Kimchi And Calamari Part 7

"What's ki-bun?" I asked.

"It sounds like good spirit, inner peace, that sort of thing. This website is for Korean adoptees tracing their family connections."

I wanted to do this, but my hands still trembled as I looked at the screen.

"You're not alone, Joseph. Check out these messages," Nash said.

The listings reminded me of newspaper cla.s.sifieds, only sadder: Please help me find my sister: We were left in the terminal at Kw.a.n.gju Airport on July 16, 1978. I was three months old and my sister, Ji-Kun Lim, was four. She probably has an American name now. I'd give anything to see her.

Looking for leads to my Korean past: I traveled from Seoul to Minneapolis in '86 when I was five months old. I have a small Mongolian spot birthmark on my left elbow. I want to meet someone I'm related to. I promise not to interfere with your life. I just want to know my other side.

Need answers: My wife and I recently had our first baby, and it's made me wonder about my early years. I was found in front of the American Emba.s.sy in Seoul on Christmas Eve, 1982. I was two years old and I had a tag on my wrist with my birth name, Oksu. Does anyone know my story?

Nash broke the silence. "Some stories, huh?"

"Do we know if any of these people found their families?" I asked.

Nash highlighted a message from a twenty-four-year-old graphic designer in Phoenix. "Look, Joseph. This lady made a connection."

Family reunion in Phoenix: My deepest thanks to those who cared enough to read my story. Because of you, I've been reunited with my father. The funny part is that we look alike, speak alike, and even laugh alike! He will be coming to Arizona to visit next month.

I tried to imagine meeting a Korean relative for the first time. Somebody who looks just like me. Would I crack a joke? Would my voice quiver when I introduced myself? Would we hug?

Nash roamed around the website. He clicked the e-form for making a posting and waited for me to say something.

Then Chicken Calderaro started clucking. "I don't know what I'm getting into, Nash. Maybe this was a bad idea. What do you think?"

"I'd want to know my story. But what do you want?"

I stared at the computer screen and reread the message from the lady in Phoenix. Then I looked right at Nash. "I want to know," I finally replied.

"Then let's go for it."

Well, if I was going to search, my message was going to get noticed. "I'll talk, you type, Nash. Here's the lead-in: New Jersey Italian Stallion looking for Korean connection: Clue lies in the basket a little old lady found at the Pusan police station in May fourteen years ago....

Too Tangled for Spider-Man.

"Why would anyone name a band Chicago?" Steve whispered from the ba.s.s drum.

"It sure beats calling it Hoboken," I said.

"Hey, watch what you say, Joseph. I was born in Hoboken."

"Yeah, I can tell by your bad breath," I shot back, and we both laughed.

Mrs. Athena had summoned us for a special early-bird session. We were working on "Sat.u.r.day in the Park," a seventies. .h.i.t that leaned heavy on drums and trumpet. This was supposed to be the kickoff song for the concert, but Mrs. Athena said it needed some TLC. Personally, I think it was those can't-reed-to-save-their-lives clarinets that needed help, not the rest of us.

Jeff was absent, so Steve and I were mult.i.tasking most of the percussion instruments. It felt like circuit training-intervals of banging mallets on the xylophone, whacking the timpani, and then running to the snare, all while handling cymbals, too. Here's one of many band myths: people think cymbals are the musical equivalent of wrecking b.a.l.l.s that crash into each other randomly, but there's more of an art to it than that. If you play them right, cymbals should slice each other like you're cutting cheese off a pizza.

I sang along as I banged out the beat. Dad owns Chicago's Greatest Hits, so I knew all the lyrics.

"Yo, Joseph."

"What, Steve?"

"When do you think Mrs. Peroutka will hand back our essays? The odds are fifty-fifty that I'm going to summer school, and I really need a decent grade in social studies."

