I INHERITED FROM MY GRANDMOTHER a house on the coast overlooking the bay. For some reason, it took 10 years for the estate to be parcelled out, but one day I drove up to the modern, two-storey, three bedroom structure and entered from the side door. It seemed odd to me that my grandmother could have kept this in her possession for so many years without me knowing about it, but she was always tight-lipped about such things and it had wonderful views. Its spacious second floor with its wide windows looked strangely like my childhood home on Long Island. “This,” I thought, “will be the perfect place to get some writing done.”
Downstairs though I heard some clanging and loud voices. Upon descending the steps, I encountered two well-dressed older men, who bore a resemblance to Robert Davi and Joe Pantoliano, who played the Fratelli brothers in The Goonies. One of them was wearing a white, button-down shirt, open at the collar. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Are you a customer?” I looked around the room and could see there was a massage table, along with a stand of various creams and essential oils. “What are you doing here?” I responded. “This is my grandmother’s house, I inherited it. It was a part of her estate!” “We’ve been running a health and wellness center here for years, kid,” he replied. Quickly, it became an angry shouting match.
I stormed out to visit my lawyer, an older Japanese man named Ushikawa, but his office was a mess. There were pieces of potato chips all over the carpet and crushed cans of Coca Cola. He shrugged at my problem. “What do you want me to do about it?” my attorney said. “Do you think I can personally evict them?” Looking over the old Japanese man with his gray hair, I realized that he was right, and that the police would be needed. Back at the house, I gave the Fratellis another warning and told them to leave. But they again dismissed me. “You go and call the cops,” the brothers told me. “See if either of us cares.” Bunch of arrogant pricks, really.
I did call the police, but the phone rang and rang, and in the end, nobody came to help me.
Later, I wound up at Constantine Kim’s house in some other part of this leafy, island suburbia. I was sitting on his couch and trying to learn “Hey Joe” by Jimi Hendrix on the guitar, especially the introduction. This I paid special attention to. There I was, figuring out Jimi’s moves, when Constantine said that we had to go to an important function (maybe a class reunion?) and I would have to put on some better clothes. “You can’t go looking like that,” Constantine said. “When you see the world, the world sees you.” He had matured into a proper gentleman, I thought, in the intervening years. All suit and tie. Gone was that rambunctious Korean kid with a bowl cut, I once knew. I got cleaned up and went outside in my finest (and only) jacket. At that moment, Benji Rosario came walking by dressed like a postal worker. He had grown his yellow hair out, but otherwise looked just as he had in high school. I greeted him and we got on swell, just like old times. It was good to see Constantine and Benji after all of these years. But what was Benji doing here? What was I doing back in suburbia on Long Island? What about my grandma’s house? Maybe, if we worked together, we could take it back from the Fratellis?
north! 