied her nails and tapped her foot. “Hurry up.” When I caught up with her she hooked her arm through mine and said, forgetting that she was the one who invited him to join us, “We've really got to lose him. He's a parasite.”
“Hey, sexy!” Sookie opened the door and waltzed toward the bar. She blew kisses to a few of the men we passed, but I doubted they saw her through the thick smoke. She wedged her shoulders between two GIs hunched over the bar. “You buy me drink,” she crooned to one of the men.
He scowled, and without even looking at her said, “Not interested.”
Sookie pouted her lips sweetly and said, “Faggot.” When the soldier turned to look at her she giggled. “Just joking, just joking. You a big man.”
The man picked up his glass and moved down the bar. Sookie waved me over to the empty stool and turned to the man on the other side of her. “Wanna buy two playgirls a drink?” she asked.
The baby GI, his head shorn into a soft fuzz barely visible in the dim bar light, had been watching Sookie since she sat down. He shrugged, smiled a crooked-tooth smile, and waved to Bar Mama.
Bar Mama nodded to the GI, but narrowed her eyes at me and Sookie. We were solo girls, unescorted in her territory.
When the GI waved to her again, Bar Mama bustled over with an apology for himâ“So busy-busy! Sorry, yeah!”âand slapped two watery beers on the counter. She charged the man double.
Sookie threw back her head and thrust out her chest. “Where you from, handsome?” She scanned the room and before he could answer the first question, added: “What's your name, handsome?”
This time the Joe answered quickly. “Ernest.”
“I feeling hot,” Sookie sighed. Knowing Ernest watched her, she waved the air in front of her face and pushed her hair into a loose bun. She moved to the music, her breasts almost popping out of the dress.
The Joe named Ernest tapped his fingers to the beat. “Like this song?” he asked. “This was big back home last year. Reminds me of high school.” He hummed, then began to sing the words: “âStop, in the name of love, before you break my heart . . .' ” He laughed. “Funny song for this place.”
Laughing with him, or at him, Sookie shrugged. “Favorite song.” Suddenly she hissed, dropping her hands, letting her hair fall back around her shoulders. “That shit!”
Ernest jumped back. “I'm sorry,” he stammered. “I thought you liked the Supremes.”
I turned to see what had Sookie so upset and spotted Chazu near the stage with a bar girl on his lap. He guzzled his beer, his free hand draped over the shoulder and dangling into the front of the bar girl's dress. He was laughing at something a friend of his said and didn't see Sookie.
Jumping in front of her, I pressed my hands against Sookie's shoulders, trying to hold her to the seat. “Wait,” I said, “don't go over there; you're not even supposed to be here.”
Sookie struggled away from me. “Why? I'm a free woman.”
“This is America Town,” I told her. “No one's free.”
“Is something wrong?” Ernest asked. He looked worried.
I waved him off and smiled stiffly in his face. “Nothing, nothing, we're just going home.” Instead of trying to push Sookie back down, I started pulling her toward the back door.
“Stop that,” she snapped. “The nerve of him, to do this to me!”
“You shouldn't have come here without him, Sookie. He's going to be mad if he sees you here.”
“He's not going to have a chance to get mad because I'm the one who's mad first.” Whirling around me, Sookie stomped toward Chazu.
Reaching Chazu's booth, she dragged the bar girl off his lap by the hair. Up close, the girl looked familiar; we might have been in the same class together at school. It was hard to tell with all the makeup masking her features. “Get off of my man, pig,” Sookie yelled.
Chazu's friends laughed and the men sitting behind them at the bar cheered. “Cat fight!” they chanted and called out bets.
The bar girl tumbled to the floor, red miniskirt slipping above her panties. Without bothering to right her clothes, the girl scrambled up and lunged at Sookie. Sookie rushed forward, baring her teeth and tangling her nails into the girl's hair. All the while she yelled at Chazu: “You liar, cheater, no good
gomshi,
Son of a Monkey, good-time boy!”
“Eh, Sookie,” Chazu said, slurring a little. He smiled and held up his glass to her as the women fought. “Why're you so mad? We're all just friends here.”
The GI sitting next to Chazu clapped him on the back. “Charles, you've got a way with womenâthey're fighting like dogs over a scrap of bone like you.”
“I got ten on that wild one in the orange,” one soldier from the bar called out.
Bar Mama scolded, “Stop thatâbetting only allowed through me!” She shouldered her way to the center of the crowd, splashing onlookers with water from a tub she held to her stomach like an overgrown, unwieldy baby.