"Should be any day now." I wanted to get a good grade on the essay too. That way I'd make high honor roll again. Right now my grade was a B+. But thinking about my essay got my stomach fluttering. What if Mrs. Peroutka caught me in the act of re-creating history? I actually lost my place worrying about it and came in a half measure late on xylophone.

"Everything okay, Joseph?" Mrs. Athena called. She never misses a beat.

"Any day now" turned out to be the next day.

"Welcome, cla.s.s," Mrs. Peroutka cawed when we filed into social studies.

There was no mistaking me for Sammy Sunshine that Friday morning. My deja-vu dream returned again last night, and this time it felt more like a nightmare. I was back walking on that dirt road and pulling that wagon, only this time I was by myself. It was dark and pouring rain, and I could hear animal noises in the distance. I woke up in a cold sweat.

Then, after another burned Pop-Tart breakfast, a bird p.o.o.ped on my Yankees cap at the bus stop, and someone stole my shorts from my gym locker. In the words of a true Korean, I was not feeling good ki-bun.

But Mrs. Peroutka was all smiles as she stood in front of the cla.s.sroom. She was wearing a shiny green dress that made her look like a waxed lime.

The bell rang, and she picked up a stack of papers.

"I'm delighted to return your essays," she began. "I was impressed by the quality of your writing and moved by the emotion you all conveyed in your stories."

Twenty-five deep sighs of relief followed.

"Unlike my fifth and sixth periods, no one here earned less than a B. Each of you shared fascinating details about your family's legacy."

Phew. I had at least a B. That was decent, but I wanted an A.

I glanced at Steve. He flashed me a metal mouth smile. That B meant a get-out-of-summer-school-free pa.s.s for him.

Mrs. Peroutka walked from desk to desk, placing the papers facedown. "Before you read my comments, I want to say something that I didn't tell you earlier, mostly because I hoped you'd write from the heart."

Then she explained that she had the difficult task of selecting what she considered to be the finest essay from all her students. That essay would be entered in a national essay contest that complemented our heritage unit. The decision was especially difficult, she said, because of all the wonderful writing.

"I can only submit one essay for the contest, but I intend to display all of them at the Celebrating Our Heritage Night next week. And I was hoping that some of you would read excerpts for your families that night as well."

No thanks, I thought. I'll pa.s.s on that ordeal.

Mrs. Peroutka's eyes twinkled behind her gla.s.ses. "I'm pleased to announce that I've selected Joseph Calderaro's inspiring story about his grandfather Sohn Kee Chung, the Olympian."

Gulp. Me? The winner? My armpits got sweaty like I'd been doing pull-ups. My cheeks felt like they'd been slapped. And dread burned in my throat like I'd swallowed too many jalapeno peppers.

The cla.s.s was silent, and then everyone started clapping.

"Way to go, Timpani Man!" Steve cheered.

"An Olympian?" Robyn called out. "I've suffered through the mile run with you. Who knew you had running genes?"

Mrs. Peroutka kept smiling, but I couldn't even look her in the eye. I couldn't say a word, even though everyone stared at me, expecting to hear something. My stomach convulsed like I'd drunk a milkshake without taking a lactose pill.

Lucky for me, the fire alarm sounded off and we filed out of cla.s.s. Usually fire drills are the high point of a day, total time wasters, but not today. As the kids and teachers stood around waiting by the tennis courts, I avoided eye contact with everybody, as if I had a giant zit on my nose.

"You rock, Joseph. You must be way proud of your grandfather," Robyn whispered while Mrs. Peroutka counted heads.

"Thanks," I said, sheepishly.

"And I thought it was impressive that my uncle won five thousand dollars at the Monmouth Park Racetrack. Speaking of horses, why did the horse go behind the tree?" she asked.

I shrugged.

"To change his jockeys!"

Robyn waited for me to laugh or come back with my own lame joke. But I stood quietly, pretending to take the fire drill seriously, even though we were allowed to talk now.

But I couldn't pretend I didn't hear my name being called-loud.

