A Cab Called Reliable Read Free Page B

him, I asked, “Where are they? Where are they?” As he washed his face with cold water, I squatted on the rim of the toilet seat and stopped asking where they might be. I watched him comb his hair back with his fingers, and thought that my father was a handsome man. After drying himself, he told me to get off the toilet, get out of the bathroom. When he shut the door, I pressed my ear against it and listened for my father’s breathing. I held the knob ready to turn if the bathroom suddenly became silent.
    I followed my father everywhere because I did not want him to disappear. I followed him to his bedroom, where he opened and shut the dresser drawers, checking for my mother’s clothes. He sat on the bed and took off his work boots. He searched for his secret cigar box of emergency money that had been hidden in the closet. I followed him to my room, where in the dark he kicked my box of Magic Markers and threw my notebooks at the walls. He kicked the leg of my desk. He kicked the radiator. I followed him to the living room, where he turned the television on, drank some more, asked me if she said anything in the morning, and made phone calls. To one person he said, “Did Ahn Joo’s mother mention anything about meeting you tomorrow?” To another, he called my mother a begging bitch, told the person she stole all of his emergency money and ran away, and when she returned, he would beat her to death.
    I followed him to his room, where he sat on his bed and drank more. Lying next to him on my mother’s side of the bed, I felt my eyes grow heavy with sleep. I did not want my father to disappear. Before closing my eyes, I placed a finger on his shirt and listened to my father drinking and smoking and thinking of what he would do to my poor mother when she came home to get me, and what my poor father would do when she started nagging again about his drinking, coming home late, not enough money to even feed the children whole milk, magazines of long-legged women that could have paid for his son and daughter’s school lunch tickets for an entire month, why did you bring me to this awful country. If I hadn’t married the likes of you, I wouldn’t be washing someone else’s dishes, delivering newspapers I can’t read, looking after someone else’s children. What kind of living is this? This is a dog’s life. And you are a coward for running away from your father like a beaten dog. No wonder you are a drunk and a lousy father and husband—look at the family you learned from.
    My father would return her words with a smack or a tight collar made by his hand around her neck. The collar would tighten and tighten, as she looked at him with her go-ahead-and-kill-me-I’m-ready-to-die-death-is-better-than-life-with-you look in her eyes.
    As I fell asleep thinking of my mother’s voice, I prayed that it would rain because Min Joo cried when it rained; but remembering that my things were buried outside, I changed my mind and asked God to stop the rain. I asked God to hurry up and return my mother to me. Please, please, please hurry up, I begged. I promised never to torture Min Joo ever again. I promised to be good. And if God was not able to hurry them home, I asked him to please show me where in the world RELIABLE might be.

3
    Miss Washburn sat at her desk and ate spaghetti out of a blue plastic bowl. The rest of the class was outside for recess. She and Mrs. Martin took turns monitoring the third graders’ recess time, and today was her day to have thirty-five minutes of quiet to herself. Sipping from the lid of her thermos, Miss Washburn looked up at me and asked why I wasn’t playing outside with everyone else. I handed her a piece of paper on which I had printed the word RELIABLE in capital letters and asked her if she knew where it might be. She put down her drink, held the paper in both hands, tilted her head, squinted, leaned toward me, and explained that the