Sloshing most of the water on the floor in front of her, Bar Mama tipped the tub over Sookie and the bar girl. “No fighting on the floor,” she yelled. “Keep it on stage.”
The women continued to fight. Bar Mama reached into the flurry of scratching nails and biting teeth and yanked on a scalp. Sookie came up wailing and swinging her fists at the other girl, who continued to kick at her. Bar Mama kicked back at the girl, telling her to stop, then told Sookie to get out of her bar. “You don't belong here anyway.” Fist still knotted in Sookie's hair, Bar Mama shook Sookie like a wayward puppy. “You're not one of my girls.”
Teeth clenched, Sookie said, “I'm not leaving without my man.”
Bar Mama laughed. “You think you own one of these American GIs? Which one? Which one do you think is yours?”
Sookie pointed at Chazu. She looked him in the eye and said, in English, “He mine.”
Chazu's friends punched him on the back and arms. “Chuckie, didn't you get permission from the little woman tonight?” they teased. “Can't go anywhere without that ol' ball and chain, huh?”
Chazu erupted out of his seat at their teasing. He yanked Sookie away from Bar Mama.
“Ow, ow, ow,” she cried as strands of her hair, still tangled in Bar Mama's fist, ripped from her scalp.
“Go home,” he ordered Sookie. To the bar girl, who stood in broken heels trying to tie the torn strap of her halter top back onto her shoulder, he said, “Get some beers for my friends.”
The bar girl smirked at Sookie. Kicking off her ruined shoes, she turned to go, then stopped, fixed her hair and spit at Sookie. “Go home,” she said in the same tone of voice Chazu had used.
As she sauntered away, Sookie tried to jump on her back. Chazu grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder. “You are one crazy bitch,” he said. He winked at his friends. “What did I tell you, she's crazy for me!”
The men laughed. “Show her who wears the pants.”
“No one's going to be wearing pants when he's done with her.” The soldiers bantered back and forth, now taking bets on Chazu and Sookie.
Sookie kicked her feet. “Put me down,” she growled.
Chazu spanked her. “Grow up, little girl.” He carried her out the door and dumped her in the alley. When he turned to reenter the club, she jumped on his back and started biting and scratching at his neck.
“I not throwaway trash,” she screamed.
Chazu wrenched around, clawing Sookie off him and knocking her back to the ground. “What you are is a stray dog,” he said, sneering. “I've fed you and now I can't get rid of you.”
Sookie howled and tried to punch him.
He pushed her back. “Look at you,” he said. “I'm looking for a real woman, not a spoiled little puppy.”
“Well, you're not a real man,” Sookie shot back. “Can't get it up, big head, small penis faggot.”
Chazu lunged for her. Thinking he was going to beat her, I tackled him around the waist. “Run, Sookie, run,” I yelled. Sookie, suddenly afraid at the effect of her own words, ran.
Chazu knocked me away, then chased her. Remembering how often we ran from Lobetto and his gang, I thought she could get away if she didn't have those tall heels. But Chazu, long legs and long arms pumping, reached out and wrenched her elbow. She jerked back as if on a leash.
“Bitch,” Chazu panted. He struck her across the mouth, cutting it.
Sookie reached down to peel off one of her shoes and cuffed him on the head. When Chazu staggered back, Sookie tugged off the other one and ran toward her apartment house.
He stomped after her. I followed from the shadows, afraid he was going to kill her, throw her from the balcony when he was done with her the way his neighbor did to his girlfriend two months ago. Sookie and I weren't friends with the girl who died, but we knew who she was. Lobetto had said she thought she had it made; the week before he killed her the GI had proposed to her. The MPs ruled her death a suicide, even though she died with an umbrella wedged into her vagina.
If Chazu wanted to kill Sookie, I couldn't stop him, but at least I would witness it. I would know what happened to her, the ending to her story.
I crept up the stairwell and found their apartment door gaping open. Tiptoeing in, I heard muffled screams, crying, moans. Following the sounds, I tapped open the bedroom door.
Chazu was on top of Sookie. From underneath, Sookie gripped him to her, and cried, “Be a man, teach me good.”
Looming over her, Chazu glanced up and saw me by the door. He was grimacing, but when I started to back out the door, he jerked his head. “Sookie,” he panted. “I think your friend wants to join us.”
I hurried to close the door on their laughter and went to sit on the couch. I switched on the TV but of course nothing was on that late at night except static. I turned up the volume and watched a flurry of black and white, trying to find patterns as I waited for the morning.