"Congrats, Joseph!" Kelly yelled across the crowd of kids talking.

I nodded. What else could I do? Everyone looked at me, probably wondering what I'd done and why a girl like Kelly cared.

The a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al gave the hand signal that the fire drill was over, and everyone funneled back into school. Fate had it that my cla.s.s reached the door just as Kelly's did.

"I just heard your essay won, and that you wrote about your grandfather, the Olympic star. Wow! Did your Korean family tell you all that?"

I stared at the back of the head in front of me. "Sort of."

"A gold-medal-winning relative. That is sooo cool," she said.

"Thanks." If only you knew, I thought.

"Well, if you feel like celebrating, I'm going miniature golfing next Sat.u.r.day with a bunch of my friends. You can come if you want."

Kelly was inviting me to hang out with her? Meanwhile I felt like Chicken Little with the sky falling down.

"Maybe" is all I could manage to squeak in return.

On the way home I kept thinking about ways to get out of this mess. Confess over dinner? No way. Mom and Dad would lose it right between the antipasto and the main course. Worse, I could almost feel the weight of their disappointment already, since dishonesty is a big no-no for us Calderaros. Ask Mrs. Peroutka to withdraw me as the winner? Then she'd want to know why. Do nothing? Nah, I couldn't live with my sleazy secret forever. I'd be like that eighties rock group Aunt Foxy told me about, Milli Vanilli. She said they made millions of dollars by lip-synching other people's music, but eventually the truth came out and they had to face their own music.

On top of all that, I was feeling guilty-about forgery, history tampering, or whatever crime it was that I'd committed. Dad always bragged that I was a straight-as-a-ruler kid. It used to be true.

As I walked up the driveway, this random quote popped into my head. It was something our teacher made us memorize last year after we finished reading Shakespeare's Oth.e.l.lo: "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!"

Even Spider-Man couldn't untangle this web.

Who Cares About Mark Twain?

The house stank like broccoli when I walked in the doorway. Dad was in the kitchen wearing the chef's ap.r.o.n Mom had given him for Father's Day. He was home early, he said, because a customer had cancelled at the last minute. Usually that made Dad furious, but today he seemed cheery, like maybe he didn't want to be up on a ladder with dirty water running down his forearms, washing some doctor's windows on a Friday afternoon.

He was standing over a pot of boiling water. "Tonight we feast on linguini with creamy broccoli sauce, salad drizzled with balsamic vinegar, and bruschetta. Deliziosa cena!"

Dad doesn't cook all that often, but when he does, he goes all out. Opera music was playing in the family room. Blasting, actually.

"Want a sample?" he asked as he stirred the sauce.

"Maybe later." At that moment no meal in the world could get me drooling. My stomach still felt like someone was wringing it out with bare hands.

I knew I had to level about what I'd done.

One on one is easier than two on one when you're breaking bad news to parents. I decided to tell Dad first and Mom later, when she got home.

I pulled a kitchen stool close to the counter, where Dad was chopping onions and garlic, and sat down.

"I did something you're not going to be happy about, Dad." I spoke loudly over the mezzo-soprano.

Dad stopped chopping.

"Remember that essay I had to write about my ancestors?"

He nodded.

"Well, I didn't know anything about my Korean relatives, so I sort of made up a story about my grandfather...in Korea."

"What do you mean, 'made it up'?"

"I wrote about this Korean runner named Sohn Kee Chung who won a gold medal at the Olympics in 1936. That part's true. Thing is, I said he was my grandfather. And now my essay won a contest."

The timer went off, and Dad carried the pot over to the sink and drained the pasta. He was shaking his head while the steam rose from the colander.

"You're an honest kid, Joseph. Why'd you do that? You could have written ten pages about Grandpa Calderaro and his tailor shop."

"I told you already, it's supposed to be about my heritage, not yours."

"You know what Mark Twain said about telling the truth?" Dad asked.